March 29, 2024 / by 

 

Road Trip: Democratic National Convention Edition

lake-superior.jpgIt’s that time of year again where I go off grid for a period of time and people resign or other momentous stuff happens while I’m away from the Toobz.

I’ll be leaving Friday evening for a road trip with mr. emptywheel and McCaffrey the MilleniaLab, up over the top of Lake Superior, through South Dakota so mr. emptywheel can see Abraham Lincoln in a rock, and from there down to Denver for the Convention (and to visit my family, some of whom live there). I can’t promise you mr. emptywheel will let me check on the Toobz until I get to Denver a week from tomorrow, though perhaps if I go into withdrawal I’ll liveblog Wall Drug for you (you think Wall Drug has wifi??). And McCaffrey the MilleniaLab, who was named after Eddie McCaffrey of the Denver Broncos, is hoping to be able to see Barack Obama accept the nomination in Mile High.

It’s bound to be a particularly momentous absence, as Calculated Risk will also be gone from the Toobz for some of the same dates as I’ll be gone–and when he goes off  grid, banks tend to fail. Obviously, one of the things I’ll be missing is the announcement of Obama’s Veep (and no, I didn’t sign up to get a text as soon as it’s announced), but who knows, maybe we’ll be lucky and another high level Bushie will resign to spend more time with his family.

In the meantime, bmaz will have the keys (yes, to the blog and to the liquor cabinet, you lushes), and I’ve instructed him he can do with those keys as he sees fit–so behave! You don’t want him to key your car. We’ll also have a few posts from another surprise guest poster next week, so you’ll be in great hands while I’m gone.

Anyone have any tips for must-see things along the way?

(Photo of Lake Superior Provincial Park, where I plan to do a day hike on Saturday, by loimere.) 


Maher Arar Gets A(nother) Day in Court

On June 30, the 2nd District Court of Appeals rejected Maher Arar’s suit against the US government for sending him to Syria to be tortured. That decision came almost a month after the Dpartment of Homeland Security Inspector General released a report showing–even in its redacted form–that Arar had repeatedly warned that he would be tortured if sent to Syria, and that the INS folks knew that there was a high likelihood that Arar was right.

Perhaps it took the judges on the Appeals Court some time to really digest the report, because today they announced the entire court will rehear his appeal.

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals issued an extremely rare order that the case of Canadian rendition victim Maher Arar would be heard en banc by all of the active judges on the Second Circuit on December 9, 2008. For the court to issue the order sua sponte, that is, of its own accord without either party submitting papers requesting a rehearing, is even more rare.

“We are very encouraged,” said CCR attorney Maria LaHood. “For the court to take such extraordinary action on its own indicates the importance the judges place on the case and means that Maher may finally see justice in this country. As the dissenting judge noted, the majority’s opinion gave federal officials the license to ‘violate constitutional rights with virtual impunity.’ Now the court has the opportunity to uphold the law and hold accountable the U.S. officials who sent Maher to be tortured.”

One more thing may factor into this reversal. Recall that, when the DHS IG testified on the report, he said he was reopening his investigation into Arar’s rendition.

Interestingly, in his own testimony today, the Homeland Security IG states that "we have reopened our review into the Mr. Arar matter because, less than a month ago, we received additional information that contradicts one of the conclusions in our report. As such, we are in the process of conducting additional interviews to determine the validity of this information to the extent we can."

So maybe, pursuant to that reopened investigation, the Appeals Court knows of new information?

Is it possible that Arar will yet have the opportunity to prove his case against Larry Thompson and others, who sent him to be tortured in Syria?


Shorter WaPo: The Anthrax Case Sux

Last week, the FBI selectively leaked the news that Bruce Ivins had taken personal leave on September 17, 2001; they seemed to be arguing that Ivins had taken leave to drive to Princeton, all in time to return for an appointment that evening.

A partial log of Ivins’s work hours shows that he worked late in the lab on the evening of Sunday, Sept. 16, signing out at 9:52 p.m. after two hours and 15 minutes. The next morning, the sources said, he showed up as usual but stayed only briefly before taking leave hours. Authorities assume that he drove to Princeton immediately after that, dropping the letters in a mailbox on a well-traveled street across from the university campus.

But then some DFH bloggers pointed out that that theory was impossible.

