Bloodless Coup

Hah! Hah!, I say. I quote the opinions of 4,000 soldiers, the great majority of whom support Bush, and that's not to be paid attention to, but you rely on a single soldier's opinion about the draft? Dare I? Shenanigans! Shenanigans! I'm declaring shenanigans! The only people supporting a draft are (D is for disgraceful) DEMOCRATS in the House and Senate using this issue to scare young voters into supporting Kerry.

What? You don't think that the president will take all necessary measures to make sure that Iraq continues to, ahem, succeed? If that's his priority and it looks like there won't be enough troops to do it otherwise ... You think the Republicans in Congress would actually oppose him on a matter of national security if he thinks the time had come for it?

And part of the reason I posted this is because it is because Hackworth is pretty well plugged in. A lot of people pay attention to his columns and he tends to have fairly high sources.

And by the way, the fact that 2 Democrats voted for it yesterday (Jack Murtha, and Pete Stark - one of Congress's loud idiots-in-chief) is hardly a sign that Democrats are rushing behind this idea.

D is for disgraceful? You've got some nerve in light of the revelations (if you can call them that; perhaps "mainstreaming" or "outing" is a more apt term for a discussion of what serious congressional observers have been able to interpolate for quite a while) contained in the Boston Globe article Baltar discussed in a recent post.

To paraphrase Cheney's favorite method of insinuating that he had robust counterarguments to Edwards' substantive points when the opposite was most true, "I don't even know where to begin." But just for the record, I haven't, and I will not, call you a disgrace for your slavish devotion to a compromised party. Rather, its those for whom you evidently intend to vote that are the disgraces. You may be a little too credulous, but voicing an opinion that differs from mine is the most patriotic thing you could do. When you get a chance, please pass that memo on to the men at the top of the GOP, as to whom dissent, no matter how valid or verifiable, continues to be disdained as treasonous -- an argument that, if it carries the day, will make this country no better than Red China, and worse in some sense insofar as China doesn't claim to be something it's not.

Which come to think of it makes your candidates the most treasonous of all -- more authoritarian, more obdurate in preserving the obscurity of their policymaking, than any administration I've ever had to suffer under (although, to be fair, I missed Nixon). Tell me again: who is un-American? Who is a disgrace?

As for playing politics with the legislative agenda, that doesn't even warrant a response, in light of the Senate's ridiculous time-wasting votes on the unpassable and hate-codifying gay-marriage ban, and so on. Oh no, it's the Dems who play politics with legislation. Please, most of the time they're not even allowed in the room.

Armand,
Plugged in? So the 4,000 heavily career oriented officers I cited in the other article are out of touch? Bush bashers say everyone's out of touch if they don't agree with them, or as Edwards says, we've lost our minds.
And it's not that two other democrats voted for the draft bill, it's that it's sponsored by democrats. If you want to argue that Democrats are bringing back the draft, feel free; that's the conclusion this evidence leads to, but you're not going there.

Joshua,
Well, I'd have put D is for racist (see spinsanity.com) for feeding on anti-Saudi sentiment, but on style that would sound stupider than W is for Wrong, even if the substance is true. So where's the article about how the judicial system's pinned down because of Democratic filibusters keeping judges from the bench, about how we can't get an energy bill and have to pay $2 a gallon because of the same...nuance. Your article says:
"Republicans counter that Democrats, too, used their power to get their way when they were in the majority, and Democrats acknowledge that they sometimes used procedures to their advantage. It was the Democrats, for example, who changed the makeup of the Rules Committee to give disproportionate clout to the majority party."
You suggest the Republicans say dissent is treasonous, despite Baltar's NYT article that says the nuclear scientists felt no pressure from Cheney, despite it coming out yesterday that Bremer suggested bringing in more troops after the Iraqi invasion. Who's out of touch here? I appreciate your civility, just as last night in the debate Edwards' best moment was supporting Cheney's loyalty to his daughter, but I do have to disagree with you on the substance of this argument.
You talk about Bush and Cheney as "more authoritarian, more obdurate in preserving the obscurity of their policymaking" , you compare them to Nixon, when its your candidate Kerry who has a secret plan on how to get support of other nations, a secret plan we're just supposed to trust him on. I'd really better be careful what I say here, or I could end up on his enemies list.

