The Obfuscation Report

From Democratic Underground's Top Ten Conservative Idiots:

Dick Cheney sure loves to claim executive privilege. Remember this?


And this?


And this?


Well hold onto your hats and let the spin begin! It turns out that for the last four years, despite repeatedly claiming executive privilege to avoid having to do such annoying things as testify before Congress, Dick Cheney has been preventing the National Archives' Information Security Oversight Office from performing a mandatory inspection of his office by claiming - get this - that he's not part of the Executive Branch. According to the Los Angeles Times:


How convenient! The vice president is a member of the Executive Branch when he needs to claim executive privilege, but not a member of the Executive Branch when that would mean having to open his records to the National Archives.

You know, this kinda reminds me of the time in 2003 that Cheney said of Halliburton, "I've severed all my ties with the company, gotten rid of all my financial interest. I have no financial interest in Halliburton of any kind and haven't had, now, for over three years," and then it turned out that just two years later his Halliburton stock options rose by 3,281%.

Talk about having your cake and eating it. (Or in Cheney's case, having your blood and drinking it.)

Labels: Dick Cheney Branch, liars, War Criminals

June 21, 2007
Shiite Rivalries Slash at a Once Calm Iraqi City
By ALISSA J. RUBIN New York Times

DIWANIYA, Iraq — The Shiite heartland of southern Iraq has generally been an oasis of calm in contrast to Baghdad and the central part of the country, but now violence is convulsing this city. Shiites are killing and kidnapping other Shiites, the police force is made up of competing militias and the inner city is a web of impoverished streets where idealized portraits of young men, killed in recent gun battles with Iraqi and American troops, hang from signposts above empty lots.

The unrest in Diwaniya, mirrored in Nasiriya to the south, reflects the emergence of a poisonous political landscape in which competing Shiite groups no longer look to the political system to allocate power. The government’s authority appears to have broken down, with the governor calling this spring for Iraqi Army units, backed by American troops, to restore order. Civilians, not sure where to look for protection, are caught in the deepening fear and uncertainty.

Even now, with a large Iraqi Army force and American troops in the area, the violence has continued. In the first 10 days of June, two police officers were shot dead, an American soldier died from a roadside bomb and the brother and nephew of a prominent militia official were killed. While still less dangerous than central Iraq, where militant Sunni Arabs and Shiites battle for control, the situation has worsened since violence first broke out here last August.

In a daylong visit to Diwaniya earlier in June, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki warned, “We cannot build a state that has another state inside it, we cannot build an army that has armies inside it,” referring to the militias within the province that answer to their leaders rather than to elected officials.

Diwaniya is the capital of the almost completely Shiite farming province of Qadisiya, known for its marshy fields where farmers grow aromatic ambar rice, similar to India’s basmati. Even in town, many people patch together a livelihood with seasonal jobs working the rice fields or tending date palms.

It is a poor province, and poorer now because of a recent decline in the farming sector, making it fertile ground for groups allied with the anti-American cleric, Moktada al-Sadr. The cleric, whose legendary father was beloved here, has reached out to the poor, both in town and in the country.

“Diwaniya was never really quiet, never really peaceful, it was only sleeping,” said Abu Faris, a senior official who works with the provincial council. “There were always troubles below the surface, and now they are coming out.”

The city of about 400,000 people has a history of rebellion; it was the first city in southern Iraq to rise against Saddam Hussein in the wake of the 1991 Persian Gulf war. But when the rebellion failed, Mr. Hussein exacted a deadly retribution, arresting hundreds of men and boys and killing many of them. Underlying Diwaniya’s troubles is a fight between factions allied with rival Shiite clerics, Mr. Sadr and Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, who leads the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council.

Mr. Hakim, who has close ties to the Americans, is allied with an older generation of middle-class, more educated Shiites, many of whom spent some of the Hussein era in Iran or Syria.

By contrast, Mr. Sadr blames the Americans for the havoc in Iraq and refuses to meet with any representatives of the Bush administration. Mr. Sadr is linked more closely with the young, impoverished Shiites who stayed in Iraq during the years of Mr. Hussein’s rule. Mr. Sadr’s movement has only 5 members on the 40-member provincial council but enjoys wide local popularity. Both clerics have ties to armed militias, which local residents say have infiltrated the local police and security forces.

