Nick Oliva

I was reading a few minutes ago about the entry of a second Novak into the Plame investigation when I had a wonderful thought!

I hadn’t realized before that Woodward actually identified who the other administration source was. But the article says the following:

Woodward’s source could face legal troubles because the source testified earlier in the case and apparently did not mention a conversation with Woodward about Plame, according to lawyers in the case. If the source provided inaccurate or incomplete information, Fitzgerald could seek to bring charges, they said.

This clearly means they know the source.

Now, Woodward was writing a book about Bush. He had all of these candid, one-on-one conversations with the aristocratic farm hand himself!

Wouldn’t it be nice… oh, wouldn’t it be nice….

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Duke resigned today. This is yet another example of Republicans bringing values [of the wrong kind] to Washington.

About a year ago, talking points memo really pounded the beat on this issue. It’s good to see it come around. It did seem like the evidence was persuasive at the time.

I’m curious about collecting quotes from those that rushed to defend on party lines. I remember reading some right-wing rhetoric about Duke’s innocence. On the heels of bashing Kerry, no less.

At least Kerry made his money the old fashioned way…he married it.

The dominoes are falling pretty regullarly, eh?

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There is an article in the NY Times today about Americans’ desire to exploit Cuba as a tourist destination. It reads a little bit like your lusty, drooling sixty-year old neighbor waiting for your fourteen year-old daughter to turn eighteen so he can jump on her.

"It’s got mountain ranges, colonial cities, beaches; it’s got everything," he says. "No travel organization in the United States will be caught flat-footed when the travel restrictions are lifted. We are all prepared."

Cuba, with its magnificent, unspoiled beauty, seduces in many ways. To American business executives, it is an untapped market of 12 million people eager for American goods. To American hoteliers and cruise ship executives, it represents a tantalizing glimpse of the future - of future ports for their passengers, of future resorts for their customers.

To American tourists, it represents the taste of a forbidden fruit - of a land that has been off limits since 1961.

This is what globalization is about? Turning Cuba into Hawaii?

This is the nasty, ugly part of capitalism that gives globalization a bad name. Capitalism acts first, destroys second, and seeks to preserve what little remains just before it’s all gone.

Cuba is a bit like the FDA. Just as the FDA’s incompetence has allowed time for unapproved drugs to prove dangerous, Cuba’s incompetence and inaction has preserved the charm of the island.

This is what conservatism should be about. Instead it’s about rushing to get the franchise rights to the first MacDonald’s on the Malecon.

I’m hopeful that Cuba, post-Castro and post-embargo, will be able to preserve enough of its dignity and self-governance to allow growth to be managed and limits to be placed on the lusty, drooling travel bureaus and hotel chains.

If you’re fighting to end the embargo, do it for the human rights and justice, not for greed and exploitation.

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As the purge of above-the-law Republicans continues - currently in Ohio - it’s a good time to point out a little annoying tidbit.

Consider the levels of deceit, corruption, and government funds doled out to the Friends-of-GOP. On the last point alone, we should really consider coining a new term, wealthyfare. Let’s face it, by any measure, the rich, powerful, and well-connected are on the dole!

Here’s the annoying tidbit: Republicans are not asking for redemption for their sins.

Republicans voted an unqualified fool into the White House. Twice. At least it could be said that they voted in sufficient numbers to allow the difference to be stolen. (Please become at least a little informed on the overwhelmingly impossible statistical odds obtained in the Ohio electorate of 2004 before going off on me.)

Where are the conservatives doing Hail Marys for having the profound ignorance to think that of all people, they, were bringing moral values to Washington???

Instead what we hear from them is essentially,

"So what? Nobody has ever been as dirty, had more blood on their hands, etc… but Democrats don’t have any new ideas."

The party of conservatism (read: "old ideas are better"), telling people that the progressive party has "no new ideas" for solving the problems they created. There’s something wrong here…something very, very wrong.

When everything your party stands for is falling apart or already well below the ground, you should let go of the offensive position and rebuild your own house.

Instead, they go off on people like me for telling the corrupt to stop preaching, the rich to stop stealing, the righteous to mind their own business, and the voters to wake the fuck up!

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Joe Biden weighs in to test the waters on xxxhis bid for the presidencyxxx the timetable for troop withdrawal.

Joe is concerned that there aren’t enough ready Iraqi troops. But all we really need in order that huge numbers of Iraqi troops become ready is another election in this country - and one is coming up.

Just before the last election, the Bush Administration told us that the numbers of ready Iraqi troops were HUGE and growing FAST. Remember? Biden says there are less than 1,000 ready troops, but that’s probably "one of those EXAGGerations….", right George?

