Harry-Kerry in the Senate

January 31, 2006

Doctor (Frist) Assisted Suicide

By NIRANJAN RAMAKRISHNAN

"We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."

Benjamin Franklin, at the signing of the Declaration of Independence

"Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself. "

Mark Twain

An Englishman does everything on principle: he fights you on patriotic principles; he robs you on business principles; he enslaves you on imperial principles.

George Bernard Shaw

Jeeves: That jacket does not become you, sir.
Wooster: But it was made by the best tailor in London!
Jeeves: I'm not saying a word against his morals, sir.

PG Wodehouse (paraphrased)

That last quote came to mind as I saw that four Democrats had decided to vote for Alito because they thought him to be an 'honorable man'.

A similar impulse (so they say) led 19 Democrats who did not think a filibuster, on principle, was the way to stop Samuel Alito from being an arbiter of our lives for the next several decades, to vote for cloture on the Alito filibuster. Most of them would vote against him, again on principle, the following day,

It reminded me of the guy who invited his friend to breakfast one morning. When the friend showed up, he found his host sitting at the table, dressed in formal jacket and tie, awaiting him. "Wow", said the friend. "I didn't realize this was a formal affair...Is someone else coming?" "No, no", replied the host. "But I like to be prepared, because you never know when someone important might stop by..." The friend found this logic a little intricate for that early hour, but he sat down to breakfast. Meal over, the host got up, and the friend was shocked to see him wearing just a pair of shorts under his jacket. "How come you're wearing shorts with that jacket and tie?" he asked. The host replied, "Well, you see, sometimes no one important stops by..."

The Democrats are astonishing. This president stands before the country and says, "... the FISA law was written in 1978. We're having this discussion in 2006. It's a different world." If Bush feels laws from 1978 are antiquated (and therefore don't need to be obeyed), how do you think he views the Constitution, written in the 1780's? Dealing with such a cabal, which speaks openly of its contempt for the laws, the Democrats are overcome with notions of decorum. Trotsky summarized the attitudes of the contenders in the Russian Constituent Assembly in 1918, "Thus democracy entered upon the struggle with dictatorship heavily armed with sandwiches and candles." Trotsky's own side had come prepared with guns.

When Bush says, we're in a post-9-11 world, he is right in a way, but not in the way one might think. What he means is the politics, not the national situation. In terms of national emergencies, 9-11 is hardly a greater tragedy than the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, the Depression, Pearl Harbor and WWII, the Oklahoma bombing,.. After all, the country got along fine without a Patriot Act for forty years during the Cold War, when there was a superpower with missiles aimed at every major city in the US, whose spies were everywhere, all backed by a militarily impregnable state! What does Bush mean when he says 9-11 changed everything? It changed everything for Bush. He could use it as his Reichstag Fire (I use the analogy only for what was done with the incident, not its cause) to create an endless fear psychosis, a political ATM to be milked at will for expanding his powers.

The Democrats have played right along. What deference they have for decorum and politeness, what passion for examining each issue on its merits! As for the seven members of the group of 14 -- Peace in our Time! Robert Byrd has set all his magnificent speeches at nought by his Alito vote -- an honorable man is the judge, he says. Would Byrd's idol, George Washington, have disbanded his forces because the British deployed an honorable man as general?

Bush is correct. We are at war -- with a rampant executive and a rogue president determined to squander our wealth and steal our rights. This is nothing less than a struggle for the country's freedom, even if the Democrats still don't get it. Like old Mr. Micawber, they think a majority will 'turn up' in November. It will not matter. After all, it was when they had a majority that the Iraq resolution was passed!

And so my fellow Americans, ask not, "When will they learn?" They never will. They now regret voting for the Iraq resolution. Two years later, when Alito casts a couple of bombshell votes, I'm sure they'll regret voting for the cloture resolution. They remind me of a joke about a bumpkin who was trying to push his old car into the sea. Try as he might, was unable to. He ran off to a wise man of the village for advice. "Get some of your buddies to help you", said the wise man. "If all of you push together, it should be no problem". So the bumpkin took three others with him. An hour later, all of them returned, complaining that the car was still not moving. They had pushed and pushed, but the car wouldn't budge, they said. Upon closer inquiry, it turned out that each had been pushing from a different direction -- one from the front, one from the back, etc.

That is the story of the Senate Democrats -- twenty nine of them voted for the Iraq resolution. Many of them voted to confirm Alberto Gonzales and Condoleezza Rice. Yesterday, 19 of them voted to confirm Alito (effectively). The bumpkins did it unknowingly. The Senators did it knowingly. "This chamber reeks of blood", George McGovern said while moving the McGovern-Hatfield amendment in 1970 calling for an end to American engagement and withdrawal of troops from Vietnam. Yesterday's act smeared the 19 with the blood of their country's freedom.

As to the Republicans, where is the Hatfield for our times? Instead, there are only money changers, despicable nodders and handmaidens to an incipient fascism, all for no greater cause than to bolster an administration which happens to be rated 'R'.

You who were sent to defend the country's laws surrendered before a law-breaking president.

Shame on you all.

