The #1 Argument Against Impeaching Bush

Is, of course, the idea of what would replace him.

You just gotta love the Veep. Just when you think he's slithered off to his undisclosed location hole to continue his work on behalf of the dark spirits, he pops back up for a brief moment to stick his tongue out at the world before diving back in.

As you probably have heard or read by now, Cheney & his crew have decided that it's not just enough to refuse to comply with an executive order governing the handling of classified information. Nope, that was kids stuff. They've stepped now to true Cheney-level of malfeasance and tried to junk the office that dared to ask him to comply with U.S. law. I mean really, what WERE they thinking? This is Darth Cheney - a man whose heart is so black that neither light nor reason can penetrate it.

Well if you can't ignore the law, if you can't fire the enforcers, then of course the next step is to just refuse to comply by making a legal argument that will leave them laughing in the aisles. The argument? Well since Cheney's Veep duties include serving as prez. of the Senate, he is free, FREE from those silly Congressional oversight rules on the executive branch. One of my favorite quotes from the Cheney staff is in the WaPo article on this latest goofiness from the Dark One.

The vice president's office is "not subject to such investigation" by the National Archives' Information Security Oversight Office, the spokeswoman said. But she could not explain why Cheney's office initially complied with reporting requirements, then stopped in 2003.

I think she's onto something -- got the IRS on your back? Creditors? Well just tell them that you are "not subject to such investigation" by those groups - go on your merry way. After all, if it's good enough for the Veep, it's certainly good enough for the rest of us.

Finding Strength to Survive Until 1/20/09

It's another one of those days. The days where even the last couple of minutes of spirit-lifting nature footage on CBS Sunday morning can't fix. One of those days when the utter hopelessness of the world is just too much for my mind. Of all the things that are fixed and set in the world, the one that continues to boggle my mind is the mindset of our administration. Heads buried deep in the sand, unwilling (unable?) to see the world for what it is - they continue moving with blinders on month after month, year after year. I begin to think that there are only 50 people left in the universe who cling to the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld vision of the world - all of them in that administration or staffing Fox news.

If you look at the bottom of this page, you'll notice that as of today, Bush has 582 more days in office. I have given up hope that anyone, anything, can force the administration to get their heads out of the sand and do their best to fix this mess they made. We need to get OUT of Iraq NOW. In November, I thought the elections showed Congress where to find the spine to drive the efforts. Those hopes have disappeared. For a while I thought the overwhelming opposition to this war by Americans who had supported B/C/R and going to war would bring change. It hasn't.

The only thing that is going to fix this situation is a change in the administration. And as Congress can't find the spine to stand up for those who elected them - they certainly won't have the spine to impeach either prez or veep. I have been slow coming to realize that - but I get it now. And all I have to offer at the moment are links to some must-reads in today's WaPo - and the notice that I'm going to go hide under the covers for a couple of hours.


While fighting for democracy in Iraq - it's apparently ok to watch it be trampled underfoot in Pakistan as long as our buddy Musharraf needs breathing room from whiny democracy-lovers in return for promising he'll crack down on the al-Qaeda/Taliban (ok, so the fact that Musharraf has let them settle in along the border is probably just an oversight). Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid reminds us of the administration's democracy hypocrisy. Oh, and if you're wondering where the lead comes from in the administration for our tunnel vision view of Musharraf? According to Rashid, "Current and past US officials tell me that Pakistan policy is essentially being run from Cheney's office. The vice president, they say, is close to Musharraf and refuses to brook any US criticism of him. . . . Pakistani opposition politicians visiting Washington have been ushered in to meet Cheney's aides, rather than taken to the State Department. No one in Foggy Bottom seems willing to question Cheney's decisions."

Steven Simon and Ray Takeyh of the Council on Foreign Relations give it to us straight between the eyes with their no holds barred piece, "We've Lost. Here's How to Handle it."

David Broder's op ed piece "Failure on Two Fronts" looks at the administration's helplessness in the face of their efforts to push Maliki's government towards competency. Efforts that recently included using the New York Times (yes, the NYT) to send a message to Maliki.

Finally, in the "thanks but where were you when it counted" column is George Will's piece on a senator from my old homeland of Oregon - Republican Gordon Smith. Gordo (as my father still calls him) is the "Iraq Caucus of One" in Will's column. Gee George - you think we might all be stuck in this quagmire if you & your crew hadn't worked so hard to push the administration's agenda for the past six years?