it's not anti-Saudi sentiment. it's anti-Bush sentiment for turning a blind eye to Saudi abuses to serve his own interests, and very probably to disserve the interests of this nation and the putative goal of the war on terror. this is like saying that the filibuster of a given judician nominee is anti-catholic: heedless and provocative rhetoric to obfuscate the real issues and confuse the electorate. since the right so loves this terminology, a "war" on truth."

and speaking of nominees, do you really want to go there (once again, i'm kicking myself in advance for giving you a relatively balanced article that gives you all sorts of four-word phrases you can pull out of context to whip me with like rubber stage batons)?

When Clinton left office in January 2001, 42 of his judicial nominees remained unconfirmed (38 of whom had never received a hearing). In Clinton’s eight years, the Senate had blocked 114 of his lower court nominations and confirmed 366. In comparison, the Senate blocked none of Nixon’s lower court nominations and confirmed 224 (it did block two of his Supreme Court nominees). Even during the Reagan administration, the Senate blocked only 43 lower court nominees and confirmed 368.

* * *

The Republican’s re-interpretation of the blue slip procedure [effectively removing the effectiveness of a tool they used to block hearings on dozens of clinton nominees], prompted Senate Democrats to resort to the filibuster to block what they felt to be the most extreme of Bush’s judicial nominees (totaling six to date). Despite these filibusters, the vacancy rate on the federal judiciary has dropped to its lowest point in 13 years. [Emphasis mine.]

farbeit from me to call for substantiation -- i don't need you to show me all the right wing sites that claim the democrats are committing some sin the likes of which high-minded republicans would never dream of committing -- but the numbers don't lie. moreover, the constitutionally-required "advice and consent" demands consent; the rules of the senate allow for a filibuster; and an absence of consent can be expressed in various ways within any legislative body that operates by byzantine and traditional procedural rules. the above article also notes that republicans used a filibuster to interfere with LBJ's desired elevation of Abe Fortas to chief justice.

as for kerry's "secret plan," you're right, morris. as of right now i'm changing my vote, because bush has been honest and clear from minute one, clearly expressing his motives, neither withholding information crucial to his governance of our polity nor misleading us in any way shape or form, nor have his minions in any way committed these crimes, while kerry has revealed himself to be a wholly disingnuous, unpatriotic --- ewww --- politician so rank and dishonorable as to have taken fire for this country simply to ensure that he would be able to wave the veteran's flag some thirty years later when he ran for president and so pathetic as to have stood up, at an age when many of his peers were smoking pot and sleeping on mattresses on the floor, to challenge a presidential administration (with a demonstrated capacity for subjecting its critics to character assassination and worse) to justify its rampant sacrifice of scores of thousands of americans and untold vietnames civilians, again, i'm sure, as a repugnant ploy to gain prospective political advantage.

thank you, morris. i almost made a terrible decision -- and in a swing state polling at a dead heat, no less.

now, where was i? oh, energy bill? seriously!? hey, if, with control of both houses, your man still can't manage to pass the legislation he let the industry lobbyists draft to order, don't bitch at the democrats. i'd rather have no energy bill than one written by and for the enrons of the world with absolutely no constituent oversight whatsoever. really, morris, i expect this sort of stuff from you, but to accuse kerry of secrecy while defending this administration is double-speak that would cause orwell to pause and look up from his seventeenth anti-Bush screed-in-progress and smile. you deserve bush, so i sincerely hope you don't get what you deserve.

It IS racist, anti-saudi sentiment. You can see the cite I posted on the other thread regarding the liberties taken by Moore when describing billions of profits the Bushes never saw.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6017-2004Jul22.html
The votes against Michigan jurists Henry W. Saad, Richard A. Griffin and David W. McKeague for the Cincinnati-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit brought to 10 the total of Bush appellate court nominees whom Democrats have filibustered.