Niranjan Ramakrishnan is a writer living on the West Coast. He can be reached at njn_2003@yahoo.com. This article also appeared on today's Counterpunch.

The Second Childhood?

Development, Interrupted

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Jan 30, 2006

After months of pointing out -- first the shortsightedness and then the criminality of the Bush Administration -- columnist Paul Craig Roberts has now begun to confront a deeper malaise, the idiocy of the populace. If true, this is a glacial problem and presages a catastrophe far worse than Bush's eight years. After all, leaders come and go, but the people remain. And Roberts has a point: there seems no bar to a coexistence between intelligence, education and knowledge on the one hand and complete idiocy on the other. But 'idiocy' is a rather harsh word. Perhaps childhood, or more properly, second childhood, is better.

Let me illustrate with an example.

The other evening I saw a movie, "Paul Jacobs and the Nuclear Gang". It was about the how the US government had hidden information about low-level radiation arising from its nuclear tests in the Nevada desert, and the corresponding rise in cancer incidences among those living in the vincinity. There was a brief Q and A session after the talk. Saul Landau, the brilliant author and filmmaker whose gentle but perceptive answers were as educational as the film itself, was asked the following question: What are the rulers thinking when they engage in this kind of cover up? And why would anyone invest in a technology where the waste material is so hazaradous that it renders places unsafe for tens of thousands of years? [1]

Landau's answer (paraphrased) was that powerful people seldom admit mistakes. We tried to identify a few who did -- I mentioned Richard Clarke ("A Sorry Spectacle") and he mentioned Cy Vance. We did not waste time on the likes of Colin Powell and Robert McNamara, mute time servers when they could have done something, compulsive hand-wringers after their moment had passed. But the question goes deeper than that: Where do people who start wars, poison the environment for immediate gain and gratification, hock their country to keep interest rates low, plan to move? Mars? Unless that is their plan, their actions make no sense. American administrations may be beholden to Israel, but I don't think either nuclear radiation or global warming believes in the passover. Prophet and plebian are imperiled alike and with certainty.

Yet, we have Tony Blair proclaiming a fast push toward nuclear energy, and Iran insisting on its rights (to cancer?) Where does such idiocy spring from? Perhaps from an addiction to the mantra of growth, and development. "To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land, and read their history in a nation's eyes", has this not been the dream of every leader in history?

And in the last half-century, the nation's eyes have become key - "But it wasn't on TV, was it?" Hence the difficulty. Radiation, like global warming or disinformation, is a peril without a face. And in our image-driven times, something does not exist if it doesn't have pictures. Hence the insistence on Bush's photographs with Abramoff, as though that would somehow prove something that Abramoff's being on the transition team would not. This is perfect for a ruler. So, development. Make sure that everyone gets a TV.

The second is to keep them shopping, so their minds quit working. How else do you explain the poll in which, asked if domestic spying without a warrant was ok, there was such an equivocal response? Freedom to shop is all we care about (see Open your Wallets, not your Mouths).

The third is perhaps the result of the first two, the blithe unawareness of the addict to the immediately unobvious: Let me buy at Wal Mart, even if it is means my own job going to China tomorrow.

These are signs of regression into childhood. It takes children a few years before they learn the connection between cause and effect when the two are not in close proximity. It takes them some time to understand non-visual cues. And they need instant gratification. What Roberts sees is the fact that all three components seem present in large measure in America.

Fifty years of growth, development, unimaginable technological progress, all have led to a state where people are willing to surrender their rights.

Gandhi (whose death anniversary falls today) alone, among the leaders of the 20th century, saw the perils of mad devotion to economic progress.

"...Hinduism, Islam, Zorastrianism, Christianity and all other religions teach that we should remain passive about worldly pursuits, that we should set a limit to our worldly ambitions and that our religious ambition should be illimitable. Our activity should be directed into the latter channel..." (Hind Swaraj, 1909).

"...We notice that the mind is a restless bird; the more it gets the more it wants, and still remains unsatisfied. The more we indulge our passions, the more unbridled they become. Our ancestors, therefore, set a limit to our indulgences. They saw that happiness was largely a mental condition. A man is not necessarily happy because he is rich, or unhappy because he is poor. The rich are often seen to be unhappy, the poor to be happy. Millions will always remain poor. Observing all this, our ancestors dissuaded us from luxuries and pleasures..." (Hind Swaraj, 1909)

"...We have retained the same kind of cottages that we had in former times and our indigenous education remains the same. We have had no system of life-corroding competition. Each followed his own occupation or trade and charged a regulation wage. It was not that we did not know how to invent machinery, but our forefathers knew that, if we set our hearts after such things, we would become slaves and lose our moral fiber..." (Hind Swaraj, 1909)

Thus did Gandhi see the plunge into consumer comfort as the first step towards the loss of freedom.

Yatha Raja, Tatha Praja (as the king goes, so go the subjects), went the old Sanskrit saying. Since this was before the Age of Democracy, we should modify it : "as the people go, so goes the leader". Hence the trend -- whether it is Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush (or even Gore or Kerry, although the former may now be revising his opinions) in America, or whether it is Narasimha Rao, Vajpayee or Manmohan Singh in India, the mantra of growth and development has us -- and them -- in its thrall.

