The Blue State

Bush gives press middle finger, literally

President Bush apparently gave the press a middle finger on Thursday as he was walking away.  On Friday, Press Secretary Scott McClellan was pressured to answer questions about it, only to decline comment.

Click here to see it

Maybe the press is really getting to him now that Karl Rove, his best friend in the Administration, is under fire for leaking the name of a CIA operative.  Obviously what he did was disrespectful, and it shows absolutely zero regard for members of the media that work as hard as they do under tight budgeting to report the truth (regardless of whether the truth hurts).

Read this report in the Washington Post (WP):

Did President Bush show what he really thinks of the media with a flip of his middle finger? Jay Leno thinks so.

On "The Tonight Show" Wednesday, the late-night comic showed videotape of the president leaving a meeting with congressional Republicans on Capitol Hill earlier in the day and passing by a clutch of reporters shouting questions on the fate of the Central American trade pact. On the video, Bush striding away from the camera suddenly thrusts his right hand into the air and extends a finger -- precisely which one was unclear. White House officials yesterday said it was his thumb.

But there were other interpretations. "I think President Bush is getting a little fed up with the press," Leno said, and he then showed the video to much laughter from the studio audience, which seemed to see it the same way. "What was that all about, huh?" Leno asked. "You see? That's the great thing about the second term: Who cares?"

If it is true, this would not be the first time Bush has given the press the middle finger.  The following are two other instances in particular:

• View photo
   
• Watch video

Bush gives press middle finger

President Bush apparently gave the press a middle finger on Thursday ashe was walking away. On Friday, Press Secretary Scott McClellan waspressured to answer questions about it, only to decline comment.

Click here to see it

Maybethe press is really getting to him now that Karl Rove, his best friendin the Administration, is under fire for leaking the name of a CIAoperative. Obviously what he did was disrespectful, and it showsabsolutely zero regard for members of the media that work as hard asthey do under tight budgeting to report the truth (regardless ofwhether the truth hurts).

Read this report in the Washington Post (WP):

   

Did President Bush show what he really thinks of the media with a flip of his middle finger? Jay Leno thinks so.

   

On"The Tonight Show" Wednesday, the late-night comic showed videotape ofthe president leaving a meeting with congressional Republicans onCapitol Hill earlier in the day and passing by a clutch of reportersshouting questions on the fate of the Central American trade pact. Onthe video, Bush striding away from the camera suddenly thrusts hisright hand into the air and extends a finger -- precisely which one wasunclear. White House officials yesterday said it was his thumb.

   

Butthere were other interpretations. "I think President Bush is getting alittle fed up with the press," Leno said, and he then showed the videoto much laughter from the studio audience, which seemed to see it thesame way. "What was that all about, huh?" Leno asked. "You see? That'sthe great thing about the second term: Who cares?"

Ifit is true, this would not be the first time Bush has given the pressthe middle finger. The following are two other instances in particular:

• View photo
• Watch video

Sunday Editorial: Bolton makes it through the door, but not without consequences

I am saddened to hear today that President Bush will sidestep Congress and use an Executive privilege to appoint John Bolton as the next U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. The Bush nominee has been blocked by the Senate because the White House has yet to turn over intelligence intercepts to the Senate that would show whether Mr. Bolton harassed government officials that did not come to the same conclusion as he did about alleged weapons programs in Iraq and Syria. Fearing that Bolton would never get confirmed by the Senate, due to the fact that 60 votes are needed to bring any measure to a vote, the President's only way to get his nominee in is by waiting until Congress goes into recess.

This Executive privilege is called a 'recess appointment' -- used to appoint cabinet officials when the Senate is not in session during the month of August. This tactic is rare for any President, especially for nominees that have been taking a political beating by the opposition party.

Part of the problem here is the idea that such an unpopular person like Bolton is being confirmed by Bush to become the number one mouthpiece between the U.S. and the rest of the world. How will we be seen as anymore credible than we already are (which isn't a lot!)? Also, why would we bring in someone to head an institution that he has shown the largest amount of disdain for over the years?

Most importantly, there are new allegations coming up that John Bolton committed perjury by lying to the Congress about whether he was being investigated by the State Department over faulty pre-war intelligence. Bolton told the Senate that no such interview took place. But just three days ago, the State Department confirmed that the interview occurred.

When you add all the problems with this confirmation up, you get a lot of question marks.  Why are we someone that...

   
• Does not get along with the UN or other countries
   
• Rejects diplomacy
   
• Lied to Congress
   
• Tried to get people he worked with fired for coming to different conclusions about intelligence. 

