Unprepared and incompetent

Accountability is hell for this worst-of-all administrations.

The U.S. government was unprepared for the extensive nation-building required after it invaded Iraq, and at each juncture where it could have adjusted its efforts, it failed even to understand the problems it faced, according to the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction.

In a stinging, wide-ranging assessment of U.S. reconstruction efforts, Stuart W. Bowen Jr. said that in the days after the invasion, the Defense Department had no strategy for restoring either government institutions or infrastructure. And in the years since, other agencies joined the effort without an overall plan and without a structure in place to organize and execute a task of such magnitude.

Purge scandal

The thing that is most striking about this U.S. Attorney Purge scandal is how it had nothing to do with “Democratic attacks” or “liberal media hype” as many conservatives are wont to allege. Instead, it was essentially a case of Republicans shooting themselves in the foot in their feverish rush to take partisan advantage of a juicy little nugget that had been slipped into the Patriot Act.
No president had ever before had the unrestricted power to appoint U.S. Attorneys without having to worry about making sure they will pass muster with the Senate. So in an excercise that has now come back to bite them in the ass, the Bush Justice Department set out to rank all 93 Bush-appointed U.S. Attorneys based on their loyalty and fealty to the Bush administration. Those who had shown too much independence by pursuing corruption investigations of Republicans or who failed to use their office to hound and harass local Democrats in their districts were marked for eventual ouster.
This presented immediate problems because they knew it wouldn’t look good if they cam right out and said they were firing the attorneys for political reasons. So they tried to claim it was for performance reasons only to have the affected attorneys object because of the stain that would place on their careers. Most weren’t willing to take that kind of a fall for the administration and they fought back. Democrats only got involved after the fight spilled over to a larger audience. Now the whole thing has erupted into a major scandal with Bush threatening to ignore Congressional supoenas for his top aides and a mysterious 18-day gap appearing in the flood of e-mails that the Justice Department was forced to turn over.
In the meantime, Alberto Gone-zales is toast just waiting to be cut loose once his replacement is found. Bush’s assurances that the attorney general has his full support reminds me of how the President lied when he said Donald Rumsfeld would remain his Secretary of Defense at the same time that they were flying Robert Gates to D.C. to be sworn in.

Four years and counting...

Some folks inherit
star spangled eyes,
Ooh, they send you down to war.
And when you ask them,
"How much should we give?"
They only answer "More! More! More!"

Fortunate Son - Creedence Clearwater Revival

We are asking our soldiers to fight and fight and fight in a “war” that has no end. The Bush administration never had a clear objective in mind beyond toppling Saddam Hussein and securing the Iraqi oil fields. Now they don’t know how to get us out of this quagmire and they are not sure that they want to.
There are some obvious political benefits for a Republican administration during wartime. They have an open checkbook for as much military spending as their hearts’ desire and they have a built-in excuse to ignore domestic issues like healthcare and the environment. The war also helps to overshadow and cover up a stagnant and flagging economy weighed down by the massive deficits that are being piled up due to the administration’s fiscal irresponsibility (i.e. cutting taxes when the funds are needed elsewhere).
The war helped cover up the many faults and weaknesses of the Bush presidency during the first term and helped him to squeak by for a second term.
But the 2006 midterms showed that the public’s patience is finally spent. Bush’s anemic approval ratings are dragging down his party and threatening to undermine Republican electoral hopes in 2008. Yet, for some reason Bush and company cannot bring themselves to admit error or to change course in any way in Iraq. When public sentiment clearly demanded an orderly withdrawal, Bush pressed ahead with a surge of more troops. And as before, there is no plan to ever allow the “surge” to recede. Bush will continue to demand “More! More! More!” from our soldiers until he is finally out of office. His legacy to our nation will be a thoroughly spent and exhausted military operation in the midst of a festering crisis.

Rightwing Hypocricy

I wanted to pull my hair out after reading Cal Thomas’ op-ed in the Express-News the other day. Thomas (no relation, thank God) is an insufferable high priest of the religous right and is always scolding Democrats and liberals for being tolerant of immorality.

Here he is talking about the Clinton impeachment mess back in 1998:

Democrats are in danger of becoming known as the party of adultery, kinky sex and moral relativity. Instead of cutting their losses and rebuilding their party on a foundation of integrity, Democrats risk going down with the ship and suffering titanic losses because of a debauched captain. It may take them a generation to recoup.

Now fastforward to 2007 and we see Thomas addressing the possibility that Republican evangelicals may throw their support behind serial adulterers like Rudy Guiliani and Newt Gingrich.

That substantial numbers of conservative evangelical voters are even considering these candidates as presidential prospects is a sign of their political maturation and of their more pragmatic view of what can be expected from politics and politicians. It is also evidence that many of them are awakening to at least two other realities -- (1) they are not electing a church deacon; and (2) government has limited power to rebuild a crumbling social construct.

So when Democrats were willing to support President Clinton in spite of his adultery in 1998, we were the “Party of Adultery” and were sure to suffer “titanic losses because of a debauched captain.”
But when Republicans are preparing to support their own debauched captain just a few years later, it is a “sign of their political maturation.”

The depth of the far right’s hypocricy is just mind-boggling.

Let’s Not Impeach the President

Some of my friends are adamant that we should impeach President Bush for a multitude of reasons. While I am sympathetic to most if not all of their reasoning for this from an emotional standpoint, I have to object on the simple grounds of practicality.
Right now, President Bush is extremely unpopular across the country with approval ratings stuck in the low-30s. The NYTimes just had a story the other day about the disarray in the Republican Party over this dilemma and what it will likely mean for their 2008 presidetial hopes (not good).
So, just as a matter of practicality, why would Democrats want to impeach Bush and have him replaced by someone who would come in with a clean slate (assuming we don’t end up with Cheney which would be even worse) and the chance to rebuild GOP fortunes in time for the 2008 election? Why would we want to remove this albatross from around their neck?

There was a Senate election a number of years ago, and I can’t recall which one offhand, but the Republican frontrunner was suddenly hit with a sex scandal in the midst of the campaign and his numbers fell dramatically. Suddenly, the Democrats had a great shot at a seat where they otherwise would have been uncompetitive. But then the worst possible thing happened. The Republican candidate quit. The next thing you knew he was replaced with some no-name guy who didn’t have all the negative baggage. The Democrats faltered and the GOP held onto the seat. Needless to say, I was very disappointed.
If someone can make the case that having Bush remain in office for the remainder of his term is so detrimental to the country - even after being neutered by the Democratic takeover of Congress - that it is worth the risk of losing the 2008 presidential election, then I’d like to hear it.

If we were to go forward with an impeachment campaign it would have the immediate effect of polarizing the country and this could only bolster Bush’s support by making him a more sympathetic figure. It would take the attention away from the things Democrats need to be concentrating on and make them seem no better than the Republicans who impeached Clinton. And furthermore, it would probably have the same end result - i.e. a hard-fought conviction in the House followed by an acquittal from the closely divided Senate where the Republicans would remain in lockstep and a few Liebermanesque Democrats would cross over to be the deciding votes.

Confessions

This is getting a bit ridiculous. Now we are supposed to believe that 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is responsible for personally beheading Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, in addition to plotting every single terrorist plot carried out or concieved during the past dozen years?

Perhaps this snarky post at Eschaton is not so far off afterall.

Now if we can just get him to confess that Osama bin Laden is really just his alter-ego - and show us the Osama Halloween mask he has been using all these years - then we can declare victory in the War on Terror and send everyone home.

Alberto Gonzalez won't resign

I'm embarrassed that Alberto Gonzalez is from Texas!
What a huge disappoint he has been as attorney general. And I thought that John Ashcroft was bad!
Gonzalez has been the ultimate toady for this administration and now it turns out that he can't even do that without screwing things up.

Halliburton abandons U.S.

Halliburton, the oil conglomerate once run by Dick Cheney, is moving its headquarters from Houston to Dubai.
Inquiring minds would like to know if this has something to do with dodging taxes and/or subpoenas.
Fortunately, Congressman Henry Waxman is on top of things. As is Sen. Patrick Leahy and congressional hearings will soon follow.
If the law is such that a company like Halliburton can actually avoid taxes by moving its headquarters out of the U.S. and relocating to a foreign country, that is one outrage I hope this Democratic Congress will address. It is the corporate equivalent of burning the flag and spitting in our soldiers’ faces. Let’s see some legislation to address this and then let the Republicans filibuster it or Bush veto it. But put them on record defending this kind of corporate malfeasance.

Another Supreme Court outrage

When will the madness end??

Just days after former Vice President Al Gore received an Academy Award for his global warming documentary “An Inconvenient Truth,” the United States Supreme Court handed Mr. Gore a stunning reversal, stripping him of his Oscar and awarding it to President George W. Bush instead.

For Mr. Gore, who basked in the adulation of his Hollywood audience Sunday night, the high court’s decision to give his Oscar to President Bush was a cruel twist of fate, to say the least.
But in a 5-4 decision handed down Tuesday morning, the justices made it clear that they had taken the unprecedented step of stripping Mr. Gore of his Oscar because President Bush deserved it more.

“It is true that Al Gore has done a lot of talking about global warming,” wrote Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority. “But President Bush has actually helped create global warming.”

