This isn't just a number. These were real people. The NY Times has a mosaic with the picture and basic info. about every single member of the military killed in Iraq so far. The Times is probably breaking some Bush administration rule by honoring the war dead. Over the next day or two, take some time and look at the pictures. We won't see the pictures of the ten of thousands injured, but think of them, too.
If Bush proceeds with his plan to escalate his war, the numbers will increase dramatically.
First, we agree with Atrios: "A 'sustained surge' is an escalation."
So, besides McCain and Lieberman, who else is supporting Bush's plan for a major escalation of the quagmire in Iraq? An Associated Press report on the talk shows has Lugar and Specter sounding very skeptical:
Two prominent Senate Republicans bucked the White House on Sunday, expressing skepticism about more U.S. troops in Iraq and support for greater dialogue with Iran, Syria and others in the region.
Sen. Richard Lugar, the outgoing chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, urged the president to consult with lawmakers before announcing a new strategy on Iraq that could call for additional troops in Iraq.
If Bush were to act with without involving the new Democratic-controlled Congress, he can anticipate "a lot of hearings, a lot of study, a lot of criticism," Lugar said....
...Sen. Arlen Specter, just back from a trip to the region, also questioned the wisdom of sending in more troops, saying he has not seen an administration plan that would justify it. "If there is a road map to victory, then I would be prepared to listen to what the president has to say about more troops," he said.
In addition, Vilsack and John Edwards stated their opposition this morning:
Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack said the U.S. should not make a "big mistake even bigger by suggesting a surge of troops in some way, shape or form is going to make Iraq safer or better."
Former North Carolina senator John Edwards, described the troop-increase idea as the "McCain doctrine" - after a chief advocate, Sen. John McCain - and said he believes the Arizona Republican is "dead wrong."
I think Edwards is on to something there. McCain wants this, let him own it.
Talking Points Memo reports that even Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM), reliable Bush puppet in Congress, is against the escalation.
Very few Republicans have questioned their President over the Iraq war. Now, many seem to be keeping their distance from his latest developing plan. If they had done their jobs for the past four years, maybe things wouldn't be this bad. But things are this bad -- and Bush seems determined to make it worse.
Juan Cole -- who is really worth the daily read -- on the upcoming tragedy of 3,000 deaths in Iraq, both the importance of the number and also what it obscures.
I'm shocked -- shocked!! -- to hear that there's a dearth of due process in Guantanamo Bay. Hard to imagine that an institution with virtually no transparency or oversight might be prone to unfair legal practices.
I have a good friend who worked at Guantanamo; as with many other similarly secretive things, it's worse than most people imagine.
Lots to cover this week in what would be a slow news week. But, we've got the announcement of John Edwards, the Hussein execution, the deadliest month in Iraq this year, the death of Gerald Ford. Lieberman will be pushing his pro-war, pro-escalation views on CNN. At this point, he should be getting some of the credit blame for the death toll in Iraq, too. He and McCain are Bush's biggest boosters when it comes to the disastrous Iraq war. Maybe Wolf should ask him how he feels about the 3,000 dead U.S. soldiers:
ABC's "This Week" _ Former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., presidential candidate; wife, Elizabeth Edwards.
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CBS' "Face the Nation" _ Alexander Haig, former Ford White House chief of staff; journalists Ben Bradlee of the Washington Post and Tom DeFrank of the New York Daily News; Gerald Ford biographer James Cannon.
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NBC's "Meet the Press" _ Former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw; journalist Bob Woodward.
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CNN's "Late Edition" _ Feisal al-Istrabadi, Iraq's deputy ambassador to the United Nations; Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., and Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn.
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"Fox News Sunday" _ Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind.; former Gov. Tom Vilsack, D-Iowa, presidential candidate.
Take a look at some of the things Betty Ford said and did back in the 1970s. She really did speak her mind honestly. This was back in the days when there were normal Republicans. Betty Ford was not out of the mainstream of her party then. Imagine what the right wingers and theocrats would have done to her if they owned the GOP then like they do now:
Thrown into the role of first lady during a period of deep distrust in government, she fulfilled the role of honest arbiter of American family life and of the modern woman, speaking candidly on just about any subject she was asked about, both shocking and delighting the country.