"I can promise you nothing but blood, toil, sweat and tears" said another wartime leader, a real one. Ours promises low interest rates and personal savings accounts. What happened in between? We don't know. We were watching television.

Niranjan Ramakrishnan is a writer living on the West Coast. He can be reached at njn_2003@yahoo.com. His blog is at http://njn-blogogram.blogspot.com. A shorter version of this article appeared on Counterpunch.

[1] "The radiological half life of plutonium is about 24,000 years and the biological half life is about 20 years for liver and 50 years for skeleton. Plutonium deposited in the gonadal tissue is assumed to be permanently retained. See full essay "Plutonium" by Gary Masters (http://www.physics.isu.edu/radinf/pluto.htm).

[2] More quotations of Gandhi are available here.

Who Benefits from Technology?

A Passage to Palani

Information Superhighway or Information-Scuppered-Highway?

Niranjan Ramakrishnan

On a visit to Madras/Chennai, eyes glazed over with ads for computer courses, cellphones and broadband connections at every turn, I was further floored by the quick installation of a fast internet link within a couple of days of reaching Madras. Thus it was that I waved aside my mother's anxious enquiries about getting tickets for our forthcoming trip. We were planning to go to Palani, home of the ancestral deity, and to visit our village and a couple of other places, all within the same area.

Piece of cake, I told myself and her. We'll plan out the whole thing in no time via the internet. With that, and with my newly-acquired cell phone.

Famous last words, unfortunately, and spoken far too soon.

After spending a whole day hunched over my computer riding my broadband connection, I have come to the conclusion that when it comes to Information Technology (IT), India itself (Tamilnadu, anyway, and I suspect the story is not too different elsewhere) is rather like the poor laborers from Rajasthan I used to see growing up in Delhi, building palatial homes for the rich while living in hovels themselves.

But the facts first.

I want to chart out a schedule for a one day visit to Palani and some places nearby. I start out by seeking a map of Tamilnadu on the internet, one that would show the various places we intend to visit. I discover that there are none that combine information, quality and detail. I finally settle for a passable version, but it has taken me two hours already.

A spanking new Mofussil bus terminus at Koyambedu was opened a few years back, not far from where we live in Madras. Everyone I've met has waxed lyrical about the merits of the bus service, so I ask the scooterwallah to swing by the Terminal so I can pick up a bus time table for Tamilnadu.

The people at the reservation counter outside look at me like I was Oliver Twist. There's no such thing, they tell me. Finally they give their standard answer: "Ask inside", they say, vaguely, pointing to the cavernous structure of the terminal. I go in. There is an Enquiry Counter, vacant in the middle of the day. There is a cop sitting opposite at another counter. He assures me a bus time table for Tamilnadu does not exist. I notice that there's a website listed outside the Reservation Counter. This I quickly jot down on my PDA, convinced that they must have all the timings and routes listed there.

I come home and visit the site (http://www.setctn.com), the web presence of the State Express Transport Corporation. The initial impression is good. But there is no mention of "Schedule" or "Bus Timings", which is the first thing one would expect of such a site. I plough on and discover a philosophical-sounding link: "Availability of Buses". Sure enough, the page asks you to select a destination and brings up a list of buses to the city you select. I rub my hands in glee. I now know what bus to take to Palani. From there to our village? Instinctively I try selecting Palani for the origin, but discover I can't -- the only place of origin available on the website is Chennai!

So the site tells me all the buses from Chennai, but from nowhere else! Forget going to other places, how do I even figure out getting back from Palani to Chennai? The website offers no clue. I have also noted down, from the reservation counter, the Tamilnadu Government's transport department site (www.tn.gov.in/transport). I go there. It lists a number of other websites, one for each district, the few I check are all equally silent about schedules. They list the names and phone numbers (including residence) of sundry officials, and proclaim that they carry so many lakh passengers each day, all doubtless of frightful interest to bus travelers. But on the matter of schedules, to recall Wodehouse, they are vague and evasive.

I call the Koyambedu terminal, using the number listed on the State Express website. A few tries later, I get through, and ask them about buses from Palani to Chennai. The question strikes them as idiotic. "Please ask them when you get to Palani", is the answer. "Do you have a phone number for the Palani bus station?", I venture. You've got to be joking, the tone says, as the official at the other end disavows all knowledge.

I reach a random official in Coimbatore or Palani (number obtained from the Tamilnadu Transport Department website). A helpful soul, he suggests I try the private bus service, suggesting KPN Travels of T. Nagar. Visions of the glories of private enterprise in India float around in my head as I google for KPN Travels. They have a website (http://www.kpntravel.in). I go there, and Hey Presto, a sophisticated flash website! Except it is impregnable. The animated first page has no links, you can't proceed beyond it, and it has no information, not even a phone number. I dig up the phone number elsewhere on Google, and give the fellows a call. "Palani", barks the official, "There is one at 9:15 from Koyambedu". About buses back from Palani? "No idea", he says and slams the phone down.

