1 Boring Old Man

Krugman Says No Signs of ‘V-Shaped’ Economic Recovery
Bloomberg
By Dara Doyle and Louisa Nesbitt
June 5, 2009

Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman said the world’s economy is showing “not a hint” of a “V-shaped” recovery marked by a swift decline and revival. The economy is “stabilizing, not recovering,” Krugman, an economics professor at Princeton University in New Jersey, said today at a conference in Dublin. “Things are getting worse more slowly.”

Data this month showed that the contraction in Europe’s manufacturing and service industries is easing and confidence in the economic outlook is rising. The U.S. lost fewer jobs in May than forecast, a report today showed. The International Monetary Fund says its forecast for global growth of 1.9 percent next year is based on the premise of a healthy financial system.

“We have made the transition from sheer panic to chronic anxiety,” Krugman said, adding he’s has a “hard time” seeing what might drive a “full” economic recovery.

U.S. payrolls fell by 345,000 in May, the smallest decrease in eight months, after a revised 504,000 loss in April, the Labor Department said today in Washington. The U.S. policy response to the economic crisis has been “extraordinarily aggressive,” Krugman said. “Unfortunately, it hasn’t been enough.” The country will need “some form of new taxes” to bring down its deficit, he added. Service industries in the U.S. shrank at a slower pace in May while job losses mounted, indicating that any economic recovery will be slow to develop.

“The euro zone, like the United States, I fear, could be facing kind of a lost decade,” Krugman said.

In the US Attorney firing hearings, a freshman Senator, Sheldon Whitehouse, emerged as a star. He showed us a chart of how the DoJ had been invaded by the Bush Administration White House:

Back during the Hearings about the U.S. Attorney firings, we met an unusual character named James Comey. He was Deputy Attorney General under AG John Ashcroft. What was unusual about him was that he was an honest man, a person whose integrity was visible from a hundred yards. During his tenure, John Ashcroft got sick, and Comey personally staved off Alberto Gonzales’ attempt to get Ashcroft to sign off on something Comey had refused [as acting AG] to sign. Also, when Ashcroft was forced to recuse himself in the investigation of the C.I.A. Leak, James Comey appointed Patrick Fitzgerald as Special Prosecutor, giving him the broad powers he needed to do his job. Not too long after Alberto Gonzales became AG, Comey resigned.

After Comey testified in the U.S. Attorney Hearings, there was some attempt to discredit him – something about some house he bought. I don’t recall the details, but it never went anywhere. But as you will see, there’s a new attempt to pre-emptively take him out in a manner similar to the Joseph Wilson take-down. If you have the time, look at the documents below in order:

• Comey’s leaked EMails
• The Bradbury Memos from the O.L.C.
• todays shameful New York Times article
• our voice of truth [emptywheel] responding to the article.

But first take a look at these lines from the leaked emails, lest you had any doubt that the White House was deeply involved in drafting the legal opinions they hide behind in the Torture Debates:

JIM COMEY’S LEAKED EMAILS

• Comey’s EMails

THE BRADBURY MEMOS

THE NEW YORK TIMES ARTICLE

U.S. Lawyers Agreed on the Legality of Brutal Tactic
New York Times
By SCOTT SHANE and DAVID JOHNSTON
June 6, 2009

^{When Justice Department lawyers engaged in a sharp internal debate in 2005 over brutal interrogation techniques, even some who believed that using tough tactics was a serious mistake agreed on a basic point: the methods themselves were legal. Previously undisclosed Justice Department e-mail messages, interviews and newly declassified documents show that some of the lawyers, including James B. Comey, the deputy attorney general who argued repeatedly that the United States would regret using harsh methods, went along with a 2005 legal opinion asserting that the techniques used by the Central Intelligence Agency were lawful.}

^{That opinion, giving the green light for the C.I.A. to use all 13 methods in interrogating terrorism suspects, including waterboarding and up to 180 hours of sleep deprivation, “was ready to go out and I concurred,” Mr. Comey wrote to a colleague in an April 27, 2005, e-mail message obtained by The New York Times. While signing off on the techniques, Mr. Comey in his e-mail provided a firsthand account of how he tried unsuccessfully to discourage use of the practices. He made a last-ditch effort to derail the interrogation program, urging Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales to argue at a White House meeting in May 2005 that it was “wrong.”}