Although Mr. Hakim’s Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council is known for its tightly run political arm, that has not always translated into grass-roots support. Diwaniya’s governor, Khalil Jalil Hamza, is from the party, but lived in Iran for many years, returning only after the American invasion, and many local people have criticized his performance. The party also holds the majority on the provincial council.

The result is a governor with little ability to control his territory.

“When problems emerged, assassinations, kidnappings, and when the Sadrists began to move on their own, the governor did not deal with it because he did not know the area, and the problems snowballed,” said Hussein Ali al-Shalaan, a Shiite sheik who represents the province in the Iraqi Parliament and comes from the more secular and moderate Iraqiya coalition.

In March more than 50 people were killed in the province. Now, hardly a day goes by when there is not an attempt to shoot some official. Roadside bombs, unseen in most of southern Iraq, have been aimed at Iraqi and American forces operating in the area.

With no sign of improvement, the governor called in Iraqi Army troops, backed by Americans. In early April the soldiers entered the impoverished warrens at the center of the city, the stronghold of the Sadr loyalists. The area is crushingly poor. The low houses, made of crumbling mud bricks, look as if they would melt in the rain; they have such small doors that men sometimes must stoop to enter them.

Heavy fighting raged for several days, as young men, hiding behind low walls, fired rocket-propelled grenades and AK-47s before running away only to pop up again a few streets away, according to accounts from residents. At least 10 men were killed and 50 wounded in the fighting.

More than a month later the area still looked like a war zone with dangling electrical wires and a wary atmosphere. The neighborhood was surrounded by Iraqi Army checkpoints, the soldiers tense and unsmiling as they checked identification cards and opened car trunks to search for guns. The units were not from Diwaniya.

The head of Mr. Sadr’s Diwaniya office, Sheik Haider al-Nadir, fled to Najaf. “I was afraid of being arrested,” he said. “Sometimes they arrest people with no excuse.”

A soft-spoken cleric, Mr. Nadir said Mr. Sadr’s organization was being wrongly accused of fomenting the troubles in Diwaniya, but granted that many groups involved in “bad activities” were using Mr. Sadr’s name. Others agree that some criminal gangs are trying to burnish their image by claiming a connection to Mr. Sadr.

With provincial elections approaching, the Sadr movement believes that the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council and the governor want to weaken them by accusing those aligned with Mr. Sadr of causing the problems in the city. The election has been delayed, and Mr. Sadr’s supporters believe that the reason was to give the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council time to reduce his appeal.

For people here, the competing rivalries breed confusion and fear. They do not know whom to trust. “You couldn’t tell which side was responsible for kidnappings, for killings,” said Abu Faris, the senior Diwaniya official who works with the provincial council.

“And if you looked at the victims, they were all kinds of people: police, workers, professors,” he said. “They were from different groups.”

The unease was palpable on a recent visit to Diwaniya. At a checkpoint at the city’s borders, the police stopped several cars with out-of-town license plates and held the occupants, including a reporter for The New York Times, saying the city was not safe. After relenting, they begged the visitors not to tell the next checkpoint, run by the Iraqi Army, that the police had let them into the town.

“They do not like us, they will try to make trouble for us,” said a police lieutenant, Hussain Ali. He added that there were rumors that the governor was going to dismiss 350 members of the police force. “Why are they trying to do this? We will be left penniless, our families and children without a livelihood, and we are accused of nothing.”

At the next checkpoint, stony-faced Iraqi soldiers looked suspiciously at the Baghdad license plates but let the cars through. A few hundred feet farther on, however, outside the compound that housed the governor’s office, uniformed gunmen who would not say whether they were with the police or the army blocked entry even to the government parking lot. There seemed to be no communication between the various checkpoints and no agreed upon rules.

By the time the reporter left the city, the tone of the encounter with the police had changed from threatening to a plea for help. Mr. Ali and two of his police officer colleagues apologized for not having air-conditioning at the police station, but explained that their generator was broken. They were making tea on a small gas stove. But the worst came at night, Mr. Ali said.

“Please, if you speak to the governor, please ask him to fix our generator,” he said. “At night our checkpoint sinks into darkness and we cannot see if someone is about to attack us.”

Labels: Crooks, Dick Cheney, Dumber than Quayle?, liars

In January, oil giant ExxonMobil tried to “soften” its stance on climate change, asserting that it was “misunderstood” and now acknowledges the contribution of humans to global warming. Subsequently, the company promised that it would “not be providing any further funding” to groups that distort global warming science, such as the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

But a new report from GreenPeace reveals what the company “didn’t mention” to the public. According to its IRS reports, Exxon is still actively funding at least 14 organizations “for their climate change work.”

