I know you won't be surprised that the White House has managed to politicize yet another function of government. Still, this is important stuff. Over at TPMCafe, Steve Clemons gives the rundown on the White House's alleged involvement in trying to silence Flynt Leverett, the former government official and scholar who is a prominent critic of Bush foreign policy. The White House claims that Leverett's draft op-ed for the NYT contains classified information, a finding at odds with the CIA's own Publication Review Board. The CIA has bowed to the White House pressure, according to Leverett. All the details here.
--David Kurtz
Late Friday, the Department of Justice announced that the President had used a recess appointment to name a 34-year-old former White House aide to Karl Rove as the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas. Apparently J. Timothy Griffin made his mark as a Republican campaign operative as opposed to, say, as a lawyer. He replaces current USA Bud Cummins.
The move has provoked the ire of Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark):
Normally, the White House requests names of potential replacements for U. S. attorneys and other positions from the state’s senators or congressmen, and then chooses a nominee from among those names. The nominee then must undergo a background check and Senate confirmation — which could be tough for Griffin in the new Democrat-controlled body. Griffin, a longtime behind-the-scenes Republican operative and political strategist, has worked for the Republican National Committee.. . .
[Pryor spokesman Michael] Teague noted that an interim appointment could keep Griffin at the helm of the top prosecutor’s post in the state’s Eastern District for the two years remaining in Bush’s term.
“This process circumvents a way to find out about his legal background,” Teague said. “We know about his political background, which is unbalanced. If he’s just interim for the next two years, every decision he makes during that time is going to be somewhat suspect.”
The state’s only Republican congressman, John Boozman, said last month that he hadn’t been asked to submit names to replace Cummins.
Go read the whole article. It's textbook patronage politics. I hope we're not about to see a flood of recess appointments to get the White House through the rest of the President's term with minimal advice and consent from the Democratic Senate.
Late Update: As an emailer noted, a recess appointment now may not be effective for the remainder of Bush's term. More here.
--David Kurtz
You may recall some of the dandy investigative reporting on Rep. Tim Murphy (R-PA) turned in by Pittsburgh's KDKA-TV during the midterm election campaign. At issue was whether Murphy was illegally using his congressional staff for campaign purposes. Now it looks like the feds are investigating. KDKA has the latest.
--David Kurtz
Evan Bayh is out, but John Edwards is in. Edwards will use New Orleans' Ninth Ward as the backdrop for announcing his candidacy for President later this month.
--David Kurtz
At its website, ABC News is flagging as "breaking news" the President's likely support for deploying more than 30,000 additional troops to Iraq. While the size of the expected deployment varies, I'm not sure what makes that breaking news. But we'll let you know if ABC has further details.
Late update: Here's the full ABC report.
--David Kurtz
Newt Gingrich tries to outdo Pat Buchanan as the GOP's most xenophobic blowhard.
--David Kurtz
Not everyone at Southern Methodist University is happy at the prospect of hosting the George W. Bush presidential library. Administrators, faculty and staff of SMU's School of Theology, interestingly enough, are apparently leading the opposition to the $500 million project.
--David Kurtz
The Nation has a piece out by Michael Tisserand, questioning whether the Democrats will make Hurricane Katrina recovery and the rebuilding of New Orleans a priority:
For New Orleans, the most dangerous outcome of the midterms would be if voters receive the message that Katrina was a terrible thing, a Republican blunder, but it's now over. Nothing could be further from the truth. The mental health infrastructure in New Orleans remains shattered, depression is a local epidemic and the suicide rate has officially tripled. Incredibly, some residents of public housing are still unable to enter their own homes, while the Department of Housing and Urban Development moves to demolish more than 5,000 public housing units. Unchecked insurance costs are preventing others from selling, buying or repairing property. Federal dollars are flowing to corporate bailouts and disaster profiteers, not to affected citizens, revealed an August analysis by CorpWatch, a San Francisco-based organization that previously investigated profiteering in Iraq and Afghanistan.. . .
More than anything, Democrats must set themselves apart by keeping their promises to Katrina survivors. At an August press conference in New Orleans, party leaders pledged that the first 100 hours of the new Congress would include bills to assist New Orleans by streamlining insurance, creating more affordable housing options and restoring the coast. But Pelosi's recently released "New Direction for America" didn't include one mention of post-Katrina needs. Such omissions offer cold comfort to New Orleanians who wonder if some leaders have stopped thinking of their home as an American city at all.
