My Favorite Cabinet Member: Eric Holder Jr.

Good man.

While I'm delighted to learn justice may be served, I'm truly disgusted by what may have transpired under the direction of former Vice President Cheney.

I think Republicans perceive that Democrats just kind of celebrate this as 'more bad news' for the GOP and maybe there is some comfort seeing Cheney's neoconservatism cabal fall apart - but I don't think any of this makes anyone happy.

These people - Yoo, Addington, Cheney, Gonzalez, etc. - committed despicable acts.

Let's have all the truth come out and lets hold people accountable for breaking the law.

Purge! Purge! Purge!

Our long national nightmare ends and so does an old nightmare of my own mind's creation.

From a fairly young age, I was fascinated by politics and concerned with government. As a kindergarten student, I had my mom write an antiwar letter to George H.W. Bush on my behalf. Though I abhorred war in general, I proposed what I thought was a fairly pragmatic compromise between total nonintervention and the loss of scores of American lives. The deal was that I was going to ask Santa for an army of robot soldiers which I would then lend out to the US government for the purpose of liberating Kuwait. This way, Bush wouldn't have to sacrifice either military objectives or the lives of our soldiers. The President wrote me back but I thought he really dodged the topic. Anyway, Santa got me toys instead and I was no worse for wear.

Another thing that really outraged me as a pretty young kid was the death penalty. I became really fascinated with the issue sometime during middle school/Clinton administration and read whatever showed up in the paper on the subject. I couldn't believe that our nation could execute so many human beings while the rest of our industrialized allies had outlawed the practice years ago. I was also quite disturbed by the racial disparities in the application of the death penalty. It sickened me and it was one of the first issues that really forced me to consider political philosophy, government, race, morality, etc. in more complex ways.

I believed the act of taking the life of another human being to be totally unconscionable and I didn't waver.

Slowly but surely, then the rest all at once, I wasn't quite so certain anymore. I became disillusioned by George Bush's theft of the election in 2000 and I grew increasingly cynical as the response to the 9/11 attacks developed into a bizarre 21st century religious crusade. And it only got worse from there. We all know the gory details. He was reelected in 2004 and then the summer of 2005 came.

I left the U.S. to spend some time studying at the University of Ghana around ten days before Katrina hit. I grew so upset and angry trying to follow the drowning of New Orleans from afar. Immeasurably furious. Angrier than I'd ever been about anything in my whole life.

I started having the most vivid and violent dreams, dreams of a variety that would have been unthinkable to a slightly younger me.

In one, I strangled George W. Bush to death with my bear hands. I remember crushing his windpipe with my thumbs. In another, I and a small mob of people hunted Karl Rove like a dog through unknown city streets. When we caught up to him we stomped him mercilessly, erected gallows, and hanged him on the spot to the cheers of a massive crowd.

What happened to my America and what happened to me? Such violent hate! How?

I used to pride myself on the opposite. I used to wonder if I would have even been able to flip the switch on Hitler if asked. But suddenly, I was dreaming about ripping George Bush limb from limb and was feeling no conflict about it at all. In fact, I enjoyed those violent dreams very much and blabbed about them excitedly to other Bush-bashing friends of mine. I thought they were hilarious because I was full of hate for these men.

(This is not to say that I had morphed completely from idealist to cynic, as I was very hopeful about the prospect for progressive change not so long after I shook the immediate depression that overcame me when George Bush won in 2004. I was an enthusiastic Obama kool-aid drinker on day 1 and was constantly talking up the change that I believed was going to come in 2008 when peers were being more skeptical. Obama's inauguration tomorrow means something else to me entirely. I might not ever be able to put it into words.)

But this post is about what it means to finally begin to exorcise the demons of the last 8 years. It feels so good. I'm still one that wants to hold individuals within the Bush administration accountable for their crimes - but it is immeasurably comforting to reflect back on my dreams from 2005-2006 again today.

Those vivid images of my own creation and born out of my own lust for vengeance feel as repugnant to me now as they should have felt all along.

And that feels great. Like a weight lifted off my shoulders. I hate the death penalty way more than I hate anybody in the Bush administration and I'm sure of it.

