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May 31, 2008

At DNC Meeting, Obama Rules

The rule-breaking Florida and Michigan primaries will count, but not as much, and not how Hillary Clinton wanted them to, the Democrats' Rules and Bylaws Committee decided Saturday in D.C. The Clinton campaign had asked that both states' delegations be seated in full, with full votes, according to the results of the states' January primaries. Instead, the 30-member RBC, citing party rules and the possibility of setting bad precedent for next primary season, voted to seat Florida and Michigan's delegates with a half-vote each.

In addition to halving the votes of Florida and Michigan delegates, the rules committee endorsed the Michigan Democratic Party's compromise 69-59 split on Michigan delegates. It was a move that especially enraged Clinton supporters. The Clinton campaign had asked for the 73 delegates it says she won in January's disputed primary, with 0 delegates going to Obama, who was not on the ballot. In Clinton's plan, the 55 remaining delegates would have been seated as "uncommitted" delegates, and would function essentially as superdelegates.

Not even the Clinton campaign's best-case scenario would have netted her enough delegates to catch Barack Obama in the delegate race. Still, today's decision, which netted Clinton just 24 delegates, was clearly a disappointment to the New York Senator's camp. But the Clinton campaign still had a choice. They could calmly but strongly express their disagreement with the decision, as Clinton adviser and rules committee member Harold Ickes did after the vote on the Florida delegation didn't go his way. Or they could cast aspersions on the legitimacy of the decision and accuse the rules committee of "hijacking" the will of the voters. That's what Harold Ickes did after his side lost the vote on the allocation of the Michigan delegates:

"I am stunned that we have the gall and the chutzpah to substitute our judgment for 600,000 voters," Ickes said. "Hijacking four delegates is not a good way to start down the path to party unity," he added. Then came the kicker: "Mrs. Clinton has instructed me to reserve her rights to take this to the credentials committee."

It could be a bluff. David Corn has speculated that Clinton may simply take a few days after the end of the primaries "to confirm that her argument to the superdelegates—choose me because I have the better chance of beating John McCain—is not carrying the day." Then, David says, she'll probably drop out. I'm sure that most of the Democratic party leaders hope that David's right. But on its face, Ickes' angry speech after Clinton's side lost the rules committee vote seems to be laying the groundwork for her to fight on in the name of fixing the "hijacking."

If Clinton does try to fight on in the name of the "fair allocation of Michigan’s delegates" that Ickes and his fellow pro-Clinton rules committee member Tina Flournoy have already called for, she'll have a very hard row to hoe. Ickes rhetoric about the committee "hijacking" the result represents a direct assault by the Clinton campaign on the legitimacy of Obama's eventual, inevitable win. It is very unlikely that party leaders like Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Howard Dean will tolerate the continuation of the campaign if it seems to be undermining the eventual nominee's legitimacy or electoral prospects. All three have expressed a desire to bring the primary race to a close well before the convention in August. Every indication is that most of the other superdelegates want to avoid a contested convention, Clinton supporters' chants of "Denver! Denver! Denver!" at todays meeting notwithstanding.

I wrote earlier that the Clinton campaign's response to today's ruling, and not the ruling itself, would be the news. And despite all the wailing and gnashing of teeth from Ickes and Co., the committee's decision has changed very little about the math of the primary race. The magic number for the nomination is now 2,118 instead of 2,026—a gain of 92—but according to Democratic Convention Watch, Obama is just 23 more delegate votes away from the new magic number than he was from the old one. At the beginning of the day, Obama needed 41 more delegates to clinch; now he needs 64.

Picking up those last 64 delegates shouldn't be a problem for Obama no matter what Clinton does. Obama is expected to pick up somewhere in the neighborhood of 41 delegates in the final three primaries, which will leave him just 23 superdelegate endorsements away from the nomination. As the New York Times has reported, that shouldn't be a problem "Democratic Party leaders like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have been leaning in recent days on the superdelegates — about or more than 200 who are uncommitted — to make up their minds and announce their decisions in the coming week," the Times says. Obama would need just slightly more than 10 percent of those remaining superdelegates to endorse him to clinch the nomination.

So today's events haven't changed the math of the campaign that much. What about the tone? Surely the Clinton campaign's vocal displeasure with the results will do great damage to the party? Actually, it probably won't.

What was most remarkable about today's proceedings wasn't how contentious they were, but how contentious they weren't. Hundreds, not thousands, of Clinton supporters protested outside. There were dozens, not hundreds, of interruptions to the proceedings. And when it came down to a vote, the two most hardline Clinton supporters, Ickes and Flournoy, could only convince 6 of their colleagues to vote against the Michigan compromise. That means at least five of the committee members who had endorsed Clinton voted for the resolution that Ickes said "hijacked" the will of the voters. All 27 committee members who were present and voting at the meeting approved the Florida solution, which halved the delegation's votes—another disappointment for the Clinton campaign. And I heard word after the meeting that the committee had the votes to pass the 64-64 split that the Obama campaign preferred for the Michigan delegates.