Michael, an old friend and colleague of mine, was the editor of Gambit Weekly, the alternative paper in New Orleans, until Katrina struck and the levees failed, forcing him and his family to relocate to Chicago.
--David Kurtz
Well, here we go. Reports this week, including from today's New York Times, indicate that the President will escalate U.S. involvement in Iraq by deploying additional troops. CBS News last evening reported that plans already call for a brigade from the 82nd Airborne Division to deploy to Kuwait after the holidays. Incoming Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is expected to approve the move after being sworn in Monday.
I get the sense that everyone in the country except the President and Vice President is caught back on their heels at the moment. Here are just a few of the misconceptions that seem to be floating around since the election:
Myth: The results of the election will force the President to reevalute his Iraq strategy.
Reality: The election defeat has forced the White House to go through the motions of reevaluating its Iraq policy; hence, the President's listening tour. Politically, he had no choice but to make a lavish effort to look responsive to the election results. Substantively, however, everything about this Administration suggests it will do what it wants to do regardless. The last few weeks reinforce that impression. If the White House can blow off the bipartisan elder statesmen of the Iraq Study Group, it can certainly ignore Democrats, the press, and the people.
Myth: Following the reevaluation of its Iraq policy, the White House will announce its proposed New Way Forward, whereupon there will be a vigorous national debate.
Reality: The White House is not going to wait for the Democratic Congress or for an extended national debate before it proceeds. There are some indications that the reason for delaying the President's announcement of "The New Way Forward" is so that he can announce a fait accompli. (Andy Card, who famously noted about the 2002 run-up to the Iraq invasion that you don't roll out a marketing campaign in August, might also say the same thing about launching one during the Christmas holidays.) I wouldn't be surprised to see new deployment orders already issued by the time Democrats officially take over Congress in the first week of January, the President's way of grabbing his crotch and saying, Debate this.
Myth: Rumsfeld's exit and Gates' entrance signal a new direction from the White House.
Reality: The relief and excitement that greeted Gates' nomination seemed all out of proportion then and even more so now. Gates caught official Washington, and many Democrats, on the rebound. If Rumsfeld was the bad boyfriend, then Gates swept everyone off their feet simply by being soft-spoken and listening. So instead of using the hearings on the Gates' nomination as the starting point for a debate on Iraq policy, it became a bipartisan lovefest. The myth that the ISG report would somehow save the day has already been exploded. The adults are not in charge; Cheney still is. I would expect that Cheney and Rumsfield conspired in the last few weeks of Rumsfeld's tenure to start the ball rolling on the New Way Forward with the intention of constraining Gates' options.
Myth: The prospect of Democratic oversight will sober up the Administration and force it to rein itself in.
Reality: The White House is going to try to outflank Congress with speed and agility. Troop deployments are a perfect example. Deploy the troops, then ask Congress for the funding. Are Democrats going to support the troops already there, or pull the rug out from under them?
Myth: Congessional hearings will build public support for withdrawal from Iraq.
Reality: It is difficult to imagine public sentiment against the war being any higher than it is right now. In this week's NBC/WSJ poll, 71 percent of respondents disapproved of the President's handling of Iraq. As soon as congressional hearings begin, the President is likely to get some bump in the polls because it allows him to cast the debate in familiar political terms. The President versus congressional Democrats is a much better matchup for the White House than the President versus the reality of his disastrous policies. Congressional hearings are also messy, boring, and diffuse--an important part of good governance, but not especially effective at rallying public support one way or another, at least in the short-term.
So while quite a few Americans and an abundance of commentators heralded the midterm elections and the ISG report as the beginning of the end of U.S. involvement in Iraq, I am afraid Americans will shake off their New Year's hangovers and discover a new and deeper American commitment in Iraq, one which won't easily be reversed for the remainder of the Bush presidency.
--David Kurtz
The AP has undertaken tracking down former detainees from Guantanamo to determine what happened to them after their releases to foreign countries:
The Pentagon called them "among the most dangerous, best-trained, vicious killers on the face of the Earth," sweeping them up after Sept. 11 and hauling them in chains to a U.S. military prison in southeastern Cuba.Since then, hundreds of the men have been transferred from Guantanamo Bay to other countries, many of them for "continued detention."
And then set free.
Decisions by more than a dozen countries in the Middle East, Europe and South Asia to release the former detainees raise questions about whether they were really as dangerous as the United States claimed, or whether some of America's staunchest allies have set terrorists and militants free.
Of the 245 former detainees the AP was able to locate, 205 were either freed without being charged or were cleared of charges related to their detention at Guantanamo.
