Good news for people used to bad news

As I turn in for the night tonight, there are some good news stories of note...

Chad and Sudan have struck a peace accord;

there's a new EU climate change commitment;

and the US House of Representatives has passed a bill banning retroactive immunity for telecom companies coerced into/agreeing to comply with the Bush administration's illegal domestic wiretapping program, although the bill is sure to be vetoed once it hits the Oval Office.

Congress disappoints in Clemens steroid case, and the media follows along

Gasp! One of America's baseball stars committed perjury?!

A congressional committee asked the U.S. Justice Department to review whether pitcher Roger Clemens lied when he testified he never used steroids.

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform sent a letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey today requesting a perjury investigation relating to Clemens's deposition and testimony for a Feb. 13 hearing on performance-enhancing drugs in Major League Baseball.

So the Justice Department will investigate this, but not the lost CIA torture tapes, or the torture itself? It will go through the records on a sports star, but it won't investigate the shady dealings of the executive? Wow.

Even worse than the fact Justice is wasting it's time on the Clemens case is the fact this steroid drama was brought before Congress in the first place. The House Oversight Committee. Should be cleaning up the government, right? Doing its job tackling national issues?

Wrong.

The biggest political/sports story of past month had nothing to do with the government, and, in fact, shouldn't be on the front page.

I know it would be nice to clean up America's pasttime, which also happens to be the world's most steroid-infested sport, but I fail to see how this is the government's job and not that of the MLB. What right does Congress have to question Roger Clemens on his steroid use? Why waste its time?

And what about the media in all of this? They're having a field day! I have seen no article in the mainstream media questioning whether these hearings should be happening, whether Congress should be wasting its time, or whether this story is over-reported — which it is.

The hearings are being turned into a partisian show, with Republicans being sympathetic to Clemens and Democrats attacking him. The chair of the committee, Democrat Henry Waxman, regrets holding the hearings in the first place.

Congress should be spending its time more wisely, as it has a worse approval rating than even President Bush. In addition, the media should focus on real news — not mix sports with front-page politics — and MLB should clean up its act.

Debate over US domestic spying 'costs lives'

Apparently legislative investigations into the executive's more questionable programs cost lives and allow the terrorists to win.

More fear-mongering by the Bush administration. Haven't we had enough executive expansion? Too many American civil liberties have been quashed in the name of fighting terror.

Yesterday, in his usual 'do this or the terrorists win' attitude, President Bush urged Congress to expand and continue to allow the domestic surveillance his administration has fought so hard to keep secret, free of oversight, and far-reaching. Today, his intelligence director laid out more defense for the program.

Reuters:

A debate in Congress over eavesdropping on terrorism suspects will cost American lives by exposing intelligence techniques, the Bush administration's spy chief said on Thursday.
...
"What this dialogue and debate has allowed those who wish us harm to do, is to understand significantly more about how we were targeting their communications," McConnell told the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee.

Asked if debates had cost U.S lives, he said, "They will."

Normally I'd look past this extreme rhetoric. I've gotten used to this stuff spewing out of the White House — it is politics, after all. However slanting the issue by saying that just the debate over the wiretapping program puts lives at risk is going too far. This emphasizes the need for Congress to act with scrutiny and not turn a blind eye.

McConnell said a couple days ago that the need for more domestic surveillance was elevated not only because of terrorists, but because China and Russia are allegedly spying at the United States at Cold War levels.

So yeah, let's get rid of democracy and the tiny bit of oversight over the White House, or else the terrorists win! This is an agreement for security over freedom; it's amazing that President Bush can still stand and say that he is defending freedom. If important, democratic political debate gives information to the terrorists, that is probably information they already know. Plus, that's one of the downsides of democracy: transparency and freedom can cut away at security. But a democracy is founded on the principles of holding the principles of freedom over the often-misused power-gaining excuse of security.

For now the White House should be happy. Congress rubber-stamped their controversial NSA warrantless domestic wiretapping plan back in August. While the debate continues, the administration will continue to say lives are being lost. It appears it wants no transparency, and no power checks. This is a disturbing thing coming from a branch of a democratic government. This isn't the way to go about securing the nation. It's a way for the administration to once again spin the debate over terrorism for its own gain.

If terror suspects really need to be monitored — which, I agree, they do — then why not get judicial oversight? I mean, that's what the courts are for. At least true congressional oversight is needed. But the administration has time and time again stopped even Republican lawmakers from doing their jobs and knowing what's going on in their own government. One example: after agreeing to several one-sided deals on a variety of issues, former Senate Judiciary Committee chair Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) is growing increasingly frustrated with the Bush administration's lack of transparency. When there are probes and investigations, they are overly politicized by both sides, and congresspeople end up with only rhetoric and biased assertions, not statement's telling them how laws like the NSA surveillance program are being carried out. They hear that their investigation costs lives; they are not told the hows or whys.

It's time for policymakers to stand up to this unitary executive, not in stubbornness or for shallow political reasons, but because it's their job.

F is for failure (in Iraq)

The long-awaited first in a series of (predictable) September benchmarks paints a disappointing but not surprising picture of Bush-supported Iraqi government.

Washington Post:

The Iraqi government has failed to meet 11 of the 18 political, economic and security benchmarks it set for itself, and violence remains high despite the U.S. troop surge, the Government Accountability Office reported today.

Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Comptroller General David M. Walker, who heads the GAO, painted a mostly grim portrait of the Iraqi government's progress ahead of a crucial report due to be presented next week by the top U.S. military commander and the U.S. ambassador in Iraq.

"The government is dysfunctional," Walker told the panel in response to a question. He noted that 15 of the 37 ministers in the cabinet of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki have withdrawn their support for him and that there are "significant" problems with the capabilities of remaining ministries.

Formally presenting a GAO report that Congress requested on the benchmarks, Walker said the Iraqi government has met three of the 18, partially met four and failed to meet 11. The benchmarks, based on commitments the Maliki government made in June 2006, were inserted in U.S. legislation authorizing emergency war funding. Under the legislation, the administration must report on progress in achieving them.

As could only be expected of the Bush administration, the White House has criticized the GAO report.

General Petraeus, the leading commander in Iraq, is due to release an even more awaited report later this month — 10 September — outlining the military situation in Iraq following the thus-failed 'surge'. (If need some ways to not think about the Petraeus report, see The Daily Dish.) No matter what the report says, the reaction to it is pretty predictable: 'Why are we fighting this war?', 'How can there be progress when there's failure?' — rhetorical questions abound. I doubt the Senate will ask too many meaningful questions; the Republicans will, for the most part, try to make the war sound a bit cheerier than the Democrats and the Democrats will fill their quota of empty emotional blather.

How do you solve a problem like Iraq? Withdrawal and the country descends into total proxy wars and anarchic chaos; stay and the extremists have a rallying cry against the 'Western occupiers'. Withdrawal equals more terrorism; staying equals more terrorism. Hmm, I'll leave the decision to the highly-competent policymakers on Capitol Hill (*cough*). Or there could be an international force and a massive rebuilding and political reconciliation program that include all major international actors and Iraq's neighbors...

