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Bernard Weiner's Blog
February 24, 2005
BUSH'S ACID-TEST TRIP TO "OLD EUROPE"
Why did Bush feel obliged to travel to "old" Europe", and how did he do there?
The lapdog corporate press refers to his trip as "a charm offensive," and has repeated the Administration's spin that Bush has been successful, because French and German leaders have backed away from their overt anti-Bush statements and policies, and NATO has come on board the U.S. bandwagon with regard to the Iraq War.
More realistic observations would indicate that Bush's alleged "charm" didn't really accomplish all that much; indeed, his manner of dealing with the European powers was somewhat off-putting to many.
Bush deigned to listen to most of the leaders -- as long as they stayed within a rough five-minute limit. Many found that condescending attitude to be insulting to them personally, and to their nations in general.
But such behavior is typical of Bush. He doesn't like dealing with people that aren't hand-picked for loyalty; he can't control the situation, and gets nervous.
And, since tens of thousands were demonstrating loudly against him and his policies outside the various summit venues in Belgium and Germany, it must have seemed clear to Rove and Bush that holding a free and open "town-hall" forum where the questions could potentially be embarrassing could not be tolerated. So Bush backed out of such a forum in Germany, even though his hosts had fought long and hard for getting the American President in front of such a group, and Bush originally had agreed to do so.
As I see it, Bush was in Europe for three main reasons:
1. Bush policies had isolated the U.S. in world affairs, because so many leaders and populations had opposed so many of Bush policies, on everything from Iraq to global warming. This was his opportunity, through the photo ops and diplomatic dinners, to show that the U.S. was now being treated warmly by the European community. In short, the spin was important, not necessarily the substance.
2. Bush needed some sort of political fig leaf to cover over European anger at his Iraq invasion. He never would be able to bring them on board with regard to the phony reasons for invading that country, but he wanted to come away with something, anything, to show that the U.S. had broad support on some aspect involving Iraq. So he browbeat the assembled NATO leaders into agreeing to provide more help in training Iraqi police and security forces to aid in the transition to democracy.
He received promises of this aid, mainly reluctantly and with begruding financial donations -- some countries said they would assign one or two police trainers to the project -- and then could go out and boast that 26 NATO countries were helping in Iraq. In effect, as Jon Stewart quipped on "The Daily Show," Bush was using a variation of the Pottery Barn rule: "We broke it, and now you get to pay for it."
3. The main reason Bush went to Europe was to make sure to get a kind of advance authorization for war against Iran -- which, if Scott Ritter's sources are accurate, will take place in June. Bush didn't couch his Iran idea in "authorization" terms, but he obtained general consensus that Iran should not be permitted to become a nuclear power in the Middle East (even though both the U.S. and Israel are).
CRANK UP THE PEACE MOVEMENT
You can bet that when Bush delivers his televised speech this summer, announcing that American bombers are blasting Iran's nuclear facilities, he will mention that he does so with the full backing of the European allies, as well as that of the U.N. Security Council.
In short, it's time for the worldwide community opposed to further slaughter in the Middle East region to crank up the protest machinery that brought more than 10 million dissenters to the streets prior to the Iraq invasion. At the very least, even if we can't stop the U.S. (and/or Israel) from attacking Iran, we can hold their feet to a very hot fire and use our leverage for peace and "regime change" in the United States.
I'm writing this the day before Bush is expected to go head to head with Russia's Putin, his buddy in the Kremlin that Bush has been verbally battering for doing damage to his country's democratic institutions, especially so in how he's managing the press.
(This from a U.S. Administration that has been paying off reporters and pundits to spout its line, producing its own phony "news reports" that it passes off as network reporting, and smoothing the way for a gay prostitute/dirty-tricks specialist with no journalistic training to become part of the White House press corps, throwing puffball GOP-spin questions to Bush and his press secretary.)
Let's see who else Bush can offend while on foreign soil.
WHO'S THE WHITE HOUSE GANNON-ENABLER?
Which brings us back to the "Jeff Gannon" scandal. Or rather scandals, since there really are two:
* The first centers around the question of who arranged for "Gannon" (real name James D. Guckert) to obtain entrance to the White House, avoid the normal FBI/Secret Service vetting, be provided with scoops days and hours before the real reporters, and be called on to speak directly to Bush and Rove and other high-ranking officials.
The fact that Guckert was selling his body at $200 an hour to gay Marines is neither here nor there -- except that this secret life might have made him open to being blackmailed, and thus a national-security danger. (Or, a new theory circulating: that Guckert might have been blackmailing officials in the White House, who then did what he asked.)
