Obsidian Wings

Why Is Bill O'Reilly Still On The Air?

by hilzoy

As if the loofahs and felafel weren't bad enough, Bill O'Reilly has now said this:

"O'REILLY: You know, I was up in Harlem a few weeks ago, and I actually had dinner with Al Sharpton, who is a very, very interesting guy. And he comes on The Factor a lot, and then I treated him to dinner, because he's made himself available to us, and I felt that I wanted to take him up there. And we went to Sylvia's, a very famous restaurant in Harlem. I had a great time, and all the people up there are tremendously respectful. They all watch The Factor. You know, when Sharpton and I walked in, it was like a big commotion and everything, but everybody was very nice.

And I couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia's restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it's run by blacks, primarily black patronship. It was the same, and that's really what this society's all about now here in the U.S.A. There's no difference. There's no difference. There may be a cultural entertainment -- people may gravitate toward different cultural entertainment, but you go down to Little Italy, and you're gonna have that. It has nothing to do with the color of anybody's skin. (...)

O'REILLY: That's right. That's right. There wasn't one person in Sylvia's who was screaming, "M-Fer, I want more iced tea."

WILLIAMS: Please --

O'REILLY: You know, I mean, everybody was -- it was like going into an Italian restaurant in an all-white suburb in the sense of people were sitting there, and they were ordering and having fun. And there wasn't any kind of craziness at all."

If it was wrong for Don Imus to refer to the Rutgers basketball team as 'nappy-headed hos', and it was, and if MSNBC rightly decided that they had to drop him, then why on earth does Bill O'Reilly still have a job? Will there be any outrage at the idea that he finds it surprising -- so surprising that he "couldn't get over it", and had to go on and on about it on the radio -- that blacks who go to nice restaurants just sit around having a good time like anyone else, rather than "screaming, "M-Fer, I want more iced tea""?

Honestly, what more would it take to get people outraged? Does he have to express surprise that Sylvia's goes to the trouble of printing prices on the menu, instead of expecting all their black customers to rob them at gunpoint? Or that the customers use silverware, rather than eating with their fingers? Or that Sylvia's doesn't put brightly colored crack pipes next to the dessert spoons? Seriously: what does a guy have to do to get fired around here?

Stevens: The Plot Thickens

by hilzoy

From the Washington Post:

"An Alaska oil contractor cooperated with the FBI by tape-recording phone calls with Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) as part of a public corruption investigation, a source familiar with the probe said last night.

The recordings done by former Veco Corp. chief executive Bill Allen mean that Stevens, who is the longest serving Republican in the Senate, was under scrutiny by the FBI much earlier than June, when the senator first acknowledged publicly that he was a subject of FBI inquiries.

Details about the recorded conversations between Allen and Stevens are unclear, including how many calls were taped, when they occurred and what information was gleaned from them. (...)

As part of its sprawling investigation into public corruption in Alaska, the FBI recorded thousands of conversations between Allen and another Veco executive, Rick Smith, and videotaped meetings between legislators and contractors at a hotel suite.

Allen admitted in testimony last week that he bribed three Alaska state lawmakers, including Stevens's son, former state Senate president Ben Stevens. The younger Stevens is also under scrutiny by the Justice Department.

Allen testified that the FBI promised not to indict his children if he cooperated with them. The deal was struck on Aug. 30, 2006, a day before agents conducted raids targeting Veco and half a dozen state legislators.

In addition to the work done on Ted Stevens's house, a former Veco employee testified last week that company workers helped run the U.S. senator's fundraisers while on company time, which might be in violation of campaign finance rules."

It couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

"Thank You For The Privilege Of Serving Today"

by hilzoy

Those of us who don't plan to read Robert Draper's Dead Certain can find a lot its interesting anecdotes in Sidney Blumenthal's review in Salon. For those of you who don't even want to read the review (which you should), here are a few:

"In his interviews with Draper, he is constantly worried about weakness and passivity. "If you're weak internally? This job will run you all over town." He fears being controlled and talks about it relentlessly, feeling he's being watched. "And part of being a leader is: people watch you." He casts his anxiety as a matter of self-discipline. "I don't think I'd be sitting here if not for the discipline ... And they look at me -- they want to know whether I've got the resolution necessary to see this through. And I do. I believe -- I know we'll succeed." He is sensitive about asserting his supremacy over others, but especially his father. "He knows as an ex-president, he doesn't have nearly the amount of knowledge I've got on current things," he told Draper.