Well, you know some superficial, perceived, or rhetorical policy shift is being planned in the West Wing when President George W. Bush makes his third ever visit to Iraq.

The good, the bad, and the Congress

What did the United States Congress accomplish in the weeks leading up to its August recess?

Good

House energy bill — environmentally sensible, or as much so as one can expect from this particular Congress, however it faces a veto by Bush (why can't he veto anything bad?);

long-overdue ethics reform — although it did not strongly tackle earmarks and some lobbying and campaign contribution issues... can't have everything!;

healthcare for children — which faces, along with some environmental bills, a veto by Bush.

Bad:

NSA surveillance bill, now signed into law;

tobacco regulation legislation.

Congress:

Deadlock central;

threat of veto and opposition from policymakers of both parties on almost any progressive legislation;

Democrats try to not look weak on national security by actually being weak on civil liberties and putting the Bush administration in check;

GOP fractured, especially on Iraq and Gonzales, but holding up still;

Iraq will remain prime issue, albeit a largely symbolic one;

remember: Congress holds the purse of the federal government.

Congress legalizes Bush's NSA wiretapping program

An inept Congress hands Bush his NSA wiretapping program legalized on a silver platter...
Quiz time! What is the one of the last things Congress did before taking a four-week August recess? Hand more power to the Bush administration and slash away at the US Constitution, of course! Another sting to civil liberties courtesy of the 'war on terrorism' and the American government. Enter the Protect America Act of 2007 (Senate vote info; House votes). All links in this post are, in my opinion, quite important to understanding this complex issue.

Secrecy, spying, and a false 'war'
Why did the United States Congress cave in to (NYT) President George Bush on the expanded wiretapping bill? If this were the Clinton years I might think secret deal or tradeoff (i.e. you pass my stuff and I don't veto yours). However, that system hasn't been as prolific in the relationship between Bush's White House and the majority-Democratic Congress.

One would think this new bill would finally resolve the legality of the Bush administration's controversial domestic surveillance program. How could any self-respecting legislator approve it — let alone a Democrat? The answer appears to be fear, on both sides, especially Democratic, of appearing soft on terrorism.

The Dems have already spent — for better or for worse — so much political energy on symbolic jabs at the Bush administration on the subject of Iraq. But when it comes to something real, impacting, non-symbolic, and relevant, but by no means routine, they give George W. Bush the kind of victory he hoped for. The NSA wiretapping program — revealed in 2005 by The New York Times — has been ruled illegal again and again. It sidesteps an already troubling statute: the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, or FISA, whose secret judges grant secret warrants for secret searches or wiretaps, secretly. The Bush administration was forced to but the NSA program under the domain of FISA in January, resulting in a still-secret ruling that the program was illegal and placed restrictions, or something of the sort.

But the word 'illegal' is not in Bush's dictionary...
This bill, signed into law by Bush this weekend, validates the illegal wiretapping program that he has even admitted exists (in his own special way, plus it gave him a chance to attack the so-called liberal news media). It has a decent reach too. One of the administration's excuses for its until-recently-illegal eavesdropping program was that the current FISA court only deals with old means of communication, not modern ones like email and calls over fiber optic cable. Naturally, instead of requesting the then Republican-controlled Congress update the legislation (especially for the post-9/11 world, for which which the administration claims the illegal secret programs are essential), the White House decided to launch its own secret programs — legal or otherwise.

Extension of power
So what's wrong with this law just updating FISA to keep up with the times? Well, keeping up with technology is not the only changes this law puts into place...

Just as before, the FISA court only issues the search warrant after the search/wiretap is carried out — troubling, I know. But this legislation goes a bit further by removing more power from the courts, albeit secret ones that almost never take issue with clandestine spying on a domestic level. Now the searches can be carried out at the discretion of the attorney general or intelligence director.

That is all the more troubling considering the political yes-men Bush keeps in his cabinet and staff, and the fact that Alberto Gonzales is known for politically-motivated (in)justice. The horror! And as if the fact that Gonzales can now order secret searches, legally this time, isn't enough to make you a bit queasy for the disregard of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, keep in mind that under this new law the AG and head of intelligence have plenty of discretionary leeway when it comes to ordering secret surveillance. Plus, it's all secret; I'd expect nothing less transparent from this administration.

The sorta good news
A positive is that the AG will indeed have his power checked to a certain extent by internal audits, which have proved their worth in the past. That aspect of oversight is one the White House doesn't like.

One sliver of good news is that because of lawsuit threats that only increase under this legislation, telecommunications companies and ISPs are less likely to be bullied into invading their customers' privacy under pressure by the Bush administration. In fact, as I understand it this law removes the shield the White House has desperately tried to use to protect the telcos, which is bad news for the industry. Still, Gonzales has less leeway to invade our phone and internet records, though more to wiretap if the conversation might (emphasis on might) be with someone outside of the United States. Nonetheless, the telcos are as scared as ever of being sued for disclosing private details of their customers, as the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, as did the NYT (linked above):

The law also gave the administration greater power to force telecommunications companies to cooperate with such spying operations. The companies can now be compelled to cooperate by orders from the attorney general and the director of national intelligence.
...
In fact, pressure from the telecommunications companies on the Bush administration has apparently played a major hidden role in the political battle over the surveillance issue over the past few months.

Worse than FISA
FISA was scary enough — but maybe understandable and, to an extent, justifiable — but putting the secret search rights into Bush's political cronies (yes, that's what Gonzales, among others, is) is going more than a tad overboard. Justifying it with national security is puzzling. The least Congress could do is get rid of Alberto Gonzales, which would take a bipartisan effort; many, many Republicans are on board with the idea and the Democrats have been jabbing at it for months. This new law will last six months or so, ending in early February 2008.

Just to make this more confusing, this all ties back to the legality of the 'war on terror':

With minor exceptions, FISA authorizes electronic surveillance only upon certain specified showings, and only if approved by a court. The statute specifically allows for warrantless wartime domestic electronic surveillance—but only for the first fifteen days of a war. 50 U.S.C. § 1811. It makes criminal any electronic surveillance not authorized by statute, id. § 1809; and it expressly establishes FISA and specified provisions of the federal criminal code (which govern wiretaps for criminal investigation) as the "exclusive means by which electronic surveillance...may be conducted," 18 U.S.C. § 2511(2)(f) (emphasis added).[2]

The Department of Justice concedes that the NSA program was not authorized by any of the above provisions. It maintains, however, that the program did not violate existing law because Congress implicitly authorized the NSA program when it enacted the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) against al-Qaeda, Pub. L. No. 107-40, 115 Stat. 224 (2001). But the AUMF cannot reasonably be construed to implicitly authorize warrantless electronic surveillance in the United States during wartime, where Congress has expressly and specifically addressed that precise question in FISA and limited any such warrantless surveillance to the first fifteen days of war.

So even under FISA the NSA program is questionable. No wait, the White House says it doesn't follow FISA rules because of the 'war on terror' powers given to the president by Congress. No worries: this new law legalizes all that existing wiretapping junk and then some.


