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May 23, 2008

Women's News: Sublime and Heinous

A Chinese cop has taken it on herself to breastfeed as many as nine children either orphaned by the massive quake or whose mothers' are too traumatized to produce milk.

She has a six month old of her own and, much to her chagrin, has become a national celebrity; China's "Mother #1". "I think what I did was normal," she said. "In a quake zone, many people do things for others. This was a small thing, not worth mentioning." She's still nursing two in addition to her own. And elsewhere in chick news?

From Womensnews: "Tanzania's Missing Girls Rarely Raise a Murmur." Girls as young as 2 disappear with such frequency, dusk finds frantic mothers desperately shepherding their daughters indoors. Sometimes they're trafficked but often they're given to witch doctors as sacrifices (like, Biblically) or payment; or they're the victims of child marriage.

What a world women face.

Schadenfreude for the Lieberman Haters

Guess who his step-son is voting for?

Florida Congressman's Car Dealership Accused of Sleaze

There are few professionals that Americans consider sleazier than politicians. Among them might be car dealers. Vernon Buchanan happens to be both. The first-term Republican congressman from Sarasota, Florida owns one of the state's biggest auto dealership chains. Yesterday, the former finance director for one of the company's outlets, Sarasota Ford, sued Buchanan and the other managers from the Buchanan Auto Group for firing him for refusing to go along with allegedly sleazy and illegal business practices.

According to Automotive News, the dealership fired Joe Kezer in November after he protested that managers were, among other things, illegally altering people's credit reports and sales contracts, common scams in the auto industry. A spokesman for Buchanan told Automotive News that as chairman of the auto group, the congressman isn't involved in the day to day operations of the dealership. Still, if the allegations in the lawsuit are true, the case ought to provide an interesting window into business practices that have made Buchanan a wealthy man. It's possible that the car business could make Congress look squeaky clean by comparison.

Hillary: Too Old For High Court

There's been lots of chatter lately suggesting that Barack Obama should promise Hillary Clinton a seat on the Supreme Court as a sort of runner-up prize and inducement for her to finally get out of the presidential race. Bloggers have debated her fitness for the job, whether she'd want it, or whether it would even be a good idea. But all of this is much ado about nothing. There is no way Hillary, or her husband for that matter, will ever warm a seat on the high court, for one major reason: She is simply too old.

Like the rest of the federal judiciary, Supreme Court justices serve for life. That's why Republicans over the past 15 or 20 years have made a very active and conscious effort to fill those seats with the youngest possible candidates as a way of preserving their influence for generations. The average age of GOP nominees for Supreme Court justice since 1981, including O'Connor, is 50, a full decade younger than Hillary. (Indeed, there's not a person on the court today who was older than 60 when nominated.)

Democrats haven't had a chance to pick as many candidates, but they clearly haven't made age as much of a priority. No doubt that will change should they retake the White House in the fall because, as Republicans have shown, the math is simply too compelling. Consider that when George H.W. Bush nominated Clarence Thomas in 1991, Thomas was only 43 years old. If he hangs on as long as the court's current veteran John Paul Stevens, 88, the country will be stuck with nearly a half-century of Thomas jurisprudence.

Compare that with the tenure of Clinton-appointee Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who was nominated at age 60, a year younger than Hillary is now. If she matches Stevens' longevity, she'd still have 15 fewer years on the job than Thomas. Certainly the court could benefit from the turnover that comes with shorter tenures, but if you're Obama, looking to create some kind of liberal legacy on the court, a 62 or 65-year-old Hillary isn't it.

Instead, my money is on Neal Katyal, the current liberal rock start of Supreme Court advocates. Katyal argued and won the critical Hamdan v. Rumsfeld case in 2005, in which the court ruled that the Bush administration's military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay violated the Geneva Conventions. He clerked for Stephen Breyer as well as the dean of liberal law, Guido Calabresi, on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Katyal is well-connected, too, having worked in the Clinton administration Justice Department as an adviser for National Security Affairs.

Best of all, Katyal is but 38, not to mention a total stud, and of South Asian descent. Of course, with his national security background, his resume also puts him first in line for a host of jobs in an Obama administration (he's already done some work for him), from attorney general to solicitor general. As someone who's been profiled in Vanity Fair, Katyal may not even be interested in becoming one of the brethren, but his age certainly makes him a compelling candidate. At least he's young enough to outlast Clarence Thomas.

McCain Throws Himself Into the Briar Patch...Some More

What is McCain up to?

Even with pundits opining that McCain hurt himself with his "Man, am I old!" turn on SNL last weekend, he's continuing to go kamikaze on us. On a soon-to-air Ellen show, the affable talk show host dogs him about her upcoming marriage to long time girlfriend Portia DeRossi, which he opposes. He tried to segue with talk of civil unions, etc. but both held fast, however nicely. Homey didn't budge but he was clearly dodging bullets.