Heh!

A surprising rebuke

Did Michael Barone really say that?

Lawmaker's Intervention in Law Enforcement Crosses Line
The emerging scandal surrounding the dismissals of eight former U.S. attorney should signify to American voters the depth, breadth, and permeation of corruptio in the Bush administration
When a U.S. senator (to wit, Pete Domenici, a New Mexico Republican) feels free to call a prosecutor at home and hang up on him for resisting political pressure in the course of executing his prosecutorial duties, the line between politics and law enforcement has been so thoroughly violated that it no longer exists.
As was revealed in Tuesday's congressional hearings on the scandal, David Iglesias described the phone call from Domenici as follows:
"He wanted to know if the [indictments] would be filed before November. ... I gave an answer to the effect of I didn't think so. ... He said, "I'm very sorry to hear that," and the line went dead, the telephone line went dead. I thought to myself, did he just hang up on me? ... He didn't call back; I didn't call back. I had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that something bad had happened, and within six weeks I got a call from [senior Justice Department official] Mike Battle saying that it was time for me to move on."
Domenici would not have made that call had either a Democrat or a law-abiding Republican been in the White House. He would not have had the temerity to throw his weight around to such an outrageous extent.
What's going on in Washington is not sufficiently removed from the routine doings of a tawdry Third World dictatorship to give any American comfort.

When normally staid, conservative lumps like Barone start sounding this shrill, something must be up!

Update
It looks like Barone really didn't say that. Somebody hacked into his web site and planted the above post.
I should have known that it would be totally out of character for a "conservative without a conscience" like Barone to suddenly be bothered by anything a Republican administration would do. Next time I hear of a conservative like Barone making sense, I'll know better than to assume that it is true.

Rightwing meltdown

It hasn’t been a very good day for “conservatives,” that’s for sure.
It started with Iraq war cheerleaders touting how “the surge” has managed to stem violence in Baghdad, only to have the story literally blow up in their faces.
Then there was all the follow-up coverage on the Walter Reed hearings. The scandal is how our injured war veterans have had to pay the price for the Bush administration’s refusal to take responsibility for adequately funding their war of choice. If you want to know what it means to try and run a war on the cheap, without raising taxes, here it is in the starkest of terms.
Next, we have the first day of hearings in the fired federal prosecutors story that I mentioned yesterday with yet more revelations of Republican lawmakers trying to pressure attorneys for partisan political advantage.
And then, of course, there is the BIG news of the day with the guilty verdict handed down against V.P. Cheney’s chief of staff in the Valerie Plame CIA Leak scandal.
And as if this wasn’t bad enough, conservatives were left with the rank day-old smell of Ann Coulter’s juvenile antics at the CPAC convention which some are trying to excise through a petition.

That was then, this is now

Does everyone remember the huge deal that Republicans made in 1993 over the so-called Travelgate non-scandal?

The White House Travel Office is in the residential section of the White House, and as such, staffers serve strictly at the pleasure of the president. Historically, a change of administrations usually resulted in a brand new Travel Office staff. Despite the established presidential privilege of replacing staffers at will, Congressional Republicans alleged that friends of President Bill Clinton, including his cousin Catherine Cornelius, had engineered the firings in order to get the business for themselves.

But a three-year investigation by the Republican-controlled House turned up squat evidence of any wrongdoing and even rabid Clinton-hater Kenneth Starr came up dry on this subject during his desperate search for dirt to use against the Clintons.

Now we have what appears to be a very real abuse of power by the Republican Party and this administration in their mass firings of U.S. attorneys across the country. The latest news reveals that a Republican Senator and a Republican Congresswoman from New Mexico may have pressured the U.S. Attorney in their state to speed up an investigation involving a Democratic state senator in hopes of revealing an indictment before the November mid-term elections (which the Republican Congresswoman just barely won). The U.S. attorney resisted, sticking with his schedule to move ahead with the case that December, and shortly thereafter he was canned.

I would not expect hypocritical Republicans to bat an eye over this issue, but I should think that the rest of the country needs to sit up and take notice. Perhaps they will when these now-former U.S. attorneys appear before a House subcommittee next week to testify about their sudden dismissals.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell

So Eric Alva, the first soldier to be injured in Iraq, - who also happens to be from San Antonio - now turns out to be gay. And he is speaking out against the military’s moronic “Dont Ask, Don’t Tell” policy.

He is the same soldier who was invited to speak at the Texas Republican State Convention in 2004. The Republicans were delighted to have their photos taken with Alva back then and to glam off of his hardships. But I’m sure they will be avoiding him like the plague now.

The policy is indeed moronic, especially during a time when our military forces are stretched to the breaking point. Consider that we are forcing soliders to rush back to Iraq for second and third tours much more quickly than they would be scheduled otherwise. That we are taking all kinds of extreme measures to bulk up our military such as lowering standards for education and criminal records and at the same time this:

Since 1993, the Department of Defense has fired more than 11,000 service members under ìDonít Ask, Donít Tell.î On average, 2 -3 people are dismissed under the law every day. According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) at least 800 of those had skills deemed ëmission-criticalí by DoD, including more than 300 linguists, of which at least 55 were proficient in Arabic.

That’s really sad. And yet the general public’s bigotry toward gay people persists unabated. Last night when one of the local TV networks ran a story about Alva they included a call-in poll question on whether gays should be allowed to serve in the military. 60 percent of respondents said no. Morons.

In the bubble

I thought this was particularly disturbing the other day.
If Laura Bush thinks there is just one bombing a day in Iraq, what does her husband think? Just how thick is that bubble they are living in anyway?

The 2008 Cakewalk

There was an amusing story in the New York Times the other day about how the supreme ayatollahs of the Christian Right are having trouble finding a presidential candidate to support in 2008.
They don’t like John McCain who once described them as “agents of intolerance.” Nor do they like the thrice-married adulterer Rudy Guiliani who is pro-choice and pro-gay rights. And they are not real happy with the Massachusettes liberal, I mean Republican, Mitt Romney either, despite his efforts to woo them.
Candidates whom they might like better such as Sen. Sam Brownback of Kan. and Rep. Duncan Hunter of Calif. don’t have a snowball’s chance in Hell of winning the nomination. So they are desperately looking for someone else to recruit into the race like South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (who would have no better chance than Brownback).
It is, I think, a hopeless cause. President Bush has thoroughly wrecked the Republicans’ chances of victory in ‘08 with his spectacular failure in Iraq, his doubling of the national debt, his incompetent bungling of the Hurricane Katrina response, and much more. It is no surprise that no one connected to the Bush administration is running for president in ‘08. Everyone knows that Cheney was never going to run, but if he had he would be toast right now as he is even more unpopular than Bush. Condoleezza Rice has probably shot her future White House chances in the foot and everyone else in the administration is too busy running for cover to consider running for higher office at this point.
The 2008 election is going to be the cakewalk for Democrats that Iraq was supposed to be for the U.S. Hilary, Obama, Edwards, Dodd - it doesn’t matter. We could nominate the proverbial Yellow Dog and win in a walk next year.
The thing that we need to be concerned about is what happens after that. The smarter Republicans have already thrown in the towel for ‘08 and are busily plotting to undermine and vilify whoever the Democratic winner is so that they will be a one-term president (i.e. Jimmy Carter) who will lay the foundation for a resurgent Republican who will have the favor of the Religious Right to triumph in 2012 (i.e. Ronald Reagan).
But I’m hopeful that we will have a repeat of a different history and that the Democratic nominee will be more like an FDR taking the reigns of government away from the failed Herbert Hoover of our time. But the battle over which of those scenarios will play out is already underway.

Al Gore gets his Oscar

I was glad to see "An Inconvenient Truth" win the Oscar for Best Documentary film last night. The groundswell of support for the film also gave Melissa Ethridge the Oscar for Best Song (However, I think Beyonce gave the best performance of a song during the Oscar ceremony).
Al Gore conducted himself well. He let the director take most of the credit for the film and then was short and concise when given the microphone himself. I thought the routine he did earlier with Leo DiCaprio was hilarious. After Leo prods Gore to make a "big announcement," Gore finally pulls out a speech that sounds like he is announcing his candidacy for president only to be drowned out by the music because his time ran out.

I thought it was interesting that just after Will Ferrell and Jack Black did a funny sketch about how comedians are never nominated for an Oscar, Eddie Murphy (who won the Golden Globe) is passed over for the Best Supporting Oscar.
It was a good night for Martin Scorsese who finally got his directing Oscar as well as Best Picture for The Departed. But Pixar's Cars definitely got robbed in the Animated Film category by the penguin movie Happy Feet.
The one other film I've actually seen this year - Pirates of the Carribbean 2 - won for Best Visual Effects.

I thought Forest Whitaker, who won for Best Actor, gave the best acceptance speech of the night. I was pulling for Leo. I think him and Tom Cruise are two of the best actors out there who still haven't won an Oscar.
I also thought Ellen DeGeneres did a pretty decent job as the Oscar Host. She wasn't gut-bustingly funny, but she wasn't irritating either. She was a comforting presense throughout the night. I did like when she tried to end the show on time only to be scolded by the producers for leaving out the most important awards categories.

