An Administration's Epic Collapse

A much bigger story is unfolding: the epic collapse of the Bush Administration.

The three big Bush stories of 2007--the decision to "surge" in Iraq, the scandalous treatment of wounded veterans at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys for tawdry political reasons--precisely illuminate the three qualities that make this Administration one of the worst in American history: arrogance (the surge), incompetence (Walter Reed) and cynicism (the U.S. Attorneys)...

On April 3, the President again accused Democrats of being "more interested in fighting political battles in Washington than providing our troops what they need." Such demagoguery is particularly outrageous given the Administration's inability to provide our troops "what they need" at the nation's premier hospital for veterans. The mold and decrepitude at Walter Reed are likely to be only the beginning of the tragedy, the latest example of incompetence in this Administration. "This is yet another aspect of war planning that wasn't done properly," says Paul Rieckhoff of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. "The entire VA hospital system is unprepared for the casualties of Iraq, especially the psychiatric casualties. A lot of vets are saying, 'This is our Katrina moment.' And they're right: this Administration governs badly because it doesn't care very much about governing."...

When Bush came to office--installed by the Supreme Court after receiving fewer votes than Al Gore--I speculated that the new President would have to govern in a bipartisan manner to be successful. He chose the opposite path, and his hyper-partisanship has proved to be a travesty of governance and a comprehensive failure. I've tried to be respectful of the man and the office, but the three defining sins of the Bush Administration--arrogance, incompetence, cynicism--are congenital: they're part of his personality. They're not likely to change. And it is increasingly difficult to imagine yet another two years of slow bleed with a leader so clearly unfit to lead.

- Joe Klein

Sunday Comics

Cheney Hides in the Bushes

Not to pile on, but there’s something about Dick Cheney’s gruff personality that invites awkward and amusing moments. If you don’t want to be compared to the emperor from “Star Wars,” it’s probably best not to act like such a menacing puppet master.

Pelosi Challenges White House: If I Gave Syria The Wrong Message, Prove It

Conservatives and media figures continue to claim, without evidence, that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) delivered an incorrect message from Israel to Syria during her meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Pelosi insists that Israel's message was communicated accurately, and has suggested a good way to prove it:

Pelosi spokesman Brendan) Daly pointed out that Pelosi was briefed by State Department officials before her meetings with the foreign leaders and that State Department officials also attended her meetings.

So if Pelosi really committed foreign policy flubs of the first order, the State Department is in a position to confirm as much.

The White House certainly received a read-out of what exactly Pelosi and the foreign leaders said in their meetings. Significantly, the White House has not openly accused Pelosi of the foreign-policy missteps the Post had accused her of.

In an e-mail follow-up, Daly wrote: "WH has not said that because in fact the Speaker did not get the message wrong — she included the necessary caveats and did not say or imply that this was a change in Israel's position."

Indeed, despite President Bush’s claim that Pelosi's trip sent "mixed signals," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said during his briefing today, "I don't think (the tri) necessarily complicates anything that we’re doing." More

Joe Conason: To Damascus with Nancy Pelosi - Why the Neocons are Apoplectic

With her brief visit to Syria, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has provoked an outburst of flaming hysteria from the Bush administration, as well as from the neoconservatives who fashioned its ruinous war and failed foreign policies. The screaming critics of the speaker charge her with undermining presidential power, freelancing Mideast diplomacy, appeasing a terrorist regime and even surrendering to Islamist radicalism by donning a head scarf. By merely meeting with Bashar Assad, the Syrian president, Pelosi supposedly proved that she was eager to promote irresponsible partisanship at the cost of national unity and constitutional order.

In the New York Post she was accused of "making a date with
a terrorist." On the NewsMax site she was portrayed as "appeasing dictators in
the Middle East." In the Washington Post she was ridiculed for attempting to
mount a "shadow presidency." And on CNN, she was mocked for planting a "big wet
kiss" on Assad as a "publicity stunt."

Yet those furious complaints were all false and, more important, beside the point. The problem is not what Pelosi did or said, but how she exposed the exhaustion of neoconservative policy.

