Buck Naked Politics

Bin Laden Was "Within Grasp" in 2001

Yesterday, the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee released a report indicating that U.S. military strategists could have taken Osama bin Laden in December of 2001 -- or at least stopped him and his deputy from moving into Pakistan -- but they failed to.  (NY Times).  

According to Al Jazeera, bin Laden was "within grasp" in the Tora Bora Mountains of Afghanistan. 

That seems so strange, given that then-President Bush (the armed forces' then-commander in chief) seemed to daily trumpet his pledge to get bin Laden "dead or alive."

David Broder on Individual Accountability for Bush Operatives & Policy Makers: "A Dangerous Precedent"

Here comes pundit David Broder a-punditing upon Eric Holder's decision to name a special counsel to determine whether interrogators of detainees during the last administration broke the law.  "This just may be the most reprehensible column of a long and enabling career," says Attaturk.  So.  Are you ready?

"Cheney is not wrong when he asserts that it is a dangerous precedent when a change in power in Washington leads a successor government not just to change the policies of its predecessors but to invoke the criminal justice system against them....

"Looming beyond the publicized cases of these relatively low-level operatives is the fundamental accountability question: What about those who approved of their actions? If accountability is the standard, then it should apply to the policymakers and not just to the underlings. Ultimately, do we want to see Cheney, who backed these actions and still does, standing in the dock?"  (WaPo, emphasis added)

I know the answer to this one!  Call on me, me, me!

But no.  David Broder, who doesn't think accountability is or should be the standard (except for Bill Clinton), will answer his own questions, thank yew.  And his answer is way different from yours or mine.

The Torture Administration, Part ###: Justice Department Refused to File Charges Against CIA Officials Who Violated Anti-Torture Statute

More confirmation, as if any were needed, of the Bush administration's indifference to the Rule of Law. From a 2-page article in The Washington Post:

"The [CIA], where appropriate, took its own disciplinary action when the Department of Justice declined prosecution," CIA spokesman George Little said Saturday.

A spokesman for the agency declined to comment on details of the episodes, but current and former government officials said the use of the gun is described in a classified CIA inspector general's report, which is slated to be released in declassified form on Monday....

A federal judge in New York ordered the release of the report in response to a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. has been reviewing the document in an effort to decide whether to launch an investigation into the CIA's coercive interrogation methods....

The U.S. anti-torture statute bans acts intended to inflict severe mental or physical pain or suffering resulting from, among other things, "the threat of imminent death" or threats of being "subjected to death."  (Read article)

Everything that's Wrong with the Media: Marc Ambinder on Why Progressives Are Always Wrong

by bartleby the scrivener | So. Tom Ridge confirms what progressives have long known to be true. Here's Marc "Divide the Baby in Half" Ambinder to confirm why you must never again rely on our "free press" to protect democracy.

Journalists, including myself, were very skeptical when anti-Bush liberals insisted that what Ridge now says is true, was true. We were wrong.  Our skepticism about the activists' conclusions was warranted because these folks based their assumption on gut hatred for President Bush, and not on any evaluation of the raw intelligence.  But journalists should have been even more skeptical about the administration's pronouncements. And yet -- we, too, weren't privy to the intelligence. (emphasis added)

Marcy Wheeler saw that one off in fine style.

Tom Ridge Says Bush Administration Used War on Terror as a Political Ploy

bartleby the scrivener | So the DFH "Lie-berals" were right all along, were we?  In fact, the Bush administration did use fear of terrorism to terrorize our gullible public into believing we needed Bush to keep us safe.  

"Tom Ridge, the first secretary of homeland security, asserts in a new book that he was pressured by top advisers to President George W. Bush to raise the national threat level just before the 2004 election in what he suspected was an effort to influence the vote." (NYT)

But that ain't all. 

CIA Sought Help of Blackwater in Assassinating Jihadists

by bartleby the scrivener |  Apparently the involvement of Blackwater (now Xe Services) -- notably callous about killing civilians --  is one reason CIA Director Leon Panetta decided to put an end to the program.  From The New York Times:

The fact that the C.I.A. used an outside company for the program was a major reason that Leon E. Panetta, the C.I.A.’s director, became alarmed and called an emergency meeting in June to tell Congress that the agency had withheld details of the program for seven years, the officials said.

It is unclear whether the C.I.A. had planned to use the contractors to actually capture or kill Qaeda operatives, or just to help with training and surveillance in the program. American spy agencies have in recent years outsourced some highly controversial work, including the interrogation of prisoners. But government officials said that bringing outsiders into a program with lethal authority raised deep concerns about accountability in covert operations.....

