From the NYT:

"WASHINGTON — Adm. William J. Fallon, the top American commander in the Middle East whose views on Iran and other issues have seemed to put him at odds with the Bush administration, is retiring early, the Pentagon said Tuesday afternoon."

This does not bode well. I wonder what is going going on behind the scenes?

I almost forgot my annual President's Day address. This year, we go back to the 2004 SKB archives for a golden oldie, updated for 2008...

Watching Bush's SOTU, I was ticking off the distortions one by one in my mind, thinking about writing them down but then I got sleepy.

Think Progress has chronicled them for us, and done a much better job. Just start at the top and scroll down. Or see the shorter version here.

Bush backs $145 billion economic plan

Stocks fall after Bush announces plan

Bush: "Iran Is a Threat to World Peace"

And more saber rattling...

Someone told Bush that the United States can't afford another war right now because of the looming economic crisis triggered by unregulated predatory lending ripoffs free market forces at work in the changing global economy, so now Iran doesn't have a nuclear weapons program after all.

Iran is expected to obtain nuclear weapons once Democrats take over the White House and Congress, at which time Democratic socialist big-government policies will also wreck the economy.

Fox News reports:

Fred Thompson is likely to say his campaign is not lackluster or lagging behind despite the emerging perception among GOP insiders. The former Tennessee governor must build on a sluggish performance at the Values Voters Summit, in which he spoke for only a few minutes, and then a second appearance on Saturday night for Florida Republicans that some in attendance called embarrassing.

The version of the story linked here still has the error. Other versions have been corrected, and this one probably will be too.

Fox News: We report, you decide if it's accurate!

During our travels, we listened to this new XM station POTUS 08 (XM 130), which is covering the 2008 presidential elections. (It seems mostly right-wing dominated, but maybe they let the left on at midnight when we weren't listening).

We listened to several speeches by GOP candidates at the Family Research Council Value Voters Summit.

Following are some observations, including notes on remarks by Rev. Jim Wallis who appears to be a true Christian who believes in justice and morality as opposed to the fake brand of religion being peddled by the GOP candidates.

The House is scheduled to vote on overriding Bush's veto of the State Children's Health Insurance Program today.

Contrary to GOP talking points, it's not "socialized medicine" for "people who can afford their own insurance." It's insurance (not health care) for people who make too much to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to fork over $12,000 per year for family health insurance. SCHIP premiums range from about $10 per month per child up to $450 per month per family depending on income and which state program.

Nonetheless, the Bush 30% dead-enders will likely block the veto override. Our Congressman, Rep. Jimmy Duncan, will be one of them.

Nearly 10 million children do not have health insurance. The bill would add $35 billion over five years to help cover some of them. That works out to $7 billion per year. The occupation of Iraq is costing us nearly $10 billion per month.

You can contact Rep. Duncan here.

The recent video from Osama bin Laden was leaked to the press before al Qaeda officially released it. This alerted the terrorist organization to a breach in its security, and apparently it has fixed the problem. Whether that was done by killing someone, changing an encryption key or something else is hard to guess, but we have now lost an intelligence conduit into the organization we have spent a trillion dollars fighting.

My two favorite moments of the debate:

• Mike Huckabee proposing a sales tax on prostitutes, pimps, and drug dealers.

• Rudy Giuliani proposing to balance the trade deficit by selling health care to China.

There were other moments of hilarity (and a little insanity). Here are a few:

New flash: Fred Thompson endorses ethanol. In Iowa!

Wasn't this a West Wing episode? The one where every candidate has to go to the corn state of Iowa and endorse a dead-end ethanol energy policy to get in the game?

At least West Wing had credible characters and candidates, even if they were fictional.

Fred Thompson clearly has no big ideas. All he has is dusty, four year old TV scripts. That somebody else has to read to him, because he can't remember much.

Here are some excerpts from last night's debate.