I have long given up on my grandiose scheme for mapping out a travel plan for doing the entire journey by bus, resigned to hiring a taxi once we get to Palani. But I do want to make sure there's a late enough bus from Palani to Madras, giving us sufficient time for our local peregrinations.

I suddenly have a brain wave: Why not call up some hotel or lodge in Palani to find out? I now look for websites with information on lodges in Palani. Several of them list some lodges lackadaisically, but with no phone numbers. Finally I reach a good website (http://www.palanicity.com) which has a nice list of not only lodges but other institutions (except there is no mention of transportation). The first three or four numbers I call elicit a "this number does not exist" response before I realize that the website has not been updated and does not have the '2' in front of each number.

Mystery solved, I call up one of the lodges and, knowing we would need a room to rest and freshen up after the night journey, ask for the room rates. "Where are you calling from?" comes the response. Perhaps I have spent too long in America. "Why does that have anything to do with your room rates?" I find myself asking. "Unless you tell me where you are calling from how can I give you an answer? You may be an anonymous caller also...". If I had not had four hours of frustration leading up to this, I should have chuckled. "Are your room rates different for people from different places?" I still manage. "First learn how to speak", this denizen of the Mother of all Call Centers snaps. "I'll take lessons from you when I come there", I counter. That breaks the ice, and we are as brothers thereafter. Mr. A tells me there are buses, but doesn't know the time, nor does he have a phone number for the bus station.

The train to Dindigul (an hour-and-a-half bus journey from Palani) is growing in attraction. The mere fact that the Indian Railways have a printed timetable (have had one forever) shines in contrast to a bus service which has not even heard of one, and I turn my hand at their vaunted online reservation system. It is far better than the bus website, but it is still punishing on the user. For example, there is no way I can give my origin and destination, date of travel and number of passengers, and sit back to get a summary of all my options, including the the "Buy" link. Instead, I have to plod through a list of possible trains, trying each one, with each quota (General, Tatkal, etc.) to see whether there are seats available. There aren't, so I am back to the bus option!

By the time I am done with all this, night has fallen. I call the Koyambedu stand just as they are closing, and the gentleman advises me to show up at the ticket counter first thing in the morning. I do, and am first in line, a half hour before opening time. When the counter opens and I am talking to the clerk, a guy pokes his head around me. When I point out to him that I am ahead in the queue, he gives me a pained look, saying, "It was only a question". On his heels is another individual who has, meanwhile, reached around me and handed the clerk a one-rupee coin. She gives him a form in return. When I ask him to wait in line, he says to me, "I have to get this form. Do you think I should wait just to get a form?" He shouldn't have to, but that's the way the system is set up. The same counter dispenses forms (which you need to fill to buy a ticket) and issues tickets too. There is only one counter. First you fill the form by hand, and hand it to the clerk, who then enters the form into her computer. Why not have her enter the information directly?

Which leads back to my original point. Information technology, to paraphrase Edgser Dijkstra, is not the art and science of diddling bits in a computer, any more than astronomy is swinging telescopes about. Information technology is about having information available in a convenient and usable form, in friendly and timely fashion. Nothing I have described here requires a customer to have a computer or an internet connection. A simple phone would do just fine.

My greatest amazement is that in a milieu where almost everyone is convinced that India is the information superpower-in-waiting, with the remainder in no doubt that we are already there, no one seems to think anything amiss when a clerk tells you, Abhimanyu-like, that she knows the timings for the bus from Chennai to Palani but not that from Palani to Chennai. Or that no one is surprised when an official says he can't tell you something over the phone, you'll have to come over to get the same information. Or that there is no outrage when a state transport website has information for one city and not for any others.

Long before computers were common, the Ma Bell phrase, "let your fingers do the walking" was taken to heart in America. We have copied the symbol quickly enough, but forgotten its import. People travel from place to place for things that could -- and should, in a country deficient in petroleum and casting about for energy supplies in every part of the world -- be done over the phone and the computer. Making useful information available easily to the people -- now that would be a goal worthy of a true IT superpower and information innovator.

The author is a software professional living in the United States. This article also appeared in Countercurrents.org.

The Original Sin

Read Niranjan Ramakrishnan's article on a singular coincidence that took place yesterday:
The Original Sin.

Rove's Legacy

Good article by Jacob Weisberg in Slate, drawing parallelst between Bush and Rove at the cusp of the 20th-21st centuries to McKinley and Hanna at the cusp of the 19th-20th.

But the article makes the larger point that Rove is a failure. The permanet Republican majority of which he dreamt has drifted farther than it seemed only a few months ago. By the very nature of his client's ineptitude (as noted in Bush, Baath and Beyond):

Rove is a master strategist, his success all the more creditable given the material he has to work with.

Rove is in a difficult situation. Wrongdoing in high places is at best a temporary expedient.

Mommy, it Speaks!!!!

