When Tom Friedman writes about the Third Party Dream, the discriminating reader turns and flees. Exposure to this concentrated level of stupidity is dangerous, possibly toxic, like a run-in with H.P. Lovecraft’s “colour out of space.”

To save time, [...]]]>

To save time, let’s just dissect the idiocy of Friedman’s new lede.

I had to catch a train in Washington last week.

Uh-oh.

The paved street in the traffic circle around Union Station was in such poor condition that I felt as though I was on a roller coaster.

Rolling Stone has a very interesting and horrifying article by Michael Hastings about the use of drones for killing purported terrorists, sort out the differences in [...]]]> I’m of the opinion that the word “additional” in the quote in the heading may create a false impression that there’s much oversight going on of the CIA’s drone assassinations.

Rolling Stone has a very interesting and horrifying article by Michael Hastings about the use of drones for killing purported terrorists, sort out the differences in the way the military operates and the way the CIA operates.  The CIA’s operations are particularly horrifying, “little more than a militarized version of murder,” with targets selected by “an odds game: If the agency thinks it’s likely that the group of individuals are terrorists, it will take the shot…”  Just like that.  By the nature of the CIA’s role, that “shot” is not in a combat zone (the military handles those) but in areas where we aren’t supposed to be in a war.

It seems we started down this road decades ago, but have gone all-in since 9-11, and ramped things up in a big way in the last five years. While there are divisions within the Obama administration about their use, Obama is apparently all for them and the advocates have largely won, including in their number people who were harsh critics of the Bush administration over torture.

I wonder if there’s any going back.

As an aside, there’s one brief bit that seemed dubious to me:  ”Tariq and other teenagers at the meeting told Williams how they lived in fear of drones. They could hear them at night over their homes in Waziristan, buzzing for hours like aerial lawn mowers.”  A major effort is made to make these things undetectable and able to do what they do from a distance.  I asked my son-in-law, who spent the better part of a year at a remote place on the border of Afganistan and Pakistan, if he’d ever heard a drone or thought people on the ground could.  He was also dubious they were as audible as this passage depicts.

Here’s some of the context on the quotes in my second paragraph:

Drone assaults on high-value targets – known as “personality strikes” – usually require approval from a lawyer like Rizzo, the CIA chief and sometimes the president himself. But the CIA’s more common use of drones – known as “signature strikes” – involves attacks on groups of alleged militants who are behaving in ways that seem suspicious. Such strikes are reportedly the brainchild of the CIA veteran who has run the agency’s drone program for the past six years, a chain-smoking convert to Islam who goes by the code name “Roger.” In a recent profile, The Washington Post called Roger “the principal architect of the CIA’s drone campaign.” When it comes to signature strikes, say insiders, the decision to launch a drone assault is essentially an odds game: If the agency thinks it’s likely that the group of individuals are insurgents, it will take the shot. “The CIA is doing a lot more targeting on a percentage basis,” says the former official with knowledge of the agency’s drone program.

But to countries like Pakistan, what America considers a legitimate strike against terrorists appears to be little more than a militarized version of homicide. “From the perspective of Pakistani law, we probably committed a murder,” says the former CIA official. “We commit espionage every day, breaking the laws of other countries.” To absolve itself in the most sensitive strikes, the CIA has become skilled at using lawyers to cover its tracks. “They use paper when it is going to help them,” says the former official. “Or they get on the secure phone. Or they get in an elevator casually with a lawyer and ask for his advice, like, ‘There’s nothing preventing me from destroying those tapes, is there?’”

From the moment Obama took office, according to Washington insiders, the new commander in chief evinced a “love” of drones. “The drone program is something the executive branch is paying a lot of attention to,” says Ken Gude, vice president of the Center for American Progress. “These weapons systems have become central to Obama.” In the early days of the administration, then-chief of staff Rahm Emanuel would routinely arrive at the White House and demand, “Who did we get today?”

To Obama – a man famous for valuing both precision and restraint – drones represented a more targeted way of waging war, one with the potential to take out those guilty of conducting terrorism while limiting U.S. casualties. “Fewer U.S. personnel are at risk,” says Brooks, the legal scholar who advised the Pentagon. “The technology makes it seem logical to go with the choice that reduces the cost of using lethal force.” A senior U.S. official with intimate knowledge of the drone program says that remote-control strikes are particularly helpful in Pakistan, where there’s fierce resistance to any overt U.S. presence. “We can do drone strikes without any help from the Pakistanis,” says the official, noting that the missions also provoke no “political cost” in the U.S.

Over the past year, however, the president’s increasing reliance on drones has caused a growing rift within the administration. According to sources in the U.S. Embassy in Pakistan, Ambassador Cameron Munter was furious that the CIA was conducting drone strikes without consulting him over the potential diplomatic fallout. The strikes had stopped briefly in January 2011 after Raymond Davis, a CIA contractor, was taken into custody for killing two Pakistanis in broad daylight; the day after Davis was released, the CIA drone strikes began again. Munter, according to U.S. officials, complained to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and senior military officials about the drone program, and his concerns were brought to the White House. At issue was a particularly deadly drone strike in March 2011 that the Americans claimed killed 21 militants, and the Pakistanis claimed killed 42 civilians.