Bush is a classic insecure authoritarian who imposes humiliating tests of obedience on others in order to prove his superiority and their inferiority. In 1999, according to Draper, at a meeting of economic experts at the Texas governor's mansion, Bush interrupted Rove when he joined in the discussion, saying, "Karl, hang up my jacket." In front of other aides, Bush joked repeatedly that he would fire Rove. (Laura Bush's attitude toward Rove was pointedly disdainful. She nicknamed him "Pigpen," for wallowing in dirty politics. He was staff, not family -- certainly not people like them.)

Bush's deployed his fetish for punctuality as a punitive weapon. When Colin Powell was several minutes late to a Cabinet meeting, Bush ordered that the door to the Cabinet Room be locked. Aides have been fearful of raising problems with him. In his 2004 debates with Sen. John Kerry, no one felt comfortable or confident enough to discuss with Bush the importance of his personal demeanor. Doing poorly in his first debate, he turned his anger on his communications director, Dan Bartlett, for showing him a tape afterward. When his trusted old public relations handler, Karen Hughes, tried gently to tell him, "You looked mad," he shot back, "I wasn't mad! Tell them that!"

At a political strategy meeting in May 2004, when Matthew Dowd and Rove explained to him that he was not likely to win in a Reagan-like landslide, as Bush had imagined, he lashed out at Rove: "KARL!" Rove, according to Draper, was Bush's "favorite punching bag," and the president often threw futile and meaningless questions at him, and shouted, "You don't know what the hell you're talking about."

Those around him have learned how to manipulate him through the art of flattery. Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld played Bush like a Stradivarius, exploiting his grandiosity. "Rumsfeld would later tell his lieutenants that if you wanted the president's support for an initiative, it was always best to frame it as a 'Big New Thing.'" Other aides played on Bush's self-conception as "the Decider." "To sell him on an idea," writes Draper, "aides were now learning, the best approach was to tell the president, This is going to be a really tough decision." But flattery always requires deference. Every morning, Josh Bolten, the chief of staff, greets Bush with the same words: "Thank you for the privilege of serving today.""

Stop and think for a moment: if your assistant greeted you every morning with the words "Thank you for the privilege of serving today", how would you respond? I think I'd make light of it the first day, but if it continued, I'd say: I appreciate the compliment, but it's really not necessary. If, God forbid, my assistant went on saying it, I would at some point have to sit him or her down and explain that it made me uncomfortable. The one thing I really can't imagine is letting someone go on saying that day after day. It's just too crazy.

Which is, I suppose, just one more piece of evidence that I am not, in fact, George W. Bush.

To continue (below the fold):

Exhibit A of the Fraud Caucus - the Anguished Moderate

by publius

I direct a lot of my wrath toward "centrist" Republican legislators rather than, say, Inhofe. There's a reason. As numerous others have pointed out, they don't actually do anything to force a change of policy. They prefer to furrow their brow while voting lockstep to continue those bad policies. Their brow-furrowing, however, gives the appearance of a moderate, centrist wing of the party and thus obscures the national GOP's actual drift over the past 15 years.

To see a perfect example, consider Olympia Snowe - the "anguished moderate." Apparently the Anguished Moderate switched her vote on habeas at the last minute without telling Collins. This infuriated Collins because it removed her political cover (she's facing a tough battle next year). That's pretty hilarious, but this is what caught my eye:

Snowe had initially backed Republican leaders by voting "nay" on the procedural motion to force a final vote. But once it became clear that the GOP had more than enough votes to win, Snowe switched her vote to "yea."

Snowe apparently did not inform her leadership of the switch, according to aides and senators familiar with the decision. Therefore, Collins never got the message, leaving her all alone.

In other words, Snowe was willing to do exactly nothing to actually change the policy. Presumably, she disagrees with banning habeas because she ultimately voted Yea. But if her vote had actually mattered, she would have voted the other way. Thus, the Anguished Moderate gets to go on TV and take credit for her brow-furrowing, while doing exactly nothing to change the policy.

It's hard to find a more perfect example of the Fraud Caucus in action.

Priming The Pump

by hilzoy

Noah Shachtman:

"Sunni political and tribal leaders are increasingly throwing in their lot with U.S. forces here against Al-Qaeda in Iraq and other insurgent types. But, to get them to come over to our side, the American military has fed them a steady diet of anti-Shi'ite propaganda.

Arrests and killings of Shi’ite militants are announced from loudspeaker blasts; President Bush’s bellicose rhetoric towards Shi’a Iran is reported on friendly radio programs. But the majority of this country is Shi’ite. Are we setting ourselves up as the enemies of the majority here? Are we priming the pump for an all-in sectarian battle royale? It seems like a possibility."