Today's meeting might have seemed contentious, but it basically confirmed again what everyone already knew: Barack Obama will be the Democrats' nominee for the presidency. MSNBC's Chuck Todd told it like it is:

The Democratic National Committee is not somehow controlled by the Clintons. Not by the Clinton campaign any more. We may have started this campaign believing that the Clinton campaign controlled, but this is Barack Obama's party now. He's already been winning the outside game, he now won the inside game. Yes it's true that Harold Ickes can threaten this stuff about the credentials, but [Clinton supporter] Don Fowler really did signal today by being for the Michigan compromise that, "Guys, it's over."

DNC Chairman Howard Dean opened the rules meeting with a promise of unity. "It has been a very long tough difficult campaign, but it has made our candidates and our party much stronger," Dean said. "The cynics will look for the conflict.... We are strong enough to struggle and disagree and even be angry and disappointed and still come together at the end and be united."

It may not seem obvious at first, but the outcome of today's meeting showed how the Democrats are already beginning to make good on Dean's promise.

Photo by flickr user marcn used under a Creative Commons license.

Harold Ickes Is Not Happy

It seems obvious now that there is majority support for the solution supported by the Michigan Democratic Party. That would mean 69 delegates for Hillary Clinton and 59 for Barack Obama (with each delegate getting one-half vote).

But Harold Ickes (and, by extension, Hillary Clinton) are very unhappy. "I am stunned that we have the gall and the chutzpah to substitute our judgment for 600,000 voters," Ickes said. He used the word "hijack" a lot, and said "Hijacking four delegates is not a good way to start down the path to party unity." The big news of the day was the final words of Ickes' argument: "Mrs. Clinton has instructed me to reserve her rights to take this to the credentials committee." If the crowd in the meeting room is any indication, Mrs. Clinton's supporters want her to exercise that right.

It could be a bluff. But make no mistake: if Hillary Clinton takes this dispute to the credentials committee, she'll be going to the mattresses. Most of the top leaders of the Democratic party have indicated that they do not support this process extending to the convention. If Clinton wants to go down that road, she'll face a lot of opposition.

Before the final vote, Michigan Democratic Party chair Mark Brewer got a final chance to speak in favor of the motion supporting the party's 69-59 split. He thanked the committee for its consideration and promised to work hard for the Democratic nominee.

The measure passed, 19-8.

Now it's time to wait and see how the Clinton campaign responds. If Ickes' speech opposing the motion was any indication, they won't respond well.

Denver! Denver! Denver! Denver! Denver! Denver!

The Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting is getting fairly raucous. When the motion to fully seat Florida's delegation failed, the crowd started shouting: "Denver! Denver! Denver!" The debate is being constantly interrupted by heckling. But Alice Munro, speaking in the debate over giving the Florida delegates half-votes, called for unity. After having supported the first motion, Munro said: "The world's not perfect, but it's good. What this party needs is unity." Ickes echoed her sentiments.

The motion to give the Florida delegates half votes passed with 27 yes votes.

Rules Committee Votes Against Fully Seating Florida

The RBC returned after a three-hour lunch with a motion that Florida's delegates be seated in full with their full votes. The Clinton supporters on the committee apparently forced the vote. In support of her motion, committee member Alice Huffman emphasized that the Florida Democrats were not responsible for changing the date—that was the Republican-controlled legislature.

David McDonald, who opposed the motion, agreed with Huffman that it was not the fault of Florida voters that their primary didn't count. Yvonne Gates, who also opposed the motion, said "What we were trying to do was to respect the rules. It was not the voters fault. But when you have rules, they must be followed. And if they're not followed you have chaos."

Tina Flournoy, who is one of the two most avowed Clinton support, said she planned to "strongly support" the motion although it "has no chance" of passing.

Other committee members spoke in favor and against, but it was obvious that the motion was doomed from the start. It failed, 15-12.

Remember That "Smoke-Filled Room" Everyone Told You About?

That smoke-filled room you've heard so much about is apparently where the members of the Democrats' Rules and Bylaws Committee are as of 5:30pm on Saturday. They adjourned for lunch at 3:00 and have yet to return to the meeting room. Rumors of back-room deals are flying about. We could be waiting a lot longer, too: the committee members had "5 1/2 hours of cocktails, chicken dinners, and coffee" last night, according to James Pindell. Then again, they were up until 1:30. Maybe they're just catching some collective shut-eye.

Somehow I doubt it. I'll get you more news as soon as the meeting resumes.

Clinton Rep.: Uncommitted Delegates Could Switch "In August"

Whoa there, tiger. Former Michigan Gov. Jim Blanchard, who is representing the Clinton campaign at today's Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting, just drew the first boos from the Obama people in the audience. Blanchard, discussing the uncommitted delegates that the Clinton campaign wants assigned from the Michigan primary, said that while most would probably go for Obama, they could be "switching back and forth" "in August." A not-so-subtle signal of Clinton's plans to take this to the convention, perhaps?

That's not the only controversial statement Blanchard made. He also claimed that "no one in Michigan," including "the news media" "was saying the votes wouldn't count" in January. That seems unlikely.

More when the committee comes back from lunch later this afternoon.

Obama Campaign: Primary Contest Will Soon "Come to a Close"

The Obama campaign has exhibited excellent message control throughout the primary process. Saturday's Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting was no exception. The campaign's two official representatives at the meeting, Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.) and David Bonior, a former member of Congress from Michigan, made sure to slip one telling claim into their testimony: that the primary contest will soon "come to a close." Even while they're arguing this issue out, the Obama people are still looking towards the general election.

Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) Calls Out Harold Ickes (D-Clinton)

Harold Ickes, a rules committee member and Hillary Clinton adviser, just spent 10 minutes badgering Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) in support of the Clinton campaign's Michigan position. The Clinton campaign says that it should get 73 delegates from the Michigan primary and the Obama campaign should get 0, with 55 going as uncommitted. Ickes said that the delegate allocation has to consider the principal of "fair reflection," with voters' preferences for "uncommitted" being accurately reflected. Since no one actually voted for "Barack Obama" on the ticket, that would mean Obama would get no delegates. But Sen. Levin told Ickes he had the concept of fair reflection all wrong. "You're calling for a 'fair reflection' of a flawed primary," Levin told Ickes, to massive applause. "What we're trying to do is to keep a party together so that we can win a critical state in November. And let me tell you the precedent that we set it seems to me is a good precedent if circumstances like this ever existed again. ... It's an unusual circumstance."

RBC Challenge: Michigan Has Been "Punished Enough"

Mark Brewer, the chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party, told the Democrats' Rules and Bylaws Committee (RBC) Saturday that Michigan has been "punished enough" for violating party rules and moving its primary forward. Brewer, who is also a member of the RBC, said that the Michigan Democratic party believes that its proposed 69-59 delegate split accurately reflects Democratic voter preferences at the time of the primary. His challenge is asking the committee to allocate the delegates in accordance with its proposal.

The Michigan situation is trickier for the RBC to resolve than the Florida situation is. Neither Barack Obama nor John Edwards, who recently endorsed Obama, was on the ballot in Michigan. Instead, many Obama and Edwards supporters voted for "uncommitted." The Clinton supporters on the RBC argue that the uncommitted delegates should go to the convention as "uncommitted", meaning they would function essentially as superdelegates. The Michigan Democratic Party believe the vast majority of the uncommitted delegates should be assigned as pledged Obama delegates.

Both positions have serious flaws. The Michigan party's delegate allocation is based not just on the votes cast, but also on exit polls and the party's guesses about the names on 30,000 sealed write-in ballots. It's a sort of mishmash of the available information, and it's definitely not a normal election result. The problem with the Clinton camp's position is that the votes cast also don't represent a normal election result. It was an election that was essentially Hillary Clinton vs. Uncommitted. None of the ballots in the other primary states looked anything like that.

The Obama campaign supports a third option. In their plan, the delegates for the states would be divided equally between the two candidates, 64-64. They argue that the primary was flawed (Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), who supports the Michigan Democratic Party solution, admitted as much in his testimony today). The Obama proposal says that while Michigan should still get a voice at the convention, neither candidate should get an advantage from the flawed contest.

We'll find out what the committee thinks later today.

Clinton Surrogate Says FL-MI Struggle = Civil Rights Movement

Arthenia Joyner, a Florida state legislator who is making Hillary Clinton's case to the Rules and Bylaws Committee, opened by comparing the struggle to get the Florida delegates counted to the civil rights movement and the fight against apartheid. Joyner should know; she was arrested in civil rights sit-ins and protested outside the South African embassy during the 1980s. Like Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), who testified before her, Joyner cited examples of specific primary voters who are being "disenfranchised" by the DNC's decision to strip the state of its delegates. Echoing a common theme of the morning, Joyner pointed out that it was the Republican-controlled legislature, not Florida Democrats, who moved up the state's primary date and triggered the DNC's sanctions.

"You have an opportunity right here and right now to write the people of Florida back into this election's story," Joyner said, citing the U.S. constitution and natural rights in her argument for "righting that wrong".

When asked whether she supported full votes for delegates or the alternative proposal for half votes, Joyner smiled and said: "I've been taught that when you want something, you ask for what you want.... I want it all." Laughs and applause filled the room, especially when Joyner unintentionally echoed Mick Jagger: "in life, you can't always get what you want."

Joyner's not the only Clinton supporter tacitly accepting that 50 percent may be all they get. Earlier today, Matt Drudge posted a video of Bill Clinton speaking at a private fundraiser in late April. "Probably the only option now is to seat them under our rules at half delegates," Clinton seems to say in the video. Watch:

As James Pindell has reported, the 50 percent solution is the most likely outcome of today's meeting:

After 5 1/2 hours of cocktails, chicken dinners, and coffee -- that lasted until 1:30am -- 28 of the 30 committee members generally agreed to the idea that Florida and Michigan would be given half of their delegate allotment instead of none. Less unclear is whether just half of their delegates will be seated or all will be seated, but just given half a vote each. It is also unknown what the breakdown of Clinton to Obama delegates would be for each state. Among the five members who did talk to the press after adjourning there did appear some belief that Michigan would be harder to solve that Florida since Obama's name didn't even appear on the ballot in Michigan.

As I noted earlier, it's not the outcome of today's meeting that matters. It's likely to be an anticlimax. It's the reactions to today's decision—especially in the Clinton camp—that will determine the shape of things to come.

If Clinton supporters' reactions to Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.), who represented the Obama campaign at the meeting, were any indication, the shape of things to come may be a bit of a problem. In marked contrast to Joyner's speech, Wexler's speech was regularly interrupted by boos and hisses. And that's the rub: While even Joyner and Bill Clinton acknowledge the possibility of accepting a 50 percent solution, that compromise is incredibly unpopular among the hardcore Clinton base. "Count Every Vote" shirts are everywhere inside and outside the Marriot, where the meeting is being held. The Clinton supporters are unhappy now, and no decision has even been made. We'll see how they respond after the committee rules.

