MotherJones.com | MoJoBlog - Social Issues and Political Commentary: July 15, 2007

« July 8, 2007 - July 14, 2007 | Main | July 22, 2007 - July 28, 2007 »

July 21, 2007

Bribery Charges for KBR

Buried at the bottom of page A-6 in today's Times is news that Halliburton spin-off KBR and its subcontractor Eagle Global Logistics built bribery charges into the cost of delivering basic supplies to U.S. troops in Baghdad. An Eagle executive pleaded guilty yesterday to bribing KBR employees to continue to hand Eagle the lucrative subcontract. Eagle then took 50 cents in overcharges per pound of food, fuel, and other necessities it delivered to troops. KBR is officially claiming ignorance, but it takes two to commit bribery, and five KBR employees are included in the indictment.

Question is, how is this not also treason? After all, the well-placed companies refused to deliver basic necessities to American troops on the ground in Baghdad without first lining their pockets with taxpayer money, even as the taxpayers and their congressional representatives searched for a way to end the war without stranding the troops in dangerous territory.

July 20, 2007

Intel Committee Chair: What Does the Executive Order Mean?

Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, reacts to the news posted by Jonathan Stein below, that Bush has signed an executive order governing CIA interrogation techniques that supposedly bans cruel, degrading and inhuman treatment.

Rockefeller:

I just received the news this morning from General Hayden. We now need to determine what the Executive Order really means and how it will translate into actual conduct by the CIA. The only way to do that is to have the CIA come before the Committee and explain in detail how it intends to apply the Executive Order. It is also absolutely essential that the Department of Justice provide the Committee with its full legal analysis.

The stakes are too high and the issue too important to provide any comment until the Committee has been given the opportunity to fully evaluate the President’s action.

Rockefeller's skepticism is fully warranted, says former Justice Department official Marty Lederman: "It is, in a word, worthless. ... As I've explained in several posts, however ... non-criminal does not equal legal." Lederman's post is worth a close read.

BREAKING: Bush Administration to No Longer Break Domestic and International Law

WHOA! Talk about a Friday afternoon news dump! Caught this in the Post right before I left the office.

President Bush today signed an executive order governing the interrogation of terrorism suspects by the CIA and barring torture, degrading treatment and serious acts of violence, the White House announced.

Friday afternoon announcements are reserved for things the administration wants to hide; I love that they want to hide the fact that they are now following the law.

Only one explanation here: Bush had to take drastic action so Cheney didn't torture like a million dudes when Bush goes under the knife tomorrow.

Chief Justice Gets Reinstated, Victory for Democratic Forces in Pakistan

Last month, the New York Times asked if Pakistan "can mix well with democracy." U.S. officials, often conflating the small number of Islamic radicals with the entire Pakistani population, fear that fair, free, and democratic elections in Pakistan might put the Islamic radicals in power. Would it not be ridiculous if we sought to dismantle democracy in America for fear that the powerful Christian fundamentalist movement might influence the elections? The media seems to confuse the two, case in point, the recent heavy coverage of the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) event and its ensuing violence: ubiquitious coverage of the actions, messages, and movements of a small fraction of Pakistan's population gives the impression that Pakistan is full of crazed mullahs, self detonating martyrs, and anti-democracy elements.

But to answer the question, can Pakistan mix well with democracy, I would say yes. In fact, democratic forces had a resounding victory today: Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry has been reinstated by Pakistan's Supreme Court after months of political turmoil. With a 10-3 vote, Judge Khalil-ur-Rehman Ramday declared Musharraf's suspension of the Chief Justice as illegal. Chaudhry was suspended, many think, so that the president could put in place someone more likely to bend to Musharraf's authority. This victory marks the first serious challenge to Musharraf's power during his reign. But the judicial victory did not come without cost. Amidst numerous and vigorous protests by lawyers, activists, and ordinary Pakistani citizens, when the Chief Justice was initially suspended in May, more than 40 people were killed in Karachi, the largest city in Pakistan. This prompted opposition senators to demand that Musharraf step down.

Chief Justice Chaudhry, the judges, the lawyers, opposition members, activists, journalists, and civil society groups should be applauded for their courage. In addition, this is definitely a victory for the democratic movement in the country and raises the question as to whether Musharraf can continue his rule, but democracy in Pakistan still has a long way to go. Although the same can be said for us as well these days.

