Compassionate Conservative = George W. Bush = John McCain = Maverick

Mitt Romney: "I'm the Candidate of Change"
John McCain: "I'm the Candidate of Change"

Craig: ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ



The Republican side of the 2008 campaign is bizarre one night and boring the next.

I have a confession to make. While I want Barack Obama to win and hope very much he does since our country is in crisis and since wasting more time is something we cannot afford, a small part of me nevertheless wouldn't mind John McCain winning. Why? Because if the American people don't get that our nation is in trouble and that we need to get serious about changing course, then it might as well be McCain. George W. Bush has so damaged our country that we will be feeling the effects for some time to come. Even the current economic downturn may not bottom out until another two or three years down the road. If Americans this year are not ready to understand what deep shit we're in, they might as well elect McCain and see how bad it can get. Because McCain ain't got a clue.

I know it's an odd thing to say, but it's true. There's no point electing Barack Obama unless Americans understand the work that needs to be done. There's hope but only if we start looking at the world as it is and not as the Republican leadership imagines it to be.

Poor McCain: He Has So Many Houses....

For most Americans, it's not hard to remember how many homes we rent or own (my wife and I rent one apartment). Now I know a small handful of very talented people who own more than one home and who seem able to remember how many they have. As many know, hero John McCain hit the jackpot after leaving his first wife for a beer heiress now worth $100 million. Okay, maybe it doesn't take much talent to be a beer heiress but then it doesn't much talent to know how many homes are in the family. Politico has the story:

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said in an interview Wednesday that he was uncertain how many houses he and his wife, Cindy, own.

"I think — I'll have my staff get to you," McCain told Politico in Las Cruces, N.M. "It's condominiums where — I'll have them get to you."

Now was McCain talking about his political staff or his housing staff? Mr. Average Joe, or so McCain would like people to believe, has a budget for a house staff that is more than five times what the average family makes; here the story from Talking Points Memo:

From 2006 to 2007, the McCain's budget for household staff went up roughly 50% from $184,000 to $273,000 ...

Yes, Mr. Average Joe likes to remind people that these are Cindy's homes, not his. That she was filthy rich when he married her seems not to have been noticed by the then future senator. Like the current president, John McCain has a habit of forgetting inconvenient facts such as the name of the Czech Republic or the fact that the al Qaida terrorists are Sunnis, not Shiites (it would take hours to list all the inconvenient facts that McCain garbles or ignores; it is, above all, the one place where he most resembles George W. Bush). Like the failed president currently sitting in the White House, McCain is not, I repeat, not, an average Joe. Firedoglake offers a bit of perspective:

The recent news that John Sidney McCain III is so frickin' rich he can't keep track of all of his domiciles is really no news to those of us who have been paying attention. This is a man, mind you, who is the Fortunate Son and Grandson of two admirals, and whose great-great-grandfather was a Mississippi plantation owner with 52 slaves and 2000 acres in the days before the Civil War. (McCain professed not to have known this when it was brought to his attention in 2000, but his cousin, author Elizabeth Spencer, mentions the McCain family's slaves in her family memoir Landscapes of the Heart, a book John McCain had admitted to reading by the time the 2000 campaign had rolled around.)

It was McCain's silver-spoon background and admiral daddy that got him into the prestigious Navy Air Pilot Flight Training program despite graduating 894th in his Annapolis class of 899.

Let's remember that George W. Bush would never have gotten into the champagne division of the national guard if it were not for his daddy as well. Now McCain served his country and his time as a POW made him a hero. After becoming a senator and marrying a wealthy wife, he clearly has come far in the last thirty-five years. But no one should pretend that our country needs a third term of George W. Bush which is exactly what McCain offers. This is not the McCain of 2000; this is the McCain that struck a Faustian bargain with Bush in 2004 and hasn't looked back since.

Karl Rove is still around. His method of protecting his candidate is to put his weaknesses on the other guy. If anyone is paying attention, it's not hard to figure out that McCain is the elitist in the 2008 campaign. Here's a brief description of just one of the McCain homes (via Raw Story):

In Phoenix, the McCains' primary residence is a nearly 7,000 square foot condominium worth about $4.66 million. The McCains purchased two condos in 2006 and knocked down some walls to create the massive space in a high-rise that features valet parking, a rooftop swimming pool, personal spa services and on-staff housekeepers, among other amenities.

That's just one home. Among others, John W. McBush and his wife Cindy also have a 14 acre ranch with several homes in Sedona, a town famous for its retirees. Now there's a thought. Given McCain's famous temper and his desire to go to war with Iran and Russia and whoever else he's mad at that day, the nation would be better off if he retired to the quiet and beautiful red rock country of Arizona rather than submit himself to the pressure cooker of the White House. But McCain is ambitious and, like many prominent Republicans, he nurses resentments. That star he puts in many of his ads begs a question: does he resent that he never made admiral? The reality is that McCain is stuck in the past. He's still fighting Vietnam, he's still fighting the Cold War, he wants to win something in Iraq but can't define what it is. Listen to him very carefully: sometimes he's still fighting World War II. We are facing new challenges in the 21st century; it's time for a new crew in Washington. If this country is to move forward, it's time.

The Failures of Bush and the Republican Leadership

The revelations just keep on coming. We are in an election season to see if our nation will change course and recover the principles our nation was founded on or whether Bush will have a de facto third term through Senator John McCain. The situation is grim. In their final year in office, President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have still not come clean with the American people. They lied their way into a war our nation did not need. They have committed crimes or encouraged the committing of crimes by others that have damaged the reputation of the United States and that have violated the U.S. Constitution. They have engaged in a level of cronyism not seen since the 1920s.

The character of the president and the vice president are well enough known in their eighth year in office that we know they are incapable of accepting responsibility for their actions and incapable of telling the American people the truth. Most of the leadership of the Republican Party has also turned away from principles that have often guided our nation for over two hundred years. In fact, some Republicans who have been in leadership positions at some point in the last few years are now more concerned about lobbying for major corporations or foreign governments and soaking the American people for every penny they can get (the bigger the favor they do for their client, the bigger the fee).

Even if Barack Obama gets elected, our nation will have a chance if, and only if, a large number of progressive Democrats win this fall. The Democratic Party is not without its problems. The same crooked business interests that have been recruiting and cultivating the members of the new Republican Party over the last thirty years have also been doing their best to find friendly Democrats in states and districts where Republicans are not likely to win. We can see a small number of these 'friendly' Democrats in the House and Senate. The real question is whether Americans understand what is at stake.

The new Scott McClellan, who doesn't squirm, twist and equivocate like he did when he was Bush's press secretary, has said the Bush Administration used propaganda to get us into the war in Iraq and the American press did not do nearly enough to question the premises for war. Think back a couple of weeks. Here's the response the Bush Administration had to McClellan's revelations (from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution):

White House aides seemed stunned by the scathing tone of [McClellan's] book, and Bush press secretary Dana Perino issued a statement that was highly critical of their former colleague.