Now all that's left to decide is what we should do to punish all those administration criminals?

I'm not totally certain but all I want to do is sock them in the face.

Once each and that's it. Sometimes yes to nose-bleeds but they can all keep their front teeth.

Purge

Out with the old...

A Day To Say Good Riddance

Today, I purge.

Tomorrow, I celebrate.

Timeline

More Funny Videos
Comedians on Tour

Get Funny Ringtones
Stand-Up Comedy

Heckuva job, now go to hell.

Bad Movie

"Smitty" writes to Vanity Fair about his observations of the President's work ethic in the aftermath of 9/11.

Levee Protection for Hurricane George

Maddow and Olberman were admirable in deconstructing President Bush's shameless revisions of his administration's handling of Katrina. The President was angry and defiant and showed not one shred of remorse.

I don't know what kind of accountability he and his administration will face once their reign of terror ends next week. I still believe that we could use a comprehensive federal Katrina Commission.

I would really like to see our next Mayor and City Council officially banish George W. Bush from Orleans Parish. I'm not suggesting that he'd have any interest in gracing us with his presence once he has retired, but it's important to build up our protections just in case Hurricane George threatens once more.

He was a hundred year President.

Or better yet, we could put a levy on the Bush family so that if he'd have to pay a fee in order to come visit. Something in the order of $15,000,000,000 seems fair.

Salacious Unattributable Rumor

Psst, guess what I heard?

Well you know how President Bush refused to allow the Obama family the opportunity to move into the Blair House so that Sasha and Malia could start their school on time?

When that story was reported in early December, it was reported that the Blair House was unavailable because a foreign guest of the President had already been booked to stay there.

Yet, it took weeks before it was revealed who that dignitary was. Last week, Margaret Carlson reported that it was Australia's former Prime Minister John Howard who had been invited to stay at the Blair House. It is her belief that Howard was invited to stay at the Blair House after the Obama had made his request "so that there would be some plausible reason for not letting the Obamas stay there."

Get this - I heard that the REAL reason that the White House forced the Obamas into a two week hotel stay is because Laura Bush has taken up residence in the Blair House. Apparently, George W. has fallen off the wagon and is now attempting to drown his shame in an ocean of alcohol.

--

Somebody really did tell me this. I thought it was an interesting theory indeed. I've heard a lot of jokes lately about Bush's sharpness in some of his recent interviews and press conferences that made me give this a little bit more thought. Certainly the story about the Blair House is very awkward.

He always seemed half-drunk to me though, so I'm not sure how anybody would know the difference.

One week left.

I'll drink to that.

Heckuva Job Bushie! (And more thoughts on Katrina, the Left, and New Orleans)

The administration's response to Katrina was rapid, as I'm sure you recall:

"Don't tell me the federal response was slow when there was 30,000 people pulled off roofs right after the storm passed," Bush said at what was likely his final news conference as president. "You know, I remember going to see those helicopter drivers, Coast Guard divers, to thank them for their courageous efforts to rescue people off roofs -- 30,000 people were pulled off roofs right after the storm moved through. That's a pretty quick response."

A heartfelt thanks to the Bush administration for its incredible compassion to the people of New Orleans. History books will remember those days very kindly. And since everything's fixed here, we can all have a laugh and move on, right?

--

This bit of revisionism is quite bold, don't you think?

Last weekish, Oyster highlighted this article from the Institute for Southern Studies.

In it, Chris Kromm highlights the latest confessions from aides close to Bush who point to Katrina as the absolute low point for the administration.

So it's kind of surprising that President Bush would bother trying to put any kind of silver lining on what is so indisputably a giant smelly turd. Wouldn't it be better to just admit that it was a low point, and use the mythology campaign to chisel away on issues that are at least a little bit more argueable?

--

But Kromm and ISS don't really hammer away at Bush in that article, rather they use the admission of these top-level aides to wonder about the Left:

What's shocking is how little progressives and Democrats understood this. In the months after Katrina, progressives were rightfully pouring into the streets to protest the Iraq war, and blogs and book writers were churning out millions of pages on human rights crimes like CIA torture flights and Abu Ghraib.