What is important is that someone, perhaps Karl Rove or one of his aides, or Press Secretary McClellan, was willing (or coerced) to violate all the rules and sensible regulations to get this GOP shill into the White House, where he was very useful to them.
Ranking Congressional Democrats are calling for an official investigation into this scandalous behavior and national-security lapse, but you can pretty well guess that the Republicans will not initiate any such probe. If the Democrats want to have an investigation, they probably are going to have to initiate it themselves, which may not be such a bad idea. At least, it might get the issue out there in the mainstream press.
* Which brings us to Scandal #2: The mainstream press, by and large, has ignored this entire sorry episode, as if by not mentioning it, it simply never happened.
It must be killing Fox News and the others not be covering this story -- sex, politics, scandal, their usual fodder -- but the word has gone out from on high (read: Rove) that the Gannon story must die a quick death by being totally ignored.
I have the feeling that the bloggers, who in the main are the ones keeping this Gannon pot bubbling, have merely touched the tip of the iceberg on this story. By unraveling this scandal, much more devastating crimes might be revealed. So stay tuned; this "third-rate" story is not going away.
BUSH CAUGHT ON SECRET AUDIOTAPES
Bush and Rove are seething at the release of secretly-recorded audiotapes made when Bush was preparing to run for president in the late-'90s. They were made by one of Bush's confidants, Doug Wead, who, like a good Republican, figured there was a way to make money off this rising young GOP politician. (Wead is flogging his book that just came out -- quelle coincidence!
What we learn from the tapes is that Bush already then was trying to figure out how to spin such explosive issues as his past drug-use history, and how to deal with fundamentalists anxious to use homosexuals as their punching bags. On the first point, Bush seemed to be admitting using marijuana and said he never denied using cocaine.
On the latter issue, Bush was clear he would not gay-bash for votes. Of course, when it became convenient to do so during the campaign, he did so, thus, yet again, revealing his Machiavelliian hypocrisy.
INTERNET PASSSINGS
Finally, I'm sad to report that blogger Robert Dreyfuss of TomPaine.com has called it quits, and that the political-analysis website YellowTimes.org appears to have thrown in the towel and ceased operations. Add those losses to last year's disappearance from the internet of the invaluable Media Whores Online, and the blogger Hesiod, and we all suffer. But there still is a lot of important progressive reporting and analysis going on in the cyberether; if you're not that familiar with what's out there, I urge you to log on to the best of those sites via our Dissenting Internet page, and to our Recommended Blogsites list.
February 17, 2005
GOTCHA JOURNALISM, MIDEAST LESSONS & DEMS A-RISIN'Let's take a quick crack at some of the bigger stories out there in Politicsland this week: the power of partisan bloggers, what's happening in Iraq and the rest of the Middle East, and the newfound spine discovered in the Democratic Party.
Bloggers are feeling their oats these days. The rightwing ones "got" Eason Jordan, the leftwing ones "got" Jeff Gannon.
Jordan, head of CNN's news operation, felt forced to resign after bloggers picked up on his exaggerated remarks at a supposedly closed, off-the-record conference in Davos, Switzerland. Jordan accused Coalition troops and Iraqi police forces of deliberately targeting journalists, several of whom have been killed or wounded. He tried to walk back his comments and be more temperate, but the damage was done, and the rightwing went after him with a vengeance.
"Jeff Gannon" (real name James Guckert) was the so-called "reporter" at the White House who has been asking GOP-spin questions of Press Secretary Scott McLellan for nearly two years now, and who was called on by Bush at a recent news conference for yet another GOP-type question.
His style of questioning clearly was partisan, but that wasn't the real issue; there are lots of opinionated writers in that press room. He brought attention to himself by virtue of his arrogant attitude and his suspect journalistic credentials.
Leftwing bloggers began nosing around and discovered that Gannon was not his real name, he had no journalistic experience, he was given White House press credentials virtually the day he applied, the website he works for (Talon News) is little more than a front for GOP propaganda owned by a Texas Republican operative, etc.
But then the continued digging struck personal and ideological paydirt. Bloggers learned that even as late as when he joined the White House press corps, Guckert had been advertising himself as a stud escort (complete with nude photos) for military men interested in some hot action. And that this GOP-shill non-journalist had been given access to classified information about Valerie Plame, the undercover CIA agent outed by "two senior White House officials."
In both of these cases, Jordan and Gannon/Guckert chose not to respond openly and honestly to queries about what they had done, and thus the blogging frenzy grew even more intense. Always a bad mistake.
