November 2006: Week Two: This Far and No Further

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"Someone remarked that it was lucky Rumsfeld had pissed off the generals, because that ruled out a military coup. I wasn't sure if he was joking, and probably neither was he." -- Mick Farren

Rumsfeld fired

November 8: Bush fires Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, taking at least one step towards responding to the anger among American voters that swept Democrats into the House and Senate. Bush, saying he wants a "fresh perspective" on Iraq and the war against terrorism, intends to name former CIA director Robert Gates to the position. "Now after a series of thoughtful conversations, Secretary Rumsfeld and I agreed that the time is right for new leadership at the Pentagon," Bush says. Rumsfeld has become a lightning rod for criticism of the war in Iraq. Most Democrats, some Republicans, and a large number of retired generals and field commanders have called for Rumsfeld's resignation. Just last week Bush gave both Rumsfeld and Vice President Cheney his seal of approval, saying that the two had done "fantastic" work and that he intended to see that both remained in their positions through the end of his term. It is unclear whether Rumsfeld's firing is an actual effort at addressing Americans' concerns about Iraq, or whether Rumsfeld is a sacrificial lamb designed to take the pressure off of Bush to reform his policies. Nancy Pelosi, the incoming Democratic Speaker of the House, said just before the announcement that Bush needs to "change the civilian leadership of the Pentagon" as a signal of "a change of direction on the part of the president" and of "openness to fresh ideas" on Iraq.
Bush says, unconvincingly, that he had decided to replace Rumsfeld before the elections, but he "didn't want to inject a major decision about this war in the final days of the campaign. Win or lose, Bob Gates was going to become the nominee." This is hard to believe because the Republicans were desperately scrambling to find something to help staunch their prospective losses on November 7, and sacrificing Rumsfeld might have won a good number of votes back to the Republicans. Bush calls Rumsfeld "a superb leader during a time of change," but adds that he "also appreciates the value of bringing a fresh perspective." Gates, the former CIA director under Bush's father and a close Bush family friend and political ally, is, according to Bush Junior, "a steady, solid leader who can help make the necessary adjustments" in managing the war in Iraq. Gates came under fire during his tenure as a Reagan intelligence advisor for massaging intelligence reports to fit Reagan's own perceptions. He also was investigated for his ties with the Iran-Contra scandal, and though he cleared the Senate nomination inquiry to be named head of the CIA, Senators said they would closely monitor Gates for any further malfeasance. In 1991, during Gates's nomination hearings, Democratic senator Tom Harkin objected to Gates, saying, "... I had serious reservations about the nominee. The confirmation hearings only raised more questions and greater doubts. Questions and doubts about Mr. Gates' past activities, managerial style, judgment, lapses in memory and analytical abilities. Questions and doubts about his role in the Iran-Contra Affair and in providing military intelligence to Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war; and questions and doubts about whether he will be able to remove the ideological blinders reflected in his writings and speeches or whether Mr. Gates is so rooted in the past, that he will not be able to lead the Agency into the post-cold war era. Because of these concerns, I have concluded that Mr. Gates is not the right person for the important job of overseeing our intelligence operations in this New World."
Of the war itself, Bush says that he understands the election results prove that many Americans are "frustrated" with the lack of progress in Iraq: "I am too. I wish this had gone faster. So does Secretary Rumsfeld. But the reality is this is a tough fight...and we're going to win the fight. The only way we won't win is if we leave before the job is done." To the nation's enemies, Bush warns, "Do not be joyful. Do not confuse the workings of our democracy with a lack of will." He then says, "To the people of Iraq: Do not be fearful. ...America is going to stand with you." Bush's campaign rhetoric has called Democrats "appeasers" who want to give in to the terrorists and said as recently as last week that a victory for Democrats is a victory for terrorism.
Later in the day, Bush admits that he out-and-out lied about keeping Rumsfeld on in his statement last week. On November 1, he said, "Both those men are doing fantastic jobs and I strongly support them." Today he tells a reporter who asks about the statement, "You and Hunt and Keil came into the Oval Office and asked me the question one week before the campaign. Basically, are you going to do something about Rumsfeld and the Vice President? The reason why is I did not want to make a major decision in the final days of the campaign. The only way to answer that question, and get it on to another question, was to give you that answer. The truth of the matter is as well, that is one reason I gave the answer. The other reason why is I had not had a chance to visit with Bob Gates yet. I had not had my final conversation with Don Rumsfeld yet at that point. I had been talking with Don Rumsfeld over a period of time about fresh perspectives. He likes to call it fresh eyes."
For his part, Rumsfeld does not go quietly. Standing next to Bush during the announcement of his "resignation," Rumsfeld says, in essence, that he lost his job because Americans are not capable of understanding the reasons behind the war in Iraq. He says the war "is not well-known. It was not well-understood. It is complex for people to comprehend." As for the firestorm of criticism he has weathered for the last several years, he ironically quotes Winston Churchill: "I have benefitted greatly from criticism, and at no time have I suffered a lack thereof."
Democrat Ike Skelton, the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, says that Rumsfeld's departure only has meaning if it herald a real change in US policy towards Iraq and the Middle East. "I think it is critical that this change be more than just a different face on the old policy," he says. Many observers worry that Rumsfeld's firing is merely another marketing tactic to sell the same essential policies in a new package with a new face on the cover. So far, Bush has said nothing substantive on the topic. (Washington Post, Congressional Record/Federation of American Scientists, Think Progress, AP/Chicago Sun-Times)
November 8: As noted in the above item, during his announcement to the press of the resignation, or firing, of Donald Rumsfeld, Bush admits flat-ouot that he lied to the press when, on November 1, he told reporters that he thought Rumsfeld was doing a "fantastic" job and intended to keep him on throughout his second term. Bush tells reporters that he didn't tell reporters then of his putative plans to fire Rumsfeld because he "didn't want to inject a major decision about this war in the final days of a campaign." With very few exceptions, American news outlets have avoided characterizing what Bush did as a lie or intentional misrepresentation, even though Bush himself admitted to a deliberate deception. -- this, despite Bush's own admission of a deliberate deception. Some outlets even fail to acknowledge Bush's November 1 statement that Rumsfeld would stay.
CNN's John King says that Bush "fudged" his statement, even though King had earlier acknowledged that Bush admitted he previously claimed Rumsfeld would remain in the administration because he "didn't want the news to come out before the election ... so, essentially, he didn't tell the whole truth." Prior to concluding that Bush "fudged," King says, "Did he lie to the wire service reporters? Did he just withhold information? You know, we can have a semantics debate to the end." MSNBC's conservative talk show host Tucker Carlson is initially more forthright, telling Republican strategist Ed Rogers that Bush "knew that that was a lie" when he said Rumsfeld would stay on, but later, when Rogers accused Carlson of "wanting to suggest that [Bush] was deceitful," Carlson backs off, saying, "[m]aybe he was deceitful, maybe not." Carlson really reaches next, saying that "[m]aybe, [Bush] didn't know when he said that that he was going to sack Donald Rumsfeld," even though Bush himself acknowledged otherwise during the November 8 press conference. CBS's John Axelrod is much more forgiving, merely saying that "[t]he move comes after recent guarantees Rumsfeld was welcome until the end of Mr. Bush's term" and that "Mr. Bush completely reversed course." A number of correspondents and anchors go with the less semantically powerful term "misled," including ABC's Martha Raddatz, NBC's David Gregory, and the Washington Post. And some ignore Bush's lie altogether, as in NBC Today show host Matt Lauer's interview with White House senior advisor Dan Bartlett, who fails altogether to mention Bush's statement of November 1 in his questioning of Bartlett about the firing, even when Bartlett stated that it was "too important of a decision -- who is going to be the leader of the military during a time of war -- to inject into the final weeks or days of a campaign." Similarly, a November 9 USA Today editorial fails to mention the statement, as does Fox News correspondent Brett Baier.
A few reporters actually step up to the plate, including CNN's Lou Dobbs, who tells his viewers that Bush's reversal on Rumsfeld "could also be framed as a straight-out lie," and adds that "[y]ou have to give him credit for being candid about the fact that he lied, but he straightforwardly lied." Dobbs is responding to Republican strategist Ed Rollins's assertion that Bush's November 1 statement -- that "he was keeping Rumsfeld 'till the end" -- was "not an honest statement" and that Bush had "basically misle[d] the press." CNN's Anderson Cooper says, "[W]hy would the president either say that last week about Donald Rumsfeld, when, apparently, he now admitted today, he knew all along that wasn't the case?" He adds that Bush "basically said today that he was lying." During the same segment, King, who had previously said that Bush "fudged," states that his November 1 statement "wasn't the truth." (MediaMatters)
November 8: National security advisor Stephen Hadley and his aides release a secret memo outlining a number of initiatives the US should, in Hadley's opinion, do to prop up the failing government of Iraq's prime minister Nouri al-Maliki. The memo, leaked to the New York Times on November 28, characterizes al-Maliki as weak and a willing puppet of radical sectarian militia leaders such as Moqtada al-Sadr. "Do we and Prime Minister Maliki share the same vision for Iraq?" Hadley asks. "If so, is he able to curb those who seek Shia hegemony or the reassertion of Sunni power? The answers to these questions are key in determining whether we have the right strategy in Iraq." While Hadley found al-Maliki quite receptive and reassuring in their recent discussions, the realities, according to US commanders in Iraq, are quite different. Al-Maliki is trying to show his strength and independence by defying the US in a number of areas, particularly in his cooperation with the Shi'ite militias against US wishes: "Perhaps because he is frustrated over his limited ability to command Iraqi forces against terrorists and insurgents, Maliki has been trying to show strength by standing up to the coalition. Hence the public spats with us over benchmarks and the Sadr City roadblocks." Additionally, al-Maliki seems to be responsible for the Iraqi government's refusal to provide basic services to Sunni citizens, its refusal to intervene against Shi'ite death squads targeting Sunnis -- even encouraging them to attack Sunni citizens -- and its efforts to purge Sunnis and other non-Shi'a lawmakers and officials from government ministries. "[A]ll suggest a campaign to consolidate Shi'a power in Baghdad," Hadley writes. Hadley says it is impossible to tell how much of this is because of al-Maliki's willing participation and how much he is being gulled and manipulated by his ideologically rigid Shi'a advisors who "color...his actions and interpretation of reality. His intentions seem good when he talks with Americans, and sensitive reporting suggests he is trying to stand up to the Shia hierarchy and force positive change. But the reality on the streets of Baghdad suggests Maliki is either ignorant of what is going on, misrepresenting his intentions, or that his capabilities are not yet sufficient to turn his good intentions into action."
Hadley has a number of suggestions for al-Maliki to consider that would "improve the information he receives, demonstrate his intentions to build an Iraq for all Iraqis and increase his capabilities." Among other suggestions, Hadley recommends that al-Maliki take steps to ensure delivery of services to all ethnic communities, close down his political association with al-Sadr's Mahdi Army and "bring to justice any [Mahdi Army] actors that do not eschew violence," appoint more non-sectarian "technocrats" to key posts in the various ministries, overhaul his own personal staff "so that 'it reflects the face of Iraq,'" demand that all government workers renounce violence, announce his support of the renewal of the UN mandate for multinational forces to enforce peace throughout Iraq and renegotiate the US's military role in providing security, suspend continuing de-Ba'athification measures and other measures that would "inject momentum back into the reconciliation process," announce plans to expand the Iraqi Army, and demand the immediate suspension of corrupt Iraqi police units, and embed US and other coalition troops into Iraq's security forces while those forces are "revetted and retrained."
Hadley says the US can help al-Maliki shore up his foundering government by: escalating the attempts to eradicate al-Qaeda and insurgent strongholds in Baghdad "to demonstrate the Shia do not need the [Mahdi Army] to protect their families -- and that we are a reliable partner," encourage American ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad to let al-Maliki take more credit for positive developments and build up his credibility as a strong leader, work harder to give Sunnis more involvement in the political process, support his announcement of expansion of the Iraqi Army and reform of the police and security forces, try to find ways to give al-Maliki more control over at least some of Iraq's own military and security forces, continue to pressure Iran and Syria to end their interference in Iraq "in part by hitting back at Iranian proxies in Iraq and by Secretary Rice holding an Iraq-plus-neighbors meeting in the region in early December," and up the US efforts to get Saudi Arabia, a Sunni nation, to take more of "role in supporting Iraq by using its influence to move Sunni populations in Iraq out of violence into politics, to cut off any public or private funding provided to the insurgents or death squads from the region and to lean on Syria to terminate its support for Baathists and insurgent leaders."
Hadley notes that much of the above will be difficult to implement even if al-Maliki is willing and capable. He risks his own political standing, both with his Sadrist backers and with Shi'ites in general, and implementation of some of these measures could trigger the downfall of his government. Al-Maliki's history as a senior member of the Shi'ite Dawa Party, which Hadley calls "an underground conspiratorial movement during Saddam's rule" makes him naturally distrustful of any outside actors, including the US and other non-Shi'a parties inside Iraq, making him less willing to "expand his circle of advisers or take action against the interests of his own Shia coalition and for the benefit of Iraq as a whole." Hadley says the US might have to try to help al-Maliki forge "a new political base among moderate politicians from Sunni, Shia, Kurdish and other communities. Ideally, this base would constitute a new parliamentary bloc that would free Maliki from his current narrow reliance on Shia actors." This would, of course, alienate al-Maliki from many of his traditional religious, ethnic, and sectarian supporters among the Shi'a.
"We should waste no time in our efforts to determine al-Maliki's intentions and, if necessary, to augment his capabilities," Hadley asserts, and lays out several actions to give al-Maliki the necessary assistance and impetus.
Author and political commentator and consultant Chris Weigant finds Hadley's memo "stunning." Weigert observes that Hadley's memo "is an earth-shattering indictment of the Bush administration's complete and utter cluelessness about Iraq. The suggestions contained within it read like a Karl Rove election playbook, which is to say it is absolutely divorced from reality." Harsh conclusions, but Weigert shares his reasoning, and concludes that if Hadley's ideas are followed, the situation in Iraq will get far worse, far more quickly, than most people anticipate. One of the most egregrious suggestions is for al-Maliki to reform his political base and divorce himself from his Sadrist base. Al-Maliki depends on the Mahdi Army and the Sadrists in Iraq's parliament for his political backing. Such a suggestion would be political suicide, akin to Bush deciding to one day reinvent himself by dumping his conservative, evangelical base and shoring up his political fortunes by soliciting the support of liberals and progressives. Hadley also suggests that al-Maliki purge his cabinet of his sectarian backers and replace the members with nonsectarian technocrats. Al-Maliki also should, in Hadley's view, "overhaul" his own staff to more closely "reflect...the face of Iraq." Weigert writes, "So our prescription for Maliki to win the hearts and minds of his people is for him to completely abandon the people who voted for him, and also his cabinet, and even his personal staff. This would leave him in a very lonely position indeed." Indeed, notes Weigert, Hadley's prescription makes more sense if the US actually wants to see al-Maliki chased out of office.
