Replies to post #38648 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[My Dime]

Hey Sluggo,

Thanks for posting Dowd, Herbert, etc....Since the Times got cheap, I miss their pieces. And for those that skipped through it, here is the last paragraph again!! If that ain't the rooster watching the chicken coop! Party first, country second.

A final absurd junction of dysfunction was reached on Wednesday, when Republican Party leaders awarded Tom DeLay with a seat on the Appropriations subcommittee overseeing the Justice Department, which is investigating Jack Abramoff, including his connections to Tom DeLay.

[My Dime]

Take this administration -- please
Posted on Thu, Feb. 09, 2006


By Molly Ivins
Creators Syndicate

I like to think that Republicans are having fun. They're such cards. What a wheeze, what a jape. Talking about energy independence in the State of the Union address! President Bush said, "America is addicted to oil," and we will "break this addiction." Oh, what a good trick to see if anyone thought he actually meant it!

I'm not going to embarrass the perennial suckers who fell for it by identifying them, but I assure you they include some well-known names in journalism. Boy, I bet they feel like fools, having written those optimistic columns pointing to how Bush had made a fine proposal -- cut oil imports from the Middle East by 75 percent by 2025 -- and people should take it seriously and stop dissing him.

Of course, the next day the administration trotted out Energy Secretary Sam Bodman and Allan Hubbard, director of the president's National Economic Council, to assure us that the president didn't mean it.

Bodman explained, "That was purely an example." A "for instance." Like, we could set a goal like that.

Actually, we could do that without breaking a sweat: Set fuel efficiency standards at 40 miles per gallon in 10 years (hybrids get higher mileage now), and you save 2.5 million barrels a day -- just what we import now from the Mideast.

According to Knight Ridder, "Asked why the president used the words 'the Middle East' when he didn't really mean them, one administration official said Bush wanted to dramatize the issue in a way that 'every American sitting out there listening to the speech understands.' The official spoke only on condition of anonymity because he feared that his remarks might get him into trouble."

Aw. Let's see -- Bush lied so that every American sitting out there listening to the speech understands. It's our fault. We're so dumb that if he doesn't lie, we don't get it.

Of course, those sophisticates who pay attention to stuff such as the budget, where they decide how to spend the money, were aware that the $150 million (a truly pitiful amount by Washington standards) Bush promised would go to making biofuels more competitive is $50 million less than what was in last year's budget for that purpose.

But you are not to assume that Bush has given up on the Dick Cheney plan to drill our way to energy independence just because he didn't mention it in his speech. Last month, the Department of the Interior released a plan that would open part of Alaska's Western Arctic Reserve for drilling. The head of the Natural Resources Defense Council's Alaska Project, Chuck Clusen, said: "Scientists, sportsmen and conservation groups all agree we should protect the last 13 percent of the most sensitive habitat in the Western Arctic's Northeast area. Eighty-seven percent was already open. The Bureau of Land Management decided ... to hand of it over to the oil companies. ... We can drill every last acre of wilderness, and it won't make us any more secure. We only have 3 percent of the world's oil, and the Middle East has 66 percent. Do the math. We can't drill our way to energy independence."

What a good joke.

And this guy Boehner -- John Boehner, the new Republican majority leader, elected because of Tom DeLay's unfortunate indictment -- what a gagster this guy is, what a zany madcap. He ran as a reform candidate! Har-har-har-har!

This is a guy who's up to his neck in the K Street Project, in which conservative lobbyists and politicians walk hand in hand. Boehner has such a highly developed sense of ethics that he once distributed checks from the tobacco lobby on the floor of the House of Representatives.

But now that he's been elected, it's time to get serious, and Boehner has already backed away from Speaker Dennis Hastert's proposal to actually ban (gasp!) gifts and trips from lobbyists. Boehner figures it's enough just to report them. That'll take care of everything.

I tell you, this bunch of cut-ups just keeps the fun coming. Just a few weeks ago, the House cut $16 billion from Medicaid over 10 years, which means that states will increase co-payments on poor people and drop preventive care -- which will cost more in the long run.

They also cut $12.7 billion in student aid and loan programs over five years, because who needs that? And cut another $1.5 billion in child support enforcement in the next year, which is positively brilliant and will result in a drop of at least $8.4 billion in child support collected over the next 10 years. Oh, and a measly cut of $577 million in foster care over five years, making it harder to take care of neglected and abused children.

Now here's a little howler: Bush proposes cutting $36 billion from Medicare over the next five years only ... wait for it ... he's not cutting the money -- he's saving it! A $36 billion Medicare savings. That's so clever.

[My Dime]

Want to know how this has been a disaster?
Posted on Sun, Feb. 05, 2006

By Molly Ivins
Creators Syndicate

"We're on the offensive in Iraq, with a clear plan for victory. First, we are helping Iraqis build an inclusive government, so that old resentments will be eased and the insurgency will be marginalized. Second, we are continuing reconstruction efforts and helping the Iraqi government to fight corruption and build a modern economy, so all Iraqis can experience the benefit of freedom. Third, we are striking terrorist targets while we train Iraqi forces that are increasingly capable of defeating the enemy." -- George W. Bush, State of the Union, Jan. 31.

"The Iraq war has been a disaster." -- CNN reporter Christiane Amanpour, Jan. 30.

The number of terrorist attacks per day in Iraq grew from 55 in December 2004 to 77 per day in December 2005.

Iraq today produces less oil than it did under Saddam. The current oil minister is Ahmad Chalabi, onetime darling of the neocon set and convicted of bank fraud in Jordan.

The majority of Iraqis favor complete American troop withdrawal, though the time frames they prefer vary.

"To the extent we stay there with big forces indefinitely, Iraqis will come up with all these theories that we really want to stay here for their oil. We want to use their country as a springboard for more aggression. They still see us as occupiers." -- Michael O'Hanlon, Brookings Institution, Dec. 27, 2005.

"A sudden withdrawal of our forces from Iraq would abandon our allies to death and prison ... and put men like bin Laden and Zarqawi in charge of a strategic country ..." -- Bush, Jan. 31.

Actually, the insurgency in Iraq is mostly native Iraqis -- old Baathists and others who don't like being occupied by infidels. International terrorist jihadists are a negligible fraction of those fighting, and they are there to fight Americans, not to take over Iraq.

The war in Iraq costs the United States $1 billion per week. Bush originally said it would cost $60 billion. Before the war, he fired his top economic adviser, Larry Lindsey, who said it would cost up to $200 billion.

Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, estimates the total cost between $1 trillion and $2 trillion. He includes lifetime care of the wounded, the economic value of destroyed and lost lives and the opportunity cost of resources diverted to the war.

More than 2,200 Americans have been killed in action in Iraq and 16,600 seriously wounded. Because we are doing a better job saving the lives of the wounded, those who survive often have devastating injuries from which there is no recovery.

Because of its total misjudgment of the war in Iraq, the administration has failed to enlarge the regular Army and has therefore put the institution under immense strain. The "stop-loss" refusal to let people leave at the end of their enlistments affects 50,000 soldiers, and mobilization of the reserves and extended service are a form of draft.

Despite chipper denials from the Pentagon, the Army has serious problems with recruiting, especially getting quality recruits, and with regular Army re-enlistment. The reason that the numbers are not worse is because of the bonuses being offered.

It is quite possible that this administration is destroying the professional Army.

The most important question about the war in Iraq is whether it is doing any good, and an increasing pool of evidence shows that it has become a rallying and recruiting tool for global terrorists. Like the other information in this column, the evidence comes from official reports.

I do hope that this is responsible criticism that aims for cures, not defeatism that refuses to acknowledge anything but failure.