But on one of the biggest human rights tragedies within our own borders -- a hurricane which devastated an area the size of Great Britain, killed 1,800 people and uprooted a million residents -- progressives had little to offer.

It has been quite frustrating as a progressive living in New Orleans. Here's part of what I think happened:

Within the first few weeks of the storm, conservative talk radio had effectively galvanized listener opinion against storm victims. They intoned against victims of Katrina, simultaneously using racial imagery to depict victims of the federal flood and of slow administration response as responsible for their own predicament while pushing back hard against a caricatured interpretation of Kanye West's allegations of overt racism on the part of the administration.

While the vast majority of the American public tithed generously and remained largely sympathetic, the larger Right found refuge from accountability on the issues of poverty and race within the bosom of their base. This proved to be enough political cover to kill Democratic efforts for an independent commission on the Bush administration's Katrina response.

There was partisan stalemate in Washington. Democrats were in the minority and Republicans had enough juice from their base to limit federal intervention into the recovery process. President Bush and Karl Rove worked on doing public opinion damage control while the GOP caucus worked on limiting the ability of Congressional Democrats to claim that they'd won any victories on the matter.

Then what happened?

Then Ray Nagin was reelected Mayor.

Regardless as to what you personally believe about Mr. Nagin's culpability in the Katrina disaster, he was largely discredited at the national level. The Right may have overzealous in targeting Nagin as a means for absolving the Bush administration of responsibility, but it was clear to pretty much everyone that Nagin was an ineffective leader during those days. Some choice quotes during his reelection campaign only compounded his national image problem.

While locals know that Mayor Nagin got reelected by frightening a traumatized African American population with rhetoric while making specific political promises to local Republicans, national progressives and Democratic leaders were at a loss for an explanation. The Right was able to pounce on Nagin's victory as evidence to support the racist memes they had been pushing about storm victims all along. Elected Democrats and progressive bloggers, meanwhile, began to consider our issues to be something of a political hot potato. Mayor Nagin and indicted former Congressman Jefferson were public relations cancers and had to be avoided. As local and state level Democrats struggled with corruption and basic competence, national Democrats had to inch away from actual nuts and bolts recovery policies or else get their hands dirty in the clogged septic tank known as Louisiana politics. Progressive bloggers and advocates lazily abandoned the recovery of New Orleans because focusing on the original disaster response was such a simple sensational bludgeon.

If there was a popular, charismatic, and engaged Mayor elected in early 2006 instead of Mr. Nagin, I'd bet that we would have seen many more joint press conferences with Congressional Democratic leaders from here in New Orleans. It would have certainly been much easier to champion rebuilding and recovery as a mainstream campaign issue. Instead, Democrats stuck to running against general incompetence and for the need to fix FEMA. If you're a Democrat campaigning for Congress in Pennsylvania or Virginia or Indiana, why would you take the unnecessary risk of taking a position on Gulf Coast recovery when you can just rail against administration and FEMA incompetence? If you're a progressive activist, you wouldn't hold a congressional candidate from Indiana, Pennsylvania, or Virginia accountable (through the media or campaign donation) for not having a detailed position on rebuilding and recovery. National Democrats hammering on the issues facing the Gulf could too easily be faced with tough counter arguments related to the utility of sending more money into what was increasingly portrayed (somewhat accurately) as a garbage disposal.

Thus in so many ways, New Orleans ceased to be a national issue. "Katrina" was still a live battlefield but "New Orleans" was too complicated, with too many pitfalls for progressives.

I wrote about that in more detail after the Nation recently published an article about vigilante racism during the storm:

For the nation, the federal response Katrina signalled a final deathblow to President Bush and conservative governing philosophy. Polls demonstrate that the public pretty much turned on the GOP for good as a result of the Katrina saga. The PR battle that took place between the parties was one in which the Right blamed Nagin and the natives for their lack of "personal responsibility," while the Left (and the vast vast majority of the country) blamed Bush and his henchmen for their inexplicable and inexcusable inability to respond to an entirely predictable catastrophe in a major American city.