Weigert calls Hadley's advice "delusion[al]," writing that "Hadley seems to think that forcing Maliki to become an even-more-obvious puppet to America's whims by doing what we tell him to do (which would also be political suicide for Maliki) is going to increase his popularity in Iraq. Most of Iraq already sees him as an American puppet, and this would only serve to convince everyone in Iraq who hasn't already made up their mind." But Hadley has foreseen the problem, and answers it by suggesting that the US "help him form a new political base among moderate politicians from Sunni, Shia, Kurdish and other communities. Ideally, this base would constitute a new parliamentary bloc that would free Maliki from his current narrow reliance on Shia actors. ...In its creation, Maliki would need to be willing to risk alienating some of his Shia political base and may need to get the approval of Ayatollah Sistani for actions that could split the Shia politically. Second, we need to provide Maliki with additional forces of some kind." Weigert is frankly disbelieving: "Got that? Maliki is going to desert his base, and form a new political alliance with all of the moderates in Parliament from all three factions (assumably right before they all sit around a campfire, hold hands, and sing 'Kumbaya'). Oh, and we'll help him convince Sistani to go along with this grand scheme to divide the Shi'ites and make them powerless, since we have so much leverage over him. Remember, Sistani has yet to once even talk to any American about anything -- he just refuses to see whoever tries. I love that coda, too: 'additional forces of some kind.' If we all clap our hands loudly enough, Tinkerbell is going to wave her magic wand and three or four brigades of troops will appear!"
Hadley suggests that the US can use its own "political capital" in Iraq to help form this moderate bloc by giving them funding to "help build a nonsectarian national movement." Weigert counters, "Republicans can't even win elections in this country, and yet here they are proposing an unbelievable amount of meddling with Iraq's political system (again, which would be seen by Iraqis as setting up our own puppet regime), which they actually think has a snowball's chance in hell of working. Someone needs to grab Stephen Hadley and scream at him 'anyone who takes American money is not going to be a viable politician in Iraq!' until he understands this basic fact."
Overall, Weigert dismisses Hadley as "so divorced from the reality of Iraq that he is proposing such things as part of what he sees as a viable, workable plan to create a nonsectarian Iraqi government. This is sheer folly, and absolute delusion, and yet it is presented to the President as the sum total of our intelligence on the ground in Iraq? And the media doesn't even bother to point it out?" And as his own coda, Weigert makes the side observation, "Early on in the memo, without apparently realizing it, Hadley has written the most hilariously ironic thing ever written by any member of the Bush administration, bar none (pot, meet kettle...): 'The information he receives is undoubtedly skewed by his small circle of Dawa advisors, coloring his actions and interpretation of reality.' Just change 'Dawa' to 'neo-con' and the sentence would fit perfectly -- for President Bush." (New York Times [full text of memo], Huffington Post)
November 8: Most observers in other countries see the Democratic gains in the US Congress as a strong repudiation of Bush's Iraq policies, and say they expect the US's policies in Iraq to undergo serious reassessment. Some governments are also hoping that the US will put a real emphasis on trade policy and human rights. Many watching the election said the results were a significant blow to Bush's presidency. "Although his term will not end within the next year, I think Bush is already turning into a lame duck," says Tokyo businessman Yuzo Yamamoto. "Voters have punished the Republicans. They are not happy with the way the leadership has handled the Iraq war," says Chandra Muzaffar, president of the Malaysia-based think-tank International Movement for a Just World. "The Republicans lost in the election because the American voters are now fed up and bored with the war," says Vitaya Wisetrat, a prominent anti-American Muslim cleric in Thailand. "The American people now realize that Bush is the big liar." Echoing the sentiment of many in Muslim countries, Indonesian lawmaker Ahmad Sumargono hopes that the results would prompt a reassessment of American policies in Iraq and elsewhere. "I am optimistic that American people have now realized the mistakes made by Bush in foreign policy. We hope this leads to significant changes, especially toward the Middle East," he says. Abdul Hamid Mubarez, an Afghan analyst and former deputy Afghan information and culture minister, says he hoped that Democratic victories would lead to more reconstruction money for his nation, which has been largely ignored by the Bush administration since the fall of the Taliban in late 2001. Some Chinese businessmen and politicians fear that the Democrats will emphasize human rights, trade and labor issues, and balancing the US trade deficit with China. "The Democratic Party...will protect the interests of small and medium American enterprises and labor and that could produce an impact on China-US trade relations," says Zhang Guoqing of the state-run Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. The shift in favor of the Democrats may complicate Japan's diplomatic approach to the US. For years, the Japanese have been able to successfully woo Bush's White House, knowing that the Republican Congress would largely follow its lead. Now that strategy will have to change, says Tsuneo Watanabe, senior fellow at Mitsui Global Strategic Studies Institute in Tokyo. "Now it's time for the Japanese, the embassy in Washington, to spend more time on Congress," he says. (AP/Yahoo! News)
November 8: The Iraqi Minister of Health releases an estimate of 150,000 Iraqi civilians that have died during the war, a tremendous increase from previous estimates released by US and Iraqi officials. Currently the unofficial toll stands at between 49,000 and 52,000 Iraqi dead; the US has never bothered to issue any kind of official number. Meanwhile, Sunni Muslims are threatening to walk away from politics and begin a full-scale insurgency, while the Shi'ite-dominated government is demanding that the US unleash the Iraqi army to crush the Sunnis. Previous estimates of Iraq deaths held that 45,000-50,000 have been killed in the nearly 44-month-old conflict, according to partial figures from Iraqi institutions and media reports. No official count has ever been available. In October, the British medical journal Lancet published a controversial study contending nearly 655,000 Iraqis have died because of the war -- a far higher death toll than other estimates. The study, which was dismissed by Bush and other US officials as not credible, was based on interviews of households and not a body count. Accurate figures on the number of people who have died in the Iraq conflict have long been the subject of debate. Police and hospitals often give widely conflicting figures of those killed in major bombings. In addition, death figures are reported through multiple channels by government agencies that function with varying efficiency. The US has long stated that it was not particularly concerned with tracking the number of civilian dead. The head of the Baghdad central morgue says he is receiving as many as 60 violent death victims each day at his facility alone. Dr. Abdul-Razzaq al-Obaidi says those deaths do not include victims of violence whose bodies were taken to the city's many hospital morgues or those who were removed from attack scenes by relatives and quickly buried according to Muslim custom. "The army of America didn't do its job. ...They tie the hands of my government," says Health Minister Ali al-Shemari. "They should hand us the power. We are a sovereign country." He adds that the first step would be for American forces to leave population centers. Al-Shemari, a Shi'ite, is a member of the hardline movement of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. (AP/Yahoo! News)
November 8: While the Iraq war may have been the overarching reason that brought Democrats into control of the Senate, a key factor in the Democratic takeover of the House was the scandals plaguing Republican incumbents. Nationally, more voters named corruption as an extremely important factor in their House vote than any other issue. 41% of voters said corruption was as an extremely important factor in their vote, compared to 39% who said terrorism and 39% who said the economy. Of those naming corruption as an extremely important issue in their vote, 60% voted for the Democrat, compared to 36% who voted for the Republican candidate. At least 13 seats that switched from Republican to Democrat involved Republicans mired in scandal. Although high profile scandals involving Jack Abramoff and Mark Foley touched the most races, numerous isolated scandals also affected incumbent House Republicans. The Foley scandal cost several Republicans their seats, including, of course, Foley's own FL-16 district, which had been considered virtually untouchable by Democrats before Foley's sexual predations became news. Two other Foley-connected House Republicans lost: Sue Kelly, in NY-19, who suffered criticism for not being more aware of Foley's problem when she was Chair of the House Page Board from 1999-2001, and Jim Ryun, in KS-02, who lost when he tried to conceal his fundraising connections to Foley.
Two Republicans, Don Sherwood in PA-10, and John Sweeney, NY-20, lost over their mistreatment of women: Sherwood after being accused of assaulting his mistress, and Sweeney after it was revealed that his wife had filed a complaint of domestic abuse.
The Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal also hurt several incumbent Republicans. Abramoff pled guilty earlier this year to felony counts of conspiracy, fraud, and tax evasion in connection to charges stemming from his lobbying activities on behalf of several Native American tribes. Although the ongoing investigation has only implicated a few members of Congress, at least four incumbent Republicans have lost their re-election campaigns because of their inability to explain campaign contributions they have received from Abramoff and his clients. Bob Ney resigned from his OH-18 seat after pleading guilty to conspiracy for using his position as the Chairman of the House Administration Committee to grant favors to Abramoff in exchange for trips and meals. Joy Padgett, who won the special primary to replace Ney, was defeated by Democrat nominee Zachary Space. Republican Charles Taylor, representing NC-11, lost after refusing to explain the numerous donations he had received from Abramoff and his clients. Richard Pombo was defeated in CA-11 after it was revealed that he had helped one of Abramoff's clients, the Mashpee Indians of Massachusetts, gain official recognition in exchange for campaign funds. And Republican Gil Gutknecht, who also received funds from Abramoff's clients, lost in MN-11.
The Abramoff scandal was not the only corruption scandal to undermine Republican House members. Four incumbents lost, in part, due to ethical issues raised during their campaigns. CO-07's Rick O'Donnell lost in part because of reports revealing that he had flown to Panama on a weekend trip financed by a television network doing business with the state agency he headed. PA-07's Curt Weldon lost after it was revealed that he had used his position to help his daughter's company obtain lobbying contracts with, among others, corrupt Russian oil firms. TX-22 went to Democrats after the resignation of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, indicted on criminal conspiracy charges in a campaign financing scheme. After failing to have DeLay's name removed from the ballot, Republicans attempted to coordinate a write-in campaign for Shelly Sekula-Gibbs, but she was defeated by Democrat nominee Nick Lampson. And FL-22's Clay Shaw lost, in part, for taking contributions from DeLay's political action committee and refusing to return the funds. (CBS News)
November 8: The Wisconsin GOP thought that its decision to force a proposal to ban same-sex marriage on the ballot would drive up the vote for Republican candidates. The tactic worked in Ohio and other states two years ago. Instead, it seems to have cost the GOP votes. "The timing ended up backfiring," says Republican representative Jim Sensenbrenner, who himself won re-election. "I think the opposite worked out this time." While the amendment itself passed by a 59% to 41% margin, the amendment energized Democratic and liberal voters, who turned out in much larger numbers than expected. "We're very happy," says Democratic state representative Mark Pocan, "and we definitely saw this as a product of the turnout on the college campuses." The Wisconsin State Assembly lost eight Republicans to Democratic opponents, reducing the GOP's once formidable control of the house to what now appears to be a 52-47 margin. Democrats gained control of the state senate by knocking out four Republicans. The grassroots organization Fair Wisconsin helped immensely by helping many Democrats, including incumbent governor Jim Doyle, keep or gain their seats. "Fair Wisconsin did a good job of turning out the college vote," says Republican Party executive director Rick Wiley. "They ended up being Doyle's turnout vehicle." By putting the same-sex marriage and death penalty measures on the same ballot, Sensenbrenner says, Republican leaders in the legislature ended up drawing the wrong type of voter to the polls for their purposes -- Democrats, especially conservative ones. Those people voted for the ballot proposals but against Republican candidates. "It was a lose-lose situation," he says. "You had Reagan Democrats and socially conservative union members who wanted to vote yes and yes [on the referendums] and then voted for Doyle. And then you had liberals who voted no on both, then voted for Democrats." (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel)
November 8: Human rights attorney Joanne Mariner writes an analysis of the legal ramifications of the Bush administration's recent admission that for years the CIA has run a system of secret overseas prisons, housing more than 100 terrorism suspects over the last five years, and the impact of the newly passed Military Commissions Act on the subject. The recent Hamdan v. Rumsfeld decision of the US Supreme Court declared flatly that such a secret detention system is illegal. (See item in the June 2006 page of this site.) The Court ruled that al-Qaeda suspects were protected by Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, the protections of which do not allow the "disappearance" and torture of detainees. The decision caused CIA and senior administration officials to suddenly fear their own criminal prosecution under a variety of war-crime statutes, and directly led to the suspension of the CIA detention program and the transfer of 14 CIA detainees to Guantanamo. Mariner writes, "[I]t was the existence of the CIA program, not the need to prosecute terrorists (who, after all, have been successfully prosecuted in the federal courts for decades) that lies behind the recent passage of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA)."
Just as under the most brutally repressive totalitarian regimes, detainees held by the CIA were effectively "disappeared." The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) had no access to them; neither did any court or other independent monitoring authority, and their families had no idea where they were or even whether they were dead or alive. According to the testimony of former detainees, as well as numerous intelligence sources, the detainees in the program were subject to serious abuses. In a recent book, author Ron Suskind wrote that CIA personnel threatened Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, thought to be the architect of the 9/11 attacks, by telling him they would harm his seven- and nine-year-old children. The United States had sunk, Suskind wrote, "into the darkest of ethical abysses." The CIA also subjected Mohammed and a number of others to water-boarding, a form of torture that simulates drowning -- and can, if improperly administered, drown the victim. While CIA director Porter Goss last year defended water-boarding as a "professional interrogation technique," few outside observers agree. Over 100 law professors sent a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez earlier this year stating unequivocally that waterboarding constitutes torture, a felony punishable under US law. According to former CIA detainee Khalid el-Masri, the CIA also beat detainees, hung them up by their arms, stuffed them into suitcases so that they felt they were suffocating, and kept them for long periods of time in the dark. But Bush has come out foursquare for these "alternative procedures" of interrogation. Unfortunately, the pretty marketing rhetoric covers up nothing; the techniques are still torture, and the disappearences are still violations of the Geneva Conventions and of the most fundamental of moral and ethical law.
