Matt Latimer was a young speechwriter for George W. Bush in his last two years in office. There are a few excerpts from his upcoming book, SPEECH-LESS, in this month’s GQ Magazine.

Note: I wrote the above, then took a nap. When I sat back down at my computer later to finish it, I had this email from Ralph [ShrinkRap]:

I think this book is going to be a must read. Bush comes off as a total dufus who is interested in his legacy, but otherwise CLUE-LESS, CARE-LESS, and AIM-LESS…

It seems like whenever I get away from my obsession with the absurd torture program of the Bush Administration after 9/11, something I haven’t seen comes along to get me all fired up again – usually from emptywheel, keeper of the flame. Today, she mentions a letter from John Yoo to John Rizzo , CIA General Counsel, on July 13, 2002 [before the two OLC Torture Memos on August 1, 2002 known as Bybee 1 and Bybee 2].

§ 2340. Definitions

As used in this chapter—

(1) “torture” means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control;

(2) “severe mental pain or suffering” means the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from—

(A) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering;

(B) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality;

(C) the threat of imminent death; or

(D) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality; and

(3) “United States” means the several States of the United States, the District of Columbia, and the commonwealths, territories, and possessions of the United States.

The Memos that followed amplified this forced misreading. What makes this letter stand out is Yoo’s obvious coaching on how to avoid prosecution – get an expert opinion. Then two weeks later, Yoo himself provided the very expert opinion they needed.

emptywheel believes that John Bybee, Yoo’s boss, never saw this letter [Bybee: No Written Advice Provided to Any Agency Prior to August 1, 2002]. One would likewise presume that Ashcroft didn’t either. David Addington has been vague on his input into the writing of these letters and Memos. In fact, everyone is vague about being in communication with Yoo during his period as God of Interpretation of the Constitution, the Geneva Conventions, and the U.S. Statutes. They would have us believe that they sent the questions to Yoo. Yoo wrote answers and sent them back. Essentially no one else was in the loop – at the DoJ or at the White House. That is, of course, not true. In the infamous Yoo/Addington appearance in front of a Congressional Committee, Yoo was deliberately evasive and Addington delighted in being combative.

Transcript: President Obama’s Address to Wall Street

;

Boy, Oh, Boy
New York Times
By MAUREEN DOWD
September 12, 2009

The normally nonchalant Barack Obama looked nonplussed, as Nancy Pelosi glowered behind. Surrounded by middle-aged white guys — a sepia snapshot of the days when such pols ran Washington like their own men’s club — Joe Wilson yelled “You lie!” at a president who didn’t.

But, fair or not, what I heard was an unspoken word in the air: You lie, boy! The outburst was unexpected from a milquetoast Republican backbencher from South Carolina who had attracted little media attention. Now it has made him an overnight right-wing hero, inspiring “You lie!” bumper stickers and T-shirts.

The congressman, we learned, belonged to the Sons of Confederate Veterans, led a 2000 campaign to keep the Confederate flag waving above South Carolina’s state Capitol and denounced as a “smear” the true claim of a black woman that she was the daughter of Strom Thurmond, the ’48 segregationist candidate for president. Wilson clearly did not like being lectured and even rebuked by the brainy black president presiding over the majestic chamber.

I’ve been loath to admit that the shrieking lunacy of the summer — the frantic efforts to paint our first black president as the Other, a foreigner, socialist, fascist, Marxist, racist, Commie, Nazi; a cad who would snuff old people; a snake who would indoctrinate kids — had much to do with race. I tended to agree with some Obama advisers that Democratic presidents typically have provoked a frothing response from paranoids — from Father Coughlin against F.D.R. to Joe McCarthy against Truman to the John Birchers against J.F.K. and the vast right-wing conspiracy against Bill Clinton. But Wilson’s shocking disrespect for the office of the president — no Democrat ever shouted “liar” at W. when he was hawking a fake case for war in Iraq — convinced me: Some people just can’t believe a black man is president and will never accept it…