Then, as if he hadn't suffered enough, he sat down with Essence "Sister Grrl" magazine, even as MoJo's catalogued the dearth of black GOP candidates. Then, his mega-rich and pretty f'ing hot wife vogued barefoot and all natural in Vogue.

WTFO, with McCain? Desperation or penance?

One Problem With Hillary as VP

As Joe Sudbay at AMERICAblog points out, there's a serious problem with the idea of Hillary Clinton as Obama's VP. She, but much more likely Bill, might not pass the vetting process.

Bush Plans to Be Active Presence on Campaign Trail

From AFP:

Bush and McCain plan to appear side by side at a May 27 fundraiser, their first public embrace since March 5, making the most of one of the president's most potent remaining political weapons.

Bush has done 19 political fundraisers in 2008, scooping up 37,142,500 dollars, according to records carefully kept by CBS news. His totals since 2001, including his 2004 reelection, are 310 events and 766,782,500 dollars.

The White House says the president plans to campaign vigorously for fellow Republicans, including McCain... "I think you'll see the president out on the campaign trail quite a bit. We'll keep you posted on their events that they may have together," spokesman Scott Stanzel said Monday.

This is helpful for McCain in that Bush can open the wallets of members of the conservative base that have not yet and probably will not warm to McCain. But if Bush does rallies and TV spots instead of just closed-door fundraisers, well... that's Christmas come early for the Democrats.

Obama and Clinton in Withdrawal Talks

CNN is reporting that the Clinton and Obama camps are holding "formal meetings" about Hillary Clinton's withdrawal from the Democratic primary. The report is sourced almost entirely to Clinton insiders — the Obama folks are denying unequivocally that talks are occurring — and they appear to see three scenarios:

(1) Obama chooses someone other than Clinton as vice president. The Clinton people consider this "totally unacceptable" and akin to "open civil war within the party." If it were to happen, Clinton's campaigning for Obama in the general would be "quite aloof."
(2) Obama publicly offers the VP spot to Clinton, which she would then reject.
(3) The candidates talk personally and hammer out a solution. Clinton gets her debt covered or gets Obama's support in a later run for Senate Majority Leader.

Video:

If you look at this from a strategic point of view, the Clinton insiders are playing this masterfully. Two things are accomplished by leaking their terms to the press while the Obama camp sits silent. First, the idea of Clinton as VP becomes much more palatable. People who weeks ago were thinking, "No way, she's been too divisive. She doesn't understand his core message" are probably now thinking, "Fine, just give it to her. Let's move on already." Second, this probably explains why Clinton is ratcheting up the rhetoric on Michigan and Florida and planning to bus supporters to DC for the Rules & Bylaws meeting. All of it is like a gun to Obama's head in these negotiations. "Look how much damage we can do if we don't get our way, Mr. Obama."

Update: Clinton camp is denying the report.

May 22, 2008

Finally, McCain Repudiates Rev. Parsley, His Anti-Islam "Moral Compass"

Finally.

Once John McCain had resolved on Thursday to repudiate fundamentalist preacher John Hagee (who had called the Catholic Church "the great whore" and who had said Hitler was doing God's work during the Holocaust), the presumptive Republican presidential nominee went on a roll, and in the same news cycle he also rejected the endorsement of Reverend Rod Parsley, the megachurch pastor who had said it was the United States' historic mission to see the "false religion" of Islam "destroyed."

After issuing a statement dumping Hagee, McCain told the Associated Press that he also was now refusing Parsley's support: "I believe there is no place for that kind of dialogue in America, and I believe that even though he endorsed me, and I didn't endorse him, the fact is that I repudiate such talk, and I reject his endorsement." McCain and Parsley had campaigned together in February in Ohio, and at a rally McCain had hailed Parsley as "one of the truly great leaders in America, a moral compass, a spiritual guide."

Two weeks after that rally, on March 12, Mother Jones first reported that Parsley in a 2005 book, Silent No More, had essentially called upon Christians to wage a "war" against Islam with the aim of eradicating it. For that article and subsequent pieces, I called the McCain campaign for comment multiple times to ask if the Arizona senator would repudiate Parsley, who is a powerful political player in the critical state of Ohio. McCain's press office ducked each call.

On May 8, Mother Jones and Brave New Films posted a video showing Parsley railing against Islam "as an anti-Christ religion that intends, through violence, to conquer the world" and basically calling for its destruction. The video juxtaposed Parsley's extreme anti-Islam rhetoric with footage of McCain praising Parsley. And still McCain held on to his endorsement from Parsley.

But as the Hagee story expanded (with the disclosure of his Holocaust remark) and the Parsley story was picked up by mainstream media (MSNBC aired a chunk of the Mother Jones/Brave New Film video; Good Morning America aired an "exclusive" piece on Parsley that much resembled the Mother Jones' articles and video), McCain decided to throw both pastors overboard on the same day.