Since then, national analysis of New Orleans is through these lenses, not just the lens of 'Katrina' but the lenses of were was the immediate partisan reactions to Katrina.

The Left, during Katrina, was justifiably incensed over the way that African Americans were labeled "looters" while whites just looking for food. That's why it is unsurprising to see the lions of the liberal netroots (HuffPo, Think Progress, Color of Change) seize upon this story - it scores points in that old front against racist right wing media portrayal.

Katrina is an eternally smoldering political fire, that actual people live here New Orleans is an abstraction that most don't, can't, and won't think about in the midst of the constant drone of the 24 hour news cycle. That the story of New Orleans continues, that it takes on new twists and turns, that its existence continues to be tenuously propped up on a three-legged stool of racism, corruption, and incompetence seems lost on much of the progressive netroots, on thinkers who I respect greatly and read every day.

To get back to the article from ISS, it isn't that progressives didn't understand that Katrina had dealt a deathblow to President Bush. Rather, everyone seems to understand this quite well. The thing progressives didn't understand or work to learn was how to help New Orleans, partially because there weren't any local leaders to show them the way.

Interestingly enough, this theory of mine will be put to the test. New Orleans has another Mayoral election coming up next year. National progressives like blogging about elections, and national progressives are good at donating money to campaigns. One of New Orleans' most desperate needs is for progressive political reform, for new leadership.

Get it?

More on Bush Legacy Spin Cycle

To supplement what I wrote about Bush's interview with Charlie Gibson the other day, Maddow had a great segment last night about the return of Hughes and Rove to the White House as part of efforts to spin Bush's legacy as he prepares to leave office:

Bush Regrets Decision to Invade?

Andrew Sullivan highlights a portion of the lame duck's chat with Charles Gibson of alphabet news. Mr. Sullivan highlights this quote:

I don't know -- the biggest regret of all the presidency has to have been the intelligence failure in Iraq. A lot of people put their reputations on the line and said the weapons of mass destruction is a reason to remove Saddam Hussein. It wasn't just people in my administration; a lot of members in Congress, prior to my arrival in Washington D.C., during the debate on Iraq, a lot of leaders of nations around the world were all looking at the same intelligence. And, you know, that's not a do-over, but I wish the intelligence had been different, I guess.

And then offers his analysis:

Observe the passive constructions. The description of others. "People in my administration." "Prior to my arrival." Everyone got it wrong but him, the one person ultimately responsible for getting it right.

But I look at the Bush quote and I see, in Bush-speak, an admission that the Iraq War was a mistake and that he regrets authorizing invasion. He wishes the intelligence had been different. He wishes it had all said that Iraq was not a threat, instead of just the parts he chose to ignore. So while he won't take ownership of his awful decision to invade, isn't he tacitly acknowledging that it was a bad decision with disastrous consequences?

If he didn't regret the Iraq war, he wouldn't have offered the intelligence failures as his biggest regret because they wouldn't, to him, make any difference as to whether or not the invasion of Iraq was justified or smart.

He might have instead chosen to blame "people in my administration" for the failure to respond to -- I don't know -- Hurricane Katrina.

It's not as if he didn't have an easy 'out' to that question. He chose to go the War route.

The follow up exchange between Gibson and the duck is also illuminating:

GIBSON: If the intelligence had been right, would there have been an Iraq war?

BUSH: Yes, because Saddam Hussein was unwilling to let the inspectors go in to determine whether or not the U.N. resolutions were being upheld. In other words, if he had had weapons of mass destruction, would there have been a war? Absolutely.

GIBSON: No, if you had known he didn't.

BUSH: Oh, I see what you're saying. You know, that's an interesting question. That is a do-over that I can't do. It's hard for me to speculate.

In the past, Bush would have dutifully defended the decision with his other made-up justifications about democratization and fighting them there so we wouldn't have to fight them here. Or he would have gone on and on about how the surge is working and we're succeeding in Iraq. In this case, Bush doesn't evade the question with talking points. Instead, he barely musters the strength to punt it entirely.