Barry Obama of the post-’60s Hawaiian ’hood did not live through the major racial struggles in American history. Maybe he had a problem relating to his white basketball coach or catching a cab in New York, but he never got beaten up for being black. Now he’s at the center of a period of racial turbulence sparked by his ascension. Even if he and the coterie of white male advisers around him don’t choose to openly acknowledge it, this president is the ultimate civil rights figure — a black man whose legitimacy is constantly challenged by a loco fringe. For two centuries, the South has feared a takeover by blacks or the feds. In Obama, they have both…

“We have a lot of people who really think that the world’s against us,” Fowler said, “so when things don’t happen the way we like them to, we blame outsiders.” He said a state legislator not long ago tried to pass a bill to nullify any federal legislation with which South Carolinians didn’t agree. Shades of John C. Calhoun!

It may be President Obama’s very air of elegance and erudition that raises hackles in some. “My father used to say to me, ‘Boy, don’t get above your raising,’ ” Fowler said. “Some people are prejudiced anyway, and then they look at his education and mannerisms and get more angry at him.” Clyburn had a warning for Obama advisers who want to forgive Wilson, ignore the ignorant outbursts and move on: “They’re going to have to develop ways in this White House to deal with things and not let them fester out there. Otherwise, they’ll see numbers moving in the wrong direction.”

Growing up in the South in the 1940’s, I thought it was all about honor. We stood when people played Dixie and wore confederate caps to school. It’s hard to believe now, but I didn’t know that the Civil War was about slavery. And in my house, a racial slur was grounds for a good spanking. How pride in the confederacy and an injunction against racism could comfortably coexists strikes me as ludicrous now – but that’s the way it was. In early adolescence, my homework assignment was to write about an editorial. The one I picked said the Supreme Court had made a mistake that day. They’d ruled against the Constitution. I looked up the reference in the source of all knowledge, the Compton’s Encyclopedia. So I announced that the editorial was right as I sat on the living room floor writing my report. My mom looked over her glasses and said, "What makes you think the Constitution is right?" The decision was Brown versus the Board of Education. The reference was the 14th Amendment. So, I picked another editorial.

Although I became increasingly sympathetic to the Civil Rights Movement throughout college, it was the bombing of the 16th Street Church in Birmingham that finally brought the whole thing into focus for me. I could still  love my South for her story, and her beauty, her people – but I could no longer verenerate anything that had to do with her racism. There are a lot of us who feel that way. When it came time to settle, I came back to the South. It feels like home. And I’ll have to admit that I feel like people like me have an obligation to stay here to neutralize the remnants of our racist past. That sounds too lofty to be true, but it’s something I’ve felt nonetheless.

When Congressman Joe Wilson yelled out at President Obama’s speech the other night, it felt like a dagger. It wasn’t what he objected to, or whether he was right. It was his contemptuousness. To treat another person with contempt, you have to depersonalize them, dehumanize them, and that’s what Wilson did. He said he was caught up in his emotions. I believe him. I’ve seen that kind of emotion my whole life. It’s called hatred. While I expect Congressman Wilson would deny that characterization, but if it quacks like a duck, it’s a duck. My own emotion that night was shame, even moreso when I found out that he was from South Carolina – the cradle of the Confederacy. I’ve deluded myself that all the insane attacks against Obama are something other than racism, but Joe Wilson put that to rest with two simple words, "You lie!"