Instead of owning up to his administration's transgressions, Bush led a Republican charge to pass the controversial MCA, which contains a number of provisions that were crafted with the CIA detention program specifically in mind. Mariner goes into some detail about the CIA-based provisions, but they can be roughly summed up into three main areas: "First, the MCA amends the War Crimes Act to decriminalize certain past abuses against detainees. The goal here was to immunize the CIA from domestic prosecution for the crimes it committed in interrogating the prisoners in its custody. Second, the law allows military commission defendants to be tried and executed on the basis of coerced testimony, hearsay, and classified evidence that they have no meaningful way to confront. These provisions make it very likely that defendants will be prosecuted on the basis of statements taken from detainees previously held in the CIA program. And, although the law bars the admission of evidence obtained under torture, one can be certain that the administration will continue to argue that water-boarding and other 'alternative techniques' are not torturous. Already, a precedent for this approach exists in the administrative tribunals used on Guantanamo to assess whether a detainee is an enemy combatant. It has been reported that testimony obtained from CIA detainees, as well as from Guantanamo detainees who have been abused, has been widely used as the basis for these tribunals' decisions. Third, the MCA contains several provisions that are meant to bar the public from ever hearing direct testimony about the CIA's abusive methods. These provisions allow the government to protect the 'sources, methods or activities by which the United States acquired evidence' if those practices are classified. Because the government has said that all 'alternative' interrogation procedures are classified -- indeed, in a recent court filing in a case filed on behalf of one of the former CIA detainees, it said that they are 'Top Secret,' the government's highest classification level -- these provisions are likely to prevent military commission defendants from publicly revealing any information about their torture or mistreatment. Nor will the defendants' attorneys be able to report these abuses on their behalf. Attorneys who represent Guantanamo detainees are required to sign agreements that restrict their ability to speak publicly. They must turn over all their notes and documents before they leave Guantanamo, and they can only speak about the information they have obtained from their clients after it undergoes classification review. Only if the information is declassified can it be disseminated. But rest assured, information about CIA abuses will not be declassified. Moreover, with the new group of just-transferred CIA detainees, the administration has already indicated in court filings that it wants to tighten the existing rules."
Mariner concludes, "Everyone knows that after the crime, comes the cover-up. In this case, the government is not only taking aggressive steps to prevent its crimes from coming to light, it has also tried to ensure that when and if these crimes come to public attention, the perpetrators are protected from punishment." (FindLaw)
November 8: Dennis Hastert confirms that he will probably not seek to regain his post as Speaker of the House for the lame-duck session of the 109th Congress, nor will he attempt to be named House Minority Leader. Hastert, like every other Republican leader, will lose his leadership position in January when the Democrat-led 110th Congress convenes in January. The battle to succeed him will be bruising, Time reports, as various Republicans attempt to allocate blame for the Foley scandal and the devastating losses to the Democrats on November 7. Among those seeking to replace Hastert at the top of the House leadership, which will now be the minority leader, are current House Majority Leader John Boehner, now second in the House leadership, and Mike Pence, chairman of the House conservative caucus, the Republican Study Committee. Other possible candidates are Eric Cantor, now chief deputy whip and one of the most popular and hard-working members of the leadership, and Joe Barton, now chairman of Energy and Committee. (Time)
November 8: An angry and frustrated Rush Limbaugh, railing about the across-the-board losses suffered by Republicans in the midterms, tells his radio listeners that Republicans are to blame for their own demise at the polls by failing to run a campaign trumpeting conservative values. "You and I hunger for ideological leadership and we're not getting it from the top. Conservatism, conservative ideology was nowhere to be found in this campaign from the top," Limbaugh says. "The Democrats beat something with nothing. They didn't have to take a stand on anything other than their usual anti-war position. They had no clear agenda and believe me, they didn't dare offer one. Liberalism will still lose every time it's offered." Limbaugh says Republicans allowed themselves to be defined by Democrats and the media, and says they instead should have gone on the offensive: "It's silly to blame the media. It is silly to blame the Democrats. It is silly to go out and try to find all these excuses. We have proven we can beat them. We've proven we can beat Democrats. We've proven we can withstand whatever we get from the drive-by media. Conservatism does that. Conservatism properly applied -- proudly, eagerly with vigor and honesty -- will triumph that nine times out of 10 in this current political environment and social environment in this country. It just wasn't utilized in this campaign." He says the primary reason Republicans didn't campaign on their beliefs is "fear of criticism from those in the so-called establishment; and nobody wants to be criticized and nobody wants to go through their life in fear." Instead, he says, "We all know that there's very positive things happening out there, but it was not trumpeted by the people who should have been shouting it from the rooftops because they were proud of it. They should have been shouting it from the rooftops, 'Look what we've done! Look how America can improve. Look how your future is brighter!'...instead of allowing the template to be set by its critics. ...You have a defensive, Gee-I'm-afraid-of-my-shadow Republican Party."
Limbaugh quickly moves to announce his own "divorce" from touting Republicans no matter what. "I feel liberated," he says. "I no longer am gonna have to carry the water for people who I think don't deserve having their water carried. ...If those in our party who are going to carry the day in the future both in Congress and the administration are going to choose a different path than what most of us believe, then that's liberating. ...There have been a bunch of things going on in Congress. Some of this legislation coming out of there that I have just cringed at. And it has been difficult coming in here trying to make the case for it when the people who supposedly in favor of it can't even make the case themselves." During the last mid-term congressional election in 2002, Limbaugh proclaimed the Democratic Party to be in total chaos, and advised it to drop failed strategies if members wish to see political gains in the future. "They're a party in total disarray, total collapse, total chaos," he said at the time. During the 2004 campaign, Limbaugh said the Democratic Party was completely without a leader in its hunt to regain the White House, and members were desperately trying to invent one. "They are so absent leadership right now it's a joke," said Limbaugh, "and everybody knows this in the media, and the Democrats are out trying to manufacture one -- they're trying to create one. And they've got this list of nine candidates for the Democratic nomination, and nobody can name one of them." Limbaugh has consistently touted Republican candidates, lawmakers, and ideology, never voicing any criticism of Republicans on any topic. (World Net Daily)
November 8: The controversial Christian kids' summer camp profiled in the documentary Jesus Camp will shut down for several years due to bad publicity generated by the film, according to camp director Becky Fischer. "Right now we're just not a safe ministry," says Fischer. "I don't think we'll be doing it for a while." The film, which includes scenes of disgraced Colorado Springs pastor Ted Haggard with the children, focuses on Fischer's dictatorial, sometimes vicious tactics in programming the camp children to prepare themselves for "spiritual and political warfare." The film shows children rolling around the church floor "speaking in tongues," tearfully praying to God to end abortion, and praying for, and apparently to, a huge display of George W. Bush. Critics accuse Fischer of "brainwashing" the camp children. The camp is known as "The Fire Center," and operates near Bismarck, North Dakota. The program is called "Kids on Fire." In one scene, directors Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady visit Haggard's 14,000-member New Life Church in Colorado Springs. He tells the vast audience, "We don't have to debate about what we should think about homosexual activity. It's written in the Bible." Then Haggard looks into the camera and says kiddingly, "I think I know what you did last night," drawing laughs from the crowd. "If you send me a thousand dollars, I won't tell your wife." Later, Haggard tells the filmmakers, apparently jokingly, "If you use any of this, I'll sue you." Haggard also leads the audience in praying for President Bush to select a Supreme Court nominee who supports their beliefs (it would end up being Samuel Alito) and later brags about the rapid expansion of evangelicalism. "It's got enough growth to essentially sway every election," Haggard says with a smile. "If the evangelicals vote, they determine the election." For the last three years, Fischer has rented a campground in Devils Lake from the Assemblies of God, one of the largest national churches in the Pentecostal movement. But Fischer says she was asked not to return after vandals broke windows and caused $1,500 in damage at the campground in October. She blames people who saw the film for the damage. (Seattle Times)
November 8: The media is already beginning rampant speculation as to what the House of Representatives will be like with Nancy Pelosi as Speaker. She will lead the new Democratic majority in the House once the new Congress formally begins its two-year term in January 2007. She has been vilified by Republicans as a shrill, out-of-touch liberal from "wacky" San Francisco who wants higher taxes and a cowardly desire to appease terrorists. But that effort did not resound with voters, as hardly anyone outside California or Washington knows who she is. That is ready to change, with Pelosi becoming the national face of the Democratic Party, facing the task of unifying a diverse and fractious group of Democrats from across the ideological spectrum while attempting to work with a hostile and uncooperative president. Party unity is always a challenge with the widely spread, ideologically diverse Democrats, but under Pelosi's leadershio as minority leader she managed to achieve just such unity 88% of the time, even on contentious issues such as energy policy and Social Security. Pelosi intend to move forward with what she calls the "New Direction" agenda, a set of initiatives beginning with an increase in the minimum wage, lower Medicare prescription drug prices, and a new plan for Iraq, that she hopes both liberal and conservative Democrats can join forces to support. Her first task in dealing with new positions is the battle brewing between John Murtha and Steny Hoyer for House Majority Leader. The post of majority whip is likely to fall to South Carolina's James Clyburn, but the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Rahm Emanuel, may decide to contend for the post as well. (Los Angeles Times)
November 8: Contrary to popular belief as fed by the media, Democrats have specific plans for their Congressional leadership. On taxes, Democrats intend to prevent the repeal of the estate tax, a large priority of the Bush administration. The estate tax is often misnamed the "death tax" by conservatives; it affects less than 2% of taxpayers, and only those who are worth more than $2 million at the time of their demise. The estate tax is being phased out under current law, disappearing entirely in 2010, but will return in 2011 with an exemption of "only" $1 million and a top rate of 60%. (Some financial planners call the current statute the "Throw Momma From the Train Act," because heirs stand to gain the most if their benefactors die in 2010.) Democrats are likely to raise the exemption amount, possibly back to the pre-statute exemption of $2 million. Another tax to be reconsidered is the break for college tuition, called the "tuition tax break," which allows married couples with joint income of up to $130,000, or single taxpayers with income up to $65,000, to claim a $4,000 deduction for college tuition and related expenses. There is also the sales-tax deduction, which allows taxpayers to deduct sales taxes instead of state taxes on their federal returns. This one is popular with taxpayers in states that have no income tax. Lawmakers from both parties support the tax breaks, but Republicans have tied proposals to extend the deductions to legislation repealing the estate tax, a connection the Democrats oppose. A more thorny issue is the alternative minimum tax, or AMT. The AMT was created to ensure that wealthy taxpayers with lots of deductions paid a minimum tax. Because it was never indexed to inflation, and because it has been rewritten and reapplied to less affluent families by Republican lawmakers, it has increasingly hit upper-middle-income families. A $70 billion tax law enacted in May raised the amount of income that's exempt from the AMT, thereby protecting about 15 million taxpayers from the tax. But the exemption expires at the end of this year. Unless Congress acts, the number of taxpayers who will pay the AMT in 2007 will soar. Congress could extend the AMT solution through 2007. But this short-term fix is getting more expensive every year. Raising the exemption for 2006 cost about $34 billion; a new exemption would cost much more. Extending the patch through 2007 without generating offsetting revenue from somewhere else would conflict with the Democrats' promise to restore fiscal discipline to Washington. Eliminating the AMT would require fundamental changes in the tax code. To make up for the lost revenue, lawmakers would have to raise tax rates, eliminate cherished deductions, or both. It's hard to know exactly what the Democrats will eventually come together to support regarding the AMT. More information about the Democrats' agenda can be found at "The Book" (.PDF file). (USA Today)
November 8: The impact on business and federal spending of a new Democratic Congress will be widespread, many in the business community predict. Defense spending is not likely to suffer, as Democrats have been strongly insisting that the US military must be supported, both in Iraq and elsewhere, though a new focus on taking care of veterans and their families is likely, and the familiar "emergency spending" bills used to fund the Iraq war without accountability are probably a thing of the past. Spending on big-ticket items like missile defense is likely to dwindle, and spending on homeland security will probably increase. The Senate, narrowly controlled by a 51-49 Democratic majority (see items below), is not veto-proof, so it will be impossible for Democrats to ramrod legislation through without some cooperation from the White House. The famous array of Bush tax cuts which favor the wealthy and shift the burden of taxation to the middle and lower classes will be challenged, but the prospect of across-the-board tax hikes, a favorite campaign claim of Republicans, are unlikely at best. "I don't think we want taxes to move higher at all; the kinds of things we're talking about easily funded about rearranging federal priorities making sure that some of the shelters are closed -- the offshore shelters and things like that," says Democratic senator Charles Schumer. "But the Democrats are against increasing taxes. We want to become more fiscally responsible." (MSNBC)