—Neha Inamdar

King for a Day

Bush to name Cheney president while he undergoes a medical procedure Saturday. Atrios' thoughts: pray. Everybody else, guard your copy of the Constitution.

Romney Not Even President Yet, Already Abusing Power

It's a slow news day today, with the exception of the White House's unsurprising-if-you-know-this-crowd assertion that the Justice Department will never take up contempt charges filed by Congress against members of the White House unwilling to testify before Congress.

So let's go with this, shall we:

In an apparent violation of the law, a controversial aide to ex-Gov. Mitt Romney created phony law enforcement badges that he and other staffers used on the campaign trail to strong-arm reporters, avoid paying tolls and trick security guards into giving them immediate access to campaign venues, sources told the Herald.

The bogus badges were part of the bizarre security tactics allegedly employed by Jay Garrity, the director of operations for Romney who is under investigation for impersonating a law enforcement officer in two states. Garrity is on a leave of absence from the campaign while the probe is ongoing....

"They (the aides) knew the badges were fake and probably illegal," said a presidential campaign source...

Spotted on The Plank.

All the King's Horses and All the King's Men

Can Defense Secretary Gates bring his undersecretary of defense for policy Eric Edelman to heel?

Update: Go read Slate's Fred Kaplan's take.

Here's Gate's reaction, via David Kurtz.

Oh No They Didn't!

In case you missed yesterday's post, I dropped a tease about some big news in the works for Mother Jones. As fans of quality journalism and strong, independent voices in the press, you won't be disappointed. Back to you on Monday!

Jay Harris
President & Publisher

Morning Political Trivia, July 20th Edition

This morning's question comes courtesy of my friend Dave Olsen:

Which president has a statue erected to him in the classical municipal style (full figure, bronze) declaring him to be our "least memorable president"?

And where is that statue?

Remember, no Googling, just guessing.

Most Recent Update:

"Retraction, Retraction!" that was the phone message I got from last night, but not before Jonathan had updated the post with the "answer" below, which we now know to be entirely subjective.

Here's what happened: Dave emails me the picture, no comment provided. I reply, "Can't make it out, what does it say below Chester Alan Arthur?" He emails back "least memorable president." I ask: "Where is it." And he replies: "Madison Square Park."

Did my friend Dave intentionally mislead me? No, this comes from a long line of trivia/philosophical questions passed around an extended group of friends, ranging from those that divide into bitterly divided camps—Which kind of bacon is better, floppy or crispy? (IMO: crispy).—to those to which there's an answer to which almost everyone can agree upon—such as: What's the worst album title of all time (Reo Speedwagon's "You Can Tune a Piano But You Can't Tune a Fish").

So "most obscure/least known" president was one such question some time back, the mostly agreed upon answer was Chester Alan Arthur (though all the presidents the commentors named were also bandied about). The next day, Dave spots the statue, takes a cell phone pic, and forgets about it until yesterday morning.

So a bad misunderstanding, and mea culpa for not triple checking with Dave. And special apologies to President Arthur, for obscure though he might be, it sounds like he acquitted himself pretty well in office (see below).

Jonathan's Original Update:
The answer is Chester A. Arthur, as commentor Mark guessed. Before moving to the White House as James Garfield's vice president, Arthur was a deputy to New York City political boss Roscoe Conkling. Arthur was an active participant in the world of graft, spoils, and the like, both while in New York and while the vice president, a fact that so angered the president that he at times refused Arthur entry to the White House. Garfield was shot by a supporter of Conkling's — leading to speculation that Arthur had engineered the situation to assume the presidency, a claim that is now generally thought to be false. Upon taking over for Garfield, Arthur, a native of the tiny town of Fairfield, VT, become a champion for civil service reform and largely acquitted himself in the eyes of history.

Said one historian, "No man ever entered the Presidency so profoundly and widely distrusted, and no one ever retired… more generally respected." But clearly someone dislikes him. Here's a picture of that statue we mentioned, which is located in New York City:

Bonus trivia: Arthur served as president from 1881-1885, during which time he never had a VP.