She was a product and symbol of the cultural and political times — doing the Bump along the corridors of the White House, donning a mood ring, chatting on her CB radio with the handle First Mama — a housewife who argued passionately for equal rights for women, a mother of four who mused about drugs, abortion and premarital sex aloud and without regret.
Her candor about her battle with breast cancer, which led to unprecedented awareness among American women about detecting the disease, and her later commitment to alcohol and substance abuse treatment, stemming from her own abuse history, set the stage for widespread acknowledgment and advocacy that is commonplace today.
Given her impact on these crucial health issues and her influence over the modern East Wing, Mrs. Ford’s impact on American culture may be far wider and more lasting than that of her husband, who served a mere 896 days, much of it spent trying to restore the dignity of the office of the president.
Compare Betty Ford's legacy to the current occupant of the White House.
Today's NY Times has an article on the first year of Chris Quinn's tenure as Speaker of the New York City Council. Overall, it's pretty favorable coverage for what has to be one of the toughest political jobs around:
When Christine C. Quinn became speaker of the New York City Council last January, she inherited a rabble-rousing body that relished its role as heckler of the establishment.
She was the first female speaker and the first to be openly gay, and she had already clashed with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg over his stand on gay marriage and his plans for a football stadium on the West Side.
But over the last year, Ms. Quinn, 40, has broken with Council tradition and reshaped the institution from a theater of opposition to a rigidly disciplined body where, in exchange for private collaboration, open dissent is barely tolerated.
She has also emerged as an influential partner of the mayor, pushing him to include more lower-cost housing in a tax break program for developers, shepherding his waste plan through a not-in-my-backyard Council, and expanding neighborhood input on West Side rezoning.
High-stakes conflict between the city’s two most powerful officials has suddenly been replaced with a nonideological focus on effectiveness and collaboration.
“Here you have a liberal Irish lesbian woman speaker working well with a Jewish Republican billionaire pragmatist mayor,” said Douglas A. Muzzio, a professor of public affairs at Baruch College. “The political environment has changed.”
Quinn is probably the highest ranking gay elected official in the country. And as the Times notes, there is already a lot of speculation about whether she'll run for Mayor of NYC in 2009. We have mutual friends so I've met Chris several times and I am big fan. In addition to being a very good politician, she's actually pretty cool and very normal.
Seems like Chris is doing a great job as Speaker and I have no doubt she'll be a super Mayor when the time comes.
Okay, I'll admit it. It's a Saturday night and I'm watching the Ford funeral on CNN. The motorcade really screwed up traffic in the area. I have friends who have been stuck in traffic in both Virginia and Maryland.
The event has created some interesting political dynamics for the Vice President. The honorary pall bearers include Cheney, Brent Scowcroft and Paul O'Neill. Scowcroft has trashed the Bush/Cheney administration. O'Neill, who Cheney fired as Secretary of the Treasury, trashed the administration. And, of course, we all know now that Ford himself trashed the decision by Bush and Cheney to go to war in Iraq.
Rummy is supposed to be an honorary pall bearer but Wolf Blitzer keeps noting the he's no where to be seen.
Even the Shia are barely celebrating in Iraq today. What a debacle this whole process was. It's gratifying that Saddam is gone, but there aren't even the usual claims of "turning the corner" that I would have expected.
What should have been a shared experience for Iraqis, a transparent and fair trial and much-deserved justice for a beleaguered nation, instead telegraphed continued incompetence.
Meanwhile, three years into the war, the President is still . . . um . . . "considering his options."
It is a beautiful day here in DC. Sunny and way too warm for the end of December. Seemed to be a lot of activity getting ready for the funeral for Gerald Ford.
But, I am having a low-key, lazy day...what's the latest?
Rep.-elect Jerry McNerney who beat the ultra-offensive Richard Pombo in California's 11th CD delivered the radio address for the Democrats today. He hit on the two key issues that moved voters to dump the GOP in November -- ethics and Iraq:
"In this election, the American people clearly called for change," Rep.-elect Jerry McNerney said in the Democrats' weekly radio address. "As our first responsibility in fulfilling the mandate of this critical election, House Democrats will restore integrity and civility in Washington in order to earn the public trust."
The effort to build that trust will include bans on gifts from lobbyists, lobbyist-funded travel and use of corporate jets, McNerney said.