It's clear that McCain was hoping to avoid having to talk straight about Parsley. But as he was trying to extricate himself from the Hagee mess, the last thing McCain needed was another pastor problem. So he was quite efficient: he conducted one excommunication that covered two pastors. But it's worth remembering that McCain held on to Parsley for as long as he could and that he renounced him not because of his extreme anti-Islam rhetoric--which McCain was well aware of months ago--but only because Parsley had become extremely politically inconvenient.

UPDATE: On Friday night, Parsley issued a statement saying he would not withdraw his endorsement of McCain. Then on Saturday he did just that.

Pity the Lobbyists

The Onion asks, "Are Politicians Failing Our Lobbyists?" H/T Sunlight.

McCain Finally Renounces Hagee; What About Parsley?

John McCain today finally denounced and rejected the endorsement of fundamentalist Pastor John Hagee. It wasn't Hagee's comments on the Catholic Church "the great whore") or gays (God sent Hurricane Katrina to New Orleans as punishment for a gay pride parade) that went too far for McCain. It was Hagee's claim on a 1990s television show that Hitler was doing "God's work" during the Holocaust by setting in motion events that forced Jews to return to Israel.

Now what about Rod Parsley? This political ally of McCain has decried Islam as a "false religion" and says it's the historic mission of the United States to eradicate Islam. McCain has yet to reject the endorsement from Parsley, with whom he campaigned in February. It's tough to figure out McCain's moral universe. Attributing Hitler's mass-murder of Jews to God--that's a no-no. Calling for the destruction of an entire religion? So far, that's no reason for McCain to reject an endorsement.

UPDATE: After McCain rejected Hagee's endorsement, Hagee withdrew his endorsement of McCain. In other words, you can't fire me, I quit.

BTW, McCain is also finally releasing his medical records--after postponing doing so for a year. But he's making these records available for only three hours on a Friday before a holiday weekend--to guarantee less media coverage--and his campaign has sort of banned New York Times reporter Lawrence Altman, one of the leading medical reporters in journalism, from reviewing the records. Only a handful of media outfits selected by the campaign will be permitted to send reporters to a conference room in Phoenix to examine the records. And the Times was not chosen. None of the reporters will be allowed to make any copies of the records.

Are Whites Taking Over Historically Black Colleges?

Morehouse, flagship of HBCUs and Dr. King's alma mater, graduated its first white valedictorian this year, Joshua Packwood. Homey, and he is officially that now, is a Rhodes Scholar who turned down an Ivy League scholarship for Atlanta and earned a perfect 4.0. Weird, huh? How did Stewart and Colbert miss this? I'd love to see Larry Wilmore 'interview' this guy.

I first became aware of the seemingly strange presence of whites at HBCUs about a decade ago but have yet to get a chance to dig into it. Turns out that there are some that, due to demographic changes over the century and a half since most were founded, are now white enough to bring their very designation into question: "there are institutions that are classified as HBCUs with White enrollments above 80% of the student population (e.g., Bluefield State University, West Virginia 88.8% and West Virginia State University 83.2%)". Ten percent of the HBCU population, over all, is now white.

It's fascinating and confusing with serious danger for knees, including my own, to start jerking furiously. It's all I can do not to wail, "Can't we please have something that's just ours? Please?" But I know that's the wrong attitude. Still, I hope they stop making all those Drum Line movies.

Some, of course, don't want whites at HBCUs and must break out in hives when they pass their school's minority affairs office which helps whites navigate their majority black college world. The lawsuits which allowed the white students in in the first place have not quite been forgotten yet either. White students are lured with scholarships and by the $10K annual tuition savings, on average, between HBCUs and other state schools, which some find troubling. And shouldn't the scholarships be going to poor minority kids instead of to high achieving whites who help raise the school's stats? OK, all right. HBCUs have to think of both.

Is it just me, or does the world get weirder everyday? Still, this does present a rare opportunity for blacks to experience the loss of one of the few tiny areas of privilege we had. No wonder some of y'all behave so badly the better Barack does. Giving up stuff sucks.

ABC "Exclusive" On McCain and the Anti-Islam Pastor: Was MoJo Robbed? UPDATED

I'm glad that Good Morning America covered the connection between John McCain and Rod Parsley, the Ohio megachurch pastor who has said it is the United States' historic mission to see the "false religion" of Islam "destroyed."

But did ABC News' top investigative reporter, Brian Ross, have to swipe the story from us?