"La Loi, C'est Moi," Part XIV

A few months ago, Seymour Hersh reported that a White House official and Iran Contra alum, Elliot Abrams, had recently led a "lessons learned" discussion about Iran Contra:

Iran-Contra was the subject of an informal “lessons learned” discussion two years ago among veterans of the scandal. Abrams led the discussion. One conclusion was that even though the program was eventually exposed, it had been possible to execute it without telling Congress. As to what the experience taught them, in terms of future covert operations, the participants found: “One, you can’t trust our friends. Two, the C.I.A. has got to be totally out of it. Three, you can’t trust the uniformed military, and four, it’s got to be run out of the Vice-President’s office”—a reference to Cheney’s role, the former senior intelligence official said.

Today the Washington Post reports that the White House may have taken that lesson to heart. It has determined, the Post reports, that in legal disputes between the Congress and the White House over executive privilege, game over, because the White House has decided no US attorney can uphold a contempt of Congress decree:

Bush administration officials unveiled a bold new assertion of executive authority yesterday in the dispute over the firing of nine U.S. attorneys, saying that the Justice Department will never be allowed to pursue contempt charges initiated by Congress against White House officials once the president has invoked executive privilege.

The position presents serious legal and political obstacles for congressional Democrats, who have begun laying the groundwork for contempt proceedings against current and former White House officials in order to pry loose information about the dismissals.

Under federal law, a statutory contempt citation by the House or Senate must be submitted to the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, "whose duty it shall be to bring the matter before the grand jury for its action."

But administration officials argued yesterday that Congress has no power to force a U.S. attorney to pursue contempt charges in cases, such as the prosecutor firings, in which the president has declared that testimony or documents are protected from release by executive privilege. Officials pointed to a Justice Department legal opinion during the Reagan administration, which made the same argument in a case that was never resolved by the courts.

Perhaps that is the take-away that Abrams' Iran Contra lessons learned exercise derived: with a closed circle feedback loop in which Congress's authority is consistently subjugated to the executive, the White House can get away with anything, and is indeed not subject to the rule of law. Under the Bush administration's definition, there are no checks on the executive branch, the very foundation of our democracy.

More from Marty Lederman who predicted this would happen.

July 19, 2007

Plame Lawsuit Dismissed

The civil suit filed by Valerie and Joseph Wilson against Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, and Richard Armitage was dismissed by a federal judge today. Ruling that the court lacked the jurisdiction to award damages for the disclosure of Valerie Wilson's covert identity, Judge John Bates made the curious argument that blowing the cover of an undercover CIA officer could be considered to fall within the job duties of an administration official. "The alleged means by which defendants chose to rebut Mr. Wilson's comments and attack his credibility may have been highly unsavory," he wrote. "But there can be no serious dispute that the act of rebutting public criticism... by speaking with members of the press is within the scope of defendants' duties."

The Wilson's counsel, Melanie Sloan, the executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, is currently reviewing the decision and anticipates filing an appeal. After four years, Joe Wilson isn't about to back down. Here's what he had to say about the setback in a statement: "This case is not just about what top government officials did to Valerie and me. We brought this suit because we strongly believe that politicizing intelligence ultimately serves only to undermine the security of our nation. Today's decision is just the first step in what we have always known would be a long legal battle and we are committed to seeing this case through."

Mother Jones is Going to do What? When?

After 31 years of path-breaking independent investigative journalism, Mother Jones has decided to really shake things up, and you're part of it. We're launching something bold, something big, and something brand new. Check back with us on July 23rd to find out more.

Jay Harris
President & Publisher

Daughter of Jailed Iranian American Writes About "Brutal Men Going About Their Brutal Business"

Yesterday Iran's new 24 hour TV channel broadcast a "documentary" featuring two jailed Iranian Americans, Haleh Esfandiari, of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and Kian Tajbakhsh, a consultant to the Open Society Institute. Both are being held in Evin prison. Esfandiari had been robbed of her passport in December while visiting her ailing 93 year old mother in Tehran, and since then has been undergoing interrogation by Iran's secret police, then house arrrest, and for the past 70 days, solitary confinement in Iran's notorious Evin prison. The 63 year old grandmother had run programs at the Woodrow Wilson Center that sought more than any other think tank I am aware of to promote US-Iran engagement. Its president, Lee Hamilton, a co-chair of the Iraq Study Group, has urged the Bush administration to talk with Iran.