Wall Street Bailouts: Paulson had Conflicts of Interest? Say it Ain't So!

by Deb Cupples |  A recent New York Times article discusses evidence that ex-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson had severe conflicts of interest when pushing for  taxpayer-funded Wall Street Bailouts. The article sent me ambling down memory lane.

In September 2008, for example, a Treasury official admitted to Forbes Magazine that there was no real math behind the $700 billion that Mr. Paulson requested for the Wall Street Bailouts. The official said:

"It's not based on any particular data point....  We just wanted to choose a really large number."

That was about four months before the bailouts' chief cheerleaders -- then-President Bush and Mr. Paulson -- were scheduled to leave office.  Their tactics reminded me of the old (often successful) sales technique called "Door in Face."

The $700 billion that Messrs. Bush and Paulson sought amounted to nearly one-fourth of our nation's $2.9 trillion budget for fiscal year 2008.  That doesn't include the $170 billion that went toward bailing out the reckless folks at AIG or the $200 billion set aside to bail out the reckless folks at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Adding those figures together, we get $1.07 trillion, which is about 35% (more than one-third) of our nation's FY 2008 budget -- though some of that money may be spent during other fiscal years.

Govt. Allows Wall Street Firms to Shaft Us Taxpayers? Say it Ain't So!

by Deb Cupples |  Yesterday's Financial Times reported:

"Wall Street banks are reaping outsized profits by trading with the Federal Reserve, raising questions about whether the central bank is driving hard enough bargains in its dealings with private sector counterparties, officials and industry executives say."

We sort of saw that coming last fall, when then-President Bush and ex-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson (also ex-CEO of Goldman Sachs) hard-sold Congress and us taxpayers on the idea of spending more than $700 billion bailing out the Wall Street executives who (at best recklessly) drove our nation's banking system (and economy) into a deep ditch.

Again, we saw it coming when banks started using bailout funds for activities other than unfreezing credit markets -- including huge bonuses for the same execs who'd help drive those banks into the ditch. [Remember, the whole point of us taxpayers' funneling of hundreds of billions of dollars to Wall Street firms was to help those private firms start generating loans and credit.].

In a column entitled "Rewarding Bad Behavior," Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman comments:

Rove Had Bigger Role than Thought in Firing U.S. Attorneys

I remember nearly two years ago, when ex-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' resigned amid  scandal -- after nine or ten of his underlings resigned, partly because our Justice Department had become so politicized.  I remember the repeated ignoring of congressional subpoenas by Bush Adminsitration officials who apparently did not want to say what they knew about Justice Department politicization.

Via Memeorandum, the Washington Post reports:

"Political adviser Karl Rove and other high-ranking figures in the Bush White House played a greater role than previously understood in the firing of federal prosecutors almost three years ago, according to e-mails obtained by The Washington Post, in a scandal that led to mass Justice Department resignations and an ongoing criminal probe.

"The e-mails and new interviews with key participants reflect contacts among Rove, aides in the Bush political affairs office and White House lawyers about the dismissal of three of the nine U.S. attorneys fired in 2006: New Mexico's David C. Iglesias, the focus of ire from GOP lawmakers; Missouri's Todd Graves, who had clashed with one of Rove's former clients; and Arkansas's Bud Cummins, who was pushed out to make way for a Rove protege."

See the rest of the story here.  The big question is this: will the Obama Administration seek to hold accountable those officials who blatantly ignored the rule of law and corrupted our Justice Department.

Can You Say "Posse Comitatus"? Bush Considered Using Military in Making Arrests on American Soil

 by Bartleby the Scrivener |  And the revelations keep on coming. Constitution?  Constitution?  Eh, who cares?  It's just "a goddam piece of paper."  As Steve Benen comments, "the list of laws they felt comfortable ignoring keeps getting longer."

Though, as is becoming usual, we find Cheney at the forefront of this charge against the Constitution...along with the other usual suspects at the DoJ, e.g., Addington and Yoo, plus some "senior defense department officials"  while Condi, Mueller, & Co.allegedly argued in favor of not trampling quite so openly over the Constitution and the law of the land, for which kudos to them.  The pro-military advocates relied, as Terry Partridge points out at FDL, on "the Yoo/Delahunty 10/23/01 memo that found the President's powers to fight terror to be almost limitless."

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....

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.

IG's Report Spotlights Bush's (Likely Illegal) Warrantless Wiretapping Program

by Deb Cupples |   Based on a recent inspectors general report, the Washington Post reports that the Bush Administration was likely too secretive with Congress about the (likely illegal) domestic surveillance program. 