In the lead-in to piece, Diane Sawyer calls it an "exclusive Brian Ross investigation." Exclusive? How so? On March 12, Mother Jones first reported that Parsley, whom McCain had recently campaigned with and hailed as "a spiritual guide," had written a book in 2005, Silent No More, in which he essentially called for the eradication of Islam and branded the entire faith as a satanic conspiracy. The article noted that McCain had accepted Parsley's endorsement and explained that Parsley is a key political player in Ohio, where he has registered and driven to the polls tens of thousands of social conservative voters. Many websites and blogs linked to the article.

Following up on this piece, two weeks ago, Mother Jones and Brave New Films released a video which showed Parsley railing against Islam "as an anti-Christ religion that intends, through violence, to conquer the world" and basically calling for its destruction. The video juxtaposed Parsley's extreme anti-Islam rhetoric with video of McCain hailing Parsley at a February 26, 2006 campaign rally (the same rally featured in Ross' report). The footage of an excitable Parsley came from the DVD companion to his Silent No More book that is still sold by his World Harvest Church. It took me about six weeks to obtain the version of this DVD set that included Parsley's extreme anti-Islam remarks. One version of the DVD collection does not contain the disc covering Islam, and his church's store (which does not ship by first class or any overnight delivery service) was very, very slow in sending out the full collection that did.

The MoJo/Brave New Films video quickly drew an audience. A quarter of million people watched it on YouTube in two days. MSNBC played a long chunk of it. Many bloggers and sites posted the video. If you do a Google search on "Parsley, McCain and Islam," the first two links that appear are this video and the original Mother Jones article on Parsley and McCain. If you're reporting on McCain and Parsley, it's hard to miss this stuff. In fact, the day the Mojo/Brave New Films video was posted, a member of ABC News' investigative team called me to ask where I had obtained the Parsley footage. I told him and graciously offered to help him out--and then never heard back from him.

Not surprisingly, the most wow-'em Parsley excerpts in the ABC report match the Mojo/Brave New Films video. Yet the ABC piece is presented in a look-at-what-Brian-Ross-found manner. Ross, though, did not discover any additional Parsley material. So where's the exclusivity of which Sawyer speaks?

Ross's three-minute piece was well done. He pointed out that McCain's relationship with Parsley has become an issue in the Arab media. He made the right point:

In dealing with what he calls the central threat of our times, Senator McCain says the U.S. has failed to win the hearts and minds of the Islamic world. But if that is McCain's plan if elected, he seems to have already badly complicated it by recruiting the support of an evangelical minister now known in the Arab world as a hate-monger.

But did Ross and ABC--which plastered an "ABC News Investigation" tag on the report--have to present this story as if they had dug up this news? The word "exclusive" is widely overused and abused in the media. It's almost become a joke. ("Tonight, we have an exclusive interview with Presidential Candidate X...who just happens to have given five other exclusive interviews in the past two days to other media outlets.") But when you introduce a "news investigation" with the term "exclusive," the presumption is that you got it first.

Journalists at Mother Jones and other non-behemoth media outfits often hope that when they unearth a significant story it will end up on television sets across the nation. And the McCain-Parsley tale is an important one, precisely for the reason that Ross emphasized: it could prompt even greater suspicion in the Muslim world of U.S. actions and motives. It deserves network attention. But did the price have to be network expropriation?

UPDATE: Brian Ross called to apologize. He said that it had been wrong for Good Morning America to tag his piece an "exclusive" and that he had been unaware of my stories on Parsley. He offered to revise the written on-line version of the piece to note that Mother Jones had the Parsley story first.

You can see the original here:

McCain: Contradicting His Record on Gay Rights

John McCain is going on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" today to express moderate support for same-sex couples. He urges gay couples to enter "legal agreements" for the purposes of "insurance and other areas, decision that have to be made." You can see McCain's comments and Ellen's eloquence on the issue here:

Problem is, in 2006 McCain campaigned for Arizona Proposition 107 (video here), which, according to the proposition's website, sought to ban not only gay marriage and but also "giving recognition or benefits to marriage counterfeits, like 'civil unions' or 'domestic partnerships.'" That would suggest McCain's record doesn't match his words. Maybe his thinking has evolved in two years?

Hap tip to Cliff Schecter, who has more.

Billions of Dollars Unaccounted For in Iraq, Pentagon IG Reports

Want to see a signature worth $320 million? Click here. It belongs to Jack Gardner, an official with the now-defunct Coalition Provisional Authority, who in July 2003 authorized that amount to be transferred to the Iraqi Ministry of Finance for the payment of Iraqi salaries. There are no other records of the transfer, just Mr. Gardner's John Hancock. Now that's power.

The payment is but one example of the process by which U.S. dollars have disappeared without a trace into the confusion (and, yes, corruption) of Iraq reconstruction, confounding Pentagon auditors who are now trying to find out where all that money went... and what exactly, if anything, the U.S. got in return.