(Finally!) Senator Harry Reid spoke this on the floor of the Senate yesterday (transcript):

SEN. HARRY REID: America deserves better than this. They also deserve a searching and comprehensive investigation into how the Bush administration brought this country to war. Key questions that need to be answered include:

– How did the Bush administration assemble its case for war against Iraq? We heard what Colonel Wilkerson said.
– Who did the Bush administration officials listen to and who did they ignore?
– How did the senior administration officials manipulate or manufacture intelligence presented to the Congress and the American people?
– What was the role of the White House Iraq Group, or WHIG, a group of senior White House officials tasked with marketing the war and taking down its critics? We know what Colonel Wilkerson says.
– How did the administration coordinate its efforts to attack individuals who dared to challenge the administration’s assertions? We know what happened to them — I listed a few.
– Why has this administration failed to provide Congress with the documents that would shed light on their misconduct and the misstatements?

Unfortunately, the Senate committee that should be taking the lead in providing these answers is not. Despite the fact that the chairman of Senate Intelligence Committee publicly committed to examine these questions more than a year and a half ago, he has chosen not to keep that commitment. Despite the fact that he restated the commitment earlier this year on national television, he has still done nothing. …

Mr. President, enough time has gone by. I demand on behalf of the American people that we understand why these investigations aren’t being conducted, and in accordance with Rule 21, I now move that Senate go into closed session.

SEN. DICK DURBIN: Mr. President, I second the motion.

PRESIDING OFFICER: The motion has been made to go into closed session, and it has been seconded. The motion having been made and seconded, the Senate will go into closed session. The chair, pursuant to Rule 21, now directs the sergeant at arms to clear all galleries, close all doors of the Senate chamber, and exclude from the chamber and its immediate corridors all employees and officials of this Senate who under the rule are not eligible to attend this closed session and are not sworn to secrecy. The question is nondebatable.

Here's an excerpt from today's editorial in the New York Times, "Remember that Mushroom Cloud?":

Last year, the Senate Intelligence Committee did a good bipartisan job of explaining that the intelligence in general was dubious, old and even faked by foreign sources. The panel said the analysts had suffered from groupthink. At the time, the highest-ranking officials in Washington were demanding evidence against Iraq.

But that left this question: If the intelligence was so bad and so moldy, why was it presented to the world as what Mr. Tenet, then the director of central intelligence, famously called "a slam-dunk" case?

Were officials fooled by bad intelligence, or knowingly hyping it? Certainly, the administration erased caveats, dissents and doubts from the intelligence reports before showing them to the public. And there was never credible intelligence about a working relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda.

Under a political deal that Democrats should not have approved, the Intelligence Committee promised to address these questions after the 2004 election.

That's the key. The Democrats agreed to consider this AFTER the elections! How daft do you think they were?

Still, better late than never, and the dissention does spread. Trent Lott has said Karl Rove should resign. This is an excerpt from a Washington Post report:

Not all Republicans were quick to defend Rove. Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) said of Rove, "If this is going to be ongoing, if he has a problem, I think he's got to step up, and, you know, acknowledge that and deal with it."

Interviewed on Fox News, Lott said Bush should be looking for "new blood, new energy, qualified staff, new people." The senator added, "I'm not talking about wholesale changes, but you've got to reach out and bring in more advice and counsel."

Fitzgerald threw a softball

"Fitzgerald had to indict Libby. Libby's lies were so blatant that Fitzgerald had no choice. But Fitzgerald had a golden opportunity to do enough work to prove the underlying crimes that he was originally investigating."

Read this article on Fitzgerald's indictment. Sheldon Drobny writes that he missed a great opportunity to indict the real crime.

Miers Withdraws

Harriet Miers has withdrawn her name from consideration for Supreme Court justice. President George W. Bush has 'reluctantly' acceded to her request.

I wondered if they had chosen today to do this so as to take the sting out of an announcement from Patrick Fitzgerald, thereby diluting the news impact. Or maybe it was just happenstance. Whatever the case, Miers never gave the impression of one passionate about the Law. There are many people in various professions, who do a reasonable job, but are not really interested in their job. She certainly wasn't suited for the Court, as far as one could tell from what one learned from the papers.

It is really ridiculous that both Republicans and Democrats seem to see only one issue at stake with the Court nomination - abortion. When the country is being stripped of liberties left and right, is abortion the main issue?

Fitzgerald is chewing his way into the administration's gut, on nibble at a time. Tomorrow it should all be out. An interesting prediction on Fitzgerald came out yesterday, written by Richard Sale, with the terse title, "Aides to be indicted, probe to continue".

Another great article, Look Who's Talking Now by Michael Donnelly, provides a clever set of quotes from various personages in relation to perjury, obstruction of justice, etc.

See also Waiting for Fitzgerald by Niranjan Ramakrishnan, which points out the silliness of looking to a prosecutor to find something that is clear to anyone who has watched the administration for the past five years.

What's going on in Iraq - Robert Fisk interview

Click here to view Amy Goodman's interview with Robert Fisk, one of the clearest expositions of what is happening in Iraq.

You can skip the initial news section. The interview begins around the 30 minute mark.

Must view stuff!

Plamegate: The Known and the Unknown

I read the New York Times article, I read the other newspapers, and all that's clear is that something is not adding up. What exactly is difficult to say. So I thought I'd tabulate what I understood and what I don't:

Known Facts

January 28 2003
Bush stated in his State of the Union speech that Iraq had been shopping for Uranium in Niger.