^{“In stark terms I explained to him what this would look like some day and what it would mean for the president and the government,” Mr. Comey wrote in a May 31, 2005, e-mail message to his chief of staff, Chuck Rosenberg. He feared that a case could be made “that some of this stuff was simply awful.”}

^{The e-mail messages are now in the hands of investigators at the department’s Office of Professional Responsibility, which is preparing a report expected to be released this summer on the Bush administration lawyers who approved waterboarding and other harsh methods. The inquiry, under way for nearly five years, will be the Justice Department’s fullest public account of its role in the interrogation program, which President Obama has ended. In years of bitter public debate, the department has sometimes seemed like a black-and-white moral battleground over torture. The main authors of memorandums authorizing the methods — John C. Yoo, Jay S. Bybee and Steven G. Bradbury — have been widely pilloried as facilitators of torture. Others, including Mr. Comey, Jack Goldsmith and Daniel Levin, have largely escaped criticism because they raised questions about interrogation and the law.}

^{But a closer examination shows a more subtle picture. None of the Justice Department lawyers who reviewed the interrogation question argued that the methods were clearly illegal…}

emptywheel‘s Comments

• Pre-Emptive Strike on OPR Report: NYT Misrepresents Comey Emails, Claims He Approved Torture
• The May 10, 2005 Opinions Were Retrospective
• All the News NYT Does Not See Fit to Print

Cheney Blames Richard Clarke For 9/11: ‘He Missed It’
ThinkProgress
08/06/2009

…Speaking at the National Press Club today, Cheney struck back at Clarke. When asked about Clarke’s argument, Cheney — once again — invoked the “burning ashes” of 9/11 and the victims who leaped to their deaths from the World Trade Center. Then, quite succinctly, Cheney pinned the entire blame for 9/11 on Clarke:

CHENEY: You know, Dick Clarke. Dick Clarke, who was the head of the counterrorism program in the run-up to 9/11. He obviously missed it. The fact is that we did what we felt we had to do, and if I had to do it all over again, I would do exactly the same thing.

Watch it:

…The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation,” reprinted some of Clarke’s emphatic e-mails warning the Bush administration of the al Qaeda threat throughout 2001:

• “Bin Ladin Public Profile May Presage Attack” (05/03)
• “Terrorist Groups Said Co-operating on US Hostage Plot” (05/23)
• “Bin Ladin’s Networks’ Plans Advancing” (05/26)
• “Bin Ladin Attacks May Be Imminent” (06/23)
• “Bin Ladin and Associates Making Near-Term Threats” (06/25)
• “Bin Ladin Planning High-Profile Attacks” (06/30)
• “Planning for Bin Ladin Attacks Continues, Despite Delays” (07/02)

Similarly, Time Magazine reported in 2002 that Clarke had an extensive plan to “roll back” al Qaeda — a plan that languished for months, ignored by senior Bush officials:

Clarke, using a Powerpoint presentation, outlined his thinking to Rice. … In fact, the heading on Slide 14 of the Powerpoint presentation reads, “Response to al Qaeda: Roll back.” … The proposals Clarke developed in the winter of 2000-01 were not given another hearing by top decision makers until late April, and then spent another four months making their laborious way through the bureaucracy before they were readied for approval by President Bush.

Cheney needs to check his “recollections” before blaming former employees for the single most devastating attack in American history.