The awards were distributed pretty evenly which is always nice to see. None of the top films went away empty handed. Unlike last year, I actually want to see the Oscar winner this time as well as several others like The Queen.

Books on tape

Just got back from a two-day road trip to Louisiana to attend the funeral of my sister's father-in-law. Before leaving I popped into the library to check out their books on CD section and picked up three that I have been wanting to read but haven't had time.
The fist was Jimmy Carter's "Our Endangered Values" which is an indictment of the radical, fundamentalist conservatives who have taken over our government - through their control and domination of the Republican Party.
Carter is an exceedingly decent man, a southern Baptist and Sunday school teacher who 30 years ago was considered to be a moderate, if not conservative, Democrat thus drawing the ire of the liberal wing of the Party and prompting the 1980 primary challenge by Ted Kennedy that ironically served only to weaken Carter and usher in the presidency of Ronald Reagan.
Today, of course, Carter is firmly on the liberal side as Republicans have shifted the country's political discourse sharply to the right.
Listening to the book, what struck me the most was the realization of just how intellectually shallow and faith-based the conservative movement is. The hard, cold facts of most issues are clearly on the liberal side.
Another book I picked up at the same time and which I am only half-way through listening to is John Dean's "Conservatives Without Conscience."
Dean was a protege of Barry Goldwater and legal counsel to Richard Nixon, but today he is thoroughly disgusted by what he calls the authoritarian strain of conservatism which has infected his old party like a cancer.

The British Are Leaving! The British Are Leaving!

Tony Blair finally decides it’s time to cut-n-run.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Wednesday announced plans for the imminent withdrawal of around 1,600 of his country's troops from Iraq.

Too bad it’s far too late to salvage his legacy as anything other than Bush’s lapdog. But now even Blair has had enough and is ready to pull the plug on the Iraq debacle.
Of course, they aren’t playing it up that way. They are simply doing what we should be doing - declaring victory and going home. But the level of denial among Bush supporters is so strong that they are willing to believe anything the Bush administration tells them including the wacky notion that this British Withdrawal (Is) A Good Sign.

More scientific consensus

Golly, they agree with Al Gore!

The board of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the nation's leading general science organization, yesterday issued a consensus statement declaring global climate change "a growing threat to society."
The board's statement attributes Earth's recent warming to human activity, noting: "The atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, a critical greenhouse gas, is higher than it has been for at least 650,000 years. The average temperature of the Earth is heading for levels not experienced for millions of years."
The board called for "rapidly reducing greenhouse gas emissions," warning: "Delaying action to address climate change will increase the environmental and societal consequences as well as the costs."

Perhaps they were all brainwashed by watching An Inconvenient Truth.

1980s music continued

Here is the rest of my list of great music from the 1980s picking up with the year I went to college. The first part is here.
As you can see there is a precipitous decline in the number of songs each year as we move forward in time. Why is this? Did my musical tastes stagnate over time the further I got away from my high school years? Or was there something else going on? My friend Jose Johnson maintains that the early ‘80s were an unprecedented time when multiple genres of music were experiencing a renaissance and were all crossing over into mainstream pop at the same time. Today the music market is so fragmented that it is difficult for any artist to have that kind of mass appeal.


1984
Thriller - Michael Jackson
Girls Just Wanna Have Fun - Cyndi Lauper
Footloose - Kenny Loggins
Legs - ZZ Top
Like A Virgin - Madonna
Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go - Wham
Dancing In the Dark - Bruce Springsteen
Jump - Van Halen
Panama - Van Halen
Hot For Teacher - Van Halen
All Night Long - Billy Squier
Rock Me Tonight - Billy Squier
Rebel Yell - Billy Idol
Jokerman - Bob Dylan
When Doves Cry - Prince
Pride (In the Name of Love) - U2
What’s Love Got To Do With It - Tina Turner
I Feel For You - Chaka Kahn
Against All Odds - Phil Collins
Sister Christian - Night Ranger
Karma Chameleon - Culture Club
Missing You - John Waite
Cover Me - Bruce Springsteen
Ghostbusters - Ray Parker Jr.
Let’s Go Crazy - Prince
I Want A New Drug - Huey Lewis and The News
99 Luftballoons - Nena
Owner of a Lonely Heart - Yes
The Reflex - Duran Duran
Will the Wolf Survive - Los Lobos
Valotte - Julian Lennon
Pink Houses - John Mellencamp
Don’t Answer Me - Alan Parsons Project
Somebody’s Watching Me - Rockwell
Hold Me Now - Thompson Twins
We’re Not Gonna Take It - Twisted Sister
You Might Think - The Cars
Round and Round - Ratt
Better Be Good To Me - Tina Turner
I’m So Excited - Pointer Sisters
I’m Still Standing - Elton John
Nobody Told Me - John Lennon
On the Dark Side - John Cafferty and The Beaver Brown Band
You Look So Good In Love - George Strait
Roll On (Eighteen Wheeler) - Alabama
If You’re Going To Play In Texas - Alabama
Mama He’s Crazy - The Judds
Time After Time - Cyndi Lauper
Rock You Like a Hurricane - Scorpions

1985
All She Wants To Do Is Dance - Don Henley
Sea of Love - Honeydrippers
California Girls - David Lee Roth
Walking on Sunshine - Katrina and The Waves
Relax - Frankie Goes to Hollywood
Glory Days - Bruce Springsteen
Centerfield - John Fogerty
You Spin Me - Dead or Alive
Material Girl - Madonna
(Don’t You) Forget About Me - Simple Minds
The Heat is On - Glenn Frey
Summer of ‘69 - Bryan Adams
Born in the USA - Bruce Springsteen
Money For Nothing - Dire Straits
I Want To Know What Love Is - Foreigner
We Are The World - USA for Africa
Some Like it Hot - Power Station
Everybody Wants To Rule the World - Tears for Fears
Shout - Tears for Fears
The Power of Love - Huey Lewis and The News
Life in a Northern Town - Dream Academy
One Night In Bangkok - Murray Head
Small Town - John Mellencamp
And She Was - Talking Heads
Don’t Come Around Here No More - Tom Petty
Sleeping Bag - ZZ Top
Dead Man’s Party - Oingo Boingo
Take On Me - a-ha
Raspberry Beret - Prince
If You Love Somebody Set Them Free - Sting
Does Fort Worth Ever Cross Your Mind - George Strait
Can't Fight This Feeling - REO Speedwagon
One More Night - Phil Collins
Sussdio - Phil Collins
Sun City - Artists Against Apartheid
Tonight It's You - Cheap Trick



1986
Addicted To Love - Robert Palmer
Kiss - Prince
ROCK in the USA - John Mellencamp
Walk This Way - Run DMC/Aerosmith
Walk Like an Egyptian - The Bangles
You Give Love A Bad Name - Bon Jovi
The Future’s So Bright I Gotta Wear Shades - Timbuk3
Sledgehammer - Peter Gabriel
Higher Love - Steve Winwood
Word Up - Cameo
Why Can’t This Be Love - Van Halen
Everybody Have Fun Tonight - Wang Chung
Walk of Life - Dire Straits
Rock Me Amadeus - Falco
Like A Rock - Bob Seger
Got My Mind Set On You - George Harrison
Invisible Touch - Genesis
Land of Confusion - Genesis
Amanda - Boston
The Way It Is - Bruce Hornsby and the Range
Press - Paul McCartney
You Can Call Me Al - Paul Simon
Graceland - Paul Simon
When the Heart Rules the Mind - GTR
Spirit in the Sky - Doctor and the Medics
What You Need - INXS
Manic Monday - The Bangles
Tuff Enuff - The Fabulous Thunderbirds
Diggin’ Up Bones - Randy Travis
She and I - Alabama
Honkey Tonk Man - Dwight Yoakum
Guitars and Cadillacs - Dwight Yoakum
Sara - Starship
Living in America - James Brown


1987
Livin’ On A Prayer - Bon Jovi
Fight For Your Right (To Party) - Beastie Boys
La Bamba - Los Lobos
Faith - George Michael
Big Time - Peter Gabriel
With Or Without You - U2
I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Lookin’ For - U2
Bad - Michael Jackson
Touch of Grey - Grateful Dead
Diamonds on the Souls of Her Shoes - Paul Simon
Funky Town - Pseudo Echo
Keep Your Hands To Yourself - Georgia Satellites
(I Just) Died In Your Arms - Cutting Crew
U Got The Look - Prince
We’ll Be Together - Sting
One I Love - REM
Brilliant Disguise - Bruce Springsteen
Ocean Front Property - George Strait
All My Ex’s Live In Texas - George Strait
Am I Blue - George Strait
Forever and Ever, Amen - Randy Travis
Little Sister - Dwight Yoakum
Everybody Have Fun Tonight - Wang Chung
Big Love - Fleetwood Mac
Is This Love - Whitesnake