I watched quite a bit of it, and it seemed like one of the better ones. There were substantive questions on substantive issues for the most part. Some of the questions brought out some actual differences among the candidates.

There was also a segment where Russert confronted candidates with tough questions about past mistakes or controversies, and each handled it well, I thought.

More commentary follows...

Dick Morris slams Fred Thompson mercilessly in this Fox News blog post.

"Never going to be viable." "Political lightweight." "Air-headed performances." "Not presidential material." "Complete lack of understanding about critical policy issues." "Out to lunch." "Out of touch." "The ultimate Washington insider."

And those are the nice things he has to say about Thompson.

Hillary Clinton will unveil her plan for universal health coverage in Iowa today. According to the Associated Press, the plan will cost about $110 billion per year and includes the following:

• Requires all individuals to purchase health insurance

• Businesses must offer health insurance to all employees or contribute to a government-run pool

• A small business tax subsidy to offset the cost of providing coverage

• Medicare and the federal employee health insurance plan would be opened up to those who can't get insurance through an employer

The plan would be funded by ending Bush tax cuts for those making more than $250K.

UPDATE: This plan isn't very good, but for exactly the opposite reasons expressed here.

Another fine example of people who don't even bother to read past "Hillary" before offering up idiotic kneejerk reactions, and who have decided to be part of the problem instead of the solution. The irony is that they are too stupid to realize that the Clinton plan perpetuates what they already have which they seem to think is such a great deal, until they might actually need it. I guess they have a problem with eliminating tax cuts for those making over $250K, as if it might apply to them. Hope springs eternal, I guess.

According to Bloomberg, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is leaning towards Edwards:

John Edwards has more support from Service Employees International Union members than any other presidential candidate, though not enough yet for an endorsement, said Andy Stern, president of one of the largest U.S. labor groups.

According to the article, 2000 SEIU leaders will meet in Washington next week to hear from the Democratic presidential hopefuls and conduct a straw poll that will guide the powerful union's endorsement.

According to Olbermann, that will be the theme of Bush's address tonight. The more success "we" have in our "investment" in Iraq, the more troops can come home.

So, he's laying it off on the military, and more specifically the troops? If they do their job they get to come home?

What exactly is their job? Isn't that supposed to be defined by civilian political leadership? Who would that be? Oh, wait...

UPDATE: Well, that was interesting. Too much to parse, except for a couple of things.

First, it appears Sen. Lamar Alexander was hand picked to crank up the Republican rhetorical spin about "changing the mission" and "bi-partisan support" in Congress.

Second, Bush admits that his strategy is a continuing presence "beyond his presidency." In other words (as Bush likes to say), hand the problem off to the next president. Hopefully, permanent bases are just a bonus.

Oh, and one more thing. If we are "driven out of Iraq", the same thing that happened on 9/11 could happen again. So nothing will change for one more Friedman Unit until March, when the commanders on the ground will give their next report on what we should do.

UPDATE: John Edwards: "Our troops are stuck between a president without a plan to succeed and a Congress without the courage to bring them home." Edwards says it is time to end the war, and that the next time Bush asks for more money he has a choice: funding with a firm timeline for withdrawal, or no more funding.

Andrew Sullivan on Fred Thompson:

And so Thompson emerges in the widening sectarian and political gap. Buoyed by celebrity, unencumbered by actual policies, platitudinous on Iraq, but oozing calm, he is the antianxiety medication for a troubled America. I’m just not sure a sedative is what the country really needs right now. A wake-up call would be more appropriate.

Judging from the rest of the column, he's not impressed.

...in New York City!

By way of Whitescreek, the internets are buzzing with the latest revelation that Bush knew there were no WMD in Iraq and withheld this information from Congress before the vote to authorize the use of military force.

In related news, Bush later admitted in a 2004 public speech that there were no WMD, but still privately insisted they were there up until April, 2006.