Eric Martin has a long post on this, considering various possible interpretations of this. It's well worth reading. One interpretation that he doesn't consider is that we're supporting the militias in Anbar not just for the short term political benefits (having some progress for General Petraeus to report, etc.), but also to placate our various Sunni allies, who would presumably not be happy if we simply left the Iraqi Sunnis to the tender mercies of their adversaries. This would be short-sighted and strategically incoherent -- we are, after all, also trying to strengthen the Maliki government, which is to say the future enemy of the Sunnis we are apparently not just training but inciting to hatred. But I don't see that that's any reason to think that it's not exactly what the Bush administration is doing.

We could be using our time in Iraq to do whatever we could to minimize the chances of a conflagration when we leave. We could, more specifically, be trying to convince the various parties we're working with to try to find some way, any way, not to bring their country down in flames. Failing that, we could at least try not to make things worse. But nooooo....

I suppose that by now I should have realized that whatever the worst possible thing to do would be, this administration will find a way to do it.

Shameful Day for Senate Republicans

by publius

Webb amendment blocked -- 56-44.

The Rotten State of Warner

by publius

Ah, the great John Warner. Let’s remember this gushing description of his record:

Time and again, from his stance on withdrawing troops in Iraq to his concern about global warming, he has taken on his party and bucked conventional wisdom. [Larry Sabato says] "What's important about John Warner and what distinguishes him is that he is a centrist, along with 70 percent of Americans.” . . . To understand John Warner, friends and colleagues say, is to understand his deeply ingrained sense of duty.

. . .

But first, he said, he has 16 more months in office, untethered from charges of acting for political advantage. He does not intend to go quietly.

"No one can say politics is going to dictate in one way or another how I'm going to decide and speak out about what's in the best interest of this nation," he said. "And I'm going to do that."

On the vote for D.C. voting rights:

Warner – NAY

On the vote to reverse one of the worst and most embarrassing laws in America and restore habeas corpus:

Warner – NAY

On the Webb amendment (via TPM Muckraker):

Warner – [will vote] NAY (but not before trying to sneak a weasally toothless alternative).

And he's retiring. The D.C. voting issue is especially rich because he claims to be drafting a constitutional amendment granting D.C. voting rights. That’s great, but it provides absolutely no reason to oppose this voting bill (which is barely short of cloture). I guess he’s like the old Communists who opposed the New Deal because it would co-opt the larger revolution.

Good riddance.

Habeas Amendment Fails; Webb Amendment Up

by hilzoy

OK, admittedly I've been busy for the last week or so, but how on earth did I not know that the habeas amendment was coming up for a vote today? According to comments at FDL, it has failed to gain the 60 votes it needed to pass. (56-43; FDL has the roll call.)

The Webb Amendment is up now. It would require that people who are deployed overseas be given as much time at home as they spent abroad. I've put a list of Senators to call below the fold (from Atrios.)

If you support this amendment, now's the time to call. Thanks.

Well, Knock Me Over With A Feather

by hilzoy

Newsweek:

"In endorsing Gen. David Petraeus's recommendations on Iraq, President George W. Bush said Thursday night that at least 21,500 U.S. combat forces, plus support troops, could leave Iraq and come home by next July. Curiously, the first military unit designated by Petraeus to return is the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit based at Camp Pendleton in Oceanside, Calif., north of San Diego.

But the 13th MEU, a support unit that has been in Iraq on its current tour for about three months, was already scheduled to return home from Iraq on Nov. 17. Their new date of arrival under the drawdown plan? Still Nov. 17. Other Marine units have been in Iraq as much as three times longer than the 13th MEU, and some active-duty Army soldiers are serving 15-month tours, the longest of the war. Relatives of the 2,000-member 13th MEU, most of whom have known for more than a month that the unit was coming home, are collectively a bit confused by the inclusion of the 13th MEU in the announcement of troop cuts, and some are even angry.

“I think General Petraeus is using normal circumstances and turning them into some kind of big deal,” says Melissa Hurt, 24, wife of a 13th MEU Sgt. Andy Hurt, 24. Originally from Minnesota, the couple has been married for four years and they have a 9-month-old son. “I don’t understand how this can be called a troop reduction since Andy was already scheduled to come home in November and was not scheduled to return to Iraq. There are guys who’ve been in Iraq for more than a year. They should bring them home first. I know my husband agrees with me.” (...)

