Between Iraq and a Hard Place

The Legislature has passed a war appropriation bill that includes a mandated withdraw date for our troops in Iraq, and prohibits sending troops into combat without full training and complete supplies. The President has vowed to veto it because it would “limit the commanders on the ground.”

The Democrats know they don’t have enough votes to override the veto, so the big question becomes: What should they do?

This is a rotten question, and I fear that (just like the war itself) there are no good answers.

Perhaps the best answer I have heard came from conservative commentator Andrew Sullivan on “Countdown” last night. He suggested that the Democrats should give the President what he wants, and let him and the Republicans have full ownership of this disastrous war.

This is a rotten thing to say, but I can see the wisdom of that suggestion.

The Democrats do not have the power to end the war right now. They have put all the pressure on Bush that they can. What more can they accomplish?

If they hold up funding for this atrocity, they will be holding our troops in the field hostage. I don’t think they will be able to force Bush to sign, nor override his will on this. The bottom line is that our troops are going to be there no matter what. If the Democrats hold up funding they will only ensure that more of the troops get killed with inadequate body-armor and training.

I hate to say it, but not only would that be morally wrong, it would be politically disastrous.

I feel that the Democrats would be better served picking battles they can win, such as: Getting an inspector general to look into how war funds have been used, pushing hard to investigate and expose abuses of the Patriot Act by federal investigators and using their government oversight powers to expose criminal (and borderline criminal) activities of the executive.

We need to restrain Bush everywhere we can, but we can’t fail when we try, and we can’t let troops die in a way we can be blamed. We are on record being against the war and in favor of withdrawal. If Bush continues the war, those deaths are on his head as long as we make sure they have every piece of training and equipment they need.

I know it is lousy, but I can’t see a better plan of action.

Cold Hard Truth

In the summer of 1895, Thomas Edison was locked in a high profile competition with Alexander Graham Bell. The source of the rivalry was a challenge issued by mutual friend Henry Ford. Ford had observed that although great advances had been made in the field of automotive design, there had been no progress made on the automatic transmission.

The wager between Edison and Bell, both incredibly wealthy, was one silver dollar.

So, that summer, both men set aside their other projects to tackle the concept of the automatic transmission. The automobile itself was quite a new invention, so it was slow going to improve the transmission concept. As is often the case, when great minds work on a difficult problem, new technologies are accidentally invented.

Very few people know this, but while working on this challenge, Thomas Edison invented the penguin.

It all stemmed from the inverse gear ratio principle. This led to advances in the beak and flipper-wings. Bell had invented the oil-coated feather necessary for Antarctic birds the previous winter while grappling with the concept of text-messaging. Edison stole the idea, citing his work on the milk-dud from 1877.

This was a common tactic of Edison’s. Bell had to keep quiet about it because he had broken Edison’s prototype for the communications satellite, and burned the blueprints with a cigar butt and a bottle of brandy.

So, combining these disparate elements brought about everybody’s favorite flightless bird. However, Bell won the wager.

And if you believe that, then you probably can be convinced the President’s surge is working.

Fight fire with firings!

The right wing has asked a simple question: Did the Administration break any laws by firing U.S. Attorneys, and if not, what’s the big deal? These are two excellent questions that absolutely deserve answers.

Did the Administration break the law by firing officials that work at the pleasure of the President? (Hey, didn’t Monica Lewinski have that same job description?)

No, the president has the right to fire them at his leisure.

Then what’s the big deal? As the GOP points out regularly, President Clinton fired U.S. Attorneys.

Here is the problem. It starts with the fact that up until the “Patriot Act,” all U.S. Attorneys had to be confirmed by the Senate. This rule kept most of the presidents of both parties honest in who they would appoint. The Patriot Act changed this by allowing the President to appoint temporary U.S. Attorneys, but there was no time limit on how long temporary is.

Congress, thankfully, has fixed this loophole.

But the important thing for this scandal is tracing what was going on in the rest of the country while this purging of non-loyalists was going on. We, as a nation, were up to our armpits in GOP scandals. We had Bob Ney and Duke Cunningham out there fighting investigations. We also had, apparently, some senior Republican officeholders calling U.S. Attorneys to check up on investigations of public officials.

Then, all of the sudden: “poof”. Firings

The big deal, which the likes of Glen Beck can’t wrap their tiny little minds around, is that it looks as if the Department of Justice decided to purge prosecutors to curtail investigations of Republicans and to spur on investigations of Democrats.

The big deal is that there is an appearance that the Department of Justice became just another piece of the political landscape, rather than being an impartial law enforcement agency.

The appearance of impropriety is only made worse by the involvement of Karl Rove, who should not have had his mitts on the Justice Department in the first place, and should not have maneuvered his deputy into one of the newly opened positions.

