We are all Georgians

Attorney General Michael Mukasey not only won’t prosecute anyone for the illegal hiring practices within Justice, because “not every wrong, or even every violation of the law, is a crime,” but won’t undo the politically based appointments Monica Goodling et al made because “People who were hired in an improper way didn’t themselves do anything wrong.” But then, Mike, neither did the qualified people who should have received those jobs based on the, ya know, merits. Said Mukasey, “Professionalism is alive and well at the Justice Department.” Professional what, he did not say.

A professional (although not really looking either alive or well)

Fresh off calling Obama presumptuous, McCain today phoned Georgian President Saakashvili and told him, evidently speaking on behalf of the American people, “I told him that I know I speak for every American when I said to him, today, we are all Georgians.” American readers: Is that true?

poll by twiigs.com

There are signs that our economy are slowing

Video of the day, from the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing you’ve probably already heard about but perhaps haven’t seen (TPM, from which I’ve taken the video, has the transcript), of Biden gently getting Attorney General Mukasey to clarify that he really does mean that his “conscience” isn’t “shocked” by water-boarding or by extension any other form of torture, unless the method is disproportionate to the information being sought: “the heinousness of doing it, the cruelty of doing it, balanced against the value.” Biden being Biden, he made his point perfectly but then didn’t just stop talking.



I think we all need to take a deep breath and look at Margaret, who is 10 days old.



Today, Bush came all the way to California to tell us, “You know, California is a really important state for our country”. It’s nice to be appreciated.

He took along our esteemed governator to a helicopter factory: “The company was started in the kitchen, and now he’s got the Terminator coming by to herald the success.”


Mostly he talked about the importance of ratifying the free-trade agreements: “And when you’re more likely to sell a helicopter to Panama, it means you’re more likely to keep work, that’s what that means.” And he pretended that the only reason “some” people oppose the treaty with Colombia is that they don’t believe in the principle of free trade – “Some say trade hurts our economy” – as opposed to, for instance, the rather large number of unsolved murders of trade unionists.

IN OTHER WORDS: “Well, we’ve negotiated free trade agreements. In other words, we sat down with countries and said, let’s get a free trade agreement in place.”

IN OTHER WORDS: “Fourth quarter growth slowed to .6 percent. In other words, there are signs that our economy are slowing.”

Of truffles, waterboarding and the dastardly Pakistani military

My favorite new crime: highway truffle robbery. Dennis Moore, Dennis Moore, riding through the land...

Arlen Specter will also vote for Mukasey. No surprise there, huh? Says Mukasey assured him privately that if there were a law against waterboarding, Bush would have to abide by it. So clearly that law should be passed – and signed into law – before the confirmation process goes any further.

State Dept Legal Advisor John Bellinger also refuses to rule out waterboarding. Indeed, it’s okay by him if foreign secret services use it on Americans.

Pakistan’s military has usually defended its coups as necessary to fight corruption or chaos or corruption of their precious bodily fluids or whatever, but Mush’s latest coup is clearly about nothing other than his own personal grip on power. The reputation of the military cannot but suffer from being associated with it. Yet I haven’t heard of any dissent at all within the military’s ranks, any reluctance to follow Musharraf’s orders.

By the way, I’ve created a new label for posts about Musharraf, dating back to 1999. Somewhere along the way, the usual spelling of his name gained an R.

Not Gonzo

In his weekly radio address, Bush demanded the confirmation of Mukasey, which is evidently important in “this time of war,” a phrase he used three times. He repeated the Mukasey Catch 22, saying the Senate shouldn’t make his confirmation conditional on his expressing an opinion on waterboarding because he can’t be briefed on waterboarding unless he’s confirmed because... er, why can’t he be briefed unless he’s confirmed?

Bush says that Mukasey has been “praised by Republicans and Democrats alike for his honesty, intellect, fairness, and independence.”

One of those Republocrats, Dianne Feinstein, did so in the LAT today, carefully explaining the reason she will vote to confirm him: “Judge Mukasey is not Alberto R. Gonzales.” Okay, I could make fun of that sentence all day, that would be setting my bar as low as she has set hers, and that will not do.