Retired Army Col. Douglas Macgregor, a defense analyst in Ashburn, Va., who supported the invasion of Iraq and the removal of Saddam Hussein but is critical of the current strategy, shares the skepticism about the troop reduction and why the general chose this particular Marine unit. “It’s deceitful and ultimately destructive to the credibility of the military and the Bush administration,” he says. “To pretend that this plan is a product of some real decision-making by General Petraeus is appalling, and I’m sure the Marines in this unit and their families are not happy about being used.”"

h/t Atrios.

Investigations Galore

by hilzoy

From the Washington Post:

"Howard J. Krongard, the State Department's inspector general, has repeatedly thwarted investigations into contracting fraud in Iraq and Afghanistan, including construction of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, and censored reports that might prove politically embarrassing to the Bush administration, the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform charged yesterday in a 13-page letter. (...)

Waxman accused Howard Krongard of:

▪ Refusing to send investigators to Iraq and Afghanistan to investigate $3 billion worth of State Department contracts.

▪ Preventing his investigators from cooperating with a Justice Department probe into waste and fraud in the construction of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.

▪ Using "highly irregular" procedures to personally exonerate the embassy's prime contractor of labor abuses.

▪ Interfering in the investigation of a close friend of former White House adviser Karl Rove.

▪ Censoring reports on embassies to prevent full disclosure to Congress.

▪ Refusing to publish critical audits of State's financial statements.

Among the e-mails obtained by the committee are exchanges in which staff members discussed Krongard's decision not to cooperate with the Justice Department on the embassy investigation.

"Wow, as we all [k]now that is not the normal and proper procedure," an investigator wrote to John A. DeDona, an assistant inspector general. DeDona forwarded the e-mail to Deputy Inspector General William E. Todd, saying, "I have always viewed myself as a loyal soldier but hopefully you sense my frustration in my voicemail yesterday."

Todd wrote back: "I know you are very frustrated. John, you need to convey to the troops the truth, the IG told us both Tuesday to stand down on this and not assist, that needs to be the message."

DeDona responded: "Unfortunately, under the current regime, the view within INV [the office of investigations] is to keep working the BS cases within the beltway, and let us not rock the boat with more significant investigations.""

Paul Kiel at TPMMuckraker describes one of the most egregious examples:

"There have been allegations that the contractor First Kuwaiti used forced labor building the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. So Krongard looked into it.

Only he had a peculiar method, according to Waxman's investigation. First, he insisted on doing the report entirely by himself and shut out his staff. And instead of seeking out the source of the allegations, he allowed the contractor to choose the employees that he'd interview. He ultimately interviewed six employees.

The result? Krongard declared that he found no evidence of human trafficking.

But when Waxman sought the investigative materials that Krongard had generated in the course of his probing investigation, Krongard only turned over 20 pages total (after a subpoena from Waxman). Of those 20 pages, only six of them were Krongard's own work product -- sketchy handwritten notes from his interviews with the contractor's handpicked witnesses."

It's really worth reading Waxman's entire letter (pdf). If the allegations in it are true, the State Department's IG, whose entire function in life is to ferret out waste, fraud, and corruption, has instead been covering not just for the very things he's supposedly in charge of finding, but slavery. This, no doubt, is just one more example of the Bush administration's desire to bring freedom to the Middle East.

Meanwhile:

"The federal Office of Special Counsel is investigating allegations that Rachel Paulose, U.S. attorney for Minnesota, mishandled classified information, decided to fire the subordinate who called it to her attention, retaliated against others in the office who crossed her, and made racist remarks about one employee."

Besides allegations of leaving classified information about terrorism investigations lying about, "Paulose allegedly denigrated one employee of the office, using the terms “fat,” “black,” “lazy” and “ass.”"

I fail to see why anyone would think that the bet possible candidate for a US Attorney's job would be someone who either leaves classified information lying around or uses terms like that in reference to their subordinates.

Last, but not least, there's the ongoing investigation into Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Intertubes), in which the head of an oil company that was awarded $170 million in government contracts admitted paying for extensive remodeling on Stevens' home. Since Stevens has come up in other contexts as well, there's reason to hope that we might soon see the last of the Senator who just topped The Hill's list of Senators who got the most money in earmarks in this year's Defense Appropriations Bill, and whose pet causes include "the University of Alaska's High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program, which began as a far-fetched investigation into harnessing the power of the aurora borealis" ($100 million.)

And not a moment too soon. (Note: I've put some excerpts from a TNR profile of Stevens below the fold. They're pretty amazing.)