The incoming congressman also promised "a new direction in Iraq" and said Democrats would resist any plan to deploy more U.S. troops there. "The Iraqis need to understand that the responsibility for the future of that country is theirs," he said.
The Democratic caucus is really promoting the new members. That's a good strategy because we'll need them back in 2008.
An interesting piece by M. Javad Zarif, the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations, in the LA Times. It's a very reasonable-sounding article, though obviously this is essentially a paid propagandist. Worth a look, though.
Still, the point isn't so much what's true and what isn't (and of course I think the Iranian regime is terrible, I very much hope Iran never gets the bomb, etc), but rather the fact that the Iranian UN Ambassador wrote an op-ed for an American audience. Obviously they understand that engagement and outreach is vital in politics and in the court of public opinion, a critical point the current U.S. government clearly fails to grasp.
Bombings killed at least 68 people in Iraq on Saturday, including one planted on a minibus that exploded in a fish market in a mostly Shiite town south of Baghdad.
The attacks came hours after Saddam Hussein was hanged in Baghdad for ordering the killings of 148 Shiites in the city of Dujail in 1982. Despite concerns about a spike in unrest, Saturday's violence was not unusually high and there was no indication it was related to the execution.
The U.S. military also announced the deaths of three Marines and three soldiers, making December the year's deadliest month for U.S. troops in Iraq, with 109 service members killed.
Let's see, Saddam hasn't run the country since April of 2003. Yet, somehow, the carnage and death -- that was supposed to end when his reign was over -- not only hasn't ended, it's gotten worse.
The traditional media is struggling with what pictures to show of dead Saddam. They've been censoring this war from the outset. Bush wants us to see the dead Saddam, but we can't see the caskets of dead Americans. That's what the media should be fighting -- the censorship that prevents Americans from seeing the true costs of Bush's war.
Kansas Republicans, weeks after the elections in which many of them were trounced, are still in disarray.
Couldn't have happened to a more deserving group of folks.
On a related note, how about Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius? What a fantastic success story she is. I occasionally hear people talk about how the Democrats lack a "deep bench," i.e., people ready to step up as national leaders, but I honestly think we have one of the best group of rising stars I've seen in decades. Of presidential contenders alone, there's one of the most capable and powerful women the country has ever seen, a brilliant and racial category-defying rising star, a young and attractive progressive powerhouse from the south, a Latino star with extensive executive and foreign policy experience, a four-star General, and more. At the next level, state leaders like Sebelius are augmenting the party more locally, building experience and connections as they prepare to guide the party for years to come, and new progressive Senators like Webb, Tester, and Brown mark a renewal of Wellstone-esque priorities in Congress.
There's a lot to look forward to, especially because, as Kansas shows, Republicans are busy destroying each other as Democrats enjoy the emergence of a stellar group of leaders.
Bush was asleep when Hussein was executed but he managed to put out a statement anyway. He has made America pay a very heavy price to take down Saddam. We've lost almost 3,000 soldiers. Ten of thousands have been permanently disabled. Hundreds of billions have been spent. The U.S. has lost power and prestige in the world. Our leaders lied to us and to the world. There were no weapons of mass destruction. Our own intelligence agencies maintain that the war in Iraq has inspired new terrorists and made our country less safe. We're stuck in a war that our President chose to start, but it's a war he can't end.
So, Bush got Saddam's scalp. But has it been worth it?
A great podcast of an interview done by my friend Sean-Paul Kelley at Radio Agonist of my friend Jen Abrahamson about her book Sweet Relief: The Marla Ruzicka Story (and a special bonus if you act now, the book salon I hosted on it at Firedoglake).
The Week That Was 12/29/06
Another week. More preposterousness to report.
Pop quiz folks: Is Joe Lieberman insane (or to put it less delicately...well go here)? Or is he simply the most grotesque, maladjusted, oil-soaked, sociopathic Morlock who really knows the truth about Iraq, but is willing to send more troops to die needlessly when he actually understands how screwed things are?
(Pride, or superbia, is a deadly sin ya know Joe).
See with President Dumbass, I don't have to ask that question. I know his moral catheter Dick is inserting fantasy into The Decider's vacuous noggin while he lays prone slurping SpaghettiOs and navigating the many complexities of "the google" to find the Cartoon Network.
