Divine Rights

Krugman's column this morning provides an object lesson for all of us living in democracies, from both sides of the blogosphere: nothing is perfect. Every political party. even your own, is sometimes wrong. Every political leader, even one you revere or love, makes mistakes.
Just because he's the leader of your country doesn't mean that everything he does is right.
We should all repeat this, as a mantra, five times a day. Otherwise, as we indulge in our partisan rants and ravings, its just too easy to fall into the same kind of thoughtless, unprincipled, knee-jerk, hero-worship cult which appears to be taking over US politics.
From Krugman's column: Karl Rove's America:

What Mr. Rove understood, long before the rest of us, is that we're not living in the America of the past, where even partisans sometimes changed their views when faced with the facts. Instead, we're living in a country in which there is no longer such a thing as nonpolitical truth. In particular, there are now few, if any, limits to what conservative politicians can get away with: the faithful will follow the twists and turns of the party line with a loyalty that would have pleased the Comintern . . . there's no question that [Rove] damaged national security for partisan advantage. If a Democrat had done that, Republicans would call it treason. But what we're getting, instead, is yet another impressive demonstration that these days, truth is political. One after another, prominent Republicans and conservative pundits have declared their allegiance to the party line. They haven't just gone along with the diversionary tactics, like the irrelevant questions about whether Mr. Rove used Valerie Wilson's name in identifying her . . . or the false, easily refuted claim that Mr. Wilson lied about who sent him to Niger. They're now a chorus, praising Mr. Rove as a patriotic whistle-blower. Ultimately, this isn't just about Mr. Rove. It's also about Mr. Bush, who has always known that his trusted political adviser . . . is a thug, and obviously made no attempt to find out if he was the leaker. Most of all, it's about what has happened to America. How did our political system get to this point?

I think that frankly, sir, people don't give a damn. Too many people can't be bothered reading up on issues and thinking about things and formulating their opinions -- that's too much work. Its easier just to go along to get along.
Particularly easy is to fall into the belief that the leader is always right just because he's the leader. And seeing this happen to a democracy as long-established as the US is just a little scary for the rest of us -- will there come a time when our own democracy is just too much work, where it will be easier to just go along with every crackpot, harebrained spin cycle of "our party" and "our leader" than to consider a contrary position?
That path leads to the divine right of kings.

How stupid (etc, etc): part 2

Rove Reportedly Held Phone Talk on C.I.A. Officer. This NYT story makes no sense.
We're supposed to believe the story of an anonymous source that it was actually Novak who told Rove that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA. And then, apparently, Mr. Motor Mouth just passed the rumour on to Cooper without really checking it or thinking much more about it. So see, folks, Rove is innocent -- innocent, I tell you!
The bullsh*t meter is clanging loudly.
Wilson's op ed was published July 6 and the Rove-Novak conversation happened July 8. The discussion about Wilson -- which was the biggest story on the planet that week -- supposedly happened only casually, at the end of Novak's discussion with Rove about homeland security hirings. The mythical Rove-Novak "Homeland Security personnel" discussion is perhaps not quite as incredible as the mythical Rove-Cooper "welfare reform" discussion three days later, but its close -- and once again, with Cooper, the Wilson discussion supposedly happened only casually at the end of the phone call.
This charming Novak tale doesn't explain at all how Rove apparently "knew" that Valerie Wilson had suggested or mentioned that her husband knew people in Niger. And it doesn't explain why Rove told Chris Matthews that "Wilson's wife is fair game". And particularly it doesn't explain the actions of Rove's lawyer over the last week -- do you think if Rove actually had heard the Plame information casually from Novak in the first place, that his lawyer wouldn't have found a way to mention this at some time in the last week?
They must think we're pretty dumb.

Congratulations, Simon Pole

Progressive Bloggers in Wikipedia
Hey, the Progressive Bloggers made it into Wikipedia.
And congratulations particularly to Simon Pole who led the charge to save the PB listing, and posted dozens of times to inform the Wiki editors about the significance of the Progressive Bloggers site. I think Canadian political blog sites will have an easier time in the future getting their entries onto Wikipedia because Simon kept hammering home the importance of political blogging in the Canadian political scene, and also ensured that the Wiki editors learned about the differences between the US and Canada in terms of the blogosphere.

War with China?

Top Chinese general warns US over attack: "General Zhu said his views did not represent official Chinese policy and he did not anticipate war with the US."
Oh. Well. So that's OK then. (I hope.)

How stupid do they think people are?

The dumbest thing about the Rove Defense so far is this idea that Rove and Cooper were chatting about welfare reform on Friday, July 11 two years ago, just before Karl went on holidays.
Such a hot topic, welfare reform, wasn't it?
And then, supposedly, the subject of Joe Wilson just happened to come up, just casual-like, right at the end of the call.
Bullsh*t.
The Wilson op ed had appeared FIVE DAYS BEFORE in the New York Times, causing Bush and Rice to spend EVERY DAY SINCE stuck with an hysterical press corps in Africa screaming about yellowcake and Iraq, while Bush and Cheney and Rice were frantically spinning the "it was just 16 words" meme and supposedly trying to track down the error, culminating in Tennant falling on his sword about the State of the Union error later that very same evening.
And Cooper and Rove were supposedly just chatting about welfare reform? Well, maybe Cooper didn't care about the hottest news story on the planet, but Rove sure did.

