The Emperor’s New Hump

I can appreciate the broader factors weighing on the paper’s top editors, particularly that close to the election. But personally, I think that Nelson’s assertions did rise above the level of garden-variety speculation, mainly because of who he is. Here was a veteran government scientist, whose decades-long career revolves around interpreting imagery like features of Mars, who decided to say very publicly that, without reservation, he was convinced there was something under a president’s jacket when the White House said there was nothing. He essentially put his hard-won reputation utterly on the line (not to mention his job) in doing so and certainly with little prospect that he might gain something as a result—except, as he put it, his preserved integrity.

ANONYMOUS LIB GUESTING FOR GLENN FINDS SOME EXAMPLES OF KRISTOL’S STUPID, FATUOUS  WRITING

Bill Kristol: Pundit Superstar

By Anonymous Liberal

On March 17, 2003, on the eve of our invasion of Iraq, Bill Kristol wrote the following:

We
are tempted to comment, in these last days before the war, on the U.N.,
and the French, and the Democrats. But the war itself will clarify who
was right and who was wrong about weapons of mass destruction. It will
reveal the aspirations of the people of Iraq, and expose the truth
about Saddam’s regime. It will produce whatever effects it will produce
on neighboring countries and on the broader war on terror. We would
note now that even the threat of war against Saddam seems to be
encouraging stirrings toward political reform in Iran and Saudi Arabia,
and a measure of cooperation in the war against al Qaeda from other
governments in the region. It turns out it really is better to be
respected and feared than to be thought to share, with exquisite
sensitivity, other people’s pain. History and reality are about to
weigh in, and we are inclined simply to let them render their verdicts.

Well,
it’s been almost four years since Kristol penned those smug, taunting
words, and I think it’s fair to say that history and reality have
indeed weighed in. There were no weapons of mass destruction. Our
invasion has destabilized the entire region (and not in a positive way)
and has actually exacerbated the overall terrorist threat our country
faces. We are no longer feared or respected, at least nowhere near the
degree we were before the invasion. Over 3000 American soldiers have
lost their lives (with many thousands more badly injured). Tens of
thousands of Iraqis (perhaps hundreds of thousands) have been killed
and millions more displaced. We’ve squandered billions of dollars, as
well as our national credibility and mystique. And our armed forces are
currently bogged down and stretched to the limit as they undertake the
thankless task of policing an escalating civil war.

Now, you
would think that being so incredibly wrong about such an important
subject might hurt your career prospects, and that would probably be
true in any other field. But in the world of Washington punditry, being
consistently and catastrophically wrong about everything is apparently
not an obstacle to advancement. As David Corn reports, TIME Magazine has invited Kristol to become one the magazine’s new “star” columnists.

I
can see why TIME wanted Kristol so badly. His track record over the
last few years is rather remarkable. Here’s a sampling of some of
Kristol’s most impressive contributions to our political discourse over
the last few years:

August 26, 2002:

Reading
the Scowcroft/New York Times “arguments” against war, one is struck by
how laughably weak they are. European international-law wishfulness and
full-blown Pat Buchanan isolationism are the two intellectually honest
alternatives to the Bush Doctrine. Scowcroft and the Times wish to
embrace neither, so they pretend instead to be terribly “concerned”
with the administration’s alleged failure to “make the case.”

April 4, 2003:

“There’s
been a certain amount of pop sociology in America … that the Shia
can’t get along with the Sunni and the Shia in Iraq just want to
establish some kind of Islamic fundamentalist regime. There’s almost no
evidence of that at all. Iraq’s always been very secular.”

April 28, 2003:

The
United States committed itself to defeating terror around the world. We
committed ourselves to reshaping the Middle East, so the region would
no longer be a hotbed of terrorism, extremism, anti-Americanism, and
weapons of mass destruction. The first two battles of this new era are
now over. The battles of Afghanistan and Iraq have been won decisively
and honorably. But these are only two battles. We are only at the end
of the beginning in the war on terror and terrorist states.