"Scott, we now know, is disgruntled about his experience at the White House," she said. "For those of us who fully supported him, before, during and after he was press secretary, we are puzzled. It is sad - this is not the Scott we knew."

Perino said the reports on the book had been described to Bush, and that she did not expect him to comment. "He has more pressing matters than to spend time commenting on books by former staffers," she said.

The president has more pressing matters than telling the American people the truth. Sad indeed. For those Americans paying attention, we got a dose of the truth this week in Congressional testimony by Larry Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell (his testimony can be found at The Gavel and through Think Progress); he spoke about Abu Ghraib, torture and the particular failures of Cheney and Rumsfeld:

Mr. Chairman, let me back up for a moment and tell you why this was a particularly important effort for me and I believe for Secretary Powell as well. Clearly, we were—we are—both soldiers. Moreover, we are both veterans of the war in Vietnam and we are both students of military history. We both know how soldiers go astray in the heat of battle, with buddies being killed and wounded all around—particularly in wars that seem to have no end, no light at the end of the tunnel.

In Vietnam, as a first lieutenant and a captain of Infantry, on several occasions I had to restrain my soldiers, even one or two of my officers. When higher authorities took such actions as declaring free fire zones—meaning that anything that moved in that zone could be killed—and you came upon a 12-year old girl on a jungle path in that zone, it was clear you were not going to follow orders. But some situations were not so black and white and you had to be always on guard against your soldiers slipping over the edge. As their leader, it was incumbent upon me to set the example—and that meant sometimes reprimanding or punishing a soldier who broke the rules. In all cases, it meant that I personally followed the rules and not just by "breaking" the so-called rules of engagement, as in the designated free fire zone, but by following the rules that had been ingrained in me by my parents, by my schools, by my church, and by the U.S. Army in classes about the Geneva Conventions and what we called the law of land warfare. I had been taught and I firmly believed when I took the oath of an officer and swore to support and defend the Constitution, that American soldiers were different and that much of their fighting strength and spirit came from that difference and that much of that difference was wrapped up in our humaneness and our respect for the rights of all.

So, Mr. Chairman, when I saw the first photographs from the prison at Abu Ghraib, I had two immediate reactions. First, I knew such things could happen. Second, I knew such things were wrong and I knew that leadership had failed. What I did not know, was on what level that leadership had failed. So I set out to find the answer.

(snip)

...echoing the President and the Vice President's own words, the word went out that the gloves were off, and we were going to have to work "sort of the dark side". That same day at Camp David, September 16, 2001, when the Vice President referred to the dark side, he also told Tim Russert: "...it's going to be vital for us to use any means at our disposal, basically, to achieve our objective."

These words reminded me of what Undersecretary of Defense Robert Lovett had argued as the Cold War was heating up, after the Soviets had developed and tested a nuclear weapon in 1949. Lovett argued in 1950 that the nation was "in a war worse than any we have ever experienced" and that this meant doing away with the "sharp line between democratic principles and immoral actions...." Lovett considered such distinctions as a "dangerous and unnecessary handicap" in the struggle with communism. He said he wanted to fight the Soviets “with no holds barred....". In my view, it was fortunate for the nation that Truman did not follow Lovett's advice.

But many in the Pentagon, and eventually the armed forces, did seem to follow the advice, however implicit, of Lovett's reincarnation in 2001, Vice President Cheney. In short, the Pentagon needed intelligence; people should go out and get it. And the usual rules were not going to apply; new rules would be forthcoming. Even as a result of my early investigations at the State Department, this overriding reality was clear. But somewhere in that early part of 2002, some of the principals also began to worry about legalities. It was likely earlier even but I could find nothing in late 2001. Perhaps someday others will.

(snip)

It's my strong view that the legal proceedings were led by David Addington, who turned to Jay Bybee and John Yoo at the Department of Justice, and Alberto Gonzales in the White House, then counselor to the President.

These were the lawyers who set the legal background against which other-than-standard interrogation methods would be explained away as "in accord with the Geneva Conventions", "not constituting torture", "fully within the Article II powers of the Commander-in Chief", and so forth. At Defense, Jim Haynes and Douglas Feith would adapt these views to their needs at the Pentagon. Indeed, in the recent book Torture Team by English barrister Philippe Sands, in extended interviews Mr. Feith appears to express no small degree of pride in having helped make the Geneva Conventions adaptable to the needs of the new interrogation regime. In my view, this was done largely through artifice not unlike the angels sitting on the pinhead. Such artifice may appeal to certain lawyers but I assure you soldiers have no use for it for they know how dangerous such arguments are when put to the hard act of execution in the field.

Meanwhile, the operational end of this affair was orchestrated by the Secretary of Defense and his subordinates, Haynes, Feith, Stephen Cambone and I'm quite certain others. Certain of these individuals, including Addington, even visited the prison at Guantánamo Bay in September 2002 to get a better grip on what was happening to acquire actionable intelligence and to inform their own views about what was possible.

There has been an argument that U.S. Southern Command queried the Defense Department with respect to interrogation procedures for GITMO, and thus the impetus for the new procedures came from the field. There is a paper trail that seems to have been laid down to support that. What I found, however, was that Southern Command's query was expected (set up perhaps?) and that OSD General Counsel, in league with the others in the legal group, had already worked up what the legal position was going to be. In short, there were people in DOD at the highest level who knew what they wanted: actionable intelligence. They also knew, or thought they knew, that the only way they were going to get it from battle-hardened al Qa'ida operatives was to use harsh interrogation methods. And that's the bottom line.

Depressingly to me, these men also seemed to have the cavalier disregard for any innocents who might be caught up in this process that one often finds in men safely to the rear of the real action. Soldiers call such men "REMFs". I won’t elaborate on that acronym.

(snip)

Moreover, this was a man—and these were men—who could not bring the challenge he thought he was confronting to the legislative branch and ask for relief. To come to the people's representatives, and through them to the people, was beneath this group. They would not deign to ask the legislature to change the rules for the Armed Forces—a legislature vested by our Constitution with the power to "make Rules concerning Captures on land and water" and "To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces." Instead, they made the rules all by themselves in secret.

This is damning testimony. And yet, if anything, I believe Wilkerson lets Bush off too easily. And he could have been harder on Cheney and Rumsfeld. But Wilkerson is restricting himself to documentation that he has been able to accumulate. It is certainly more documentation than Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld ever hoped that anyone would acquire.

Major General Antonio Taguba was the lead investigator for the army into the Abu Ghraib scandal. He is an honest man who paid for his honesty with his career when he failed to participate in a coverup. Last year, Sy Hersh interviewed Taguba for the New Yorker; here are some excerpts:

In a series of interviews early this year, the first he has given, Taguba told me that he understood when he began the inquiry that it could damage his career; early on, a senior general in Iraq had pointed out to him that the abused detainees were “only Iraqis.” Even so, he was not prepared for the greeting he received when he was finally ushered in.