UUAT

Over at MyDD, there's a post linking Rove to Watergate as well as 'Leakgate' -- interesting stuff.
But while reading the comments to this article, I also found out this little known (or, at least, unknown to me) fact about Rove -- that he dropped out of the University of Utah in 1971. It started me wondering -- why would he do that?
Maybe its now time to start the University of Utah Alumni for Truth (UUAT).
So Rove just "dropped out" of the University of Utah in 1971? Perhaps a check with his fellow students and professors is in order to see if, really perhaps, he may have been booted out for cheating.
Now of course, I am not making ANY accusations whatsoever, just that someone really should discuss this on a few talk shows, now that this serious question has been raised.
And why, once he left university, was he not drafted and sent to Vietnam? Did Nixon personally issue a special deferrment? Or did Rove tell the draft board that he was gay? And was this the truth, or did he just lie to get out of serving in the military?
Once again, of course, I am not making ANY accusations whatsoever, just asking.
But of course, now that these serious questions have been raised, well, once again they must all be discussed in detail on the talk shows. The UUAT should demand definitive and documented answers to these serious questions! The UUAT wants Rove to release ALL of his medical and university and selective service records, so that the UUAT can see for itself what the truth really is!

"Oops! My bad"

Saying 'sorry', 'oops'. and 'my bad', just doesn't cut it.
This is why Canada doesn't have a death penalty and will never have one again: Convicted, Executed, Not Guilty
And also, of course, David Millgard, Guy Paul Morin, Donald Marshall . . .

My helpful nature

Gee, I must be well known around the world for my helpful nature, my generous personality, my intuitive warmth and graciousness.
I just got ANOTHER opportunity to help someone in Africa or somewhere, by allowing them to deposit $16 million in my bank account.
Thanks, guys. Its so nice to be famous.

Bolton? Who's that?

White House urges another vote on Bolton
Yes, I'll bet they'd be thrilled right about now if there was some more controversy about Bolton, to the point that he would dominate the front pages again, instead of all the stories about Rove and Iraq and WMD and all that -- ah, the good old days of a month ago, when it was all Bolton, all the time.

Liars

OK, I'll just quote the whole Poorman post:

Larry “Grandmama” Johnson: "At the end of the day, Joe Wilson was right. There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. It was the Bush Administration that pushed that lie and because of that lie Americans are dying. Shame on those who continue to slander Joe Wilson while giving Bush and his pack of liars a pass. That’s the true outrage."
Furreal. And it’s not like there’s all these otherwise decent people out there who just kinda happened to fall on the wrong side of the fence on this particular issue. In fact, I’d say that there is a pretty strong correlation between engaging in one of the following activities and engaging in the other two:
1. Smearing Joseph Wilson and pooh-pooh’ing (or cheering) the well-documented and now admitted burning of a CIA operative.
2. Condoning, excusing, downplaying, and/or ignoring the extensive use of torture under the Bush Administration, while smearing anyone who actually opposes it.
3. Passing along every half-assed rumor about how Saddam and Osama were best friends and had this huge underground a-bomb factory together, and smearing and slandering anyone who questions any of this Administration’s destructive nonsense.
If you are one of these people, you can basically just shut the fuck up forever, starting now. I don’t care if you are ashamed of yourself, I don’t give half a fuck about you either way, I just want to make sure that your bullshit is never listened to ever again. Enough already.

Morality, anyone? Don't any of these people go to church?

Intentional is as intentional does

Hmmm . . .
OK, one more point on the Rove thing, and then I'll quit.
The US law is described as saying no one can “intentionally disclose[] any information identifying [a] covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive classified information”.
Now, the common interpretation of the word "intentional" in the Rove story so far has been in the sense of "intended to reveal a secret" -- in other words, only if Rove knew Plame was covert and told Novak anyway could the leak be described as "intentional". This is certainly the spin that Rove's lawyer is using.
But suppose the word "intentional" in a legal sense means only "not accidental" -- in other words, because Rove knew he was speaking to a reporter, anything he said was "intentional" regardless of what he knew or why he said it. In that sense, a "non-intentional" leak would have been if Rove was talking about Plame to the head of the CIA on the phone, and Novak had sneaked up to his office door to overhear the phone call.
Hmmm . . .

Unfit

Juan Cole provides a concise summary of the whole Rove issue: Rove Unfit for Public Office: "Whether the courts can and will punish Karl Rove for telling Time Magazine's Matthew Cooper that Joe Wilson's wife was a CIA operative should be beside the point. That's for the courts to decide. The real question is whether we want a person to occupy a high office in the White House when that person has cynically endangered US national security to take a petty sort of revenge on a whistleblower." Read it all.