The crisis sparked a miniature blowup in the White House between the president’s national security team and the CIA. Last spring, National Security Adviser Tom Donilon ordered a review of the drone program – not to halt it, but to figure out a way to deploy drones that might ease the concerns of Munter and other diplomats. The prospect of any additional oversight, however modest, set off alarms at the CIA. When first confronted with the idea of the review, according to administration officials, the agency flipped out. “One CIA guy gave Donilon the ‘You want me on that wall’ speech,” says a senior U.S. official familiar with the exchange, referring to the scene in the movie A Few Good Men in which a Marine commandant played by Jack Nicholson argues that he’s above the law. Donilon tried to assuage the CIA’s fears. “No – you know that’s not right,” he told the official, according to a White House source who witnessed the exchange. “We all are on the same side here, trying to make the country safe.”

At the center of the debate was Obama’s newly appointed CIA chief, Gen. David Petraeus. Petraeus sided with the White House, recognizing the need to strike a balance between maintaining a strong relationship with Pakistan and aggressively pursuing a military strategy that includes drone strikes. “Petraeus wants to be more careful,” says one senior U.S. official involved in the drone program. Agency veterans struck back, complaining to The New York Times that the drone program had ground to a halt under Petraeus. Much of the slowdown, in fact, was due to political necessity: A NATO airstrike that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in November 2011 had forced the CIA to put drone strikes on a temporary hiatus. But the media campaign appears to have had the intended effect: Two days after the Times story appeared, drone strikes in Pakistan resumed.

Every bit of it is worth reading.

H/t to Lee for suggesting it.  I tagged this post “politics” and “law: national” in part for want of better categories.

In Texas Monthly, Joe Hagan, who has been covering this story for years, has lots of dot-connecting and some new details about Bush’s national guard service, both the question of how [...]]]> This one feels almost as much ancient history as “Deep Throat Revealed!” did a couple of years ago, but here it is anyway.

In Texas Monthly, Joe Hagan, who has been covering this story for years, has lots of dot-connecting and some new details about Bush’s national guard service, both the question of how he got in and whether Bush just quit going to drills.  Among the details:

• It’s apparently evident that strings were pulled to get him in, someone evident that he just quit going to drills, and there’s hints that something happened that both sent him off flying duty and sent him to do community service.
• Turns out that the documents right wing bloggers “proof” the documents had to be forgeries–they were typed with proportional spacing and superscripts not available at the time — has disintegrated.  There were typewriters available that typed that way (My father’s law office had one of them– second one down).
• This issue surfaced twice in odd contexts, once during Bush’s governorship, when Harriet Mier was hired as a lawyer to deal with the problem, and then again when Mier was nominated to the Supreme Court.

I’m pretty much equally sure that I will get some snark for posting about this and that there are regular readers of the blog who will be interested in this story.

Update:   Anderson points out in comments that Kevin Drum, who thinks the article is interesting, worth reading, and has some new details in it, is astounded at the notion that anyone thinks the memos weren’t forged, and explains pretty convincingly why.

Last night, CNN had on Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom.  He was asked whether there is a concern that Romney had been forced to tack so for to the right it would hurt him with moderate voters, he answered, “Well, I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign. Everything changes.  It’s [...]]]> Seriously.

Last night, CNN had on Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom.  He was asked whether there is a concern that Romney had been forced to tack so for to the right it would hurt him with moderate voters, he answered, “Well, I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign. Everything changes.  It’s almost like an etch a sketch.  You can kind of shake it up and we just start all over again.”   As one of the other CNN folk sums up, “everyone forgets and you get a reset.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

Which I guess answers the question suggested by this video mashup.

h/t TPM

Update:

Too little, too late, at least during the primaries, but here’s Santorum:

and here’s Gingrich:

Both are from Daivd Weigel’s blog on Slate, where there’s also a picture of Santorum using his at a speech.  Weigel also notes: “With this quote, Romney guru Eric Fehrnstrom has scored a cleaner hit on his candidate than Rick Santorum ever has.”

On election night, the Clarion Ledger had a great map showing results by county (I cannot find it now on their wonderful website.  The closest I can do is the one above, from Huffington Post).

Notice how you can discern traditional Mississippi regions in this map.

What interested me is the way the [...]]]>

On election night, the Clarion Ledger had a great map showing results by county (I cannot find it now on their wonderful website.  The closest I can do is the one above, from Huffington Post).

Notice how you can discern traditional Mississippi regions in this map.