There's balance, it's just all tilted towards the White House, (and the only checks are top secret)
In the war against terrorism there's no need to bother with those pesky courts of Constitutional practice anymore, says the White House. Congress seems to have fallen in line with that logic. And this isn't the first time. Remember the horrendous Military Commissions Act of 2006?

Isn't Congress supposed to oversee the operations of the executive? Has everyone forgotten the fundamental idea of checks and balances? With this law Congress has only given more power to the bloated, unpopular, unitary executive Bush administration that a majority of it claims to hate. It also cuts away further at the notion that Americans have rights guaranteed to them by their constitutional, and that civil liberties come with those rights. Freedom trumps security — or at least it should. But in a police state as well as in a certain way modern America (though nothing near a police state), fear rules all.

Soft on civil liberties
If the Democrats are so afraid of being painted as weak on national security, than actually being weak on civil liberties is not a very good fix. Are they more worried of what their opponents think of them and will paint them as than what they are actually doing? That's just sad.

When it comes to the reaction to national security — GWOT and its consequences — the Democrats have been disappointing. Does what your opponents think of you matter more than doing the right thing? Enjoy your recess, Congress. Hopefully you'll come back to Capitol Hill with more brains and balls.

Balkinization offers brilliant legal analysis and opinion on the 'proposed FISA "fix"', as they call it.

This post is over 1,500 words. Eventually I will probably cut it into shorter, more specific posts then expanding them. So don't be alarmed if you see a post with parts of this essay in the future.

Iraq recap

Recap: Surging Iraq debate and a rebellious US Congress
The past couple days, my creative — or, gasp, political — juices have not been flowing as strongly. But the debate over Iraq clamors on, from Baghdad to Washington. A number of stories have featured Iraq as their primary topic, including:

A New York Times article on Bush's restatement of the connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda. A sad defense for keeping troops there, which is the biggest Iraq-related issue facing America.

In rebuffing calls to bring troops home from Iraq, President Bush on Thursday employed a stark and ominous defense. “The same folks that are bombing innocent people in Iraq,” he said, “were the ones who attacked us in America on September the 11th, and that’s why what happens in Iraq matters to the security here at home.”

It is an argument Mr. Bush has been making with frequency in the past few months, as the challenges to the continuation of the war have grown. On Thursday alone, he referred at least 30 times to Al Qaeda or its presence in Iraq.

But his references to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, and his assertions that it is the same group that attacked the United States in 2001, have greatly oversimplified the nature of the insurgency in Iraq and its relationship with the Qaeda leadership.

There is no question that the group is one of the most dangerous in Iraq. But Mr. Bush’s critics argue that he has overstated the Qaeda connection in an attempt to exploit the same kinds of post-Sept. 11 emotions that helped him win support for the invasion in the first place.

Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia did not exist before the Sept. 11 attacks. The Sunni group thrived as a magnet for recruiting and a force for violence largely because of the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, which brought an American occupying force of more than 100,000 troops to the heart of the Middle East, and led to a Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad.

Alarmism is Bush's primary tool to use against a rebellious Congress. The current administration seems to see Congress as a mere, bendable, and nonexclusive constitutional technicality; a branch of government that shouldn't have the power to match the executive and one that surely should not have a say in the war — unless its in favor of Bush's policies, of course. (Maybe the 'unitary executive' people also view the Constitution itself as a technicality... "just a piece of paper")

The president acknowledged that public opinion might be against him — he said that “sometimes the decisions you make and the consequences don’t enable you to be loved” — but suggested that Congress was overstepping its constitutional role by trying to force a change of policy on him.

“I don’t think Congress ought to be running the war,” Mr. Bush said. “I think they ought to be funding the troops.”

So essentially Bush thinks of Congress what old-fashioned, sexist husbands think of their supposed-to-be-submissive wives.

Are the 18 benchmarks set by the Bush administration to review the progress in Iraq also shambolic? Yes, says Fred Kaplan of Slate. The progress report has finally been released; but everyone is talking about September as the real deadline for progress, and to see whether President Bush's troop 'surge' plan has succeeded as he insists it will. See here for a full scorecard based on the interim report.

What do the experts think of the options the US has in Iraq? An expert at CFR explains in this interview the 'middle-ground' options, i.e. the ones besides pulling out immediately and continuing with the 'surge' status quo.

Stephen Biddle, CFR’s top military analyst on Iraq, says none of the various “middle-ground” proposals on Iraq are feasible. He says the only analytically sound alternatives are to either pull out now, or to stick with a revamped “surge.” The U.S. policy of seeking cease-fire deals in places like Anbar is working, Biddle says, but adds that it only has a “ten-to-one” chance of succeeding.

The New York Times issued a damning-as-usual editorial against Bush's latest Iraq decision.

Here's an article by the Washington Post's Peter Baker on the red-hot debate still heating up in Washington on Iraq. More of that infamous gridlock on the way?

Wil Robinson over at International Political Will points out the lack of humanitarianism resonating from the political Iraq debate... from both sides of the aisle.

On the topic of Bush, and still sticking to Iraq, The Economist published a leader on the president's partial pardon of Scooter Libby (see post), among his other presidential mistakes.

The past week has been a terrible one for America's embattled president. First, on June 28th, his own Republicans scuppered his cherished—and, in the view of this newspaper, enlightened and brave—plan to reform the country's broken immigration system, decisively blocking it in the Senate. Then a group of prominent Republican senators joined forces with the Democrats to speak out against his policy of reinforcing Iraq. And on July 2nd George Bush brought fresh waves of vitriol down onto his own head, by annulling the 30-month prison sentence given in June to a top White House aide, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, for perjury and obstruction of justice.
...
Mr Bush's action serves to remind people of three of his weaknesses. One of them is his tendency towards cronyism, which led him to appoint a wholly unqualified friend to run the government's disaster-relief agency. The consequences were disastrously manifest during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Other examples include his failed attempt to appoint his own lawyer, Harriet Miers, to the Supreme Court. A second flaw is the hold that Mr Cheney appears to have over the man who is nominally his boss. The past few days have seen a series of articles in the Washington Post detailing the extent to which Mr Cheney has talked Mr Bush into bypassing all normal channels of debate to take questionable decisions.

A third effect of the decision, and perhaps the most serious, is that it reinforces the perception that Mr Bush sees himself and his cronies as above the law. Sometimes he has made this explicit, attaching “signing statements” to hundreds of bills sent to him by Congress asserting his right to interpret those bills as he deems fit. Sometimes he has done so covertly, wire-tapping Americans with no authorisation or permitting the use of torture with consequences felt at Abu Ghraib and in secret CIA prisons in black holes like Uzbekistan.

Perhaps, in the end, Mr Bush's decision came down to a simple calculation that he has little left to lose. He is not seeking re-election, his approval ratings can barely go any lower, and any hopes for legacy-polishing bipartisan co-operation with Congress seem to have evaporated. So why should Mr Bush not please his few remaining friends and placate his vice-president by springing the loyal Mr Libby? It makes a kind of sense, but a deeply troubling one. What else, one wonders, might so isolated a president do before he goes?