She also hangs her hat on Mukasey’s “personal repugnance” for waterboarding, which is completely irrelevant. He may feel personal repugnance for abortions, as Gonzales and Ashcroft certainly did, but his job is to enforce the, you know, law.

She goes on: “I believe that Judge Mukasey is the best nominee we are going to get from this administration...” Say what you will about Bush’s entitled stubbornness, but with supine senators like DiFi, it works. “...and that voting him down would only perpetuate acting and recess appointments, allowing the White House to avoid the transparency that confirmation hearings provide...” For example the confirmation hearings at which Mukasey refused to say whether waterboarding is illegal? “...and to diminish effective oversight by Congress.” I assume that’s a joke of some sort.

George Bush and America, the world’s free nation

Cheney emerged today to give a speech to the American Legion. It must be odd to have to pretend in public to dislike the very things that bring joy to your life (insert Larry Craig reference here). “We do not torture,” he said, suppressing a gleeful cackle. “War is an unpleasant business,” he proclaimed, knowing that the podium was hiding his erection.


Bush also manfully faced the most friendly audience he could find today, at the Heritage Foundation. He thought this speech would be so important (he was wrong) that he gave reporters a preview of it in the morning. (I’ll be mixing together quotes from both). He was giving the speech, he said, because he is “concerned that there are some...” (He refuted his dread arch-enemies, the unspecified, mysterious, shadowy “Some,” quite often today.) “...who have lost sight of the fact that we’re at war with extremists and radicals who want to attack us again” and he would “remind people that even though we haven’t been attacked since September the 11th, there’s still an enemy out there that would like to attack us.” So consider yourself reminded.

He also said that he would end the speech with OTHER WORDS: “And then finally, I’ll conclude the speech by reminding people that this concept of stability has -- in other words, that foreign policy ought to promote stability as opposed to freedom has led to dangers, and that the only way to solve America’s long-term security needs is to remember that the enemy that we face can only recruit when there’s hopelessness and despair; and that liberty has got the capacity to transform societies from hopeless societies to hopeful societies; and that this administration will continue to press the freedom agenda; and obviously, that freedom agenda is being tested in places like Lebanon, Iraq, and the Palestinian Territories and Afghanistan.” You know, other words.


He said that “Unfortunately, on too many issues, Some in Congress are behaving as if America is not at war,” and during a war (the one you were just reminded of), there needs to be a “full national security team in place,” including an attorney general. “My point is, is that it’s creating a -- to have the Attorney General seat vacant for this long -- there’s an Acting Attorney General, of course, but not to have a confirmed Attorney General is not good for the country.” Remember how well everything went when we had Ashcroft or Gonzo?

He said it was “unfair” that Mukasey was asked about waterboarding. “He has not been read into the program, and won’t until he is confirmed and sword in”. Sword in? He may be thinking of the Skull and Bones initiation ceremony. Anyway, he says, whatever interrogation techniques are used by the CIA, they were made legal by what he’s still calling the Detainee Detention Act. “The procedures used in this program,” he asserted, “are safe. They are lawful. And they are necessary.” Indeed, they are safe: there’s even a safe word. Well, a safe sentence: “Oh god I’ll say anything you want me to say, just make it stop.”

OR NOT: Asked by a reporter if the delay confirming Mukasey was political, he said that he’d leave that to his minions: “You can listen to the voices that are out there talking as to whether or not this is politics or not.”


THEY’LL BE COMING ‘ROUND THE MOUNTAIN WHEN THEY COME: “I look forward to visiting with [Turkish] Prime Minister Erdogan on this important subject as to how we can work together to prevent people from coming out of mountain ranges to do harm to Turkish troops.”

Asked if Congress has forgotten we’re at war: “Well, I think there is a tendency for people to say, well, maybe -- let me just say, there are Some who say, don’t call this a war on terror. And there are Some who have accused me of using the words ‘war on terror’ as a way to frighten people into voting booths....” (Presumably cement-lined, bomb-proof voting booths.) “...And I emphasize the word ‘Some.’ As I’ll say in this speech, those who say we’re not in a war on terror are either disingenuous or naive. Either way, the attitude is dangerous because I will have quoted the words of the enemy in the speech, an enemy that said, we’re going to come and kill you.”