What interested me is the way the results broke by region:

• Romney took the Jackson area, Vicksburg and the Delta (which required almost no votes because of the tiny, tiny turnout there.  It took about 5 people and a couple of their dogs for Gingrich to take Issaquena County), most of the Gulf Coast, and Natchez.  Romney also won three college towns (Lafayette, Oktibbeha, and Bolivar Counties) but did not win Forrest County, which went with the rest of the Piney Woods to Gingrich (note that it could be said that Boliver wasn’t as much about Delta State as the Delta vote…).
• Two interesting “old school” Mississippi regions to show up where the almost-Appalachia area from Pontotoc to Itawamba County and north to the Tennessee line, which all went to Santorum, and the Piney Woods, which went to Gingrich.  Santorum penetrated south into the area around Meridian-What is it about those two regions that produced those two results?
• Notice the way that 3 of the five Prairie counties produced a little “island” for Gingrich around Columbus and West Point, and the way the four counties that form the border of the Delta and the Hills from Holmes up to Panola alternate are Gingrich territory– he won three and lost the fourth by 4 votes.

You can really see the old regions in this map, particularly if you eliminate counties that had tiny votes.

I would love to know what made the Piney Woods go to Gingrich and the Northeastern part of the state go to Santorum, plus why those Delta-border counties were Gingrich country.  I don’t know of particular endorsements (one that obviously didn’t work was Donald Wildman of Tupelo endorsing Gingrich) or groups pushing for those two in that might have produced the effect visible on the map.

What mostly interested me, though, was the way the classic Mississippi regions show up on a color coded may showing which candidate won which county.

I’m flabergasted that someone in comments suggested that Obama was the worst American president. This suggests to me what the writer might know [...]]]> This is an existential act.  That is, I’m doing this not because I think it will make a diference (persuade the confused), but because I think I ought to do it.

I’m flabergasted that someone in comments suggested that Obama was the worst American president. This suggests to me what the writer might know about history, and makes me wonder if they remember the French they took.

In any event, here’s the three presidents that (prior to 2000) who I think could have held the undisputed title of “worst president,” and why:

• James Buchanan:  Dithered with the slave states, never acknowledging that there was no sufficient compromise that would appease them, and did as much as any human being to provoke the bloodshed that was the Civil War.  He was at home in Pennsylvania within earshot of Gettysburg when that battle occurred, and I hope it interrupted his rest.  Interesting footnote:  Possibly had as full a resume as any president up to his time, suggesting (as did Herbert Hoover) that may not be the be all and end all.
• Andrew Johnson:  Perhaps dealt an unplayable hand having to follow Lincoln, but made as bad a hash of it as possible.
• Warren Harding:  On the bad side of the ledger, there’s Teapot Dome.  On the good side?  Nothing.  His self assessment says it all:  ”I am not fit for this office and should never have been here.”  Return to normalcy, indeed.

Nixon doesn’t make this list because anyone honest has to list accomplishments that balance the bad. Even a criminal conspiracy that would have lead to impeachment if he’d not resigned.   What did these three accomplish to the good?

At one time, when I was focused on the demise of fundamental civil liberties, it seemed clear to me that George W. Bush was in contention with Buchanan for the worst president in our history.  That still seems the case, but I’m willing to acknowledge now that my horrified reaction at what was occurring at the time may have tilted the scales some in my mind.  Time may be required to know the answer here, and  some perspective may be required.

In any event, here’s my list of what Bush did that places him in this company, not ordered by how bad each entry seems to me

• That tax cut, setting America up (when combined with his wars) for deficits as far as the eye can see.
• No Child Left Behind, an education bill with goals that were not possible to meet, but with the “merit” of coming due after a second Bush term.
• The Iraq war.  Here, one has to include all it accomplishes toward deficit reduction, and improving the view of America abroad.
• “Refocusing” efforts from Afganistan toward Iraq, and letting bin Laden out of Tora Bora.  A Democrat who pulled the later trick would have been viewed about like, oh, Jimmy Carter after that disaster in the desert in Iran.  As in, a one-term presidency.
• The assault on the idea of judicial due process- that a court decision was an important check on unbridled executive power.

Note here that I’m not adding to that list being asleep at the switch through the housing bubble, because it seems every part of the government (Democrats included) was to be faulted there.  But, in any event, this is where I se the scoring at this point.  What, exactly, makes Obama the “worst ever”?  Killing bin Laden?  Obamacare, about which we won’t know for some time whether it’s a mistake?  Not undoing the civil liberties breaches of the Bush era?

This message was not calculated to motivate me, but then, I’m not sure what [...]]]> On my home phone last night, there was a message from the Romney campaign:  A robocall intended to convince me that Rick Santorum was not the Tea Party candidate and that he didn’t like them and they didn’t like him.

This message was not calculated to motivate me, but then, I’m not sure what message Romney’s people could craft that would motivate me.

Meanwhile, on my office phone was an incomprehensible fragment of another Romney robocall, this one apparently about Newt Gingrich.