And finally the major political story on Iraq — besides the White House's spin-job on time being needed for progress there. America's House of Representatives voted in favor of withdrawal from Iraq. The bill will likely either be defeated in the Senate — which has a slimmer Democratic majority but, unlike last time, has more anti-Iraq-war-leaning Republicans — or will face an impending presidential veto, like what happened in early May.

The United States House of Representatives has voted in favour of pulling most combat troops out of Iraq by April next year.

The new legislation calls for the Pentagon to begin withdrawing combat troops within four months.

The vote comes despite President George W Bush's threat to veto any timetable.

Both the House and the Senate must pass separate legislation and then reconcile their two versions for a measure to be passed to the president.

Correspondents say the House of Representatives, controlled by the Democrats, is hoping to pressure the Senate to approve a similar timeline.

It is the third time this year the House has voted in favour of legislation to end US military involvement in Iraq.

One previous legislative push was vetoed by Mr Bush, while a second failed when the Senate voted twice against imposing a withdrawal timetable.

Delayed reaction

According to the New York Times, the White House may be mulling over the options for the (illegal) detention center at Guantanamo Bay after years of pressure from the UN, a plethora other bodies like human rights groups, and individual nations. It was disputed over such a meeting on the fate of Gitmo ever took place, and whether it was canceled by Bush or another administration figure.

Now the NYT is reporting that the Bush administration is rethinking its stubborn troop strategy in Iraq after unprecedented dissent from within its own Republican Party, which has led to one recent case of a congressperson switching to the opposition Democratic Party. President George Bush has denied that even any preliminary planning for a gradual troop withdrawal from the turmoil stricken Mesopotamian nation is taking place in the White House.

The Iraqis and their government seem to not think US forces leaving is a good idea yet. I do agree, but real benchmarks — not the imaginary, temporizing ones that the Bush administration has conjured up — need to be put in place and the military should focus on the 'hearts and minds' effort, which includes reconstruction and social aid, more heavily than the fighting. Winning hearts and minds will make the hard military effort easier and allow a feasible withdrawal plan, like the Polk-McGovern one or the Iraq Study Group's outline, to be carried out. It doesn't look like America will win, per se in a traditional sense (note this is not a traditional struggle), but at least it will come out more ahead than it will if it continues to loose the support of the Iraqis and the international community while depleting its hard power.

At the same time Bush should get off his high horse of poor Iraq policy the Democrats should stop and think about their reactionary, populist plan for withdrawal, or should I say plans: there is still no unity on Iraq except that what is happening now is not acceptable. If the people and their lawmakers really feel that way, then work out a plan, but not some political snowball to hit the other party with. The White House is far ahead of the Democratic-majority Congress. And the polls indicate that every time the Dems get into a nasty political scuffle with the White House, like with Gonzales or the current transparency and subpoena fight, and makes a big deal about the big bad White House their approval numbers tank. Congress is in more trouble than the White House, even if the latter has worse policies and is worse overall. Congress has more hearts and minds to win at home than it thinks — in that sense the Bush administration is fine. It may have low approval but its legislative counterpart is barely hanging on.

Why don't the Democrats cut the political knifing and move on to passing some good, solid legislation? Contrary to what its political advisers have been advising, taking real action usually looks better in the eyes of the public than inflaming an inter-governmental battle. The Dems seem to be carrying out their own battle plans, not the ones they were elected on. By the time the Democrats have their delayed reaction to what the voters want and what is right, it may be too late. Bush's delayed and still sub-sub-par reactions to climate change, Iraq, and Gitmo are bad enough — it's time for the Democrats to step up, even if that doesn't change their lamentable poll numbers.

The deja vu veto

Every once in a while, one sees something in the news and thinks, 'Haven't I seen this before?'. That's what happened when I saw the story of President Bush's second veto on the BBC News front page.

Today, Bush wasted his third ever veto on something very similar to the thing he vetoed a few years ago: stem cells.

US President George W Bush has vetoed a bill that would have eased restrictions on federally-funded stem-cell research.

He also issued an executive order encouraging scientists to focus on ways to conduct research without using stem cells from human embryos.

Mr Bush said advances must be pursued in a way "that respects human dignity and upholds our moral values".

The Democratic-led Congress is expected to try to override the veto but is unlikely to get enough votes.

Last time Congress had nearly enough votes for an override — which requires 2/3 of both the House and Senate. Now that it is majority-Democrat, the legislature might — although party politics sometimes keep loyalties cemented in votes — have a shot at overriding the executive. Unlike with Iraq, voter risk for Democrats on challenging Bush is low, too. The bill flew easily through Congress up to this point, but can an override happen?

...the issue may provide the opportunity for the first of a wave of veto showdowns during President Bush's last 18 months in office. "The congressional Republican leadership protected the President for his first six years and kept measures that he would veto from ever getting to the White House," says Thomas Mann, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. "That time is over."

Because his breed of extreme Christianity views anything to do with stem cells as 'immoral', Bush has courted the religious right lobby once again by restricting stem cell research and funding of such research. Back in August 2001 Bush imposed a ban on federally-funded stem cell research.

As a reminder, this is one of the few major issues the majority of the American public actually has a good opinion about. Most Americans are pro-stem cell research, and why shouldn't they be unless they think the little 'snowflakes' — unborn embryos often frozen that are due to be discarded anyways — are some form of unborn life (hint: the unborn part cancels out the living part, they're potential at best but are bound to be destroyed anyways unless used to make babies or, more likely in this case, disposed of or researched).

Can there be life that doesn't in fact live? Is the only way we can fight to defend our freedom to take it away? Those questions would be answered "yes" by many Bush supporters who weld great power with their narrow-minded views of policy on a number of 'moral' and security issues.

Log of Bush vetoes — none of which are positive in my eyes even when he had the opportunity to veto poor legislation that he vowed to nix in the first place! 'The Decider' has threatened to use his veto tens of times, he's very good at instilling fear for his own political aims (think "war on terror").

Veto 1
Date: 20 July 2006
Subject: Funding for and restrictions on stem cell research
Public opinion: For the bill
Status: Long dead

Veto 2*
Date: 1 May 2007
Subject: War funding bill with Iraq troop withdrawal amendment
Public opinion: Mixed, on Iraq
Status: Successor still in the works

Veto 3
Date: 20 June 2007
Subject: Another stem cell bill easing regulations on government funding
Public opinion: Affirmative of the legislation's proposals
Status: Just vetoed... possibility for congressional override if partisanship doesn't rule supreme

Thus George Bush's war on science with misguided morals continues. Considering how important science is to the modern world — especially the prospect of breakthrough in biology and medicine (see The Economist's cover this week) — this administration is moving America backwards, not forwards.

technorati tags: stem-cells, bush, veto, congress, white-house, science, united+states, politics, george+w+bush+vetoes, public+opinion, iraq, funding, bill, legislation

Too much compromise?