Jordan and/or his superiors at CNN, seeing the Dan Rather-like handwriting on the wall, decided to cut their losses quickly. Jordan resigned immediately, the effect of which was to take the story off the blogosphere and front pages. At which point, several of the original bloggers who broke the story became somewhat contrite at the fact that their writing had led to a full-scale resignation when all they meant to do was to bloody up his reputation and, by inference, that of CNN (which they tend to regard as a "liberal" news network).
Gannon/Guckert, perhaps sensing that the cat was out of the bag and his indiscretions and Plame-connections were about to hit the fan, quickly resigned from Talon News, scrubbed all his stories from his websites, and exited the White House.
POWER USED OR ABUSED
It's nice to know that an alternative press has that kind of clout -- given that the corporate mainstream press barely does much investigative reporting these days -- but it's possible that such gotcha journalism is getting out of hand.
During part of my two-decade tenure as a newspaper/magazine reporter, I had occasion to be involved in a few investigative-journalism stories, and I know how intoxicating and exciting it is to be on the hunt for the dynamite revelations that will unmask the mighty, trying to scoop your fellow writers as quickly as you can.
Journalists and bloggers easily `can lose sight of the magnitude of the personal and institutional damage they can cause when they're in the midst of that hunt. It would behoove us all to keep that in mind.
Now, having said that, do I feel that Gannon/Guckert has been maltreated by delving into his personal life, including linking to the salacious photos he himself posted in his stud-escort websites? A bit perhaps. But he was behaving in a manner reminiscent of former Democratic Senator Gary Hart, thinking he was untouchable and daring the media to try to get him.
Gannon/Guckert, apparently a gay man, is a symbol of GOP hypocrisy -- pretending to a moral rectitude they do not sustain in their personal lives. (See Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Bill Bennett, Tom DeLay, et al.) In this case, the GOP miscreant effectively was gay-bashing while in the closet himself.
Plus, and much more serious, is Gannon/Guckert's involvement in what appears to be a national-security breech. Who provided classified material to this non-journalist agitprop specialist? Who smoothed his way into the White House press corps? Who vetted this potential security risk, given the possibility of his being blackmailed about his hidden sexual preferences and behaviors?
Eason Jordan's "crime" was politically incorrect opinion, expressed unjudiciously. (Actually, he may have been onto an incendiary issue worth exploring.) The questions surrounding Gannon/Guckert raise serious questions about potentially illegal White House conniving to influence public opinion -- in tandem with their admitted payment of payola to a number of influential journalists, to spout the GOP line. A much more thorough investigation is called for on these matters, bipartisan if possible.
HOPE OR FANTASY IN MIDDLE EAST?
Three items:
1. Following the certification of the Iraq election results, it's plain that the Bush Administration, by pushing for and rushing to democratic voting there, may have guaranteed the exact opposite result of what they were hoping and planning for.
We shall have to see how the political jockeying goes in the next few months, but it's entirely possible that the huge Shia victory will lead to tight Islamist rule, closely aligned with Iran. And that whatever government assumes control, even if Chalabi were to run it, it will feel compelled to move toward asking the U.S. occupation troops to leave ASAP. $300 billion spent on this war (entered into based on lies and deception), tens of thousands of dead and wounded -- for what?
2. Iran and Syria clearly are being targeted by the Bush Administration, and once again, the U.S. citizenry is being asked to accept on faith, not evidence, that there are good reasons for moving toward regime-change in those two countries. One can hope that Congress will not fall again for this Administration's "trust-us" style of foreign/military policy, but demand incontrovertible proof. And that they'll resist any attempt to drag the U.S. into further quagmire wars in that area of the world. Won't we ever learn?
3. Sharon and Abbas have established a hopeful working relationship, and the immediate Israeli/Palestinian tensions have been reduced. But this temporary truce may be but a chimera, since the larger and most important issues are not being dealt with at this stage.
My guess is that this cease-fire period will last for some months, but when push comes to shove -- that is, when Israel continues the Occupation in the West Bank, refusing to close down its huge settlements there -- the slaughter and repression will return, big time.
And when that happens, after the high expectations raised, the anger in Palestine and the rest of the Arab Middle East will build into a force that could well bring the United States to its knees in that critical region. The Bush Administration seems to know only two ways of dealing with such situations: the use of force (incompetently managed at that), and the shining on of the inhabitants in order to buy time. Neither works anymore.