It would not be possible for Ivins to have mailed the anthrax. According to my calculations above, the window during which Ivins could have put the letter in the mailbox on September 17 was from 10:25 to 1:35. But here’s what the FBI itself says about the window in which the letter was mailed:

The investigation examined Dr. Ivins’s laboratory activity immediately before and after the window of opportunity for the mailing of the Post and Brokaw letters to New York which began at 5:00 p.m. Monday, September 17,2001 and ended at noon on Tuesday, September 18, 2001. [my emphasis]

In other words, had he mailed the anthrax when they’re arguing he did, the letter would have been picked up at the 5:00 PM pick-up (if not an earlier one–often boxes have a mid-day pick-up as well), and post-marked on September 17, not on September 18.

So, after their operative theory couldn’t even withstand the scrutiny of the DFHs in the world, they revised their theory.

Meanwhile, government sources offered more detail about Ivins’s movements on a critical day in the case: when letters were dropped into the postal box on Princeton’s Nassau Street, across the street from the university campus.

Investigators now believe that Ivins waited until evening to make the drive to Princeton on Sept. 17, 2001. He showed up at work that day and stayed briefly, then took several hours of administrative leave from the lab, according to partial work logs. Based on information from receipts and interviews, authorities say Ivins filled up his car’s gas tank, attended a meeting outside of the office in the late afternoon, and returned to the lab for a few minutes that evening before moving off the radar screen and presumably driving overnight to Princeton. The letters were postmarked Sept. 18.

Notice this time they’re not going to tell us what time Ivins went back to the lab, perhaps because they want their theory to hold up through the weekend. If it was late at night, it would introduce the same problems of timing, as presumably Ivins was back at the office at 7:30 AM the next morning, as per usual. And there’s one more critical detail: Ivins did not enter Suite B3 when he returned to the office that night. As the original search warrant attachment laid out,

The investigation examined Dr. Ivins’s laboratory activity immediately before and after the window of opportunity for the mailing of the Post and Brokaw letters to New York which began at 5:00 p.m. Monday, September 17,200 1 and ended at noon on Tuesday, September 18, 2001. Beginning on Friday, September 14, Dr. Ivins worked the following three consecutive evening shifts prior to the mailings with time spent in Suite B3:

Friday, September 14, 8:54 p.m. to 12:22 a.m., 2 hours 15 minutes

Saturday, September 15, 8:05 p.m. to 11:59 p.m., 2 hours 15 minutes

Sunday, September 16, 6:38 p.m. to 9:52 p.m., 2 hours 15 minutes

After September 16, Dr. Ivins did not enter Suite B3 in the evening again until September 25. [my emphasis]

As I understand it, the attachment considers anything after 4:45 to be evening work, and we know that Ivins was in an appointment at that point, so his brief return to the office must have been an evening visit. This does not, by itself, doom their new theory. After all, Ivins was caught that December cleaning his office space, not B3, so it’s possible he just stored the anthrax outside of B3 after he cultured it, if in fact he did culture it. But that would raise the question of why the anthrax didn’t show up in sampling of his office, and how and where it was stored during the day of September 17 when Ivins was not in his office.

The WaPo also notes that the hair samples in the mailbox don’t match Ivins’ hair.

Federal investigators probing the deadly 2001 anthrax attacks recovered samples of human hair from a mailbox in Princeton, N.J., but the strands did not match the lead suspect in the case, according to sources briefed on the probe.

I actually don’t think that’s a big deal–there’s no reason to believe that the culprit necessarily left hair samples on the envelopes and that no one else did, particularly since it took ten months to actually find and sample the mailbox in question.

I’m most amused by the way they find evidence, claim it’s significant, then discard it entirely once their theory falls apart. Just last week, the fact that Ivins had taken leave for the entire day before the anthrax was mailed was another smoking gun, proof that he had done the deed. But now that we DFHs have proved he couldn’t have been mailing the anthrax at that time, then that piece of evidence is discarded entirely. It seems they don’t want to entertain the possibility he was doing something else–perhaps meeting with someone, but not driving to Princeton. Similarly, lie detector tests were critical, until they discovered their main culprit passed his.

In other words, they’re still making it up as they go along, and they still don’t have a solid case that Ivins was the sole culprit.