When I said the Democrats should work on a subject other than Iraq, in addition to Iraq, which they had less power on than what is ideal, I didn't mean they should compromise with the White House on nearly every issue. That also looks bad to the voters who are fed up with the Iraq policy, and see the Dems as caving into the White House's ever wish just as the Republicans did when they were in power. If only they could have gotten the Bush administration to compromise more, thus making it less powerful than it thinks it is when it comes to managing foreign policy. This can never be emphasized enough: the executive needs to be kept in check.

Positives: the bill required some compromise by the Republicans and the Bush administration too, namely on raising hte minimum wage (finally) from $5.15 to $7.25 an hour and setting real benchmarks for Baghdad security progress rather than the imaginary ones Bush preaches. Just as the Democrats finally fulfill some of their election promises, they backtrack, as it is, on the large issue of Iraq. However, it's not like they had many other options, and most other political wrangling would waste more time.

The emergency war funding bill was signed 109 days after President George Bush presented it to Congress. It passed 80 to 14 in the Senate, 280 to 142 in the House, and includes $120 billion in funding. Bush had promised a prompt veto of any bill containing measures for troop withdrawal, and the Dems didn't (and don't) have a large enough majority to override him.

[Bush] said the 18 benchmarks should signal to the Iraq government that "it needs to show real progress in return for America's continued support and sacrifice." But he added, "We're going to expect heavy fighting in the weeks and months" ahead.

The focus now shifts to September, when the new funding runs out, and when U.S. commanders say they will be able to assess the results of an ongoing troop buildup.
...
The votes yesterday marked a rare moment of bipartisanship in an otherwise contentious and emotional debate. The first Iraq spending bill, which included a withdrawal timetable and was vetoed by Bush on May 1, split lawmakers more or less along party lines.
...
Republican support was nearly unanimous in both chambers. In the Senate, 37 Democrats supported the bill, while 10 opposed it.

This looks for the most part more like a GOP bill than a Democratic one. Nonetheless, I'm sure the Republicans were eager to get off of the Iraq issue, which they have a particular weakness for, and not appear to oppose things like raising the minimum wage, which they had opposed in the past against the popular support in raising it.

Republicans are also getting restless in the search for progress in Iraq — the progress the Bush administration keeps saying is right around the corner. Hopefully these benchmarks will help pressure the Bush administration as much as it pressures the Iraqi government. However, might the Iraq government ignore the benchmarks just to get US troops out? I'm sure the White House won't make it that easy.

In the House, a majority of Democrats rejected the Iraq funding. A separate domestic spending measure that was packed with lawmaker priorities, including a federal minimum wage increase, passed easily by a 348 to 73 vote. In the Senate, the two bills were merged into one package.

"We have moved the ball forward. Far enough? No," said Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (Md.), one of the 86 House Democrats who supported the Iraq bill.

Pelosi was among the 140 House Democrats to oppose it. "This is a token," she said moments before the vote. "This is a small step forward. Instead, we should have a giant step forward."

Pelosi's vote does not surprise me. I wonder, however, if she still needs to face the reality of the current state of US politics; her rhetoric is still to hopeful and ambitious, not that it shouldn't be considering the position she's in. She needs to divert the anti-war Democrats' attention away from the compromise and more towards the fact that the Dems are different and intend to make real change, even on Iraq, whether that's true, or practical, or not is of issue.

In the Senate, the two leading Democratic presidential candidates, Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and Barack Obama (Ill.), were among the 14 opponents. "This vote is a choice between validating the same failed policy in Iraq that has cost us so many lives and demanding a new one. And I am demanding a new one," Obama said.

It is interesting that Clinton voted a bit more liberally than I expected on this bill. So far she has been unapologetic on the Iraq issue, even more so than many Republican candidates for 2008.

"We are moving backward," said Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), a war opponent. "Instead of forcing the president to safely redeploy our troops, instead of coming up with a strategy providing assistance to a post-redeployment Iraq, and instead of a renewed focus on the global fight against al-Qaeda, we are faced with a spending bill that kicks the can down the road and buys the administration time."

The final bill includes $17 billion in unrelated domestic spending, a slight reduction from the $21 billion that Congress added to the first package. The minimum-wage increase would bump the hourly rate to $7.25 an hour from the current rate of $5.15 over the next two years. The wage increase was one of the Democrats' 2006 election promises, and was attached to the war bill to guarantee that it would reach Bush's desk.

The bulk of the funding -- around $100 billion -- would continue military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The nonmilitary spending includes $6.4 billion for Gulf Coast hurricane recovery efforts and $3 billion in emergency aid to farmers, for relief from drought and other natural disasters. An additional $1 billion would pay for port and mass-transit security upgrades. Children's health-care funding would increase by $650 million.

It is not uncommon for bills one topic to have amendments on totally different topics. That is one major problem with the American legislative system, in addition to the issue of streamlining, or lack thereof.

Other domestic beneficiaries include state HIV grant programs, mine safety research, youth violence prevention activities, and pandemic flu protection. About $3 billion would fund the conversion of U.S. military bases that are scheduled to close.

technorati tags: democrats, bush, iraq+war, congress, dems+iraq+bill, minimum+wage, politics, USA, united+states, white+house

Votes of no confidence

Paul Wolfowitz will leave his post as World Bank president by 30 June. This follows a ruling by the World Bank board about evidence of a breach of ethics by Wolfowitz after he gave his girlfriend a pay raise. Wolfowitz, formerly with the Defense Department, was one of the neocon architects of the Iraq war and similar Bush administration policy.

Similarly embattled US Attorney-General Alberto "I don't know" (60-some times in one hearing!) Gonzales might face a vote of no-confidence in Congress. About time. Already five Republican senators have called for his resignation — a very rare occurrence, especially since that is over 10% of GOP senators.

Support for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales sank further Thursday as Democrats proposed a no-confidence vote, a fifth GOP senator called for his resignation and yet another Republican predicted he won't survive a congressional investigation.

The White House shrugged off the no-confidence idea as merely symbolic, and President Bush continued to stand by his embattled friend.

By any measure, the news was not good for Gonzales. Democrats proposed two versions of a nonbinding resolution expressing what senators of both parties have said for weeks: that Gonzales has become too weakened to run the Justice Department.

Bush has stood by both officials, and will most likely see both fall soon — one already has.

technorati tags: bush, wolfowitz, gonzales, world+bank, united+states, politics, news, breaking-news, paul+wolfowitz, alberto+gonzales, democrats, congress, white+house

The Republicans' Iraq war demon

The Financial Times speculates on fears within the GOP over self-defeat at home from the defeat abroad in Iraq; that is, the Republican White House's unpopular Iraq strategy is hurting the party in Congress.

Talking to Fox News, the conservative broadcaster, on his visit to Baghdad on Thursday, Dick Cheney said: “We didn’t get elected to worry just about the fate of the Republican party. Our mission is to do everything we can to prevail ... against one of the most evil opponents we’ve ever faced.”

Back in Washington Mr Cheney’s Republican colleagues are showing growing irritation with the vice-president’s Iraq war logic. On Tuesday 11 moderate Republican lawmakers warned George W. Bush that their support for his Iraq “surge” was rapidly running out. Tom Davis, a congressman from northern Virginia, told the US president that in one portion of his House district just 5 per cent supported his Iraq strategy.