That's 10 APELLATE nominees alone, not even getting into other nominations, but I'm sure you weren't trying to mislead me citing a source about six months old. I bet four in the last six months pushes the rate a little higher than what you suggest as the lowest in thirteen years, don't you think? The numbers DO lie when you use old numbers.
And given your source saying:
"To be sure, Democrats used some of the same tactics that Republicans had under Clinton, but now Republicans made “Democrat obstructionism” a major theme of the 2002 midterm elections."
This issue is at best a draw.

Far be it for me to suggest you not vote for someone without a plan, someone who secretly talked with the North Vietnamese, who promises to overhaul intelligence after missing 3/4 of its meetings while he was on the committee, someone who won't release his medical records that would lay to rest questions about his service that you insist is without question, someone who changes positions on Iraq more than Paris Hilton depending on what the polls say, who encouraged others to lie about the war in Vietnam, then used lies about Vietnam to jump start his political career, who preferred not to seek justice for any victim of war crimes he claims he witnessed, far be it for me.

And did I mention? D is for Disgraceful.

Storming republican headquarters in Orlando,
http://www.local6.com/politics/3785861/detail.html

Milwaukee,
http://www.wisgop.org/view.phtml?func=ch&lg=&id=83

and shooting up Knoxville
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20041005-024050-1855r.htm

How long til' a Beer Hall Putsch?

this is pointless. the article is six months old, and the democrats have probably filibustered a couple of nominees since (perhaps even four), but the process is far slower than you realize, and i would wager that the "vacancy rate" (the thirteen-year number you suggest has changed so much in the past six months) has not approached anything like the end-of-term clinton numbers, even in light of these votes. not even close. indeed, if it's changed at all, it's probably changed due to new deaths and retirements in ways that in no way correlate to the more recent votes. there's more than a six-month lag between nomination and confirmation hearings, and at least a several-month lag between death/resignation and nomination.

for lawyers and litigants and people who require the federal courts to be something other than an abstract battlefield on which to wage proxy wars for rhetorical purposes, it's the vacancies that matter. that situation has radically improved during bush's tenure, notwithstanding that his administration and lap-dog senate majority has systematically dismantled a process that worked admirably for both parties for more than a half-century.

a then-district-judge adjunct prof. i had a couple of years ago (he has since resigned his commission, citing numerous reasons, neither age nor incapacity among them), a clinton appointee regarding the bush nomination procedure, said, "i don't care who they send. martians are fine. we just need judges." the vacancy numbers, that is to say, are set against a woefully low benchmark to begin with (i.e., at saturation level trial judges would still be overrun); as a practical matter, democrats, notwithstanding their temerity in suggesting that at 50/50 they actually deserve (by vox populi) some say in who sits on the federal courts to carry out the advice/consent constitutional mandate they bear, have acceded to reason, nearly fixing the vacancy mess that republican (later-repudiated when it no longer served them) blue-slip tactics caused during clinton's tenure. please note as well how many clinton nominees never got to the floor for the up-down vote the GOP now claims every nominee deserves as some kind of intrinsic right.

so who is more interested in a functioning judiciary? how about the people who approved more judges. i'd filibuster pickering just like i'd filibuster david duke; when the GOP stops coordinating with its peers across the aisle, and thus implicitly denies the clearly divided nature of our polity by trying to railroad every vote on ideological lines that don't reflect the will of the people, then sometimes the only way the dems can "advise" the president that they don't want to see a rampant white supremacist on the court of appeals is to do whatever is necessary to withhold the body's "consent" according to the time-honored rules of the senate, including, where necessary, by filibustering, a means the republicans only villify when they are in the majority and don't need it to have their way (much like an astonishingly beautiful person going on and on about how it's the beauty inside that matters).

perhaps you'd like your congress to be a rubber stamp for dear leader. i wouldn't. and for me that applies no matter who is in power. we are better off with moderate judges from both sides. that best reflects the break-down of the electorate which, last i checked, was more or less what our congresspeople are supposed to be doing. seriously, there's a serious lack of respect for basic separation of powers principles in contemporary rhetoric; if the narrow senate majority wants to get in bed with the president, that's all fine and good, but it's not what the framers imagined, and if the democrats have to burn the building down to resist this terribly un-American trend, i'm all for it. a filibuster, by comparison, seems a modest means.

if you don't like it, convince this country to vote in enough republicans to overcome a filibuster. oh wait, you can't. i wonder what that means . . .