July 6, 2003
an op-ed piece by Joseph Wilson, former diplomat to Niger and Charge'd Affairs in Iraq appeared in the New York Times. In it, Wilson revealed that he had been sent (by the CIA) to Niger as early as February 2002 to investigate the Niger connection, which had been aired earlier by Secretary of State Colin Powell. He returned with the conclusion that there was no basis for the Iraq-Niger-Uranium connection.

July 14, 2003
Article by syndicated columnist Robert Novak, "Mission to Niger" mentions Valerie Plame by name, and identifies her as a CIA operative involved in Weapons of Mass Destruction:
"Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report. "

September 26, 2003
The Justice Department begins a formal criminal investigation of the leak Sept. 26 following protests from the CIA about such a blatant exposure of one of their clandestine operatives.

Circa October 2, 2003
The New York Times mentions Karl Rove as being involved in the Valerie Plame matter. When asked about this, Scott McClellan, Bush's press secretary, dismissed such speculation and added that anyone involved would be removed from the administration.

December 30, 2003
After some questions of Ashcroft's conflict of interest, because of Rove's connection with him, having been his advisor on three of his campaigns, Ashcroft's Department of Justice appointed Patrick Fitzgerald special prosecutor to investigate the crime of endangering national security.

December 30, 2003 - Now
Following the leaks to various sources, Fitzgerald tracked down several journalists who had received this information, including Tim Russert of NBC, Matt Cooper of Time, Judith Miller of New York Times. The first two cooperated with the investigation, Judith Miller refused on the plea of protecting her source. For this she was sentenced to prison, and spent 85 days there before agreeing to testify before Fitzgerald's grand jury.

Questions

1. A report published recently said that Bush had been furious with Rove (see Bush Whacked Rove on CIA Leak). The report says Bush lost his temper with Rove on the matter 2 years ago! That means, knowing his involvment, he kept Rove around for two years. So what else did Bush know, when did he know it, and what did he do about it?
   
   
2. If Bush knew that Rove was involved and did nothing about it (private admonitions aside, how could such a person -- and certainly Rove from today's account conferred with Libby -- so Libby too -- be kept on the staff without the President being a co-conspirator, at least in spirit? After all, no one said Nixon was the one to break open the door at Watergate? Was his silence and complicity in the silence of others not his crime?
   
   
3. Judith Miller went to jail saying she would not reveal her source. Then she came out, saying her source had said OK for her to reveal his name. The ostensible source, 'Scooter' Libby, Dick Cheney's chief of staff, says he had given her authorization to use his name a year back, refuting her claim of wanting to protect her 'source'. Then it was discovered that there were two or three references in her reporter's notebook to Valerie (F)Plame. After all this, she says the name was not from Libby, but from another source, whose name escapes her! So who was she trying to protect during her 85 day ordeal?

References:

1. Today's Counterpunch has an excellent article by Ray McGovern, former CIA official, on the Niger yellowcake-Valerie Plame - Joe Wilson - Karl Rove - Scooter Libby story. See 16 Fatal Words

2. This CBS timeline is also helpful.
   

Iraq Election Article, Judy Miller, New York Times

An Iraqi doctor has written an article in tomorrow's NY Times. Voting 'Yes' to Chaos by HATEM MUKHLIS is a clear picture of why the balkanization of Iraq is the end-result of the wrong-headed constitution they are trying to push.

Yesterday's Times carried a 6000 word report on what had gone so badly at the paper as to be scooped on stories about its own correspondent -- Judith Miller. Miller herself wrote a rather opaque article which appears to make things more rather than less murky. It fell to Randi Rhodes of Air America to state it succinctly: What do you make of this? A reporter goes to jail for 85 days saying she will not reveal her source. Then she comes out with much fanfare, goes to the grand jury, and tells them she doesn't remember who here source was! No other commentator has put it quite so elegantly. Yahoo had a news headline today that several members of the media felt Judy Miller should have been sacked for the humiliation she brought upon the paper. Not only did the paper toe her line, but it backed up its suckering by spending millions of dollars on her defense.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg News Service reports that Vice-President Cheney may be the one path of Patrick Fitzgerald's inquiries. [Read article]. And just now, the top headline in the Washington Post is: Cheney's Office Is A Focus in Leak Case.

On Sunday, Condoleezza Rice was on several talk shows. Asked about the Fitzgerald inquiry by Chris Wallace of Fox, she took the usual Bush Administration (we don't talk about matters sub-judice) line. Rice, as revealed in a fine article by Frank Rich, was one of the eight members of a secret group called "White House Iraq Group", created in summer 2002 to 'sell the Iraq War' to the American public. Neither Russert nor Wallace asked about it, though.

What the Media has Wrought

That should be the real title of Paul Krugman's article, "A Question of Character". He says,

"Read the speeches Howard Dean gave before the Iraq war, and compare them with Colin Powell's pro-war presentation to the U.N. Knowing what we know now, it's clear that one man was judicious and realistic, while the other was spinning crazy conspiracy theories. But somehow their labels got switched in the way they were presented to the public by the news media."

