Me: Frank Lynch

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How do you exercise your country's sovereignty? Well, apparently 43 Australian dignitaries (including former ambassadors and defense ministers) don't think John Howard did it the right way in invading Iraq:

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) Former defense chiefs and diplomats condemned Australia's involvement in the Iraq war Sunday in a major blow to Prime Minister John Howard's re-election prospects.

The 43 eminent Australians including two former chiefs of defense and three ambassadors issued a scathing public statement accusing the government of deceit and of rubber-stamping foreign policies decided by Washington.

You be careful next time you're asked to step out of bounds from the considered opinion of the UN Security Council to join some trumped-up "Coalition of the Willing," y' hear?
Link 11:37 AM

Switching parties is fine, but to do it so late that your old party can't mount an appropriate challenge to you in the next election reeks of irresponsibility, if not chicanery. Voters are supposed to have a choice, and Louisiana representative Rodney Alexander decided against that principle. Effectively, the Republicans have picked up an incontestable seat.
Link 11:17 AM

The opportunity costs of the war in Iraq. Bush has frequently said that toppling Saddam Hussein was "worth" it, even if the intelligence on WMDs was wrong. Worth, of course, is in the eye of the beholder. And an MBA like he is can certainly appreciate the idea of opportunity cost — that is, was this the best way to spend that money? An op-ed piece for the New York Times lays out an alternative.
Link 11:05 PM

The US apparently blew another agent's cover this week when it confirmed its source of information for last weekends's terror warnings. (Very sorry if you already know this, but I read it on my PDA while in Queens this afternoon, and this is my first chance to post it.) The fact that the source had been arrested hadn't been disclosed, and he was working with Pakistan to beguile al Qaeda operatives who were still on the run.

Security experts contacted by Reuters said they were shocked by the revelations that the source whose information led to the alert was identified within days, and that U.S. officials had confirmed his name.

"The whole thing smacks of either incompetence or worse," said Tim Ripley, a security expert who writes for Jane's Defense publications. "You have to ask: what are they doing compromising a deep mole within al Qaeda, when it's so difficult to get these guys in there in the first place?

"It goes against all the rules of counter-espionage, counter-terrorism, running agents and so forth. It's not exactly cloak and dagger undercover work if it's on the front pages every time there's a development, is it?"

A source such as Khan -- cooperating with the authorities while staying in active contact with trusting al Qaeda agents -- would be among the most prized assets imaginable, he said.

NewsMax has a unique spin: blame it on the New York Times. I guess that means they'll be blaming Bob Novak for the Valerie Plame leak.
Link 10:35 PM

I am not the kind of guy with whom you want to see a music-laden movie like The Manchurian Candidate. The climax approaches at the end, and music comes on, and I recognize the song and say to my wife, "KINKS!" (From the best Kinks web site on the planet.)
Link 10:25 PM

Would it be shrill to conclude that the Bush Administration is actually anti-family?

I ask because of where we are economically, how the Administration has responded to it, and how they've characterized it. On balance, I can't see any evidence that the administration is pro-family. Can you?

• Bush's grand idea to stimulate a stalled economy was to implement tax increases for the wealthiest Americans.
   
• Bush talked about those tax reductions as if they would stimulate the economy. He claimed that a "blue chip" panel of economists had said that the economy would grow 3% as a result of his tax reductions. They had not. And when that became clear, he went out and got a new panel of "economists," of questionable credentials, to endorse his plan.
   
• He characterized the impact of the tax reductions by describing an "average" American family, when the average (the mean) didn't represent what was really happening because the distribution of benefits was heavily skewed. Most people received little benefit, a small group received a lot.
   
• He's resorted to a patriotic ploy to defend his discredited tax cut, saying that it was important to maintain the economy so that our soldiers would have their old jobs waiting for them when they return. Yet, according to the law, employers must keep those jobs waiting.
   
• In setting up the Department of Homeland Security, he fought to revamp the government employees' collective bargaining rights. This was so important to him, that he risked not getting the department set up, and accused any who argued for workers' rights of being beholden to special interests and being unpatriotic.
   