^{look at all those white people}

When I saw that sign in this picture from the March on Washington yesterday, I wondered, "Is that sign what all this is about?" Do all those people really think that the health care reform debate is about social welfare for black people, or poor people – an attempt to take their hard earned money and give it away to do-nothings, gangster rappers, drug dealers, welfare mothers, etc.? I try to steer clear of this issue because my feelings about it are too strong [I’ll try to be restrained]. But what these people are thinking is way off the mark…

^{[from the Census Bureau’s annual report on income, poverty and health insurance]}

It’s about this:

^{from: Growth in Health Care Costs, Committee on the Budget United States Senate}

The Health Care Industry is Profiteering – Hospital Corporations, Physicians, Pharmaceuticals, Medical Equipment, Medical Insurance, even Patients. Let me say it again. The Health Care Industry is Profiteering. Those people in that march are healthy, employed, white people who think they’re insured. One big illness and they’ll leave the March on Washington. If they want to learn about "trickle up poverty," let them get sick.

As I was writing this, I got an email from friend Carl pointing to an article in The Atlantic [How American Health Care Killed My Father] which says more eloquently than I ever could what all of this is about. Rather than me summarize it, I suggest you read every word. I wish the people at that deluded March up there would read it too. Here’s an illustration from the article:

Graham: Obama’s Speech Was ‘A Disaster’
TPM
by Ben Frumin
September 10, 2009

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) had an, um, interesting take a few minutes ago on Obama’s health care speech to Congress last night. Appearing on FNC, the GOP Senator called the President’s speech "a disaster" and "combative." "If his goal was to try to unite the Democratic Party and the hard left, maybe he succeeded," Graham said. But what Obama did not do was "create consensus and bring people together."

Just like Obama’s speech, the public option would be "a disaster," Graham said, and Obama’s explanation of it is "not credible."

"I wanna work with Democrats," he added without any apparent sense of irony. "I want a bipartisan bill."

Joe Wilson YouTube: “I Will Not Be Muzzled“
TPM
by Eric Kleefeld
September 10, 2009

Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) has posted this YouTube address, as part of his new fundraising appeal to help defend him from liberal attacks in the wake of his “You lie!” outburst:

“On these issues, I will not be muzzled. I will speak up, and speak loudly, against this risky plan,” Wilson proclaims. “The supporters of the government takeover of health care, and the liberals who want to give health care to illegals, are using my opposition as an excuse to distract from the critical questions being raised about this poorly-conceived plan. they want to silence anyone who speaks out against it. They made it clear they want to defeat me, and pass the plan.”

“Health care is a matter of life and death for so many,” he later adds. “I choose life, with health-insurance reform.”

A Decade With No Income Gains
New York Times
By David Leonhardt
September 10, 2009

The typical American household made less money last year than the typical household made a full decade ago. To me, that’s the big news from the Census Bureau’s annual report on income, poverty and health insurance, which was released this morning. Median household fell to $50,303 last year, from $52,163 in 2007. In 1998, median income was $51,295. All these numbers are adjusted for inflation.

In the four decades that the Census Bureau has been tracking household income, there has never before been a full decade in which median income failed to rise. [The previous record was seven years, ending in 1985.] Other Census data suggest that it also never happened between the late 1940s and the late 1960s. So it doesn’t seem to have happened since at least the 1930s. And the streak probably won’t end in 2009, either. Unemployment has been rising all year, which is a strong sign income will fall.

What’s going on here? It’s a combination of two trends. One, economic growth in the current decade has been slower than in any decade since before World War II. Two, inequality has risen sharply, so much of the bounty from our growth has gone to a relatively small slice of the population.

 

There is an amazing video of Joe Wilson [R-SC] from 2002, essentially as out of control as he was last evening at Obama’s speech.

It wasn’t Joe Wilson’s first time
New York Times
by Jed Lewison
September 10, 2009

Earlier today, Greg Sargent noted an extraordinary outburst by Joe "You Lie" Wilson in 2002, berating his a Democratic colleague, Rep. Bob Filner of California, as an anti-American traitor…

Wilson exploded after Filner stated — correctly — that Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons program had received aid from the United States during the Iran-Iraq war. [For background corroborating Filner’s statement, see this CBS News report and read up on the "American Type Culture Collection" in these articles in the New York Times published in March 2003, November 1996, and February 1994.]