Did Karl Rove Chat to Saakashvili about South Ossetia Too?

The White House has started to panic over a July 9 meeting between Condi Rice and Mikheil Saakashvili, desperate to suggest they didn’t encourage Georgia’s crack-down in South Ossetia. Given that panic, I wonder whether Karl Rove had any similar chats with Saakashvili when they were in Yalta together just days later?

Now, there’s been a lot of justified chatter about the role of Randy Scheunemann, who appears to be advising the Republic of Georgia at the same time as he provides campaign advice to John McCain.

Sen. John McCain’s top foreign policy adviser prepped his boss for an April 17 phone call with the president of Georgia and then helped the presumptive Republican presidential nominee prepare a strong statement of support for the fledgling republic.

The day of the call, a lobbying firm partly owned by the adviser, Randy Scheunemann, signed a $200,000 contract to continue providing strategic advice to the Georgian government in Washington.

Given the way McCain has boasted of his frequent calls to Saakashvili in attempts to reclaim the mantle of the best international leader, it raises questions of whether the Administration’s "see no evil" approach to Georgia was part of a deliberate campaign strategy.

Particularly when you consider the fact that Karl Rove may have met with Saakashvili just days after the July 9 private dinner between Condi and Saakashvili that the White House, State, and DOD are now panicking about. Rove was in the neighborhood, in Yalta, at a conference with Saakashvili three days after the meeting (h/t brendanx).

09:30 – 11:00Plenary session: Elections in Russia and the USA: impact on Ukraine and Europe

What will be the foreign policy of the new Russian and American leadership over the coming years? How will it impact their relationship with the European Union and Ukraine, and EU’s further enlargement?

Moderator: Richard Haass
Panel:
Sergey Glaziev, Director, Institute for New Economy, member of the 1st, 3rd and 4th Russian State Duma
Kostyantyn Gryshchenko, Ambassador to the Russian Federation and First Deputy Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine

Alexander Rahr, Programme Director, German Council on Foreign Relations, member of the Board of YES
Karl Rove, Former Deputy Chief of Staff to George W. Bush and Chief Strategist for Bush’s Presidential Campaigns
Bob Shrum, political consultant and
Senior Fellow, Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, New York University

I mean, given that Rove was talking about the upcoming election as Saakashvili was walking in the room, it sure does make you wonder whether Rove said anything to Saakashvili about how a firmer hand in South Ossetia might help Georgia ensure its strong relationship with the US going forward. (And who would look to Bob Shrum, whose only value is in making Mark Penn look like slightly less of an electoral failure, to comment on US politics?)

I’ll say this: the Administration is even more desperate to push back against claims that they encouraged Georgia’s initial crackdown than you’d think they would be (compare, for example, their response to claims we gave Israel the go-ahead to invade Lebanon in 2006 or bomb Syria in 2007, and their response to claims that we encouraged Maliki to crack down on Basra). There’s something going on–and given Karl Rove’s presence close to the scene of the crime, I’ve got my suspicions.


No One Could Have Predicted, Republic of Georgia, the Follow-Up

Yesterday, I said,

Since Condi’s gone somewhere (probably buying shoes in NYC), let me anticipate what she’ll say when she ever gets back to work: "No one could have predicted that the Georgians would incite the Russians to pursue regime change in Georgia."

Today, the NYT’s diplomatic correspondant writes,

One month ago, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Tbilisi, Georgia, for a high-profile visit that was planned to accomplish two very different goals.

During a private dinner on July 9, Ms. Rice’s aides say, she warned President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia not to get into a military conflict with Russia that Georgia could not win. “She told him, in no uncertain terms, that he had to put a non-use of force pledge on the table,” according to a senior administration official who accompanied Ms. Rice to the Georgian capital.

But publicly, Ms. Rice struck a different tone, one of defiant support for Georgia in the face of Russian pressure. “I’m going to visit a friend and I don’t expect much comment about the United States going to visit a friend,” she told reporters just before arriving in Tbilisi, even as Russian jets were conducting intimidating maneuvers over South Ossetia.

[snip]

Ms. Rice went to Tbilisi just as tensions between Russia and Georgia were escalating. Standing next to Mr. Saakashvili during a press conference, she said that Russia “needs to be a part of resolving the problem and solving the problems and not contributing to it.” Mr. Saakashvili, for his part, was clearly thrilled to host Ms. Rice.