These groups include organizations like Frontiers for Freedom, which recently released a report “dedicated entirely to questioning global warming science, policy and attacking Al Gore.”

Today, Rep. Brad Miller (D-NC) wrote to ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson lambasting the company for its inconsistency on global warming and urging the company to provide “full accounting of actual giving” to these climate skeptic groups, records which it has withheld from the public:

In a September 20, 2006, press release, ExxonMobil claimed it was reviewing funding for the coming year and that support for “organizations is publicly posted on our website.” […]

ExxonMobil’s clarification has yet to receive clarity. The analysis done by Greenpeace highlights disparities between your 2005 World Giving Report and actual giving as reflected in the copy of your IRS 990 tax form…the 2006 World Giving Report confirms that ExxonMobil has not stopped supporting climate skeptic organizations, as past statements from the Corporation suggested would be the stance of the company. […]

The support of climate skeptics, many of whom have no real grounding in climate science, appears to be an effort to distort public discussion about global warming…It is indefensible for private entities to fund phony science to create fictional “scientific” controversies where no legitimate controversy exists.

The report confirms ExxonMobil’s new policy on global warming is the same as its old policy.

See Miller’s full letter to ExxonMobil HERE. See GreenPeace’s report HERE.

Labels: ExxonMobil, Global Warming, liars

Kansas is currently missing approximately 60 percent of its National Guard equipment because of the war in Iraq, hampering its ability to respond to the recent tornadoes.

In a “spat reminiscent of White House finger-pointing at Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco after the federal government’s botched response to Hurricane Katrina,” White House Press Secretary Tony Snow this morning blamed Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (D) for the shortages, saying he was “not aware of any prior complaints” by the governor about the equipment:

If you don’t request it, you’re not going to get it. … As far as we know, the only thing the governor has requested are FM radios. There have been no requests to the National Guard for heavy equipment. … We are eager to provide what Kansas needs. But again there are also - you also have to go through the process of making the request first.

Snow’s statements are incorrect. On repeated occasions, Sebelius made clear to the White House that Kansas was dangerously low on National Guard equipment:

– Dec. 30, 2005: Sebelius writes to Rumsfeld requesting new equipment. “The Guard was critical to responding to recent blizzards and floods in Kansas, yet its ability to respond to similar situations is being diminished by a lack of equipment,” wrote Sebelius. Included with her letter was a list of equipment Kansas had lost to the Iraq war. [Kansas City Star, 1/21/06; Topeka Capital-Journal, 6/29/06]

– Jan. 23, 2006: Sebelius personally urges Bush to increase National Guard funding. In an one-hour motorcade ride in Kansas with Bush, Sebelius expressed concern about “a reduction of National Guard troop strength in its next budget.” Bush assured her he was “dealing” with the shortages. [Topeka Capital-Journal, 1/24/06; Kansas City Star, 3/11/06]

– June 28, 2006: Sebelius sends Army Secretary list of equipment lost in war. In a meeting with Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey, Sebelius told Harvey that the state had lost about $140 million in National Guard equipment to the Iraq war. Her office then sent him a list of the lost equipment. [Topeka Capital-Journal, 6/29/06]

– Sept. 2006: Sebelius lobbies for replacement of National Guard equipment sent to Iraq. “Kansas’ congressional delegation, Sebelius and governors from around the country have been lobbying the Pentagon for increased funding to replace National Guard equipment that has been left in Iraq or damaged beyond repair after repeated use in war.” [AP, 9/5/06]

– Feb. 27, 2007: Sebelius pushes White House and Congress for more funding. “Now the Guard needs Washington’s help,” Sebelius said in press conference on Capitol Hill. “The President and Congress need to step up to the plate and give our Guard members the support they deserve.” [Press Release, 2/27/07]

At today’s White House press briefing, a reporter confronted Snow about Sebelius’s past requests. Snow simply replied, “And what happened was, she actually did get — there was not a formal request. But they’d had conversations.” He also admitted that Sebelius did request more than FM Radios.

The Mahablog has more.