Dean Calls for Unity, Hints at Pro-Obama Solution to Florida-Michigan Mess

The Democrats' Rules and Bylaws Committee (RBC) is meeting today in Washington, D.C., to decide whether the delegates from Michigan and Florida's rule-breaking primaries will count in the race for the nomination. Both states lost all of their delegates as a punishment for moving up their primaries without DNC approval. Hillary Clinton's campaign has argued that the delegates from both states should be restored in full, a move that would net her some 40-odd delegates. Barack Obama's campaign has said it is willing to compromise, but will not accede to all of the Clinton campaign's demands.

A DNC staff analysis released earlier this week seems to indicate that the RBC cannot restore more than half of Florida and Michigan's delegates—it's supposedly an "automatic" penalty. The 30-member RBC includes 13 Clinton supporters, 8 Obama supporters, and 9 people who have not committed to either candidate. So Clinton only needs the votes of 3 of the 9 uncommitted members to force a decision in her favor.

It may not matter, anyway. David Corn has already explained how this whole meeting may be a phony drama. Even Clinton's best-case scenario will still leave her well behind Obama in the delegate race. It's not the committee's ruling that will matter most here. The reactions of the two campaigns and their supporters to that decision will be the real news. If Clinton and her supporters feel cheated and press the issue after an adverse result, it could break the party apart. The threat of that conflict was the subtext to Howard Dean's opening remarks this morning.

"It has been a very long tough difficult campaign, but it has made our candidates and our party much stronger," Dean said. "The race continues to the final contests. Our work is just beginning."

"The cynics will look for the conflict.... We are strong enough to struggle and disagree and even be angry and disappointed and still come together at the end and be united."

To emphasize his point about coming together for the good of the party, Dean recounted a story from his own presidential campaign. As his 2004 run was collapsing, Dean received a midnight phone call from Al Gore, who had endorsed him. Dean said he wandered through his house, complaining to Gore about how badly he'd been treated by his own party. "Finally, Al said to me, 'Howard, this is not about you, it's about your country,'" Dean said. "At the time, nobody could have said that to me, even my wife, except for Al Gore," since Gore had the presidency "snatched" from him by the Supreme Court.

Dean's story got widespread applause, but his concluding remarks were noticeably less well received. Dean asked the committee members to consider three points, all of which seem to lean towards a pro-Obama resolution:

Dean said the first thing to consider was the need for "respecting the voters of Florida and Michigan," but "not just those who turned out to vote, but those who did not"—meaning voters who stayed home assuming the primary would not count.

Dean's second principal was respect for "the candidates and the campaigns that followed the rules." That's code for Obama.

Dean's third principal was to "respect the 48 states that did not violate the rules," which seems to imply a need for some sort of punishment for the states that did violate the rules—namely Florida and Michigan.

If Dean's three principals weren't enough to make his support for a pro-Obama resolution clear, Dean let slip his vision for the next few months. He referred to the convention as an opportunity to "showcase our nominee." He's not expecting the primary race to go to Denver. If this speech was any indication, we should expect Howard Dean and the DNC (along with Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid) to try to push Hillary Clinton out of the race if she stays in much past the end of next week. Again, it's not the outcome of this meeting that matters. The reactions matter. And this morning, Dean gave a big hint as to what his reaction is going to be, whatever way the meeting turns out.

May 30, 2008

Tracing an Iran Oil Blockade Meme

On Wednesday, Wall Street Journal opinion editors proposed a plan for a naval blockade on Iran of refined gasoline imports. But they don't say where they got the idea.

The Journal:

The Administration would do better to withdraw from this international charade and consider means by which the mullahs might be persuaded that their regime's survival is better assured by not having nuclear weapons. A month-long naval blockade of Iran's imports of refined gasoline – which accounts for nearly half of its domestic consumption – could clarify for the Iranians just how unacceptable their nuclear program is to the civilized world.

Here was Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz in January explaining the idea of thirty year Israeli intelligence veteran Shmuel Bar:

Dr. Shmuel Bar, a researcher at the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center and one of the discussion's initiators, believes that the U.S. can still prevent Iran from reaching the next stage in its program of nuclear development. In place of economic sanctions imposed by the UN, which he feels are ineffective, he proposes imposing a naval blockade on all refined petroleum products imported to Iran.

Sound familiar?

(Bar led a closed session at the Herzliya conference in January that brought together US and Israeli intelligence analysts to discuss the December U.S. National Intelligence Estimate on Iran. You can find more of his writings here).

More recently, Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert reportedly proposed the blockade idea in a meeting with House speaker Nancy Pelosi, as noted by Judah Grunstein.

On its face while not as overtly militaristic a proposal as air strikes, which some hawks advocate, such a blockade may constitute the kind of provocation that would force international conflict just the same -- which may be some of its proponents' intention. (It may also constitute an act of war.) Worth observing how the blockade idea has worked its way into Washington's public policy discourse, and paying attention to see if becomes a more frequent talking point in right leaning national security circles in coming months.