If the U.S. wants to give itself some political elbow room as it attempts to alter the geopolitical realities in the oil-rich Arab states, it must engineer a true and just peace in Israel/Palestine. The only way that can happen is for Israel to end its occupation of Palestinian lands, pull back from its settlements there, and thus permit a geographically and economically viable state of Palestine to fluorish on its borders (assuming the Palestinians will recognize Israel's right to exist, within secure boundaries).
But if you think the Bush Administration will go that route, you're in denial. The current cease-fire they've helped arrange appears to be designed only to tamp down the fires of the intifada, to buy time so that Bush&Co. can carry out their hegemonic plans without too much interference.
DEMS ACTUALLY CAN STAND UP STRAIGHT
The Democrats are demonstrating, much belatedly, that their party is growing a spine in standing up to the worst policies and behaviors of the Republicans.
Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Howard Dean -- joined at times by Bill Clinton, Al Gore and others -- are demonstrating courage and street-smart cleverness in their statements and actions. They certainly are cognizant of the Dems' minority status in Congress, but they aren't giving in easily; rather, they are coming out fighting, as they should.
On some key issues -- for example, opposing Bush's reckless Social Security moves, or in trying to keep the Administration's extremist court nominees from receiving Senate approval -- the Dems are banding together tightly. On other issues, such as approving Condeleezza Rice as Secretary of State and Alberto Gonzalez as Attorney General, there are embarrassing slidebacks (what on earth is going on with Diane Feinstein and Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama?).
The next four years are going to be a nasty dogfight with the GOP, but at least Reid, Pelosi and Dean seem willing to mix it up, as a true Opposition Party should, which is a welcome change from the let-us-roll-over-for-you Dem approach of the past few years.
January 13, 2005
DEMS SHOULD DENY GONZALES THE A.G. POST
The Democrats, picking and choosing their fights carefully, decided: 1) during the Electoral College vote to simply raise the issue of vote fraud in Ohio and elsewhere, but not challenge Bush's victory there; and, 2) to bloody and otherwise rough up Alberto Gonzales -- just enough to promise a knockout later if he were to be named to the Supreme Court -- but otherwise to let him escape into the Attorney General's office.
I sorta agree with the first tactic, but, as a result of Gonzales' shameful bob-and-weave performance during his hearing, disagree with the second. Gonzales, now more than ever, is vulnerable, and his appointment should be resisted forcefully. Whether the Democrats will have the guts and smarts to try to deny him the A.G.'s job is unknown.
Prior to the hearing, it was assumed that Gonzales, being the anti-Ashcroft in personality, would finesse his way though the tough questions. But he didn't. He hemmed and hawed, dodged and stammered, tried to delay and postpone answering (he "didn't remember," or "didn't recall," or "it was very complicated, I'll have to get back to you on that," and so on).
What the Dems gave Gonzales every opportunity to do was to concede that his original torture memos were wrong, either legally or morally. But Gonzales refused to go there.
ENABLING DICTATORSHIP IN U.S.
It's plain why he wouldn't want to make such an admission. First, he might leave himself open to civil or criminal prosecutions or impeachment in the future. But mainly, it seems, because he and his Bush/Rove masters, want to leave open the legal precedents established by Gonzales' memos that permit torture and other extreme actions in the so-called "war on terror."
The key precedent, of course, which the senators barely alluded to, was Gonzales' legal interpretation of presidential powers. According to Gonzales' memos, a president can do pretty much whatever he wants -- order torture, abrogate laws, set up re-education camps for dissidents, hold suspects forever without a hearing -- as long as he asserts he's doing it as "commander-in-chief" during "wartime." That way lies dictatorship. To hell with the Bill of Rights, international law, the Geneva Conventions, the separation-of-powers -- Bush wants it, Bush can do it, according to Gonzales.
Gonzales seems happy to serve as a functionary who is "only following orders," never raising any moral/ethical questions about the matters upon which he is asked to comment. When the Nazis tried that after World War II, the Allies placed them in the dock at the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal.
In short, putting a man in charge of the nation's law-enforcement system who countenances and encourages torture and dictatorial government should stoke Democrats' resolve. If they let him slide into the A.G.'s chair, the country will be in an even stinkier manure pile than the one John Ashcroft is leaving for us.
It's time to fire up the progressive/moderate forces and mobilize them to pressure their Senators to vote a resolute NO against the nomination of Alberto Gonzales. If they won't lead on their own out of political cowardice, we the public will have to provide them political cover to do so. Write your Senator today; organize to put group pressure on the Senate; write letters to your local newspapers. Let's do it.
GETTING ELECTORAL DEBATE STARTED
As I indicated above, I wish the Democrats had attacked the Ohio issue frontally at the Electoral College vote. They had more than enough ammunition to challenge Bush's certified "victory" in that state.