“Here . . . comes . . . that famous General Taguba—of the Taguba report!” Rumsfeld declared, in a mocking voice. The meeting was attended by Paul Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld’s deputy; Stephen Cambone, the Under-Secretary of Defense for Intelligence; General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (J.C.S.); and General Peter Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff, along with Craddock and other officials.

(snip)

[Major General Mike] Myatt followed Taguba’s involvement in the Abu Ghraib inquiry, and said, “I was so proud of him. I told him, ‘Tony, you’ve maintained yourself, and your integrity.’ ”

Taguba got a different message, however, from other officers, among them General John Abizaid, then the head of Central Command. A few weeks after his report became public, Taguba, who was still in Kuwait, was in the back seat of a Mercedes sedan with Abizaid. Abizaid’s driver and his interpreter, who also served as a bodyguard, were in front. Abizaid turned to Taguba and issued a quiet warning: “You and your report will be investigated.”

“I wasn’t angry about what he said but disappointed that he would say that to me,” Taguba said. “I’d been in the Army thirty-two years by then, and it was the first time that I thought I was in the Mafia.”

(snip)

Taguba came to believe that Lieutenant General Sanchez, the Army commander in Iraq, and some of the generals assigned to the military headquarters in Baghdad had extensive knowledge of the abuse of prisoners in Abu Ghraib even before Joseph Darby came forward with the CD. Taguba was aware that in the fall of 2003—when much of the abuse took place—Sanchez routinely visited the prison, and witnessed at least one interrogation. According to Taguba, “Sanchez knew exactly what was going on.”

Recently Sanchez offered a choice quotation from the president (quote highlighted by Michael Abramowitz of The Washington Post):

Among the anecdotes in "Wiser in Battle: A Soldier's Story" is an arresting portrait of Bush after four contractors were killed in Fallujah in 2004, triggering a fierce U.S. response that was reportedly egged on by the president.

During a videoconference with his national security team and generals, Sanchez writes, Bush launched into what he described as a "confused" pep talk:

"Kick ass!" he quotes the president as saying. "If somebody tries to stop the march to democracy, we will seek them out and kill them! We must be tougher than hell! This Vietnam stuff, this is not even close. It is a mind-set. We can't send that message. It's an excuse to prepare us for withdrawal."

"There is a series of moments and this is one of them. Our will is being tested, but we are resolute. We have a better way. Stay strong! Stay the course! Kill them! Be confident! Prevail! We are going to wipe them out! We are not blinking!"

A White House spokesman had no comment.

But Sanzchez knew what was going on. As did many others. No doubt Abu Ghraib was toxic and endangered more careers than just that of the lead investigator.

In a preface to Broken Laws, Broken Lives, a report by Physicians for Human Rights that details torture by the U.S., Taguba writes about the torture that took place in Iraq and elsewhere:

In order for these individuals to suffer the wanton cruelty to which they were subjected, a government policy was promulgated to the field whereby the Geneva Conventions and the Uniform Code of Military Justice were disregarded. The UN Convention Against Torture was indiscriminately ignored. And the healing professions, including physicians and psychologists, became complicit in the willful infliction of harm against those the Hippocratic Oath demands they protect.

After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts, and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.

Lt. Col Larry Wilkerson speaks eloquently about what is right and what is wrong. Major General Antonio Taguba understood his duty to the constitution and the law. The John McCain of 2000 seemed to understand. I do not know where John McCain stands in this important election year. But the signs are not good. A Commander-in-Chief who doesn't know the difference between Shiites or Sunnis is worrisome. And McCain talks of staying in Iraq for a hundred years. He totally backs Bush on the war. He is unable to acknowledge the lies that got us into this war.

In short, John McCain is incapable of holding George W. Bush accountable and that in itself suggests it is time for change in Washington.

The Real Appeasers: Bush and Company

George W. Bush went to a foreign land to launch a political attack against the Democrats. Any number of news sources have broken the story. Here's Think Progress commenting on a CNN story:

While delivering an address before the Israeli parliament commemorating the 60th anniversary of Israel, President Bush said that Sen. Barack Obama and Democrats favor a policy of appeasement toward terrorists. CNN reports that Bush was comparing Obama to “other U.S. leaders back in the run-up to World War II who appeased the Nazis.”

In his speech, Bush said, “As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: ‘Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.’ We have an obligation to call this what it is – the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.”

The guy who called himself a uniter, not a divider, has broken every bipartisan rule of the last seventy years. The Decider in Chief has led us into a war we did not need in Iraq and failed to prosecute effectively the war in Afghanistan. He is now itching to start a third war to cover up his incompetence. It's too bad there isn't someone at the White House who puts up a new mirror every time a president tries to blame someone else for his blunders; by now the White House would have a thousand images of Bush pointing back at himself. Personally, given his behavior in recent days, I don't think Bush cares anymore. His arrogant and useless behavior will continue until January. The American people should have impeached Bush four years and ten months ago when it not only became obvious that there were no WMDs in Iraq but when it became obvious that the White House had deliberately lied about the evidence. Republicans in Congress failed to apply the US Constitution to a law-breaking president. Sorry, but I would call that appeasement.

Here's the Merriam-Webster definition of 'appease' that applies here: "pacify, conciliate: esp : to buy off (an aggressor) by concessions usu. at the sacrifice of principles." The Republican leaders of Congress in the last eight years have had no principles. If Bush wanted something, no matter how wrong it was, torture, multiple wars, privatization contracts for cronies, the Republicans appeased him.

But the reality gets even worse. In America, there are good responsible businesses and there are bad businesses that are not only greedy but bad for America's democracy and America's long term interests. Bush and his Republican friends in Congress have appeased the worst of American business. I'm talking about guys who could care less about their workers, their customers or their neighbors. Bush and Cheney have both appeased the most anti-social corporations in America: the Enrons, the Halliburtons, the Blackwaters and so on.

The way I see it appeasement is turning your back on the most urgent problems of our era. Those two oil guys, Bush and Cheney, have turned their backs on doing anything about the energy problem. We've known for thirty years that we have a problem. We've known for the last ten years that the problem is getting worse. And Bush and Cheney are too busy appeasing the oil and coal companies to think about tomorrow. Appeasement is about procrastination. It is about putting off until tomorrow what you know has to be done today.

When it comes to global warming, Bush finally admits there's a problem, after seven long years. And his solution? More studies, vague goals, more procrastination. More appeasement of the worst of American business. Time is running out and Bush will end up wasting eight years.