Joshua,
My favorite part is how you begin with "this is pointless" and then continue for five paragraphs. To return to the point, the above cited quote:
"Republicans counter that Democrats, too, used their power to get their way when they were in the majority, and Democrats acknowledge that they sometimes used procedures to their advantage. It was the Democrats, for example, who changed the makeup of the Rules Committee to give disproportionate clout to the majority party."
suggests that either party is going to seek their advantage while in power, leading me to believe as I stated above that this issue is at best a draw.

However, creating fear of a draft by sponsoring this bill, then suggesting it's the other party's agenda (my original critique) is disgraceful, as is playing on anti-Saudi racism, as is storming and shooting up Republican campaign offices.

you're right, i should have dropped it. i'm not sure, at this point, why i keep trying to disabuse you of the ridiculous notion that your candidates tell the truth (i'm granting room for spin, of which both parties are very guilty; it's just the demonstrable, quantifiable lies that really get to me) or that they somehow campaign more fairly, when you're obviously willing to go down with their ship of state.

i guess that just makes me one of the rats trying to get off, right? -- unpatriotic for daring to ask bush and/or cheney to just once say something credible when they open their mouths.

for the record, by any useful measure (i.e., actual judges sitting on the bench), bush won a radical victory over clinton, and the substantial disproportion of republican-appointed federal judges reflects that fact.

to return to the legislation in question, you still haven't explained to me how the conscription legislation, which at the very least makes a strong rhetorical point about all the GOP hawks who allow neither themselves nor their children to come into harm's way, is in any way as wasteful of the legislature's time than voting on an unpassable constitutional amendment that would codify into the constitution -- for the very first time -- an exclusion, an expression of majoritarian hate and fear, and more abstractly, a denial of an individual right to liberty. this from the party of Tom DeLay.

republicanism, in itself, in its historic form, is a political orientation with plenty to defend it. even the contract with america expressed certain time-honored principles subject to legitimate debate. doesn't the current state of the party, however, embarrass you? and if not, what more would it take before you finally admit, as an increasing number of prominent republican pundits and pols have felt compelled to do, that this is not republicanism, it's hypocritical plutocracy with no commitments beyond the self-interest of those who have enabled its ascendancy (which, sadly, reflects only a small fraction of the people who keep lining up to vote for their own exploitation)?

Joshua,
Aren't you given to accuse me of a straw man fallacy, and yet you prefer attack arguments of other people rather than responding to mine?

It is actually a sound argument.
John Kerry's plan:
Iran claims that its nuclear program is only to meet its domestic energy needs. John Kerry's proposal would call their bluff by organizing a group of states to offer Iran the nuclear fuel they need for peaceful purposes and take back the spent fuel so they cannot divert it to build a weapon. If Iran does not accept this offer, their true motivations will be clear.
http://www.johnkerry.com/issues/national_security/strategy.html

Iran's response:
Foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said it would be "irrational" for Iran to put its nuclear program in jeopardy by relying on supplies from abroad.
"We have the technology (to make nuclear fuel) and there is no need for us to beg from others," Asefi told a weekly news conference.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20041003/pl_nm/nuclear_iran_kerry_dc_2

So what's his new plan?
At least your would be leader isn't confusing his intentions by accepting money from those supporting the Iranian government; oh, wait, he is:
"Among Kerry's top fund-raisers are three Iranian-Americans who have been pushing for dramatic changes in U.S. policy toward the Islamic Republic of Iran."
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=40744

Where's the credibility here?