One such auditor is Mary L. Ugone, the Pentagon's deputy inspector general for audit. Her testimony this morning before Rep. Henry Waxman's (D-Calif.) Committee on Oversight and Government Reform coincided with the release of a new report from Pentagon's Office of Inspector General, which reviewed over 180,000 payments made by the Pentagon to contractors in Iraq, Kuwait, and Egypt, totaling approximately $8.2 billion. Of that, the Pentagon admits that it cannot properly account for how $7.8 billion—"a stunning 95% failure rate in following basic accounting standards," Waxman said in his opening statement.

The IG report details how $135 million was paid to the governments of the United Kingdom, South Korea, Poland, and others contributing troops to Iraq without any mechanism for determining how it was used. Another $1.8 billion in seized Iraqi assets were also simply given away, without any accountability. IG investigators examined 53 payment invoices. Not one made note of the money's ultimate destination.

Together with a separate Pentagon IG report released last November, which showed the Defense Department could not account for at least $5 billion issued to Iraqi security forces (causing it to lose track of nearly all of the 13,508 rifles, machine guns, and RPGs it provided to Iraqi troops), today's report sets the new total of Pentagon Iraq funds lost or stolen at almost $15 billion.

To date, Pentagon auditors have referred 28 cases to criminal investigators.

Photo used under a Creative Commons license from SqueakyMarmot.

What Are the Possible Florida/Michigan Outcomes?

By the way, if you want an explanation of how Clinton and Obama's delegate totals will change based on various Michigan and Florida solutions (the DNC's Rules and Bylaws Committee will resolve the situation in a meeting on May 31), see this post at the Demconwatch Blog. Moral of the story: Clinton may be placing monumental importance on seating Michigan and Florida, but doing so will not change the race.

But we knew that.

Axelrod: Okay, Fine. Just Take Michigan and Florida

Obama's top strategist seems aware that the Democrats can seat the Florida and Michigan delegations under almost any calculation and Obama will still have the lead in pledged delegates. From an upcoming NPR interview:

"We are open to comprise [sic]. We are willing to go more than half way. We're willing to work to make sure that we can achieve a compromise. And I guess the question is: is Senator Clinton's campaign willing to do the same?"

Axelrod continues: "Well, obviously, any compromise is going to involve some give, and that means if there's something on the table, we're willing to consider it. That may include us yielding more delegates than perhaps we would have, simply on the basis of the rules."

Now if you seat Florida and Michigan and Clinton does better than expected in the remaining primaries, including Puerto Rico, she may take the popular vote lead. The Clinton campaign will likely hammer that point while making its case to the superdelegates. It's probably worth pointing out that if popular vote was the key criteria in the race from the beginning, both campaigns would have run different races.

George H. W. Bush: "Personal Diplomacy Can Be Very Useful and Productive"

One week ago, George Bush told the Israeli Knesset that those who would negotiate with "terrorists and radicals" are akin to appeasers of the Nazis. It was a clear jab at Barack Obama and his stated willingness to sit down with leaders of rogue states. John McCain later echoed Bush.

Forget the fact that Bush once offered to sit down with the president of Sudan, Lt. Gen. Omar Hassan al-Bashir. Forget that Israel is now negotiating with a rogue state, Syria. Forget that James Baker, a man John McCain once called "the smartest guy know," said in 2006 that negotiation isn't capitulation.

This may best all of those in the irony department. On the cover of a new book titled "The China Diary of George H. W. Bush: The Making of a Global President," edited by Jeffrey A. Engel, our 41st president is quoted as saying, "I was a big believer then, and still am, that personal diplomacy can be very useful and productive." That's not a quote from the diary, which covers Bush's time as the head of the United States Liaison Office in Beijing from 1974 to 1975. It's from a preface Bush penned specifically for this book.

In that preface, written in October 2007, Bush points approvingly to President Nixon's willingness, in 1972, to be "the first American leader to speak directly with his Chinese counterpart, Mao Zedong." The young Bush chose to go China, instead of London or Paris, in part because relations with China were still new. He could not formally be an ambassador because "we still did not have formal diplomatic relations with Beijing."

He cites the personal relationship he cultivated with Deng Xiaoping in the 1970s as an asset in his presidency. "I took some hits for not being tougher on the Chinese," he writes, "but my long history with Deng and the other leaders made it possible for us to work through the crises without derailing Sino-American relations, which would have been a disaster. I was a big believer then, and still am, that personal diplomacy can be very useful and productive." At no point in the preface does Bush object to establishing relations with a tyrannical regime. Presumably his son, and the current Republican presidential candidate, would disagree.

May 21, 2008

What Do Businesswomen Want? More Shoes, Sez the Wall Street Journal

Oh, dear. I'm not sure my little lady brain can take it, but the Wall Street Journal has created a new page on its website specifically aimed at women. While thankfully the site isn't designed in a Sex and the City shade of pink, it's full of stereotypically female things like shoes, fashion, dieting, and Bonnie Fuller.