1988
Sweet Child O’ Mine - Guns N Roses
Red Red Wine - UB40
Pour Some Sugar On Me - Def Leppard
Welcome To The Jungle - Guns N Roses
Paradise City - Guns N Roses
KoKoMo - Beach Boys
Need You Tonight - INXS
Devil Inside - INXS
The Way You Make Me Feel - Michael Jackson
Bad Medicine - Bon Jovi
Don’t Worry Be Happy - Bobbie McFerrin
What I Am - Edie Brickell and The New Bohemians
Cult of Personality - Living Color
It’s the End of the World As We Know It - REM
Don’t Believe the Hype - Public Enemy
Tomorrow People - Ziggy Marley
Simply Irresistable - Robert Palmer
Dirty Diana - Michael Jackson
Desire - U2
Don’t Be Cruel - Cheap Trick
Fast Car - Tracy Chapman
When It’s Love - Van Halen
Streets of Bakersfield - Dwight Yoakum/Buck Owens
Love Bites - Def Leppard
Handle With Care - Traveling Wilburys
Beds Are Burning - Midnight Oil


1989
Love Shack - B-52s
Bust A Move - Young MC
Paradise City - Guns N Roses
Wild Thing - Tone Loc
Funky Cold Medina - Tone Loc
She Drives Me Crazy - Fine Young Cannibals
Closer To Fine - Indigo Girls
Love In An Elevator - Aerosmith
We Didn’t Start the Fire - Billy Joel
Batdance - Prince
Stand - REM
Sowing the Seeds of Love - Tears for Fears
I Won’t Back Down - Tom Petty
One - Metallica
Straight Up - Paula Abdul
The House is Rockin’ - Stevie Ray Vaughn
Crossfire - Stevie Ray Vaughn
Cathy’s Clown - Reba McEntire
Killin’ Time - Clint Black
High Cotton - Alabama
Ace In the Hole - George Strait
OPP - Naughty By Nature
End of the Line - Traveling Wilburys

The way out

Before it disappears behind a wall, I’m posting this entire column by Lt. Gen. William Odom, Reagan’s former NSA director, because it exposes every myth about the war in Iraq and spells out precisely the course we need to take to turn a “tragic defeat into strategic recovery.”

Victory Is Not an Option
The Mission Can't Be Accomplished -- It's Time for a New Strategy

By William E. Odom
Sunday, February 11, 2007; B01

The new National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq starkly delineates the gulf that separates President Bush's illusions from the realities of the war. Victory, as the president sees it, requires a stable liberal democracy in Iraq that is pro-American. The NIE describes a war that has no chance of producing that result. In this critical respect, the NIE, the consensus judgment of all the U.S. intelligence agencies, is a declaration of defeat.
Its gloomy implications -- hedged, as intelligence agencies prefer, in rubbery language that cannot soften its impact -- put the intelligence community and the American public on the same page. The public awakened to the reality of failure in Iraq last year and turned the Republicans out of control of Congress to wake it up. But a majority of its members are still asleep, or only half-awake to their new writ to end the war soon.
Perhaps this is not surprising. Americans do not warm to defeat or failure, and our politicians are famously reluctant to admit their own responsibility for anything resembling those un-American outcomes. So they beat around the bush, wringing hands and debating "nonbinding resolutions" that oppose the president's plan to increase the number of U.S. troops in Iraq.
For the moment, the collision of the public's clarity of mind, the president's relentless pursuit of defeat and Congress's anxiety has paralyzed us. We may be doomed to two more years of chasing the mirage of democracy in Iraq and possibly widening the war to Iran. But this is not inevitable. A Congress, or a president, prepared to quit the game of "who gets the blame" could begin to alter American strategy in ways that will vastly improve the prospects of a more stable Middle East.
No task is more important to the well-being of the United States. We face great peril in that troubled region, and improving our prospects will be difficult. First of all, it will require, from Congress at least, public acknowledgment that the president's policy is based on illusions, not realities. There never has been any right way to invade and transform Iraq. Most Americans need no further convincing, but two truths ought to put the matter beyond question:

First, the assumption that the United States could create a liberal, constitutional democracy in Iraq defies just about everything known by professional students of the topic. Of the more than 40 democracies created since World War II, fewer than 10 can be considered truly "constitutional" -- meaning that their domestic order is protected by a broadly accepted rule of law, and has survived for at least a generation. None is a country with Arabic and Muslim political cultures. None has deep sectarian and ethnic fissures like those in Iraq.
Strangely, American political scientists whose business it is to know these things have been irresponsibly quiet. In the lead-up to the March 2003 invasion, neoconservative agitators shouted insults at anyone who dared to mention the many findings of academic research on how democracies evolve. They also ignored our own struggles over two centuries to create the democracy Americans enjoy today. Somehow Iraqis are now expected to create a constitutional order in a country with no conditions favoring it.
This is not to say that Arabs cannot become liberal democrats. When they immigrate to the United States, many do so quickly. But it is to say that Arab countries, as well as a large majority of all countries, find creating a stable constitutional democracy beyond their capacities.

Second, to expect any Iraqi leader who can hold his country together to be pro-American, or to share American goals, is to abandon common sense. It took the United States more than a century to get over its hostility toward British occupation. (In 1914, a majority of the public favored supporting Germany against Britain.) Every month of the U.S. occupation, polls have recorded Iraqis' rising animosity toward the United States. Even supporters of an American military presence say that it is acceptable temporarily and only to prevent either of the warring sides in Iraq from winning. Today the Iraqi government survives only because its senior members and their families live within the heavily guarded Green Zone, which houses the U.S. Embassy and military command.

As Congress awakens to these realities -- and a few members have bravely pointed them out -- will it act on them? Not necessarily. Too many lawmakers have fallen for the myths that are invoked to try to sell the president's new war aims. Let us consider the most pernicious of them.

1) We must continue the war to prevent the terrible aftermath that will occur if our forces are withdrawn soon.

Reflect on the double-think of this formulation. We are now fighting to prevent what our invasion made inevitable! Undoubtedly we will leave a mess -- the mess we created, which has become worse each year we have remained. Lawmakers gravely proclaim their opposition to the war, but in the next breath express fear that quitting it will leave a blood bath, a civil war, a terrorist haven, a "failed state," or some other horror. But this "aftermath" is already upon us; a prolonged U.S. occupation cannot prevent what already exists.

2) We must continue the war to prevent Iran's influence from growing in Iraq.

This is another absurd notion. One of the president's initial war aims, the creation of a democracy in Iraq, ensured increased Iranian influence, both in Iraq and the region. Electoral democracy, predictably, would put Shiite groups in power -- groups supported by Iran since Saddam Hussein repressed them in 1991. Why are so many members of Congress swallowing the claim that prolonging the war is now supposed to prevent precisely what starting the war inexorably and predictably caused? Fear that Congress will confront this contradiction helps explain the administration and neocon drumbeat we now hear for expanding the war to Iran.
Here we see shades of the Nixon-Kissinger strategy in Vietnam: widen the war into Cambodia and Laos. Only this time, the adverse consequences would be far greater. Iran's ability to hurt U.S. forces in Iraq are not trivial. And the anti-American backlash in the region would be larger, and have more lasting consequences.

3) We must prevent the emergence of a new haven for al-Qaeda in Iraq.

But it was the U.S. invasion that opened Iraq's doors to al-Qaeda. The longer U.S. forces have remained there, the stronger al-Qaeda has become. Yet its strength within the Kurdish and Shiite areas is trivial. After a U.S. withdrawal, it will probably play a continuing role in helping the Sunni groups against the Shiites and the Kurds. Whether such foreign elements could remain or thrive in Iraq after the resolution of civil war is open to question. Meanwhile, continuing the war will not push al-Qaeda outside Iraq. On the contrary, the American presence is the glue that holds al-Qaeda there now.

4) We must continue to fight in order to "support the troops."

This argument effectively paralyzes almost all members of Congress. Lawmakers proclaim in grave tones a litany of problems in Iraq sufficient to justify a rapid pullout. Then they reject that logical conclusion, insisting we cannot do so because we must support the troops. Has anybody asked the troops?
During their first tours, most may well have favored "staying the course" -- whatever that meant to them -- but now in their second, third and fourth tours, many are changing their minds. We see evidence of that in the many news stories about unhappy troops being sent back to Iraq. Veterans groups are beginning to make public the case for bringing them home. Soldiers and officers in Iraq are speaking out critically to reporters on the ground.
But the strangest aspect of this rationale for continuing the war is the implication that the troops are somehow responsible for deciding to continue the president's course. That political and moral responsibility belongs to the president, not the troops. Did not President Harry S. Truman make it clear that "the buck stops" in the Oval Office? If the president keeps dodging it, where does it stop? With Congress?

Embracing the four myths gives Congress excuses not to exercise its power of the purse to end the war and open the way for a strategy that might actually bear fruit.
The first and most critical step is to recognize that fighting on now simply prolongs our losses and blocks the way to a new strategy. Getting out of Iraq is the pre-condition for creating new strategic options. Withdrawal will take away the conditions that allow our enemies in the region to enjoy our pain. It will awaken those European states reluctant to collaborate with us in Iraq and the region.
Second, we must recognize that the United States alone cannot stabilize the Middle East.
Third, we must acknowledge that most of our policies are actually destabilizing the region. Spreading democracy, using sticks to try to prevent nuclear proliferation, threatening "regime change," using the hysterical rhetoric of the "global war on terrorism" -- all undermine the stability we so desperately need in the Middle East.
Fourth, we must redefine our purpose. It must be a stable region, not primarily a democratic Iraq. We must redirect our military operations so they enhance rather than undermine stability. We can write off the war as a "tactical draw" and make "regional stability" our measure of "victory." That single step would dramatically realign the opposing forces in the region, where most states want stability. Even many in the angry mobs of young Arabs shouting profanities against the United States want predictable order, albeit on better social and economic terms than they now have.

