Memorial Day Weekend Wrap-Up

DoJ Scandal Continues

It would seem that the scandal unfolding at the Department of Justice is putting a damper on anyone wanting to apply for attorney positions at the DoJ.

The Bush administration's decision to fire nine U.S. attorneys last year has created a new problem for the White House: The controversy appears to be discouraging applications for some of the 22 prosecutor posts that President Bush needs to fill.

Of the nation's 93 U.S. attorneys, 22 are serving without Senate confirmation as interim or acting prosecutors. They represent districts in Alaska, Arizona, California, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Puerto Rico, Tennessee, West Virginia and Washington.

In Florida, the panel that's evaluating candidates and making recommendations to the White House has received only two applicants for the vacancy left by U.S. Attorney Paul Perez in Tampa - even after it extended the May 3 deadline to apply.

Can Bush do anything else to hurt the DoJ and through it, weaken America? Stay tuned.

Cheney Hates Constitution?

Over the weekend, Vice President Dick Cheney gave the commencement address at West Point.

"As Army officers on duty in the war on terror, you will now face enemies who oppose and despise everything you know to be right, every notion of upright conduct and character, and every belief you consider worth fighting for and living for. Capture one of these killers, and he'll be quick to demand the protections of the Geneva Convention and the Constitution of the United States. Yet when they wage attacks or take captives, their delicate sensibilities seem to fall away."

Once again, I can’t offer a better reply than Steve Benen.

At the risk of sounding picky, is it too much to ask the Vice President to refer to the protections of the Geneva Convention and the Constitution of the United States as good things? Perhaps protections that he's proud of?

Welcome to 2003

An article in the Boston Globe by Peter Canellos details how Republican presidential candidates are using misleading or even false language in their discussions of the war in Iraq. Indeed, they are using language, also false and misleading, that strongly echoes that which was used by President Bush prior both to the war’s start and since it turned ugly. You can read the TPM analysis here. Just what we need is another head-in-the-sand president.

Mercenaries Fighting for US

Many may not be aware of it, but the US has paid mercenaries fighting on our behalf in Iraq. I most certainly do not mean US military forces. Rather, the State Department has hired a company called Blackwater USA to be its own private army. Blackwater calls itself a “private security firm.” However, think Special Forces, not rent-a-cop.

Details about the involvement of Blackwater can be found elsewhere, but – amazingly enough – having a private army killing for you may not be all it is cracked up to be.

Employees of Blackwater USA, a private security firm under contract to the State Department, opened fire on the streets of Baghdad twice in two days last week, and one of the incidents provoked a standoff between the security contractors and Iraqi forces, U.S. and Iraqi officials said.

A Blackwater guard shot and killed an Iraqi driver Thursday near the Interior Ministry, according to three U.S. officials and one Iraqi official who were briefed on the incident but spoke on condition of anonymity because of a pending investigation. On Wednesday, a Blackwater-protected convoy was ambushed in downtown Baghdad, triggering a furious battle in which the security contractors, U.S. and Iraqi troops and AH-64 Apache attack helicopters were firing in a congested area.

Blackwater confirmed that its employees were involved in two shootings but could neither confirm nor deny that there had been any casualties, according to a company official who declined to be identified because of the firm's policy of not addressing incidents publicly.

For analysis of the incidents, see TPM.

Presidential Sophistry

Maureen Dowd wrote a nice piece in the New York Times outlining the current outlandish reasoning for continuing the war in Iraq.

The president said an intelligence report (which turned out to be two years old) showed that Osama had been trying to send Qaeda terrorists in Iraq to attack America. So clearly, Osama is capable of multitasking: Order the killers in Iraq to go after American soldiers there and American civilians here. There AND here. Get it, W.?

The president is on a continuous loop of sophistry: We have to push on in Iraq because Al Qaeda is there, even though Al Qaeda is there because we pushed into Iraq. Our troops have to keep dying there because our troops have been dying there. We have to stay so the enemy doesn’t know we’re leaving. Osama hasn’t been found because he’s hiding.

The terrorists moved into George Bush’s Iraq, not Saddam Hussein’s. W.’s ranting about Al Qaeda there is like planting fleurs du mal and then complaining your garden is toxic.

It would be funny if it were not killing people.

29 May 2007