NO I WON’T BE AFRAID, NO I WON’T BE AFRAID, JUST AS LONG AS YOU STAND, STAND BY ME: Just as he got fixated on the word “say” in the first sentence of that quote, at Heritage he stumbled over “stand”: “They’re at war with America because they hate what they stand for -- and they understand we stand in their way.”

WHO WILL STAND IN THE WAY OF TERRORISTS? “America, the world’s free nation [sic]”.

GEORGE HEARS VOICES: “Once again, voices in Washington are arguing that the watchword of the policy should be ‘stability.’ And once again they’re wrong.” So all the chaos and instability you’ve caused was intentional?

“When it comes to funding our troops, Some in Washington should spend more time responding to the warnings of terrorists like Osama bin Laden and the requests of our commanders on the ground, and less time responding to the demands of MoveOn.org bloggers and Code Pink protesters.” I suspect he intended a comma after MoveOn.org, but possibly that’s just my wishful thinking as a blogger, like when a reporter called up Dick Gregory to inform him that he was on Richard Nixon’s enemies list, and he said, tell Nixon I accept, quick, before he changes his mind.

If it amounts to torture, it is not constitutional

Another new California law: SB 568, allowing defendants mentally incompetent to stand trial to be forcibly medicated.

Michael Mukasey’s views of presidential power and torture turned out to be Gonzo Lite, which may be my nickname for him, although other suggestions are welcome in comments (I’ve chosen to forego “the alliterative Michael Mukasey” – is anyone disappointed by that decision? Thought not). In the future, no Bush administration hack should be allowed to use the word torture, especially in the sentence “we do not torture,” if they are unwilling to define it. Without definition, a word is meaningless, and they might as well say, “we do not blibblewog.” Asked whether waterboarding is torture, he claimed he didn’t know what waterboarding entailed. When it was described to him, he still said, “If it amounts to torture, it is not constitutional.” Of course, under the Bushies, the Constitution has also been reduced to meaninglessness: If it amounts to blibblewog, it is not blibblewoggle.

I just spent one of the silliest half-minutes of my life trying to decide how one spells the adjectival form of blibblewog, a word I just made up.

I’m not sure why I felt obligated to check, but there are no Google hits for blibblewog (although, not surprisingly, there are for Gonzo Lite).

Tony Blair gave his first major speech since leaving office, wearing a tux and white tie yet, excoriating Iran and militant Islam, which he likened to fascism and said used “demonic skill” to exploit grievances and etcetera etcetera. The Guardian says he was “speaking at a charity event in New York,” but does not say what sort of charity such a speech was appropriate for. So I looked it up: the Alfred E. Smith Foundation. A Catholic group. Was that a smart choice of venue?

I have some left-over photos for your captioning pleasure. The Segway Boys are wounded soldiers.


And these are from an event today at which Bush announced more toothless sanctions on Burma’s military leaders.

If it weren’t for recreational hysteria, I’d get no exercise at all

Bush nominates Michael “Not As Much of a Dick As Ted Olson” Mukasey to be attorney general.



While Mukasey does indeed seem to be not as much of a dick as Ted Olson (or, to set the bar even lower, as incompetent as Gonzales), this 2004 op-ed article in which he defended the Patriot Act against “a good deal of hysteria, some of it reflexive, much of it recreational,” and calling for the government to be given “the benefit of the doubt,” does give one some pause, if not the recreational hysteria we all enjoy so much. At least not yet.

This morning Bush met Prime Minister José Sócrates of Portugal for a bit of a – dear god I can’t help myself – Socratic dialogue, which Bush described thusly:

So we discussed our bilateral relations. I asked the Prime Minister, I said, how would you frame our bilateral relations, he said: good. Well, you know, I feel the same way. ... we discussed and confirmed that transatlantic relations are very important for the United States and the EU.

The prime minister then called for a round of hemlock.