It might be the closest thing to an admission of wrong-doing or confession as we'll ever get. If Gibson pressed here, even a little bit, Bush might have gone even further. He didn't. He immediately went to the next question:

"Greatest accomplishment? The one thing you're proudest of?"

I was hoping he'd say "not rigging the 2008 election." He didn't.

A Democrat in Name Only: Ray Nagin's Right Wing Recovery

This week, George W. Bush went out of his way during what will likely be his last appearance in the New Orleans area before he is finally out of office:

I'm also proud to be here with the Mayor of this great city. The Mayor and I have had some quality time. (Laughter.) We have come to know each other. I remember when I first flew down here, there was the Mayor at the end of the steps of Air Force One. I said, "How you doing, Mayor?" He said, "I'm hungry and I haven't had a bath." I said to the steward on Air Force One, "Fix the man up with a meal, and turn on the hot water in the shower."

And I appreciate you, Mayor. I appreciate the fact that you decided to run for office again. You said to the people of this part of the world, there is unfinished business and I intend to be a part of the finished business. And the people listened, they put you back in office, and I'm proud to be with you, Ray. Thanks for coming.

The Mayor is finishing the business of dismantling whatever public assets, public facilities, and public trust that Katrina was so kind as to leave behind. And George Bush thanks him for that.

Media Consultation: Lie Through Your F-Ing Teeth!

Unless Ari Fleischer can play a little corner, then he has no business meeting with the Saints, let alone stepping foot inside Orleans Parish.

When I am Mayor, all former Bush administration officials will have to pay restitution fees and wear an electronic monitoring bracelet while in town. The highest-ranking officials will be prosecuted for negligent homicide.

Back in the USSR: The Intersection of McCain's Confusion and McCain's Hotheadedness

Last night I had a spirited debate with a friend of mine about the US electoral implications of the conflict between Russia and Georgia. We had a few agreed-upon points.

-The McCain camp had effectively controlled the news cycle as it related to Georgia.

-McCain controlled the cycle by ratcheting up provocative rhetoric.

-The long-time close ties of McCain's advisers to the the Georgian government, McCain's proud disclosure that he speaks to the Georgian president every day, and his decision to immediately send Senate allies to Georgia underscore McCain's tendency to the staunchest neoconservatives of the Bush administration.

-Close ties between people in the McCain camp and people in the Bush camp have colored the official US response to the conflict. That essentially insinuates that the less neoconservative Bush advisers have been quieted by stauncher colleagues in an effort to assist John McCain's efforts to boil down this conflict to good v. evil and make Barack Obama seem not sufficiently on the side of good.

-All of this is bad for America.

So we agreed on all of those things but disagreed as to how McCain's decision to play the Soviet Union card will effect voters.

My friend argued that McCain's gambit would fall entirely flat. First, he argued McCain looks old and confused for dusting off Cold War rhetoric. More forcefully, he speculated that the close ties between McCain's people and the Georgian government and his campaign's unprecedented political interference on the handling of a national security crisis will ultimately be painted as dangerous and inappropriate.

I argued that McCain's furious reaction to Russian aggression in Georgia had already effectively pressured Barack Obama to depart his initial and appropriately moderate reaction to the conflict in order to sound more overtly pro-Georgia. I argued that McCain's Russia-bashing earned cheap points with a lot of moderate swing voters or amongst whichever electoral cleavages that intersect with the stereotypical 'nuke the bastards' attitude or whatever bastardization of values occurs when pride in America intersects with testosterone and cross-cultural ignorance. I also said that what it does more than anything else is give right wing pundits and McCain surrogates something that, at the very least, they'll be comfortable taking to the airwaves. They'll be able to pontificate about how this solidifies McCain's 3am phone call credentials or how Americans want the experienced hand when situations like this arise without getting totally laughed out of newsrooms or kicked off their side of the split-screen.

