Letters to the Editor
jeff in doha
Published Letters: 24
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Nick: Have Supreme Court rulings changed that balance?
[Read the article: Weekly Standard: Bush has "near dictatorial power"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It's certainly good to go to the original document, and to the documents such as the Federalist Papers that surround it. But over the years, how has the Supreme Court interpreted those portions of Articles I and II? Has their refinement of the meanings changed them from what, to us, they appear to be, giving the president more powers and Congress less?
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See Juan Cole
[Read the article: Improvement in Iraq: Trust Joe Klein and his secret sources]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Klein's title is "Is al-Qaida on the Run in Iraq?"?
More and more over the last few weeks, I read that Al Qaeda is the enemy there when, in fact, it wasn't before and isn't now. I assume that's another talking point of the warmongers, a not-so-subtle reframing. This morning, Juan Cole (http://www.juancole.com/2007/05/bushies-just-made-it-up-saddam-al-qaeda.html) notes:
Bush was out there again on Wednesday trying to link Iraq to al-Qaeda and maintaining that the US was mainly fighting it in that country. In fact, No Mahdi Army Shiites are al-Qaeda. Almost all Sunni Arab guerrilla cells are Baathist or Salafi rather than al-Qaeda. Probably of 100,000 guerrillas fighting in Iraq, perhaps 2% could be categorized in some vague way as "al-Qaeda" if you take that term as referring to a franchise. They are mainly foreign fighters and if the US left Iraq, the local Sunni Arabs would slit their throats. Some slitting is going on even now, and the Bushies celebrate that while not seeming to recognize the implication that "al-Qaeda" doesn't amount to anything as an Iraqi political force.
Whatever Klein's unnamed sources claim, then, is based on a faulty premise. Of course Glenn is correct about Klein's deplorable "journalism" here, but that Klein doesn't even question al-Qaeda" as the enemy against whom progress should be measured makes his piece, his work here, even more abhorrent.
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Seeing Bush objectively
[Read the article: Mike Allen, consummate Beltway "journalist"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Two months before Allen "claim[ed] that the revelations of Bush's lawbreaking would be politically beneficial for Bush, as it will 'turn out to offer a foothold' for Bush to recover from his declining approval ratings," Cenk Uygur wrote the following on the Huffington Post. Though Uybur was wrong on one point--this was a couple of months after Katrina, and at the time it seemed like the MSM might be coming around--the entire piece is worth a re-read at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cenk-uygur/bushs-approval-ratings_b_10291.html.
Bush isn’t going to make a comeback. He’s fallen and he can’t get up.
A comeback presupposes substance and ability. A worthy character who has suffered some setbacks, bad luck or simple human mistakes can make a comeback because he has it in him. Tom Brady of the New England Patriots, Michael Jordan, the Boston Red Sox can mount comebacks. The Arizona Cardinals are not making a comeback this season. They don’t have the team and the ability to straighten out what has gone wrong. They will continue to lose until the end of the season.
George Bush is the Arizona Cardinals. His team is terrible and he refuses to change any of his players. He doesn’t have the personality suited for making necessary changes. Quickly adjusting to changing circumstances is not his forte, stubbornness is. Even if he had the inclination to make a change, he doesn’t have the ability. He simply doesn’t know what the hell he is doing.
We’ve been playing most of his speeches and press conferences on our radio show for the last three years. After having listened to him talk about the issues for all that time, there is no polite way to put this – the man is an imbecile.
He is a simpleton who does not grasp complicated circumstances. As sectarian strife between Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds is ripping Iraq apart, he has never once mentioned the competing claims of those groups and explained how they affect our mission in Iraq. There is a good reason for that – he can’t.
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on the subject of criminality
[Read the article: Joe Klein's stirring defense of Lewis Libby]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I was reading the following in the local paper a couple of days ago, and it gave me hope that even if it doesn't happen in the next 19 months, there's still plenty of time to bring the rest of the Bush crime family--Cheney, Rumsfeld, Feith, Gonzales, Bush himself, etc.--to justice. Fujimori left office seven years ago:
Chile judge orders Fujimori arrest
A Chilean supreme court judge has ordered that a former Peruvian president be placed under house arrest amid concerns he may try to flee Chile to avoid extradition to Peru . . .
Peruvian state lawyers have sought Fujimori on charges of corruption and human-rights abuses . . .
Peru accuses Fujimori of embezzling $15m and using excessive anti-terrorism measures during his 1990-2000 presidency . . .
For the full story, see http://english.aljazeera.net/English/, http://www.gulf-times.com/, etc.
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Bob Geiger's response to Thompson
[Read the article: "Fringe liberal bloggers"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Bob Geiger, who participated in the conference call with Reid, gave a great smackdown of Fred Thompson's "fringe elements of the blogosphere" yesterday, here,
http://bobgeiger.blogspot.com/2007/06/heres-how-fringe-i-am-fred-thompson.html,
in which he detailed his own actions of the previous week.
It demonstrates the absurdity of Thompson's statement perfectly.
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yes, contact your senators
[Read the article: The Democrats' responsibility in the wake of Gonzales' resignation]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The notion that, after Katrina and Michael Brown and FEMA, the Democrats would let Bush appoint anyone to any position sets what little hair I have left on fire every time I think about it. But they did--Roberts was the first after that, if I remember right. Let's hope that wherever they are this August, they're hearing what the majority of their constituents are saying about rolling over for Bush rather than what the Beltway is saying, and this will be the time it sinks in.
I've already written my senators.