Another $700 mil pissed down a hole in Iraq because nobody thought to write oversight into the contract. We’re all Bill Murray now.
Deja Vu
by Tim F| 18 Comments
This post is in: War, Republican Crime Syndicate - aka the Bush Admin.
Archives for 2009
Deja Vu
Attn: Obama Team
Dear President-Elect Obama,
I know we all have our little pet issues that we care about, this is mine:
An internal report issued this week by the Justice Department brought attention to the Bush Administration’s efforts to “burrow” partisan ideologues deep in career civil service positions at the department. But even a few of Bush’s political appointees at Justice are giving the new Obama administration trouble. Though their lease may technically run out on January 20, U.S. Attorneys Mary Beth Buchanan of Pittsburgh and Alice Martin of Birmingham are resolved to stay in their posts. The Daily Beast has learned that both are arguing to the Obama transition team that their efforts to convict Democrats should guarantee them an extended stay into the Obama presidency.
***The political appointees present Obama and his new attorney general, Eric Holder, with a different headache. By tradition, political appointees serve at the pleasure of the president, and when a new president comes to office those who held their commissions from his predecessor tender their resignations. This year, however, Buchanan and Martin appear girded to make a last stand like Japanese soldiers who never got word that the war was over.
Last month, Buchanan released a letter stating that she had no intention of submitting her resignation. An ideologically committed Federalist Society member, Buchanan is close to former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, who actively promoted her as U.S. attorney. Following her appointment in 2001, Buchanan quickly gained the favor and approval of the White House. In the key period of 2004-05, while groundwork was laid for what later became the U.S. attorney’s scandal, Buchanan served as director of the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, the key position at Justice that oversaw all the 94 U.S. attorneys. A later internal Justice Department probe, in which Buchanan figures prominently, highlights the role played by that office in Karl Rove’s plan to sack U.S. attorneys.
I know you hate confrontation, and that is commendable. However, there needs to be a complete and total wingnut purge at Justice, and these two need to be thrown out on their asses. No questions.
XOXOXOXO,
John Cole
Sully’s anti-Bono jihad
Andrew Sullivan has been on quite an anti-Bono jag recently — see here, here, and here. I’m with Sully on this one and feel that all the great work Bono has done for Africa (and I think that it is great work) doesn’t make Bono’s lyrics and writing any more coherent (nor does it make the tune of the chorus of “Vertigo” sound any less like it was plagiarized from “You Just Keep Me Hanging On“).
So, Bono: just Hootie with a brogue and a social conscience, yes or no?
Consider this an open thread and feel free to engage in your anti-whoever jihads here.
Rudy can’t fail
For my money, Rudy Giuliani ran the most entertaining campaign of any Republican presidential candidate in 2008. Sure, Huckabee had that weird story about “earning your desks” and Mitt busted “Who Let the Dogs Out” on some unsuspecting youngsters, but only Rudy’s cell phone stunt rose to the level of something you could imagine Chris Elliot doing on Letterman. And even if Huckabee ate squirrels, he never screamed about ferrets.
And the fact that Rudy Giuliani spent 50 million dollars to win a single delegate seals the deal.
That’s why I find all the hoopla about a Giuliani run for Senate or Governor of NY a little comical. Here’s a sample from a reader in today’s Washington Post Fix chat:
Washington, D.C.: Regarding Caroline Kennedy and Gov. Paterson, I am reminded of a joke about two campers in the wilderness. Upon being discovered by a bear, who we would call Rudy and who might run for either the governorship or the Senate in 2010, one camper asked the other, “Do you think we can out-run the bear?” The other, more experienced camper replied, “I don’t have to out-run the bear. I just have to out-run you.”
First of all, this picture ought to put to rest the notion that Rudy is a bear. And then there’s this poll, for example:
David Paterson (D-inc): 51
Rudy Giuliani (R): 41
Bear in mind that Rudy likely has higher name recognition in New York than Paterson (even though Paterson is governor) and that, more generally, challengers with sky high name recognition typically have no where to go but down, as Rudy demonstrated himself in the 2008 Republican primary.
Why the fixation with the idea that Rudy is such a great candidate?
Bush was right Beautifully mannered history buff
A few days ago, Josh Marshall remarked that it wouldn’t be long “before pundits decided it was time to be “counter-intuitive” and start “reassessing” the Bush legacy”. Today, the UK Telegraph publishes a classic Bush reassessment piece by nut job Andrew Roberts. What’s most remarkable here is that it’s almost entirely the same old arguments — “victory” in Iraq, Libya out of the axis of evil, the subprime crisis was Democrats’ fault, the elites just hate Bush cos they’re elite, etc. But I haven’t heard this before:
this charming, interesting, beautifully mannered history buff who, were he not the most powerful man in the world, would be a fine person to have as a pal.
Or this (italics mine)
With his characteristic openness and at times almost self-defeating honesty, Mr Bush has been the first to acknowledge his mistakes – for example, tardiness over Hurricane Katrina – but there are some he made not because he was a ranting Right-winger, but because he was too keen to win bipartisan support. The invasion of Iraq should probably have taken place months earlier, but was held up by the attempt to find support from UN security council members, such as Jacques Chirac’s France, that had ties to Iraq and hostility towards the Anglo-Americans.
If you don’t have the patience to read the piece, you can just watch this:
<strike>Bush was right</strike> Beautifully mannered history buffPost + Comments (91)
The War On Drugs
Radley Balko has a really solid piece on the war on drugs up at Culture 11, and really, this line says it all:
When Richard Nixon first uttered the phrase “war on drugs” in 1971, he chose his words carefully.
You can also watch Radley debate the topic at Bloggingheadstv:
Have not watched it all yet myself, but I will listen to it later on today at some point. Freddoso’s argument mainly seems to be that bad guys will just find something else to do if we end the drug war.
About That Plane Landing
All the news this morning seems focused on that miraculous plane landing yesterday on the Hudson, and it really is pretty impressive what that pilot pulled off. I will leave it to the oddsmakers to figure out what the chances are of something like that happening with no fatalities, but I would bet they are pretty long odds. The crew deserves a hand, too, as it appears they had those people out of there in an orderly fashion in no time. All of this has been said before, and probably better, so let me move to the things that I find interesting.
1.) The NTSB is sending 20 people to investigate the wreck. I am not sure what it is, but I am fascinated by these guys (and talk about them every chance I get). My question- what do they do all year when there are not big crashes like this? Are they folks who have other jobs and are on call? Or are there enough wrecks of minor note that they are kept busy that way until the big one?
2.) The plane apparently had something called a ditch switch, which the pilot his in situations just like this one and the entire underbelly of the plane is then sealed. That is why the plane was especially buoyant. Are these on most planes? The last time I flew, I remembered thinking to myself that the airlines must have spent billions of dollars on design and engineering on all the little safety things that, in the life of a plane, will probably never ever get used, but sure do make a difference when you need it. This seems to be one of them. At any rate, about that ditch switch- never heard of it before. Any pilots out there who can elaborate?
3.) I can not believe more folks have not had to be treated for hypothermia. The bitter cold and the water yesterday seems like a classic case of the Siberian dilemma.