[snip]

Ms. Rice did not get on the phone with her Georgian counterpart on Thursday, but left it to Mr. Fried to deliver the “don’t go in” message, a senior administration official said. “I don’t think it would have made any difference if she had,” the official said. “They knew the message was coming from the top.”

A few hours later, in the early morning hours of Friday, Aug. 8, Georgia launched its offensive in South Ossetia, and Russia responded with a tenfold show of force. Ms. Rice, the administration official said, “called Saakashvili on Friday morning, after their folks were in.”

Now, I’m not even remotely surprised that State is now claiming they had nothing to do with this, Condi’s visit and on-the-record confrontation of Russian not-withstanding.

I am wondering, though. At what point do people start calling Condi on her refrain, "No one could have predicted"?


Once Again, the Federal Government Uses Valerie to Screw Joe

I’m not so much surprised that Judges Sentelle and Henderson dismissed the Wilsons’ appeal yesterday–I’m more surprised by the false ignorance through which they dismiss the Wilsons’ Bivens complaint (a Bivens claim allows a person to sue federal agents when they violate that person’s constitutional rights).

At the rhetorical foundation of Sentelle’s opinion lies the repetition of one of the biggest myths about the Plame leak–that Rove (and for that matter, Libby and his secret July 9 conversation with Novak) had nothing to do with Robert Novak’s article outing Plame, that Armitage acted alone.

In July, Libby talked to Judith Miller of The New York Times and to Matthew Cooper of Time magazine; Karl Rove talked to Matthew Cooper of Time magazine and to Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC’s “Hardball;” and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage met with reporter Robert Novak. Armitage, who had learned of Valerie Wilson’s CIA employment from a State Department memo, told Novak that Valerie Wilson worked at the CIA on issues relating to weapons of mass destruction. Novak then wrote an article that was published in several newspapers, including The Washington Post and the Chicago Sun Times, on July 14, 2003.

[snip]

The publication was the result of a disclosure by Deputy Secretary of State Armitage of information about an individual contained in State Department records.

Um, sure, the publication was the result of a disclosure by Blabby Armitage. But then, that State Department memo was written as a direct result of Libby’s own oppo research, so it was also the result of Libby’s attempt to gather dirt on Joe Wilson. And of course, Novak wouldn’t have written his column without the "confirmation" from Rove, who got his information from some other source; he has always denied seeing the INR memo. So it is likely that that letter also was the result of Dick Cheney’s own efforts to collect information with which to embarrass Wilson. (Novak’s column was also the result of the Off the Record club brokering the leak, too–private citizens who could have much more easily been sued, but that’s a weakness in the Wilsons’ suit, not the Court’s opinion.)

I suspect there’s a reason for the Court’s feigned ignorance here. It’s that they want to dismiss any Bivens claim based on the availability of an alternate remedy–the Privacy Act. Sentelle argues that Dick and Scooter and Karl are immune from the Privacy Act because they were in the Vice President’s and President’s offices, and therefore not in an agency subject to the Privacy Act. (Yes, that does mean that if Dick Cheney or his sidekick Mr. Germ leaked all the information about Hatfill, they would have been immune from suit there too.) But the State Department does qualify as an agency, and therefore Armitage could have been sued under the Privacy Act. By focusing on Armitage, then, the Court gets to point to the Privacy Act as a legitimate means of recourse, and therefore ignore the Bivens claim.

The first problem with this argument is that the Wilsons, unlike the plaintiffs in Davis and Bivens, can seek at least some remedy under the Privacy Act. At the least, as they concede, Valerie Wilson has a possible claim based on the disclosure by Deputy Secretary of State Armitage because the information disclosed about her and the agency involved in the disclosure are subject to the Privacy Act’s restrictions.

Which brings us to the other problem–one Janice Rogers Brown Judith Rogers points out in a dissent. Rogers points out that her colleagues have dismissed Joe Wilson’s claims based on the logic they use to dismiss Valerie‘s claims, even though Joe does not have recourse to the Privacy Act here.