March 22, 2004:

[T]here
are hopeful signs that Iraqis of differing religious, ethnic, and
political persuasions can work together. This is a far cry from the
predictions made before the war by many, both here and in Europe, that
a liberated Iraq would fracture into feuding clans and unleash a
bloodbath. The perpetually sour American media focus on the tensions
between Shiites and Kurds that delayed the signing by three whole days.
But the difficult negotiations leading up to the signing, and the
continuing debates over the terms of a final constitution, have in fact
demonstrated something remarkable in Iraq: a willingness on the part of
the diverse ethnic and religious groups to disagree–peacefully–and
then to compromise. This willingness is the product of what appears to be a broad Iraqi consensus favoring the idea of pluralism.

July 26, 2004:

What
the Bush administration did say–and what so many reporters seem to
have trouble understanding–is that Iraq and al Qaeda had a
relationship that, by its very existence, posed a potential threat to
the United States.

October 29, 2004 (column titled “Politicizing the bin Laden Tape”):

Is
there any development in the war on terror, however grave, that the
Kerry campaign won’t try to exploit for partisan advantage?

November 1, 2004: (column titled “Bin Laden v. Bush”)

Osama bin Laden’s videotape is an attempt to intimidate Americans into voting against President Bush.

March 7, 2005:

Just
four weeks after the Iraqi election of January 30, 2005, it seems
increasingly likely that that date will turn out to have been a genuine
turning point. The fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, ended
an era. September 11, 2001, ended an interregnum. In the new era in
which we now live, 1/30/05 could be a key moment–perhaps the key
moment so far–in vindicating the Bush Doctrine as the right response
to 9/11. And now there is the prospect of further and accelerating
progress.

April 4, 2005 (re: Terri Schiavo)

After
all, we are a “maturing society,” as the Supreme Court has told us.
Perhaps it is time, in mature reaction to this latest installment of
what Hugh Hewitt has called a “robed charade,” to rise up against our
robed masters, and choose to govern ourselves. Call it Terri’s
revolution.

November 7, 2005:

Last week the Bush Administration’s second-term bear market bottomed out.

November 30, 2005 (column titled “Pelosi’s Disastrous Miscalculation”):

All
this made me think the 2006 elections could result in a Speaker Pelosi.
I now think that unlikely. Pelosi’s endorsement today of the withdrawal
of U.S. troops from Iraq makes the House Democrats the party of defeat,
the party of surrender. Bush’s strong speech today means the GOP is
likely to be–if Republican Congressmen just keep their nerve–the
party of victory. Now it is possible that the situation in Iraq will
worsen over the next year. If that happens, Bush and the GOP are in
deep trouble. They would have been if Pelosi had said nothing. But it
is much more likely that the situation in Iraq will stay more or less
the same, or improve. In either case, Republicans will benefit from
being the party of victory.

December 26, 2005 (column titled “Happy Days!”):

If
American and Iraqi troops continue to provide basic security, and if
Iraq’s different sects and political groups now begin to engage in
serious, peaceful bargaining, then we may just have witnessed the
beginning of Iraq’s future.

April 4, 2006:

What
was striking, following the mosque bombing, was the evidence of Iraq’s
underlying stability in the face of attempts to undermine it. The
country’s vital institutions seem to have grown strong enough to
withstand even the provocation of the bombing of the golden mosque.

I
could go on and on, but you get the idea. If you want to succeed as a
conservative pundit in Washington, the key appears to be amassing a
mile-long track record of wildly inaccurate predictions and
disastrously bad advice. Congratulations, Bill Kristol. You truly are a
“star”.

posted by A.L.

January » 02 CROOKS AND LIARS

Sacrifice 

 Keith Olbermann stepped up and slapped Bush’s plan to use the word “sacrifice”
as an excuse to send more troops to Iraq. Bush needs a new
catch phrase to try and deceive the nation with,
but Republican talking points won’t work on the people
anymore. They are fed up with Bush and this war and sending more
troops to die is not an answer. John McCain and Lieberman will now wear the McCain Doctrine around their necks—as Bill Kristol drools with glee as he’ll finally get his wish.