Some may say appeasement is only about foreign policy threats. In other words, don't give in to foreign aggression. But Bush ran away from his foreign policy obligation to pursue Osama bin Laden and instead pursued a personal obsession about Iraq (McCain isn't far behind. He still obsesses about Vietnam). Seven years later, Osama bin Laden is still free. The sad truth is that appeasement is more often a Republican buzz word to cover up incompetence, corruption and flawed policies.

The reality is that Bush has done enormous harm to our national interests. He has alienated our allies and created new enemies. He has refused to talk when diplomacy could have had real value. During the Cold War, diplomacy saved this country from all-out nuclear war with the Soviet Union. And the Soviet Union eventually fell. But the president has done harm in other areas. Above all else, Bush has damaged our economy, making it more difficult to pursue any number of policies. Bush has even outsourced a certain percentage of our national defense requirements to companies in foreign countries. Outsourcing undermines American jobs and American know-how and in a time of crisis it could jeopardize our national defense. Heavy dependence on foreign oil and a lack of a sound energy policy also puts our nation at risk.

Bush's failed presidency and leadership have much to do with perpetuating the worst of American business because—it can't be said often enough—the worst players around are willing to pay for political favors. We used to call it bribery and corruption. The leaders of the Republican Party now call it 'free speech' and 'campaign contributions' even as they exploit every loophole in the law and then more.

Here's a little dose of reality: if elected, John McCain will not be as bad as George W. Bush. He will give us less nonsense. His wars might be more competently fought. His social policies might not be as draconian. His tax policies will not be as ruinous. He may slow down the outsourcing of jobs overseas a touch. And his fantasies will not be as onerous. But our country does not need a little less of George W. Bush. We need a clean break. And we need to put behind us the hysterical claims of right wing Republican politicians in Congress. Look, there's nothing wrong with a little flag waving—we do it every Memorial Day, Fourth of July and Veterans Day. But what is it with right wing politicians and their flag pins while their business friends show what they think of patriotism by overcharging the Pentagon, making shoddy products and putting their obscene profits in offshore accounts? I think most Americans are getting tired of the disconnect.

We need a Washington that belongs to all the people again and not just the loud and the few. The next president is going to have to pay as much attention to Appalachia as New Orleans, as much attention to children as seniors, as much attention to small towns as big cities, as much attention to small businesses as major corporations. Those companies that create the most quality jobs in America should get lots of attention. We're at a point where big business needs to rejoin America and turn its back on the most anti-social elements of the business community.

George W. Bush will go down as the most failed president in American history. He has turned his back repeatedly on opportunities to reform his behavior. I don't know who John McCain really is. Suffice to say that John McCain has three positions for every issue, loves his lobbyists and loves telling TV pundits what they want to hear before going off and doing something else. Americans need much more than that. Hillary Clinton, for one, would make a fine president. But I believe Barack Obama would be a better one. He's a pragmatist, and like John Edwards, he understands the times. Like many of us, he sees what's coming and knows that if we are to have a future, we need to move on.

The McCain Illusion

Like many people back in 2000, I bought somewhat into the notion that Senator John McCain was a maverick Republican and an independent voice. Until early 2004, McCain somewhat maintained that reputation by criticizing various aspects of Bush's Iraq policy. Of course, given the acrimony of the 2000 campaign, there was no love lost between McCain and Bush.

But a funny thing happened in 2004. The details are still somewhat fuzzy and there are variations on the story but there were rumors and stories in 2004 that John Kerry had approached McCain about a bipartisan ticket with McCain as the vice president. Some say that it was McCain who approached Kerry but that doesn't make too much sense unless it was a cold calculation on McCain's part that was really directed at Bush. However, if it was McCain that was asked, Kerry may have unintentionally called McCain's bluff. In reality, McCain is no bipartisan maverick and perhaps never was even if he crossed the aisle now and then to work with others on joint bills as he did on accounting for Americans left behind in Vietnam.

In an era where Republicans drifted as far right as imaginable, a seemingly ordinary conservative Republican who's an easy story may seem moderate in the eyes of the media. Still, something reporters may have overlooked is that in the collegial slow-moving atmosphere of the Senate, it's possible to cajole somebody like McCain on a personal level, even if the man has a temper. In the fast-paced pressure-cooker of the White House, however, I doubt McCain could quickly come to the right decisions or at least change his mind later when it's important. Not with that temper of his. Not with his age becoming a factor. For almost eight years, we have seen how Bush stumbles over his ego and stubbornness rather think a policy through—or at least learn the facts. We don't need more stumbles on an almost daily basis.

Here's the latest stumble from McCain as mentioned in Newsday:

John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee and a supporter of the war, was considerably more gentle in his questioning of Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, during their testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The Arizona senator, who recently confused the two main Muslim sects -- Shia and Sunni -- nearly repeated the gaffe, calling Sunni-led al-Qaida "an obscure sect of the Shias" before quickly correcting himself.

Even if McCain could keep pace with any numbers of events that are quickening, he is after all a conservative and he has been far too frequently wrong on Iraq and abyssmally wrong on the economy. Like Bush, the Senator from Arizona is attached to failed conservative policies and doesn't seem to learn from his mistakes.

With McCain, there's the added problem that he tends to tell members of the media what they want to hear. The ability to tell the media what they want to hear is not the same as the ability to make the right decisions. And too many on the cable news networks failed to see McCain's many contradictions and inconsistencies, such as when he suddenly embraced Bush four years ago. Here's a story in The Washington Post that covers some of what happened in the spring of 2004 before McCain joined a campaign trip in June for President Bush:

... McCain's trip with Bush grew out of a meeting this spring between White House senior adviser Karl Rove and John Weaver, a top adviser to McCain, who became a Democratic consultant after the bitter campaign between Bush and McCain.

(snip)

The meeting represented the beginning of a rapprochement between the two men and in a symbolic sense between the Bush and McCain camps. "There had to be a breaking of the ice and a breaking of the logjam," said one source familiar with the meeting. "What better way for that to occur than to have the two main antagonists in the drama doing it?"

The Bush team's outreach to McCain occurred at the same time Kerry was trying to entice the Arizonan to join him on what some Democrats fantasized could be a unity ticket that could attract moderate Republicans.

It may have been important for Bush to neutralize McCain's VP chances in order to enhance his own chances of reelection. But McCain took the new relationship very seriously, so seriously that one has to wonder what was promised? Help in 2008?

Here's an example a couple of days later from the San Francisco Chronicle of McCain jumping wholeheartedly on the Bush bandwagon:

... McCain's political relationship with Bush has been so frosty that Kerry reportedly talked recently to the Arizona senator about running for vice president on the Democratic ticket.

McCain put an end to those suggestions Friday, joining the president in a morning visit with troops at Fort Lewis in Washington state, then flying to Reno to give Bush a ringing endorsement for his work in Iraq, calling it "noble, achievable and necessary.''