Labels: Bush Administration, liars

McCain Wrong on Iraq Security, Merchants Say
by Kirk Semple

BAGHDAD, April 2 — A day after members of an American Congressional delegation led by Senator John McCain pointed to their brief visit to Baghdad’s central market as evidence that the new security plan for the city was working, the merchants there were incredulous about the Americans’ conclusions.

“What are they talking about?” Ali Jassim Faiyad, the owner of an electrical appliances shop in the market, said Monday. “The security procedures were abnormal!”

The delegation arrived at the market, which is called Shorja, on Sunday with more than 100 soldiers in armored Humvees — the equivalent of an entire company — and attack helicopters circled overhead, a senior American military official in Baghdad said. The soldiers redirected traffic from the area and restricted access to the Americans, witnesses said, and sharpshooters were posted on the roofs. The congressmen wore bulletproof vests throughout their hourlong visit.

“They paralyzed the market when they came,” Mr. Faiyad said during an interview in his shop on Monday. “This was only for the media.”

He added, “This will not change anything.”

At a news conference shortly after their outing, Mr. McCain, an Arizona Republican, and his three Congressional colleagues described Shorja as a safe, bustling place full of hopeful and warmly welcoming Iraqis — “like a normal outdoor market in Indiana in the summertime,” offered Representative Mike Pence, an Indiana Republican who was a member of the delegation.

But the market that the congressmen said they saw is fundamentally different from the market Iraqis know.

Merchants and customers say that a campaign by insurgents to attack Baghdad’s markets has put many shop owners out of business and forced radical changes in the way people shop. Shorja, the city’s oldest and largest market, set in a sprawling labyrinth of narrow streets and alleyways, has been bombed at least a half-dozen times since last summer.

At least 61 people were killed and many more wounded in a three-pronged attack there on Feb. 12 involving two vehicle bombs and a roadside bomb.

American and Iraqi security forces have tried to protect Shorja and other markets against car bombs by restricting vehicular traffic in some shopping areas and erecting blast walls around the markets’ perimeters. But those measures, while making the markets safer, have not made them safe.

In the latest large-scale attack on a Baghdad market, at least 60 people, most of them women and children, were killed last Thursday when a man wrapped in an explosives belt walked around such barriers into a crowded street market in the Shaab neighborhood and blew himself up.

In recent weeks, snipers hidden in Shorja’s bazaar have killed several people, merchants and the police say, and gunfights have erupted between militants and the Iraqi security forces in the area.

During their visit on Sunday, the Americans were buttonholed by merchants and customers who wanted to talk about how unsafe they felt and the urgent need for more security in the markets and throughout the city, witnesses said.

“They asked about our conditions, and we told them the situation was bad,” said Aboud Sharif Kadhoury, 63, who peddles prayer rugs at a sidewalk stand. He said he sold a small prayer rug worth less than $1 to a member of the Congressional delegation. (The official paid $20 and told Mr. Kadhoury to keep the change, the vendor said.)

Mr. Kadhoury said he lost more than $2,000 worth of merchandise in the triple bombing in February. “I was hit in the head and back with shrapnel,” he recalled.

Ali Youssef, 39, who sells glassware from a sidewalk stand down the block from Mr. Kadhoury, recalled: “Everybody complained to them. We told them we were harmed.”

He and other merchants used to keep their shops open until dusk, but with the dropoff in customers as a result of the attacks, and a nightly curfew, most shop owners close their businesses in the early afternoon.

“This area here is very dangerous,” continued Mr. Youssef, who lost his shop in the February attack. “They cannot secure it.”

But those conversations were not reflected in the congressmen’s comments at the news conference on Sunday.

Instead, the politicians spoke of strolling through the marketplace, haggling with merchants and drinking tea. “The most deeply moving thing for me was to mix and mingle unfettered,” Mr. Pence said.

Mr. McCain was asked about a comment he made on a radio program in which he said that he could walk freely through certain areas of Baghdad.

“I just came from one,” he replied sharply. “Things are better and there are encouraging signs.”

He added, “Never have I been able to go out into the city as I was today.”

Told about Mr. McCain’s assessment of the market, Abu Samer, a kitchenware and clothing wholesaler, scoffed: “He is just using this visit for publicity. He is just using it for himself. They’ll just take a photo of him at our market and they will just show it in the United States. He will win in America and we will have nothing.”

A Senate spokeswoman for Mr. McCain said he left Iraq on Monday and was unavailable for comment because he was traveling.