I also pointed out that Senator Obama has already decided to lay off the attack on the Georgia issue. While I see Obama on the attack on domestic issues with targeted swing state ads, he has largely decided to hold off on the national level. For the most part, I agree with the strategy. Americans are watching the Olympics and the convention is approaching. Obama can wait and let McCain's constant running of the sleazy 'celebrity' ads ultimately tick off everyone just wanting to watch Michael Phelps kick everyone's ass. Yet, had Obama already been on the offensive against McCain by tying him to Bush and hitting the behind-the-times/confused/hothead memes, he might have been better positioned to hit Bush-McCain for their overall handling of Russia, allowing the arguments of my friend to factor more prominently in the mainstream media "discussion."

Either way, the pleasant Olympic distraction will ensure that neither candidate's response to the conflict in Georgia will have too much electoral bearing. And in that way, my friend was at least partially correct. McCain's aggressive interference, however, may have already damaged our credibility to lead any productive diplomatic efforts there. McCain's war-mongering against Russia makes us look weak.

-

Just some thoughts, hopefully not too incoherent. I'd love to know where y'all weigh in.

Money For Access to Bush Administration

This is a huge scandal emerging. Go to TPM.

Here's a teaser:

"The exact budget I will come up with, but it will be somewhere between $600,000 and $750,000, with about a third of it going directly to the Bush library," Payne said in the video. "I think that the family, children, whatever [of Akayev], should probably look at making a contribution to the Bush library."

An undercover reporter sits at a table with the Kazakh politician and asks Payne who the meeting might involve.

"Cheney's possible, definitely the national security adviser [Stephen Hadley], definitely either Dr Rice or . . . I think a meeting with Dr Rice or the deputy secretary [John Negroponte] is possible . . .

"The main thing is that he [the Asian politician] comes, and he's well received, that he meets with high-level people . . . and we send positive statements made back from the administration about 'This guy wasn't such a bad guy, many people have done worse'."

Unlike campaigns, presidential libraries do not have to disclose their donors.

Trading American diplomatic assistance to human rights violators in exchange for vast sums of money isn't so bad, many people have done worse.

One of the first things I thought when reading this report was that it reminded me a lot of a New York Times piece from a few months back profiling former President Bill Clinton's trading of public relations and lobbying help on behalf of a uranium financier and the Kazhak dictator in exchange for donations to the Clinton Global Initiative.

It's nice to see that the Bush administration is getting a head start on setting up his own influence-peddling racketeering scheme.

Can we please impeach Dick Cheney yet? Can we please put some of these criminals in jail?

Please?

UPDATE: Indeed the details unfold. The Payne fellow implicated in this London Times video was George W. Bush's personal travel aide during his father's campaign in 1988. He has been extremely close and loyal to the President since then.

Think about that. This guy was his personal travel aide in 1988. That was when Mr. President was still known to be a huge liability for his father. Er, I guess he's very much that now. Maybe you know what I mean - this Payne is a career fixer.

Lost in Translation

Why are we over there again?

The Iraqi government insists on a timetable for US withdrawal and Bush Administration officials claim that the quote wasn't translated properly.

In other news, Grand Ayatollah Dick Cheney translated a Center for Disease Control testimony that profiled the risks of greenhouse gases by removing large portions of it.

Staying High

There is only one place President Bush feels comfortable celebrating his birthday in all of the United States of America. The President is so detested by his own countrymen that he cannot indulge in even the most meaningless ceremonies or celebrations without being reminded of the anger from which he has worked tirelessly to cloister himself.

When the President tried to throw out the first pitch at the Washington Nationals opening day baseball game, the crowd booed lustily despite throwing a strike to the catcher. Even on the 4th of July, President Bush was heckled mercilessly by what was designed to be a sympathetic crowd.

When organizers were charged with planning a grand celebration for the President's last birthday in office, they were challenged to find a location somewhere within the 50 states where there would be minimal opportunity for party-poopers to ruin Mr. Bush's big day.

It was a difficult search. There didn't seem to be a suitable location within the United States. Yet creative accomplices to the President came up with a solution that could circumvent the restrictions laid down by unhappy citizens - a flyover.

By celebrating ABOVE the United States of America, the President sends a strong signal to Congress and US citizens that he can still celebrate rising gas prices and nose diving popularity numbers by burning up fuel on his luxury taxpayer-funded jumbo jet and throwing himself face-first into an enormous taxpayer-funded coconut cake.