Leaving Saddam Hussein in charge in Iraq was a risk the country could not take, McCain said. While the war "has surely had its ups and downs,'' Bush's efforts "deserve not only support, but admiration. He has led with great moral clarity and resolve.''

If the reader can stop gagging on McCain's fawning hyperbole for a moment, it might be worth asking if this is the moment McCain's 2008 presidential bid began? This kind of brazen about face, flip flop as some call it, requires enormous ambition. There is no integrity in being a consistent Bush critic for four years (at least when McCain wasn't voting) and suddenly fawning on the man. For the those of us paying attention, 2004 is when it became obvious that McCain was an illusion.

We have learned a great deal more since then. A new book is out called The Real McCain by Cliff Schecter; here's more on it in the Huffington Post. McCain's temper and many contradictions and inconsistencies are going to become more of an issue as time goes by. We simply cannot afford another president like George W. Bush. The media, unfortunately, is still in love with John McCain. These are the same guys that talked endlessly about George W. Bush in his flight suit as he embarrassed his presidency with his Mission Accomplished speech on Iraq. There's more on the media/McCain love affair in Daily Kos.

The Democrats have their work cut out for them. If the Democratic nominee can run against John McCain, the Democrats may be able to change a few things in Washington and bring about some measure of badly needed reform. If the Democratic nominee is forced to run against the Illusion, George W. Bush may have his successor and third term by proxy. And the same failed policies will continue.

Nuclear Weapons and the Gang That Can't Shoot Straight

A sign of poor judgment in recent years are the number of conservatives who think nuclear weapons ought to be used in war. Not only have Cheney and others talked about using nuclear weapons in such places as Iran (to strike its nonexistant nuclear program) but they appear at times to have also encouraged Israel to act as a proxy. The Bush Administration even tried to start a nuclear bunker buster program and although it was reportedly taken off the table, we have no real proof that some sort of nuclear bunker buster program did not go forward. Given the secrecy of the Bush Administration, this is an issue that has never been satisfactorily resolved.

The real issue is that the Bush Administration has been trying to lower the threshold for using nuclear weapons. To lower the threshold may require removing certain civilian controls. We don't know if that's what has happened, but last year the air force transported what they thought were unarmed missles to Louisiana (see Washington Post story). Today, we learn fuses for nuclear weapons were sent to Taiwan; here's an excerpt from the Los Angeles Times:

Pentagon officials said the material sent to Taiwan consisted of four electrical fuses for the ICBM nose cones. The fuses, used to trigger nuclear weapons, do not contain nuclear material.

But experts on nuclear security said the mistaken transfer showed a serious deterioration in the safeguards and controls that the U.S. military has over its nuclear warheads.

"This is really unbelievable," said Joseph Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, which advocates reducing the number of nuclear weapons. "If the Russians had shipped triggers to Tehran, we would be going nuts right now."

The gang that can't shoot straight still occupies the White House. We know that former Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, eased rules on special missions using conventional missiles to take out terrorists. One or two of those missions have succeeded. Several, on the other hand, have rained death and terror on wedding ceremonies or family gatherings in Iraq, Afghanistan and the border area of Pakistan in cases of mistaken intelligence. America's 'good guy' image has been severely damaged by such incidents which have involved the killing of women, children and other innocent civilians.

Nuclear weapons, of course, are in an entirely different league and need to be tightly controlled but it is clear that rules regarding nuclear safeguards have broken down. What is not clear is why.

Americans need to think about these issues. Presidential candidate John McCain has talked about staying in Iraq for a hundred years. He has also talked about expanding America's wars (though it's unclear how he's going to pay for them or what advantage these wars offer the American people). McCain also gets confused about al Qaida and Iran. A president following in the footsteps of George W. Bush is not what our country needs.

2008 Election Priorities: Obama, Clinton and McCain

Reality check. This is what we're facing in the 2008 election:


Bush wants a successor and John McCain is willing to oblige. Look at the picture and note how tired John McCain looks. After seven years of failure, this is the best the Republican party can offer the American people? This is the guy who's mind is going to be clear at 3 in the morning when the phone rings? Hillary Clinton has got to be kidding.

McCain, despite his many lapses in the last four years since he gave up being America's favorite maverick—a reputation that has more to do with the media than reality by the way—has been treated generously and very kindly by the media. He served his country well and there will be no swift-boating from Democrats of this man. But he has weaknesses and Hillary Clinton should not hand him phony ammunition for the fall campaign.

Hillary Clinton has been running on an irritating premise that I wish she would drop. She says she has experience and that she will be ready on day one, particularly when it comes to national security. During Bill Clinton's presidency, she dealt with some foreign policy issues (mostly friendship building) but never handled serious national security matters. She had no national security clearances. If she's implying that she will have Bill Clinton looking over her shoulder, fine. If that's what the American people want. But I wish she would be clear about it. Now Barack Obama has a pretty good sense of humor. Perhaps he should suggest that if he's elected, Bill Clinton could stay in the White House—say for two weeks—in the Lincoln bedroom—since Bill is willing to do considerably more than that for Hillary.

But Bill Clinton had no national security experience when he was elected president and he did fine. He had good people and many former officials to consult. Just as Barack Obama will if he is elected. Obama has already shown that he has an ability to pick a good team. Despite Hillary's fame, the advantage of the Bill Clinton machine and millions of dollars from big donors, Hillary's campaign has made mistakes and she has had trouble finding her stride, possibly because she made decisions that might have been fine in the last election but not this one. In contrast, Barack Obama has shown that he understands the times and that he knows a thing or two about running a big operation. He still leads in delegate count.

I would gladly vote for Hillary Clinton but she has to think about the party and what it takes to win the election. She should not win the nomination using fear tactics. She should not win a nomination by going negative on a fellow Democrat or playing games with the system. Hillary can quickly change the tenor of the nomination by releasing her tax returns. She needs to affirm her integrity and credibility. Americans have had seven years of incompetence, fraud, lies and nonsense. We do not need more of it. If Hillary can win the nomination by taking the high road, I'm all for it. But if she can only win by playing dirty politics and throwing roses to McCain, then it's time for her to fold her tent. Americans deserve change.

McCain does not represent that change. He appears to have won the nomination by default after several candidates imploded. Esssentially McCain won because he was every Republican's second or third choice. No doubt Republicans will rally around him but it is an odd nomination.

McCain has a number of problems. We're seeing more and more of his bad temper. I have also heard him make comments about Vietnam that suggest he's still fighting that war—he has not put it behind him. His voting record is as conservative as any Republican of the last two generations and he has no solutions for the colossal failures, incompetence and corruption of the last seven years. He knows how to schmooze with reporters but that ability is based largely on telling reporters what they want to hear and adjusting his comments according to the shifting winds. His votes often do not reflect what he says. He contradicts himself a great deal but he leaves no doubt that he is a friend of corporate lobbyists looking for a free handout. There is more. I hold McCain responsible, as an example, for his comment that we might be in Iraq another hundred years. Americans need to reject Republican-style neocolonialism.