What happened in Ohio was a shameful demonstration of Karl Rove's dirty, anything-goes-to-win tactics, as carried out by Ohio's Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell -- who, surprise!, just happened to chair the Bush-Cheney campaign in that state. Instead of certifying the vote, Blackwell should have been indicted for interfering with fair and honest voting in a federal election.
But the Dems in Congress were correct in their analysis that they didn't have the juice and the votes in the House and Senate to prevail in challenging the validity of Bush's victory. And so they were able to do little more than interrupt the Electoral College voting for a few hours in order to document for the first time in the national mass-media -- even if it was on the little-watched C-SPAN -- the massive vote suppression, voter intimidation, and lack of recount paper trail in Ohio and other states. Thanks go to Senator Barbara Boxer, whose objection to the Ohio certification was needed in order to get the debate started.
At least now, thanks to Boxer and Representative Stephanie Tubb Jones and, especially, Representative John Conyers' final report on what happened in Ohio, there is at least a documented record, and the American public can no longer claim total ignorance of what happened in that state.
PAPER TRAIL OR PAPER BALLOTS?
When Bush&Co. finally fall -- perhaps sometime in late 2005 or early 2006 -- the true investigations about the illegalities of the 2000 and 2004 voting process will begin, and, we can hope, indictments will flow.
In the meantime, electoral reform is the #1 issue that needs to be dealt with in this country, long before the midterm election in 2006 and the next presidential balloting in 2008. If we can't get our electoral house in order, there is little hope for meaningful progress in any other area of our civic life.
The first order of business should be to bring back the hand-counted paper ballot, monitored by citizen-observers from both parties. That foolproof method of voting and vote-counting works in much of the civilized world. What we have here in this country, which the Electoral College debate the other day made clear once again, is broken and is an open invitation to manipulation and fraud.
Postscript: Is it possible that the post-election 49% per cent favorable rating for Bush, which is the same percentage he enjoyed just prior to the presidential election, indicates that that percentage is the true vote he received in November? If so, wouldn't that suggest that the early Kerry-victory exit polls probably were accurate? Just asking.
TWO MORE FOR THE BUSH BUNKER CREW
In an earlier essay, "Bush Heads for the Bunker", I observed how Bush's early Cabinet nominations offered convincing evidence that Bush&Co. are making no tack toward the center, but instead are continuing their march to the extremist right.
Purges of reality-based Cabinet and lower-level officials continue apace, and, in their stead, we get the likes of such Bush&Co. toadies as Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Alberto Gonzales, Condoleezza Rice, Porter Goss, Steve Hadley, Harriet Miers, Margaret Spelling and so on, with Tom DeLay still in control of the House. (Meanwhile, over at CIA headquarters, Goss continues the Administration's purge of reality-oriented agents and analysts.)
Now we get two final Bush&Co. appointments that do nothing to alter that earlier conclusion that Bush is bringing his tiny coterie of trusted toadies into the bunker with him, and those who don't go along with that fantasy-is-reality crowd will have to stand out in the cold as shunned apostates.
The first such appointment is that of Robert Zoelleck as Deputy Secretary of State. The incompetent Rice, who disgraced her previous post as National Security Advisor, will continue to take her marching orders from Cheney and Rumsfeld and Rove. The first two were key founders of The Project for The New American Century -- the far-right extremist group that dominates the Administration's foreign/military policy -- and Zoelleck, who probably will administer the State Department for Rice, has been associated with PNAC as well. Not a good sign.
CHERTOFF IS OFF THE MAINSTREAM CHARTS
The newest nomination is that of hard-liner Michael Chertoff to head the Department of Homeland Security. He takes the place of Bush's first choice Bernard Kerik, who was so dirty in so many ways that it's hard to believe that White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, in charge of the vetting process, saw fit to okay the nomination.
Chertoff is far smarter than Kertik (he's mentioned as a possible Supreme Court nominee), which makes him far more dangerous. Chertoff, too, has "issues," mainly to do with his attitude toward civil liberties -- he was a prime creator of the overeaching Patriot Act, for example -- and it will be interesting to see how the Democrats handle his hearing. For more on Chertoff, see here, and here.
In short, the Bush bunker crew is now in place, and if the Democrats are going to have any claim to the title of Opposition Party, they'd better move on the most egregious of those nominations. The most obvious ones are Gonzales, Rice and Chertoff. At least one of those (Gonzales?) has to go down if the Democrats are going to have any credibility in Bush's second term. Let's get cracking.
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