Esfandiari's daugther Haleh Bakhash, a lawyer in Washington, writes in the Washington Post today about her mother's interrogators:

As I watched my mother, I thought ...about the fact that our ordeal has been nothing compared with my mother's: nearly seven months of interrogations; more than 10 weeks in solitary confinement; threats of trial and long years of imprisonment; being alone in the hands of brutal men going about their brutal business.

When the television program ended, I felt contempt for my mother's jailers and interrogators. But I was filled with admiration for my mother. In hugely difficult circumstances, she preserved her dignity, held her head high and did not lie. She did not falsely implicate others. It is her jailers, I thought, who have to work in the dark, behind the closed doors of prison interrogation rooms. It is they who hide their faces, who try to manipulate public opinion by controlling the media, smearing reputations and dishonestly splicing film.

"My mother has nothing to be ashamed of," Bakhash concludes. "They do."

July 18, 2007

Is the Federal Contracting System Out of Whack?

Meet Robin Smith. A veteran of the Air Force, she once guarded military aircraft bearing nuclear weapons before going to work for Wackenhut, the Florida-based private security giant that took in $400 million in federal contracts last year (and $516 million the year prior). Between June 2005 and April 2006, Smith served as a security officer at the Department of Homeland Security's Washington headquarters, where she says she witnessed a litany of security lapses by Wackenhut employees: guards who fell asleep at their posts, who were allowed to carry weapons after repeatedly flunking certification tests on the company’s gun range, and who gained access to sensitive locations without the requisite security clearances. On numerous occasions, she says, she saw the door to the guards' armory left open and unattended, allowing anyone access to the cache of weapons and ammunition inside.

But the most egregious breach happened in the fall of 2005, when a DHS staffer opened a letter containing white powder. Instead of quarantining the area, or calling for a hazmat team, the security guards who responded to the scene handled the envelope themselves and called others over to have a look at the suspicious powder. They also directed the employee who had opened the letter, and who had spilled some of its contents on herself, to wash the powder off. To do so she walked across a hall and past Michael Chertoff’s office, putting the Homeland Security secretary himself and other employees at risk of contamination. "I've never seen anything like the way Wackenhut ran Homeland Security,” Smith told the House Subcommittee on Government Management, Organization, and Procurement today. “I've never seen any company disrespect a government contract like Wackenhut did."

The purpose of the hearing was to examine why certain companies with spotty performance records (see: Halliburton, Bechtel, Boeing, among many others) are routinely rewarded with more lucrative government contracts. Such was the case with Wackenhut, which, despite security breaches at Homeland that were corroborated by multiple Wackenhut guards, went on to secure a 5-year, $250 million contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a branch of the Department of Homeland Security

On hand to defend Wackenhut’s record was one of the firm’s VPs, Dr. Lawrence Brede, who told the subcommittee he was "disturbed" that the company's past performance was being called into question. He described the allegations against Wackenhut as a coordinated misinformation campaign carried out by "disgruntled, terminated" former employees who have been "co-opted by the SEIU," which he accused of undertaking a campaign to "besmirch our reputation" and "displace the unions" that serve Wackenhut employees. (Smith, for the record, wasn’t fired by Wackenhut.) According to Brede, the contract in question was originally with the Navy (which occupied the buildings later taken over by Homeland) and called for less stringent security. Under the circumstances, he said, Wackenhut met its "contractual obligations."

It’s hard to fault Brede for getting defensive—after all, his company’s track record is fairly pristine when pared with those of other federal contractors, some of which continue to receive taxpayer funding despite instances of outright fraud in their recent pasts. One of the worst offenders is Lockheed Martin, which, since 1995, paid out $288.5 million in fines (the company can afford it, it received close to $20 billion in federal contracts last year) and racked up 39 instances of misconduct, everything from procurement fraud to kickbacks to nuclear safety violations.