Realigning our diplomacy and military capabilities to achieve order will hugely reduce the numbers of our enemies and gain us new and important allies. This cannot happen, however, until our forces are moving out of Iraq. Why should Iran negotiate to relieve our pain as long as we are increasing its influence in Iraq and beyond? Withdrawal will awaken most leaders in the region to their own need for U.S.-led diplomacy to stabilize their neighborhood.
If Bush truly wanted to rescue something of his historical legacy, he would seize the initiative to implement this kind of strategy. He would eventually be held up as a leader capable of reversing direction by turning an imminent, tragic defeat into strategic recovery.
If he stays on his present course, he will leave Congress the opportunity to earn the credit for such a turnaround. It is already too late to wait for some presidential candidate for 2008 to retrieve the situation. If Congress cannot act, it, too, will live in infamy.

William E. Odom, a retired Army lieutenant general, was head of Army intelligence and director of the National Security Agency under Ronald Reagan. He served on the National Security Council staff under Jimmy Carter. A West Point graduate with a PhD from Columbia, Odom teaches at Yale and is a fellow of the Hudson Institute.

Dixie Chicks sweep Grammies!

Wow. You know it’s going to be a bad next few years for conservatives.
The Dixie Chicks swept the Grammies last night taking all five of the awards they were nominated for including best album and best record of the year.
No. 1 Chicks fan Atrios has the video link here.
It is very likely that we will soon see Al Gore win an Oscar for his remarkable film An Inconvenient Truth.
And all of this just a couple of months after Republicans got spanked in the 2006 mid-terms losing control of both the House and Senate. Bush’s popularity is at an all-time low, the war in Iraq is the quagmire that every level-headed American said it would be, the deficit is out of control due to Bush’s fiscally irresponsible tax cuts for the rich (just as every level-headed American predicted it would be). And on and on.
Who would have thought that just a few years after the Dixie Chicks got trashed for mouthing off about Bush, that they would be back on top of the world and Bush would be in the doghouse.

1980s music

I was born in the mid-’60s so I pretty much missed out on that decade musically. I was a child of the ‘70s and got my first real taste of music during that period. But the ‘80s is where my musical tastes matured and where it still seems to be anchored.
I was looking at the Billboard charts for the most recent years and I can barely identify many of the performers much less claim to have even heard the music. It’s really sad. Was the music better back in the ‘80s or is that just the way it is with everyone - that they tend to like the music they heard in high school/college and pretty much stick with that?
Today when I go to the mall or a restaurant I am liable to here piped in music playing the hits of the ‘80s. I realize what is going on. They are targeting my demographic group because we are now at the age where we have most of the spending power. But I can’t help but think at these times that the music from that period was just better in some ways.
Here are the songs that I think were the best from my high school years starting in 1980 through 1983:

1980
Another One Bites the Dust - Queen
You Shook Me All Night Long - AC/DC
What I Like About You - Romantics
Call Me - Blondie
Whip It - Devo
Another Brick in the Wall - Pink Floyd
Crazy Little Thing Called Love - Queen
It’s Still Rock and Roll To Me - Billy Joel
Hit Me With Your Best Shot - Pat Benatar
Brass in Pocket - The Pretenders
(Just Like) Starting Over - John Lennon
Coming Up - Paul McCartney
Master Blaster (Jammin) - Stevie Wonder
You May Be Right - Billy Joel
Hungry Heart - Bruce Springsteen
Cars - Gary Numan
I Love A Rainy Night - Eddie Rabbit
Coward of the County - Kenny Rogers
My Sharona - The Knack
Stomp - Brothers Johnson
Magic - Olivia Newton John
Emotional Rescue - Rolling Stones
Drivin’ My Life Away - Eddie Rabbit
Sailing - Christopher Cross
I Can’t Tell You Why - The Eagles
Lookin’ For Love - Johnny Lee
Don’t Do Me Like That - Tom Petty
Refugee - Tom Petty
Tennessee River - Alabama
On the Road Again - Willie Nelson
Good Ol’ Boys (Dukes of Hazzard Theme) - Waylon Jennings
Smokey Mountain Rain - Ronnie Milsap
Don't Stand So Close To Me - The Police
De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da - The Police
Crazy Train - Ozzy Osborne
Ant Music - Adam Ant
Fame - Irene Cara
Could I Have This Dance - Anne Murray
Turning Japanese - The Vapors



1981
Start Me Up - Rolling Stones
Jessie’s Girl - Rick Springfield
Love Is Alright Tonight - Rick Springfield
Waiting For A Girl Like You - Foreigner
Don’t Stand So Close To Me - The Police
Back in Black - AC/DC
Elvira - Oak Ridge Boys
Super Freak - Rick James
Don’t Stop Believin’ - Journey
Our Lips Are Sealed - The Go Go’s
Urgent - Foreigner
The Stroke - Billy Squier
Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic - The Police
Spirits in the Material World - The Police
Invisible Sun - The Police
The Waiting - Tom Petty
Woman - John Lennon
Watching the Wheels - John Lennon
Keep On Loving You - REO Speedwagon
Take It On the Run - REO Speedwagon
Physical - Olivia Newton John
All Those Years Ago - George Harrison
Celebration - Kool and the Gang
Bette Davis Eyes - Kim Carnes
Once In A Lifetime - Talking Heads
Under Pressure - Queen/David Bowie
Bad to the Bone - George Thorogood
Abacab - Genesis
You Make My Dreams - Hall and Oates
Private Eyes - Hall and Oates
Shake It Up - The Cars
Rapture - Blondie
Tempted - Squeeze
Arthur’s Theme (Best That You Can Do) - Christopher Cross
America - Neil Diamond
Too Much Time On My Hands - Styx
You Better You Bet - The Who
Old Flame - Alabama
Feels So Right - Alabama
Love In the First Degree - Alabama
9 to 5 - Dolly Parton
Texas Women - Hank Williams Jr.
Unwound - George Strait
Kiss On My List - Hall and Oates
For Your Eyes Only - Sheena Easton
Angel in the Morning - Juice Newton
Queen of Hearts - Juice Newton
The River - Bruce Springsteen
All My Rowdy Friends Have Settled Down - Hank Williams Jr.
Louisiana Saturday Night - Mel McDaniel


1982
Mickey - Toni Basil
Maneater - Hall and Oates
I’m So Excited - Pointer Sisters
We Got the Beat - The Go Gos
Eye of the Tiger - Survivor
I Love Rock and Roll - Joan Jett and The Blackhearts
Jack and Diane - John Mellencamp
Hurt So Good - John Mellencamp
Working For the Weekend - Loverboy
Lucky Ones - Loverboy
Tainted Love - Soft Cell
Get Down On It - Kool & the Gang
Who Can It Be Now - Men at Work
Rock This Town - Stray Cats
Don’t You Want Me - Human League
Centerfold - J. Geils Band
Freeze Frame - J. Geils Band
Always On My Mind - Willie Nelson
I Can’t Go For That - Hall and Oates
867-5309 (Jenny Jenny) - Tommy Tutone
I Ran - A Flock of Seagulls
Abracadabra - Steve Miller Band
You Got Lucky - Tom Petty
Steppin’ Out - Joe Jackson
Ebony and Ivory - Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder
Take It Away - Paul McCartney
Tom Sawyer - Rush
Red Barchetta - Rush
Juke Box Hero - Foreigner
She’s Tight - Cheap Trick
If You Want My Love - Cheap Trick
Heat of the Moment - Asia
Only Time Will Tell - Asia
Goody Two Shoes - Adam Ant
I Want Candy - Bow Wow Wow
Hold Me - Fleetwood Mac
Love Plus One - Haircut 100
The Look of Love - ABC
Black Coffee in Bed - Squeeze
Rock the Casbah - The Clash
Twilight Zone - Golden Earring
Allentown - Billy Joel
Goodnight Saigon - Billy Joel
Our House - Madness
Only the Lonely - The Motels
Shakin’ - Eddie Money
It’s Raining Again - Supertramp
Rosanna - Toto
I Can’t Go For That (No Can Do) - Hall and Oates
Pass the Dutchie - Musical Youth
Africa - Toto
Words - Missing Persons
Kids In America - Kim Wilde
Shake It Up - The Cars
Chariots of Fire - Vangelis
You Can Do Magic - America
Think I’m In Love - Eddie Money
Do You Believe In Love - Huey Lewis and The News
Mountain Music - Alabama
Take Me Down - Alabama
Close Enough To Perfect - Alabama
Always On My Mind - Willie Nelson
Fool Hearted Memory - George Strait
I Will Always Love You - Dolly Parton
A Country Boy Can Survive - Hank Williams Jr.
Listen To the Radio - Don Williams
Up the Ladder to the Roof - The Nylons
Shock the Monkey - Peter Gabriel
Open Arms - Journey
You've Got Another Thing Coming - Judas Priest