As most of her critics surely know, there is nothing outrageous or even unusual about a meeting between a foreign head of state and a member of Congress. Indeed, she was preceded on the road to Damascus by Rep. Frank Wolf, a prominent Virginia Republican who led a GOP delegation to meet with Assad, and she was soon followed by Rep. Darrell Issa, a California Republican whose remarks after seeing the Syrian leader were sharply critical of the Bush White House. More

Hussein's Prewar Ties To Al-Qaeda Discounted

Captured Iraqi documents and intelligence interrogations of Saddam Hussein and two former aides "all confirmed" that Hussein's regime was not directly cooperating with al-Qaeda before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, according to a declassified Defense Department report released yesterday.

The declassified version of the report, by acting Inspector General Thomas F. Gimble, also contains new details about the intelligence community's prewar consensus that the Iraqi government and al-Qaeda figures had only limited contacts, and its judgments that reports of deeper links were based on dubious or unconfirmed information. The report had been released in summary form in February. More

CBS Iraq Correspondent regarding McCain: "He's talking rubbish. And he should not get away with it."

Brian Montopoli: It seems that some reporters, including yourself and CNN's Michael Ware, have really taken umbrage at John McCain's recent comments, essentially saying that there are a lot of neighborhoods where you can walk around relatively safely. Is it fair to say that that really sort of bothered reporters?

Allen Pizzey: Yes. It's disgraceful for a man seeking highest office, I think, to talk utter rubbish. And that is utter rubbish. It's electoral propaganda. It is simply not true. No one in his right mind who has been to Baghdad believes that story.

Now, McCain and some other senators were there on Sunday, and they claimed, "Oh, we walked around for a whole hour…and we drove in from the airport. Gosh, aren't we great, we drove in from the airport." Excuse me, Mr. McCain, you drove in in a large convoy of heavily armed vehicles. The last one had a sign on it saying "Keep back 100 yards. Deadly force authorized." Every single car that they approached or passed pulled over and stopped, because that's the way it is. When one of those security details goes by, every ordinary person gets the hell out of the way, in case they get shot.

If he did walk around that market, and I didn't see him do it, and he didn't announce he was going to do it, you can bet your life there were an awful lot of soldiers deployed to make sure that nobody came near that place. He's talking rubbish. And he should not get away with it. More

Shake Up at the MN U.S. Attorney's Office

MINNEAPOLIS -- It’s a major shakeup at the offices of new U.S. Attorney Rachel Paulose.

Four of her top staff voluntarily demoted themselves Thursday, fed up with Paulose, who, after just months on the job, has earned a reputation for quoting Bible verses and dressing down underlings.

Deputy U.S. Attorney John Marty is just one of the people dropping themselves in rank to simply a U.S. Attorney position. Also making the move are the heads of Paulose’s criminal and civil divisions and the top administrative officer.

The move is intended to send a message to Washington – that 33-year-old Paulose is in over her head.

Paulose was appointed before the 8 U.S. Attorneys were given their pink slips, but she has deep connections to the scandal.

She was a special assistant to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, worked as a senior counsel for deputy attorney general Paul McNulty and is best buds with Monica Goodling – the assistant U.S. Attorney who recently took the Fifth rather than testify before Congress.

Add to the suspicions the fact that Minnesota’s former U.S. Attorney Tom Heffelfinger stepped down just as the White House was developing its hit list.

Heffelfinger responds to questions whether he was forced out by saying, “emphatically no.” But there’s been a lot of speculation that Heffelfinger, a moderate Republican, may have been able to read the writing on the wall.

And indeed, some of the early White House memos indicate three people on the hit list resigned before they could be fired.

Paulose was not available for comment on the shake-up.

Hatch ‘Corrects’ Lam Error By Disparaging Another U.S. Attorney — Will Russert Repeat It?

Last week on Meet the Press, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) tried to disparage the record of U.S. Attorney Carol Lam:

HATCH: She was a former law professor, no prosecutorial experience, and the former campaign manager in Southern California for Clinton, and they’re trying to say that this administration appoints people politically? Of course they do. That’s what these positions are.

In fact, as Rachel Maddow found, Lam had more than 14 years experience as a prosecutor, and was neither a law professor nor a former campaign manager.

In response, Hatch sent a letter to Meet the Press host Tim Russert asking him to correct the record. Hatch said that his attack was meant not for Lam but her predecessor, Clinton-appointed U.S. Attorney Alan Bersin.