And now Bush thinks that bypassing Congress will make him anymore credible?  Lets get real.

Weekly Democratic radio address

This weekend's Democratic radio address featured a World War II veteran Senator that challenged the GOP to do a better job taking care of our veterans:

Good morning.  I am Dan Inouye, United States Senator from the State of Hawaii.

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II.

I was a teenager living in Honolulu when Pearl Harbor was attacked. And, as soon as I could, I joined the Army, and went to Europe to join the fight.

I still remember the day I left.

I was with my father, and we rode together in a streetcar to the drop-off point. As we approached the point of departure, he cleared his throat and simply said: 'This country has been good to us. We owe much to this country, and if you must give your life for it, do so with honor.'

More than 400,000 did die with honor. And those who came home returned to a country that honored its commitment to them.         

We received health care, money for college, help buying homes, and job training. And much of this thanks to the GI Bill. The bill provided assistance worthy of our service. And it is recognized as one of the greatest achievements of the United States Congress. In 2005, American soldiers are once again fighting overseas. Their sacrifice equals that of the soldiers who fought in World War II. But the support they are getting from Republicans does not.

For example, this past week was to be an important one in the United States Senate.Senators on both sides of the aisle were set to talk about getting our troops the resources they need, funding veterans health care in the years to come, and strengthening our national defense at a time of war.

Unfortunately, Senate Republicans had a different idea.                                    

Instead of taking time for this important debate, they set the discussions aside - put our veterans on hold - and took up the business of the gun lobby.                                    

For years, we've heard the President and Congressional Republicans speak eloquently about honoring our troops. But this week - when push came to shove - their priorities were different.

They found time for special interests, but not an extra day or an hour for our troops.

And when it came to helping our National Guard troops, they found something they thought was better to do.

I lost my right arm while fighting in combat in April of 1945. But I came home to the finest health care this nation could provide. For nearly two years, doctors and nurses took care of me and made certain I was ready to go back into the world.

But today, because of budget cuts and a lack of funds, a soldier with a similar injury would be discharged in less than a year because he has no rehabilitation work. This is a problem we need to address - not one to sweep under the rug and put off for weeks.   

At a time of war, we believe nothing is more important than this country's national defense, and honoring the sacrifice of our troops and their families. That's why we will continue to push in the months ahead.Our men and women who have served should not worry about funding for health care year after year, and our soldiers on the front lines should get the resources they need. Our Congress should consider our men and our women in uniform as our nation's top priority.                                    

In 1944, Democrats and Republicans passed the GI Bill without dissent, and did so in less than three months. Our troops today deserve this same support - and they should get nothing less.

This is Dan Inouye, and thank you for listening. Aloha.

It's awfully hard for the GOP to put on a fake face, especially since they have voted repeatedly to slash veterans' benefits.

Practical idealism

Sunday's Washington Post hinted at the growing policy rift in the Administration between Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Donald Rumsfeld (WP):

Three weeks after taking office, Condoleezza Rice hosted Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and their Japanese counterparts at the State Department. When Rumsfeld began to speak, Rice gently cut him off. The message was clear: I'll take the lead, Don. Both Japanese and U.S. officials noted the decisive nudge.

Now six months on the job, Rice has clearly wrested control of U.S. foreign policy. The once heavy-handed Defense Department still weighs in, but Rice wins most battles -- in strong contrast to her predecessor, Colin L. Powell. White House staff is consulted, but Rice designed the distinctive framework for the administration's second-term foreign policy.

In short order, she has demonstrated a willingness to bend on tactics to accommodate the concerns of allies without ceding on broad principles, what she calls "practical idealism." She also conducts a more aggressive personal diplomacy, breaking State Department records for foreign travel and setting up diplomatic tag teams with top staff on urgent issues.

U.S. foreign policy has always had "a streak of idealism, which means that we care about values, we care about principle," Rice said in an interview last week. "The responsibility, then, of all of us is to take policies that are rooted in those values and make them work on a day-to-day basis so that you're always moving forward toward a goal."

It is too early to know whether the new tactics will ultimately bring results, and many of Rice's steps so far this year have been limited to overtures or temporary

fixes. But those have at the least created momentum where before there was deadlock.

On North Korea, Rice got the prickly Pyongyang government back to six-nation talks last week on nuclear disarmament by publicly recognizing it as a "sovereign state," then empowering her top aide on East Asia to repeatedly meet privately with the North Koreans -- extended contact forbidden during Powell's era.