So why do federal contracting officers continue to place their trust (and our money) in the hands of companies that have played them in the past? One reason—and it certainly isn’t the only one—raised by the several witnesses today, including the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general, Richard Skinner, is that the federal government lacks a single, centralized database containing detailed information (including on past investigations, settlements, and consent decrees) on the contractors that do business with the government. But it’s not as if such a repository doesn’t exist; the Project on Government Oversight has been operating a comprehensive “contractor misconduct” database since 2002, and released a new and improved version today. For as many years as POGO’s database has been in existence, Carolyn Maloney, the New York Democrat and a member of Towns’ subcommittee, has been trying to pass legislation to build a similar government database for use by contracting officers across all the federal agencies. Last week, she reintroduced the legislation, which is dubbed the Contractors and Federal Spending Accountability Act. It remains to be seen whether the bill stands a better chance now that the Dems have taken back control of Congress. Surely, there are powerful interests that would prefer that the various misdeeds of government contractors are not stored in such an easily accessible locale. As POGO’s general counsel, Scott Amey, noted in his prepared remarks this afternoon, “the top 50 contractors spent over $146 million on lobbying” in 2006 and “donated over $15 million to federal campaigns” during the last election cycle.

In the Midst Of Vitter Scandal, Let Us Not Forget David Almond

Republican David Almond, vice chairman of the House Committee on Children, Youth and Families for the North Carolina state legislature, resigned last week after the state's GOP caucus said it was investigating allegations against him of "serious, improper behavior."

According to DownWithTyranny!, Almond exposed his penis to a female staff member, chased her around the room, and commanded her to "suck it, baby, suck it." The employee filed a personnel complaint against Almond. State Republican leaders asked Almond to resign if there was any truth to the allegation, but, they said, "He did it [resigned] himself." I'm not sure what that means, but that is what they said.

One of the pieces of legistlation introduced by Almond was a bill to monitor sex offenders, which was recently signed into law by the governor, and which could come back to bite Almond on the--well, wherever he is most likely to be bitten. In the meantime, he says that intends to defend himself against the charges.

Campaigns Fail to Adapt to New Primary Schedule

Via Brad Plumer at The Plank, I spotted this neat New York Times graphic on where the major candidates have campaign offices. The most significant observation, other than the fact that the Democrats are running far more developed campaigns than the Republicans, is that all of the campaigns seem to be missing the significance of the new primary calendar.

Put aside the traditional early states of Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, and South Carolina (all between Jan. 14 and Feb. 2). Florida has moved up to Jan. 29 and a whole slew of states have moved up to Feb. 5: Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, and on and on.

Let's take the six from that group of newly significant states that have the most electoral votes (i.e. largest populations): Florida, California, Illinois, New York, Pennsylvania, and Texas. Now using the NYT graphic, let's count up the number of campaign offices in each state (count limited to the three frontrunners in each party).

Florida: GOP 2; Dems 2
California: GOP 1; Dems 2
Illinois: GOP 2; Dems 2
New York: GOP 1; Dems 3
Pennsylvania: GOP 0; Dems 0
Texas: GOP 0; Dems 1

That's nothing! Compare this to the fact that Hillary and Edwards have nearly 20 offices apiece in the traditionally important combo of Iowa and New Hampshire. And Obama one-ups them, with almost 30! Obama has around 20 offices in Iowa, and zero in Pennsylvania and Texas. And only one each in Florida, California, and New York.

I know the candidates simply don't have the money to campaign everywhere, and I know it's still early. And I'm aware that the internet has allowed the campaigns to reach people in places where they don't have a physical presence. But it's easy to make the argument the campaigns, run by people who have been part of the system for years and were honchos in presidential elections past, are stuck in an earlier mindset. They have yet to adapt to present realities.

Straight Talk Express Runs Aground

John McCain's bus, which could be dubbed the "Flip-Flop Express" or the "Endless War Express," will now be called nothing at all. The bus, like the campaign, is out of gas, and McCain doesn't have the money to fill it up. So from now on, McCain will be taking the "Straight Walk Express" (yuck, yuck).

It's worth pointing out, though, that while McCain is seen as doomed because he only has $2 million on hand, Mitt Romney would have the exact same amount if he hadn't given his campaign a personal loan of $10 million. McCain's even doing better than Romney in some polls. The media tends to think and move in packs; maybe we should peel ourselves off the dog pile that is currently burying John McCain and take a look at the GOP's prettiest hypocrite?