Yet some aides pointed out that this was not the first time that Presidential party planners stayed cloistered on Air Force One in the face of angry citizens on the ground, er in the water.

I want to tell you to go to hell, Mr. President. Yet upon further reflection, I prefer you go to jail.

Bush's Brain Without a Conscience

This is a must-read story from Salon.com about Karl Rove's manipulation of Ray Nagin and the media to deflect culpability from the Bush administration for the response to Hurricane Katrina.

That fact was proven precisely by what Vitter had done and said at the press conference. "As soon as Vitter said he had just gotten off the phone with Rove and other Republican officials," Landrieu says, "he started in on the first talking point to come out of the ordeal. I said to myself, 'Oh my God, I can't believe the White House has already given David Vitter talking points to talk about this.' We weren't going to blame anyone. We weren't going to blame the president. I mean, is there a Republican talking point for how to get people water? But that was Karl Rove."

Instead of supplying relief to the city, Rove had devised a scheme whereby he could blame the failure of government to take action on someone besides Bush. "They looked around," Landrieu says, "and they found a Democratic governor and an African American Democratic mayor who had never held office before in his life before he was mayor of New Orleans -- someone they knew they could manipulate. Ray Nagin had never held public office and here he was the mayor of New Orleans and it was going underwater."

In short, Rove was going to blame Blanco for the failure of the response in Louisiana, and to do that he was going to use Nagin. He had already set the plan in motion on Tuesday with Nagin, who, even though he was a Democrat, was so close to the Republican Party that some members of the African American community in New Orleans called him "Ray Reagan." In 2000, Nagin had actually contributed $2,000 to Bush's campaign when he ran for president.

Rove knew of Nagin's ties to the Republican Party, so more than likely Nagin could be convinced to level his criticism at Blanco and to support Bush when he could. Here was Rove's strategy: Praise Haley Barbour, the Republican governor of Mississippi; praise Michael Brown and FEMA; blame Blanco, the Democrat. It was not a stretch for Nagin. He and Blanco so disliked each other that in Blanco's last race Nagin had endorsed her opponent.

Rove and Nagin were communicating through e-mail. "I heard Nagin was bragging about being in touch with The Man," Blanco says. "Nagin took the position that they were the people who could help the most to do what he wanted. People get highly complimented when they have contact with the White House." In this case the trade-off for Nagin was his willingness to cooperate with Rove. "I knew Ray Nagin could be easily manipulated," Landrieu says. "I could feel it. We were all working together in a relatively small building. We were in close proximity. But I could see where Rove was going. Blame Blanco. Blame the levee board. Blame the corruption in New Orleans. 'The reason the city is going underwater is because the city is corrupt,' Rove was saying. 'But don't blame the Republicans or George W. Bush or David Vitter. We are the white guys in shining armor, and we are going to come in and save the city from years of corruption.' That was their story and they sold it very well."

Rove sold the story, as he had in the past, through the media. On Wednesday, while Blanco was trying to get help from the White House, her staff began receiving calls from reporters questioning her handling of the disaster, almost all of them citing as their sources unnamed senior White House officials.

"One story," Blanco aide Mann recalls, "would say the governor was so incompetent she had not even gotten around to declaring a state of emergency when she had actually done so three days before the storm. It was obvious to us who was behind this attack based on inaccurate information that was being shoveled to Washington reporters who were identifying their sources as senior Bush administration officials." Blanco adds, "People at Newsweek told me the White House called them to say I had delayed signing the disaster declaration. The assumption was that their source was the political director -- Karl Rove." Not only was the attack on Blanco in print, it was also on television. "All of a sudden," Blanco says, "a whole lot of talking heads showed up on television repeating the misinformation over and over, making it the truth."

I promise that there's much, much more. Please read the article and send it to your friends. That Karl Rove still avoids testifying in front of Congress is a joke because he should already be in jail. My hatred of this man is unprecedented. I've never felt such disdain for the character of a fellow human being. The utter disregard for human life - this man is pure evil.

McCain Confused About Katrina Votes

Today John McCain held a press conference in Baton Rouge in which he claimed to have voted for all investigations of Hurricane Katrina.