Yet, I was always under the impression that this yapping, little, self-promoting Shitzu (with my apologies to canines everywhere) had a brain, if not a heart. My bad.
You may have seen Holy Joe's piece in The Washington Post today, which argues that we need more troops in Iraq because:
On one side are extremists and terrorists led and sponsored by Iran, on the other moderates and democrats supported by the United States.
Really Joe, it's that simplistic? You mean that Shia and Sunnis who are killing each other and have often done battle for 2,000 years are all on the same side against us? Baathists and whatever Al Qaeda contingent is there, Sunnis all, are taking orders from Shiites in Iran? Are you a complete moron?
C'mon Joe, you can tell us, are you involved in Judith Regan's next book project, "If I FUBARED it?" Do you troll Hannidate late at night with a profile stating, "Has personally turned the entire Middle East into Debbie Schlussel's 2nd night of Hanukah present right after hydrogen peroxide"?
I think Matt Browner Hamlin had the best take today: Shorter Joe Lieberman: Our long national nightmare must go on! Very timely, considering a Republican president whose words this line is based upon just passed away, and it was revealed that he thought this war inane from the beginning (If only what happened in the minds of the Republican Establishment, didn't stay in the minds of the Republican Establishment).
Of course for uttering these anti-Iraq War sentiments even in private and allowing them to be released upon his death, Gerald Ford was attacked by Liebermoron's fellow corrupt moralizer, Bill Bennett. Yup, old cut the deck, jokers are wild, all my money's on red, snake-eyes, Blackjack Bill Bennett and his gargantuan, hairsute corpus questioned whether Ford had "courage" and was "decent" for not making sure that these comments stayed out of the press until Bush & Cheney leave office in disgrace.
In other words, after Bennett has watched more of your kids die for a war I guess he is still enough of an ass to support while sacrificing absolutely nothing for it.
Now, I do think Ford should have had the courage to speak out, but what he did, ie saying something that eventually made its way to the press, was a helluva lot more "decent" than spending your Christianist speaking fees having a room at the Bellagio filled with oxygen so you can pull an all-nighter to get that perfect royal flush while Americans die.
So quite frankly Joe and Bill, suit up or shut up.
The dispute of Florida's 13th CD is not over. It will be brought up on the House floor on the first day of the session thanks to Congressman Rush Holt:
A disputed election result in a U.S. House of Representatives race in Florida will be one of the first items raised when the Democratic-controlled House convenes next week, injecting partisan politics into the start of the 110th Congress.
Rep. Rush Holt, a New Jersey Democrat who has pushed for better safeguards on electronic voting machines, said on Friday he would make a procedural point to establish the swearing-in of Florida Republican Vern Buchanan does not prejudice ongoing challenges by his Democratic opponent, Christine Jennings.
``This is a district, Sarasota area in Florida, where there's no way of knowing whether the result presented by Florida's secretary of state is valid. In fact, I think there is significant evidence that it is not,'' Holt told reporters.
Why does insuring that votes are accurately counted constitute "injecting partisan politics"? Bush and the GOP hoodwinked the media along those lines in 2000. Somehow, back then, it was wrong to want to count all the votes. No more. Insuring the will of the voters is called democracy, not partisan politics.
Something very wrong happened with the vote in Sarasota County. We know from experince that Florida won't fix it. Congress has to figure it out -- make it right -- and make sure it doesn't happen again.
While the media is salivating over the impending death of Saddam Hussein, the U.S. death toll continues to mount. December is already tied with October as the deadliest month for US troops this year. 106 Americans have been killed this month according to CNN. That, of course, doesn't negate the deaths that happened in those non-record breaking months.
AP reports that it has been a bad month for Iraqis too:
Already, December was shaping up to be one of the worst months for Iraqi civilian deaths since The Associated Press began keeping track in May 2005.
Through Thursday, at least 2,139 Iraqis have been killed in war-related or sectarian violence, an average rate of about 76 people a day, according to an AP count. That compares to November - the worst month for Iraqi civilian deaths since May 2005 - when at least 2,184 were killed at an average of about 70 a day. In October, AP counted at least 1,216 civilians killed.