The same growing unease applies with even greater force to Republicans in the Senate, who hold 21 of the 33 Senate seats that will be contested in next year’s congressional elections. Many Democrats believe that they could improve their narrow 51-49 Senate majority next year to a filibuster-proof 60 seats or more.

Such is the Democratic party’s confidence that some Democrats are talking of bringing about the same kind of splits in the Republican party that so damaged their own party’s electoral fortunes following the Vietnam war a generation ago.

Bush's political power is another thing getting hit hard because of his unpopularity. Remember: money can buy elections...

Mr Bush managed to raise $10.5m for his party at the event compared to $17m last year and $38.5m the year before. For the first time in many years both the Democratic presidential field and the Democratic congressional leadership are out-fundraising their Republican opponents by about 50 per cent.

In the next 10 days Mr Bush will have another opportunity to demonstrate his immunity to the US public’s backlash against the Iraq war, when Congress sends him its second version of the Iraq and Afghanistan war funding bill he vetoed in its first incarnation last month.

Some of the presidential candidates for 2008 are already distancing themselves from the Bush administration's Iraq war policy.

Nightmare scenario for the Republicans: Democrats take a much larger majority (enough to filibuster) in both houses of Congress in the 2008 election, as well as the presidency. Disillusioned, the party fractures further and their conservative base breaks into religious right and libertarian camps.

Nightmare scenario for the Democrats: No political gain over Bush and his party's mishandling of the war. Because of power cockiness, scandals occur at a massive rate. Loose public confidence and blamed for failings in current state of the war. Anti-war and more hawkish factions duke it out right before the elections, where their majority is lost.

technorati tags: iraq, republicans, GOP, congress, democrats, politics, united+states, usa, bush, 2008+elections, white+house, party+politics

More spending vetoes in the works?

White House: more spending on education and health care is bad — bad enough to warrant a rarely-used veto. Another great move by the Bush administration... The Democrats in Congress want to increase the federal budget by about $20 billion. Not it's the increase that's good — because it isn't — but what they hope to increase are the same programs the White House wished to decrease in the last budget it proposed: domestic programs like education and healthcare. Neither branch's version of the fiscal year 2008 budget is perfect, and both have their strengths.

The new Iraq war funding compromise bill may also be vetoed by the president. This bill is a revised vision of the funding bill proposed by Congress, and vetoed by the president (in what was only his second veto ever), earlier this month. Both have been locking horns more than ever ever since.

On a related note, largely due to the wrangling over the mess that is Iraq, Congress and the White House both have about the same (low) approval rating by the American public — in the 30%s.

technorati tags: poll+bush+congress+approval+ratings, iraq+war+bill, veto+iraq+bill, bush+veto+budget, democrats, domestic+spending, congress, bush, white+house, funding

Bush's second veto

President George Bush has just vetoed the bill Democrats worked so hard on passing. The bill required US troop withdrawal from Iraq and was only sent to the White House today after being signed by House Speaker Pelosi. A step back in US Iraq policy? Probably.

Chances are also this will work against Bush, however there is also a chance this could blowback to the Democrats; some are seeing their maneuvers against the White House as in poor taste. Either the Democrats or Bush could also be blamed for the politically charged motive of cutting off funding to the troops — and both have been blamed for doing so. Deputy Press Secretary Dana Perino blamed it all on the Dems, saying they are exploiting the troops in a "PR stunt" because of the specially anniversary today. It is four years to the date that Bush proclaimed the "mission accomplished" in Iraq. What a happy May Day anniversary...

Bush's first veto was of something most of the public, and a decent majority in Congress, believed in: stem cell research. Certainly this veto isn't against the experts in the topic relating to the vetoed bill, nor is troop withdrawal from Iraq as popular as life-saving scientific research, but Bush is still, yet again, using his veto power to defy the public will. (Referendum time? Maybe not.) But Bush has to face his demons some time.

What's funny is that this is a man who has attacked Congress for not slimming down bills and cutting pork-barrel or ear-mark (unneeded, excessive) spending, and yet he hasn't once used his veto for a good cause like that! His veto gives him the power to force Congress to modify the bill so it can pass.

The history of presidential powers and vetoing is interesting.

See also my ideal Iraq withdrawal plan.

technorati tags: bush+veto, george+bush, democrats+iraq, Iraq+troop+withdrawal+bill

Democrats wasting time with Iraq politiking?

Good symbolism on an issue (Iraq) the White House thought it was the only American political power in control of, but it's now time for the Democrats to move on...

AP via Guardian:

A defiant Democratic-controlled Senate passed legislation Thursday that would require the start of troop withdrawals from Iraq by Oct. 1, propelling Congress toward a historic veto showdown with President Bush on the war.

At the White House, the president immediately promised a veto.
...
The 51-46 vote was largely along party lines, and like House passage of the same bill a day earlier, fell far short of the two-thirds margin needed to overturn the president's threatened veto. Nevertheless, the legislation is the first binding challenge on the war that Democrats have managed to send to Bush since they reclaimed control of both houses of Congress in January.
...
The $124.2 billion bill requires troop withdrawals to begin Oct. 1, or sooner if the Iraqi government does not meet certain benchmarks. The House passed the measure Wednesday by a 218-208 vote.

The Democrats have already reached enough benchmarks as far as Iraq war political symbolism goes, isn’t it time to call it a day? Everyone knows the bill requiring withdrawal is going to get vetoed by President Bush. Why not work with the president on issues like alternative energy and immigration, issues the Democrats and president can agree on and accomplish things on, instead of just pushing a legislative agenda only to show Bush what he already must know: the Iraq war effort is going badly and many Americans — Republicans included — are now against it. Executive v. legislature isn't going anywhere also.

I like debate, especially on an issue such as Iraq, but an open debate this is not. It has been muddled by partisan politics, as usual, and the Democrats are not acting that much mature than their Republican predecessors.

Pelosi had her 100 hours of progress and political limelight in the House, but the Dems apparently did not plan much else useful after their initial entrance to office with the exception of political maneuvers: challenging the White House on Iraq and investigating the executive branch’s misdeeds. All together neither of those major actions have been very useful, and real progress needs to be made on issues dealing less with political props and more with bettering America, its people, and the world.

Even on issues the White House and Congress do not agree on — health care, climate change, bioresearch, education, judicial reform, etc. — there can still be compromises, and progress, made. I do not think either branch of the government is out to hurt the American people; I doubt Bush has a strong vendetta against blacks and I doubt the Democrats do not 'support the troops'. However I doubt both party’s abilities to accomplish anything other than filling the political vacuum with baseless political rhetoric, and a bunch of symbolic chess moves on Iraq — moves that are, in Congress' case, only symbolic.

While the White House’s power needs to be checked and its behavior put in line, Congress needs reforms of its own: basic ethics, campaign financing, limit on pork-barrel spending, an end to tacking on unrelated amendments to bills in order to affect — or rather, exploit — the process, and the streamlining of the process, making it more transparent to the people so they can not just cluelessly watch on the sidelines but take action. But knowing this is politics, especially American politics, concessions must be made by all sides. I think this administration’s handling of the Iraq war has been despicable, but little good comes from wasting valuable time and political capitol on an issue that Congress can frankly, in the end, do little about.