While the page does have a few interesting articles, like one on how the termination of your pregnancy may coincide with the termination of your job, the entire idea of a separate ladies section of the Journal is a bit problematic. Doesn't it sort of imply that the big, bad, serious sections of the newspaper are for the big boys? That women aren't interested in scary, manly topics like quarterly earnings or industry mergers? Channeling Carrie Bradshaw, I couldn't help but wonder: can't you have a vagina and a brain too?

I think the tone of the page answers some of those questions. There's an article on "Putting an End to Mindless Munching," another on "Decolletage at a Work Dinner," and the kicker, "High on Heels: How Shoes Affect the Juggle." The last article is a blog post on how high heels look great at the office, but hurt your feet. This is news? Come on, Rupert, we expect better, even from you.

Syriana: Newly Announced Israel-Syria Peace Talks Run Against Grain of Washington's Anti-Engagement Policy

Just a week after President Bush, speaking at Israel's Knesset, likened those who would advocate engagement with "terrorists and radicals" to Nazi appeasers, the governments of Israel and Syria—a close ally of Iran—have announced that official peace talks are underway between their nations, mediated by Turkey. "It is better in this situation to speak rather than to shoot," declared Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert in a statement Wednesday. "This is what the sides agreed."

Noted the Syrian foreign ministry in a similar statement: "Both sides have expressed their desire to conduct the talks in good will and decided to continue dialogue with seriousness to achieve comprehensive peace."

The Bush administration, which was informed of the planned talks by Israel and Turkey, offered reluctant support. "It is our hope that discussions between Israel and Syria will cover all the relevant issues," a State Department official, speaking on background, told Mother Jones. He outlined Washington's outstanding concerns with Syria, including its "support for terrorist groups, facilitation of the passage of foreign fighters into Iraq, and intervention in Lebanon, as well as repression inside Syria. An agreement dealing with these issues would be a true contribution to peace."

While Bush-era Washington has been consumed with ideological debates over whether talking to hostile regimes and militant groups rewards or legitimizes them, a parade of veteran senior Israeli security and diplomatic officials has pushed the case, both in Israel and Washington, that engaging adversaries such as Syria and Hamas could advance their nation's security interests. "The alliance between Syria and Iran is mainly one of convenience," Israel's former foreign ministry director general and Mossad official David Kimche told me in January in a suburban Tel Aviv cafe. "There is no deep connection. And it's worth our while, if we could weaken that link."

What's more, Kimche added, Syria very much wants Washington at the table. "Syria doesn't want to talk without the Americans," he said. "But from the American side, on Iraq, there has to be improvement. And the anger of the Americans at the moment is that they see Syria being behind the ongoing crisis in Lebanon."

Alon Liel, former director general of Israel's Foreign Ministry, has participated on the Israeli side of back channel Israel-Syria talks in recent years. "One of the reasons that I believe we should explore the possibility of speaking with Syria on an official level is that this body needs oxygen," he told me in February during a visit to Washington. "And we can keep the [peace] process alive through the Syrians because we can bluff with the Palestinians for another two months, but not more. We need a real process, and the Syrians are open to do it.

"The problem we are having now is that the circumstances have changed and the Syrians are a regional player," he added. "They are seen as an Iranian proxy, and Israel cannot sign a bilateral agreement with Syria as long as Syria is positioned as it is at moment in the region."

Such a situation, Liel suggested, would require two sets of talks. "On one desk we have the Syrians and the Israelis discussing the [bilateral] issues of border, normalization, water, demilitarization," he explained. "At another table, we'd have the Syrians, Israelis, Americans, and maybe the Europeans, in order to discuss how Syria is forming a military alliance with Iran, the need to kick out [Hamas political leader Khaled] Meshal from Damascus, and to stop smuggling arms to Hezbollah, and what they'd get in return." (Olmert has reportedly offered to give the Golan Heights back to Syria if it meets Israeli conditions.)

Washington and Jerusalem also part ways over Syria's role in Lebanon. The Bush administration sees Lebanon's March 2005 Cedar Revolution --which led to withdrawal of Syrian troops a month later, and subsequent democratic elections -- as a crowning achievement in its efforts to spread democracy in the Middle East. Some Israeli officials take a more jaundiced view. "We were very active in Lebanon, and we learned a lot of things," Kimche told me. "The Syrians do not see Lebanon as independent. They see it as part of Syria. There is no Syrian embassy in Lebanon, and there never was a Syrian embassy in Lebanon."

Washington is not backing away from its demand that Damascus recognize Lebanese independence, the State Department official insisted Wednesday: "Syria should carry out UN Security Council resolutions relating to Lebanon by recognizing its sovereignty and independence and delineation of their common border."