Libya: Death Sentences Commuted in HIV Case

It's been long time coming, but, as reported in this morning's Washington Post, the five jailed Bulgarian nurses and one Palestinian doctor accused of intentionally infecting 460 Libyan children with HIV may soon go free. They have been languishing in Libyan prisons since 1999 and had been on death row since December. On Tuesday, however, Libya's Judicial Council—great arbiter of justice that it is—commuted all six death sentences to life in prison. Now, one could argue that death is preferable to eternity spent in a Libyan jail, but there are indications that the high court's move foreshadows the extradition of all six health workers to Bulgaria (including the Palestinian, who has been granted Bulgarian citizenship), where they would presumably be allowed to go free.

The long episode has raised passions in Libya and Bulgaria, which have both viewed the case as an issue of national pride. The European Union and the U.S. government have also weighed in, putting pressure on Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi to intervene in the case. The Libyan government has long contended that the childrens' infections were the result of a reckless HIV experiment undertaken by the six foreign health workers at medical facility in the Mediterranean port city of Benghazi. But independent investigations have concluded that the outbreak was caused by the hospital's poor hygienic conditions, which predated the foreign workers' arrival.

It now appears that the imminent resolution of the dispute could join the list of other conciliatory notes struck by the Libyan dictator, who in recent years has been working diligently to rehabilitate his reputation. According to the Post, a fund created by the Libyan and Bulgarian governments (under the auspices of the European Union) will compensate the families of the HIV-infected children to the tune of $1 million each; the Libyans had initially demanded $13 million per family.

Morning Trivia for July 18

Today's question is:

What is the largest consulting services company in the world? (Hint: It's a private company, but it's still a trick question).

I'll update this post later today with the answer and let you know if any of us got the question right. If you have a question, submit it to mojotrivia@gmail.com. If it's good, we'll use it and credit you on the blog. Please let us know if you got it from another source.

Guess in the comments, and good luck.

Update:

IBM is the largest consulting services company in the world. IBM's "Global Services" division has revenues of almost $50 billion, a sum that represents more than half of the giant multinational's corporate revenue. Commenter Nicholas Beaudrot was first again, guessing the answer that no one in our DC bureau could come up with. Today's New York Times has more on IBM's consulting business.

— Nick Baumann

Flynt to Reveal Sexcapades of Another Senator?

On Larry King last night, Hustler published Larry Flynt hinted that another senator may be headed for a David Vitter-like fall from grace. Via Political Wire:

FLYNT: We've got good leads. We've got over 300 initially. And they're down to about 30 now which is solid.

KING: When are you going to print?

FLYNT: Well, the last thing now is we don't know if we want to let it to drip, drip, drip or we want to go with everything at once.

KING: You mean you might release 30 names at once?

FLYNT: A good possibility.

KING: Will we be -- I don't want to get into names yet. Will we be shocked?

FLYNT: Yes.

KING: Were you shocked?

FLYNT: I was shocked, especially at one senator but...

KING: One senator especially?

FLYNT: Yes.

The Usual Suspects

In case you thought Cheney might have secretly been consulting with Greenpeace, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International, have no fear. He was meeting with just who you thought he was: Exxon, Enron, British Petroleum, Duke Energy, and a Norquist/Gale Norton front group with ties to Abramoff.

July 17, 2007

Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb(s)

Matt Yglesias points his readers in the direction of a truly frightening article in the July/August issue of the Atlantic. We would be remiss if we didn't do the same. The article, by Keir Leiber and Daryl Press, argues that the gap between Chinese and American nuclear capability has grown so much since the end of the Cold War that there would only be a very slim chance of China being able to respond to an American first strike. (The authors' original study, which they discussed extensively in Foreign Affairs over a year ago, argued that even the Russian nuclear arsenal would almost certainly be destroyed by an American first strike.)

If the authors are right, this means the end of "Mutually-Assured Destruction," or MAD. They remind us why that matters:

During the Cold War, MAD rendered the debate about the wisdom of nuclear primacy little more than a theoretical exercise. Now that MAD and the awkward equilibrium it maintained are about to be upset, the argument has become deadly serious. Hawks will undoubtedly see the advent of U.S. nuclear primacy as a positive development. For them, MAD was regrettable because it left the United States vulnerable to nuclear attack. With the passing of MAD, they argue, Washington will have what strategists refer to as "escalation dominance" — the ability to win a war at any level of violence — and will thus be better positioned to check the ambitions of dangerous states such as China, North Korea, and Iran.