Tom Friedman Is an Insufferable Blowhard

Sorry, I know that headline degrades the national conversation and is emblematic of why bloggers get a bad rap and yada yada yada. But sometimes you just gotta say what's in your soul. And my soul just watched this video clip from five years ago today, and my soul is pissed.

I know Tom Friedman writes some decent columns and some influential books. But watch this video clip all the way through and try not to hate the man.

I can't imagine what an Iraqi citizens feels like being told to "suck on this" by Tom Friedman, and that we went to war with Iraq "because we could."

May 29, 2008

McClellan and Me: Why this White House Stonewaller Has No Right To Complain About the Press

Excuse me if I'm resentful of the attention Scott McClellan, George W. Bush's onetime presidential press secretary, is receiving for finally telling the obvious truth that the Bush White House deceived the public about the Iraq war. Though McClellan's account has punch coming from an insider, he's late to the party. Some of us made the case when it counted--back in 2002 and 2003, before the war was launched, and in the following years--and we also maintained that the deceptive measures of the Bush administration extended beyond its PR campaign for war in Iraq. Yet back then McClellan was doing what he could to thwart such efforts. Now he says the media failed to confront the Bush administration forcefully enough. Which is true. But when reporters did try, McClellan put up a stonewall. So his complaint is like that of a thief who, after pulling off a caper, gripes that the incompetent police did not nab him. This is absurd. After all, before each press briefing, did McClellan go to the men's room and use a bar of soap to write on the mirror, "Stop me before I spin again"?

Let's turn to one example of McClellan's complicity--one that I know well, for it was an instance when McClellan spoke falsely to me.

McClellan's daily press briefing on September 29, 2003, was a rough one for him. The news had broken that the CIA had requested that the Justice Department investigate the leak of Valerie Plame Wilson's CIA identity. This meant that presidential aides could end up facing criminal charges. The reporters in the White House press room were in a justified frenzy. The CIA leak episode was now a full-force scandal. (Two months earlier, I had been the first reporter to note that the Plame leak was possibly a White House crime, but in the intervening period most of the media had ignored or neglected the story.)

Much of the press briefing that day was devoted to the CIA leak investigation. Answering questions about the Plame leak, McClellan declared, "that is not the way this White House operates." (Actually, it was.) He insisted that Bush knew that Rove was not involved in the leak. (Actually, Rove told at least two reporters about Valerie Wilson's CIA connection, which was classified information.) And McClellan said that Rove told him that he had played no role in the leak mess. (Actually, as just noted, Rove had.)

I was at the briefing, but by the time McClellan called on me, all of the leak-related queries had been asked. Even though I was keen on covering that story, I turned to another matter: the missing WMDs in Iraq and the prewar intelligence. A few days earlier, the House intelligence committee had sent then-CIA director George Tenet a letter saying that there had been "too many uncertainties" in the prewar intelligence on WMDs in Iraq. I asked,

Is the White House aware of the House Intelligence letter to the CIA on prewar intelligence, and what's the reaction to it? And does the President think that he was given bad or incomplete information that ultimately led to his decision to war?

McClellan replied that the CIA stood behind its prewar assessments. He went on to say:

We knew that Saddam Hussein had large, unaccounted for stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons....Then came September 11th, the attacks of September 11th. September 11th taught us that we must confront the new, dangerous threats of the 21st century, that we can no longer wait for threats to gather and come to our shores before it's too late. The nexus between outlaw regimes with weapons of mass destruction and terrorist organizations is the most dangerous threat of our times. And we must confront those threats before it's too late.

I had the chance to follow up. A few days earlier, news reports had disclosed that Secretary of State Colin Powell, during a February 2001 press conference in Egypt, had essentially said that Saddam posed no WMD threat: "[Saddam] has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors." And I decided to ask a question referencing this report. The following exchange ensued:

Q: You just said a moment ago that: we knew there were large unaccountable -- unaccounted stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons. In 2001, in March or February, Colin Powell said there weren't, as we learned of two days ago --

McClellan: Secretary Powell went before the United Nations and said, there were.

Q: No, no, listen to this. No, no, he said, at that point, there weren't. The [Defense Intelligence Agency] produced a classified --

McClellan: That's not what he said.

Q: -- assessment in October 2002 which said: we don't have any hard or reliable information about stockpiles. And the U.N. inspectors, themselves, said they had no hard information about stockpiles. So where are you getting your information from?

McClellan: Again, I think you're mischaracterizing Secretary Powell's comments. Secretary Powell went before -- and he said, that I never said that he was not a threat. He went before....Secretary Powell went before the United Nations and presented that very case to the world and made it very clear what was unaccounted for. Secretary Powell went through an exhaustive process to back up everything that he said, talking directly with members of the intelligence community....

Q: You said, before 9/11 we knew there were accounted stockpiles. [Powell] said, there weren't.

McClellan: Before 9/11 -- I'm glad you pointed that out, because September -- and, no, that is not what he said. September 11th taught us --

Q: He said that in --

McClellan: It was well documented by the United Nations Security Council that there were undocumented stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons.

Q: That's not true....You are mischaracterizing U.N. reports.

McClellan: We're going to move on. I think I've answered this question.