Because Mr. Wilson is a person for whom Congress has “inadvertently omitted damages remedies” … the Privacy Act is not a comprehensive remedial scheme as to him and implying a Bivens action for his claims would comport with precedent. … To avoid this result, the court lumps the Wilsons’ claims together, describing Mr. Wilson’s claims as seeking damages for unconstitutional action taken in regard to information that once was covered by the Privacy Act. … But the Constitution protects individual rights, not information, and whether Ms. Wilson might have a Privacy Act remedy is irrelevant to Mr. Wilson’s independent claims based on public disclosures that were steps removed from internal government transfers. … The days when husband and wife were considered as one at law are long past. [my emphasis, citations removed]

Ironically, following Roger’s logic, Sentelle has replicated almost the same kind of sexist bullshit that Cheney and friends were using when they tried to suggest Wilson was some kind of wuss who needed his wife to score him key boondoggles to Africa. They’re arguing that a husband must sacrifice any recourse for the violation of his constitutional rights if his wife has lost any recourse based on a different claim. So not only can Cheney and friends leak information from government records with impunity, but their "not an Agency" line exempts them, therefore, from respecting the First and Fifth Amendment rights of affected spouses, too.

Update: bmaz makes an important point below, which is that,

the court must take the facts as alleged in the complaint. I’m afraid that part of the factual problem we face here is due to the way the facts were pled in the complaint. You could have seen this coming a mile away. The plaintiffs should have pled a much more aggressive interpretation of the facts and made the defendants controvert them.

I just reread the Wilsons’ appeal, and boy oh boy is bmaz right, particularly with respect to Rove’s role as confirming source for Novak. By the time this appeal was written, Novak’s trial testimony was available, naming Rove, not to mention the September 2004 Fitzgerald affadavit, which states,

Karl Rove later confirmed that information in a July 9 phone call.

[snip]

Novak expressed to Rove his surprise that somebody like Wilson (whom he viewed as a partisan Democrat) had been sent on the mission. Novak then brought up to Rove the fact that Novak had heard that Wilson’s wife had worked at the CIA, and had suggested her husband for the mission.

[snip]

In response to Novak’s statement about Wilson’s wife, NOvak recalls Rove saying "oh, you know about that too." Novak too that comment as a confirmation of the information, and so Rove became his second source.

So why not include the evidence tying Rove directly to the Novak leak?

That doesn’t excuse Sentelle for ignoring a whole bunch of other facts in the appeal (such as the numerous times Libby leaked this), not to mention his use of "talked to" rather than laying out that Rove and Libby both shared Valerie’s identity before Novak’s column came out. But bmaz is absolutely right that this appeal sets up just what happened, an undue focus on Armitage, away from Cheney and Libby and Rove.

Update: Fixed my reference to the wrong judge.


Hard Qweschins: What the TradMedia Will Never Ask McCain, But Should

I shared this news

A federal judge says the University of California can deny course credit to applicants from Christian high schools whose textbooks declare the Bible infallible and reject evolution.

…with some folks, and Peterr said, "I really hope someone asks John McCain for his opinion on this."

Peterr is right: asking McCain for comment would make him choose between alienating the GOP base or speaking what he might still believe to be the truth, that science is science.

Peterr’s comment got me thinking about all the other things I’ve wished McCain would be asked about.

For example, why hasn’t anyone asked McCain whether he agrees with VA head James Peake’s policy of prohibiting non-partisan voter registration in VA hospitals?

"VA remains opposed to becoming a voter registration agency pursuant to the National Voter Registration Act, as this designation would divert substantial resources from our primary mission," Peake said in an April 8 letter to Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and John Kerry, D-Mass. He was referring to a 1993 federal law that allows government agencies to host voter registration efforts.

[snip]

"You’d think that when so many people give speeches about keeping faith with our veterans, the least the government would do is protect their right to vote, after they volunteered to go thousands of miles from home to fight and give that right to others," Kerry said. "And yet we’ve seen the government itself block veterans from registering to vote in VA facilities, without any legal basis or rational explanation.

Veterans are already hammering McCain for voting against veterans benefits repeatedly; McCain can ill afford to alienate veterans further. But this policy was undoubtedly put into place by Peake to shield McCain and other Republicans from the wrath of veterans who have been badly treated by the Bush Administration.

And, as a MI resident, I have wished someone would ask McCain whether he agrees with Bush’s decision to fire the Mid-West’s regional EPA Administrator because she wanted to force Dow Chemical to clean up a mess it made in Midland, MI.

