Category Archives: Republicans

Scooter/Stewart Similarities

Criminal Injustice, Law, Politics, Republicans

Denis Collins, juror in Scooter Libby’s trial, said that Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff was the fall guy. “‘What are we doing with this guy here? Where’s Rove? Where are these other guys?'” is how Collins described the pickle jurors found themselves in during Libby’s scuttlebutt-driven trial. Still, it did not prevent them from convicting Libby, and rendering conflicting verdicts, to boot.

Not that he was a sympathetic sort, but CIA director George ‘Slam-Dunk’ Tenet was also the fall guy for Cheney, Bush, Rove, and Rice. They’re good at letting the minions take the wrap for their infractions.

More crucially, the “crime” for which Libby was convicted was also the crime for which Martha Stewart went to jail: lying to the FBI. Not for leaking the identity of former (so-called) classified CIA operative Valerie Plame. (Or, in Stewart’s case, insider trading.) Richard Armitage did that.

Where a prosecutor could never hope to prove his case in a court of law, he goes looking for other charges. He manufactures crimes. If he can’t get a defendant —usually a high-profile one —on the facts; the prosecutor will often get him for lying. After all, if the prosecutor has not been able to prove his case, this must mean the hapless accused has been lying, right?

Republicans failed to protest Stewart’s sham of a trial, but have been perfectly capable of articulating why Scooter Libby’s conviction is suspect. But that’s to be expected. Stewart is a rock-ribbed Democrat; Scooter a Republican. Democrats are as partisan.

Let’s hope Cheney cashes in some Halliburton shares to help defray the costs of Libby’s $6-million defense.

Idio-Experts Find Their Groove

Iraq, Media, Middle East, Pseudo-intellectualism, Republicans, The Zeitgeist, War

The experts—the cakewalk crowd; the people whose utter ignorance of geopolitical realities had them insisting our soldiers would be greeted with blooms and bonbons in Iraq; those fools who said an Iraqi democracy would rise from the torrid sands of Mesopotamia; those jokers who labeled as a liberal or a traitor anyone who exposed their invasion of Iraq for the immoral and illegal crime it was; the likes of Victor Davis Hanson, David Frum, Thomas Friedman, Christopher Hitchens, George Will, Tucker Carlson, and Andrew Sullivan (a few of whom seem to have conveniently recanted at the eleventh hour), Charles Krauthammer, William Kristol, Mark Steyn, Max Boot, John Podhoretz, and the list goes on—the philosopher-kings who’ve been right about almost nothing have finally found a prediction they can make with absolute (ponderous and pompous) certainly:

A is likely to increase violence in Iraq
B is likely to increase violence in Iraq
C is likely to increase violence in Iraq
Saddam’s execution is likely to increase violence in Iraq

Ad infinitum…

Violence in Iraq is rising and is going to continue to rise no matter what. As the idio-experts have discovered, violence in Iraq is a certain thing.

Iraq: The Devil is in the Big Picture, Not the Details

Hillary Clinton, Iraq, Middle East, Republicans, War

Are there any limits to stupidity in politics? Not really.

Hearings on the war in Iraq this week saw Senator John McCain insist on, wait for it…more troops. Gen. John P. Abizaid, top American military commander in the Middle East, disagreed, although his innovation was to suggest that training the Iraqi military be made “more robust.” Yes, that’s right. All the Iraqis need is a bit more of what’s been worse than useless so far.

Lindsey Graham of South Carolina followed McCain’s cues—he always does. And in such undazzling company, the Hildebeest dazzled. “I have heard over and over again, ‘the government must do this, the Iraqi Army must do that’,” warbot Clinton complained to Abizaid. “Can you offer us more than the hope that the Iraqi government and the Iraqi Army will step up to the task?”

When it comes to Iraq, the pols fetishize details, hang hopes on minutia and forfeit a deeper understanding of the place and people. The devil is not in the details—more troops, or better training for Iraqis—but in the big picture. The government of Iraq doesn’t stand apart from the governed; it reflects them.

The divisions that have riven the region for four millenniums are mirrored in the current government, and will continue to hobble every successive government that hunkers down in the Green Zone, where it’ll forever be forced to take cover, incapable of governing Baghdad, much less the rest of the country.

The Nuts and Bolts of Bolton

Democrats, Neoconservatism, Republicans, UN

I had the opportunity to see John Bolton in action, as I was in Europe earlier this year, where the UN receives considerable coverage. Over in Europe, they seem to love the sight of pompous bureaucrats waddling in and out of expensive eateries.
Libertarians opposed Bolton’s nomination as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations for, as far as I could tell, ideological reasons. They were rankled by his neoconservatism. Nevertheless, what I saw of the man, who has been serving as our envoy to the U.N. under a temporary “recess appointment,” surprised me (I had accepted libertarian arguments for his rejection out of hand ). He was tough, intelligent, and focused. He did the US’s bidding very effectively.
I was quite surprised at the discrepancy between the derogatory description of Bolton (here for example) and what I saw of him in the course of his duties at the UN. He did not appear to be acting as an ideologue, but as a shrewd, tough diplomat.