McClellan, of course, had not answered the question. He had kept on insisting that Powell had not said what he indeed had said at that Egyptian press conference in 2001. Here was a journalist attempting to press McClellan on a major contradiction in the Bush administration's stance on Iraq's WMDs--in 2001, Iraq had nothing significant; in 2003, it possessed a major arsenal--and McClellan countered with a false statement and denied undeniable facts.

I was a bit flummoxed by his response. How do you deal with someone who tells you that two plus two is not four and sticks to that position? McClellan was engaged in basic stonewalling: repeating an inaccurate assertion to fend off an inconvenient question. He did this throughout his stint as press secretary, saying whatever he could to protect the president and keep the truth under wraps. He's right these days to remind us that the media screwed up bigtime by not sufficiently scrutinizing White House claims about the purported threat from Iraq and the Iraq war. But as a fellow who made the job of reporters tougher by mangling and obscuring the truth he's in no position to accuse anyone of failing the nation.

More War Profiteering, KBR-style

Believe it or not, 12 soldiers have died in Iraq by electrocution from their own faulty equipment. Like showers and power washers for vehicles. Twelve. Unless they all died on one day, something's rotten in Denmark, that is, if that's where our old pals Kellogg, Brown and Root are headquartered.

Twenty-four year old Green Beret Staff Sergeant Ryan Maseth died a protractedly painful and ignominous death not "fighting for our freedom" in the streets of Baghdad but in his own shower. CNN:

Army documents obtained by CNN show that U.S.-paid contractor Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) inspected the building and found serious electrical problems a full 11 months before Maseth was electrocuted.

KBR noted "several safety issues concerning the improper grounding of electrical devices." But KBR's contract did not cover "fixing potential hazards." It covered repairing items only after they broke down.

For 'broke down' read: killed a soldier.

Only after Maseth died did the Army issue an emergency order for KBR to finally fix the electrical problems, and that order was carried out soon thereafter.

And—aside from the human cost—how much 'extra' did fixing their own shoddy, murderous work cost us taxpayers, one wonders?

In an internal e-mail obtained by CNN, a Navy captain admits that the Army should have known "the extent of the severity of the electrical problems." The e-mail then says the reason the Army did not know was because KBR's inspections were never reviewed by a "qualified government employee."

How's that for a sweetheart deal?

Sadly, the military first gave the latest victim's family not just the run around but a heinous slap in the face as well as an insult to the intelligence of anyone older than 10—according to his mother, "the Army told her he had a small appliance with him in the shower". Please. As early as 2004, the service had issued a memo saying that, after five deaths that year alone, "electrocution was "growing at an alarming rate.""

Eight years—and seven dead GIs later—KBR is still raking it in while an exhausted grunt who just survived a firefight has to send out a recon team before indulging in one of life's few pleasures in a desert war. Too bad the Prez 'gave up' golf since he was surely doing so with KBR execs frequently. Maybe he could ask them, oh so politely, to stop killing our soldiers.

Border Harassment

On May 11, the Rio Grande Guardian reported that customs agents in the Rio Grande Valley have devised a plan to check the documents of evacuees who attempt to board evacuation buses in the event of a hurricane.

The article [no link] reads:

Anyone who is not a citizen or is not a legal resident will be held in specially designed areas in the Valley that are 'made to withstand hurricanes' said Dan Doty, a Border Patrol spokesperson for the Valley sector.

When the weather clears, of course, they'll be deported.

This incident--and with several other examples of the threat the national security state poses to civil liberties--have come to the attention of Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), who chairs the House Judiciary committee. On Friday, he brought the issue up before the Congress: "[T]he Border Patrol [has] said that they have reassessed the policy in light of last week's exercise. They told us that [their] 'primary role in such events will be the safeguarding of life. No enforcement role will be undertaken that will in any way impede the safe and orderly evacuation of any member of the south Texas population.'"

That's a slightly different tune. And unfortunately, we may only learn the Border Patrol's true intentions when a real disaster strikes.

Sen. Feinstein Kills Off False Iran Report

The office of Senator Dianne Feinstein has weighed in to kill off once and for all a false report that appeared in Asia Times earlier this week that claimed she had been briefed about planned air strikes on Iran. The report is "plain wrong," Feinstein's spokesman said.

"Sen. Feinstein has not received any briefing classified or unclassified from the administration about any plans to strike Iran," Scott Gerber, a spokesman for the California Democrat, told me today. "And we're seeking a correction to the Asia Times report."

As I reported yesterday, Asia Times ran an article Tuesday saying "Bush plans air strikes" on Iran by August: "After receiving secret briefings on the planned air strike," the outlet reported, "Senator Diane Feinstein, Democrat of California, and Senator Richard Lugar, Republican of Indiana, said they would write a New York Times op-ed piece 'within days', the source said last week, to express their opposition."

Yesterday, I reported that Senator Lugar's spokesman had called the report flat out untrue. Lugar "wasn't briefed, there's no oped," Lugar spokesman Andy Fischer told Mother Jones.

Today, Feinstein's spokesman called the report "plain wrong" and "irresponsible." He also said that the original story's writer had apparently not contacted the office to confirm or deny the anonymously sourced report.

Gerber reiterated that Feinstein, a ranking member of the Senate Intelligence committee, remains a strong advocate for pursuing diplomacy with Iran.