November 8: Daily Kos blogger "Georgia10" points out that many in the mainstream media spent the weeks before the November 7 election decrying the Democrats' supposed failure to have any sort of plan for taking power in Congress. Incoming speaker Nancy Pelosi's highly targeted "100-hour plan" and more general "New Direction" agenda were ignored, and instead commentators harped on the "undoubted" likelihood that Democrats would enter the new Congress with subpoenas and impeachment proceedings in hand. "Republican talking point after Republican talking point was fed into the noise machine and irresponsible members of the Xerox media spat the distortions out without analysis," she writes. "They did not balance lies with truth as a responsible press should have done; rather, they chose to air the Republican hysteria without rebuttal." Now that the elections are over, suddenly the mainstream media has "discovered" all of these Democratic plans -- the changes planned for American taxes (and not across-the-board tax raises, as Republicans warned at every opportunity and Democrats insisted were not on the table), the plans to fight for a raise in the minimum wage, the plans to balance the budget, the plans to fix health care. Now, and only now, are Americans hearing about the 100-hour agenda and about the "New Direction" initiatives. Georgia10 writes, "Now the press chooses to report on the Democrats' agenda. Now they're laying out the difference for voters, only after they've cast their ballots. Only now have members of the press suddenly seen the Democratic plan materialize before them like some Lady of Lourdes in all her glory. Only after the votes are counted do they report that Democrat control means that DC will be bathed in the light of change. But, as we know, throughout the campaign, the plan was always there. The ideas were always apparent. The difference between the parties was always crystal clear. The Democrats didn't win because of the press. They won in spite of it, in spite of a press that gave wall-to-wall coverage of Kerry's blunder and call-me ads, in spite of a press that chose feigned scandal over true substance. In the face of such a hostile media environment, the Democrats still won. And that, my friends, is a true miracle." (Daily Kos)
November 8: During a rather glum press conference by Bush, after he gives grudging congratulations to the Democratic victors and extolls the virtues of the Republican losers, he makes an astonishing statement about the "misperception" of voters about his intention to, as was once his mantra, "stay the course" in Iraq: "Somehow it seeped in their conscious that my attitude was just simply 'stay the course.' 'Stay the course' means, let's get the job done, but it doesn't mean staying stuck on a strategy or tactics that may not be working. So perhaps I need to do a better job of explaining that we're constantly adjusting." (White House)
November 8: Fox News Vice President for news John Moody circulates an internal memo that instructs reporters and anchors how to shape perception of the elections and the Rumsfeld firing. It is an astonishing example of how far Fox News goes to manage its news reporting to put a conservative spin on the events of the day. According to the memo, Moody tells his reporters to frame the Rumsfeld firing as "a major event, but not the end of the world," and to redirect viewers' attention onto Hamas threats to attack American interests -- "the war on terror goes on," he writes: "Just because the Dems won, the war on terror isn't over." He also writes, "And let's be on the lookout for any statements from the Iraqi insurgents, who must be thrilled at the prospect of a Dem-controlled Congress." Moody says that Fox will push "the question of the day, and indeed for the rest of Bush's term[:] what's the Dems' plan for Iraq?" As for the upcoming race for House Majority Leader between Democrats Steny Hoyer and John Murtha, Moody tells his reporters to characterize the race as between "a political hawk and a political hack." At least one Fox News anchor, Martha McCollum, dutifully reports later in the day, without citing sources, "Some reports of cheering in the streets on behalf of the supporters of the insurgency in Iraq that they're very pleased with the way things are going here and also with the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld." The memo is documented on a November 14 item on the Huffington Post, provided by an anonymous source within Fox News.
The memos from Moody and other senior Fox News officials directing reporters on how to shape their coverage of the news have been reported in the past, and extensively covered in, among other places, Robert Greenwald's documentary film Outfoxed. During the 2004 presidential campaign, Moody sent out numerous memos to direct favorable coverage towards Bush. On June 3, 2003, he wrote of Bush, "His political courage and tactical cunning ar[e] [wo]rth noting in our reporting through the day." On March 23, 2004, he wrote about the 9/11 commission report: "Do not turn this into Watergate. Remember the fleeting sense of national unity that emerged from this tragedy. Let's not desecrate that." On April 6, 2004, he wrote of the war in Iraq: "Do not fall into the easy trap of mourning the loss of US lives and asking out loud why are we there? The US is in Iraq to help a country brutalized for 30 years protect the gains made by Operation Iraqi Freedom and set it on the path to democracy. Some people in Iraq don't want that to happen. That is why American GIs are dying. And what we should remind our viewers."
One of the few mainstream outlets to cover the Fox memo is MSNBC's Countdown, hosted by iconoclast Keith Olbermann, who on November 16 calls the memo "marching orders e-mailed to key staffers on how and where to slant the news. And how to adjust the facts to match the political conclusions and not the other way around." Olbermann interviews Greenwald over the memo, who says of the memo, "[I]t's the worst kind of obscenity. I really think they've crossed a new line here. In the year I spent studying them, in the memos we got from Outfoxed we compiled them. But to do it immediately after the election and to make these kinds of accusations and then to force the facts to fit what they want it to fit, really to me has brought them to a new line. If they were journalists they would be ashamed. But they're not. ...Let's make no mistake about it, this is scripted entertainment. You give an actor lines. You tell them what they're supposed to say, you tell them how to say it. That is actors, that is puppets, it has zero to do with news. And what we found in Outfoxed was these would come several times a week. Frankly, I thought that they stopped after our film, but I guess they're back in full fledged shining armor again. ...[T]hey're not a news organization. They carry out the propaganda. They carry out what the administration tells them to say. And this is just further evidence of it. The tragedy is that some people still think they're really getting real news. And in a democracy, which we love and cherish, news a critical part of it and the notion that they parade behind the banner of news, really does all of us a tremendous disservice." Olbermann asks, "[T]here are two separate references to the war on terror continuing no matter what happened in the election. There's a third reference to the Hamas threat to the US. Do you think the document originates in the Fox offices? Or is it just too paranoid to think this might be a rewrite of White House press office or Republican National Committee daily talking points?" Greenwald replies, "Well, the sad thing is it almost doesn't matter because they are so in sync with each other that you'll never see a disparity. So whether it comes from the White House or whether it comes from Fox News or they mutually feed each other, the notion of scaring and terrorizing us, when we did the Outfoxed movie, I literally had six hours worth of scare the hell out of them stuff that we couldn't put in the full film. And now you're going to see it more and more again." (Fox News/Huffington Post [includes copy of memo], MediaMatters, MSNBC/Crooks and Liars [link to Olbermann video], MSNBC)
November 8: The editors of the Middle Tennessee State University newspaper, Sidelines, calls the Senate contest between Democrat Harold Ford and Republican Bob Corker a fiasco no matter who eventually wins the race. (The editorial was apparently written while the race was still in doubt; Corker eventually pulled out a narrow victory.) The problem is, according to the editors, that Corker and Ford are so ideologically similar that voters had little real choice. "The problem is that both candidates have been vying for the votes of conservative southerners, making the election moot for moderates and liberals." Ford ran away from his party's left-leaning wing, and was, perhaps, the most ideologically conservative of the Democrats' spotlighted Senate candidates. Corker is more purely conservative, but he bobbed and weaved on the issue of Iraq (as did Ford) and ran away from being directly aligned with Bush's presidency. The MTSU editors write, "The reason for this lack of choice is partly due to the obsession to see which political party will be in power, making the Tennessee Senate election a national fiasco for all to watch, and thereby ignoring the issues that Tennesseans should be discussing to improve both the state and the nation. When the debate centers around who is going to take the House or the Senate, the issues become drowned and the details lost. For example, consider the war in Iraq. You have Ford vaguely advocating Sen. Joe Biden's (D-Delaware) plan to divide Iraq into three divisions and Corker distancing himself from Bush and his own party. It is not surprising then, considering the failure to debate, that this campaign turned sour so quickly. Because really, how can two politicians with similar goals debate? If Ford and Corker agree on the issues, then all they've got to talk about is each other." The editors also complain of the media saturation tactics employed by both parties "The late night phone calls, road signs and the TV ads (that would run consecutively, sometimes three in a row) disrupted Tennesseans' lives for two months, and for what? So that one of these two men can be shipped to Washington, DC and continue the tired partisanship that is devouring our country from the inside." The editors conclude sourly, "It doesn't matter who wins, because Tennessee has already lost." (MTSU Sidelines)
November 8: Howard Kurtz charitably describes conservative talk show hosts' demeanor the day after the election as "blood[y] but unbowed." Others could be forgiven for using more disparaging characterizations. "Democrats, in my mind, don't have a mandate because they stood for nothing," grumps radio host Laura Ingraham. Rush Limbaugh continues to fly his conservative banner: "Republicans lost last night, but conservatism did not." He then echoes Ingraham: "The Democrats beat something last night with nothing. They advanced no agenda, other than their usual antiwar position." (Interestingly, their comments are made just hours after a raft of news items hit the press and airwaves about the Democrats' various proposals, initiatives, and agendas.) Conservative agitprop purveyor Michelle Malkin says, in defiance of the results and of reality, "The GOP lost. Conservatism prevailed. 'San Francisco values' may control the gavels in Congress, but they do not control America."
Kurtz says that the conservatives talkers (and columnists, and bloggers) generally split into two camps: those who are defiant and angry, and those who are more resigned and say that the Republicans deserve at least some of what they got. The National Review's Rich Lowry falls into the second camp: "People are obviously depressed, but there's also been a sense among conservatives for a long time that Republicans deserved to be taken to the woodshed, and perhaps this will be cathartic. [The Democrats] had the virtue of not being the Republicans and benefiting from an unpopular war and not having high-profile corruption issues hung around their necks, but they also made themselves acceptable to voters." Atlanta radio host Neal Boortz is even more unforgiving on his blog: "The voters gave the Republicans a well-earned kick in the gut. [The GOP] bore little resemblance to the Republican majority that rode to power 12 years ago. In 1994 we were promised less government. Over the next 12 years the Republicans more than doubled the size of the government.... We were promised fiscal responsibility. We got a bridge to nowhere in Alaska." Blogger Dean Barnett writes, "We made a case to the American people. They didn't buy it because they thought it was a weak case. And you know what? They were right. In the closing weeks of the campaign season, I felt like I was a lawyer who had a bad client while writing this blog." Columnist Hugh Hewitt blames Republicans such as Bill Frist and John McCain, and finds a silver lining in the GOP's dark cloud by reminding us that ousted senator Rick Santorum is now available for a Supreme Court nomination.
The commentators find the timing of Bush's firing of Rumsfeld particularly befuddling. Lowry writes moments after the announcement of Rumsfeld's firing that "a lot of Republicans are probably yelling right now, 'Why didn't you do it BEFORE the election?' Of course, he couldn't have done it right before the election, but a few months ago it might have been a step toward giving the public the fresh look/approach it wanted with regard to Iraq." Ingraham says, after he show, that she is "very confused. Wasn't it just last week that the president said Rumsfeld was doing an 'excellent' job? And hasn't the president consistently said that his war policy is driven by what is happening on the ground in Iraq -- not politics or polls? Six months ago the White House could have replaced Rumsfeld, tying the decision to lack of adequate progress in the war -- but doing it the day after the election looks weak and defensive, and a move aimed at placating Speaker-to-be [Nancy] Pelosi."
Radio and Fox News host Sean Hannity gives his listeners a bit of trauma counseling: "I know a lot of you are sad. I know a lot of you are bummed. I know a lot of you are depressed.... I'll give you 24 hours and then I'm going to tell you to get over it. Don't let yourself wallow in what has happened here." Brian Maloney, on his Radio Equalizer blog, decides that the best counseling is to indulge in some Democratic-bashing: "Unlike Democrats after their 2004 election debacle, it doesn't seem likely that many conservatives will threaten to move to Canada, spend months in therapy, or engage in angry, unhinged public meltdowns. Welcome to the No-Sulk Zone!" But sulking is exactly what some posters do on the notorious Free Republic blog, home of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. One writes, in part, "'Nice Guys' finish last....inevitable. You are either perceived as weak or lacking passion. Notice how Democrats move LOCK STEP AGAINST ANYTHING Republicans do...Bush do anything right? IMPOSSIBLE! On the other hand, Republicans are constantly reaching out, accommodating, deferential...GAG, GAG, GAG. 'Wrong Direction' polls -- Democrats state something like 90-10 on that one...they concede NOTHING and simply REFUSE to be ruled by Republican anything. Republicans just try to get along. Someone on this forum said politics is a bloodsport -- so true. Democrats are ALWAYS on the attack while Republicans try to play nice and find the noble intention in their enemies somewhere." It's hard to imagine what world this poster actually inhabits. One poster at Atlas Shrugs predicts imminent Islamist takeover: "Latest results show the Dems grabbed the house. I was wrong. Score one for the Jihad media and Islamists the world over. It seems America is destined to learn the hard way. Thought the bloody reality of the Global Jihad was more powerful than leftist propaganda. Like I said, I was wrong." Another poster, at Little Green Footballs, predicts "big parties across the Middle East" in celebration of the Democratic victory. The proprietor of Captain's Quarters sounds a more reasonable note, though one with an implied warning: "[T]he American people have spoken. The majority endorsed these views, and now we have to see them play out. We can certainly criticize it -- and we will -- but we have to respect the voice of the American electorate. They wanted a different direction, and now they have to experience its consequences."
We can sum up this unsettling visit into the right-wing psyche by quoting columnist Jonah Goldberg, whose advice must speak for itself: "I think James Baker and Dick Cheney should take Bush out to the woods around Camp David. After 24 hours in a sweat lodge, he should be given only a loin cloth, a hunting knife and a canteen of water. Bush should then set out to track and kill a black bear, after which he should eat its still beating heart so he can absorb its spirit. He should then fly back to Washington in Marine 1. His torso still scratched from the bear's claws, his face bloodied and steaming in the November chill, he should immediately give a press conference at which he throws the bearskin on the front row of the press corps, completely enveloping Helen Thomas, declaring, 'I'm not going anywhere.' This will send important messages to Democrats and well as to our enemies overseas, who are no doubt high-fiving as we speak." Whatever, Jonah. (Washington Post, Daily Kos)
November 8: Some conservative media outlets seem to be confused as to how the House positions actually work. Fox News reports that Dennis Hastert will not run for "minority Speaker of the House," even though there is no such position. (They perhaps meant the actual position of House Minority Leader. Or perhaps they are just making it up.) And Hotline, the blog of the National Journal, announces that Republican John Boehner will not run for House Majority Leader. This is quite true, as that position will be filled by a Democrat. Boehner will not run for any majority position. (Fox/National Journal/Think Progress)