Thus far, the president runs the war game, and as nice as it is that that status quo seems to be changing (a political surge?), the Democrats could be doing better things with their majority. They were supposedly elected back in November because of Iraq, now it is time to stop rubbing Iraq in the administration’s face, and start taking action on other issues. Of course Iraq is a major issue, but the president, for better or for worse, gets the final say. He has the veto power over Congress and the Democrats do not have nearly enough votes to override that veto. The Dems should either find a new road to fixing Iraq policy — circumventing the White House, in a way — or put the troop matter on the sidelines and focus on something they can accomplish.

Coincidentally, I am not the only one describing this latest string of questionable, if hasty, Congressional moves on Iraq as 'politiking', the Iraqi foreign minister thinks so too.

As far as investigating pre-war intelligence goes (see the recent Congressional subpoena of Condi Rice), there is no use picking open old wounds. The investigation should continue, but there should also be a focus on, as I said, issues on which real progress can be made. The whole Iraq issue might now even bite back at the Democrats in the 2008 election, contrary to what they believe, because the White House does have more popularity with and respect from the people than Congress. No doubt, however, Iraq will play a large role in the election, but that will not be the only issue, which the Democrats need to grasp.

My message to the Democrats: the honeymoon is well over, you’ve proved your point on Iraq, the people get it, the administration gets it; its alright to continue, but focus on more pressing, realistic topics at hand — and stop acting like your majority will last forever. As Congress locks horns with the Bush administration on Iraq, with gridlock galore, other issues are ignored.

Bottom line: Bush will veto this new bill; and then what?

technorati tags: iraq, congress, democrats, bush, congress+iraq+war

Apparantly Bush is starting to focus more on foreign policy...

I wasn't aware he ever had stopped putting a great deal of focus on foreign policy, but apparantly USA Today thought so. Much of George W. Bush's presidency — from the very beginning — has been dominated by foreign politics. He won the 2004 election on foreign, not domestic, policy. His one 'great' mark, a not-so-great change in the Social Security system, went badly enough, as did his abomination of an education plan, No Child Left Behind.

Even if one includes Iraq, his stronger political front — in his eyes and in the eyes of his supporters (some not so much — is that abroad. The 'war on terror' is the primary reason for this, and much of the so-called war's focus has not been that of homeland security. Thus, the 'war on terror' arguably is, and has been made out to be, a foreign policy operation. Bush courts neoconservatives (neocon hawks) for his policy abroad; social conservatives (Christian right) for his policy at home.

Since the new Democrat-led Congress took power, he has also been locking horns with the legislature over his bottomless war in Iraq. So far Bush keeps coming up on top.

Hurricane Katrina's devastation of the American Gulf Coast and the amazingly poor response from the government is another example of how domestic services have taken a turn for the worse under this president. An incompetent political appointee — and I don't mean Bush, I mean Brown — does not make a great FEMA head. Nor is a non-independent attorney-general acceptable (just ignore Gonzales, he has lied enough lately and is finally being questioned by a Senate panel), especially considering the prescient on the independence of the Department of Justice. Believe it or not, DoJ has maintained some measure of distance from the White House in the past, allowing it to do its job without petty political pressures.

Another aspect of his political identity is the moral, religious part. From pushing from stem cell bans, to fighting against abortion, to other moves nudging church closer to state, this president has plenty of street cred (per se) from the religious right.

Here is one good thing about Bush: he is showing some toughness on Darfur, threatening more UN sanctions. Unsurprisingly he is not looking at the real problem: other countries, especially China, including America, are only propping up the genocide-instigating regime in Sudan. He also needs to stand behind the United Nations if he wants anything to be done on the humanitarian side of things.

Oh, and if I were to give Bush a political grade — from both my standpoint and the popular standpoint — it'd be a 1.5/10 or 2/10. He got some positive limelight from his speech following the Virginia Tech shootings, though not in my eyes. While he has a 32% or so approval rating, remember if he were to be put head-to-head with most politicians that percentage would rise, so he still has a bit of popularity. Iraq still going horrible; 'war on terror' still a disgrace; American scientific power is down; government is overpowering of the people and don't give back (positively) in return; transparency is moot and fundamentalist ideology reigns in the Oval Office. But people still like the president more than Congress...

technorati tags: alberto+gonzales, bush, george+bush, white+house, usa, united+states, foreign+policy, domestic, sudan, darfur+genocide, in+the+news, news, USA+Today, religious+right, united+nations

Just for show? Bush invites Dems for Iraq talks

Gridlock was a key word ringing around after the Democrats took both chambers of US Congress last November. Many issues have seen gridlock between Congress and the White House — though the president yields veto power, the Dems have a weak majority and often a lack of will. Iraq is arguably, along with executive power, one of the big issues the Democrats have challenged the president on. It is also a big reason they got elected. The occupation of Iraq recently turned four and American public opinion continues to frown upon the loss of American lives in Iraq — even though the casualties have been relatively few.

American President George Bush offered a meeting on Iraq to members of both parties in Congress. If the Democrats wouldn’t have declined (see below), such a meeting would take place at the White House and would include discussion on the deadlock between Congress and the Bush administration over Iraq policy, specifically US troop pull-out and funding. If this is anything like offers of previous dialog, the discussion would be one-sided. The Bush White House hates any calls contrary to its policy, and doesn’t do well listening to other opinions, even those of experts. They often disregard fact too.

The problem, for the Dems at least, lies in the politics of perception. The White House will accuse the Democrats of being closed and not open to resolving the war between the executive and legislature over Iraq. The Democrats are already facing enough problems: they are split on troop pullout, and their limit on funding in order to instigate withdrawal of American forces from Iraq could greatly backfire and make them look like they are not 'supporting the troops' — which is ridiculous, but is being used well by their political opponents. The anti-Iraq war side accuses the Dems of being soft. That group should not expect results anyways: the president will certainly veto the Congressional bills calling for pullout.

Bush wants control of the debate, and although the Dems are resisting a debate on his terms, it may come back to bite them.

President Bush invited congressional leaders of both parties to the White House next week to talk about legislation to pay for the war in Iraq, but Democrats promptly dismissed his offer because it carried a condition that Congress drop a timetable for withdrawing American forces from Iraq.

"The clock is ticking for our troops in the field," Bush told an American Legion post in this suburb about 20 miles west of the White House. Without quick action by Congress, he said, the military would within months be forced to redirect funds from training and repair work to pay for the war.

The president also complained that the separate war-spending bills passed by the House and Senate included considerable pork-barrel domestic spending as well as about $100 billion for the war. He invited congressional leaders to a White House meeting next week to work on what officials said would be a "clean" measure providing money just for the war.

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada complained that Bush was setting conditions for the White House talks with congressional leaders.

"He wants a clean bill," Reid said after consulting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco). "That's not negotiating." He said Bush was used to a "rubber-stamp" Congress that approved everything he sought, but that things have changed since Democrats took over control in last November's elections.