The appearance of impropriety is made much worse by the fact that the President won’t let anybody clear up the appearance of impropriety. It makes everybody in the Democratic Party suspicious when the GOP resists testifying under oath.

In the end, the problem is that it looks like Bush used the DOJ to carry out a political vendetta, and that when a few U.S. Attorneys resisted, they were replaced without confirmation hearings.

The president needs to either show that we are drawing incorrect conclusions by letting Rove and Miers testify under oath, or heads need to role.

Links of a lifetime

This might be the best link of all time... Bob Dylan does Dr. Seuss (approximately).

http://www.dylanhearsawho.com/home.htm

And if this isn't your cup of tea, I humbly offer the answer to the Christian "right's" obsession with the few Old Testament condemnations of homosexuality.

http://www.godhatesshrimp.com/

Enjoy!

Pardon this!

Poor Scooter.

All he did was lie to the FBI and a grand jury, and somehow that makes him a criminal? Those lies were certainly justified to protect his boss and the lies being told by the administration. Those lies were vital to helping to cover up retribution against a critic of the government.

What’s the big deal?

I hope President Bush heeds the call of leading conservatives who want him to use his power to pardon to help cover up those who break the law on his behalf.

If it is wrong to operate as if you’re above the law, I don’t want to know what right is.

But in all seriousness, I am baffled by Sen. Graham (R-SC) when he says that Libby should be pardoned. Sen. Graham lead the Clinton impeachment effort to prove a point that nobody was above the law, and that lying under oath is a serious offense.

If lying about an affair is reason enough to remove a head of state, then lying about borderline illegal leaks should be serious enough to deserve jail time.

I expect hacks to want to blame the “overly political” nature of the investigation, even though the prosecutor was a Republican and no administration officials were charged with the underlying crime being investigated. I expect Fox-News nitwits to want to defend Libby even though it is absolutely clear that he lied under oath repeatedly.

But I expected better out of Mr. Graham.

The fact that Libby looks like he was the scape-goat for the administration doesn’t change the fact that he committed perjury.

The pardon guidelines at the Justice Department are there for a reason. The only time Scooter could deserve a pardon is after his prison time is over. I could see the merit of a President pardoning him then. A pardon after paying the penalty for his crime could be made in recognition of a career in public service.

Presidents should not have the precedent of using pardon powers to cover up their dirty laundry. If it becomes acceptable for Administration officials to commit crimes, then we lose an important part of America. We take a giant step toward becoming a banana republic.

Pandora’s box… no wait, it says “Jesus”

In his new documentary, James Cameron claims that they have found the tomb of Jesus, his wife Mary Magdalene, and their son Judah.

“All leading epigraphers agree about the inscriptions. All archaeologists confirm the nature of the find. It comes down to a matter of statistics. A statistical study commissioned by the broadcasters (Discovery Channel/Vision Canada/C4 UK) concludes that the probability factor is 600 to 1 in favor of this tomb being the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth and his family.”
-- Discovery.com

Apparently some Christians aren’t pleased.

I find this a curious story. I am not sold that it is absolutely the tomb of Jesus, but, if it is then we have some interesting questions on our hands.

Are the words of Jesus more important than what was written about him? (i.e. rose physically from the dead and ascended to Heaven.)

How important to the message of Christianity is the idea that Jesus never married (especially not Mary Magdalene) and never had children?

Christianity evolved significantly from the time of Jesus to the present day. Early on, the change was made so Christians did not have to become Jews before they could join the faith, even though Jesus’ ministry was largely concerned with the Jewish faith. In the early Middle-Ages the Church weeded out the parts of the New Testament that they didn’t agree with, including accounts written by contemporaries of Jesus. They changed and made the clergy celibate (even though Jesus never mentioned this). They changed so women could not be ordained.

In the modern day many Catholics don’t accept infallibility and are pro-choice.

Even Galileo put forth that when the Bible contradicted logic it was intended to be taken symbolically. Many sects of Christianity have this as a cornerstone of their beliefs.

I am not saying the evidence on this find is iron clad, but, for argument’s sake, let’s say that it is. Wouldn’t the finding of Jesus’ tomb be a chance for the faith to grow? Wouldn’t this be a very holy thing to find? Wouldn’t this give Catholics (and others who have institutional biases against women) a chance to bring equality to their congregations? Wouldn’t this give us new insights into the life of one of the most important people in history? Wouldn’t this, in fact, bring us closer to his teachings in a way that avoids centuries of, frankly, untrustworthy editing at the hands of the Church?

Isn’t it worth looking at this with a mind open to the possibilities?