Several merchants said Monday that the Americans’ visit might have only made the market a more inviting target for insurgents.

“Every time the government announces anything — that the electricity is good or the water supply is good — the insurgents come to attack it immediately,” said Abu Samer, 49, who would give only his nickname out of concern for his safety.

But even though he was fearful of a revenge attack, he said, he could not afford to stay away from the market. This was his livelihood. “We can never anticipate when they will attack,” he said, his voice heavy with gloomy resignation. “This is not a new worry.”

Labels: liars, Mike Pence, Senator John McCain

March 7th, 2007 8:15 pm
Prosecutor says lies shielded Cheney

By R. Jeffrey Smith / Washington Post

WASHINGTON — In late March 2004, Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald asked I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby three separate times whether his boss, Vice President Dick Cheney, had discussed telling reporters that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA in an undercover role.

Fitzgerald was unconvinced by Libby's response that even though he "may have" had such a conversation with Cheney, it probably occurred after Plame's identity as a CIA employee had been published in a newspaper column.

Almost three years later, Fitzgerald told the jury at Libby's trial that Libby's lies had effectively prevented him from learning about all of Cheney's actions in the administration's campaign to undermine Plame's husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, a critic of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Jurors on Tuesday convicted Libby of obstruction of justice, lying to the FBI and perjury for lying under oath to a grand jury. They acquitted him on another charge of lying.

More than he had previously, Fitzgerald made clear in his summation that his search for truth about Cheney was a goal of his investigation, and that his inability to get it was a key provocation for Libby's indictment. Although Cheney was the target, Fitzgerald's inquiry could not reach him because of Libby's duplicity.

Fitzgerald's summation explained, in part, why he brought charges based on imperfect evidence against Libby, even though Libby was not a source for Robert Novak, the author of the July 14, 2003, newspaper column that outed Plame as a CIA employee.

The jury's verdict addresses Fitzgerald's first conclusion — that Libby lied deliberately and did not misspeak from faulty memory. But the trial showed that the prosecutor finished his investigation with his mind made up that Libby's account was meant to hide his own involvement as well as to conceal the potential involvement of the vice president.

At the trial's close, Fitzgerald expressed his concern in unusually blunt terms. After Libby's lawyers complained that he was trying to put a "cloud" over Cheney without evidence to back it up, Fitzgerald told the jury on Feb. 20, "We'll talk straight."

There was, he said, "a cloud over what the vice president did" during the period before the publication of Novak's column, and it was created by testimony showing that Cheney directed Libby and others at the White House to give out information about Wilson and Wilson's criticisms.

"We didn't put that cloud there. That cloud remains because the defendant obstructed justice and lied about what happened," Fitzgerald added.

The notion that Libby was merely a courtroom stand-in for Cheney infuriated Libby's lawyers, who sought in their courtroom statement to defend both men. "Nobody in the office of the vice president is concerned about" Plame, Libby attorney William Jeffress Jr. said. "She never was part of the story they were trying to put out." (Editor's Note: Anyone else find it odd that Libby's Lawyers would try to defend the VP? They're supposed to be defending Libby, not Cheney.)

Fitzgerald disagreed. Suppose, Fitzgerald said, you were probing whether a pitcher had purposely beaned a batter, and if so, why?

"As you sit back, you want to learn why was this information going out. Why were people taking this information about Valerie Wilson and giving it to reporters?" Fitzgerald asked at a news conference in October. "What we have when someone charges obstruction of justice is the umpire gets sand thrown in his eyes. He's trying to figure out what happened, and somebody blocked their view."

Randall Eliason, a former chief prosecutor of public corruption and fraud in the U.S. attorney's office in Washington, said Fitzgerald "would not have been doing his job" if he had not brought the charges. If "witnesses believe they can lie to the FBI and lie in the grand jury and there will be no consequences, then it becomes impossible to investigate any criminal activity, from terrorism to shoplifting."

Labels: Dick Cheney, Fall Guy, liars, Scooter Libby

by Glenn Greenwald

There is a fascinating (and increasingly vitriolic) argument bubbling over in National Review's Corner between Andrew Stuttaford, on the one hand, and the roster of tough-guy Cornerite Warriors (Andy McCarthy, Mark Steyn, and Iran-obsessed Michael Rubin of the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute) on the other, concerning the Bush administration's participation in an upcoming regional diplomatic conference to include both Syria and Iran. And just incidentally, Brit Hume last night eagerly sought to assuage the concerns of worried Fox viewers by conveying his colleague Tony Snow's assurances that this was all planned long ago.