Of those who were never charged with a crime or were acquitted, how many were subjected to the President's "aggressive interrogation techniques"? That is, how many innocent detainees were tortured? (Not that torture would be justified for "guilty" detainees, but the psychological scarring of being tortured must be worse for those who are innocent in the first place.)
Late Update: This news comes as the military tightens the restrictions on those still detained at Guantanamo, according to the New York Times.
--David Kurtz
Since September, the Bush administration has refused to tell Congress the numbers of enemy attacks in Iraq.
--Justin Rood
USNews is ramping up on the pre-cog beat too. They just put this story listing all the Democratic senators, with ages, who come from states with Republican governors. Next up, cross-referencing with levels of good and bad cholesterol.
--Josh Marshall
Okay, prognosticators. We just opened this question up at TPMCafe. How many US troops will be on the ground in Iraq on New Year's Day 2008 and how many on New Year's Day 2009?
--Josh Marshall
If you haven't seen it yet check out the Strobel & Landay piece from McClatchy (formerly of Knight-Ridder). They've got a run-down on what we can expect from the president's 'new way forward' and going from past experience I'd figured their sources are better than anyone else's.
In very broad outlines, it's been what we've led to expect: troop surge, rejection of Baker-Hamilton proposals. But there are some nuggets in here that add to the picture -- and in ways that would be humorous if there weren't so much on the line.
Here for example ...
-A revised Iraq political strategy aimed at forging a "moderate center" of Shiite Muslim, Sunni Muslim Arab and Kurdish politicians that would bolster embattled Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki. The goal would be to marginalize radical Shiite militias and Sunni insurgents.
It's hard to disagree with this. But it's also hard to call it a strategy. Sort of like my new strategy which is to get the folks there to chill out about religion and stop blowing so much stuff up. If wishes were horses ...
Then there's this ...
More money to combat rampant unemployment among Iraqi youths and to advance reconstruction, much of it funneled to groups, areas and leaders who support Maliki and oppose the radicals.
In theory, more money for employment and reconstruction is probably a very good idea, certainly in the context of a phased withdrawal of US troops and broader political settlement. But do you trust these doofuses to spend this money? And, to be clear, I mean our doofuses in this case. I guess a ton of money will probably go to Haliburton's recently acquired Maliki Moderate Inc. Who knows.
And this ...
-Rejection of the study group's call for an urgent, broad new diplomatic initiative in the Middle East to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and reach out to Iran and Syria.Instead, the administration is considering convening a conference of Iraq and neighboring countries - excluding Iran and Syria - as part of an effort to pressure the two countries to stop interfering in Iraq.
Okay, so it'll be us, "Iraq", Jordan and the Saudis holding a conference to get the Syrians and Iranians to stop messing around in Iraq. Why didn't we think of this before?
Here are some other really promising signs ...
Bush appears to have been emboldened by criticism of its proposals as defeatist by members of the Republican Party's conservative wing and their allies on the Internet, the radio and cable TV.
That's excellent. Our C-in-C is sharp enough to get his jones from The Corner rather than the ex-diplomats and foreign policy hands. That's good stuff. Maybe we can swap out John Podhoretz for Chalabi for our approach to Syria.
And of course there's this ...
According to a senior State Department official, the president is listening closely to a former Republican secretary of state, but it isn't Baker. Henry Kissinger, a frequent White House visitor, has been to see Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice a half-dozen times, he said.
If you had to pull anybody out of formaldehyde to deal empower the denialists, who would be better?
--Josh Marshall
Ahhh, the robocalls hit Baghdad. If they didn't work in the US, maybe they'll work in Iraq. Nothing else has.
--Josh Marshall
You know it's never too early to start framing.
So many of the '08 presidential hopefuls have already hired advertising gurus. Over at Election Central, they've got the roster.
--Paul Kiel
The Post says senate Republicans are going to push for what amounts to a special Johnson mortality clause in the resolution to organize the senate.
Late Update: Jonathan Singer has more here at MyDD.
--Josh Marshall
News Flash: New York Sun opens its ed pages to 3rd graders. That and they finally expose Drudge as the cat's paw of the dying liberal media. I was hoping someone would do that.
--Josh Marshall
Senior officials offer a sneak preview of Bush's New Way Forward in Iraq. That and other news of the day in today's Daily Muck.
--Paul Kiel
Give this a close read. It's from the Wall Street Journal ...
The Bush administration is leaning toward temporarily sending as many as 20,000 additional U.S. troops to Iraq, even as the Democrats taking charge of Congress demand a drawdown of forces.U.S. officials say the increase is needed to make a new push to stabilize Baghdad and to bolster efforts to train the Iraqi army. The emerging plan is facing opposition from Iraqi officials adamant that more U.S. forces aren't the answer. U.S. military commanders in Baghdad have drawn up plans for the country that don't require any new personnel. The debate over whether to send additional U.S. forces to Iraq is the most visible manifestation of the high-level tumult roiling the Bush administration as it works to find a way forward there ahead of a presidential address to the nation early next year.
Who's for this exactly? That is, beside President Bush, people who work for President Bush and John McCain? The American public seems dead set against it, at least if we're willing to go by numerous national polls and a recent national election. The top brass in the US military seems, at best, highly skeptical -- because it's a textbook example of reckless hope over experience. To the extent there still is such a thing, most of the US foreign policy establishment is against it. Who's on this bandwagon beside the president and the pundits?
--Josh Marshall
I'd be curious to hear your feedback on this. The latest news on Sen. Tim Johnson (D-SD) seems to be positive and hold some real grounds for optimism. He's obviously had a major, potentially life-threatening event. But, hopefully, he's going to get through 
it. As most of you probably know, Johnson was in the midst of a reporters' conference call when he began to show the first signs of impairment which soon sent him to the hospital with what then appeared to be a stroke. In the nature of things, that conference call was being recorded.
Does it strike you as a little tasteless and gratuitous that a host of news outlets are broadcasting the recording? So you can hear how Johnson began to stumble through his words and lose his ability to concentrate as the bleeding in his brain reached a critical point?
A reader mentioned this to me this evening and told me he thought it was ghoulish. And I take it it's being played on various chat shows and on the radio. Where I noticed it though was on the front page of the Washington Post either last night or early today. On the front page package, there's a link that reads "AUDIO: Johnson Interview on Wednesday." And if you click through, you're taken to an audio file where you can hear the stuttering interview.
(I hadn't listened to it or wanted to listen to it. But before writing this post, I clicked through and listened to the first few seconds just to make sure it was what I thought it was.)
I don't want to be a mortality prude. These things hold a certain fascination.
But Johnson's not dead. He's in the hospital fighting for his life. This isn't like video of an assassination where the events recorded are an essential part of what happened. It's just live audio of a guy having a stroke, or what appeared to be one. I would have expected it to show up bootlegged on some no-holds-barred website. But there it is in the Post.
--Josh Marshall
Help us puzzle this one out:
In the name of fighting identity theft, hundreds of Homeland Security agents rounded up 1,300 people in raids Tuesday, nearly all illegal immigrants. Only a few dozen of those arrested had any tie to identity thefts, it turned out. Too bad: nearly all of them will be deported for standard immigration violations.
The deported workers will be forced to leave behind an uncounted number of children, including infants. This practice isn't new, but the scale of the raids -- the largest such operation in U.S. history -- makes the number of forcibly abandoned children likely to be unusually high.
DHS arrested workers who came from stable, working-class neighborhoods. Their kids were enrolled in schools. The communities are reported to be ripped apart by the raids; in some, the local authorities refused to help the feds. In some cases state authorities intervened to demand DHS behave better.
What's the monetary cost of mounting the biggest raid on immigrants in U.S. history? What's going to be the cost to the communities affected? What is the cost that will be borne by state and local governments?
And most importantly, who is served by raids that by any measure failed to achieve their stated goal, and at such great expense?
--Justin Rood
The office of Senator Tim Johnson has released the following at approximately 5pm ET:
Admiral John Eisold, Attending Physician of the United States Capitol said, "Senator Tim Johnson has continued to have an uncomplicated post-operative course. Specifically, he has been appropriately responsive to both word and touch. No further surgical intervention has been required."
--Josh Marshall
Fox News tosses Gingrich a bone, gives him his own America and God news special.
--Josh Marshall
The administration claims its "Operation Wagon Train" targeted "hundreds" of aliens using stolen identity papers belonging to U.S. citizens. But Tuesday's raids only netted a handful of arrests on identity crimes. So why the misleading rhetoric?
--Paul Kiel
Who's the best friend of Jack Abramoff you've never heard of?
Hint: Senator, Republican....
--Paul Kiel
Tony Snow responds to new reports that Ahmed Chalabi is working the Syria front for the White House. Sorta responds ...
--Josh Marshall
There was pretty good evidence Michael Crichton had become a worthless jerk when he got together with President Bush to exchange notes on their joint theory that global warming is a sham perpetrated by various eggheads, homos, longhairs, treehuggers, liberals and assorted freaks. This new development pretty much seals the verdict.
Update: If you don't subscribe to The New Republic, you can read the relevant passages here.
--Josh Marshall
On Tuesday, DHS executed the largest federal immigration raid in U.S. history.
Over at TPMmuckraker, Justin Rood has doggedly been trying to track down what happened. And cracks are showing in the government's official version of events.
But like he said yesterday, we need your help on this. Are you in any of the six states where the raids occurred? If you see anything in the local press -- especially pictures from the raids -- let us know.
--Paul Kiel
Someone's finally posted the video of Jeff Greenfield's riff on Barack Obama and the President of Iran.
As long as we're on the subject, I know David Kurtz responded to Greenfield's rejoinder here yesterday at TPM. Let me just add my own bit here too. Greenfield says it was a joke. No kidding. Of course, it was a joke. I know that. It was a just a very odd one -- picking up on an association I really don't think had occurred to anyone else, and which builds with an odd eagerness on the already iffy focus on finding which of Obama's names sounds like which terrorist mass-murderer. I'll stand with my initial remarks. Hand me the inkblots.
--Josh Marshall
Good News: White House exploring rapprochement with Syria.
Bad News: Our point man is Ahmed Chalabi.
--Josh Marshall
Statement just out from Sen. Johnson's office ...
Admiral John Eisold, Attending Physician of the United States Capitol said, “Subsequent to his admission to George Washington University Hospital yesterday, Senator Tim Johnson was found to have had an intracerebral bleed caused by a congenital arteriovenous malformation. He underwent successful surgery to evacuate the blood and stabilize the malformation. The Senator is recovering without complication in the critical care unit at George Washington University Hospital. It is premature to determine whether further surgery will be required or to assess any long term prognosis.”
--Josh Marshall
Uncovered: a classified report detailing concerns over the treatment of terror detainees at a South Carolina Navy brig. That and other news of the day in today's Daily Muck.
--Justin Rood
Late News from the Post: Johnson underwent surgery. It's unclear from the reports I've seen whether he is still in surgery or whether it's concluded. It's seems that the surgery had not concluded by the time the Post piece was published.
Late Update: At 12:39, CNN reports surgery is on-going.
Later Update: The Times reports that Johnson is "expected to be in the operating room until the early morning hours."
--Josh Marshall
The Post has an article on the president's and vice president's meeting Wednesday with the Joint Chiefs. It's a long article but this is what jumped out at me: "The chiefs do not favor adding significant numbers of troops to Iraq, said sources familiar with their thinking, but see strengthening the Iraqi army as pivotal to achieving some degree of stability. They also are pressing for a much greater U.S. effort on economic reconstruction and political reconciliation."
So the military brass does not favor 'double down', as it's come to be known in the wingosphere. They also appear to be signaling that they do not believe there is a military solution to the crisis.
It does appear you've got a basic division in the country: the public and the military brass on one side and President Bush and the DC war pundits on the other.
--Josh Marshall
Another update on Sen. Tim Johnson's condition. Earlier we passed on the statement from the senator's office that tests showed he had not had a stroke or a heart attack.
However, CBS now has a report out which repeats that statement and then follows with this: "Sources close to the situation tell CBS News the situation is definitely not good."
I'm way out of my depth here in terms of what other conditions could be in play if it's true that a stroke has been ruled out. But the additional line from CBS is both troublingly ambiguous and ominous.
From what I can tell CBS is the only news outlet reporting something like this in the background. There's no point in my speculating. I'll just pass it on. We'll try to bring you more as we hear it.
Late Update: This report from NBC notes the conflicting accounts of what is happening.
--Josh Marshall
Annals of CNN headline writing ...
I had the impression they were pretty corrupt already. Ba dump bum.
(ed.note: Note of thanks to TPM Reader SP.)
--Josh Marshall
Not being a doctor, I don't know whether this is good news or bad. But a spokesperson for Sen. Tim Johnson (D-SD) now says that tests have shown that the senator did not suffer a stroke or heart attack.
Certainly sounds like good news.
--Josh Marshall
Karl Rove to retire from politics after he leaves the Bush White House?
That lucrative lecture circuit beckons...
--Greg Sargent
Federal agents yesterday unleashed "Operation Wagon Train," a massive six-state operation to round up illegal immigrants at meatpacking plants. It netted nearly 1,300 arrests. Over at TPMmuckraker, we've been trying to track the fallout. You can read our coverage here.