With the amount of misinformation and bogus rumors on this issue swirling around these days, Washington is starting to feel a bit like the Middle East. But for those who believe you can't be too paranoid about a trigger happy administration, isn't the risk of losing one's credibility crying wolf prematurely obvious?

Clinton at Rushmore: Our Soundbite Culture Paralyzes

I find this interaction sad:

Clinton stood before the four former presidents [on Mount Rushmore] and listened in as a park ranger explained some of the history. At one point, she was asked if she could one day picture herself up there. She smirked and shook her head as she contemplated whether to offer a quick soundbite.

"I …" she started to say, before throwing her hands up.

"You think Bill Clinton should be up there?" another reporter asked.

"Why don't you learn something about the monument," Clinton finally said, before walking away to greet some more tourists.

Maybe Clinton is fatigued and frustrated and beleaguered. Maybe the soundbite-hungry nature of our culture, our technology, and our media weighed so heavily on her mind she was unable to say anything, paralyzed by the fear that she would again make instant, accidental, and unwanted news.

I don't know. Whatever the reason, I'm strongly and perhaps irrationally sympathetic.

May 28, 2008

CA Gay Marriage Will Start June 17

The California state Office of Vital Records just announced that gay couples will be able to legally marry in the state starting June 17. The marriages, unless some legal impediment arises, will be valid until November, when a state-wide ballot gives Californians the opportunity to ban gay marriage. However, a poll released today showed that 51 percent of Californians approved of gay marriage, while only 41 percent disapproved. The remaining 7 percent had "no opinion."

If gay marriage stays legal in California, it may be a boon for everyone, not just the couples getting married. Gov. Schwarzenegger has already said that gay couples traveling to California to get married could provide a nice economic boost. California has the highest number of same-sex couples in the nation. If only a quarter of the 184,500 cohabiting, same-sex couples got married, it would mean 46,125 weddings. Multiply that by $27,852, the average cost of a wedding according to study by Conde Nast Bridal Group, and it would mean more than $1 billion for the state economy.

If you wanted to take things further, you could calculate in money saved by shared health care coverage, being bumped up a tax bracket on joint returns, and other similar measures, which could add up to more than $3 billion.

Gay marriage: good for the economy, bad for bigots.

The Similar Governing Philosophies of George W. Bush and Saddam Hussein

From the Politico story about Scott McClellan's new book:

Bush was “clearly irritated, … steamed,” when McClellan informed him that chief economic adviser Larry Lindsey had told The Wall Street Journal that a possible war in Iraq could cost from $100 billion to $200 billion: “'It’s unacceptable,’ Bush continued, his voice rising. ‘He shouldn’t be talking about that.'”

From the CIA's 2004 report on Iraq's WMD:

Advisory groups [Saddam] established generally assumed Saddam already had a preferred position [on issues] and commonly spent time trying to guess what it was and tailor their advice to it. More conscientious members of the Regime sought to work around sycophantic or timid superiors...

Saddam ignored his economic advisors in the Ministries of Finance and Planning with respect to strategic planning. For example, Saddam entered the Iran-Iraq war heedless of Ministry warnings about the economic consequences. He had no plan or strategy for how the war was to be financed.

Citizen's Arrest of Bolton Fails

Nothing came of this. From the Guardian:

As Bolton, a former US ambassador to the UN, ended his hour-long discussion at the Hay festival, Monbiot, who had earlier challenged him for alleged breaches of the post-war Nuremburg Principles, moved towards the stage waving a charge sheet.

But security staff, alerted by pre-publicity, intervened and bundled Monbiot out of the tent as 20 supporters chanted "war criminal" and waved placards. The comedian, Marcus Brigstocke, who tried to pursue Bolton as he left the other side of the tent, was also blocked by security staff.

How sadly anti-climactic.

FOIA Works

The federal government firmly believes in the freedom of information.

Obama, Clinton Camps Make Case In Advance of Key DNC Meeting on FL and MI

On a conference call with reporters today, the Clinton campaign made it clear what it hopes to get out of the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee (RBC) meeting scheduled for this Saturday. The meeting, which is open to the press and will be covered by Mother Jones, seeks to resolve the controversy surrounding Michigan and Florida. "Delegate allocation must fairly reflect the popular vote," Clinton delegate counter Harold Ickes said over and over. Ickes statement summarizes the Clinton position: count the popular vote percentages exactly as they were filed back in January, even though Obama wasn't on the ballot in Michigan and neither candidate campaigned in Florida, and distribute the states' delegates accordingly.

But the delegates aren't really the secret to the their plans. Obama currently leads in pledged delegates 1659-1499. If you split Michigan's 128 delegates according to the vote count (55 percent for Clinton, 40 percent for "uncommitted"/Obama), Clinton nets 70 and Obama nets 51. The rest go to also-rans, primarily Kucinich. If you divide Florida's 185 delegates exactly as the popular vote went (50 percent for Clinton, 33 percent for Obama), Clinton gets 92 delegates to Obama's 42. The rest again go to also-rans, primarily Edwards this time.

Now this hypothetical doesn't factor in the possibility that the DNC will halve Michigan and Florida's delegations as punishment for moving their primaries ahead of Party-set limits, and to ensure that states don't repeat this fiasco in 2012. Instead, it counts the delegates exactly as Clinton wants.