Yeah, no.

McCain indeed voted twice against empowering an independent commission to investigate the levee failures that caused the inundation of the city of New Orleans.

In the McCain campaign's email response to Talking Points Memo, a spokesman claimed that McCain had been "speaking to his strong support for the Homeland Security Committee's comprehensive, bipartisan investigation of Hurricane Katrina, which was already fully underway when these other proposals were suggested."

Oh, he was talking about the "bipartisan" investigation rammed down the throats of Democrats by the then-majority Republicans desperately trying to limit the political damage of the disaster.

They rejected Democratic appeals to model the panel after the Sept. 11 commission, which was made up of non-lawmakers and was equally balanced between Republicans and Democrats. That commission won wide praise for assessing how the 2001 terrorist attacks occurred, and for recommending changes in the government's anti-terrorism structure.

House and Senate GOP leaders announced the "Hurricane Katrina Joint Review Committee," which will include only members of Congress, with Republicans outnumbering Democrats by a yet-to-be-determined ratio. The commission, which will have subpoena powers, will investigate the actions of local, state and federal governments before and after the storm that devastated New Orleans and other portions of the Gulf Coast.

Ultimately, there were three Katrina investigations, one each by the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the Presidency. That which was produced by the House was boycotted by Democrats. That which was produced was the President was intended to be toilet paper. The Senate investigation was what the Democrats were left with after the independent commission was rejected in a vote down party lines.

This Senate investigation was launched on September 15th, 2005.

Thus, it was not "fully underway" when John McCain voted against the independent investigation on September 14th, 2005.

Levees.org is still demanding a real investigation of federal levee failures today.

Has McCain now flip-flopped to support an independent commission? Or is he just confused about where his "maverick" image ends and his vote to protect the Bush administration from being held accountable for the Katrina response begins?

Somebody should ask him.

Does Stephanie Grace of the Times-Picayune still think Katrina is "risk-free" for John McCain?

She seems just as confused.

Laura Bush Visits the Ogden: Did She Appreciate the Art?

This morning Laura Bush gave a speech at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. She is in town to address a conference held by the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. She will be advising "church-based non profits" in their efforts to "partner with the federal government."

I happened to go to the Ogden Museum yesterday. There were people in suits all over the place. There was a team of laborers sprucing up the landscaping outside under the supervision of some lady in a pants suit. The whole scene was uncomfortable - and that was before I learned of the First Lady's visit.

I understand wanting everything to look nice for a prestigious visitor but there's something disconcerting about it when you consider that public officials. especially the President and his family, always get this coddled arrangement. Think about all the money and thought and effort that goes into each and every visit to a school or a library or a museum - all to insulate and comfort and impress. I wonder how many thousands of dollars go into each photo opportunity.

Anyways, there is a painting currently on the wall of the Ogden, I believe on the 4th floor, by the artist David Bates. It is called the Storm. I would like to know what Laura Bush thought of it.

The painting at the Ogden is part of a larger storm series by Bates.

It was shown in Dallas recently. Maybe Mrs. Bush caught it there. What does she make of it?

Check it out.

Why Can't Memorial Day Be More Like Veteran's Day?

Since we have to send our neighbors to fight in a poorly planned, unnecessary, and ultimately counterproductive war, I'd prefer to see an army of veterans return.

Instead, we're sacrificing too many veterans in exchange for memories we'd rather not have.

Some of it is because the Bush administration refused to provide the necessary body armor to our troops in harm's way:

A secret Pentagon study has found that as many as 80 percent of the marines who have been killed in Iraq from wounds to the upper body could have survived if they had had extra body armor. Such armor has been available since 2003, but until recently the Pentagon has largely declined to supply it to troops despite calls from the field for additional protection, according to military officials.

At least partially because we don't provide decent health care to our wounded, some make the painful transformation from veteran to memory right here on home soil.

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If it were up to me, we wouldn't even have a Memorial Day because we'd only have surviving veterans.

Unfortunately, a shockingly large collaboration of Bush administration policies and non-policies coldly indicate that they don't quite share my personal aversion to fallen soldiers.