We're still fighting a conventional "pre-emptive war" that began over four years ago. If the hawks want to turn their pre-emptive wars nuclear, they can do so without fear of retaliation.

— Nick Baumann

The Leader of the GOP Field is... Hilarious

I know people hate horserace coverage of the candidates. I know they'd rather see serious issue discussions than polls and makeup scandals. But sometimes there's a punchline just sitting there.

From a new AP/Ipsos poll:

Democrats
Hillary Clinton 36%
Barack Obama 20%
Al Gore 15%
Other/None/Don't Know 13%
John Edwards 11%
Bill Richardson 2%
Joe Biden 2%

Republicans
Other/None/Don't Know 25%
Rudy Giuliani 21%
Fred Thompson 19%
John McCain 15%
Mitt Romney 11%
Newt Gingrich 5%
Mike Huckabee 3%

And that's with Thompson and Gingrich in the race. There is no "other" left!

Waxman: White House Politicization "More Widespread Than Previously Known"

"I took an oath to the president, and I take that oath very seriously." So said former White House political director Sara Taylor during an appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, a statement she later retracted after Senator Patrick Leahy pointed out that she had actually sworn on oath to the Constitution, not to the commander-in-chief. Yet Taylor's gaffe was actually quite revealing—another sign that the Bush administration's political appointees often place loyalty to president and party above all else, which goes a long way toward explaining why partisan politics has permeated even the most remote corners of the federal bureaucracy.

While there's already a sizable body of evidence to suggest that the White House has presided over an unprecedented wave of politicization, Henry Waxman's Committee on Oversight and Government Reform reported today that the adminstration's "efforts to politicize the activities of federal agencies may be more widespread than previously known."

The documents Waxman's staff turned up speak for themselves. Among them is a November 20, 2006 memo from Taylor to the Office of National Drug Control Policy's White House liaison, Doug Simon, detailing events that drug czar John Walters attended (apparently at Taylor's direction) in the months before the mid-term elections. At most of these events Walters appeared alongside embattled—and in some cases allegedly corrupt—members of Congress, including Richard Pombo, John Doolittle, and Conrad Burns. According to Waxman, some of these events "were combined with the announcement of federal grants to the states or districts of vulnerable Republican members."

If there was any doubt that Walters, along with other Cabinet-level officials, were stumping for Republican candidates on the sly (and at taxpayer expense), that was cleared up by a post-election email from Doug Simon, which is worth reprinting in its entirety.

Folks,
I just wanted to give you all a summary of a post November 7th update I received the other night. Presidential Personnel pulled together a meeting of all of the Administration's White House Liaison's and the WH Political Affairs office. Karl Rove opened the meeting with a thank you for all of the work that went into the surrogate appearances by Cabinet members and for the 72 Hour deployment. He specifically thanked, for going above and beyond the call of duty, the Dept. of Commerce, Transportation, Agriculture, AND the WH Drug Policy Office. This recognition is not something we hear everyday and we should feel confident that our hard work is noticed. All of this is due to our efforts preparing the Director and the Deputies for their trips and events. Director Walters and the Deputies covered thousands of miles to attend numerous official events all across the country. The Director and the Deputies deserve the most recognition because they actually had to give up time with their families for the god awful places we sent them. I attached the final list of all of the official events that the Director and Deputies attended.

Karl also launched into a feisty discussion about the plans for the final two years of this administration. ln no uncertain terms, he said he is not going to let the last quarter of this presidency be dictated to by the Capitol Hill. There are a number of things this administration and more specifically ONDCP have to accomplish before the time is up. lt is time to regroup and move forward.

In the next 2-3 weeks I am going to set up one on one meetings will all political appointees to get a sense your plans for the next two years. lt will just be informational for planning purposes.

Thanks again, Doug Simon

Needless to say, Sara Taylor, who worked closely with Rove, may soon be making another uncomfortable appearance on the Hill, where Waxman has requested her to sit for a deposition by July 24 and a possible hearing on July 30.

An Important Omission from the NIE

Spencer Ackerman makes a point I should have made in my earlier post about the NIE. The document goes to absurd lengths to avoid the subject of the Iraq War. Probably because George Bush's grand blunder has made the war on terrorism so, so much more difficult.