"It was only after he was forced to do so by an electoral defeat that President Bush called for genuine bipartisanship yesterday. Imagine what the world would look like if he had done that a year or two ago." -- E.J. Dionne, November 9

Democrats take control of the Senate

November 9: Jim Webb is declared the winner in Virginia's Senate race, defeating incumbent Republican George Allen by a razor-thin 7,236-vote margin out of approximately 2.3 million votes cast. The win for Webb gives Democrats the majority in the Senate, and complete control of Congress. Before Webb was declared the victor, the Senate had teetered on a split of 50 Democrats (including 2 independents that will be counted with the Democrats) and 49 Republicans. A win by Allen would have ensured that Republicans continued their control of the Senate with a 50-50 split, and that Vice President Dick Cheney would have cast all tie-breaking votes. Although a scant few votes in Virginia remain to be counted, the Associated Press has determined that there are not enough votes outstanding to endanger Webb's victory; Allen concedes the election in a brief afternoon statement, saying, "The people of Virginia have spoken...and I respect their decision. ...I do not wish to cause more rancor by protracted litigation which would in my judgment not alter the results." (After his statement, according to an Allen staff member, Allen goes into seclusion, and the staffer describes Allen as "shell-shocked" and going through a "nightmare." It is well known that Allen had high hopes of riding an election victory into the 2008 presidential race.) The victory means that, among other things, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid will most likely become the new majority leader in January 2007, when the new Congress formally takes power. "The days of the do-nothing Congress are over," says Reid. "In Iraq and here at home, Americans have made clear they are tired of the failures of the last six years." Republican senator Mitch McConnell, who will most likely become the new minority leader, tries to assert that his party still has some power in the Senate: "In the Senate, the minority is never irrelevant unless it falls down into the very small numbers. I don't think, as a practical matter, it's going to make a whole lot of difference in the Senate, being at 49." (AP/Yahoo! News, AP/Yahoo! News, Washington Post, CNN)
November 9: Several House races are still undetermined, with votes still being counted, and legal proceedings and recounts likely. Democrats are sending lawyers to FL-13 to look into the race between Republican Vern Buchanan and Democrat Christine Jennings, with an unusually large number of "undervotes" not counted that, if added to the total, would give Jennings the victory. Currently Buchanan has a razor-thin 373-vote margin. Ironically, the race, which may go to a recount, had a raft of problems due to the Diebold touchscreen machines used, which apparently kicked out over 18,000 votes, showing that the voters failed to make a choice between Buchanan and Jennings. Sarasota County's Kathy Dent says that those voters probably just didn't want to make a choice, a highly unlikely explanation. FL-13 is Katherine Harris's old district, and Harris, the former Florida Secretary of State, pushed Sarasota County, and other counties still using the old punch-card machines, to use the new Diebold machines. "Sarasota voters have been victimized by not having their votes count," says Jennings. In NC-08, incumbent Republican Robin Hayes and Democrat Larry Kissell are involved in a recount, with Hayes having a slender 460-vote margin out of over 121,000 cast. In OH-15, the race between incumbent Republican Deborah Pryce and Democrat Mary Kissell is still too close to call, with Pryce having a 2,835-vote lead and over 41,000 provisional ballots still uncounted. In OH-2, Republican incumbent Jean Schmidt is leading Democrat Victoria Wulsin by a scant 2,323 votes, with 12,700 provisional ballots still uncounted. Expert observers believe that Wulsin is a long shot at best to close the gap, and may try to force a recount. In NM-01, the race is too tight to call, with incumbent Republican Heather Wilson leading Democrat Patricia Madrid by 1,305 votes, with almost 4,000 ballots yet to be counted and the totals from 4,500 paper ballots, mostly from Democratic areas, yet to be added to the total. (Daily Kos, Daily Kos, AP/Yahoo! News)
November 9: Iraqis are expressing their pleasure and relief at the departure of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who was fired yesterday by Bush. Many Iraqis both in and out of government blame Rumsfeld for much of the policy and strategic failures of the Bush administration's war in Iraq, and many of the scandals they say have helped spawn the daily sectarian carnage wracking their nation. "Rumsfeld's resignation shows the scale of the mess the US has made in Iraq," says oil ministry official Ibrahim Ali. "The efforts by American politicians to hide their failure are no longer working." No official comment from the Iraqi government has yet been made about Rumsfeld's firing, which is now being called a "resignation." Iraq's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, has in recent weeks grown increasingly critical of US policies and pushed for his government to assume more responsibility for security from US-led coalition forces. Many in Baghdad say they hope for changes in the US approach under Rumsfeld's expected replacement, former CIA director Robert Gates. "I think that there will a shift in the U.S. policy in Iraq after his resignation," says civil servant Osama Ahmed. What changes could be in store aren't yet clear, although ideas for a new strategy are being studied by an independent US commission led by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Democratic representative Lee Hamilton. The White House says it is opposed to two prominent options -- the partitioning of Iraq or a phased withdrawal of troops. Whatever suggestions are put forward, however, Iraqis say Rumsfeld's departure is a positive development. Another oil ministry official, Saad Jawad, says, "Rumsfeld's resignation is a good step because he failed to keep security in Iraq." Many Iraqis blamed Rumsfeld for spurring the emergence of Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias by disbanding the former Iraqi army following the April 2003 toppling of the former government of Saddam Hussein; even though the order actually originated by former US administrator Paul Bremer. Such sentiments show how widely Rumsfeld is identified with failed policies in Iraq. Grocer Louai Abdel-Hussein says, "I am happy with Rumsfeld's resignation because he played a major role in disbanding the former Iraqi army. He participated in building the new army on a sectarian basis." Ahmed adds that Rumsfeld should also be held responsible for crimes by American forces in Iraq, particularly the abuse of Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison that became known in 2004: "Rumsfeld's resignation is not enough." He should be put under investigation for his responsibility in the crimes committed in Abu Ghraib and the killings and rapes carried out by U.S. soldiers against Iraqi citizens, Ahmed says.
Little response from US troops has been revealed as yet. Colonel Al Kelly, commander of a battalion in the 1st Infantry Regiment, says he doesn't see Rumsfeld's removal as "either positive or negative at this point." Kelly says, "There are a lot of decisions that he's made that people aren't happy with. But he made some hard decisions and when you're in that kind of position, you're not always going to be...liked by everybody." (AP/Yahoo! News)
November 9: As many have predicted, now that the elections are over, the price of oil and gas is beginning to rise, fueling speculations that oil prices were artificially held down through the course of election season in attempts to wield influence on the results. Currently, oil prices are over $60 and steadily rising. Of course, the oil industry has different explanations, some more believable than others. Reasonable explanations include the approach of winter and the possibility of further OPEC production cuts; less believable is the oil industry's apparent relief that Democrats, fresh from election victories, are talking more about bipartisanship and less about going after the oil companies. "There's some relief over the bipartisan tone the Democratic leadership taking," says industry analyst Peter Beutel. "There had been a perception that the Democrats might, if they re-take power, have an interest in immediately hurting oil companies. But there's been no talk of that -- it's been all, let's move slowly and deliberately." So, following that logic, the Democrats' failure to immediately announce an investigative or regulatory onslaught against the oil companies empowers those companies to raise prices. Oil companies expect the new Democratic Congress to cut back on the enormous tax breaks bestowed upon them by Republicans, and place a stronger emphasis on alternative and environmentally friendly fuels. Democratic strategist Robert Weiner, along with senior policy analyst Richard Bangs, wrote on November 2, "Enjoy the price of gasoline now, because when the Saudis lower production, we could go right back to the $3 nightmare of three months ago. ...Gas prices that have plummeted 80 cents in the past three months are helping the economy, but the cost could shoot right back up when the Saudis lower production after the election." Weiner and Bangs say that US oil company CEOs "possess the power to allow the price drops we've seen that may be timed for the election. They have enough room to play -- including last year's collective $100 billion in record profits and Exxon Mobil's own near record $10.6 billion profits this past quarter." (AP/Yahoo! News, AP/Yahoo! News, Seattle Post-Intelligencer/Raw Story)
November 9: Bush resubmits John Bolton's name to the Senate for approval as the US's ambassador to the United Nations, but his days at the UN are apparently numbered. Bolton, the vituperative former undersecretary of state, was named UN ambassador in March 2005, but his nomination was blocked by the Republican-led Senate, and Bush, thumbing his nose at the Senate's rejection, named Bolton as ambassador in a recess appointment. Bolton's term lasts until the Senate reconvenes under Democratic leadership in January 2007. Democratic senator Joseph Biden, who will likely chair the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, says, "I never saw a real enthusiasm [for Bolton's nomination] on the Republican side to begin with. There's none on our side. And I think John Bolton's going nowhere. ...Mr. President, if you really mean it, that you really want to cooperate and have a bipartisan [support] -- play by the rules, Mr. President. ... end somebody else." Biden is joined by lame-duck Republican senator Lincoln Chafee, whose vote is needed to usher Bolton through the Senate confirmation process. "The American people have spoken out against the president's agenda on a number of fronts, and presumably one of those is on foreign policy," Chafee says. "And at this late stage in my term, I'm not going to endorse something the American people have spoke out against." In a later statement, Chafee adds, "On Tuesday, the American people sent a clear message of dissatisfaction with the foreign policy approach of the Bush administration. To confirm Mr. Bolton to the position of UN ambassador would fly in the face of the clear consensus of the country that a new direction is called for." Chafee said Bolton lacks the "collaborative approach" needed to make the United States "the strongest country in a peaceful world." Biden says that Democrats will attempt to stretch out the confirmation hearings until January, when the new Democratically-led Senate will convene: "I see no point in considering Mr. Bolton's nomination again in the Foreign Relations Committee because, regardless of what happens there, he is unlikely to be considered by the full Senate."
In 2005, the Senate committee hearings were dominated by heated testimony from former colleagues and several intelligence officials, who described Bolton as a bully who pressured analysts, cherry-picked intelligence and hid information from the Secretary of State. The committee did not support the nomination but agreed to send it to the full Senate for consideration. Several Republicans then joined with Democrats to block a vote on the nomination until the White House turned over documents relating to Bolton's tenure as undersecretary of state for arms control during Bush's first term. The White House refused, insisting that Bolton deserved a vote by the full Senate without senators seeing the documents. Now that Bolton's recess appointment is expiring, a second recess appointment is not possible, but officials have considered making Bolton an "acting ambassador." But one official, who would discuss internal deliberations only on the condition of anonymity, says none of the options is appealing, especially given the strong opposition shown by the Democrats, who are poised to take over Congress. If there is no confirmation, "we assume he'll probably resign," the official says. Several administration officials speculate that Zalmay Khalilzad, the ambassador to Iraq, could be a candidate to replace Bolton. Incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says, "Even before we took over, the Republicans didn't have enough votes to get the guy out of committee, so I think we should go to things we can work together on." But at least one Senate Republican, George Voinovich, is apparently ready to reconsider his opposition to Bolton.
Bolton was recently criticized by 64 former US ambassadors and diplomats, all signatories of a letter opposing Bolton's continuation as UN ambassador, as, among other things, suffering from "egotistical intolerance," and guilty of "arrogant actions," and a "hard-core, go-it-alone posture" that "has alienated the bulk of the diplomatic community and cost the United States its leadership role." The letter reads in part, "With so much at stake, our country cannot afford to permit John Bolton to continue his destructive course during the next two years." A senior Western diplomat recently told a reporter from The Economist, "He has succeeded in putting almost everyone's backs up, even among some of America's closest allies." (Daily Telegraph, AP/Houston Chronicle, Washington Post, Reuters, New Yorker)