Is this the portrait of a decisive leader or a disturbed man? (Hint: he sees ghosts.) Only 500 more days until our long national nightmare is over.

Disturbing details here.

From the NYT:

For now, though, Mr. Bush told the author, Robert Draper, in a later session, "I’m playing for October-November." That is when he hopes the Iraq troop increase will finally show enough results to help him achieve the central goal of his remaining time in office: "To get us in a position where the presidential candidates will be comfortable about sustaining a presence," and, he said later, "stay longer."

Keith Olbermann comments:

A man with any self respect, having inadvertently revealed such an evil secret, would have already resigned and fled the country! You have no remaining credibility about Iraq.

Russ McBee explains.

Some might conclude that there are three kinds of criminals in the federal government right now.

Bush: Criminally insane.

Congress: Criminally negligent.

Cheney: Just a plain old criminal.

The Institute for Southern Studies' Gulf Coast Reconstruction Watch continues doing the oversight work Congress either can't or won't do in calling the Bush Administration, and America, to account for what is still (not) happening in New Orleans.

Leading up to the second anniversary of Katrina, Facing South has the following must-reads:

• Blueprint for Gulf Renewal

• Katrina: Our defining moment?

• Washington money not getting to those in need

• Ten important lessons from Katrina

From the recent North American summit, regarding the Northwest Passage:

Prime Minister Harper: "Canada's position is that we intend to strengthen our sovereignty in the Arctic area ... Canada and the U.S. do have differences on certain aspects of the Northwest Passage."

President Bush: "We believe it's an international passageway."

Why does anybody care? Because Global Warming is yielding unexpected benefits.

The House Judiciary Committee has issued Contempt of Congress citations against White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and President Bush's former legal counselor, Harriet Miers. The measure will now move to the House for a full vote.

The White House responds:

"Now we have a situation where there is an attempt to do something that's never been done in American history, which is to assail the concept of executive privilege which hails back to the administration of George Washington and in particular to use criminal contempt charges against the White House chief of staff and the White House legal counsel," said White House Spokesman Tony Snow.

What's never been done in American history is for the executive branch to defy Congress and ignore the Constitution to the extent this administration has.

AG Alberto Gonzales has a new tact when testifying before Congress. He has recused himself from the investigation into the politically motivated firings of U.S. Attorneys because he is the target of some of the inquiries.

So basically he's saying he doesn't have to answer their questions because they are asking him questions. If they weren't asking him questions he could answer them.

Joseph Heller would be proud...

I was going through the old SKB archives looking for posts about the run up to the Iraq invasion, trying to come up with a summary of what the mood was like in the Fall of 2002 and early 2003.

I found some funny stuff, some poorly written stuff, some confused stuff, even some hawkish stuff early on when we were all still furious and hurting over 9/11 (not that it's worn off much, but there have been many distractions and sideshows since). I may put together a compendium of some of those posts sometime.

But it appears my feelings evolved over time, and I finally arrived at this "Special Commentary" style rant which seems to sum it all up. Sadly, not much has changed four and a half years later...

Read more...

Looks like Laura Bush's war on gangs isn't going all that great, just like her husband's war on terror.

Blast from the past after the jump...

Bush just trotted out one of his Stepford Aides to give a press briefing on Homeland Security the growing threat of al-Qaida in Iraq.

Fran Townsend, Bush's Homeland Security Advisor, gave a robotic reading from declassified portions of a National Intelligence Estimate that was long on rhetoric but short on intelligence.

The bottom line is that al-Qaida is stronger in Iraq because our invasion of Iraq has weakened them, or something. It was mostly incoherent, except that we must stay in Iraq to keep us safe here.

Townsend also reiterated the alleged "link" between al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden and the 9/11 attacks, and asserted that because al-Qaida is now in Iraq they have access to chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons, and they will not hesitate to use them against us.

Here's the AP report.

(*Oh, and in case you didn't get the headline joke... although it's not really a laughing matter.)