Why We're in Iraq

I finally figured it out! It's taken all this time, but the clue that led to the answer was in a news story from a few days ago. It mentioned calls going out to the Shiite & Sunni factions in Iraq, challenging them to work together against the U.S.

And then all the pieces fell into place. I know why Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld stuck us in Iraq. It's not, as a surface examination would show, that they're incompetent boobs. No, they're sly as foxes, those three. They predicted that these two groups that got along before the invasion were going to turn on each other. So what did they do? They planted our troops right in the middle, working HARD to give each side a good reason to hate US, instead of each other.

Sure, this plan has cost the lives of thousands of Americans, and tens of thousands of Iraqis, but don't you see, it was all in the cause of fixing a situation that could not have existed if we hadn't invaded in the first place! And they were willing to sacrifice American lives to do it. Well, not, of course, THEIR lives, or the lives of anyone they know, but hey, it's a sacrifice all the same for those three who obviously care so much for humanity.

What Did You Do In the War, Dick? FINALLY!

Kudos and congrats to Max Cleland. If you don't know ex-Senator Cleland's story, well that's another time. Suffice it to say while the Republican strike team took down this Vietnam war hero, Cleland is never out and does not back down.

The big Dick was speaking before the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Cheney was going on and on and on about the evil of timetables. Max Cleland took the Veep down in front of everyone. What did he have to say to the big Dick? Just this:

"Where the hell were you in the Vietnam War? If you had gone to Vietnam like the rest of us, maybe you would have learned something about war. You can't keep troops on the ground forever. You gotta have a mission. You gotta have a purpose. . . . You can't keep sending 'em back and back and back with no mission and no purpose. As a matter of fact, the real enemy is Al Qaeda, it's Al Qaeda stupid, it's not in Iraq."

Way to go Max!! You make us proud!

He Can Shoot a Man in the Face, but

apparently Cheney can't face those who disagree with him. So he's decided to snub the Japanese defense minister during an upcoming visit to Japan. What did the minister say that was so horribly offensive? Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma said that the decision to invade Iraq was a mistake. Yup. Something that just about everyone but Bush & Cheney agree with at this point. But wait, there's more. Kyuma pretty quickly backed up, saying no, what he really meant to say was that the US attack decision "should have been more cautious."

So having backed up and restated his position, and denying the word "mistake" -- has Kyuma bowed and groveled enough that the great Cheney would agree to speak with him?

Are you kidding? This is a guy who is waiting for the world to apologize to him for our doubts over his ability to rule the world. But the diplomats stepped up and noted that really the problem was that the Veep had a very full schedule before hand and there simply isn't any room to meet with the Defense Minister of one of our top allies.

Right.

A Good Day

It was exhilarating to be out among tens of thousands of people who are doing what they can to get the troops out of Iraq. Trying to get this administration to abandon its bone-headed policy of creating democracy by destroying a country. Many are staying through Monday when they will go to lobby their members of Congress. (I would, but as a DC resident, my member of Congress doesn't have any voting rights, so it would be useless.)

Help those out who have come to DC to lobby against this insanity by contacting your members of Congress and reminding them of the lesson they should have learned in November. We want the war over - we want our troops out - and we want Congress to stand up to Bush/Cheney. After all, if we have to rely on W & the Veep to get us out of this, it will never happen. Cheney's still wandering around the place saying that things are going well in Iraq. It's absolutely unbelievable how divorced those people are from reality.

So bring reality to them!

That's One Long, Slow, Learning Curve

Last Sunday on Bush cable news, Dick Cheney had this to say about Iraq.

"Well, I think if you look at what's transpired in Iraq, we have, in fact, made enormous progress."

I don't think anyone had the heart to ask Dick just how he defines the term "progress." The mindset of this administration, that we're just moving right along on our way to some sort of cathartic victory, is just unfathamable to me. And I thought I had lost all hope of actually understanding anything anyone in that administration was saying.

But then, Dick said this - “The threat that Iran represents is growing, it’s multi-dimensional, and it is, in fact, of concern to everybody in the region.”

And you know what? He's right. Of course he neglected to point out that the growing multi-dimensional threat is there thanks to our utterly lame-brained mangling.

Well done Dick.