Stygius

Do watch Keith Olbermann take Donald Rumsfeld to the carpet over Rumsfeld's speech to the American Legion, a rousing defense of American liberty in a time of venal and incompetent leadership:

For it did not merely serve to impugn the morality or intelligence - indeed, the loyalty - of the majority of Americans who oppose the transient occupants of the highest offices in the land;

Worse, still, it credits those same transient occupants - our employees - with a total omniscience; a total omniscience which neither common sense, nor this administration’s track record at home or abroad, suggests they deserve.

(HT Steve Clemons)

The Tomlinson Affair

One of my favorite pet scandals in the roster of current crookedness and cronyism is the affair(s) of Kenneth Tomlinson: first as the agenda-driven head of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting  who broke federal law; and second as the Voice of America honcho that abused public funds.

Now the State Department has issued its inquiry. New York Times:

State Department investigators have concluded that Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, the head of the federal agency that oversees most government broadcasts to foreign countries, improperly hired a friend on the public payroll for nearly $250,000 over two and a half years, according to a summary of their report made public this afternoon by Democratic Congressional staff members.

They also said that Mr. Tomlinson, whose job puts him in charge of the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, used his government office for personal business, including running a “horse racing operation” in which he supervised a stable of thoroughbreds he named after leaders from Afghanistan, including President Hamid Karzai and the late Ahmed Shah Massoud, that have raced at tracks across the United States. They also said that Mr. Tomlinson repeatedly used government employees to do his personal errands and that he billed the government for more days of work than the rules permit.

What is it with these guys and the ponies? Anyway, George Bush hasn't given up on his man at BBG:

The three lawmakers who had requested the inquiry sent a letter to the president this afternoon urging him to remove Mr. Tomlinson from his position immediately “and take all necessary steps to restore the integrity of the Broadcasting Board of Governors.”

Emily Lawrimore, a White House spokeswoman, said President Bush continues to support Mr. Tomlinson’s renomination. She declined to comment about the State Department report.

The loyalist at work:

Investigators who seized Mr. Tomlinson’s e-mail, telephone and office records found that he had improperly and extensively used his office at the Broadcasting Board to do nongovernmental work, including work for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and horse racing and breeding ventures. The material seized included racing forms and evidence that he used the office to buy and sell thoroughbreds.

Rep. Howard Berman is calling for Tomlinson's resignation.

Game theory

Steven Clemons:

UPI Editor Emeritus Martin Walker has put out a useful essay on a Royal Institute of International Affairs report on Iran and the U.S.

The Chatham House/RIIA report can be downloaded as a pdf here.

I love the line about American poker players and Iran's chess strategy.

Martin Walker:

Iran's role within other embattled areas in the region like Afghanistan and southern Lebanon has now increased hugely, says the report, which was prepared with considerable input from British officials and diplomats, as well as academics and regional experts.

"While the U.S. has been playing poker in the region, Iran has been playing chess. Iran is playing a longer, more clever game and has been far more successful at winning hearts and minds," says Nadim Shehadi, one of the report's authors and a fellow of the Institute's Middle East department.

...and had a wonderful time?

Think Progress email calls it a "massive PR blitz," but the White House's Katrina spiel seems like "half-hearted, unimaginative, obligatory PR blitz" to me. At any rate, a handy time-line from them nonetheless as the shills attempt to reorder the past.

A contemporaneous and damning timeline can be found via this post.

Off the deep end

Ann Coulter, long used to debating in the shallower end of the pool, claims on Hannity and Colmes that things are "going swimmingly" in Afghanistan. . . and then proceeds to get eaten alive by Kirsten Powers. Priceless clip at Crooks and Liars of Ann lurching around, begging Sean Hannity to intercede for her.

Eroding power

Forget democratization, the wannabe Bismarcks even screwed up the power politics. Christian Science Monitor:

A weaker US hand in the Mideast

With American leverage seen as diminished, Iran and others have more room to move in.

By Howard LaFranchi | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

WASHINGTON – Even before this summer's war between Israel and Hizbullah, American influence in the Middle East was seen to be waning, with the US bogged down in Iraq and the Bush administration's signature vision for the region - democratization - increasingly controversial.

But as the US joins international powers in attempts to bolster a shaky cease-fire in southern Lebanon, American leverage is seen by many to be even weaker. That could have deep consequences in a tinderbox region that has long looked to US leadership to pull it back from the brink, analysts say.

One of those consequences, they add, is that with America no longer setting the agenda as it once did, the way is clearer for other influences - for example, Iran and radical Islam - to move in.

"There was a time when we really led, when we weren't the last ones to the table but were the ones setting the table," says Jon Alterman, a former State Department policy-planning staff member now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington.

*Sigh* Get ye to the rest.

Means. Ends. Hubris.