New NIE Summary: Much We Already Knew, Some We Didn't

The publicly released version of the National Intelligence Estimate that Laura mentions below is only a page and a half, so it should come as no surprise that there is nothing terribly insightful in it. ("Breaking news! Al Qaeda is dangerous!") But let's take a look, shall we?

Al-Qa’ida is and will remain the most serious terrorist threat to the Homeland... We assess the group has protected or regenerated key elements of its Homeland attack capability, including: a safehaven in the Pakistan Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), operational lieutenants, and its top leadership.

The FATA referenced here include places like Waziristan, which Mother Jones profiled in an essay and stunning photo shoot in 2004, where the Pakistan government (usually) respects local tribes' claims to sovereignty and keeps only a loose leash on things. Because of the lack of control, the areas are often perfect for terrorist hideouts, a fact the U.S. has known for years — in fact, the emphasis on the FATA in this NIE matches policies from the beginning of the war on terror. Back then, we paid locals for turning in alleged al Qaeda operatives, which merely gave the locals a more powerful weapon in tribal conflicts and filled places like Gitmo with harmless and bewildered individuals who happened to have a well-connected enemy.

Other thoughts from the NIE (which is available here):

We assess that al-Qa’ida will continue to try to acquire and employ chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear material...

It's nice to know it doesn't have them yet.

We assess Lebanese Hizballah, which has conducted anti-US attacks outside the United States in the past, may be more likely to consider attacking the Homeland over the next three years if it perceives the United States as posing a direct threat to the group or Iran.

This is critically important, particularly because it is a subtle warning about Cheney and Co.'s saber-rattling about Iran. If we attack Iran, or even appear to pose a "direct threat" to Iran, we can expect a violent reaction from radical Shiite groups across the world. The folks who expected Iraq to be conventional warfare (and were wrong) may make the same mistake again — airstrikes against Iran, or heaven forbid, a ground invasion, would definitely not be quick and clean. A war with Iran could have thousands of fronts, including some here at home.

The main takeaway from the NIE, however, is this: terrorism remains out most important security concern, particularly because we haven't even dented al Qaeda's capabilities, and we need all the resources we can to fight it. That means not having huge portions of our military, intelligence community, and national security apparatus wrapped up in the Iraqi civil war.

Romney and Edwards: Blood Pomade Brothers

Oh, Mitt Romney, you hypocritical jerk. When John Edwards spent $400 on a haircut, how could you not know that every politician — including you — has embarrassing financial expenditures on his or her public record? Why couldn't you just let the man take the heat from others, instead of saying:

You know I think John Edwards was right. There are two Americas. There is the America where people pay $400 for a haircut and then there is everybody else.

You had to sit in your (multi-million dollar) glass house and throw stones. Today, Politico digs up the fact that you spent $300 on a service that calls itself "a mobile beauty team for hair, makeup and men's grooming and spa services."

Let's be real, Mitt. John Edwards is a perfectly tanned, perfectly coiffed, picture-book politician. You are a perfectly tanned, perfectly coiffed, picture-book politician. Did you honestly think the press wouldn't figure out that you both paid good money to get that way?

Swimmer Shivers to Call Attention to Global Warming

British swimmer Lewis Gordon Pugh, a.k.a. the "Ice Bear", has become the first human to set a long-distance swimming record at the North Pole. He undertook the excruciatingly painful stunt to highlight the threat of climate change. For more, go to Blue Marble...

Morning Political Trivia for July 17

Today's question comes courtesy of CQ Politics. Knock it dead:

How many women represented New Hampshire in congress before Carol Shea-Porter, who was elected last year?

I'll update this post later today with the answer and the results of our contest here (morning trivia keeps our DC reporting skills sharp). If you have a question, submit it to mojotrivia@gmail.com. If it's good, we'll use it and credit you on the blog. Please let us know if you got it from another source.

Guesses in the comments section as always. Thanks!

Update

Commenter Nicholas Beaudrot writes: "The obvious guess is zero." It's also the obvious answer, which no one in the DC bureau guessed. They were all thrown off by reporter Laura Rozen's contention that Jeanne Shaheen once represented New Hampshire in congress. (Ms. Shaheen was actually the governor of the Granite State.) Congratulations to Mr. Beaudrot — we'll try again tomorrow.

— Nick Baumann