Richard Cohen’s column in The Washington Post today summarizes many of the reasons I’m opposed to the war in Iraq — it’s a failed war. Leading this country into such a terrible enterprise on the basis of twisted intelligence and conducting the war with such terribly bad planning is the highest crime and misdemeanor possible, the ultimate impeachable offense, a failure of leadership so great as to be treasonous. Cohen’s money quote from the conclusion of the commentary:

One could almost forgive President Bush for waging war under false or mistaken pretenses had a better, more democratic Middle East come out of it. But just as the 1991 Persian Gulf War introduced an element of instability in the region — the rise of al Qaeda in response to the stationing of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia — so might this one do something similar. A Shiite arc is forming, Iraq is infested with terrorists and coming apart, Syria might be going from bad to worse, and Saudi Arabia is complaining loudly that the war’s only winners are the Shiites and Iran. From here, it looks like a war that is already going badly for America could go even worse for much of the Middle East.

Mission accomplished?

Meanwhile, over on Slate, Jacob Weisberg takes note of an interesting historical parallel between Bush and Karl Rove and President McKinley and his political boss, the infamous and legendary Mark Hannah:

Hanna was the brain behind William McKinley’s political career in much the same way that Rove (“the architect”) is the brain behind Bush’s. McKinley was an affable, none-too-bright former congressman when Hanna helped elect him governor of Ohio. In 1896, Hanna raised an unprecedented amount of money and ran a sophisticated, hardball campaign that got McKinley to the White House. One could go on with the analogy: McKinley governed negligently in the interests of big business and went to war on flimsy evidence that Spain had blown up the USS Maine.

Maybe it’s the former history teacher in me, but the recycling of historical “mistakes” fascinates me. There’s that Santayana quote: One must know history or be doomed to repeat it. The GOP at the turn of the 20th Century had imperial dreams that expanded American influence worldwide and sowed the seeds of much of what we are experiencing in the 21st Century. Domestically, we’re back to the days of Social Darwinism even though we should know better.

FIRE KARL ROVE

Jonathon Alter at Newsweek takes note of Rove’s tenuous hold on national security clearances to be in meetings where classified materials are discussed, making his usefulness to the nation problematic at best. The lead of the story is enough for me:

By Jonathan Alter
Newsweek
Updated: 6:21 p.m. ET Nov. 2, 2005
Nov. 2, 2005 – The conventional wisdom in Washington this week is that Karl Rove is out of the woods. But while an indictment against him in the Valerie Plame leak case is now unlikely, he may be in danger of losing his security clearance.

According to last week’s indictment of Scooter Libby, a person identified as “Official A” held conversations with reporters about Plame’s identity as an undercover CIA operative, information that was classified. News accounts subsequently confirmed that that official was Rove. Under Executive Order 12958, signed by President Clinton in 1995, such a disclosure is grounds for, at a minimum, losing access to classified information.

President Bush promised us in 2000 that he would bring back “integrity” to the White House. Right

LYNCH MOBS ARE WRONG

Let me bring you up to speed. Tom DeLay, “The Hammer”, a former pest exterminator from Houston who rose to House Majority Leader on populist appeals to right wing social conservatism, stand indicted in Texas on political corruption charges. Simplisticly, he allegedly broke election finance rules when taking $190,000 in what would be if used for partisan purposes illegal corporate money into his Political Action Committee (PAC), a campaign slush fund, sending it to the Republican National Campaign Committee and then having them send it back in exact amount for use in partisan political campaigns as legal contributions. It was an “end around” the intent of the law, to keep corporate money’s political influence within reasonable limits. OK, so he’s charged with felonies, including a conspiracy to conduct this scheme. He drew a Democrat as a judge and had him thrown off the case as being biased by partisan political contributions to MoveOn.org. The prosecutor then had the Republican judge who replaced him removed for partisan political contributions to DeLay’s PAC. Now, he has a retired San Antonio judge appointed by the Chief Justice of the Texas Supreme Court, a partisan Republican.

Meanwhile, back in Washington, there’s more bad news for DeLay:

By JOHN SOLOMON
The Associated Press
Thursday, November 3, 2005; 3:23 PM

WASHINGTON — Investigators have unearthed e-mails showing Rep. Tom DeLay’s office tried to help lobbyist Jack Abramoff get a high-level Bush administration meeting for Indian clients, an effort that succeeded after the tribes began making a quarter-million dollars in donations.

Tribal money went both to a group founded by Interior Secretary Gale Norton, the Cabinet secretary Abramoff was trying to meet, as well as to DeLay’s personal charity.

“Do you think you could call that friend and set up a meeting,” then-DeLay staffer Tony Rudy wrote to fellow House aide Thomas Pyle in a Dec. 29, 2000, e-mail titled “Gale Norton-Interior Secretary.” President Bush had nominated Norton to the post the day before.

Rudy wrote Abramoff that same day promising he had “good news” about securing a meeting with Norton, forwarding information about the environmental group Norton had founded, according to e-mails obtained by investigators and reviewed by The Associated Press. Rudy’s message to Abramoff was sent from Congress’ official e-mail system.

Within months, Abramoff clients donated heavily to the Norton-founded group and to DeLay’s personal charity. The Coushatta Indian tribe, for instance, wrote checks in March 2001 for $50,000 to the Norton group and $10,000 to the DeLay Foundation, tribal records show.

The lobbyist and the Coushattas eventually won face-to-face time with the secretary during a Sept. 24, 2001, dinner sponsored by the group she had founded.

Abramoff’s clients were trying to stop a rival Indian tribe from winning Interior Department approval to build a casino.

Federal and congressional investigators have obtained the DeLay staff e-mails from Abramoff’s former lobbying firm as they try to determine whether officials in Congress or the Bush administration provided government assistance in exchange for the money Abramoff’s clients donated to Republican causes.

The assistance to Abramoff from DeLay’s staff occurred just a few months after DeLay received political donations, free use of a Washington arena skybox to reward donors and an all-expense-paid trip to play golf in Scotland arranged by Abramoff and mostly underwritten by his clients.

This Abramoff scandal is flying under the radar, but when it blows, it’s gonna blow UP!!!

Alito will be confirmed, the Dems will filibuster, GOP will “nuclear option”

Privacy Shattered Sharon and I agree it’s a done deal whether we like it or not. To expand on my own opinion, the guy was editor of the Yale Law Review and he’s been a judge for years. No, I don’t like his politics. But it goes both ways. I’d expect a Dem president to nominate someone who respected Roe v. Wade and tended to expand civil rights. He’s qualified, dammit. As much as I may disagree, I can’t say he’s looney or corrupt or anything like that. So, to be fair, he probably OUGHT to be confirmed. Sure hate to see Sandra Day O’Conner leave and be replaced by a “winger”, but that’s the consequences of letting Bush in for a second term and America will get what it deserves, even if I’m the one that gets screwed over in the process. Hope to see you in the concentration camps because if you don’t see me there, I’ve already been “re-educated” by a bullet to the brain. Lord protect us because we don’t know what we’re doing.