It's unclear what brought about the change in Washington's position toward Israel-Syria talks, from passive rejection to tacit endorsement -- or, as the case may be, if Israel simply decided to move on the talks in spite of Washington's lingering objections. "I think that the administration is of two minds on this," says David Schenker, a former Pentagon policy advisor on Syria and Lebanon. "On the one hand, the administration supports Israeli efforts to forge peace treaties with its neighbors. This is something that is an objective good."

"On the other hand," he notes, "the administration recognizes that negotiations with Syria now have a really pernicious effect on our embattled allies in Lebanon. "First, Syrians get to rub salt in the wounds of their enemies in Beirut. Secondly, and most importantly for Damascus, any negotiations with Israel undermine international consensus for isolating Syria and undermine potentially international support for the international tribunal" investigating the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, which set the Cedar Revolution in motion.

The White House is in a precarious position, Schenker says. "It doesn't want to stand in the way of progress. But everything the Syrians are saying would suggest no deal." Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, he adds, is saying that a strategic realignment away from Iran is out of the question.

For his part, Israel's Olmert said he had no illusions about the prospects for success. "The negotiations will not be easy," he said. "It is possible that they will take a long time and involve difficult concessions."

While driven by its own complex interests, such an attitude stands in contrast with the Bush administration's ideological reluctance to meet with its foes (although it has done so with North Korea, Libya, and militant groups in Iraq). But some Israeli security and diplomatic officials express increasing impatience with Washington's policy of non-engagement. "We need you to do diplomacy, because the military option does not work," former Israeli Foreign Minister director general Shlomo Ben-Ami said at a Washington dinner in March. "It's the first time in history that my ally does not speak with our enemies. We need you to engage these parties."

Randy Scheunemann Needs to Go Anyway

Forget the almost comically obvious conflict-of-interest lobbying ties. Randy Scheunemann needs to get the boot from the McCain campaign for much more serious reasons.

Scheunemann served as president of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, a neoconservative front group created in 2002. CLI coordinated with the Bush White House to gin up public support for the Iraq war by buttressing and echoing the administration's various dubious claims about the threat posed by Saddam, and the quickness and ease of a war to remove him.

Part of Scheunemann's work for the CLI was promoting convicted embezzler and WMD fantasist Ahmad Chalabi as the "new Iraqi Ataturk," and Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress as a "government in exile." In a 2003 NewsHour interview, Scheunemann defended Chalabi's "vision" for Iraq, claiming that Chalabi was opposed for "ideological reasons" by the State Department and the CIA, who, it turns out, were precisely correct about Chalabi’s untrustworthiness.

Scheunemann also managed to convince John McCain that Chalabi was "a patriot with the interest of Iraq at heart."

That doesn't sound like the guy you want as the No. 1 foreign policy adviser to a presidential candidate. Not a lot of good judgment being shown...

Buh Bye Randy Scheunemann

This USA Today report has to be grounds for firing under McCain's new lobbying policy.

John McCain's top foreign policy adviser lobbied the Arizona senator's staff on behalf of the republic of Georgia while he was working for the campaign, public records show.

Randy Scheunemann, founder of Orion Strategies, represented the governments of Macedonia, Georgia and Taiwan between 2003 and March 1, according to the firm's filings with the Justice Department. In its latest semiannual report, the firm disclosed that Scheunemann had a phone conversation in November about Georgia with Richard Fontaine, an aide in McCain's Senate office.

Orion Strategies earned $540,000 from its foreign clients over the year ending on Dec. 1, reports show. Scheunemann also received $56,250 last year from March to July from McCain, according to campaign finance records.

The McCain campaign wouldn't answer questions about Scheunemann, except to say that McCain's new lobbying policy, which prohibits any staffer from serving on the McCain campaign while an active lobbyist, is "not retroactive."

Hagel: I Can Haz Vice Presidency?

Try to be a little more subtle about it, Chuck.

James Baker: Negotiation Is Not Appeasement

John McCain has called James Baker, former chief of staff to Reagan and former Secretary of State to George H. W. Bush, "the smartest guy I know."

I wonder how smart McCain thinks these comments from Baker are. Baker said them in October 2006, but they're increasingly relevant today.

By the way, McCain also called Brent Scowcroft, former National Security Adviser to Gerald Ford and H. W. Bush, "the smartest guy I know." Scowcroft recently took apart McCain's Cuba policy.

Carving Black Defiance in Stone

How ironic that just as the Jeremiah Wright flap is dying down, we find yet another instance of America insisting that its black folk be happy. Or, failing that, demonized and rejected.

The long awaited, hotly fought for Mall memorial to Dr. King has encountered a hitch: the Chinese sculptor commissioned for the project (and didn't that piss Negroes off!) has submitted plans for a statue which is "too confrontational" and makes King look more like "the head of a socialist state than a civil rights leader". King's not smiling (weird, since that's how we all remember him.) so King is Stalin. Please.