Great, ANOTHER straw man argumet. I'm not trying to elect Tom DeLay here, we're talking about our President, although I know it must be tougher defending your candidate and his running mate
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=39310
(do you think he's gonna give that money back now, help those Ob-Gyn's get their licenses back?). Look, if you want to support a draft, have your debate, feel free to go onto MoveOn.org's blog and talk about how you think Kerry should support a draft, do it, please. But it's deceitful to introduce a bill like that and claim it's Bush's plan. Do you know, even the bill's sponsor didn't vote for it.

you know, i just went back through the thread, and i'll be damned if i can find any citation or support for your allegations about how the dems have been behind or have characterized the conscription legislation.

lots of stuff about kerry taking money from a few iranians (i'm going to spare you the embarrassment of coming back with dozens, nay hundreds, of supporters from whom bush should be embarrassed to accept money, and anyway all major national candidates have to take money from various dubious sources to compete), and mockery of his plan for iran (without acknowledging that if his ideas are not terribly attractive, it's because iran doesn't care, and that's because they've had a free pass for four years notwithstanding that they constituted part of the axis of evil), which i take it was some kind of mislocated rebuttal for the direct saud connection questions i raised in another thread to which you conspicuously failed to respond . . .

so to preserve this thread's integrity, send me links to how the dems have characterized the conscription stuff, how they have claimed that a bill they sponsored was a republican bill. and since we're talking about mainstream congressional stuff, i trust you'll be able to find a link to a newspaper source with a circulation greater than 500,000. no black helos, just the news.

i'd like to add that i'm ashamed of myself that i dignified your reliance on WorldNetDaily with so much as a response. for the first time, i actually read through the site, and, i mean, heading this article "Prophecy?" now there's journalistic integrity for you.

by the way, for bush's sake, i'd stay away from Ob/Gyn's if i were you, especially when their relevance to your argument, such as it is, is so utterly indiscernible.

Pretty words aren't enough to make a good candidate. Everyone knows Bush trips over his words sometimes, but if that's the best criticism you can level against him, it's all the more obvious that you have no actual response to my criticism on this issue, so I wonder what but love of your own pretty words keeps you persisting with such sophistry.

As for journalistic integrity, check into the Weekly Standard's comments on Jehl's article from your so called objective New York Times.

who brought up the times? i asked for a newspaper source with a meaningfuly circulation. give me something from the wall street journal; all i'm asking is that you do better in support of your arguments than direct me to un-sourced op-eds from bible-thumpers on ice who are still debating the "real" cause of TWA flight 800's crash and other non-issues that truly qualify as "black helicopter" material.

so again, for the sake of robust, civil debate, i beg you:

give me mainstram media links re the conscription issue.

give me mainstream media links defying what i've said about bush and the house of saud, or conceding my assertions and explaining why they shouldn't worry me.

in fact, provide anything positive rather than negative. anyone who has been president for four years ought not to have to run his campaign solely on the underhanded destruction of his challenger (see, again, my link to the careful enumeration of all the bald-faced lies cheney told at the veep debate). similarly, anyone who supports an incumbent ought to be able to build up his man instead of tear down said man's opponent.

i do happen to think that kerry's the better man for the job than bush ever was, more honest, more able, smarter, more inquisitive, more receptive to criticism and differing opinions, more conciliatory, less beholden to interests that run counter to the common weal . . . but even if i didn't, i'd vote for him, because ultimately an incumbent runs on his record, and i simply couldn't in good conscience vote for a serial failure who won't even take responsibility for his failings or acknowledge so much as a single bad decision or undesirable result. do you think he's made no mistakes in four years? he evidently does (as evidenced by his public statements, his unwillingness to fire anyone who screws up (though he's repeatedly shown his willingness to fire anyone who disagrees with him)), and his unabated truculence in the face of any pointed critique (and his concomitant reluctance ever to appear before anything but a hand-picked audience of slavish supporters).

oh, and my words thank you for the compliment; my sophistry, however, seeths in a dark recess for having been called out.

Morris,

The Weekly Standard article you quote is not very objective. The Weekly Standard is a right-wing magazine. That doesn't make what they write wrong, but it does make it a magazine with a political point of view, and one to take with a grain of salt. There are several on the right (American Spectator, Weekly Standard) and several on the left (Progressive). Nobody cites them as major news sources because everybody recognizes them as biased. For example, the Weekly Standard quotes from the Duelfer report, arguing that this is important information that the NYT left out:

a threat remains that chemical weapons could be used against U.S. and coalition forces, noting information from earlier this year that Iraqi scientists had linked up with foreign terrorists in Iraq. A series of raids beginning last March, Duelfer said, prevented the problem from 'becoming a major threat.'