The disservice of the American media to the American people during these crucial years will be a standing black mark on its record.

Training the Iraqi Army

A fine article by Brian Cloughley in Counterpunch Weekend Edition, titled, "Training Soldiers in Iraq". Shows how the lying culture has seeped into the Army top brass, and the despicable performance by Generals Abizaid and Casey last week when the changed their own testimonies ex post-facto to suit the administration.

I am, however, not in favor of the armed forces defying civilian command, so the best thing for Casey and Abizaid would be to resign, if they felt they were being made to tell lies. But, as Cloughley says, whoever resigns on principle?

Blasphemy Laws, Free Speech, Orianna Fallaci

I was reading Irfan Husain's column in Dawn, where this week's article, Things Better Left Unsaid, refers to (and quotes from) Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's 1972 interview with Oriana Fallaci, the famous Italian journalist. The article makes the point that good outcomes are often spoilt by politicians saying too much.

The article made me wonder about Oriana Fallaci, and I came across another article about her, Oriana in Exile, which raises an even more vital issue, the future of free speech in the West. Written by Christopher Orlet, whom I have never read before, and who, on cursory research, appears to be a strong supporter of the Iraq war, and an admirer of Ann Coulter and Christopher Hitchens, the article brings up the seldom mentioned advent of political correctness, both vis-a-vis religion in general and Islam in particular. This can be said to have stared with the Satanic Verses, and given a grotesque shape by 9-11 and 7/7. As Orlet says, blasphemy laws of the medieval times are either back in full strength or close to being back.

Indeed, the only safe ecclesiastical criticism, more especially humor, in Western society any more is aimed at either Christianity or Judaism (in Eastern societies in general, public humor is so fraught with taboos that it is moot to discuss in this context). I was watching an episode of the Simpsons some weeks back. It was full of satirical remarks about Catholicism and Judaism. I wondered whether biting humor about Islam, Sikhism, or Hinduism would be tolerated by societies where these communities were in a majority or were powerful. Fallaci, as the title of Orlet's article indicates, is in exile from Italy for her last book in which she made no secret of her poor view of Islam.

The irony of it all is that to spread free civil society to the Middle East, Europe and America are turning into cloistered images of that same society they set out to change, as observed in Niranjan Ramakrishnan's Who's Transforming Whom? and Little Minds and Large Empires).

North Korea: Breakthrough?

The six-party talks on North Korea have ended in avoiding immediate impasse -- the North Koreans have agreed to do away with their nuclear weapon program, if the US gives aid to them, and also promises not to attack North Korea.

This will be trumpeted, no doubt, as a showpiece of diplomacy by the Bush administration. If you go back and look at the old newspapers, I think you'll find that this is exactly the demand NK has been making all these years, mainly that the US should promise never to attack NK. On top of that, the US has agreed to give NK food and energy aid as well.

It was Talleyrand who said, "The art of statesmanship is to foresee the inevitable and to expedite its occurrence". Long ago in grad school, my friend from India had a Thanksgiving card for our department: "Thank goodness Columbus didn't find India. Imagine stuffing an elephant!". Likewise, if this is the price of peace in North Korea, imagine having to feed and heat Iran...

Read North Korea's Gambit: Back to the Future? by Niranjan Ramakrishnan

John Roberts

Ralph Nader has a good article in Counterpunch. He makes two points. Why is Congress on such a tight schedule when it comes to such important decisions? The senators had to run after three days of John Roberts, and just about a day of other testimony about the nominee. Where is the great rush that they can only give five minutes to the witnesses? Ralph Nader himself was not even invited to testify, though he his submission of written questions was accepted.

Nader makes his second point - why did no Senator ask Roberts vital questions like his opinion on power of corporations Vs individuals, the considerations of city, state and federal governments that corporations may be 'too big to fail'.

Roberts himself was a cold fish. It is a truism that lawyers are passionate, judges dispassionate, but there was no evidence of passion in Roberts even as a lawyer. And since he was careful to note at each turn that just because he had argued one way in a case did not mean he himself felt that way (nor would he say that he didn't), there was nothing to be gained from the exercise. It was, as usual, only a place for senators to grandstand on CSPAN. Another Washington replay of the old Soviet worker's joke, "We pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us".

Bush speaks from Jackson Square

George W. Bush stood beneath a statue of Andrew Jackson in the French Quarter and gave a speech.

I have never understood why such a huge fuss was made about the 'Bullhorn moment' of September 14, 2001. I had always thought of it as a Bull**** moment, as most other moments of this presidency. But for whatever it was worth, it was at least novel. He tried to repeat it this time, but there was no audience, there was no spontaneity, and the bullhorn, as someone wrote, was buried in the water.

The obvious thing that came out of it was the fact that a few hundred billion dollars would be spent on New Orleans. The deficit would further skyrocket, of course, but the old conservative thought of prevention being better than cure has never been popular with the Bush crowd.

The more insidious thing was the explicit statement that the armed forces would now have a greater role. What this means is not clear, but it sounded ominous to me, more like the statement after a coup in some West African country.