Americans need to be realistic about what is happening to our country. A lot of ideologues and wealthy people have been sacrificing pieces of our country's future to make a few extra bucks. And people have died because of other people's greed and political indifference. We need reform and we need change.

Democratic leaders need to keep a sharp eye on our nation's priorities as the Democratic nomination continues. I'm concerned that John Edwards' progressive talking points are quickly being forgotten and his best points need to be remembered. This is above everything else an election about change. If Clinton and Obama play clean, let the chips fall where they may. But if either candidate starts going too dirty or forgets what the election is about, the party's superdelegates and elders need to say enough is enough and close ranks to maintain the viability of the Democratic party.

Let there be no doubt that Bush and his corrupt friends will be doing everything they can to help John McCain win in the fall elections. Without a democratic president, there will be no change come next year. The failures of the last seven years will continue. Once again, this is the future we're in danger of facing:

Kicking the Can Down the Road and Other News

There's not much to say about Bush's dishonest press conference today with the strange Dick Cheney half lurking in the shrubbery looking on (I'm writing this straight but I suppose there's a pun in there somewhere). The media is slowly, s-l-o-w-l-y, coming around to holding Bush more accountable but it's hard work keeping up with the president's less than straightfoward presentation with all its multiple levels of lies, half-truths and hypocrisy; and then there's all that help from his media flacks who can't even keep their multiple stories straight. It's not too difficult to understand what's happening, though. Suffice to say, Bush is a failure—it's all we really need to know from now on. After the November election, Bush had a chance to redeem himself, at least partly, by getting his act together at long last, but he's determined to do more damage than admit his many failures.

When it comes to Iraq no one should doubt that Bush is simply kicking the can down the road for the next president to handle. It's shameful behavior and suggests Bush and his inner circle have learned nothing from Vietnam. Here's an article from Raw Story on an earlier version of kicking the can down the road that didn't quite work:

On Vietnam, Dallek writes that Kissinger and Nixon privately concluded that the war was unwinnable. "In Saigon the tendency is to fight the war to victory," Dallek quotes Nixon in a 1969 phone call to Kissinger. "But you and I know it won't happen -- it is impossible." Yet Kissinger and Nixon sought to label Democrats criticizing the progress of the war as being from "the party of surrender," writes Dallek.

Authoritarians and their followers in the Republican Party still peddle their myths about Vietnam along with their rot that the war was winnable, and yet they conveniently forget the first can kicker was actually Lyndon Johnson who passed Vietnam on to Nixon who had a 'plan' to win the war and who, nevertheless, managed to prolong the war a long and deadly six years. Maha of Mahablog reminds us that press conferences in Johnson's day were much rougher than anything George W. Bush has yet to experience:

I sometimes wish videos of President Lyndon Johnson’s press conferences were available on the web (if they are, let me know). As I remember it, at some point after the Vietnam War began the Washington press corps began to hound LBJ mercilessly. The press became openly antagonistic to Johnson, and I won’t say he didn’t deserve it. When reporters began to treat Richard Nixon the same way they’d treated LBJ, Nixon sent out Spiro Agnew to stir up faux outrage against the nattering nabobs of negativism and whine about liberal media bias; thus a myth was born. The fact is, as I remember it the press was a shade gentler to Nixon than it had been to LBJ. And by the time Reagan came along they’d become sufficiently defensive about “”liberal media bias” that reporters generally treated Reagan with kid gloves compared to the way they’d treated presidents Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Carter. And in comparison to the press corps in Johnson’s day, today’s White House reporters are a neutered and toothless lot, indeed.

War is not a political football. Our soldiers should not be used to prolong a failed foreign policy. There are times when war may be necessary. Afghanistan appears to have been the case in 2001. Bush's war in Iraq, however, was not necessary and was pushed for reasons not in the interests of most Americans for what now can only be described as a shameful political agenda. That's the bottom line. We have some obligation to stabilize Iraq and it's in our interests to withdraw as carefully as we can even if we have to leave troops nearby. But it's time to leave.

It doesn't help when someone like Senator McCain becomes too incompetent to understand Iraq or so flawed in his reasoning and desperation to become the next president that he begins to utter nonsense that doesn't help the debate on Iraq. Steve Clemons of The Washington Note reminds us there are still people in Iraq who know what's going on and they're not very patient with McCain's nonsense; Clemons' post covers a talk by Anne Garrels:

... She is, of course, National Public Radio's veteran roving foreign correspondent most often in Baghdad as of late -- though she seems to have covered nearly all of the world's rough and tough spots over the last couple of decades.

(snip)

...Anne Garrels opened her talk last Thursday night blasting Baghdad visitor and erstwhile presidential candidate Senator John McCain.

Now old news, but then fresh off the wire, John McCain had said that things had improved so much in Baghdad that Iraq Multinational Force Commander General David Petraeus was driving around the city in an unarmord Humvee. Garrels -- who when you read her book strains for balance in her research and reporting -- really lambasted McCain for his duplicitous comments. She said it "was way too early to judge the results from a change in tactics in Baghdad."

She said that McCain's commentary seemed ludicrous to nearly anyone with real world Baghdad experience. Anne Garrels does NOT live in the green zone. She lives in the red zone, beyond the barriers of protection that most Americans have -- and every day is one where one has to be very careful and win the day and survival by his or her wits.

When Garrels covered the invasion of Iraq while staying at the Palestine Hotel, she was there with just 15 other American journalists -- including correspondents for The New Yorker and the New York Review of Books. ...

(snip)

She told the audience that in Iraq the "resentment and disbelief in the incompetence of America was profound."

She offered much of what any avid Iraq-watcher knows. The White House predicted a cost of this war at $50 billion and didn't really envision an occupation. The costs are now well beyond ten times that amount. The Department of Defense had no serious post-invasion strategy.

But one of the numbers she threw out which shocked me is that today it can cost between $3,500 and $5,000 for a one way taxi ride from the Baghdad Airport to downtown Baghdad. She has arranged some alternative, permanent service that brings the costs down some for NPR.

And McCain says average people like you and me can easily walk around downtown Baghdad...if we can afford it and can find a hundred soldiers to act as our tour guides.

A friend of mine has been complaining lately that I've been getting repetitious and no doubt he's right. Of course, he's one of those people who pays attention. I'm sure other readers may think the same thing. But when I turn on the evening news at night, it's still apparent that many journalists are still not up to speed on the leadership crisis that our country is experiencing. In times of crisis, some things bear repeating.