• Last year, the Labor Department started a move to change the regulations surrounding overtime pay, so that thousands of workers would no longer qualify for overtime pay, even though they work the extra hours — effectively taking money away from them when they work, and giving employers less incentive to hire additional workers, since they wouldn't be paying the workers for their overtime hours.
   
• Household incomes have dropped for the last two years in a row, the first time since World War II.
   
• Now let's skip ahead a bit, we're in a situation of really anemic job growth. (Doubtless you heard...) And Treasury Secretary John Snow seized on the hairline decrease in the unemployment figure while the Labor Department cautioned that the figure Snow clung to comes from a less reliable survey. Snow doesn't stop, and says "the evidence indicates there's still a very strong growth in the United States" that should last.

Now, the Republicans have argued for the privatization of Social Security under the idea that you're better off when you can make decisions for yourself, rather than government making them for you. In fact, this is a basic tenet of the Republican party and the drive to smaller government. But if this is true, why are so many of their efforts on characterizing the economy designed to disguise the truth so that you can't properly make decisions in November?
Link 3:02 PM

A little quote.

Nixon carried our county, but Kennedy squeaked by in Arkansas with 50.2 percent of the vote, despite the best efforts of Protestant fundamentalists to convince Baptist Democrats that he would be taking orders from the pope.

From Bill Clinton's My Life, page 44.
Link 1:10 PM

George Schultz's claim that we are in economic prosperity was really an insult to our intelligence, wasn't it? The latest job figures are out, and while unemployment dropped to 5.5% (that part is good, but not a huge drop from 5.6%), only 32,000 jobs were added in July. What was expected? Oh, at least 180 - 210,000 more. So it was less than one-seventh of what was expected. Prosperity is so good, George.
Link 9:38 AM

The WaPo's Richard Cohen provides a pretty exhaustive list of Bush's flip-flops (including the one on nation building), and comes to this:

Flip-flopping, like beauty, is in the mind of the beholder. It can be an indicator of an alert mind, one that adjusts to new realities, or it can be evidence of ambition decoupled from principle. With Kerry it's a mix of both. With Bush, who changes his positions but never his mind, it is always the latter.

I'm sure the list he could have written about is longer, though, since the flip-flop on steel tarriffs is not listed. (Add others in the comments...)
Link 12:55 PM

McCain to Bush: Pony up. John McCain has come out against the anti-Kerry ads being run by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, calling them the same sort of smears that were done against him (McCain) in South Carolina. And he's called on Bush to repudiate the ads, too. The Bush campaign has said they would never question Kerry's service (wisely, since that would of course re- open the "Bush was AWOL" question), but that's far from a repudiation. The ads are reprehensible, over-representing the sailor's closeness to Kerry while in service; five of the six who actually served with Kerry in his boat endorse him, and the sixth is dead. In addition, he saved the life of fellow sailor Jim Rassmann.
Link 12:25 PM

Why doesn't the Justice Department prosecute those who leak classified information? They're not going after former Senator Richard Shelby:

Federal investigators concluded that Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.) divulged classified intercepted messages to the media when he was on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, according to sources familiar with the probe.

Specifically, Fox News chief political correspondent Carl Cameron confirmed to FBI investigators that Shelby verbally divulged the information to him during a June 19, 2002, interview, minutes after Shelby's committee had been given the information in a classified briefing, according to the sources, who declined to be identified because of the sensitive nature of the case.

(snip)

The disclosure involved two messages that were intercepted by the National Security Agency on the eve of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks but were not translated until Sept. 12. The Arabic-language messages said "The match is about to begin" and "Tomorrow is zero hour." The Washington Post, citing senior U.S. intelligence officials, reported the same messages in its June 20, 2002, editions.

National security officials were outraged by the leak, and moments after the CNN broadcast a CIA official chastised committee members who had by then reconvened to continue the closed-door hearing.

Really not sure what to make of this: Shelby's party might be an explanation, but the nature of his leak made the administration look bad. I hope we can see more diligence on the Valerie Plame investigation.
Link 11:21 AM

To protect their safety, federal judges can request that information in their files be withheld from the public — makes sense in the case of a judge sitting on an organized crime case who doesn't want everyone to know where he lives, right? But a GAO report covering redaction requests (and implemented) from 1999-2002 showed that hundreds of requests were made, and frequently covered information seemingly unrelated to a judge's safety, such as financial information, possibly to hide conflicts of interest:

Specialists in judicial ethics said they were startled at the breadth of the excisions -- and particularly that the material cut included financial information that appeared to present little safety risk.

"I just can't imagine why it would be necessary to redact all of the information," said Steven Lubet, a law professor at Northwestern University in Chicago and co-author of a book on judicial ethics. "I can't even guess what would be the justification."

Jeffrey Shaman, a legal ethicist at DePaul University, agreed that it would be difficult to defend all the redactions on security grounds. "It surprises me the numbers are so high," he said. "The purpose of financial disclosure is to ensure the judge doesn't have a financial conflict of interest. . . . It makes one wonder if the real reason for a judge to request the redaction is to prevent the public from learning embarrassing information."

Not only that, when you do finally get the profile you request, it can take upwards of 90 days, and is only on paper. I'm not through yet: in a byzantine twist, the GAO is conscious of the "sensitive" nature of their report and is not making it available on the Internet. Go figure.
Link 11:12 AM

This is not good. More evidence of attack plans.
Link 10:29 PM

What planet is George Schultz on? In an op-ed piece in today's New York Times, Schultz compares economic trends under Bush to those under Clinton, and concludes, "the recession President Clinton left behind has turned into prosperity under George W. Bush." How does he reach this conclusion? By comparing trends in the changes in GDP and unemployment — for instance, one quarter's GDP vs. the same quarter the prior year, and looking at the trend line of those results. This is misleading, for two reasons. One reason is that it's easier to show this kind of growth when you're making comparisons to weak periods than when you're making comparisons to strong periods (it's the law of diminishing returns). Second, Schultz's figures show growth, not absolutes, and his conclusion that we are in a period of prosperity refers to an absolute level, not a relative level. In other words, Schultz has misstated the meaning of the data, and should be ashamed of himself.

In absolute terms, are we in a period of prosperity? No. Unemployment remains at 5.6%, and the IRS reported that incomes have fallen for two years in a row, the first time since World War II.

Okay, since we're not in a period of prosperity in an absolute sense, what are economists saying about the rate of growth? Well, first, lets note that Q2 growth in GDP was lower than in Q1. Uh oh, that looks like trouble for Mr. Schultz. In fact, a Moody's economist says, "We're looking at a more pronounced than expected slowing of economic activity, mostly because of the shockingly small increase by consumer spending." Hmmm. This "prosperity" sure looks prosperous, doesn't it? (Note: this post was rewritten since it's original posting. Conclusions have not changed.)
Link 6:04 PM

No Fox spin this time... I was just at Fox's page on Bush's approval rating, and it's completely spin free. Although, they just don't have the heart to write that the most recent approval ratings they report are also the lowest they've recorded. Is stony silence spin?
Link 3:46 PM

Bush at the cafeteria. In the post immediately below this one, I referred to the way Bush picks and chooses between elements of Catholic doctrines when appealing to Catholics. When Catholics do this, it's sometimes pejoratively referred to as "Cafeteria Catholicism," as if Catholics choose what they believe willy nilly, with no more consideration than they give to potato salad vs. cole slaw. I think that description is unduly harsh, but coincidentally I just read this item regarding Bush's use of the 9/11 Commission's recommendations, from commission John Lehman:

"Our recommendations are not a Chinese menu," Lehman said. "They are a whole system. If all of the important elements are not adopted, it makes it very difficult for the others to succeed." (Emphasis mine.)

He's referring to Bush setting up an intelligence czar with no budgetary authority. Bush just doesn't understand the political hot potato he's got on his hands: he has to do what they say, because 9/11 changed American thinking, and even compelled the populace to support the Iraqi diversion.
Link 3:08 PM

Bush's culture of death. If you have any friends who are even slightly influenced by Bush's appeals that he's better for Catholics because he opposes abortion, give them this book right away, without delay. It's the Pope's encyclical on the sanctity of human life, so they should be open to it; and point out the parts that discuss why the Catholic Church is against capital punishment. Capital punishment, of course, is one of the few areas where Texas leads the nation, and did so while Bush was governor; Bush, in fact, supposedly laughed about the mercy pleas of Karla Faye Tucker.

You could also remind them that the Catholic Church was against the war in Iraq; and if they say that opinion wasn't "ex cathedra," ask them if they know what that means, whether the failure to be ex cathedra translates to license to war, and whether or not in retrospect a non-ex cathedra position wasn't better than a war based on really faulty intelligence.

Yesterday, if you haven't heard, Bush went before a Catholic group in Dallas (a Knights of Columbus gathering) made a special political pitch about his culture of life. So, let's not let him get away with this blatant attempt to twist religion conveniently. Let's not: religion is too precious to be co-opted in such a callous manner.
Link 1:51 PM

Aggravation to the conspiracy-sensitive among us. How do you feel about fire insurance for your home? In all likelihood, you're unlikely to get paid for a fire; if consumers as a whole "made money" on insurance, insurance companies would be out of business. No, the benefit of buying the insurance isn't in the likelihood of collecting, it's in the transferrence of the risk to the insurance company: you can breathe easier when you have it. That's why I think it's dangerous to conclude that the government was manipulating warnings about terrorist threats purely for political purposes; the risks of ignoring those warnings (a logical extension of that conclusion) are like failing to buy fire insurance.

Yet, Ridge's politically-laced statement on Sunday ("we must understand that the kind of information available to us today is the result of the president's leadership in the war against terror") doesn't help, and as I've already said, I can forgive the raised eyebrows of those who think the warning is politically motivated.

The Administration (and those close to it) have a history of using information, and blocking information, to its political advantage. This backdrop provides context for the threat warnings, and it's difficult to treat the warnings as if they are coming from some altar boy with a spotless record. Just as a reminder, here are some of the items I that came to mind while I was doing dishes just now... (Feel free to add to the list by using the comments box.)

• Efforts to block examinations of the intelligence failures leading to 9/11;
   
• Hindering the work of the eventually-empaneled 9/11 Commission, by jockeying over who would testify, how, and whether or not under oath, as well as being too slow to allow it sufficient time to complete a thorough investigation;
   
• Attorney General John Ashcroft's presentation of suddenly declassified memos to the 9/11 commission, in an effort to get commissioner Jamie Gorelick off the panel;
   
• Efforts to block examinations of the Iraq-WMD intelligence failures;
   
• Continually referring to misleading, non-representative hypothetical examples of how tax reductions might impact households;
   
• Preventing an FBI translator from testifying in lawsuits from 9/11 victims families (the FBI would eventually determine that that translator lost her job partially due to her whistle-blowing);
   
• Threatening a Health and Human Services Department actuary with the loss of his job if he revealed his projected costs of the Medicare bill to Congress while the bill was being considered for passage;
   
• Stonewalling on the meeting minutes and participants for VP Cheney's Energy Commission, which led to recommendations highly favorable to the energy industry;
   
• Florida's resistence of Freedom of Information Act filings requesting the release of former felons purged from Florida voter rolls for the 2004 election — a purging which most likely would have favored Bush over Kerry if implemented. (Florida's governor, to remind, is the president's brother.)
   

That's nine cases right there of where the administration (or those close to it) was using information for political reasons — either selectively releasing it or deliberately blocking it in order to keep you at a disadvantage. So, like I said, it's risky to ignore the terrorist warnings, but I can see why some would.

Have I forgotten any others? Please add 'em in the comments.
Link 11:04 AM

Fortunately, the President's sleight of hand over the uber-intelligence position — yeah, he endorses one with no budgetary control, and thus no real authority — is being questioned by politicians and the press. How do you run an agency without being able to run it? It's a classic responsibility-authority gap. (Personally, I don't understand why it wasn't all being coordinated by Condoleezza Rice in the first place, but then I guess she'd have to pay more attention.

[Rice] has ... become enmeshed in the controversy over the administration's use of intelligence about Iraq's weapons in the run-up to war. She has been made to appear out of the loop by colleagues' claims that she did not read or recall vital pieces of intelligence. And she has made statements about U.S. intelligence on Iraq that have been contradicted by facts that later emerged.

Maybe this wouldn't fall under her domain, and maybe a separate position makes sense. It would seem to given her qualifications.
Link 3:50 PM

WHY stay the course? Bush's best argument for re-election is a weak one. Sunday's terror warnings were based on old information (see The New York Times and the Washington Post). This means that we are continuing to play catch-up ball (of course, while it's good to catch-up, why were we behind? huh?), and in the government's reactions to information which is mostly old, they risk warning fatigue. People cannnot afford to ignore the real cry of wolf, but it's a normal result to get jaded. Even though director of Homeland Security Tom Ridge has said, "We don't do politics in the Department of Homeland Security," with the timing of the announcement coming directly after the Democrat National Convention, raised eyebrows can be forgiven: it didn't help when Ridge laced Sunday's announcement with campaign-related commentary such as "we must understand that the kind of information available to us today is the result of the president's leadership in the war against terror."

So yeah, guard the buildings, we appreciate it; but then tell us how much safer we are now that Saddam Hussein is out of power.
Link 12:55 PM

Senators have qualifications, too. Much has been made about a tendency for governors to have an advantage over senators when getting elected president. The last senator to be elected president was JFK; since that time we've had nothing but two former vice-president (Nixon and Bush Sr.) and governors elected (Carter, Reagan, Clinton, and Bush Jr.) Presumably, the executive experience more than makes up for the lack of foreign policy experience (another reason I liked Bob Graham, who had been both governor and senator, in spite of no charisma). The Bush campaign is flirting with Kerry attacks on the basis of his "only" having senate experience, but one major conservative pundit/publisher thinks this might backfire:

"This election is about President Bush," said Bill Kristol, an official in the previous Reagan and Bush administrations and now editor of the Weekly Standard. "It's his re-election, he's got to make the case for himself. He's entitled to criticize John Kerry, but John Kerry is more qualified to be president than Jimmy Carter was after four years as governor of Georgia and, arguably, than George W. Bush was after six years as governor of Texas."

Are they listening?
Link 8:34 PM

Tucker Carlson, clowning again. Today on CNN's Crossfire, Tucker Carlson asked a guest:

I think it's totally legitimate to disagree with the Bush administration's prosecution of the war on terror, certainly to disagree with its invasion of Iraq. However, I think this line I'm about to read you from John Kerry, your candidate, spoken today, I think in Michigan, is completely over the top -- quote from John Kerry -- "I believe this administration is encouraging the recruitment of terrorists."

That's a disgusting thing to say, it strikes me.

Well, yeah, if that was the full quote, perhaps. But what Kerry really said (and here's the quote, from CNN's own show, American Morning), was...

Lee Hamilton, the co-chairman of the 9/11 Commission, has said this administration is not moving with the urgency necessary to respond to our needs. I believe this administration and its policies is actually encouraging the recruitment of terrorists.

We haven't done the work necessary to reach out to other countries. We haven't done the work necessary with the Muslim world. We haven't done the work necessary to protect our own ports, our chemical facilities, our nuclear facilities. There is a long, long list in the 9/11 recommendations that are undone.

Not only did Carlson omit the phrase "and its policies," he ignored the obvious meaning that implementation of Bush's policies has worked against us, not for us. Kerry hasn't charged Bush with treason, merely incompetence and shortsightedness. Is this disgusting for Kerry to say? No, not by a long shot. The thought that our misguided invasion of Iraq has been used as a lever for al Qaeda to recruit has long been out there. Kerry is merely pointing out the negative, unintended consequence of the Administration's actions.
Link 7:13 PM

Bush on progress on the war against terror. Among other points he made,

We're working closely with other countries to gather intelligence and to make arrests and to cut off terrorist finances. We've created a new unified Department of Homeland Security and gave it resources and the authority to defend America.

Problem? He didn't create the Department of Homeland Security. That idea came from Senators Lieberman and Specter. And Bush resisted it until political realities made it impossible to do so any longer. And resources? Nah, our port security is still underfunded; Bush preferred a tax cut. Bush taking credit for creating the Department of Homeland Security is like his 2000 Presidential debate remark that he'd signed a health care bill as governor of Texas, when he'd worked hard to defeat it.
Link 5:34 PM

So Bush endorses an uber-intelligence post, but doesn't want it to be cabinet level, going against the recommendation of the 9/11 commission.

"Today I am asking Congress to create the position of a national intelligence director," he said. "The person in that office would be appointed by the president, with the advice and consent of the Senate, and will serve at the pleasure of the president."

But the intelligence director will not be a cabinet post, he said. The commission called for a cabinet-level national intelligence director within the White House who would control the budgets of all 15 federal intelligence agencies.

"I don't think the person should be a member of my Cabinet," Mr. Bush said. "I will hire the person and I can fire the person." At the same time, the president said, "I don't think that the office should be in the White House, however, I think it should be a stand-alone group to better coordinate."

Of course, he felt the same way about Tom Ridge's position, that it shouldn't be cabinet level, until he faced political resistance. (Flip-flop.)
Link 5:22 PM

Another trip down memory lane: from a Washington Post article on October 24, 2001:

The question of whether the United States should begin preparing to immediately turn its military sights on Iraq after Afghanistan has been the subject of debate in the administration. Among the many senior officials who also served in the administration of Bush's father, some strongly believe that the 1991 Desert Storm war should have finished off Saddam Hussein.

In public statements long before Sept. 11, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, undersecretary for defense in Bush's father's administration, advocated striking Baghdad as soon as "we find the right way to do it." In a speech last May, Wolfowitz said the United States "must see Saddam without illusion if we are to know how to deal with the dangers that he creates. We cannot appease him. His appetites cannot be satisfied. There will be no peace in the region and no safety for our friends there ... as long as he remains in power."

Seen while gathering support for the post below.
Link

With parts of NYC, Washington, and Newark under high security, it makes sense to remember how Governor Tom Kean introduced the 9/11 Commission report two Thursdays ago: trouble was coming, and we are already on borrowed time. It's good news that Bush is working hard to be in front on the issue, even though it's sensible to think that it's more out of re- election concerns. I'm sorry to be cynical about it, but I can't help it.

Let's look, for instance, at some elements of the timeline surrounding the commission.

On NBC's "Meet the Press," October 21, 2001, Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman said,

LIEBERMAN: Tim, after Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt appointed a commission headed by Supreme Court Justice Roberts to investigate. And I agree with John, this is not to point blame, it's to figure out what happened so it never happens again.

LIEBERMAN: I hope the president will do something just like that real soon. It ought not to be members of Congress right now. It ought to be citizens. A lot of their meetings ought to be in private. But then they ought to tell the president and us to the best of their ability what went wrong so we can make sure it never happens again. We need another Roberts Commission. We need another Warren Commission. We need to know the truth. (Emphasis mine.)

On Meet the Press on Sept. 19, 2002, Moderator Tim Russert asked Dick Cheney about a charge made by then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle "that you called him several times and urged him not to investigate the events of Sept. 11."

"Tom's wrong," the vice president said. "I think in this case -- well, let's say a misinterpretation. What I did do was work, at the direction of the president, with the leadership of the Intelligence committees to say, 'We prefer to work with the Intelligence committees.'"

The following Sunday, the senator was Russert's guest. After playing a tape of Cheney's statement, Russert asked Daschle, "Did the vice president call you and urge you not to investigate the events of Sept. 11?" Daschle flatly contradicted Cheney: "Yes, he did, Tim, on Jan. 24, and then on Jan. 28 the president himself at one of our breakfast meetings repeated the request."

Russert persisted: "It wasn't, 'Let's not have a national commission, but let's have the Intelligence committees look into this,' it was 'No investigation by anyone, period'?"

"That's correct," Daschle said. "[T]hat request was made" by Cheney not only on Jan. 24 and by Mr. Bush four days later, but "on other dates following" as well.

It continued, of course. Bush held out against setting up the 9/11 Commission as long as he possibly could, until politics prevented him from further delays; and he resisted extending their deadline, and he resisted not only testifying himself, but also Condoleezza Rice — and when he started to make noises about testifying, it was only going to be for an hour; finally it wasn't under oath, and it had to be with Dick Cheney, ostensibly so the panel could see how he and Cheney work together. (Big deal.)

Yeah, I have trouble believing Bush has seen some new light.
Link 2:33 PM

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