The top U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator in the Midwest resigned Thursday amid internal fights over dioxin contamination near Dow Chemical Co.’s world headquarters in Midland, according to a published report.

Mary Gade, regional administrator of EPA Region 5, told the Chicago Tribune she resigned as regional administrator of EPA Region 5 after two top EPA officials stripped her of her powers and told her to quit or be fired by June 1.

For all his blathering about environmental issues, McCain is still overwhelmingly pro-corporate, so he’s probably happy that the Bush Administration put Dow’s profits over people living with the effects of its contamination. But the Midland-Saginaw area is fairly populous, and it could make a difference in MI this year.

Though of course, why be provincial? While we’re talking about environmental issues, has anyone heard a reporter ask McCain (and Obama) what they think about Bush’s latest attempt to gut the Endangered Species Act? It seems fair to ask whether, if he were President, McCain would also trade polar bears and other species for inaction on global warming.

Those are just a few examples that have been bugging me. What about you? What questions–aside from questions about whether extramarital affairs disqualify someone from being President–ought McCain to be asked? 


I Hate to Say I Told You So…

In May of last year, I questioned whether, after Monica Goodling won immunity, we’d get anything from giving her immunity.

And as today’s article explains, in that role she has done a number of things that clearly violate federal employment practices. She has denied promotions to people who appear to be Democrats, has asked partisan questions in interviews for career positions, and she asked one nice Republican if he had ever cheated on his wife.

We’re about to excuse Monica all of these actions–actions which span six years of efforts to politicize DOJ–and in so doing, ensure that the IG investigation into these activities may expose further illegalities, but no actionable way to hold Goodling accountable for them. And what are going to get in exchange? What higher up is she going to deliver us, with her immunized testimony?

And in August of last year, I pointed out that all of the people who had politicized our government had resigned from the Administration–and therefore given the Administration immunity for having turned our government into an instrument of the Republican party.

by The Washington Post, enlisting political appointees at every level of government in a permanent campaign that was an integral part of his strategy to establish Republican electoral dominance.

[snip]

Investigators, however, said the scale of Rove’s effort is far broader than previously revealed; they say that Rove’s team gave more than 100 such briefings during the seven years of the Bush administration. The political sessions touched nearly all of the Cabinet departments and a handful of smaller agencies that often had major roles in providing grants, such as the White House office of drug policy and the State Department’s Agency for International Development.

Well, so what? What are you going to do about it?

See, for the most part, we’re talking about civil Hatch Act violations. And the punishment for civil Hatch Act violations? To be fired from your job. Shall we review the names of those most involved in leading this process?

  • Karl Rove
  • Sara Taylor
  • Scott Jennings
  • Barry Jackson
  • Ken Mehlman
  • Susan Ralston

Rove, Taylor, Mehlman, and Ralston are gone, and Jackson is rumored to be leaving. Add in Monica Goodling, who only admitted to her massive Hatch Act violations after she resigned. So how are you going to hold the White House responsible for its massive Hatch Act violations, if the people involved have already mooted the only punishment available?

Today, Michael Mukasey announced no one would be charged for having politicized DOJ’s hiring process, not even Monica Goodling.

Former Justice Department officials will not face prosecution for letting improper political considerations drive hirings of prosecutors, immigration judges and other career government lawyers, Attorney General Michael Mukasey said Tuesday.

Mukasey used his sharpest words yet to criticize the senior leaders who took part in or failed to stop illegal hiring practices during the tenure of his predecessor, Alberto Gonzales.

But, he told delegates to the American Bar Association annual meeting, "not every wrong, or even every violation of the law, is a crime. In this instance, the two joint reports found only violations of the civil service laws."

Understand: Mukasey has turned into a terrible shill for the Administration. But it has been clear for over a year that the Administration would escape criminal charges for having committed massive violations of the Hatch Act. But that has more to do with the Hatch Act than with Michael Mukasey. Even a Democratic AG would have a hard time charging this stuff, given the stated penalties for civil Hatch Act violations.

The Hatch Act gives citizens no real recourse for the politicization of our government. And the loyal Bushies know this. After all, by all appearances, they’re still committing Hatch Act violations.