Galloway Vs. Hitchens

The Grapple in the Big Apple
On Sep 14, Baruch College in New York held a debate between George Galloway (author of Mr. Galloway goes to Washington) and Christopher Hitchens (left-wing author who after 9-11 became a huge supporter of Bush, and the Iraq war).

One wishes the Presidential debates would be of this caliber. First, the Brits know how to debate with wit and sardonicism.

Hitchens spoke well, although he tends to swallow his words. Galloway has a clarity of thought and expression which must be the result of years of political streetfighting and parliamentary politics. Both were eloquent. Hitchens stood his ground, though Galloway, I thought, had the better of the exchanges.

For two hours they sparred, and it was a true delight. You can watch it on C-SPAN, which is broadcasting it on the BookTV channel on Sep 17, 9 PM Eastern Time, and also on Sunday (see schedule).

Two good pieces, one about the debate (Oona King, The Guardian) and the other on George Galloway by Greg Palast, both unflattering to Galloway.

* * *

Pat Buchanan's Place
Patrick Buchanan has been writing on New Orleans, but focusing on the cries of racism, ignoring the rest of the story. See Niranjan Ramakrishnan's "Brawl in the Family" in today's Counterpunch.

* * *

Row Vs. Wade
Question: What does Bush think of Roe Vs Wade?
Answer: People should get out of New Orleans any way they can.

Tide and Tidings -- King Canute Old and New

The king who silenced his courtiers by ordering the tide to roll back was Canute.

That was then. Well before the 21st century. A millenium ago or more.

Our leader is quite the opposite. According to both Time (Living too much in a Bubble) and the even blunter Newsweek (How Bush Blew It), President Bush is so averse to getting bad news that his courtiers...er...advisers are scared to take anything but happy tidings to him.

Aside from the finger pointing and the cries of "Finger Pointing!", there is the vital issue of what a President is for. The years in Congress or the city attorney's office, the doggedness of the primary or the irritants of governorship, all designed to groom a person to gain an understanding of all strata of society.

But when primaries can be waged by smearing opponents out of contention, and presidencies can be won by friendly having your campaign chariman double as the state's secretary of state, rubbing elbows with the common people becomes unnecessary.

"That," he said, "is what happens when you got rich people who never been nothing but rich people running your country."

* * *

John Roberts spoke without notes and without pause, a pithy and crisp opening statement. Most impressive. That was yesterday. Today he answered questions from senators, a rather predictable affair, save for Specter, who did ask him some tough questions. I think there is a special version of the Fifth Amendment for judges seeking confirmation. Instead of the usual "I respectfully decline to answer on the grounds that it may incriminate me...", this one goes, "If I answer, that would reveal my predelictions, so I respectfully decline...". John Roberts showed absolutely no passion. He did not seem moved by anything, did not appear to have anything dear to his heart. This may be a good thing in a judge. He kept on message -- one was not to answer questions, the second was to say that anything he had said or written in the past was on behalf of a case, and should not be construed as his view. At one point it got so exasperating that I was surprised when Diane Feinstein did not lose her cool. He basically repeated to her, in different words, her own question in statement form, making her say, "Basically you are saying this was the decision taken". Yes, ma'am.

In today's NYT, John Tierney, in his tongue in cheek Making Roberts Talk, says Roberts claims to like PG Wodehouse. In that case, he must have modeled himself after the Beach the Butler, or even Jeeves. He simply refused to be drawn.

Four years later: Wherrrrrrrrrrres's Osama?

It is over 1400 days since the twin towers came down, and Bush promised to get Bin Laden, alive or dead.

Well, where is he?

One would have thought such an important quarry would have figured in the newspapers each day. And when we have forgotten him, poor fellow, he feels insulted and himself reminds us of his existence via video and audio releases. Here's an excerpt from an article by Michael Tomasky in the American Prospect, entitled "Day 1,461 And Counting":

Just imagine bin Laden having been at large this long in President Al Gore’s administration. In fact, it’s impossible to imagine, because President Gore, under such circumstances, wouldn’t have lasted this long. You probably didn’t know, until you read this column, the number of days bin Laden has been at large. But I assure you that if Gore had been president, you and every American would have known, because the right would have seen to it that you knew, asking every day, “Where’s Osama?” If Gore hadn’t been impeached, it’s doubtful he’d have survived a re-election campaign, with Americans aghast at how weak and immoral a president had to be to permit those 2,700 deaths to go unavenged this long.

The statement is as much a testament to the Bush administration's chain failure technique -- before it can be held accountable for one failure it fails somewhere else, the very distraction warding off the consequences -- as to the Democrats' total lack of strategy (if nothing else).

As one more anniversary rolls around, Tomasky notes some historical facts:

America vanquished world fascism in less time: We obtained Germany’s surrender in 1,243 days, Japan’s in 1,365. Even the third Punic War, in which Carthage was burned to the ground and emptied of citizens who were taken en masse into Roman slavery, lasted around 1,100 days (and troops needed a little longer to get into position back in 149 B.C.).

Keep this in mind as you watch the news networks shamelessly bring you the self-serving pageantry of presidential ceremony at New York and elsewhere, with bold graphical gymnastics of "9-11: America Remembers" and the like.