1983
Billie Jean - Michael Jackson
Beat It - Michael Jackson
1999 - Prince
Little Red Corvette - Prince
Come On Eileen - Dexy’s Midnight Runners
Flashdance (What a Feeling) - Irene Cara
Rock of Ages - Def Leppard
White Wedding - Billy Idol
Uptown Girl - Billy Joel
Electric Avenue - Eddie Grant
Sharp Dressed Man - ZZ Top
Got Me Under Pressure - ZZ Top
Let’s Dance - David Bowie
Modern Love - David Bowie
Every Breath You Take - The Police
King of Pain - The Police
She Blinded Me With Science - Thomas Dolby
Everybody Wants You - Billy Squier
New Year’s Day - U2
Jeopardy - Greg Kihn Band
Down Under - Men at Work
Safety Dance - Men Without Hats
Do You Really Want To Hurt Me - Culture Club
Burning Down the House - Talking Heads
Radio Free Europe - REM
Tell Her About It - Billy Joel
One Thing Leads To Another - The Fixx
Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) - Eurythmics
Say Say Say - Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson
True - Spandau Ballet
Back on the Chain Gang - The Pretenders
She’s A Beauty - The Tubes
In A Big Country - Big Country
Hungry Like the Wolf - Duran Duran
You Can’t Hurry Love - Phil Collins
Der Kommissar - After the Fire
Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’ - Michael Jackson
Affair of the Heart - Rick Springfield
Come Dancing - The Kinks
I’m Still Standing - Elton John
Always Something There To Remind Me - Naked Eyes
Marina Del Ray - George Strait
Amarillo By Morning - George Strait
The Closer You Get - Alabama
Swingin’ - John Anderson
I've Got a Rock-n-Roll Heart - Eric Clapton


Next up, the college years.

Who really supports the troops?

Now we’ve had two Express-News columnists take shots at a Washington Post blogger William Arkin for his post last week in which he referred to U.S. troops in Iraq as “mercenaries” in the midst of berating some of them for expressing their dismay that so many Americans disapprove of their mission.

First, Jonathan Gurwitz calls Arkin an “ungrateful jerk” for writing such “garbage.”
Then the next day, Ken Allard chimes in saying that his former NBC colleague had “slipped the surly bonds of sensibility.”

Both comments were fair, in my opinion. Arkin was flooded with more than 900 e-mails in response to the blog post to which he responds here.
But what upsets me is that neither Gurwitz nor Allard stopped with just bashing Mr. Arkin. They carried it over to bash everyone who is critical of the war in Iraq.

Gurwitz was the most blunt, stating outright that — “There is inherent tension in the concept of opposing the war in Iraq but supporting the troops.”
This is wrong on so many levels I’m not sure where to begin, but let me start with my initial gut-level response. I think it is people who are the most die-hard supporters of this war who have the most explaining to do about how they are supposedly “supporting the troops.”
People such as myself who criticized the war from Day 1 and who argued that Iraq did not pose an imminent threat necessitating a pre-emptive attack, invasion and occupation of the country, have been proven absolutely right. Our military is supposed to protect our national interests, not used as a pawn to advance the current administration’s political goals.
This administration sent our troops into Iraq based on outlandishly unrealistic expectations that it would all be over in a matter of months, if not weeks. They ignored the advice of military leaders who said we needed more troops. They did not provide the troops with adequate body armor and protective gear. And yet, four years later those of us who want to bring the troops home ASAP are accused of not supporting the troops. While those who insist that we leave our troops in the midst of a chaotic Civil War indefinitely are supposed to have our troops’ best interests at heart.

Global Warming: Believe It!

How’s that for a great slogan? The latest mega-scientific report confirms what we already know: That global warming is real, it’s not going away anytime soon, and it is definitely man-made.

A panel of international scientists predicted Friday that global warming will continue for centuries no matter how much people control pollution, in a bleak report that blamed humans for killer heat waves, devastating droughts and stronger storms.
The report said people were "very likely" the cause of global warming - the strongest conclusion to date - and placed the burden on governments to take action.

So Al Gore was right all along. But then we already knew that anyway.

Quagmire confirmed

The latest National Intelligence Estimate paints a most dismal picture of the situation in Iraq. It’s no wonder the Bush administration has kept the report underwraps until after the mid-term elections - not that it helped them any.

Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence has become the primary source of conflict in the war-ravaged nation and Iraqi leaders will be "hard-pressed to achieve sustained political reconciliation" in the next 18 months, according to a summary of the National Intelligence Estimate released Friday.

The only reason they are not calling it a Civil War is because that term is apparently too simplistic to describe the free-for-all shoot-em-up that we are caught in the middle of.

The summary said that "civil war" is too simple a moniker to describe the situation because the violence includes "extensive Shia-on-Shia violence, al Qaeda [in Iraq] and Sunni insurgent attacks on coalition forces and widespread criminally motivated violence."

The report then goes on to say that we can’t leave:

Taking U.S. forces out of Iraq is not an option, the report said, noting that "rapid withdrawal" of troops "would lead to further deterioration."
The summary said that such a withdrawal would cripple the Iraqi army, intensify Sunni resistance, perpetuate the creation of an al Qaeda state in Anbar province, west of Baghdad, and stoke overall violence.

That’s the definition of a quagmire, isn’t it? We are stuck in a rotten situation and can’t get out?
The whole reason we went over there was to stabilize a major oil producing region. (WMDs and 9/11 was just the cover story - total B.S.) And now that effort has collapsed and now we have a situation that would be 10 times worse than if we had just left Saddam in charge of everything.

Personally, I think we have no choice but to pull out anyway. I don’t believe things are going to get better the longer we stay. The only question is will they get worse slowly over time, or get worse very rapidly when we pull out. Either way I think the country is going to have to hit bottom before it can start to bounce back.

Shrill but true

My sister-in-law sent me this link to a post at Daily Kos that gives a good summary of how we were duped into launching the Iraq debacle.
I don’t usually link to articles that come across this shrill, but in this case I have to make an exception. As shrill as it may sound, it is the truth. The way the Bush administration connived to steer us into this war is nothing short of criminal and the article linked above gives a good explanation of how it was done.

Molly Ivins 1944-2007

This is how I will always remember Molly Ivins. It’s the picture they used for her Fort Worth Star Telegram columns when I was in college. I thought she was pretty cute.
It seems like she went pretty fast, but she had been battling breast cancer since 1999 and put up a heck of a good fight. I can’t believe we’ve lost Ann Richards and Molly so close together. There is a huge void on the Texas Left today that I hope will be quickly filled.
The Texas Observer has a nice tribute to Molly, as you would expect. The obit in the Washington Post was written by former San Antonio Express-Newsman Joe Holley. And here is the version from the A.P.
In her final column she threw down the guantlet on getting our troops out of harm’s way in Iraq.

Update

Paul Krugman had an excellent tribute to Molly Ivins in the NYTimes today.
I’ve pasted excerpts below:

"...obituaries that mostly stressed her satirical gifts missed the main point. Yes, she liked to poke fun at the powerful, and was very good at it. But her satire was only the means to an end: holding the powerful accountable.

She explained her philosophy in a stinging 1995 article in Mother Jones magazine about Rush Limbaugh. “Satire ... has historically been the weapon of powerless people aimed at the powerful,” she wrote. “When you use satire against powerless people ... it is like kicking a cripple.”

Molly never lost sight of two eternal truths: rulers lie, and the times when people are most afraid to challenge authority are also the times when it’s most important to do just that. And the fact that she remembered these truths explains something I haven’t seen pointed out in any of the tributes: her extraordinary prescience on the central political issue of our time.

I’ve been going through Molly’s columns from 2002 and 2003, the period when most of the wise men of the press cheered as Our Leader took us to war on false pretenses, then dismissed as “Bush haters” anyone who complained about the absence of W.M.D. or warned that the victory celebrations were premature. Here are a few selections:

Nov. 19, 2002: “The greatest risk for us in invading Iraq is probably not war itself, so much as: What happens after we win? ... There is a batty degree of triumphalism loose in this country right now.”

Jan. 16, 2003: “I assume we can defeat Hussein without great cost to our side (God forgive me if that is hubris). The problem is what happens after we win. The country is 20 percent Kurd, 20 percent Sunni and 60 percent Shiite. Can you say, ‘Horrible three-way civil war?’ ”

July 14, 2003: “I opposed the war in Iraq because I thought it would lead to the peace from hell, but I’d rather not see my prediction come true and I don’t think we have much time left to avert it. That the occupation is not going well is apparent to everyone but Donald Rumsfeld. ... We don’t need people with credentials as right-wing ideologues and corporate privatizers — we need people who know how to fix water and power plants.”

Oct. 7, 2003: “Good thing we won the war, because the peace sure looks like a quagmire. ...

“I’ve got an even-money bet out that says more Americans will be killed in the peace than in the war, and more Iraqis will be killed by Americans in the peace than in the war. Not the first time I’ve had a bet out that I hoped I’d lose.”

So Molly Ivins — who didn’t mingle with the great and famous, didn’t have sources high in the administration, and never claimed special expertise on national security or the Middle East — got almost everything right. Meanwhile, how did those who did have all those credentials do?

With very few exceptions, they got everything wrong. They bought the obviously cooked case for war — or found their own reasons to endorse the invasion. They didn’t see the folly of the venture, which was almost as obvious in prospect as it is with the benefit of hindsight. And they took years to realize that everything we were being told about progress in Iraq was a lie.