“No One Could Have Predicted,” Republic of Georgia Edition

Since Condi’s gone somewhere (probably buying shoes in NYC), let me anticipate what she’ll say when she ever gets back to work: "No one could have predicted that the Georgians would incite the Russians to pursue regime change in Georgia."

At least that’s the story the Administration has been feeding Jonathan Landay.

Bush administration officials, worried by what they saw as a series of provocative Russian actions, repeatedly warned Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili to avoid giving the Kremlin an excuse to intervene in his country militarily, U.S. officials said Monday.

But in the end, the warnings failed to stop the Georgian president — a Bush favorite — from launching an attack last week that on Monday seemed likely to end not only in his country’s military humiliation but complete occupation by Russian forces.

[snip]

Pentagon officials said that despite having 130 trainers assigned to Georgia, they had no advance notice of Georgia’s sudden move last Thursday to send thousands of Georgian troops into South Ossetia to capture that province’s capital, Tskhinvali.

Me, I agree with Jeff Stein, this is spin, presumably designed to excuse American impotence in the face of Russia’s aggression.

A "surprise." My, oh, my.Except I don’t believe it. As easy as it is to believe that the CIA, etc., blew another huge event, I find it impossible to accept that not one of the 127 Pentagon advisors in Georgia, including Special Forces and intelligence contractors, were clueless about Tblisi’s intent — and preparations — to move into South Ossetia.That just doesn’t pass the laugh test.On July 15, for starters, amid rising tension between Moscow and Tblisi over South Ossetia, some 1,200 U.S. troops launched a three-week long joint military exercise with Georgian troops. Three weeks later, on the night of Aug. 7, "coinciding with the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, Georgian President Saakashvili ordered an all-out military attack on Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia."It is simply inconceivable that the Pentagon wasn’t wired to the helmets of Georgian troops, despite the denials of U.S. military officials.

See also this quote one of those military trainers gave Danger Room:

One of the U.S. military trainers put it to me a bit more bluntly. “We’re giving them the knife,” he said. “Will they use it?”

As I said, I think the presumed spin is designed to excuse US inaction in the face of an utter lack of means to respond to Russia.But I do think there was an element of true surprise on the part of the US. From Landay:

At the same time, U.S. officials said that they believed they had an understanding with Russia that any response to Georgian military action would be limited to South Ossetia.

"We knew they were going to go crack heads. We told them again and again not to do this," the State Department official said. "We thought we had an understanding with the Russians that any response would be South Ossetia-focused. Clearly it’s not."

Oops. Someone in the Administration got caught believing that whole "looked him in the eye … [and got] a sense of his soul" bullshit, I guess.

Sounds to me that, whatever the US role in encouraging Georgia to do something rash, the real surprise here was that Russia responded in the way it did–basically pursuing regime change rather than just a response within South Ossetia.

You know it’s funny. Condi, and a bunch of other top aides in this Administration, actually do have expertise on Russia, even on military relations between Russia and its satellite states. Yet even in a sphere where, unlike the Middle East, they’ve got some expertise, they’re still astoundingly incompetent.

No one could have predicted …


Okay, the Cookies Were Stupid and Silly, But Plagiarizing Your Foreign Policy Too?

John McCain’s campaign seems to have a serial problem with plagiarism. First there was the Passion Fruit Mousse and then there were the Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies. Now, apparently, McCain’s stooped to stealing his foreign policy plans from others. And of all sources, he’s stealing from Wikipedia!

A Wikipedia editor notices some similarities between Sen. John McCain’s speech today on the crisis in Georgia and the Wikipedia article on the country Georgia. They appear similar enough that most people would consider parts of McCain’s speech to be derived directly from Wikipedia.

First instance:

one of the first countries in the world to adopt Christianity as an official religion (Wikipedia)

vs.

one of the world’s first nations to adopt Christianity as an official religion (McCain)

So here’s the pathetic thing. The first two times McCain got caught plagiarizing, at least it was a fairly reputable source. Rachael Ray? Hershey’s? Both reasonably respectable sources of recipes.

But Wikipedia? For a foreign policy speech?

Back when I taught college, I would always reserve a special kind of failing grade for those who stole from Wikipedia. After all, it would take someone both lazy and stupid to steal from Wikipedia, right?

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Originally Posted @ https://www.emptywheel.net/author/emptywheel/page/1052/