Over at the Corner, Stuttaford has been arguing for the wisdom of negotiating with the Iranians, the gravest neoconservative sin there is. And the Churchillian Warriors, of course, have declared this to be the ultimate act of Chamberlain-ish appeasement -- it's the same as sponsoring a group hug with bin Laden and Hitler at the same time, etc. -- and are mocking Stuttaford for failing to realize that Iran represents such Pure Evil that no negotiations with them are possible. That is all standard warmonger fare.

But what is so notable here -- and what one finds in almost every debate about Iran -- is that while the Warriors will mock and oppose every attempt to resolve the U.S.-Iranian conflicts short of war, they never have the courage to expressly say what it is that they actually favor. The reason for that refusal is clear: they oppose negotiations because they crave full-on military confrontation with Iran (or, at the very least, the use of force to bring about regime change), but they know that expressly advocating that will cause them to be stigmatized as the dangerous radicals that they are. So they keep using code to talk about the need to show strength and toughness towards Iran and never appease them -- and they mock every option designed to avoid war -- while lacking the courage of their convictions to say what they actually think.

For that reason, Stuttaford has been repeatedly asking the Warriors what they think we ought to do about Iran if negotiations are so misguided, and they keep refusing to answer. Finally Rubin was forced to address the question, and he began this way: "What would I suggest? When it comes to economic measures, Patrick Clawson provides some useful suggestions." He does not, of course, say that we should confine ourselves to those "economic measures," because that's not what he believes. He thus proceeds to reject various other measures (while never saying which ones he favors) and then finishes with this pronouncement:

Nor do I believe it in U.S. interests to acquiesce to the Revolutionary Guard and Office of the Supreme Leader with nuclear arms. Their ideology matters; it would be unwise to project our own values upon those circles in Iran which would control such capability. With regard to much more precise options, such things are better discussed in private, and I would be glad to do so.

So Rubin is unwilling to say publicly what he thinks the U.S. should do with regard to Iran. He is willing to unveil his great insights only in secret, closed-door meetings at the AEI at shadowy gatherings of our nation's neoconservative foreign policy geniuses, but is not willing to advocate those ideas to his fellow citizens in public forums.

What could possibly account for such timidity? Rubin is not a government official. He resigned from the Baker-Hamilton Commission in petulant protest over the Commission's bizarre and oh-so-inexplicable refusal to follow his neoconservative wisdom in light of all the great things it has accomplished in Iraq and elsewhere (as Greg Djerejian put it at the time: "James Baker and Lee Hamilton, doubtless, must have been crushed--that the penetrating insights Rubin would have brought to bear are now lost forever").

Rubin is just a private citizen. His opinions are not classified. If he really believes so much in the grave threat posed by Iran to the U.S., why wouldn't he be willing -- even eager -- to use his platform at National Review and the AEI to publicly advocate to his fellow citizens what he thinks we ought to do about Iran? Why keep his special insights a secret?

Many neoconservatives lack the courage of their convictions this way about many topics -- they hint at their extremist ideas without having the courage or honesty to expressly state them. That practice is consistent with the founding principles of neoconservative theory. Neoconservatism does not believe in the virtues of democratic debate, but instead views itself as the vanguard of a superior elite which formulates wise policy in secret and then deceitfully packages it in digestible Manichean form to the idiot masses (that is how we travel from a long-standing, pre-9/11 desire to invade Iraq for all sorts of geopolitical reasons to a marketing product "justifying" that invasion based on the claim that 9/11 Changed Everything, Saddam was connected to those attacks, he would give his Bad Weapons to the Terrorists, and Freedom is On The March).

This sort of intellectual cowardice and deceit is illustrated by another example. Several days ago, Mark Levin, writing at National Review, complained about a New York Times article reporting on U.S. actions against Al Qaeda in the Horn of Africa, claiming that the Times "gives up more of our strategic secrets." After excerpting part of the article, Levin -- following the "kill-the-traitor" code which Frank Gaffney has been urging -- concluded as follows:

Oh, do I long for the good old days when Abraham Lincoln, our greatest president, punished such acts of betrayal. And no, I am not joking. This is a wholly gratuitous assault on our national security by the reckless Times corporate management. There is simply no public interest in disclosing any of it. For all the liberal talk about the need to build coalitions and work more closely with other countries, when we do the Times and media outlets like it are the first to try to destroy those relationships. The Washington Post did the same with black sites in Europe.