Put your sweet lips a little closer to the phone

The tune is now in my head:

Put your sweet lips a little closer to the phone
Let's pretend that we're together all alone.
I'll tell the man to turn the jukebox way down low.
And you can tell your friend there with you, he'll have to go.

Why? Well, it seems like there's a history of 'sweet lips' between Rove and Novak. From MyDD comes this link -- Karl Rove and Novak: They've Talked Before "Karl Rove was fired from the 1992 re-election campaign of Bush Sr. for allegedly leaking a negative story about Bush loyalist/fundraiser Robert Mosbacher to Novak. Novak's piece described a meeting organized by then-Senator Phil Gramm at which Mosbacher was relieved of his duties as state campaign manager because "the president's re-election effort in Texas has been a bust." Rove was fired after Mosbacher fingered him as Novak's source."

Oh, for crying out loud

We won. You lost. Stop grandstanding.
Anti-same-sex group lobbies Queen: " The former television host of 100 Huntley Street is leading a group urging Queen Elizabeth to step in and block Parliament from passing same-sex marriage legislation."

Maybe this time

Some in the blogosphere, having been burned many times before, are concluding that unless Rove is actually charged with obstruction or perjury or criminally outing a CIA agent, he's going to be staying in the White House. All that stuff from Bush two years ago about how the leaker would be fired were just the usual BS, they're saying, and the Republicans are going to try to make everything Joe Wilson's fault. Here's The Poorman's Ships post:

. . . it is important to appreciate that there is a vast, vast ocean of difference between picking on some NY Times reporter and actually, you know, doing things which will make the White House upset. The right-wing smear machine hasn't tried to tear Fitzgerald down, the Justice Department and/or Congress hasn't taken away his funding, and Tom DeLay hasn't yet darkly warned any activist judges or jurists who might sit on such criminal cases as may result from this investigation that he cannot be responsible for the potentially violent actions of patriotic citizens which may understandably result from any anti-American type of outcome. It's not impossible that we could see justice come out of this thing, and perhaps even the long-awaited frogmarch, but I wouldn't get my hopes up. Too many people just want to see this story sail away.

But I wonder if it will actually be so easy -- are people in the United States finally getting fed up? According to Americablog, a lot of newspaper editorial pages this morning were on this story. John writes:

. . . the coverage is bad. Real bad. I'm going to post the leads of the stories, to give you a sense of how bad.
NYT (via SF Chronicle): Nearly two years after stating that any administration official found to have been involved in leaking the name of an undercover CIA officer would be fired, and assuring that Karl Rove and other senior aides to President Bush had nothing to do with the disclosure, the White House refused on Monday to answer any questions about new evidence of Rove's role in the matter.
Detroit Free Press: The White House refused Monday to repeat earlier assertions that any administration official who leaked classified information would be fired. The refusal comes days after Karl Rove, one of President George W. Bush's top aides, was revealed as the source of a news leak that exposed a CIA undercover officer in 2003.

Houston Chronicle: The White House scrambled Monday to reconcile President Bush's vow to fire anyone who leaked information about an undercover CIA operative with revelations that top political aide Karl Rove spoke to a reporter about the agent.
AP: The White House is suddenly facing damaging evidence that it misled the public by insisting for two years that presidential adviser Karl Rove wasn't involved in leaking the identity of a femaleCIA officer.
SF Chronicle editorial: THE OFFICIAL silence from the White House on Monday was quite disturbing.
Robert Scheer: To try to conceal the fact that the president had lied to the American public about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program, Rove attempted to destroy the credibility of two national security veterans and send an intimidating message to any other government officials preparing to publicly tell the truth.

Josh Marshall points out the latest Republican "Red Herring Egregious Mumbojumbo", debunking that Wilson's trip to Niger had been authorized by Tennant or Cheney -- the egregious aspect being that Wilson neither said nor implied that his trip had been authorized by Tennant or Cheney. Marshall writes "The whole thing is a dodge and a distraction. It's irrelevant to the question that was under discussion. It's just yet another attempt to whip up a phoney cover story after the fact. Or, in other words, more scofflaw Republicanism."
It seems the Republican attack machine will be trying to recycle the same points it tried to make last summer, that a Senate Intelligence report had debunked Wilson -- which is not true at all. And with no WDM found in Iraq, and Tennant saying two years ago that the Africa claim should not have been made, I wonder how many would now be persuaded that Wilson was wrong about Niger.
Armando notes that the story has now developed some of its own momentum, moving away from Wilson to focus on Rove and Bush " . . . the White House lied to the American People about the fact that Rove leaked that Valerie Plame was a CIA operative. That's the story now. The law will take care of itself. The Plame prosecutor will tell us about that if and when he hands down indictments. But the White House has been lying to the American People about the fact that Rove leaked Plame's identity and about the fact that the President would fire whoever leaked this information."