Bush said that if Congress does not provide the funds he seeks for the war--without deadlines for ending the troops' deployment--some forces already in Iraq would see their missions extended because there would be insufficient money to train replacements, and other units already trained would see their time at home shortened before being sent back there.
…
The Senate and House have each approved measures that would give the administration about $103 billion in new money for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Each sets timelines for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.

Bush has repeatedly said he would veto legislation that cut off money to pursue the wars, and although Democrats hold majorities in both houses, their margin is too slim to provide sufficient votes to override a veto.

The Senate bill sets a nonbinding target of all combat troops withdrawn by March 31, 2008, while the House bill sets a deadline of Aug. 31, 2008, for complete withdrawal. Democratic leaders in both chambers are negotiating a compromise version to send back to each chamber for final passage.
…
A White House official, writing an e-mail message on the condition of anonymity, said the session should not be seen as a negotiating meeting.

Bush is playing the Dems` Iraq policy for what its worth, and will end up slapping down a veto nonetheless.

Now, the Democrats will look bad for not accepting an invitation for talks with the White House on such an important, and politically viotile, issue. This will not sit well with many people, I am sure. Although it is interesting how so many can be opposed with Pelosi, a Democrat, talking to Syria, yet not to Republicans talking to Syria, and, at the same time, opposed with Congress not accepting the White House’s probably one-sided invite for talks. Moreover, the conditions are unfair, just like when the White House sets conditions for diplomatic talks. The conditions are unilateral and one-sided, not to mention the administration is often either aggressive or blindsiding in talks.

Of course the Dems have set possibly-unfair conditions of their own for debate on Iraq policy in Congress…

technorati tags: democrats, iraq, reid, pelosi, bush, iraq+troops, united+states, usa, white+house, congress, politics

Executive versus legislature

A subcommittee on judicial affairs in the US House of Representatives authorized subpoenas for a myriad of senior Bush aides yesterday, including Karl 'The Architect' Rove and Harriet ('Nominated for Supreme Court but failed to even get a hearing because she is basically Bush's personal lawyer') Myers, regarding the Congressional probe into the politically-motivated firings of several US Attorneys at the Justice Department.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has been connected to this brewing scandal and one of far more serious — yet less covered — extent involving the FBI breaking the law (specifically provisions in the Patriot Act, as if that didn't give them enough power).

Congress finally began flexing its muscle by issuing subpoenas for documents earlier this month. The evidence from the documents directly contradicted statements made by Gonzales and the White House, and linked Gonzales, Rove, and the attorney firings from a number of emails between Rove and Golzales.

Politicians from both sides of the aisle have called for the attorney general's resignation. However, President George W. Bush has given Gonzales his steadfast support.

This is a White House known for its secrets and opposition into investigation. It has stonewalled any questioning — by the press or Congress — on plenty of major issues, not least Iraq and the 'war on terror', and is continuing to do so with these latest events involving the Justice Department.

Congress, with its yet-to-dazzle Democratic majority, has, however, been sticking it to the man lately. The man being the Bush administration and sticking it meaning politically threatening but still not exercising full oversight powers. Progress is being made, albeit sluggishly, on the evening of powers over Iraq policies between the White House and Congress. There are also signs of actual debate (gasp) of American policy in Iraq.

What makes the attorney firings odd is that at least one was fired not because of his political views, but because of his failure to politicize his legal work, something lawyers are usually taught against.

One must wonder: if Libby was the supposed fall-guy for Plamegate and FBI Director Mueller was for the FBI law-breaking, who will fall in the US Attorney scandal? Will it be Gonzales for political reasons, much like Rumsfeld left after the election? Or will it be a lower-level crony who will lose their job to gain props from the Bush administration?

technorati tags: gonzales, alberto+gonzales, bush, karl+rove, white+house, congress, democrats, subpoena, fbi, attorney

Congressional action: the subpoenas cometh

Well it appears Congressional Democrats are finally starting to flex their political muscle on two big issues: Iraq war policy (see this post) and the flurry of troubles at the Justice Department, notably the politically-motivated firing of US attorneys.

First of all, the Justice Department investigation:
Washington Post:

The Senate Judiciary Committee today authorized the use of subpoenas to compel the testimony of five Justice Department officials as part of an investigation into the firing of eight U.S. attorneys, but the panel put off a vote on subpoenas for top White House aides, including senior political adviser Karl Rove.

Meeting in an executive session, the 19-member committee voted to authorize the issuing of 11 subpoenas -- five for Justice Department officials involved in the firings and six for U.S. attorneys who were dismissed last year in the controversial purge. The subpoena authority gives the panel a fall-back position in case any of the current and former officials refuse to testify voluntarily or Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales reconsiders his pledge to let his subordinates appear before the committee.

While Gonzales has ambiguously admitted some things, this administration always has a fall guy (Libby in Plamegate; Mueller in FBI lawbreaking). Plenty of politicians of all stripes have called for Gonzales to step down. One of the best arguments I've seen and blogged about is that of the New York Times.

Because of a Congressionally-stonewalling, non-balenced, and unchecked (in governmental power) White House, unresponsive for its actions, along with the Democrats' rather slim majority in the Senate, one of the few powers the Dems can exercise would be subpoena power over the Bush administration. However, they have yet to be tough like the GOP was in its 12-year majority because of reasons of political and public perception. The executive is still well-liked compared to the legislature, at least in the public's eyes.

Even if one sides with Bush, this is a good exercise of democratic political power seen in democracies and, like the fact there was a report that revealed the FBI's law-breaking, it shows not all transparency is lost, even in an administration as closed to the public as the current one.

Iraq debate moving forward... slowly

Around a month ago, the House of Representatives finally passed a long-standing nonbinding resolution condemning Bush's Iraq policy. This seemed like a step in the right direction after there had been virtually no action — even symbolic, like with the nonbinding resolution — really taken on Iraq policy debate in Congress since the Democrats came into power at the beginning of 2007.

The day after, however, the Senate blocked debate on the motion.

Washington Post (again):

After weeks of delay, Democratic leaders yesterday managed to bring to the Senate floor for the first time a binding resolution that would bring U.S. troops home from Iraq. But Republicans remained confident that they could kill the proposal, and the White House threatened a veto, raising constitutional concerns.

Democrats want the new proposal to supersede the 2002 resolution that authorized the Iraq invasion. It would restrict troop movements and set March 31, 2008, as a target date for bringing the troops home.

Republicans had blocked previous efforts on new war resolutions, using parliamentary maneuvers. But they allowed the latest version to inch forward, confident that they could still kill the proposal. A final resolution could come later this week, and Democrats acknowledged that it is unlikely to become law. Still, war opponents urged support for the resolution, declaring that the public no longer wants U.S. troops in Iraq and that last November's elections showed that voters wanted Democrats to end the conflict.

The White House veto is of major concern on the unlikely chance this resolution does pass. At least this one is binding though.

Amazing that even most debate in Congress on Iraq policy has been suppressed. And yet pointless statements and grandstanding flies by fine, not to mention symbolic maneuvers purely for personal political gain and, as always, pork-berral spending motions.