Via Eric Martin, Slate's Fred Kaplan queries whether all of this breakdown is attributable to our president's alleged incapacity to grasp distinctions beyond the satisfying cliches of manichaeistic platitudes. Kaplan asks:

Could it be that he doesn't grasp the distinction between an "objective" and a "strategy," and so doesn't see that there might be alternatives? Might our situation be that grim?

Prompted by:

As for Iraq, it's no news that Bush has no strategy. What did come as news—and, really, a bit of a shocker—is that he doesn't seem to know what "strategy" means.

Asked if it might be time for a new strategy in Iraq, given the unceasing rise in casualties and chaos, Bush replied, "The strategy is to help the Iraqi people achieve their objectives and dreams, which is a democratic society. That's the strategy. … Either you say, 'It's important we stay there and get it done,' or we leave. We're not leaving, so long as I'm the president."

The reporter followed up, "Sir, that's not really the question. The strategy—"

Bush interrupted, "Sounded like the question to me."

First, it's not clear that the Iraqi people want a "democratic society" in the Western sense. Second, and more to the point, "helping Iraqis achieve a democratic society" may be a strategic objective, but it's not a strategy—any more than "ending poverty" or "going to the moon" is a strategy.

It'll probably be twelve months before they let him do another press conference.

More erosion

To build further on Sunday's post, today Eugene Robinson returns again to the delusive psychology of the White House in the wake of "the Decider's" Monday press conference:

According to the Iraqi government, 3,438 civilians were killed in July, making it the bloodiest month since the invasion. The president was asked yesterday whether the failure of the U.S.-backed "unity" government to stem the orgy of sectarian carnage disappoints him, and he said that no, it didn't. How, I wonder, is that possible? Does he believe it would be a sign of weakness to admit that the flowering of democracy in Iraq isn't going exactly as planned? Does he believe saying everything's just fine will make it so? Is he in denial? Or do 3,438 deaths really just roll off his back after he's had his workout and a nice bike ride?

"I hear a lot of talk about civil war" in Iraq, he allowed -- much of it apparently from his own generals, who have been increasingly bold in using the once-forbidden phrase -- but all that talk doesn't seem to penetrate very far. To the president, is all the bad news from Iraq just "talk" without objective reality?

Unfortunately, democracy-promotion so far consists of building the most transparent of facades as a backdrop for freedom proclamations; all the while the facades themselves are busily burning down.

In his news conference, the Decider did make a couple of nods to objective reality. He admitted in plain language that Iraq had nothing to do with the Sept. 11 attacks and possessed no weapons of mass destruction -- in other words, that his rationale for this elective, preemptive war had no substance.

Indeed, Bush did, in his customarily slippery version of straight talk:

Nothing, except for it's part of -- and nobody has ever suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack.  Iraq was a -- the lesson of September the 11th is, take threats before they fully materialize, Ken.  Nobody has ever suggested that the attacks of September the 11th were ordered by Iraq. 

After such grand lies, what sad and hollow little lies (every sane person agrees Osama bin Laden was the attacks' motivator) to which they are now reduced.

(A previous post on a Robinson column.)

Ideological erosion

"Creating reality" has encountered reality, it would seem. Via Laura Rozen, the Washington Post charts the on-going collapse of conservative intellectuals' apologism for the Bush Administration:

While most conservative media figures have not abandoned Bush, influential opinion-makers increasingly have raised questions, expressed doubts or attacked the president outright, particularly on foreign policy, on which he has long enjoyed their strongest support. In some cases, they have complained that Bush has drifted away from their shared principles; in other cases, they think it is the implementation that has fallen short. In most instances, Iraq figures prominently.

"Conservatives for a long time were in protective mode, wanting to emphasize the progress in Iraq to contrast what they felt was an unfair attack on the war by the Democrats and media and other sources," Rich Lowry, editor of the National Review, said in an interview. "But there's more of a sense now that things are on a downward trajectory, and more of a willingness to acknowledge it and pressure the administration to react to it."

Hiding behind a presidency

Dan Froomkin says the bubble is as intact as ever:

When it comes to Iraq in particular, Bush has no interest in engaging in genuine dialogue with people who disagree with him -- even though polls suggest those people now represent a large majority of the American public.

He has no interest in actually arguing the merits of his approach, or substantively defending against the increasingly focused critique by congressional Democrats.

Rather, he describes his approach in platitudes, and uses inflated rhetoric to mock the made-up arguments of imaginary opponents. He counts on the skillful use of imagery and human backdrops to deliver his very simple core message -- "I am protecting you" -- without actually making his case.

He hides behind the presidency.

And with obvious consquences (NYT):

More generally, the participants said, the president expressed frustration that Iraqis had not come to appreciate the sacrifices the United States had made in Iraq, and was puzzled as to how a recent anti-American rally in support of Hezbollah in Baghdad could draw such a large crowd. “I do think he was frustrated about why 10,000 Shiites would go into the streets and demonstrate against the United States,” said another person who attended.