November 9: The incoming majority Congressional Democrats intent to aggressively investigate the National Security Agency's domestic wiretapping program, as Bush steps up his defense of the program. Bush is urging the lame-duck Republican congress to pass a bill effectively authorizing the program. And in San Francisco, the Justice Department told a federal court that public scrutiny of the operation risked "exceptionally grave harm to national security." Democrats disagree, and cite 11 months of stonewalling by the administration since the program was publicly disclosed last December. "This administration first hid its domestic spying program from Congress and Americans for years, and when it was discovered, has ducked and weaved on its legal justifications," says Senator Patrick Leahy, who is to become chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee when Democrats take control. "We all believe that monitoring the communications of suspected terrorists is essential," Leahy says. "But especially when the monitoring involves Americans, it needs to be done lawfully and with adequate checks and balances to prevent abuses of Americans' rights and Americans' privacy." In September 2006, the House approved legislation that would effectively authorize the government to continue the program, in which the agency, without warrants, carries out surveillance on communications into and out of the United States that are suspected of involving terrorism. But Senate legislation on the issue, backed by the White House, stalled last month. Senator Arlen Specter, the Republican head of the Judiciary Committee and the main advocate of wiretapping legislation there, acknowledges the difficulty of getting his bill through the Senate now. "There's been a seismic change in the Senate landscape," Specter says, "so I'm not sure exactly how all that is going to work out." Democrats say the bill will not pass. "There's no chance of that happening," says a senior Democratic aide for the House Judiciary Committee. "This is a program a lot of people here thought was excessive. There's a history of concern here." Democrats say that, instead of authorizing the program, they intend to investigate how the program has been run and would pass legislation to restrict or ban outright the use of wiretaps without warrants.
House Democrats, led by John Conyers, slated to take over the House Judiciary Committee, says the wiretaps are abusive and probably illegal. Groups that are suing the government and the telecommunications companies over the wiretapping program say they hope more aggressive oversight would help their cause. "If Congress has some hearings and digs into this, we may know a lot more," says Cindy Cohn, legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is suing AT&T. The government is invoking a "state secret" privilege in opposing such lawsuits, and it argues that further proceedings delving into intelligence operations "could lead to serious consequences" by compromising national security. Government lawyers have refused to provide any evidence of such consequences. Judge Vaughn Walker has already rejected that argument once, ruling in July that the case involving AT&T could proceed without a "reasonable danger" that it would harm national security. The government is appealing his ruling. (New York Times)
November 9: While it is too early to tell exactly which Democrats will rise to positions of power within the new Democratically-controlled House and Senate, ABC's Brian Ross and Advertising Age make some informed speculations as to who will be some of the new committee chairmen and -women, and what they might do in those positions.
- Henry Waxman, House Government Reform Committee: Waxman will be a nightmare for Republicans eager to keep their involvement in shady business dealings quiet. Waxman, described as "a pit bull with a fantastic staff," is expected to begin investigations into questionable Halliburton and KBR deals in Iraq, as well as other Iraqi war contracts and Gulf Coast rebuilding contracts in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and possibly some of the illicit activities of the tobacco companies, which have not had to appear before Congress since 1994, when Waxman chaired the Health and Environment Subcommittee of Government Reform.
- House Intelligence Committee: This position is, at the moment, the one most in doubt. Jane Harman is currently the ranking minority member of the committee, but she is not particularly popular with many of her fellow Democrats, largely due to her strong conservative streak and her support for the Iraq war. She faces hard-nosed opposition from the Congressional Black Caucus, which wants the spot to go to one of its own, Alcee Hastings. Sylvester Reyes is the compromise candidate. Likely to be on the top of the new chairman's list: the Duke Cunningham scandal, and its connections to US intelligence. Also, an investigation into prewar intelligence, and who forged the Niger documents that were held up as "proof" of Iraqi nuclear intentions.
- House Education and the Workforce Committee: George Miller. Miller will likely reopen hearings into allegations involving convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff, the Northern Marianas Islands and Tom Delay.
- House Judiciary Committee: John Conyers. While Conyers' "appetite for true investigation is untested," according to one Capital Hill staffer, Conyers, in his recent book, castigates Bush for violating the law on Iraq and secret prisons. If anyone in the House actually attempts to bring impeachment proceedings against Bush, it will be Conyers.
- House Commerce Committee: John Dingell. Dingell wants to push legislation lowering drug prices for Medicare patients, as well as hold oversight hearings on Medicare and on the secretive Cheney energy task force. He also wants to put the brakes on the increasing monopolization of the nation's media by a few corporate conglomerates, and will push for an increased focus on citizens' rights to privacy.
- Senate Health Committee: Ted Kennedy. Kennedy intends to move quickly to curb the unregulated marketing of prescription drugs, particularly those aimed at children, and wants a two-year advertising ban on newly approved prescription drugs while they enter the market and doctors collect data on their performance. He also wants more scrutiny of direct-to-consumer drug advertising.
- Senate Agriculture Committee: Tom Harkin. Harkin is highly critical of food advertising aimed at children, particularly fast-food advertising, and wants some limits.
(ABC News, Advertising Age)
November 9: Democratic political strategist Zack Exley gives credit where credit is due to the amazing effort of a disparate number of Democratic organizers and volunteers, who defeated the huge, unified, volunteer-driven get-out-the-vote effort of Karl Rove's Republican machine. "Rove built a volunteer-driven machine from the ground up, backed by the full unity of a ruling Republican Party. The Democrat's answer was was much harder to come by," Exley writes. "But this year, finally all cylinders were firing at once -- and what an amazing sight it was to see." His list is extensive. Individual campaigns took advantage of younger, less hide-bound field directors, and reached out to volunteers to organize their grassroots efforts. The "50-state strategy" of DNC director Howard Dean began to pay dividends, as did his efforts to reconstruct and revive state parties across the board. Democrats and outside organizations began using 21st-century databases and microtargeting techniques. MoveOn.org spearheaded a truly huge get-out-the-vote effort via phone mobilzation; other, smaller groups pitched in with innovative voter registration and GOTV programs. Local groups of activists, many forged in 2004 in support of Dean or John Kerry, worked alongside national grassroots organizations such as Democracy for America. Consistent effort by training organizations such as Campaign Corps and Wellstone Action paid off. Blogs and other netroots activists went toe-to-toe with local and national press, and Republican campaigns, answering and countering every slander effort, smear tactic, and misleading headline. Democratic politicians such as Kerry, Maria Cantwell, and Bill Nelson used the MoveOn/ActBlue grassroots fundraising model to raise millions for their colleagues. MoveOn and ActBlue raised tens of millions directly for candidates -- up to a third of total revenue for some candidates, actually closing the money gap with the Republicans, who have traditionally enjoyed huge advantages in money. Exley especially credits what he calls "the quiet bedrocks that they take for granted but which influence far more votes than everything else combined: the sophisticated and powerful AFL-CIO GOTV program; EMILY's List's deep pipeline of talented candidates; African-American base vote operations all over America -- to name a few." Exley says that now the challenge is to do it all over again for 2008. (Huffington Post)
November 9: The preliminary findings of the investigation into the death of Corporal Pat Tillman, the former NFL star turned Army Ranger who was slain by friendly fire from his own platoon, are unsettling at best. The four Rangers who shot Tillman, as he stood in plain sight waving his arms and yelling, "Cease fire, friendlies, I am Pat f*cking Tillman, damn it!" all failed to clearly identify their target before opening fire, a blatant violation of the fire discipline training drilled into every soldier. One of the four, Staff Sergeant Trevor Alders, had recently undergone PRK laser eye surgery. Although he could see two sets of hands "straight up," according to his statement, his vision was "hazy." In the absence of "friendly identifying signals," he assumed Tillman and an allied Afghan who also was killed were enemies, and opened fire. Specialist Steve Elliot admits to being "excited" by the sight of rifles, muzzle flashes and "shapes;" apparently he just blazed away. Specialist Stephen Ashpole says he saw two figures, and just aimed where everyone else was shooting. Squad leader Sergeant Greg Baker has 20-20 eyesight, but claims he had "tunnel vision." Baker says he fired at someone he thought was an enemy, but who was actually the allied Afghan fighter next to Tillman who was trying to give the Americans cover: "I zoned in on him because I could see the AK-47. I focused only on him."
According to one of the shooters, the platoon had nearly run out of supplies. They were down to the water in their CamelBak drinking pouches, and were forced to buy a goat from a local vendor. Delayed supply flights contributed to the hunger, fatigue and possibly misjudgments by platoon members. Other facts surrounding the friendly fire incident are equally unsettling. A key commander in the events that led to Tillman's death both was reprimanded for his role and meted out punishments to those who fired, raising questions of conflict of interest. A field hospital report says someone tried to jump-start Tillman's heart with CPR hours after his head had been partly blown off and his corpse wrapped in a poncho; key evidence including Tillman's body armor and uniform was burned. Investigators have been stymied because some of those involved now have lawyers and refused to cooperate, and other soldiers who were at the scene couldn't be located. Three of the four shooters are now out of the Army, and essentially beyond the reach of military justice. What actually happened, and whether the killings were merely tragic results of the "fog of war" or the result of criminal incompetence, is as yet unclear.
Certainly, the Pentagon's failure to reveal for over a month that Tillman was killed by friendly fire has raised suspicions of a cover-up; so does the cover story released by the Pentagon that could have been lifted straight from a G.I. Joe comic, with Tillman heroically going down after taking dozens of enemy assassins with him. To Tillman's family, there is little doubt that his death was more than an innocent mistake. One investigator told the Tillmans that it hadn't been ruled out that Tillman was shot by an American sniper or deliberately murdered by his own men, though he also gave no indication the evidence pointed that way. "I will not assume his death was accidental or 'fog of war,'" says his father, Pat Tillman Sr. "I want to know what happened, and they've clouded that so badly we may never know." The Pentagon has also failed to admit until recently that just after Tillman's death, several of the same Rangers who shot him then turned his guns on a village where witnesses say civilian women and children had gathered. The shooters raked it with fire, the American witnesses say; not only did they kill an unknown number of Afghan civilians, they wounded two additional fellow Rangers, including their own platoon leader.
"This isn't just about our son," says Mary Tillman. "It's about holding the military accountable. Finding out what happened to Pat is ultimately going to be important in finding out what happened to other soldiers." The first investigation, carried out by then-Captain Richard Scott, concluded within a week that the four shooters demonstrated "gross negligence" and recommended further investigation. "It could involve some Rangers that could be charged" with a crime, Scott told a superior later. Then-Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Bailey -- the battalion commander who oversaw Tillman's platoon -- later assured Tillman's family that those responsible would be punished as harshly as possible. Instead, staff lawyers advised senior Army commanders that there was no legal basis for any courts-martials, and seven people were given minor punishments known as Article 15s, with no court proceedings. (Editor's note: I am married to an ex-Army military policeman, who earned two Article 15s during her career, both for throwing punches at fellow officers. In essence, the Army equated killing Tillman with fighting in barracks.) One of the four shooters, Baker, had his pay reduced and was essentially forced out of the Army. The other three received administrative reprimands. Scott's investigative report disappeared into the bowels of the Army bureaucracy. Some of Tillman's relatives think the Army buried the report because its findings were too explosive; Army officials have consistently refused to provide a copy to the press, saying no materials related to the investigation could be released.