Very few journalists have been as observant, though, as Paul Krugman of The New York Times; here's a column from the other day as it appears in Truthout:

...voters realize that society has changed. They may not pore over income distribution tables, but they do know that today's rich are building themselves mansions bigger than those of the robber barons. They may not read labor statistics, but they know that wages aren't going anywhere: according to the Pew Research Center, 59 percent of workers believe that it's harder to earn a decent living today than it was 20 or 30 years ago.

You know that perceptions of rising inequality have become a political issue when even President Bush admits, as he did in January, that "some of our citizens worry about the fact that our dynamic economy is leaving working people behind."

But today's Republicans can't respond in any meaningful way to rising inequality, because their activists won't let them. You could see the dilemma just this past Friday and Saturday, when almost all the G.O.P. presidential hopefuls traveled to Palm Beach to make obeisance to the Club for Growth, a supply-side pressure group dedicated to tax cuts and privatization.

The Republican Party's adherence to an outdated ideology leaves it with big problems. It can't offer domestic policies that respond to the public's real needs. So how can it win elections?

The answer, for a while, was a combination of distraction and disenfranchisement.

That's the sad truth of George W. Bush and the current Republican Party: at the national level, they can't win on the issues—they can only win by playing games. That's why the US Attorney scandal, only the latest of a series of scandals, is such a big deal: firing honest Republicans who believe in law enforcement and putting in party hacks and cronies that will do the bidding of Republican kingmakers is a big no-no if one still believes in the US Constitution and democracy.

It's going to be a big fight for the next few years, but it's time for the American people to take their country back.

Baghdad McCain and Tagalong Lindsey Graham

Remember Baghdad Bob and his attempts to spin reality as American troops were overrunning Baghdad? Now we have Baghdad McCain with Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) tagging along. My wife's jaw dropped open this morning as CNN showed Sen. John McCain talking about how easy it was to walk around Baghdad; he apparently was at a press conference in the well-protected Green Zone when he told us this. I told her to wait a few hours; things are not like they were three years ago when the Bush Administration and its Republican friends could still spin just about any story they wanted. Sure enough, even the major networks caught John McCain on this one. Thinkprogress was quickly on the story:

Sen. John McCain strolled briefly through an open-air market in Baghdad today in an effort to prove that Americans are “not getting the full picture” of what’s going on in Iraq.

But, NBC’s Nightly News reports that McCain’s neighborhood stroll was accompanied by “100 American soldiers, with three Blackhawk helicopters, and two Apache gunships overhead.” Still photographs provided by the military to NBC News seemed to show McCain wearing a bulletproof vest during his visit.

Three helicopters. Two gunships. A hundred soldiers. And it sure looked like a bulletproof vest to me (click on Thinkprogress to see the picture). Yep, you and me can just walk in downtown Baghdad anytime we want, in broad daylight, for a half hour or so, in one of the safer neighborhoods, if we had McCain's protection force. *sigh*

I miss the old, reasonably honest John McCain. The new John McCain has become an embarrassment. Much of what passes for the Republican leadership these days is an embarrassment.

McCain's Judgment Continues Downward Spiral

I don't know if John McCain, the maverick we thought we knew, could have made a difference in 2004 if he had simply been willing to recognize that George W. Bush didn't know what he was doing and somebody, perhaps the senator from Arizona, needed to point out the obvious to the American people instead of supporting an incompetent and failing president. Everything we needed to know about President Bush we knew in 2004; but the media, the Republicans and their right wing supporters managed to obscure the need to change presidents. As a consequence, we're stuck for another two years with the biggest two term failure our nation has ever seen. And John McCain wants to give us more of the same in his bid to become the next president. The surge in Iraq is being called the McCain Doctrine and it fits since McCain is grandstanding and has pontificated several times now about sending troops that don't exist.

One of the sad things about today's Republican Party is the failure of the President to recognize his own blunders and do something about them with something Americans used to call common sense. For the sake of public relations, Bush admits to a boner or two but refuses to engage in regional talks. In the meantime, he's doing everything he can to blame others for the fiasco in Iraq. Iraq is Bush's war. He broke it, he owns it. But Bush wants to blame the Iranians now for his incompetence and recklessness.

Because McCain is tied to Bush's wagon, McCain is now playing the game of blaming others, anybody in fact except the president and certainly not the Republicans in Congress who avoided their responsibilies for the last five years. Kristin Roberts of Reuters shows the latest example of 'leadership' from the new John McCain:

Senator John McCain, a Republican contender for the White House in 2008, chastised Europe on Saturday for failing to supply the troops and money to win in Afghanistan and said NATO's future was at stake.

In tough comments that singled out specific countries, McCain told NATO allies to move beyond the "false debate" over security and development priorities in Afghanistan -- a dispute that dominated a defense ministers' meeting earlier this week.

Instead, Europe should follow Washington's lead and put more forces and resources into the war effort.

We don't need more grandstanding from Senator John McCain.

Four years ago, as Bush was preparing for war in Iraq, Rumsfeld and other Republicans were ridiculing our allies in Europe and Colin Powell damaged his reputation telling lies at the UN that Cheney and others had put together. Nations do not lie to their friends. Worse, five years ago, we declared the war in Afghanistan finished and started sending troops to the Persian Gulf before the job was finished; we lost enormous leverage in our foreign affairs. By 2004, we had two unfinished wars on our hands. And John McCain supported an incompetent.

Afghanistan should have been finished three years ago but it continues because Bush put Afghanistan on the back burner and let the war simmer until it burst forth again. But McCain can't put the blame where it squarely belongs: in the White House. We do not need another Republican in the White House who might stumble into another war we don't need and then blame others when his blunders don't lead to the result he promises.

James Pinkerton on Hagel and McCain

Bush's war in Iraq is a fiasco. The war was based on lies that the major media bought into line, hook and sinker. Unfortunately, someone has failed to notify James Pinkerton. Here's Pinkerton's first two paragraphs plus a paragraph on Hagel from his article in Newsday (hat tip to The Huffington Post):

It's official: Chuck Hagel is the new John McCain, getting the glowing treatment from glam publications such as GQ. And John McCain is the new Bob Dole - and we know what kind of press Dole got. Perhaps I should explain.

Once upon a time - say, five years ago - the liberal media were infatuated with McCain. Yes, the Republican senator from Arizona was a hard-line conservative on most matters, but he was sufficiently unorthodox on a few issues (campaign finance, global warming, tax cuts) to be newsworthy. In addition, McCain was enough of a George W. Bush basher to keep reporters interested in what he might say next.

(snip)

But of course, just as the media take away, the media also give. And the recipient of media blessings these days is Chuck Hagel, senator from Nebraska. As a Republican critical of the Bush policy in Iraq, Hagel is infinitely more valuable to the anti-war cause than a mere Democrat. After all, nobody is surprised anymore when a Democrat opposes the war, but it's notable when a Republican breaks ranks with his own party's president - especially when he uses such punchy language, referring to the Iraq surge as the "most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam."