 Download (5846) | Play (6819)     Download (2487) | Play (3525)

Olbermann: If in your presence an individual tried to
sacrifice an American serviceman or woman, would you intervene? Would
you at least protest? What if he had already sacrificed 3,003 of them?
What if he had already sacrificed 3,003 of them — and was then to
announce his intention to sacrifice hundreds, maybe thousands, more?

(Read the rest of this story…)

depressing New York Times article

Greenwald explains…

Crooks and Liars 

For months before my fiancé, First Sgt. Charles Monroe King, kissed my swollen stomach and said goodbye, he had been preparing for the beginning of the life we had created and for the end of his own. He boarded a plane in December 2005 with two missions, really – to lead his young soldiers in combat and to prepare our boy for a life without him.

 Dear son, Charles wrote on the last page of the journal, “I hope this book is somewhat helpful to you. Please forgive me for the poor handwriting and grammar. I tried to finish this book before I was deployed to Iraq. It has to be something special to you. I’ve been writing it in the states, Kuwait and Iraq.

The journal will have to speak for Charles now. He was killed Oct. 14 when an improvised explosive device detonated near his armored vehicle in Baghdad. Charles, 48, had been assigned to the Army’s First Battalion, 67th Armored Regiment, Fourth Infantry Division, based in Fort Hood, Tex. He was a month from completing his tour of duty. (Read the rest of this story…)

December 31st, was supposed to be Marla Ruzicka’s 30th birthday.
Marla has founded the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC) and convinced Congress to create an Iraqi War Victims Fund. Lawmakers
realized that financial compensation for families of civilians
accidentally injured or killed by the U.S. military is important for
helping them cope financially. A compassionate response might convince
the families that Americans feel sorry about their loss; therefore they
might not hate Americans, i.e. Marla was advancing US interests. Newsweek‘s Baghdad bureau chief wrote
that “Marla was alienated from much of the human rights community
because she chose to work with the military instead of always against
it.” As Peter Bergen wrote in the Washington Post:

Ruzicka
initially came off like a blond surfer girl (she was much given to
exclaiming “Dude!” and “You rock!”), but underneath the effervescent
exterior was a tough-minded humanitarian advocate who had little
tolerance for leftist anti-war demonstrators. Ruzicka understood that
wars happen despite the demonstrations, and she wanted to do something
concrete to alleviate the subsequent damage to human life.

Rolling Stone Magazine described her as a “youthful representative of a certain kind of not-yet-lost American idealism.” It’s a good, balanced and heart-wrenching biographic article.
 

Change the World in 2007

Writing in WorldChanging.Com, philosopher Edward Wolf says the key to being in tune with social change in 2007 will not be what we think, but how we think. “Politics resembles a battle of brands more than an exchange of ideas,” Wolf observes.
“The blogosphere has blown the doors of civic conversation wide open
but hardly elevated the dialogue, as almost any comment string
confirms. But that may be changing as social networking and open-source
tools reshape the ‘spaces’ in which people interact. Can new leaders
emerge in such spaces?” He thinks so and advises watching for leaders
who “embody humility, not those who merely espouse it.”

Writing in the same WorldChanging series, Jason Kottke calls for a True Cost rating on food and products, like the nutritional information on a cereal box or the Energy Star rating on a refrigerator. True Cost,
as he points out, would allow consumers to make legitimately informed
decisions about how they spend their money. When True Cost is factored
in, conflict diamonds become a more morally charged choice, as does
clothing made in sweatshops. Organic blueberries flown in from Chile
may be healthier for your toddler, but how much carbon dioxide was
released into the atmosphere to get them to your kitchen? What’s the
energy cost of living in the suburbs, compared to living downtown? Do
the people who made the clock hanging on the wall get paid a fair wage
and receive health care? Just how bad for the environment (and for me!)
is the laptop on which I’m typing or the cell phone on which I’m
talking?