The commander of Tillman's 75th Ranger Regiment, then-Colonel James Nixon, wasn't satisfied with Scott's investigation, which he said focused too heavily on precombat inspections and procedures rather than on what had happened. Scott "made some conclusions in the document that weren't validated by facts" as described by the participants, Nixon would tell later investigators. Nixon assigned his top aide, Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Kauzlarich, to lead what became the second investigation. Kauzlarich harshly criticized Baker and the men on his truck. Among other things, Baker should have known that at least two of his subordinates had never been in a firefight, and should have closely supervised where they shot. "His failure to do so resulted in deaths of Cpl. Tillman and the AMF soldier, and the serious wounding of two other (Rangers)," Kauzlarich concluded. "While a great deal of discretion should be granted to a leader who is making difficult judgments in the heat of combat, the command also has a responsibility to hold its leaders accountable when that judgment is so wanton or poor that it places the lives of other men at risk." Still, the Tillman family complained that questions remained: Who killed Tillman? Why did they fire? Were the punishments stiff enough? "I don't think that punishment fit their actions out there in the field," said Kevin Tillman, who was with his brother the day Pat was killed but was several minutes behind him in the trailing element of a convoy and saw nothing. "They were not inquiring, identifying, engaging [targets]. They weren't doing their job as a soldier," he told an investigator. "You have an obligation as a soldier to, you know, do certain things, and just shooting isn't one of your responsibilities. You know, it has to be a known, likely suspect."
Brigadier General Gary Jones then carried out a third investigation at the behest of the acting Secretary of the Army, Les Brownlee. Jones churned out 2,100 pages of transcripts and detailed descriptions of the incidents, but recommended no new charges or punishments. The Tillman family was given a heavily redacted, blacked-out version of the report; though even the sanitized version of the report has not been released to the public, the Tillman family described it as incomplete and unsastifying. With pressure from the family and the media, the Pentagon inspector general announced a review of the investigations in August 2005. And in March 2006, they launched a new criminal probe into the actions of the men who shot at Tillman.
The Pentagon official heading up the probe, acting Defense Department Inspector General Thomas Gimble, calls the Tillman probe the toughest case he has ever seen, according to people he recently briefed. Investigators are looking at who pulled the triggers and fired at Tillman; they are also looking at the officers who pressured the platoon to move through a region with a history of ambushes; the soldiers who burned Tillman's uniform and body armor afterward; and at everyone in the chain of command who deliberately kept the circumstances of Tillman's death from the family for more than a month. Military investigators under Gimble's direction this year visited the rugged valley in eastern Afghanistan where Tillman was killed. It was a risky trip; the region is even more dangerous today than it was in 2004. The investigation was predicted to be finished by September 2006; now predictions by the Army's Criminal Investigation Command, or CID, are that it may be finished by December. The investigation, Gimble has said, is complicated because of "numerous missteps" by the three previous investigators, particularly their failure to follow standards for handling evidence. Gimble promised lawmakers in a series of briefings this fall that his investigation "will bring all to light." He has committed to releasing his detailed findings to key legislators, Pentagon officials and the Tillman family, as well as a synopsis to the general public, congressional aides say. Some lawmakers have warned that if this probe does not clear up all questions on Tillman's death, they may press for congressional hearings. Others have said Congress could call for an independent panel of retired military officers and other experts to conduct an outside probe. Democratic representative Mike Honda, who represents the San Jose district where Tillman's family lives, has pressed the Pentagon for answers on the status of its investigations. "I'm very impatient and at times cynical," Honda says. But, he adds, the honor of the military -- and the confidence of the public in the military and the government -- are at stake. "So if we pursue the truth and wait for it," he says, "it may be worthwhile." (AP/Yahoo! News)
November 9: The watchdog organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) sends a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales asking for an investigation into whether a senior aide to Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert blocked a House Appropriations Committee investigation into mismanagement, bid-rigging and kickbacks in regard to Capitol Hill security upgrades. Former House Appropriations Committee investigators claim that Ted Van Der Meid, Hastert's chief counsel, prohibited investigators from visiting certain sites, engaged in screaming matches with investigators and told at least one aide not to talk to them, before ultimately shutting down the investigation altogether. (See above item.) The Appropriations Committee had authorized the committee's Surveys and Investigations team to focus on charges of waste and abuse in regard to Capitol Hill security upgrades. The upgrades were funded through the "black" budget of the House and Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittees and are forecast to surpass $100 million. The office in charge of the upgrades was funded through the Department of Defense and overseen by the Capitol Police Board, but Hastert's office took a lead role in overseeing the upgrades. The inquiry into the security contracts, which commenced in late 2003 or early 2004, was halted by the team's director, Robert Pearre, in the fall of 2005. At the time the probe was stopped, investigators were looking into allegations that security contractors had showered a Department of Defense employee with kickbacks in the form of football tickets, golf outings, golf clubs and meals. Unsuccessful bidders were the source of some of the allegations of problems with the security contracts. In addition to allegations of bid-rigging and kickbacks, there were also charges that many of the upgrades were inadequate. According to CREW executive director Melanie Sloan, "This entire situation is suspicious. Clearly, DOJ needs to look into the allegations of criminal misconduct in regard to the contracts. In addition, Mr. Van Der Meid's conduct is suspicious. Why wouldn't the Speaker's office be interested in pursuing allegations of illegal activity in connection with the security upgrades? As the highest official on Capitol Hill, wouldn't the Speaker be concerned about claims that the security upgrades were inadequate, endangering the lives of those who work on the Capitol Hill campus? The Department of Justice needs to get to the bottom of this mess." (CREW)
November 9: Rhode Island Republican Lincoln Chafee, who lost his seat on November 7, says he is unsure that he will remain a Republican. Chafee has always been considered far more moderate than most other Republicans in office, and has often criticized Bush administration policies and legislation offered by his Republican colleagues. Chafee was the sole Republican to vote against authorizing Bush to use military force in Iraq. "I haven't made any decisions, I just haven't even thought about where my place is," he says in response to a question asking whether he would stick with the Republican Party or switch to be an independent or Democrat. When asked if his comments meant he thought he might not belong in the Republican Party, he replies: "That's fair." When asked whether he felt that his loss may have helped the country by switching control of power in Congress, he replies, "To be honest, yes. The people have spoken all across America. They want the Democrats and Republicans to work together. I think the president now is going to have to talk to the Democrats. I think that's going to be good for America." Chafee, like his father, former Republican senator John Chafee, is in the tradition of moderate Northeastern Republicans. He says he has long waged a lonely campaign to try to bring the party to the middle. He describes attending weekly Thursday lunches with fellow Republican senators and standing up to argue his point of view, often alone. "There were times walking into my caucus room where it wasn't fun," he recalls. Chafee says he stuck with the party in large part because it allowed him to bring federal dollars home to Rhode Island. He says he does not regret not switching parties before the election because he felt it kept him in the best position to help Rhode Island to remain with what was then the majority party. (Boston Globe)
November 9: CNN demands that Internet video host YouTube remove a video from a November 8 broadcast of the Larry King Show in which comedian Bill Maher revealed that Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman is gay. Mehlman's sexual orientation has long been a matter of speculation around Washington, but Mehlman has consistently refused to address the issue. CNN has even edited the transcript of the broadcast to remove the commentary between Maher and King surrounding the discussion of Mehlman's sexual orientation. YouTube has, in return, demanded that sites hosting the video also remove it. Of the transcript editing, AmericaBlog's John Aravosis writes, "CNN didn't just edit out the naming of Mehlman as gay, they even edited out Larry's question, and Maher's answer, about why gay people sometimes work against their own people. Now why is that question being censored by CNN?" (CNN/AmericaBlog [link to original CNN video])
November 9: After six years of insisting that he wants to raise the tone of Washington political discourse while simultaneously reaching to ever-lower levels of slander, innuendo, and personal attack, Bush has now been forced by the election results of November 7 to actually attempt to practice the bipartisanship and respect for his political opposition that he has so long preached, but failed to practice. At least that's what liberal Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne writes. "American voters, in their wisdom, ended an era on Tuesday," he writes. "They rejected a harshly ideological approach to politics that cast opponents as enemies of the country's survival. They rejected a president so determined to win an election that he was willing to slander his opponents by saying: 'The Democrat approach in Iraq comes down to this: The terrorists win and America loses.' The voters decided there was no decency in that. No longer will the national tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001, be used to undermine the opposition party. It was only after he was forced to do so by an electoral defeat that President Bush called for genuine bipartisanship yesterday. Imagine what the world would look like if he had done that a year or two ago."
Dionne reminds his readers, especially Democratic lawmakers and political strategists, that the recent elections prove that swing voters, independents and moderates do, indeed, matter. "If Democrats are to make good use of the power they have been granted, they need to remember that last point. This election was the revenge of the center no less than it was the revenge of the left. The decisive votes cast on Tuesday came from moderates and independents, whom the exit polls showed favoring Democratic House candidates by about 3 to 2." He acknowledges that many of the candidates, and a large portion of the energy and hard work by Democratic volunteers and organizers, came from liberals and leftist Democrats, who make up much of the Democrats' ideological base. "But many of the party's successful candidates ran as moderates, and Democrats hold power on the basis of a loan of votes from middle-of-the-road Americans who simply could not stomach Bush Republicanism anymore. The loan can be recalled at any moment." The commonality among almost all Democrats is their unified insistence that the Bush policy in Iraq must change, and that the Bush adminstration, and the congressional Republicans, do not understand, nor care to understand, the personal struggles and economic insecurities confronting so many Americans. Dionne concludes, "This election creates an exceptional opportunity to move from blind ideology to problem-solving and from stupid divisiveness to a politics of remedy and reconciliation. The Democrats had better make it work." (Washington Post)
November 9: Perhaps feeling some post-election oats, Democratic representative Charles Rangel, the leading candidate to take over the House Ways and Means Committee, says he wants to take back an office in the Legislative building currently used by Vice President Dick Cheney. "Mr. Cheney enjoys an office on the second floor of the House of Representatives that historically has been designated for the Ways and Means Committee chairman," he says. "I talked to Nancy Pelosi about it this morning. I'm trying to find some way to be gentle as I restore the dignity of that office. You gotta go, you gotta go." Rangel has long been an outspoken critic of the Bush-Cheney tax cuts for the wealthy, ans as the new Ways and Means chairman, intends to roll many of them back. Cheney's office tries to keep a conciliatory tone in response to Rangel's remarks: "We have not seen Congressman Rangel's comments, but it has always been our understanding that the vice president's office in the House of Representatives was on a temporary loan," says Cheney spokeswoman Megan McGinn. "As the president said this afternoon, we look forward to working with the new Congress on issues confronting this country." (New York Post)