Was Molly smarter than all the experts? No, she was just braver. The administration’s exploitation of 9/11 created an environment in which it took a lot of courage to see and say the obvious.

Molly had that courage; not enough others can say the same.

And it’s not over. Many of those who failed the big test in 2002 and 2003 are now making excuses for the “surge.” Meanwhile, the same techniques of allegation and innuendo that were used to promote war with Iraq are being used to ratchet up tensions with Iran.

Now, more than ever, we need people who will stand up against the follies and lies of the powerful. And Molly Ivins, who devoted her life to questioning authority, will be sorely missed."

Molly Ivins' battle

I am distraught today after reading that Molly Ivins is battling breast cancer. Her prognosis does not appear to be good.

Ivins, 62, completed a round of radiation treatment in August, but the cancer "came back with a vengeance," and has spread through her body

This just isn't right. She's only 62 for crying out loud. She should at least live into her 80s like Art Buchwald did.
I've been a fan of Ivins since I was in college. I went to see her give a talk at the College Station Unitarian Church sometime around 1987-88. When her first book came out in 1991 (Molly Ivins Can't Say That, Can She?) I ordered an autographed copy from an Austin bookstore. When her latest book came out in 2003 (Bushwhacked) I went to a book signing appearance she made here in San Antonio and stood in line for an hour to get it autographed as well.

I hope she pulls through this and continues to write her columns. It would be a shame is she has to check out while George Worst.President.Ever Bush is still in office or while his Iraq debacle continues to drag on. But at least she got to see the 2006 butt kicking he and the Republicans got and the promise of more to come in 2008. If there is one thing I learned from reading Molly Ivins, it was to never give up hope.

Another defector

Recently they lost Oliver North, and then it was Sen. John Warner. Now they’ve lost Toby Keith!
What are the war supporters going to do?!?

Liberal canon

Atrio has put together a list of books that he believes should make up the “canon” for today’s angry liberals who came of age during the Clinton years.

To his list I would add:
“Endless Enemies: The Making of an Unfriendly World” by Jonathan Kwitny.

”Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media” by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky.

“Rise of the Counter Establishment: From Conservative Ideology to Political Power” by Sidney Blumenthal.

And, of course, the classic:
“Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot: And Other Observations” by Al Franken.

Scooter the Scapegoat

The CIA leak trial looks like it could get pretty interesting.
The prosecution is pointing the finger at Vice President Dick Cheney, while the defense is claiming that Scooter Libby is being used as a scapegoat by the White House to protect Karl Rove.
I say nail them all!
There has even been speculation since the trial opened that Cheney might be forced to resign as a result of the allegations being leveled by the prosecution. Is that possible? Perhaps. Few people would have believed just two short years ago that Tom DeLay would be indicted and out on his rear today (with a Democrat taking over his House seat and Nancy Pelosi in the Speaker’s chair). So who knows? This trial couldn’t be happening at a worse time for the White House.

Me and Bush

Yes, that’s me interviewing then Gov. George W. Bush during one of his many trips to Lubbock. I was the City Hall/Politics reporter for the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal during that time 1995-2000 and got to interview Bush on multiple occasions. This picture was snapped by one of our staff photographers who gave me a copy afterwards.
I think this was about 1998-99, the time when I was asking the governor to react to that day’s news that his then-75-year-old father had just went skydiving. He had some clever response, but I don’t recall it offhand. If it looks like I’m not taking notes, that’s because I have my tape recorder going.
This would be a hard picture to get today, I imagine, unless you have about $10,000 to donate to the Republican National Committee.

Oscar nominations

Congratulations to local San Antonionian Jackie Earle Haley on getting an Oscar nomination for his performance in the film “Little Children.” Haley runs a production company here in the Alamo City.
This marks a major comeback for an actor who had essentially dropped out of the movie business in the early 1990s. Haley may not seem familiar today, but you probably know his best for his 1976 role as the motorcycle riding, badass-kid from the “Bad News Bears” films. Or perhaps you might remember him from the 1979 Oscar-winning film “Breaking Away” that also launched Houstonian Dennis Quaid’s acting career.
His story probably won’t get as much play as the other Comeback Kid - Peter O’Toole, who got a best actor nod after being off the Oscar radar screen for 24 years. But it’s a great story nevertheless.
There is not much else I can say about the Oscar nominations this year. I've seen just two of the nominated films so far: "Cars" - which is up for Best Animated film and Best Original Song; and "Pirates of the Caribbean 2" which got nominated for Best Art Direction, Best Sound, Best Sound Editing and Best Visual Effects.
I would note that Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" was nominated in the Best Documentary category and I hope to see that film soon.

Supreme confusion

Supreme Court watchers must be baffled by by this latest 6-3 decision. The ideological boundaries of the court are in complete disarray with this ruling that has liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginzburg authoring the majority opinion backed by fellow liberals John Paul Stevens and David Souter, but also backed by conservative Chief Justice John Roberts and arch-conservative stalwarts Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.
Meanwhile, the three dissenters include liberal Justice Stephen Breyer, conservative Justice Samuel Alito and would-be swing-voter Anthony Kennedy.
I really don’t know what to make of it.

GOP's Black Hole

Yeah! What Evans and Novak said.

From the latest Evans-Novak Political Report: "President George W. Bush's attempt to revitalize his Iraq War policy has been a political failure. His 'surge' in troops won no converts, and all efforts now are based on attempting to prevent a negative resolution from being passed in the Senate."

"The gloom pervading the Republican Party cannot be exaggerated. The long-range GOP outlook for 2008 is grim. The consensus is that U.S. troops must be off the ground of Iraq by next year to prevent an electoral catastrophe in the next election."

"Iraq, one of Bush's top political advisers now notes, is a black hole for the Republican Party. A nationally prominent Republican pollster reported confidentially on Capitol Hill after the President's speech that if U.S. boots are still on the ground in Iraq and U.S. blood is still being spilled there at the end of the year, the GOP disaster in 2008 will eclipse 2006."

It is just like I've been saying.

2008 Presidential Race

The Wall Street Journal has a good rundown on the race for the White House in 2008.
I’ve summarized it somewhat below:

Democrats

Declared
Joe Biden
Christopher Dodd
John Edwards
Dennis Kucinich
Tom Vilsack

Exploring
Barack Obama

Undeclared
Hillary Clinton
Al Gore
John Kerry
Bill Richardson

Taking a Pass
Evan Bayh
Russ Feingold
Mark Warner


Republicans

Declared
Duncan Hunter

Exploring
Sam Brownback
Jim Gilmore
Rudy Giuliani
John McCain
Ron Paul
Mitt Romney
Tom Tancredo
Tommy Thompson

Undeclared
Newt Gingrich
Mike Huckabee
George Pataki

Taking a Pass
George Allen
Bill Frist
Rick Santorum

I think it is interesting that so many more Democrats have been willing to declare their candidacies while most of the Republican crowd is hanging back and hiding behind their “exploratory committees.” I think they know this is the Democrats’ race to lose.
As to the undeclared candidates, I think Hillary is the only one from either side guaranteed to still get into the race at this point.
While it is still ridiculously early to being making predictions, I’m going to throw one out anyway. I think it will ultimately come down to Hillary Clinton vs. John McCain with Hillary coming out on top.
Republicans will pull out all the stops in their efforts to trash Hillary, but I think their past efforts have given her a limited immunity that will allow her to emerge from the onslaught mostly unscathed. I think the race will be nearly a repeat of the 1996 Clinton-Dole race with Hillary in the driver’s seat and McCain playing the role of the elder Republican statesman who is past his prime. McCain, they will say, missed his chance to be president when he lost the 2000 primary to Bush the Younger, just like Dole missed his chance when he lost the 1988 primary to Bush the Elder.

Library protests

While I can sympathize with the SMU faculty members who are protesting having George W. Bush’s library on their campus, I think they are being foolish. In the long-term it will be a net-plus for the school. Imagine all the future scholars who will flock to the library to study the Worst.President.Ever. They will no doubt be searching through the papers for clues as to what went wrong and, more importantly, how to keep this from ever happening again.
Of course, today it is still a headache for the Bush administration to have this kind of controversy raging behind the scenes as they are trying to salvage whatever may be left of his legacy. But they could have easily avoided all of this if they had done as I suggested and picked a West Texas school like Texas Tech University in Lubbock to play host to his library. I can pretty much guarantee there would have been hardly any protest at all if Bush had went that route. But I guess it is too much to expect this administration to make a right choice even in this situation.
Still, if the protests at SMU persist then Bush might want to consider giving Tech a second shot at his library.

Winter Wonderland

I’m disappointed that we didn’t get any snow, but the ice was still pretty.

The deficit-financed war

Contrary to popular opinion, President Bush is not committed to success in Iraq. He never has been.

This article from Bloomberg makes it quite clear. This is the first time in our nation’s history (with the exception of the 1846-48 Mexican-American War) in which American citizens have not been asked by their government to make a special financial sacrifice to support the war.
This is the nation’s first deficit-financed war. Before everything is said and done, the price tag for Bush’s war may well be in excess of $600 billion - or $2 trillion if you add the cost of caring for our disabled veterans and paying to replace all the worn out military equipment. And that’s assuming the war doesn’t drag on for another 5 to 10 years. If John McCain is elected president in 2008, it is easy to see this conflict dragging on for another six years at a minimum.
But so far we haven’t paid a penny for this war. Not one red cent! Taxes have not gone up. Domestic spending has not gone down. It is all being financed off-budget on borrowed money.