So, Joe says most will be out by 2007. And if they aren’t out by then, Joe, you can start to complain that America needs a new President that will commit to getting them out, etc….

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I guess we’re too late on the site to make people take a stand on  whether to have a timetable or not… well, maybe not.

Kevin Drum makes a great point about the Contradictory Conservatism in Bush’s plan… sounds like Bush decided to stay the course before he decided to set a timetable….

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The Boss got turned down for a congressional resolution congratulating him on the 30th anniversary of Born to Run.

Apparently at least one senator nixed the idea.

Does anybody on either side of the political aisle really believe that the Springsteen resolution was turned down for any reason other than political payback for backing John Kerry?

We are so shameless now, so openly hostile to one another, that we don’t even pretend otherwise. Here is how the senate power structure works: the resolution sponsored by Senator Gordon Smith, Republican of Oregon, honoring that golfer from New Zealand passed unanimously - but commending one of the seminal albums and musicians of the past 30 years gets nixed right away? Come on.

I’m not big on congressional resolutions. I’m just noting the mood… "so shameless now"… "so openly hostile to one another".

I don’t mean to make this post about bashing Republicans because, for all we know, it could have been Hillary that blocked Springsteen because she couldn’t get backstage passes at the Meadowlands.

These little things are like arguing over the cap on the toothpaste. There’s no reason for the argument - you each have your own toothbrush, can’t you each have your own tube of toothpaste? But they are indicative of deeper problems.

Things are ugly right now. But I’m a little optimistic that Bush and Cheney will be tried for treason soon and imprisoned for thirty years, that no Republicans will win re-election in 2006, that the Constitution will be ameneded to make religion in the workplace or government a felony, and that Osama bin Laden will hand himself over to Bill Clinton.

Well the night’s busted open these two lanes can take us anywhere….

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In an op-ed today in the Post, Jim Hoagland pulled me in with his provocative title ("Faith-Based Politics"), gave me one bit of interesting historical trivia,

John F. Kennedy’s interest in South Vietnam was stirred in part by the flight of Catholics from the north and the needs of a besieged government headed by Catholics in the south.

…shocked me with one of the more pperpplexing ppersppectives p-p-possible,

In contrast to its foreign policy, the Bush agenda at home is a collection of smoldering ruins.

(I though Bush ruined his foreign policy before he ruined his domestic policy. But the way this is phrased it sounds as though Jimmy’s suggesting that Bush’s foreign policy is somehow less than a smoldering ruin..?)

Finally, Jimmy turned to blinding me with his analysis of the entire Bush Presidency in what can easily be compacted into the now traditional PMF (i.e., Presidential Mantra Framework):

It’s about God, Stupid

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Xtreme Iraq - The Video Game.

Here is our "rough rule of thumb" for estimating when U.S. forces are likely to leave.

The formula estimates that for every three Iraqi battalions and one Iraqi brigade headquarters achieving a readiness rating of level two, a U.S. battalion can be dropped. A level two rating, on a scale of one to four, indicates that a unit is able to take the lead in operations but still requires some U.S. military support.

The withdrawal formula is a planning tool, several officers stressed, not a definitive predictor of how many U.S. forces are likely to leave, or when.

How can you read this without thinking that War Games style video games ought to be banned from military academies?

I guess this is damage control after Murtha and the Iraqi government called for a timetable. But doesn’t it feel too much like a simulation game? It reeks of a situation where the post-mortem will begin,

"When military commanders devised their rule of thumb, they failed to take into consideration what the boots on the ground were saying about…."

This is still the same level of preparation that got us into this mess in the first place. If you don’t ever replace the fools, you’ll continue to do foolish things.

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• When will the United States and its allies completely leave Iraq?

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Once before before Bush went into the bubble someone he shook hands with said in an interview that he had told Bush something like, "Mr. President, I think you’re doing a terrible job."

According to the person (as I remember it), a smiling Bush said, without skipping a beat, "Who cares what you think?"

Remember that?

George, why don’t you tell the Iraqis just who exactly cares what they think?

Maybe freedom-loving people don’t think so much of freedom-giving people? Maybe the new Iraqi government has a WMD program too and needs to be stopped?

It’s all so complicated…

I guess the spin will be along the lines of, "we actually are saying the same thing…we’ll pull out when we’re ready." Of course, this has nothing to do with a timetable which is something you do today, and which Bush has said is something that would make our Texas-transplant chief executive a chili-eating, surrender-cowboy.

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