The Washington Independent reports:

"The Bush administration called its warrantless surveillance efforts “very, very important to protect the national security of this country,” in the words of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in 2005. Today’s inspectors general report on the President’s Surveillance Program doesn’t really substantiate that assessment. “[M]ost PSP leads were determined not to have any connection to terrorism,” according to the Justice Department’s inspector general."

You can see a copy of the 43-page report here, which was a group effort by inspectors general from the Justice Department, Defense Department, Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, and Office of the Director of National Intelligence.  Memeorandum has commentary.

The Daily Show: "Transparency" and "Accountability" Under Obama

by Damozel | After eight years of redactions, Obama gives the public only the information the public needs to know and protects Dick Cheney against the likes of Jon Stewart.  Let the sun shine in!

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Cheney Predacted
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Jason Jones in Iran

Tales of the Torture Adm'n: Federal Judge Says a Convicted Terrorist Can Sue Bush Adm'n Lawyer for Role In Torture Memoranda

by Damozel | Saying that he was trying to  balance "a clash between war and the defense of personal freedoms," federal district Judge Jeffrey White, a Bush appointee, refused to dismiss a lawsuit by convicted terrorist Jose Padilla against Bushie John Yoo, now a law professor at UC-Berkeley.  (AP at MSNBC)  While such a lawsuit would be many times less satisfactory than action by the current administration to hold responsible members of the Bush administration accountable, at least it is a step in that direction.  

Judge White wrote:

"Like any other government official, government lawyers are responsible for the foreseeable consequences of their conduct....The issues raised by this case embody that ... tension — between the requirements of war and the defense of the very freedoms that war seeks to protect....This lawsuit poses the question addressed by our founding fathers about how to strike the proper balance of fighting a war against terror, at home and abroad, and fighting a war using tactics of terror."  (AP at MSNBC)

Support for Republican Party Sinking as Omissions, Lies, Spin, and Hypocrisy Catch up with GOP

by Deb Cupples |  A recent Gallup poll tells us that only 34% of Americans favorably view the Republican Party (GOP), compared to 53% of Americans who favorably view of the Democratic Party.  Even more telling: 38% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents have an unfavorable view of the GOP.

Plummeting support for the modern version of the GOP should come as no surprise -- given what a very different type of Republican (i.e., Abe Lincoln) once said:

"You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time."

And let's call a spade a spade: the modern-day GOP -- led by folks like Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, George Bush, Rush Limbaugh, and the folks at Fox -- have spent vast resources and at leat 10 years trying to fool the American people through spin, omissions, and outright lies.

NYT: Obama's Responsibility for the Deficit versus Bush's

by Maggie Temple-Smith | Once upon a time, when Bill Clinton was leaving office, there was a budget surplus.  What happened to it?  David Leonhardt at The New York Times cites four main factors:  "the business cycle, President George W. Bush’s policies, policies from the Bush years that are scheduled to expire but that Mr. Obama has chosen to extend, and new policies proposed by Mr. Obama."  (New York Times)  Leonhardt explains here how they crunched the deficit numbers. 

Jonathan Singer:  "While the "deficit hawks" within the Republican Party are all up in arms...about proposed spending on healthcare, education, energy, etc. -- that is to say the agenda Barack Obama ran and won on in 2008 -- this platform makes up about 3 cents out of every dollar in deficit spending."

Tales of the Torture Administration (Continued): Cheney Personally Oversaw At Least 4 Briefings on "Harsh Interrogation" (Torture)

by Damozel |  According to The Washington Post, Cheney met at least 4 times in 2005 with senior members of Congress to "maintain support" for torture, part of a "secretive and forceful" defense of the program.

Cheney's role in helping handle intelligence issues in the Bush administration -- particularly his advocacy for the use of aggressive methods and warrantless wiretapping against alleged terrorists -- has been well documented. But his hands-on role in defending the interrogation program to lawmakers has not been previously publicized.

Until now, anyway:

Is Trauma over 9/11 a Valid Defense to the Bush Administration's Legal Violations or Moral Lapses?

by Deb Cupples |  Lately, ex-Vice President Dick Cheney has been talking to the press, seemingly more than the furtive figure did while he was in office.  Reportedly, Mr. Cheney and ex-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have been arguing to God and the Media essentially that they might have gone a little over-board with their legal violations (and moral lapses) because of the trauma they faced as government officials facing the 9/11 attacks.

Richard C. Clarke, who was an intelligence coordinator under Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton was a government official with national-security-related duties when 9/11 happened.  He was at the White House on 9/11 and presumably suffered all the same traumas that Ms. Rice and Mr. Cheney had suffered. Mr. Clarke also had far more national-security experience than many of the then-new Bush Administration officials.

And yet, Mr. Clarke is not convinced that the 9/11-Trauma Defense holds water: