We find this very hard to believe:

Wolfowitz: Bombing changed U.N. mood

Excerpts:

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said Thursday the Bush administration has been pushing for months for a new U.N. resolution to internationalize the force in Iraq, but it took the bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad to change the "atmosphere in New York."

Seeking a new U.N. resolution, he said, "didn't sort of emerge out of nowhere a few days ago."

"It's been on our agenda ever since the fall of Baghdad," Wolfowitz said.

He described last month's deadly bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad as a "breakthrough -- a sad one" -- in bringing the international community aboard.

"The bombing of the U.N. headquarters, I think, changed the atmosphere in New York and it looks like we can move forward in that area," he said.

The notion that the Bush administration was champing at the bit to get the U.N. more involved, and that it was only after the bombing in Baghdad that the international community saw the wisdom of embracing the U.S. mission is, truly, beyond belief.

posted by Quiddity at 9/04/2003 10:45:00 PM

Refer to European countries as the State Department does:

US derides 'chocolate makers' for EU military headquarters plans

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States sneered at plans by four European countries to create an autonomous European military command headquarters near Brussels separate from NATO, referring to the idea's proponents as "chocolate makers."

In unusually blunt language that drew surprised gasps from reporters, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher scoffed at Belgium, France, Germany and Luxembourg for continuing to support the proposal that they first introduced at a mini-summit in April.

He described the April meeting as one between "four countries that got together and had a little bitty summit" and then referred to them collectively as "the chocolate makers."

posted by Quiddity at 9/03/2003 02:37:00 PM

What next?

U.S. Forces Hand Over Parts of Central Iraq BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A Polish-led force took over a chunk of central Iraq from U.S. Marines on Wednesday as Washington sought to relieve the burden on its troops by widening international participation in Iraq's security.
	Will the U.S. hand over the next parcel to the Swiss Guard?

posted by Quiddity at 9/03/2003 09:19:00 AM

It cuts both ways:

Via Liberal Oasis we learn that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld recently complained about press coverage of Iraq:

... with 24-hour news each setback in Iraq is repeated and repeated and repeated as if it were 10 or 20 setbacks.

If Rumsfeld is correct, the following is also true:

With 24-hour news each success in Iraq is repeated and repeated and repeated as if it were 10 or 20 successes.

posted by Quiddity at 9/03/2003 07:52:00 AM

One of our greatest thinkers opines:

Inspired by Busy, Busy, Busy's shorters.

posted by Quiddity at 9/03/2003 06:01:00 AM

Andrew Sullivan speaks out:

Bush fan and conservative flack Sullivan has this to say:

THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER LANDING: Can we all now agree that that was the dumbest political gesture of the last two years?

posted by Quiddity at 9/02/2003 10:41:00 PM

Moron watch:

Via Democratic Underground's Top Ten Conservative Idiots we learn of this foolishness:

Wednesday, August 27, 2003
By Brit Hume

California Roughly Same Size As Iraq

Two hundred and seventy seven U.S. soldiers have now died in Iraq, which means that, statistically speaking, U.S. soldiers have less of a chance of dying from all causes in Iraq than citizens have of being murdered in California…which is roughly the same geographical size. The most recent statistics indicate California has more than 2,300 homicides each year, which means about 6.6 murders each day. Meanwhile, U.S. troops have been in Iraq for 160 days, which means they are incurring about 1.7, including illness and accidents, each day.

DU has this to say:

... since there are 38 million Americans in California and only 170,000 in Iraq, it turns out that Americans are actually 66 times more likely to die in Iraq. It's no surprise that Fox News (new motto: Wholly Without Merit) wants to downplay the deaths of American soldiers in Iraq - after all, they and their viewers positioned themselves as the only real pro-Americans in the the United States.

... Brit Hume is supposed to be a journalist for crying out loud. Fair and balanced? He should despise himself for misleading the public in such a fashion. It's hard to imagine even Rush Limbaugh sinking this low.

Oh, we're pretty sure Limbaugh would sink that low.

posted by Quiddity at 9/02/2003 07:02:00 PM

Subtext:



posted by Quiddity at 9/02/2003 06:57:00 PM

In case you missed it:

Be sure to read Liberal Oasis' interview with Paul Krugman.

posted by Quiddity at 9/02/2003 05:35:00 PM

Senators don't win presidential elections, governors do:

Or do they? Here are the results for presidential elections from 1900 to 1996.

Who	Highest office achieved at time of election	result
McKinley	President	won
Bryan	Representative	lost
T. Roosevelt	President	won
Parker	Chief Justice NY Appeals Ct.	lost
Taft	Sec. War	won
Bryan	Representative	lost
Wilson	Governor	won
T. Roosevelt	President	lost
Taft	President	lost
Wilson	President	won
Hughes	Supreme Ct. Justice	lost
Harding	Senator	won
Cox	Governor	lost
Coolidge	President	won
Davis	Wall St. lawyer	lost
LaFollette	Senator	lost
Hoover	Sec. Commerce	won
Smith	Governor	lost
F. Roosevelt	Governor	won
Hoover	President	lost
F. Roosevelt	President	won
Landon	Governor	lost
F. Roosevelt	President	won
Wilkie	Wall St. lawyer	lost
F. Roosevelt	President	won
Dewey	Governor	lost
Truman	President	won
Dewey	Governor	lost
Eisenhower	General	won
Stevenson	Governor	lost
Eisenhower	President	won
Stevenson	Governor	lost
Kennedy	Senator	won
Nixon	Vice-president	lost
Johnson	President	won
Goldwater	Senator	lost
Nixon	Vice-president	won
Humphrey	Vice-president	lost
Nixon	President	won
McGovern	Senator	lost
Carter	Governor	won
Ford	President	lost
Reagan	Governor	won
Carter	President	lost
Reagan	President	won
Mondale	Vice-president	lost
Bush	Vice-president	won
Dukakis	Governor	lost
Clinton	Governor	won
Bush	President	lost
Perot	businessman	lost
Clinton	President	won
Dole	Senator	lost

 

Office	won	lost
President	13	7
Vice-president	2	3
Governor	5	8
Senator	1	4
Representative		2
Cabinet	2
General	1
Justice		2
Wall St. lawyer		2
businessman		1

NOTE: Only those that received 10% of the votes were included.

posted by Quiddity at 9/02/2003 03:07:00 PM

Remember this:

Josh Marshall has a 4,600 word essay in the Washington Monthly called The Post-Modern President. It's a good read. We especially like this excerpt: (emphasis added)

Many of the administration's policy arguments have amounted to predictions--tax cuts will promote job growth, Saddam is close to having nukes, Iraq can be occupied with a minimum of U.S. manpower--that most experts believed to be wrong, but which couldn't be definitely disproven until events played out in the future. In the midst of getting those policies passed, the administration's main obstacle has been the experts themselves--the economists who didn't trust the budget projections, the generals who didn't buy the troop estimates, intelligence analysts who questioned the existence of an active nuclear weapons program in Iraq. That has created a strong incentive to delegitimize the experts--a task that comes particularly easy to the revisionists who drive Bush administration policy.

And then there is this disturbing excerpt:

When [the Bush administration] went into Iraq they were essentially flying blind, having disengaged from almost everyone who had real-world experience in how effective occupation, reconstruction and nation-building was done. And much the same can be said of the administration's take on economic policy, environmental policy, and in almost every sort of policy question involving science.

When people are acting contrary to science, you've got a very serious problem.

Josh Marshall also has a few words about his article at his main stomping ground, TPM.

ADDENDUM: Marshall also writes in the essay:

The White House seemed guilty of what might be called persistent, chronic up-is-downism, the tendency to ridicule the possibility that a given policy might actually have its predictable adverse consequences, to deny those consequences once they have already occurred, or--failing that--to insist against all evidence that those consequences were part of the plan all along.

For the definitive analysis of Bush's up-is-downism, Salon's Ruben Bolling has a great cartoon.

posted by Quiddity at 9/02/2003 08:49:00 AM

Happy Labor Day:

Just a reminder, Bush’s party to raise funds via Noida, Gurgaon   (31 Jan 2003)

Bipin Chandran in New Delhi   -   Business Standard, January 31, 2003

The US Republican Party now has a band of young and enthusiastic fund-raisers in Noida and Gurgaon.

HCL eServe, the business process outsourcing arm of the Shiv Nadar-promoted HCL Technologies, has bagged a project to undertake a fund-raising campaign for the US Republican Party over the telephone.

This is the first time such a project has been handed out to a company outside the US. The market research and public relations companies engaged by the party usually undertake such projects.

HCL eServe has put in place a team of 75 people to work on the project out of its call centres in Noida and Gurgaon. According to industry sources, the number of seats could be ramped up depending on the success of the campaign. These operators are required to call up people in the US seeking their support for President George W Bush and a donation for the Republican cause.

Noida is somewhere east of Delhi, India.

posted by Quiddity at 9/01/2003 04:29:00 PM

Yahoo message board post:

In the message section associated with the Reuters story, Dutch Approve Cannabis as Prescription Drug, we found this entry:

Republicans are puritans

I consider myself a conservative Republican. However this is one issue the they have all wrong. They are scared to death of being "soft" on the war on drugs which has been an abject total failure by most accounts.

You want to see the war on drugs? The show "Cops" is a perfect example. They show these butch-hairdo cops busting some toothless crack whore, and high-fiving themselves that they found 2 grams of crack on her. Now that is really pathetic.

The US has a greater percentage of it's people incarcerated, many of these small time drug dealers or even just users. Once you're in the criminal justice system, it becomes very hard to get a job, and it creates a spiral of needing to steal, and "VIOLA" we have created a hardened criminal from a cannabis user!

Let me tell you-don't vote for these PURITANICAL-type Republicans or for that matter Democrats. They are just as bad!

Great remark about the show "Cops".

posted by Quiddity at 9/01/2003 04:20:00 PM

Wow!

Via Atrios we went to Wolf Blitzer's online poll. Here are the results so far on Labor Day:

posted by Quiddity at 9/01/2003 03:55:00 PM

The next war will be a trade war:

In the news:

Bush Announces Steps to Increase Manufacturing Jobs

President Bush announced steps to help bring jobs to the nation's manufacturing industry today, beginning with what administration officials said would be increased pressure on China to change currency policies that U.S. businesses say hurt American exporters and give Chinese firms an unfair advantage.

---

Snow urges the Chinese to let currency float

John Snow, US treasury secretary, on Monday urged China to abandon its fixed currency regime, arguing that a "functioning financial system is one based on flexible exchange rates".

In unexpectedly tough remarks on the eve of a visit to Beijing, Mr Snow said: "We want to be heard on the issue of flexible exchange rates so that American firms [are at] no disadvantage."

Could a 21^st version of Smoot-Hawley be next?

posted by Quiddity at 9/01/2003 03:40:00 PM