This seems absurd on the face of it. This implies that Iraqi scientists met up with "foreign terrorists" (whatever those are) this year. Where? When? In any event, given that any Iraqi scientist would have no infrastructure (plants, electricity, a budget, staff, materials, etc.) to work with, how much of a threat is this? I have already noted that basic chemical and biological weapons can be made in a bathtub, but this does not constitute a serious threat. This is a real reach by the Weekly Standard.

The bottom of the first page of the (web) Weekly Standard article describes dueling (NYT and WaPo) articles that summarize the Duelfer report. The Weekly Standard takes the NYT to task for (1) failing to mention that Saddam retained the knowledge to restart research/production and (2) failing to recognize that Saddam could restart production within a year of sanctions being lifted.

Both of those charges are absurd. The NYT did mention that Saddam retained the knowledge to restart research/production (presumably, the Weekly Standard thinks the NYT should have made that conclusion more alarming; but that's not the job of a newspaper). The Weekly Standard is just wrong on that: the NYT reported the fact that Saddam would have retained knowledge and any further comments on that cross the bounds of reporting, into analysis, and the NYT (which does sometimes run "analysis" articles, but only after carefully putting that byline at the top of the article) was not doing that in this article. The second point hinges on different definitions of "quickly". The NYT notes it could happen in a year, and the Weekly Standard wants this to be recognized as a "quick" time for restart. Once again the Weekly Standard gets it wrong. The NYT reported the actual time the Duelfer report says it would have taken Saddam to restart - a year. The Standard is (again) unhappy, because it want the NYT to interpret that fact and tell everyone that it is a "quick" restart time, and hence Saddam was a greater threat. That's a matter of opinion, not reporting, and the NYT gets it right: they reported the fact, not their opinion.

Three final points. The Weekly Standard chides the NYT for failing to point out that Saddam could have started to produce biological weapons within a month of restarting their programs (which contradicts what the NYT said earlier, which was that it would take a year to get production going). OK, you got them on this. But that's a relatively minor flaw, in that there is lots of information missing. What kind of weapons? How long to produce enough biological agents to matter (in other words, starting production and having a useful supply are not the same things)? In any event, this is clearly a mistake, but one mistake isn't enough to damn the whole article.

Second, the Weekly Standard attacks the NYT for failing to use this quote:

"the 'CW [chemical warheads] and BW [biological warheads] put on Iraqi missiles in 1990 and 1991, for example, were built in months.'"

Recognize what this is saying: Iraq, once it had researched and built production facilities in the 1980s, took months to actually produce the warheads. In other words, once the hard work of developing weapons and testing them was done, the actual production of the weapons happened quickly. Well, no duh. Iraq, in 2003, didn't have any production facilities (though, as noted, they had knowledge). Hence, they were months, if not years, away from being able to make weapons. This quote shows nothing. It may be true, but it attempts to compare Iraq in 1990 to Iraq in 2003, and the two are not comparable. The industrial and military base that Iraq had in 2003 was a pale shadow of what they had in 1990, and timelines should be adjusted to reflect that. The NYT leaves this out, which is proper.

Finally, the Weekly Standard sticks this quote in (which you used on another thread as well):

said that American investigators had found clandestine laboratories in the Baghdad area used by the Iraqi Intelligence Service to conduct research and to test various chemicals and poisons, primarily for secret assassinations rather than to inflict mass casualties.

This is not evidence of any kind of a WMD program. In fact, at best, it is evidence of a lack of a program. If Saddam was using scientists to make poisons for assassinations (not weapons to kill thousands) that's pretty clear evidence that there was no major program going (and might even speak to the idea that Saddam didn't want WMD: if he really did, why were the scientists working on piddly poisons, and not real weapons). This quote says nothing about a WMD program, and talks about diverting resources away from a WMD program for spy stuff.

Overall, the Weekly Standard is not a good source for news. Opinions and conclusions, maybe, but not news. The NYT did a fine job of reporting the general conclusions of the Duelfer report, which was what it tried to do in the article. I understand you think that the major media have a liberal bias, but for basic news it just isn't true. Given the weak attempt by the Weekly Standard to argue this issue, I'd be more worried about your sources than mine.