As usual for neoconservatives, Levin is brave enough only to talk in code. He "longs" for the day when our government "punished such acts of betrayal" -- by the Times and Dana Priest of the Post -- but he stops short of specifying what he means. What punishment would he like to see, and against whom? After I read Levin's piece, I wrote him the following e-mail (with the subject: "Interview Request - Salon"):

Mr. Levin - I'm working on a piece for Salon about the argument being made by some conservatives that the Bush administration should follow the steps taken by Abraham Lincoln with regard to those who undermine our military missions (either generally in the war on terror or in Iraq), and that the administration should take more aggressive steps to punish disclosure of classified information.

I'm focusing on several articles written lately by Frank Gaffney in The Washington Times about Lincoln and treason, and I would like to include your post from several days ago (this one) in which you say: "Oh, do I long for the good old days when Abraham Lincoln, our greatest president, punished such acts of betrayal. And no, I am not joking."

Would you be available for an interview, or even just by e-mail, could you specify which specific punishments you think are appropriate here for the NYT? And which types of punishments do you think are appropriate for similar instances of prior disclosures of classified information by the Times (NSA, Swift, etc.) and those of other papers (such as the Post's disclosures of the secret Eastern European prisons for terrorists).

Thanks -

Glenn Greenwald

It's been a couple of days and Levin has not responded (I sent a similar email to Frank Gaffney asking about similar remarks in his last Washington Times column, and he has also not responded). There may be several reasons for the lack of response -- time constraints, an unwillingness (for whatever reasons) to be interviewed by me, etc. But whatever the explanation is, people who advocate things like Michael Rubin, Andy McCarthy, and Mark Levin always find ways to evade saying expressly what they are really advocating. They like to speak in code and stir up extremist sentiments but lack the courage to follow through on their argument and say what they mean.

If an American believes that our country is being gravely threatened by the New Nazi Germany in Iran and that nothing short of military action will save us, I would think they would be eager -- even feel compelled -- to go out and make that case and try to awaken their fellow citizens from their slumber in the face of this Great Persian Threat. And if someone believes that there are traitors in our media -- or in our Congress -- who should be prosecuted, convicted, and hanged, I would think they would be out making that case by specifcally fingering the Media or Congressional Traitors and specifying the fate they deserve. Those who believe that there are influential people in our political institutions breaking the law and who deserve prosecution ought to make that case clearly.

One of the principal reasons why political extremists are able to masquerade as mainstream figures is because they are permitted to engage in this intellectually dishonest exercise where they advance radical and contemptible ideas only through innuendo and code. Their meaning is clear, but they are able to maintain a safe distance from the arguments they are pushing because they lack the courage to embrace them openly (Michael Rubin: "such things are better discussed in private, and I would be glad to do so") and are never pressed to be more explicit.

Anyone who mocks the idea of negotiating with Iran while insisting that it is "intolerable" to allow them to acquire nuclear weapons or continue to "meddle" in Iraq should be pressed to say clearly what they do advocate. And those who spew dirty little innuendo about "punishment" and "accountability" for those who "undermine" the war and troop morale or who "give comfort to the enemy" ought to be asked precisely who they mean and what "accountability" they favor exactly.

The fact that an idea is radical or held by a tiny fringe does not prove that it is wrong. But when advocates of such ideas are too afraid to express their ideas honestly and out in the open, that is a pretty compelling sign that even they know how rancid and repugnant those ideas are.

Labels: American Enterprise Institute, cowards, liars, neocons

by John at AMERICAblog:

What a surprise. Two of the largest and angriest groups of the religious right, the American Family Association (known for its failed boycotts of American companies that support civil rights) and the Family Research Council (known for its obsessive homophobia), were caught misleading their followers this week in an effort to denigrate the United States Capitol Police, the folks risking their lives to protect our members of Congress.

In separate emails, the AFA and FRC defamed the United States Capitol police by claiming that they knowingly permitted a small handful of individuals to deface the US Capitol during this weekend's anti-Iraq-war protest. AFA and FRC even urged their followers to contact Speaker Pelosi's office to complain about the apparently deficient police officers defending our nation's capitol. (One group even suggested that perhaps Pelosi herself had ordered the police to allow the graffiti!)