The war ``is being fought on our children's shoulders,'' said Judd Gregg, the top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee. ``You're probably talking about around $750 billion that is going to be spent on this war that will end up not being funded.''

That’s incredible! Bush has tried to fight this war on the cheap since the very beginning. They have not supplied the number of troops that military commanders initially said were needed (those commanders were subsequently forced into retirment and replaced with commanders who backed the administration’s position). They skimped on armor and protective gear for our troops. And they have dramatically underfunded the estimated reconstruction costs.
In 2003, the World Bank estimated it would take $60 billion to rebuild Iraq after our “shock and awe” campaign. So far we have parceled out less than $20 billion to that end and a large chunk of that money has turned up missing.
Last year, the Bush administration announced that it was not going to spend any more money on reconstruction in Iraq and I said at the time that it demonstrated Bush’s lack of resolve toward actually achieving the kind of outcome in Iraq that he talks about in his speeches.

The result of this war-on-the-cheap combined with the gross fiscal irresponsibility and mismanagement has been a disaster of striking proportions. While we have been bogged down in Iraq, the real terrorists have been making unprecendented gains in other parts of the world.

Iraq is at a violent and "precarious juncture," while al-Qaeda is significantly expanding its global reach, effectively immune to the loss of leaders in battle, Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte told Congress yesterday. He also warned that the Taliban is mounting a vigorous insurgency in Afghanistan, that Pakistan has become a safe haven for top terrorists and that Iran's growing regional power is threatening Middle East stability.
The Wall Street Journal recently had an article about the “Nightmare Scenario” that our allies in the Middle East now fear may result from Bush’s debacle in Iraq.

As President Bush prepares to unveil his latest Iraq strategy, Arab allies are worried about what might happen if the plan fails: that worsening strife could engulf the entire region, sparking a wider war in the middle of the world's largest oil patch.
The potential of a much larger regional conflict that pits Sunnis against Shiites is increasingly on the minds of both Arab leaders and U.S. military planners, according to regional diplomats and U.S. officials. Some are calling such a possible outcome the "nightmare scenario." A wider conflict appears more plausible now because, even as Iraq is separating along sectarian lines, regional dynamics are shoving neighboring nations into two rival camps.
On one side is a Shiite-led arc running from Iran into central Iraq, through Syria and into Lebanon. On the other side lie American allies Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt, along with Persian Gulf states such as Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. These Sunni regimes are horrified at the emerging, increasingly radicalized Shiite bloc, largely financed and inspired by Iran, Arab diplomats say.

Bush is clearly the worst president in the history of the United States. The only question now is how much worse things can get before he finally leaves office.

Lamar Smith a moderate?

Congrats to U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith, the lone Republican member of the San Antonio congressional delegation, for surprising me and casting one of his first votes of the new year for a minimum wage increase.
The House bill passed 315 to 116 with Smith one of 82 Republicans to fall in line behind the popular legislation.
Smith also supported the bill implementing the 911 commission recommendations.
So is this a sign of things to come? In the recent past, Smith had been a reliable vote for the Tom DeLay wing of the GOP. Has he now suddenly decided to moderate his positions after facing a tough challenge from Democrat John Courage this past election and then watching his fellow Republican Henry Bonilla go down in flames?
Only time will tell.

Hall of Fame balloting

They will announce the 2007 Baseball Hall of Fame inductees later today. It looks like Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken Jr. are locks while the big controversy is how big a snubbing Mark McGwire will get for his alleged steroid abuse.
Here is how I would cast my ballot if I had one to cast:

Pete Rose
Tony Gwynn
Cal Ripken Jr.
Bert Blyleven
Goose Gossage
Dave Concepcion
Andre Dawson
Jim Rice
Mark McGwire
Steve Garvey

First off, Pete Rose is by far the most deserving player of anyone not currently in the Hall of Fame. Even though he is not on the ballot, he would still get my first vote.
I would support McGwire despite the steroids controversy because a) it has never been shown that he broke any laws or rules - baseball did not get around to banning most steroids until after the McGwire controversy surfaced; b) even without steroids McGwire would have been a great ballplayer; c) I hate this game that they play where they bash a player because they haven’t confessed or sufficiently apologized for some offense.
Unless you are going to ban every player who may have ever taken a health supplement in the 1990s, which is unrealistic, then you have to acknowledge the great players of the that time. McGwire, Sosa and Bonds are all in that class and all are worthy of HoF induction despite the steroids controversy.

Bush undermines own stratergy

Just so you know, Bush was against the surge before he was for it.

This is Bush from June 28, 2005...

Sending more Americans would undermine our strategy of encouraging Iraqis to take the lead in this fight. And sending more Americans would suggest that we intend to stay forever...

Here is a rational, sane and intelligent take on what we should be “surging” in Iraq from a man who knows a lot more about military stratergy than George aWol Bush.

Life Is A Rock

I love this.

I found this on You Tube. It’s essentially a humorous music video to go along with the song “Life is a Rock” by Reunion. I had a truncated version of the song on a 1974 Ronco record collection I got as a kid and I listened to the song over and over again trying to memorize the lyrics which were mostly indecipherable to me at the time.

It's morning again in America...

Happy days are here again now that Democrats are Back in the Saddle.

Democrats prepared to take control of both houses of Congress on Thursday after spending most of the last dozen years in the minority, with plans to quickly raise the minimum wage and toughen lobbying rules....
Exit polls showed that rising discontent over the war in Iraq and a spate of corruption scandals helped drive voters in November to hand Democrats control of both houses of Congress for the first time since 1994.
And a national poll released this week showed Democrats have strong support for nearly all the measures they want to pass in their first days in charge.

The Democrats’ six-pronged 100-hour agenda (which will actually be more like 30-plus days) includes:

* Hiking the minimum wage;
* Repeal Bush's ban on federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research;
* Roll back tax breaks for the oil industry and redirect the revenue to alternative energy research;
* Implement the homeland security recommendations of the 9/11 commission;
* Cut interest rates for student loans;
* Allow administrators of the Medicare prescription drug program to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies for discount prices.

To get those through in the allotted time, Democrats will have to use some of the same strong-arm tactics perfected by their Republican predecessors, but after that they have promised to return a level of bipartisanship and civility to the Congress that has not been seen in the past dozen years.

Taxation with representation

Once again there is a glimmer of hope that the residents of the District of Columbia may finally get real representation in Congress.
I wrote about this in May 2005 when it last seemed possible that compromise legislation pairing a new seat in D.C. with a seat in Utah might be approved. Of course, I should not have expected the incompetent, do-nothing Repubican Congress to achieve this milestone. But now the issue is back with the full support of the majority party and a good number of newly minted minority Republicans as well.
My opinion hasn’t changed since 2005. Statehood isn’t going to happen anytime soon and this is as good a compromise as D.C. is going to get so they should take hold of it.
As for Senate representation, which they still will not have, maybe they can make a deal to have the district attached to Virginia for purposes of electing senators in the future. It would be better than nothing.

Three burials...

2006 ended with a lot of newsy events including the deaths of three prominent people: The Godfather of Soul James Brown, former President Gerald Ford and toppled Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
Brown and Ford deserve all the adulation they are recieving. Ford was probably the best Republican president since Dwight Eisenhower. But Hussein’s departure came at the end of a noose and is now the subject of much consternation in Iraq over the way the Iraqi government carried out the execution. I have no desire to seek out the videos of the execution which are no doubt circulating on the Web, but from what I’ve read the hurried midnight execution devolved into a shameful spectacle with hooded executioners dancing around taunting the 69-year-old despot and chanting the name of their new hero - Moqtada! Moqtada! Moqtada!

From the NYTimes:
“...those who conducted it (the execution) had allowed it to deteriorate into a sectarian free-for-all that had the effect, on the video recordings, of making Mr. Hussein, a mass murderer, appear dignified and restrained, and his executioners, representing Shiites who were his principal victims, seem like bullying street thugs.”

The Iraqi government appears to have ignored its own constitution by carrying out the execution on the beginning of a Muslim holiday. That should serve as a warning to all the ardent war supporters and a slap in the face to all those who insist that we are witnessing the birth of democracy in the Middle East. The fact that the current regime in Iraq has such a low opinion of its own constitution is a bad sign for the long-term prospects of democracy in Iraq.
I am opposed to the death penalty on principle and I think a more fitting fate for Saddam would have been to spend the rest of his life being tried and convicted for the thousands of atrocities committed under his rule. But one cannot argue that Saddam did not deserve his fate. He clearly deserved that and much worse, but the death penalty is not just about what the convict deserves. The most important thing is what it says about the people currently in power. It speaks to their character and their humanity, and on that scale Saddam’s execution, and especially the way it was carried out, was indeed a sad note. If they wanted to prove that they could be just as cruel and vindictive as Saddam was, then Mission Accomplished. However, if they wanted to draw a distinction between the old regime and the new one, this was not the way to go about it.