The pledged delegate totals are now 1752 for Obama and 1661 for Clinton. Obama's lead is still over 90. That is to say, the lead in pledged delegates is still insurmountable.

The reason for all the wrangling over Michigan and Florida's delegations lies in something communications director Howard Wolfson said on today's conference call. The Clinton campaign, Wolfson said, is seeking the "largest possible advantage in the popular vote."

If the DNC counts the delegations as the Clinton campaign wants, Clinton staffers can then say, "The DNC is counting Florida and Michigan in full. We should use their popular votes in full. And when you add their popular votes to the popular vote totals, Hillary Clinton has a untouchable popular vote lead." This is the strongest possible case Clinton can make when she calls up uncommitted superdelegates, who are still her only route to the nomination.

Alternative explanation: The Clinton campaign is refusing to consider any option other than seating the delegations fully because if the RBC doesn't give it what it wants, the campaign has another rhetorical weapon in whipping up supporters. It can play the victim card, and use the situation to raise money and sympathy should Clinton decide to appeal the RBC's decision and take the race to a convention fight. The campaign wouldn't discuss this option on the conference call. "Our focus is on Saturday," said Wolfson.

The Obama campaign held a conference call later in the day. They sounded notes of compromise. "We'd be open to something where she nets delegates," said campaign manager David Plouffe. "And not an insignificant number." The campaign said it sent word to supporters telling them not to appear in DC on Saturday in order to hold a protest or rally outside the RBC meeting. The Clinton campaign is planning such a rally. "We shouldn't turn this into a spectacle," said Plouffe. "We could produce thousands or tens of thousands of people. We just don't think it's helpful."

Plouffe was asked about the calculations above. Why not just seat the delegations in full, exactly as the Clinton camp desires, a reporter said to Plouffe. You'll maintain your lead in the pledged delegate total. "We don't think it's fair to seat them fully," responded Plouffe. He pointed out that Clinton agreed, like everyone else, to follow the rules and not honor the Michigan and Florida primaries, and only changed her mind when it became politically expedient for her to do so. He also pointed out that the Obama campaign fought "ferociously" in small states where Obama won but netted fewer delegates than Clinton will get through some sort of compromise solution on Michigan and Florida. A compromise, Plouffe suggested, was fine. A wholesale capitulation was not.

In the end, though, what the Obama campaign seemed to be seeking most was resolution. It's time to "stop arguing about this and focus on the general election," said Plouffe.

Putting a Rumor to Rest

Yesterday, Asia Times ran a story saying 'Bush plans air strikes' on Iran by August. "After receiving secret briefings on the planned air strike, Senator Diane Feinstein, Democrat of California, and Senator Richard Lugar, Republican of Indiana, said they would write a New York Times op-ed piece 'within days', the source said last week, to express their opposition," the outlet reported, adding that the oped hadn't materialized.

I chased down Senator Lugar's spokesman today who told me the story is flat out untrue. Senator Lugar "wasn't briefed, there's no oped," says Andy Fischer, spokesman for Lugar, who is vice chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Fischer said he'd been getting calls about the bogus report for two days.

Trita Parsi, the head of the pro-engagement National Iranian American Council and a former Congressional staffer, tells me he too heard the rumor of Congressional briefing on Iran, but that the whole thing "doesn’t make sense to me though." Parsi said.

Troubling (?) Webb and Obama Similarity

If you've been reading these interwebs at all, you know they are atwitter with talk of Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia becoming Sen. Obama's VP. There are all sorts of serious concerns with Webb, to which I will add only this superficial one. Here's a Webb quote from a 2006 Wall Street Journal op-ed:

The politics of the Karl Rove era were designed to distract and divide the very people who would ordinarily be rebelling against the deterioration of their way of life. Working Americans have been repeatedly seduced at the polls by emotional issues such as the predictable mantra of "God, guns, gays, abortion and the flag" while their way of life shifted ineluctably beneath their feet.

Sounds an awful lot like this famous quote:

You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.

And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

The quotes aren't exactly the same, obviously, but they seem to share a belief that working class conservatives vote the way they do because they've been blinded by social issues, instead of being rational actors who choose to prioritize social issues over their economic self-interest. Probably not something the Democrats want to double down on with their presidential ticket.

Hat tip Kos.

John Bolton to Be Target of Citizens Arrest in Wales

John Bolton, the former DOJ official and ambassador to the UN who was instrumental in taking America to war in Iraq, may face a citizen's arrest when he speaks at literary festival in Wales tonight.

George Monbiot, a columnist for the Guardian newspaper, plans on using Bolton's appearance at the Hay-on-Wye literary festival to detainee the well-known neocon. "Many people accept that the launching of the Iraq war was an international crime, but no one has yet been prepared to act on it by arresting one of the perpetrators," says Monbiot.

The director of the festival is having none of it. "The Hay Festival has sought the advice of both police and lawyers, and has been unequivocally assured that a citizen’s arrest, or an attempt to instigate a citizen’s arrest, would be completely unlawful in these circumstances," he says.

Here's Monbiot's list of charges. Considering John Bolton thinks attacking Iran is America's "most prudent" foreign policy option at the moment, it might make sense for somebody to detain him before he (har har!) strikes again. Okay, maybe that isn't funny.

It is unclear what will happen after Monbiot makes the citizen's arrest, if he is able to make it at all. We'll keep you posted.