On Iran, Rice agreed to offer incentives -- allowing the Islamic republic to apply for eventual membership in the World Trade Organization and buy badly needed spare parts for aging passenger aircraft -- in exchange for a European pledge to support U.N. Security Council action if talks fail. Powell had trouble just getting the White House to drop language including Iran in an "axis of evil," which implied eventual confrontation.

With India, she brokered a deal to sell peaceful nuclear technology that will cement U.S.-India relations, but which may also risk undermining the treaty to halt nuclear weapons proliferation.

On Sudan, Rice found middle ground between the administration's rejection of the International Criminal Court and U.N. efforts to launch a war crimes investigation into violence in the Darfur region. The State Department helped draft a U.N. resolution supporting an international probe that would pass -- but on which Washington could abstain.

In the interview, Rice said she discovered on her first European trip that, particularly on the Iran issue, "somehow we'd gotten into a position where it was the United States that was the problem . . . that was not a good place to be." So she formulated action that put the onus back on Iran and, later, North Korea.

"Sometimes the power of diplomacy is not just saying no, but figuring out a way to protect your interests and principles to help the other guy -- or in this case the other countries -- move forward as well," Undersecretary of State R. Nicholas Burns said. "It is the kind of diplomacy some of our critics had felt we were no longer capable of, that we were a kind of superpower saying 'yes' or 'no' but not anywhere in between."

It seems like Rumsfeld always needs an enemy.  First it was Weinberger, then Powell, now Rice.  Good luck to her.  She will need it.  Putting up with Rumsfeld's hawkish stubborness on international policy takes a lot.

Quick comment about Frist

I must say that I was caught off guard by Republican Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist.  He decided yesterday to oppose President Bush's ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cells.  This is coming from a politician that has been pandering to the far-right of the political spectrum on all social issues -- especially the Terry Schiavo case and his threats to change Senate rules by preventing the Democrats from using the filibuster to block radically conservative judicial nominees.  Now he is breaking ranks with the right-wing to support funding for embryonic stem cell research.

It is very impressive that such a conservative ideologue would decide instead to use what he learned as a doctor that embraced the opportunities of science instead of pandering to right-wing interest groups.  There is little doubt that he will take a hit from all this politically, especially since he will almost surely run for President in 2008.  The Republican Party are much farther to the right today than in 1996 or 2000.  In other words, taking such a mainstream moderate stance on a sensitive issue that involves faith could backfire on him during the GOP primaries in early-2008.

Nonetheless, my hat goes off to Bill Frist for taking such a moderate stance on a matter that could result in breakthroughs for millions of Americans with Parkinson's or other diseases that can be treated by using embryonic stem cells.  The Tennessee Republican Senator is making the White House look further out of touch from modern science than ever before.

More on 2006 midterms

I think I am liking this poll, which was taken between July 19 - 25 by Democracy Corps (PollingReport.com):

"I know it is far ahead, but thinking about next year's elections, if the election for U.S. Congress were held today, would you be voting for the Democratic candidate or the      Republican candidate in your district where you live?"

Republican - 41%
Democrat - 48%
Other - 2%
Unsure - 9%
 

The GOP had better start using the national security card to sway voters pretty soon, because we are only one year away.

Democrats urge against recess appointment for Bolton

I encourage you all to read my column from yesterday on why John Bolton's recess appointment would be disastrous for our relations abroad.  In the meantime, 36 Democratic Senators wrote a letter to President Bush asking him to please not use the Executive power of a recess appointment to confirm Bolton.

Here is part of a Saturday New York Times article detailing how the Democrats will go from here in opposing Bolton (NYT):

   

But one Republican official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the president has not announced his decision, said Mr. Bush would probably appoint Mr. Bolton next week.

   

In a letter to Mr. Bush, the senators cited the disclosure on Thursday that Mr. Bolton had been interviewed by the State Department's inspector general in an investigation of intelligence failures related to Iraq, even though he told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in March that he had not been involved in any such inquiry.

   

Mr. Bolton "did not recall this interview" when he assured the committee that he had not been questioned by any investigators, according to a letter sent Friday from the State Department to Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., the ranking Democrat on the foreign relations panel.

   

The letter from the senators, all Democrats except for the Senate's sole independent, who usually votes with them, was the latest escalation of the battle over Mr. Bolton.

   

He has run into heavy opposition in the Senate because of his history of criticizing the United Nations and over charges that he tried to influence intelligence assessments to conform with his own views.