But we need your help to learn more.
Despite reports that legal residents were arrested and are being held incommunicado, DHS insists no such thing has happened. Parents are being held or deported while their kids live at school or with loved ones. The raids took place in six far-flung communities -- places like Cactus, Texas, and Marshalltown, Iowa -- where we can't get to easily.
Do you live nearby? What are your local news outlets reporting? What are you hearing? Drop us a line, send us a link, let us know.
--Justin Rood
McCain set to announce team of big-bucks fundraisers poached from Rudy's turf.
--Greg Sargent
An update on Sen. Johnson's (D-SD) condition form the Argus-Leader, the major South Dakota paper.
Here's WaPo's update.
A number of you have written in to note, correctly, that control of the senate hinges on Sen. Johnson's ability to serve in the 110th Congress. Were he unable to do so, South Dakota's Republican governor would appoint a Republican and control would go to the Republicans -- a 50 - 50 tie with the tie break from Cheney. That's all we're going to say about that point until we get some definitive word on Johnson's condition.
If we hear more on the senator's condition, we'll bring it to you.
Late Update: The only available information that sheds any light on Johnson's condition is contained in these three grafs from MSNBC ...
Johnson became disoriented during a call with reporters at midday, stuttering in response to a question. He appeared to recover, asking if there were any additional questions before ending the call.Johnson spokeswoman Julianne Fisher said he had walked back to his Capitol office after the call with reporters but appeared to not be feeling well. The Capitol physician was called and Johnson was taken by ambulance to the George Washington Univeristy Hospital in D.C. for evaluation.
A statement released by Johnson's office said, "Senator Tim Johnson was taken to George Washington University Hospital this afternoon suffering from a possible stroke. As this stage, he is undergoing a comprehensive evaluation by the stroke team. Further details will be forthcoming when more is known."
Later Update: Roll Call reports that Johnson was conscious when he was taken to the hospital.
--Josh Marshall
It's being reported now on the cable networks that Sen. Tim Johnson (D-SD) has had a stroke this afternoon on Capitol Hill.
We heard the first reports of this 15 or 20 minutes ago through the capitol hill grapevine. No information about the severity of the stroke or his current condition. That's all we know.
--Josh Marshall
President Bush, just now at the Pentagon (emphasis added): "I thank these men who wear our uniform for a very candid and fruitful discussion about how to secure this country and how to win a war that we now find ourselves in."
--Josh Marshall
More troops to Iraq? The idea is gaining favor, reports the Los Angeles Times:
As President Bush weighs new policy options for Iraq, strong support has coalesced in the Pentagon behind a military plan to "double down" in the country with a substantial buildup in American troops, an increase in industrial aid and a major combat offensive against Muqtada Sadr, the radical Shiite leader impeding development of the Iraqi government.
But as TPM Reader AH remarks, "double down" is the wrong phrase:
Since the Pentagon has decided to discuss its new strategy in gambling parlance, it should at least use the proper terminology. Today's LA Times article says that a Pentagon official has referred to the option of sending more troops in to Iraq as a "double down" strategy. The reference is to a bet in blackjack when, based on the cards that have been dealt, the player seeks to maximize a payoff that is more likely to occur in that hand, given the probabilities. The double down is a calculated bet, made from a position of strength when the odds are favorable to the bettor.In Iraq, we are certainly not in a situation where the odds are favorable to winning. Our bet is not a double down. Let's call it what it is: double or nothing. This is is more like the gambler who has been on a bad losing streak deciding to empty the savings account and put all of his chips on red, hoping that the roulette wheel will spin his way and bring him back close to even. Double or nothing is a desperation play. It is an ill-advised way to gamble, with chips or human lives, and such a strategy inevitably leads to another appropriate gambling term. Gambler's ruin: winding up completely broke.
--David Kurtz
The New York Times today gives us what I think is the first good read of what Vice President Cheney's trip to Saudi Arabia two weeks ago was all about: King Abdullah told Cheney that if the U.S. pulls out of Iraq, the Kingdom might have to give financial backing to Iraq's Sunni minority in the civil war against the Shiite majority. But I think CNN captures the flavor of the exchange, quoting a senior U.S. official as saying that the King "read the riot act" to Cheney. That sounds about right.
--David Kurtz
Democrats' decision to forgo earmarks this year is making for strange bedfellows:
Surprisingly, some Republican conservatives agree with the do-nothing approach, because Democrats have decided to rule out any 'earmarks,' otherwise known as 'pork' for local areas and special interests, while the continuing resolution is in effect.These earmarks became a huge political issue in the midterm elections as Democrats pointed to expensive GOP-sponsored projects, such as a 'bridge to nowhere' in a remote area of Alaska, as a sign that pork had gotten out of control.
Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), one of the Senate's most conservative members, said in a statement that 'my hat is off to Reid and the Democrats for making this decision. By agreeing to do a yearlong spending resolution for 2007, we will effectively take a time-out on pork-barrel spending.'
Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), chairman of the Republican Study Committee's Budget and Spending Task Force, said that 'it is somewhat refreshing' that Democratic leaders have adopted a strategy that for weeks has been favored by conservative Republicans.
--David Kurtz
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) to roll out his proposal for universal health care today.
--David Kurtz
FEC slaps Swift Boat Veterans for Truth with a $300,000 fine and knocks around some liberal 527 groups, too, all for activities from the 2004 election cycle.
--David Kurtz
CNN's resident funny man, Jeff Greenfield, protests that he was just making a joke when he compared Barack Obama's jacket-but-no-tie attire to the fashion choices of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad:
"Talking Point Memo," the home of Joshua Micah Marshall, pronounced the observation "weird." "The Daily Howler" saw it as party of the same media instinct that ridiculed Al Gore for his "earth tones" clothing choices back in 2000. The Columbia Journalism Review Web site weighed in with "character assassination." (It acknowledged that the effort might have been a weak attempt at humor).Is some of this my fault? It has to be, for the same reason famed Boston Celtics coach Red Auerbach liked to say that when someone misses a pass, 90 per cent of the time it's the fault of the passer.
I figured there was no way on planet Earth that anyone could possibly take such a presentation at face value. I was wrong.
Most of what happened here, I think, is a demonstration of the hair-trigger instincts that have grown up among some of the bloggers (not to mention the need to fill all that space every day, or hour, or 15 minutes).
Sigh. Of course, it was a joke. Just a weird joke, poorly executed. Watch the clip (the link is on the left in the middle of the page) and decide for yourself. Then check out this second CNN clip, about Obama's name.
So is the joke on the media? Or on Obama?
(By the way, it's cable news that has space to fill, 24-7. We can write as much--or as little--as we want.)
--David Kurtz
Just about everyone is holding their collective breath to see how serious Democrats are about earmark reform. So when Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV), the man who put the pork in "pork barrel," announces he's going to forgo this year's earmarks for his beloved West Virginia, that's a huge symbolic gesture.
--David Kurtz
Huge immigration raid at Swift meatpacking plants in six states Tuesday. The union for the plant workers tells TPMmuckraker that legal immigrants were caught up in the sweep.
--David Kurtz
House Dems wonder if Congress can enforce its own ethics rules. That and other news of the day in today's Daily Muck.
--Justin Rood
So, Democrat Ciro Rodriguez (D-TX) upsets Rep. Henry Bonilla (R-TX) to settle up the last outstanding race of the 2006 midterms. Rahm Emanuel has a statement out tonight saying, "Voters sent a message in November and they sent another one tonight, that change is coming to Washington." Absolutely. But there's another wrinkle to this story. We pick up the story from Chris Cillizza in the Post ...
Rodriguez's victory is doubly sweet for national Democrats, since they not only pick up another seat but also scored another direct hit on the legacy of former Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas). DeLay engineered the congressional re-redistricting in 2003 that led to a six-seat Republican gain in Texas in 2004. But those gains came at a price. Portions of the 2003 map, including the removal of 100,000 Hispanic voters from the 23rd District, were ruled in violation of the Voting Rights Act by the U.S. Supreme Court last June. The resulting changes in the district's boundaries reinstituted a strong Hispanic presence in the 23rd and led to Bonilla's loss.
Karma.
--Josh Marshall
Remember that story from way, way back when about that lobbying money funnelled from Guam to Jack Abramoff through a cut-out in California, an attorney named Howard HIlls? 36 separate checks for $9,000 each to slip under the $10,000 reporting limit? The Superior Court of Guam just handed down indictments against Hills and his contact on the Guam side, Tony Sanchez -- "unlawful influence, conspiracy for unlawful influence, theft of property held in trust and official misconduct."
--Josh Marshall
The Associated Press has called the TX-23 runoff for Democrat Ciro Rodriguez against incumbent GOP Rep. Henry Bonilla, giving Dems their 30th House pickup of the 2006 cycle.
--Eric Kleefeld
With 55% of the vote in, Ciro Rodriguez (D) leads Rep. Henry Bonilla (R) in the TX-23 runoff 57%-43%. More important, Rodriguez leads 58%-41% in the most populous county in the district, Bexar (pronounced "Bear").
There's still some room for caution, though. In 2002, in a differently-drawn but still very similar district, Dem nominee Henry Cuellar was leading Bonilla until the very last results came in the next day, from overwhelmingly Republican pockets, giving Bonilla a 51%-47% win. So far, though, it's looking very good.
Late Update: With 67% of results in, Rodriguez's 57%-43% lead is holding.
Late Update: The AP has called it for Rodriguez, giving the Dems their 30th House pickup of the cycle.
--Eric Kleefeld
This would almost be funny if the joke weren't on us. The pre-Xmas "new way forward" in Iraq has been put off until January.
--Josh Marshall
Does anybody have a good explanation for why the Saudi ambassador to the United States just resigned his post and left the country on a day's notice? Officials are giving various unconvincing explanations, the best of which is that, in the words of an unnamed embassy official, "He wants to spend more time with his family."
Perhaps we can take that as a foreigners gently parodic homage to the American tradition of political white lies.
Ordinarily, even if there were some hidden backstory, it would likely be some palace intrigue in the Saudi royal family or some arcane point in US-Saudi relations. But look at the geopolitical context. Saudi Arabia's neighbor Iraq is in some sort of slow motion civil war. The neighbor across the water, Iran, has been empowered tremendously and stands to gain even more power if their Shi'a coreligionists in Iraq take over the country and slaughter or dominate the Sunni Arab minority. And the White House is signalling that it might opt to take the side of the Shi'a in that cataclysm and, shall we say, go along for the slaughter.
That would cut at the heart of the seven decade US-Saudi alliance, though admitteldy it's taken quite a few cuts already of late. The White House has also just been presented with the Baker-Hamilton report which has, I think fairly, been characterized as a bid to return to the earlier US policy of aligning its regional interests with those of the Sunni autocracies in the region. The White House has dismissed that out of hand.
I'm no expert on the finer points of US-Saudi relations. But I don't think you need to be to see that the underpinnings of the relationship are on the table right now. And just at this moment, the ambassador resigns and gets on the next plane home. To borrow a phrase from our judicial pals, I think any excuse that this is just some personal matter deserves the strictest scrutiny. Something must be up.
And one other thing. Many readers have written in to say that there's just no way we're going to let ourselves take sides in what would likely be at least a borderline genocidal civil war between Iraq's Sunni minority and Shi'a majority. To which, I can only say, why not? Is there anything we've seen in the last six years that makes you think we wouldn't pull the trigger on a ridiculously foolish new plan? I don't just mean that as trash talk. I think it's the only sensible way to approach the case at hand.
The main mistakes I've made thinking about foreign policy over the last half decade were, I think, all cases where there were certain outcomes I just didn't find credible because they were just too stupid and dangerous for anybody in a position of power to try. Good luck on that.
Another point, and one I'm not sure is widely appreciated. The folks who brought you the Iraq War have always been weak in the knees for a really whacked-out vision of a Shi'a-US alliance in the Middle East. I used to talk to a lot of these folks before I became persona non grata. So here's basically how the theory went and, I don't doubt, still goes ... We hate the Saudis and the Egyptians and all the rest of the standing Arab governments. But the Iraqi Shi'a were oppressed by Saddam. So they'll like us. So we'll set them up in control of Iraq. You might think that would empower the Iranians. But not really. The mullahs aren't very powerful. And once the Iraqi Shi'a have a good thing going with us. The Iranians are going to want to get in on that too. So you'll see a new government in Tehran. Plus, big parts of northern Saudi Arabia are Shi'a too. And that's where a lot of the oil is. So they'll probably want to break off and set up their own pro-US Shi'a state with tons of oil. So before you know it, we'll have Iraq, Iran, and a big chunk of Saudi Arabia that is friendly to the US and has a ton of oil. And once that happens we can tell the Saudis to f$#% themselves once and for all.
Now, you might think this involves a fair amount of wishful and delusional thinking. But this was the thinking of a lot of neocons going into the war. And I don't doubt it's still the thinking of quite a few of them. They still want to run the table. And even more now that it's double-down. I don't know what these guys are planning now. But there's plenty of reason to be worried.
--Josh Marshall