James Pinkerton is far from being the most right wing of commentators so I'm somewhat surprised at his 'interpretation' of the last five years. First, what liberal media? Rupert Murdoch's empire? The Washington Post? The Chicago Tribune? Clear Channel? CNN? The Washington Times? Does Pinkerton mean Tim Russert of NBC who, according to a witness in the Scooter Libby trial, apparently is the favorite go-to person when Cheney wants to get a pro-administration message out? If he means The New York Times, the Times supported Bush on the war for the first two years (and there was also Judith Miller's botched reporting; she was on the witness stand yesterday explaining her methods and relationship to Scooter Libby).

Second, the people in the media 'infatuated' with McCain appear to me to have been somewhat moderate conservatives who saw McCain as one of those rare Republicans willing to admit from time to time, that yes, maybe 2 + 2 = 4; maybe torture is a violation of the Constitution, maybe we need campaign finance reform, maybe the Republican culture of destruction is a bit much, etc. McCain's voting record in Congress of course, with just a handful of exceptions, was just as conservative as the majority of Republican right wingers who now dominate the party. All that changed in 2004 when McCain decided to run for president in 2008; since then, he's been trying the Rove/Bush method of political success.

The Republican Party is broken. The world knows it is broken. A majority of Americans know it is broken. The Republican Party has failed America. It continues to fail America by blocking the will of the American people on things like minimum wage and bringing the war in Iraq to a close before a greater catastrophe unfolds. If there are conservatives, moderates and liberals who look to somebody like Chuck Hagel as the person who might be able to rebuild the Republican Party, it's because we believe it's in the interests of all Americans to have two viable and functioning political parties. Republicans in recent years, with a great deal of help from the media that Pinkerton wishes to label as 'liberal,' has been very successful at winning elections and they have been dismal at governing and addressing the concerns of most Americans.

I know, when Republicans have nothing to say, they look for attack points and labeling the media as 'liberal' when they don't jump through right wing hoops is one of their lazy but somewhat effective methods of getting traction. But Pinkerton on occassion has been one of those conservatives that liberals like myself point to when we wonder if the Republican Party can return to the universe as the rest of us know it. Perhaps I was wrong.

Reporter's Account of Life in Baghdad

George W. Bush continues to insist that he knows best. The evidence over the last four years is not reassuring. Reporters who have been away from Iraq for a while are often the best witnesses of the chaos that now dominates Iraq, and particularly Baghdad. Here's a story from Hannah Allam of the McClatchy Washington Bureau (formerly the famous Knight Ridder Washington Bureau so many of us depended on in the early months of the war (note that it's still the same url)):

When I was last here in 2005, it took guts and guards, but you could still travel to most anywhere in the capital. Now, there are few true neighborhoods left. They're mostly just cordoned-off enclaves in various stages of deadly sectarian cleansing. Moving trucks piled high with furniture weave through traffic, evidence of an unfolding humanitarian crisis involving hundreds of thousands of forcibly displaced Iraqis.

(snip)

On one of my first days back, I took a little tour with my Iraqi colleagues to get reacquainted with the capital. We decided to stay on the eastern Shiite side of the Tigris River rather than play Russian roulette in the Sunni west.

Even on the relatively "safe" side of the river, a dizzying assortment of armed men roamed freely. In the space of an hour, we encountered the Badr Organization militia, the Mahdi Army militia, the Kurdish peshmerga militia, the Iraqi police, interior ministry commandos, the Iraqi military, American troops, the Oil Protection Force, the motorcade of a Communist Party official and Central Bank guards escorting an armored van.

We drove through one of my favorite districts in hopes of visiting shopkeepers I knew. But they had fled, leaving behind padlocked doors and faded signs for shops whose names now seem ironic rather than catchy: "Nuts," "Ghost Music," "Once Upon a Time."

I asked my colleagues to arrange meetings with old Iraqi sources - politicians, professors, activists and clerics - only to be told they'd been assassinated, abducted or exiled.

Even Mr. Milk is dead. The grocer we called by the name of his landmark shop in the upscale Mansour district was kidnapped and killed, along with his son, my colleagues said. The owner of a DVD shop where I once purchased a copy of "Napoleon Dynamite" also had been executed.

It's a long article. She goes on to explain that the Iraqis don't have abstract conversations about whether there's a civil war or not—it just is. Read the first three paragraphs which tell an anecdote about how arbitrary the times have become.

"Surge forward" in the middle of this chaos? John McCain, for one, doesn't have any idea of what he's talking about if he thinks 20,000 to 30,000 can help or make any sense of all the divisions and factions and points of contention within Iraq. If his friend, George W. Bush, is leaning towards a "surge" in forces and adopts that option instead of confronting his failures, it will just prolong the fiasco.

A long time ago George Washington said we needed to avoid foreign entanglements. The world has changed much since his time and it's not always possible to stay on the sidelines. There are times when a country must act, particularly when asked. But surely we can modify what Washington said: at the very least, we should avoid cultural entanglements when the way is not clear. George W. Bush and his neoconservative advisers went off to change Iraq without knowing much about the country or the people, without even being curious and realistic about how the Iraqis would respond to our presence and ideas. We should stop pretending we know what we're doing when we impose ourselves on others. And when the motives are not clear.

Bill Richardson Disagrees with John McCain

The idea of John McCain as a reasonable, straight-talking maverick is over and has been for over two years. Only the illusion remains. Former Clinton official and New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson calls for some reality in Washington; here's the story from The Hotline (via Firedoglake):

Here's what Richardson says:

“The leading advocate for escalating the war is Senator John McCain. I have served with John in Congress and I respect him. But John McCain is wrong, dead wrong to think that we can solve Iraq’s political crisis through military escalation.”

“There are no quick or easy answers to the crisis in Iraq. Our choices are between bad options and worse ones. Some prefer military escalation. Some choose staying the course. These options are illusions. The only realistic choice we have is to stand down militarily and let the Iraqis stand up and face the political crisis which only they can resolve.”

“I’ve been to Iraq and Afghanistan. I worked in this region...we should harbor no illusions. This withdrawal will not be pretty. People will die. But fewer will die than if we stay. There are no guarantees that our departure will end the civil war, but it is sure to continue so long as we stay. The Iraqis might, or might not, resolve their political crisis. It is up to them. They distrust and fear one another, and this makes it very tough. But they share one goal – they don’t want to destroy their own country. To save it, they need to stop killing each other and start compromising. And we need to get out of the way.”

When the time comes to withdraw, we will still have a military presence in the vicinity to keep Iraq's neighbors at bay. But it's time for Bush to give up his empire project and to restore a functioning foreign policy. Restoring a functioning federal government and a functioning foreign policy is the number one priority for our country, not saving Bush's failed schemes in Iraq. The roughly 25% of Americans who still support Bush's foreign policy are becoming increasingly irrelevant.