   

Mr. Bolton's nomination has the support of the majority of senators, but fewer than the 60 needed to head off a filibuster that Democrats say they would mount until specific questions about Mr. Bolton's activities were answered, particularly his use of classified intelligence about conversations involving administration colleagues.

   

The State Department has admitted that, as Mr. Biden charged, Mr. Bolton had been interviewed in a previous inquiry into one particular intelligence failure on Iraq, the finding that Iraq had tried to buy raw uranium from Niger for a nuclear arms program. That finding turned out to be based on forged documents.

   

Administration officials appeared shaken by the disclosure, and some worried openly that it might hurt Mr. Bolton's chances of a recess appointment, a tactic that a president is permitted use once Congress is in recess in August. The appointment would expire at the end of next year, however.

   

In a final gesture of opposition, Democratic senators indicated that they would use a parliamentary maneuver to formally send Mr. Bolton's name back to the White House once the Senate adjourns, rather than have it remain pending at the Senate.

   

That move was seen as symbolic, but one reflecting the growing bitterness of Democrats and their hopes that by standing firm they would make it more politically awkward for Mr. Bush to give Mr. Bolton the interim appointment.

A recess appointment would not only hurt our credibility abroad, but only add life to the claim that the White House is responsible for the intense partisan bickering on Capitol Hill this year on a number of issues -- such as Terry Schiavo, Social Security, inconsistencies about Karl Rove, and the list goes on.  For once, the Bush Administration needs to realize that bipartisanship is fundamentally important on issues where both our nation and political parties are divided.  Instead of ignoring Democrats and rushing Bolton through while everyone's backs are turned, President Bush should wait until after the Senate gets back from its August recess and debate Bolton further.  Most importantly, the White House needs to cooperate by handing over the intelligence intercepts that show whether Bolton misused his power at the State Department in his interactions with intelligence officials.

Bush's behind-the-back trick to confirm Bolton next week

Almost one month after his nomination had been stopped dead in its tracks, President Bush is expected to use a special Executive privilege next week to appoint John Bolton without the Senate's consent to be the next U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. In the late-spring and early-summer, Senate Democrats had successfully blocked Mr. Bolton. What they wanted were State Department intelligence intercepts that would prove whether or not Bolton manipulated U.S. officials and tried to get them fired for not coming to the same conclusions as he did about the nuclear programs of Iraq and especially Syria. White Houses of past have always handed over documents on their nominees that were requested by the Senate. But when it came to Bolton, the Bush White House might have been afraid that the intelligence intercepts would have rallied more opposition to Bolton even from the GOP side.

President Bush is then faced with two options: wait until lawmakers get back from their August recess and call for another vote, or use a special Executive privilege to appoint him without the Senate's consent. This Executive authority is called a "recess appointment," as explained clearly on a CNN article (CNN):

Under the Constitution, a president has the power to make appointments without Senate confirmation when Congress is in recess.

Such a recess appointment would last until the end of the current congressional term, which would put Bolton at the United Nations until January 2007.

But would the White House really sidestep the Senate on such a divisive cabinet nominee? Earlier this week White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan hinted that Bush might do it (Yahoo):

"If the Senate fails to act and move forward on those nominees, then sometimes there comes a point where the president has needed to fill that in a timely manner by recessing those nominees."

If you forgot about the case against the Bush nominee, Mr. Bolton has been the most critical voice of the United Nations. He once said this about the institution (Right Web):

"There's no such thing as the United Nations... If the U.N. secretary building in New York lost 10 stories, it wouldn't make a bit of difference."

And no, it isn't backwards day. He actually did say that. So Bush wants the man that shows littlest respect for the very institution that helps the world better communicate to be our next representative to that very body. Aside from the UN, Bolton once admitted how hawkish he really is (LA Weekly):

"Diplomacy is not an end in itself if it does not advance U.S. interests."

