Buck Naked Politics

Walter Cronkite

by Bill Kavanagh: The death of Walter Cronkite at 92 leaves Americans contemplating the changes in our media since his heyday as the preeminent television news anchor.  It is hard to imagine that we once looked to a network news broadcast as a digest of the nation’s daily experience, that one voice was ever regarded as, “the way it is.”  We have so many ways to get our news now, but none are so central to the American experience as the CBS Evening News was in Cronkite’s day.

CIA Program to Assassinate Al Qaeda Leaders On Point of Activation When Panetta Pulled It; Pressure for Investigation Increases

by Bartleby the Scrivener |  The allegedly toothless CIA program for assassinating Al Qaeda leaders wherever they could be found was apparently on the point of growing fangs at the time Panetta pulled it, according to this Washington Post article.

The plan to kill top al-Qaeda leaders, which had been on the agency's back burner for much of the past eight years, was suddenly thrust into the spotlight because of proposals to initiate what one intelligence official called a "somewhat more operational phase." Shortly after learning of the plan, Panetta terminated the program and then went to Capitol Hill to brief lawmakers, who had been kept in the dark since 2001....

Of Course the Economy is Still Bad

 by Deb Cupples |  A New York Times editorial states: "Unemployment is rising. Foreclosures are surging. Lending is still constrained."

Duhhh!  How could the scenario be otherwise?  The $700 billion boondoggle (TARP) that George Bush and Henry Paulson sold to Congress (and us taxpayers) last year didn't require banks that took our tax dollars to actually unfreeze credit. 

The TARP legislation didn't even require banks to spend the money wisely or in a way that benefited our nation's economy -- which resulted, in some cases, in our tax dollars funding huge personal pay packages for executives who spent the past few years casting doubt on their own competence.

Sotomayor Confirmation Hearings: Some GOP Members Still Out of Touch

by Deb Cupples |  The Washington Post has a partial transcript and video of the Sotomayor confirmation hearings.

Constitutional law scholar Erwin Chemerinski (who wrote a much-used con-law textbook) thinks Sotomayor will be confirmed, despite troll-like behavior on the part of certain senators:

"At times, Republican senators such as Lindsay Graham (S.C.) and Jeff Sessions (Ala.) used their time to rail against liberal activism, such as with Graham's diatribe against the positions taken by the Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund."

Congressional Quarterly's Craig Crawford thinks Sen. Graham and a few other Republican senators are shooting their own political feet while trying to showboat at the hearings:

CIA Had Program to Assassinate Al Qaeda Leaders

by Bartleby the Scrivener | Seymour Hersh spoke back in March of an "executive assassination ring" that reported directly to Cheney, though he seemed to think that the program was actually being implemented.  I assume he was talking about the same program that Director Leon Panetta just cancelled and which the CIA says it never got round to implementing(NYT) -- though "some officials" told WaPo that "some elements" were operational, so maybe everybody's right. 

The New York Times deadpans:

Officials at the spy agency over the years ran into myriad logistical, legal and diplomatic obstacles. How could the role of the United States be masked? Should allies be informed and might they block the access of the C.I.A. teams to their targets? What if American officers or their foreign surrogates were caught in the midst of an operation? Would such activities violate international law or American restrictions on assassinations overseas?  (NYT)

Multi-Tasking Mess: Texting Teen Falls into Sewer

We've all seen people texting while driving cars (which, in my humble opinion, should be illegal).  We've all seen people fall into manholes -- at least in cartoons or shows like Monty Python or Benny Hill.

Apparently, New York's Department of Environmental Protection had failed to post warnings and to secure the manhole area while preparing to flush the sewer (whatever that means).  A teenager engaged in text-messaging while walking on the sidewalk failed to notice the manhole and its removed cover.  The result: she fell into the manhole and spent some time in five-feet-deep raw sewage -- something I wouldn't wish on an enemy, let alone on an unfocused child.

The teenager, who talks kind of like some personal-injury lawyers I've known, stated:

North Korean Leader May Have Cancer

Reuters reports:

"North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has pancreatic cancer and the illness is life-threatening, South Korean broadcaster YTN said on Monday based on information gathered by Chinese and South Korean intelligence sources.

"Kim's health is one of the most closely guarded secrets in the reclusive communist state. Kim, 67, was widely thought to have suffered a stroke last year, but there has never been official confirmation."

Kim Jong-il is about as dictatorial and guarded as they come. I'm wondering how any foreign intelligence source would get close enough to learn about Kim's health -- or about anything else that Kim didn't want known.  Memeorandum has commentary.

GOP Splits (further) Over Palin

by Deb Cupples |   The LA Times tells us:

"Since announcing her resignation, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has been pummeled by critics who have called her incoherent, a quitter, a joke and a "political train wreck."

And those were fellow Republicans talking....

"'I can't tell you one thing she brought to the ticket," said Stuart K. Spencer, who has been advising GOP candidates for more than 40 years. "McCain wanted to shock and surprise people, and he did -- in a bad way.'

That's a typical type of reaction from some of the elite members of the Republican party.  Many ordinary Republican voters seem to see it differently:

Tapping Our Economic Potential

by Bill Kavanagh:  Sometimes it’s hard to say you were wrong.  That seems to be the case for President Barack Obama when it comes to fixing the economic meltdown.  Understandably, his Administration misjudged the size of the financial catastrophe during the depths of the freefall.  Then, he presumed that making a compromise deal with the conservatives in his own party and with the Right Wing in the Republican Party on a stimulus bill would unify them, be enough to put Americans back to work—and more importantly, to pull the American economy back from the brink of extinction this winter.  It seems he was only one-third right.

Attorney General Eric Holder Considering Investigation of Bush Administration's Use of Torture

by bartleby the scrivener |  Attorney General Eric Holder is prepared to "run counter" to Obama's forward lookingness by appointing a special prosecutor to investigate the Bush administration's use of torture.  (WaPo)

Holder's decision could come within weeks, around the same time the Justice Department releases an ethics report about Bush lawyers who drafted memos supporting harsh interrogation practices, the sources said. The legal documents spell out in sometimes painstaking detail how interrogators were allowed to subject detainees to simulated drowning, sleep deprivation, wall slamming and confinement in small, dark spaces....

Did Cheney Order the CIA to Conceal Existence of "Sensitive" Counterterrorism Program? And Will the Bush Administration Finally be Called to Account?

by bartleby the scrivener | Leo Panetta, Director of the CIA, has told the Senate and the House Intelligence Committees that the CIA withheld information concerning a secret counterterrorism program on direct orders of none other than Dick Cheney. (NYT)   Christ knows what they were getting up to.

Mr. Panetta, who ended the program when he first learned of its existence from subordinates on June 23, briefed the two intelligence committees about it in separate closed sessions the next day. (NYT)

Whatever it was, Cheney seems to have been behind the decision to conceal its existence from Congress. (NYT)  Hey, but at least all those secret programs kept us safe, eh?  Well, maybe not.