Only problem? The AFA and the FRC got the story totally, 100%, wrong. The two far-right groups siced their alleged millions of members (that's what AFA claims, though we don't buy it) on the Capitol Police, berating them for not doing their job. That's why the Capitol Police were now forced to respond and set the record straight.

First off, before we hear from the Capitol Police, let's see what AFA and FRC alleged (untruths in bold).

From an AFA email sent today:

War protesters allowed to spray paint the U.S. Capitol

Capitol Chief of Police tell officers not to arrest anyone

Dear xxxxx,

During last Saturday's Washington rally protesting the war in Iraq, hundreds of anti-war protesters were allowed to desecrate government property by spray painting the Capitol with anarchist symbols. I did not see or hear any report of this in any of the mainline media outlets!

Capitol Police Chief Phillip Morse ordered his officers to fall back and allow the protesters to exercise what he called "their First Amendment rights" to spray paint the Capitol steps with graffiti. Defending his actions, Morse said, "The graffiti was easily removed by the staff. It is our duty and responsibility to protect the Capitol complex, while allowing the public to exercise their freedom of speech." He even ordered his officers not to arrest anyone!

The war protesters were given access and leniency to deface government property. According to Family Research Council, public employees had to come in on their day off, at taxpayers' expense, to clean up the mess the protesters left behind.

And here is what the Family Research Council told its followers:

...the anti-Bush protestors were given unprecedented access to the U.S. Capitol grounds, and some of them used that access to publicly deface taxpayer's property. According to the local newspaper, The Hill, the protesters were allowed to take the Capitol steps and they began to spray-paint "anarchist symbols" and phrases such as "Our capitol building" and "You can't stop us" around the area.

For any other group, such acts would mean immediate arrest. This time, the Capitol police's hands were tied because they were ordered to stand down by their Chief of Police, who answers to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)....

According to the news reports the rank and file police officers were "livid" that they were ordered not to arrest anyone. Since the Capitol police answer to Speaker Pelosi, the question arises, did the Chief of Police give the "no arrest" order or did it come from someone else? Whoever is responsible for the order needs to explain why the physical destruction of taxpayer property is acceptable.

Too bad that most of what they wrote their followers isn't true per the Capitol Police themselves. Let's walk our way through the charges, and then see what the Capitol Police chief had to say:

1. ALLEGATION: The Capitol Police "allowed" the protesters to spray paint the US Capitol - the police saw the protesters defacing the property and did nothing about it because the chief of police ordered his fellow officers to let the evil protesters do whatever they wanted.

TRUTH: The Police had no idea that a small group was defacing anything, and had they seen the defacement, there would have been immediate arrests. And I quote the chief of police:

Some members of this group did covertly mark the pavement on the Lower West Terrace during their confrontation with us. Had this been observed, I would have directed arrests to be made. However, the size and continual movement of the crowd provided concealment and made detection of their actions impossible. Once the crowd dispersed, I was appalled and disgusted that any individual, whatever their cause, would deface the grounds of the Capitol. Fortunately, due to the notable efforts of the staff of the Architect of the Capitol, their signs of disrespect were quickly washed away.

2. ALLEGATION: The protesters were permitted to take to the Capitol steps where they painted the steps with graffiti.

TRUTH: From the chief, "We held our lines; no one entered into secure areas; and no one climbed the steps of the Capitol or even got close to any of the doors or windows."

3. ALLEGATION: The anti-Bush protesters were given "unprecedented access to the Capitol grounds."

TRUTH: From the chief, "At the end of the day, the splinter group was only allowed to be in areas that are otherwise open to the public at anytime of the day or night."

And now, the right wing blogs are getting involved, spurred on by the religious right groups, and they're asking their readers to harass the Capitol Police. Imagine that, trying to close down the phone lines of a police department - and not just any police department, but the police department in charge of protecting our members of Congress from the terrorists.

The untruths spread by the likes of the American Family Association and the Family Research Council are now quite literallly endangering the ability of the Capitol Police to do their jobs.

So there you have it. Whether they're simply sloppy with the truth, or outright liars, the religious right has proven again why it simply can't be trusted. It always lets its anger, rather than its heart, guide its action. Not very Christian.

Labels: American Family Association, Family Research Council, liars