It gets worse. Bolton was the most wrong of any State Department official about Iraq. Here are two incorrect statements made by Bolton about Iraq's weapons programs prior to our invasion:

• "Iraq, despite UN sanctions, maintains an aggressive program to rebuild the infrastructure for its nuclear, chemical, biological, and missile programs. In each instance, Iraq's procurement agents are actively working to obtain both weapons-specific and dual-use materials and technologies critical to their rebuilding and expansion efforts, using front companies and whatever illicit means are at hand." - StateDepartment.gov
   
• "We estimate that once Iraq acquires fissile material - whether from a foreign source or by securing the materials to build an indigenous fissile material capability - it could fabricate a nuclear weapon within one year." - USinfo.org
  

It does not end there. In 2003, Bolton was responsible for destroying Six Party Talks with North Korea. In front of reporters and representatives from major Asian countries involved in the talks, Bolton called North Korean leader Kim Jong IL a "tyrannical dictator." While no sane person would dispute that fact, no sane person would neither dispute that it was probably a bad move to say that publicly -- especially because the Six Party Talks were supposed to lead to the dismantlement of North Korea's plutonium-based nuclear program, which would have meant an assured break from proliferation in Southeast Asia. But John Bolton's thoughtless comment angered the North Korean government, which returned fire (Washington Times):

"Such human scum and bloodsucker is not entitled to take part in the talks." - North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman

The talks then broke off, and to this day North Korea is still in the middle of producing their plutonium-based nuclear weapons.

Bolton's lack of diplomatic skills, as well as his disdain for diplomacy even as a policy, make him unqualified to hold the position that is the number one mouthpiece on the world stage with other nations. Even despite that fact, Senate Democrats are prepared to no longer block Bolton if the White House cooperates by handing over the intelligence intercepts of Bolton's discussions with U.S. CIA analysts.

Joseph Biden, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, wants proof that Bolton did not spy on "rivals in the bureaucracy, both inferior and superior to him." The Delaware Senator has pledged to no longer stall Bolton's nomination if the intercepts are handed over and it turns out that Bolton did not commit what he was accused of doing.

But instead of going along with the wishes of the Senate, which the Executive Branch always is supposed to do in this case, President Bush is getting ready to use a recess appointment to personally confirm Bolton until 2007. This is a leadership that does not listen to opposing views, refuses to compromise and acts unilaterally from a partisan standpoint. Such a great country deserves much better.

Open-ended foreign policy does not solve terrorism

Peter Scoblic just wrote a piece in The New Republic magazine set for release in August 8th's edition. He extensively elaborated on how obtuse-minded conservatism in the war against terrorism is actually making our country less safe from those that kill other people in the name of a peaceful religion. The Bush Administration assumes democracy as its master doctrine. But what Scoblic points out is that while democracy is by far the best form of government, it does not necessarily lead to the end of terrorism as a whole.

Read this excerpt (TNR):

A resounding sentiment--one that has provided the president with a powerful foreign policy narrative and convinced voters last November that, despite the tragedies of the Iraq war, he can best protect our national security. Yet the notion that we should defend ourselves chiefly by spreading democracy seems less than reassuring on the heels of the July 7 attack. After all, the four bombers who struck London were British--residents of one of the world's oldest and most stable democracies.

The war on terrorism is, at some level, a war of ideas: To the extent that we can substitute democracy and liberal values for autocracy and Islamic fundamentalism, we will probably improve our security--and we should therefore try to do so. But freedom--as Richard Haass, Bush's former director of policy planning at the State Department, has written--is not a doctrine. That is, the spread of freedom cannot be our guiding principle in the war on terrorism, because the spread of freedom cannot protect us from all terrorist threats, particularly the immediate ones. In fact, in the short term, democratization appears to exacerbate, rather than ameliorate, terrorism. The case in point is, of course, Iraq, which, according to the National Intelligence Council, now serves as a training and recruitment ground for the next generation of jihadists--its popularly elected government notwithstanding. Even nations that successfully transition to democracy can breed terrorism: As former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke has written, "In Indonesia, which just achieved its third democratic transfer of power since Suharto's rule ended in 1998, the jihadist movement is growing stronger, as it is in other Asian democracies. In Algeria, free elections in 1990 and 1991 resulted in victories for those who advocated a jihadist theocracy." Even if the president's assumptions about the pacifying effects of representative government are correct, democratization is a long-term process, taking years, decades, even centuries.

(You can read the rest of the column in the August 8th edition of The New Republic magazine.)

The war on terrorism can be won by mastering the war of ideas. How do we prevent the next generation of Muslims in the Arab world from joining jihadist movements? Democracy, or some representative form of government, is a step in the right direction. But what if the people of those countries elect radical governments? Then what? Isn't that democracy? See, there is obviously more to it then solely spreading freedom. That is why the Bush doctrine is completely open-ended, and does not address other precursors that lead to radicalism -- like disease, poverty, local violence, oil, and some practices by trade organizations such as taking over land that belonged to local populations. Democracy is just part of putting in an infrastructure that will help deal with all of those problems. But democracy in general, without cooperation on all those other fronts, will not solve the problem of terrorism.