Rumsfeld set to be prosecuted in Germany for war crimes

November 10: Newly resigned Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is about to face more repercussions for his involvement in the troubled wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. New legal documents, to be filed next week with Germany's top prosecutor, will seek a criminal investigation and prosecution of Rumsfeld, along with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, former CIA director George Tenet and other senior US civilian and military officers, for their alleged roles in abuses committed at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison and at the US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. German law allows for the prosecution for citizens of other countries for war crimes, even if German citizens are not directly impacted. The plaintiffs in the case include 11 Iraqis who were prisoners at Abu Ghraib, as well as Mohammad al-Qahtani, a Saudi held at Guantanamo, whom the US has identified as the so-called "20th hijacker" and a would-be participant in the 9/11 hijackings. Qahtani underwent a "special interrogation plan," personally approved by Rumsfeld, which the US says produced valuable intelligence. In the process, Qahtani was subjected to forced nudity, sexual humiliation, religious humiliation, prolonged stress positions, sleep depri

THIS FAR AND NO FURTHER

A Timeline of Events Surrounding the Radical Right's Attempt to Subvert American Democracy

Written and Compiled by Black Max

November 2006

Week Two

Rumsfeld fired

Democrats take control of the Senate

Rumsfeld set to be prosecuted in Germany for war crimes