I would appreciate your help in correcting a mistake I made on your show last Sunday, April 1, 2007.

My comments about Carol Lam’s record as a U.S. Attorney were accurate, but I misspoke when making the point of discussing politically connected U.S. Attorneys. I accidentally used her name, instead of her predecessor, Alan Bersin, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton.

Hatch’s “point” is that Bersin was an unqualified, “politically connected” appointee. In fact, Bersin was arguably well-qualified for the position:

– Graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University

– Served as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University

– Received his J.D. degree from Yale Law School

– Served as a senior partner for 17 years at the Los Angeles law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson, where he “specialized in complex RICO, securities, commercial and insurance litigation before state and federal trial and appellate courts”

– Special Counsel to the Los Angeles Police Commission

– After stepping down as U.S. Attorney, Bersin served as Superintendent of Public Education in San Diego City Schools, the nation’s eighth largest urban school district, and was named California’s Secretary of Education in 2005.

Now, the question is: this Sunday, will Tim Russert simply read Hatch’s statement disparaging Bersin’s qualifications? Or will he state the full facts about Bersin’s record?

Probe Targets GSA Chief

Another federal investigation is targeting a Bush administration official, this time for possibly using government resources for partisan political purposes.

The Office of Special Counsel confirmed to ABC News it has launched an investigation into General Services Administration chief Lurita Doan, probing concerns she may have violated a ban against conducting partisan political activity at government expense by participating in a meeting featuring a presentation by a White House political aide on GOP election strategy.

Keeping Up with the "Surge" (ESCALATION!)

Reuters: In an effort to meet the demands of the administration, Defense Secretary Robert Gates plans to send 12,000 National Guard troops to Iraq, according to a report from NBC News. In other news, the Pentagon said Monday that roughly 4,500 troops would soon redeploy without getting their full year off.

Keith Richards: 'I Snorted My Father'

Keith Richards has acknowledged consuming a raft of illegal substances in his time, but this may top them all.

In comments published Tuesday, the 63-year-old Rolling Stones guitarist said he had snorted his father's ashes mixed with cocaine.

"The strangest thing I've tried to snort? My father. I snorted my father," Richards was quoted as saying by British music magazine NME.

"He was cremated and I couldn't resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow. My dad wouldn't have cared," he said. "... It went down pretty well, and I'm still alive."

Richards' father, Bert, died in 2002, at 84.

Bush lied in his press conference about Iraq; said our military commanders came up with the surge, in fact they opposed the surge, all of them

Bush just spoke to the nation, trying to convince the public to support his Iraq quagmire, and he claimed again that the surge, the escalation, was the idea of his commanders in the field, and he's just following their advice.In fact, all of the Joint Chiefs, the heads of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines, ALL opposed the surge.

The Bush administration is split over the idea of a surge in troops to Iraq, with White House officials aggressively promoting the concept over the unanimous disagreement of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, according to U.S. officials familiar with the intense debate.

And our commanders in the field opposed the surge, so Bush fired them and replaced them with someone who would rubber stamp his surge plan.

In devising his new strategy, Bush again turned to the neoconservatives. The so-called surge strategy is the brainchild of Frederick Kagan, a military historian at the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute who has never been to Iraq. And once again, President Bush dismissed the views of his military advisers. General George Casey and General John Abizaid, the commanders in the field, doubted that additional troops would make any difference in Iraq. They were replaced by surge advocates, including Lieutenant General David Petraeus, now the top commander in Iraq.

And remember, it was just a few months ago, that the commanders on the ground were SO opposed to the surge that Bush came out and said, for the first time, that he WOULDN'T listen to commanders on the ground anymore.

This all matters because once again Bush is lying to the American people in order to justify yet another failed extreme policy. He has lied about this war from the beginning, and he and his administration have lied about so many issue that it's impossible to trust anything they say. Bush lies. He doesn't trust the American people to know the truth. He doesn't have the courage or maturity to take responsibility for his own actions, so he blames the generals - you see, it's THEIR idea, not his, it's THEIR fault, not his. "Who me?" Bush can't ever be blamed for this infernal mess because he's just a bystander, you understand. Only problem? It's all one big lie.

The man is a ten year old child. It's time to take away the car keys.

by John Aravosis (DC)