You see, folks, as planned, King looks like a judge, intense and determined, when he 'should' be looking all delighted, like most of those who were assassinated for being a harsh critic of a country which abused him and his people. That's why all our renderings of Washington and Jefferson show them playing hopscotch and break dancing to harpsichord music, right?

It's not like they were up to anything serious. The Root has the lowdown.

Though few will pick up on this tidbit, it goes a long way in showing, post-Wright, what America demands of its minorities—forget the past, shut up about the present, or find your patriotism in question. Sorry, but we reject that playing "don't worry, be happy" in our minds all day is the price of mainstream inclusion. What's going on here isn't even Psychology 101: the statue reflects "a genre of political sculpture that has recently been pulled down in other countries."? Saddam Hussein, Lenin and King?! White folks, please.

I'm tempted to just snicker and enjoy your discomfort at finding your wonderful selves, however implicitly, criticized but given what the white reaction to Wright has revealed, I think blacks find themselves reminded anew how tenuous our rights are to too many. Check out The New Republic's deconstruction of the racist anti-Obama email chains sullying the internet as well as the racism all too evident in West Virginia.

We remain determined to speak and petition for redress of our grievances but I have to say—y'all are scaring us right now. Which we know is exactly the point.

Murat Kurnaz Details His Plight Before House Subcommittee

Murat Kurnaz, a young Turkish citizen born and raised in Germany, traveled to Pakistan to learn more about Islam in October 2001, weeks after the September 11 terrorist attacks against the United States. In short order, arrested and held by US forces in Kandahar, and then shipped off to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Bad timing was his only crime. (See here for MoJo's coverage of Kurnaz's plight, based on interviews with German intelligence officials and exclusive documents. See here for a timeline of Kurnaz's Kafkaesque odyssey.)

By 2002, according to documents obtained by his attorneys, both the US and German governments had determined conclusively that Kurnaz was neither a terrorist, nor a terrorist sympathizer or supporter, but American military officials nonetheless refused to release him and instead held him in solitary confinement for five years. For much of that time, he was unaware that anybody in his family knew where he was or if he was alive. And for the entire stretch he was subjected to torture.

In his account before the House Foreign Affairs' Oversight Subcommittee on Tuesday, Kurnaz detailed a technique visited upon him in Kandahar called "water treatment"—a perverse twist on a more widely known technique called waterboarding—wherein the victim's head is forced into a bucket of water while he's punched repeatedly in the stomach, causing him to inhale water.

Additionally, he said, he was subjected to religious and sexual humiliation, administered unknown drugs against his will, and electrocuted via wires attached to his feet.

In a bitter irony, Kurnaz's innocence became the rationale for his continued incarceration. He was told repeatedly that he'd be held forever unless he signed a statement admitting his role in a suicide bombing that was alleged to have happened in 2003. Kurnaz was, of course, in prison in 2003, and the suicide bombing he supposedly helped to orchestrate turned out to be a fiction.

"America's adherence to the rule of law... and American values [have been] ignored. The treatment of these detainees—both in Gitmo and elsewhere—has been appalling," said William Delahunt, the subcommittee chairman.

The two committee Republicans to attend the hearing were sympathetic to Kurnaz's plight, but ranking member Dana Rohrbacher remained incredulous that the treatment he faced was anything other than an aberration. "I don't believe it," Rohrbacher intoned, suggesting that torture is not part of the military's detainee treatment policy. To support his contention, Rohrbacher noted that none of the congressmen who have visited Guantanamo—Democrat or Republican—has returned with any evidence that torture is a systemic problem.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, who sits on the House Judiciary committee scolded Rohrbacher, noting that American politicians are not allowed access to prisoners when they visit the installation, and have no other way of ascertaining how endemic the torture problem really is.

Rohrbacher's disbelief also flies in the face of scores of media and watchdog reports, which show that prisoner abuse has been a matter of policy at Guantanamo and other U.S.-operated facilities around the world for years. And on the same day as the hearing, the FBI's inspector general released a report praising the Bureau for not participating in the abusive interrogations conducted by other agencies—a direct insinuation that other agencies do indeed torture prisoners.

For his part, Kurnaz says stories like his are common among the prisoners who've been held at Guantanamo, 250 of whom remain in captivity. "Often people were released because their countries demanded it," he said. "Others remain because their countries do not."

May 20, 2008

Obama in Iowa: On His Way, But Not Without Hurdles

Reflect for a moment on how serendipitous it is that Barack Obama is where he is today. As a 46-year-old half-black presidential candidate who was a newcomer to Washington and a believer in transparency and government reform, Obama's only natural message was one of change. He and his advisers decided not to modulate or moderate that message: every sign at every stop had a single word in bold type: "Ch