Cheney’s sarcastic and contemptuous comments about Richard Clarke were way over the top – "He missed it" and "I haven’t read his book" [hardy-har-har]. Jon Stewart took him to task, but there wasn’t so much coverage otherwise. It’s reminiscent of his response to Joseph Wilson [funny how people’s patterns repeat] – a massive over-reaction that will haunt Cheney for some time to come. He already has one recent gaffe under his belt [Colin Powell not being a Republican]. But this one’s worse, and so easily refuted by the public record. There may come a day when Richard Clarke’s bust will be in the 9/11 museum or the Smithsonian – not only for his numerous warnings about 9/11, but for his heroism in directing things on that day while Dick Cheney was cowering in a bunker  developing PTSD and George W. Bush was reading a story to children about goats, looking like a scared rabbit. Richard Clarke is a national hero, not an object of derision for Cheney’s sadistic pleasure. The show Cheney puts on in this video is enough already. In a quote from our history:

"Until this moment," … "I think I have never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness. … Little did I dream you could be so reckless and so cruel as to do an injury to that lad. … It is, I regret to say, equally true that I fear he shall always bear a scar needlessly inflicted by you. If it were in my power to forgive you for your reckless cruelty I would do so. I like to think that I am a gentle man, but your forgiveness will have to come from someone other than me. … Let us not assassinate this lad further, … You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"
Joseph N. Welch, the Joseph McCarthy Hearings 1954

The Cairo Speech
New York Times: Editorial
June 4, 2009

When President Bush spoke in the months and years after Sept. 11, 2001, we often — chillingly — felt as if we didn’t recognize the United States. His vision was of a country racked with fear and bent on vengeance, one that imposed invidious choices on the world and on itself. When we listened to President Obama speak in Cairo on Thursday, we recognized the United States.

Mr. Obama spoke, unwaveringly, of the need to defend the country’s security and values. He left no doubt that he would do what must be done to defeat Al Qaeda and the Taliban, while making it clear that Americans have no desire to permanently occupy Afghanistan or Iraq. He spoke, unequivocally, of the United States’ “unbreakable” commitment to Israel and of why Iran must not have a nuclear weapon. He was also clear that all of those listening — in the Muslim world and in Israel — must do more to defeat extremism and to respect the rights of their neighbors and their people…

Like many people, we were listening closely to how the president would address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He did not shy away from pressing Israel’s new government, insisting that the construction of settlements must stop, the existence of a Palestinian state cannot be denied, and “the situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable.” In the same stern tone, he pressed the Palestinians to reject violence and said that Arab states must stop using the conflict “to distract” their people from other problems. They must recognize Israel and do more to help Palestinians build strong state institutions…

On Iran, Mr. Obama warned that its pursuit of nuclear weapons could set off a dangerous arms race in the Middle East. He also renewed his offer of serious negotiations…

… He said the war in Afghanistan was one of necessity and insisted that despite the high cost, in lives and treasure, America’s commitment will not weaken. At the same time, Mr. Obama said the war in Iraq was a war of “choice that provoked strong differences in my country and around the world”…

Before Thursday’s speech, and after, Mr. Obama’s critics complained that he has spent too much time apologizing and accused him of weakening the country. That is a gross misreading of what he has been saying — and of what needs to be said. After eight years of arrogance and bullying that has turned even close friends against the United States, it takes a strong president to acknowledge the mistakes of the past. And it takes a strong president to press himself and the world to do better.

I think I’m beginning to see why he’s so unflappable. I guess it’s easy to be calm when you just say as clearly as you can what is the truth about your topic, or at least as close to the relative truth as you can get. You don’t have to convince anyone of anything, all you have to do is lay it out with as much honesty as you can muster, and let the fact that you’re not holding your cards close to your chest carry the day. After years of artifice and obfuscation, what Obama does is all that we require of him. The fact that he projects both sincerity and graciousness is gravy on an already full plate.

JUNE 5, 2009

O’REILLY: Okay? The bottom line on it is that President Bush may have been right in a lot of the things that he said and did during the war on terror in his administration. But the Muslim world would not listen to him. They wouldn’t. They didn’t like him. They hated him. He was demonized. And they didn’t like him at all.
ROVE: No, I totally disagree with you.
O’REILLY: The Muslim world –
ROVE: Totally disagree with you.
O’REILLY: — the Muslim people. They didn’t like him.
ROVE: Well, no, no. Look, I disagree with you.
O’REILLY: Well, all the polls showed in every Muslim country that President Bush’s approval rating was 20 percent. So I mean how can you disagree?
ROVE: You know what? Who cares about whether or not they approve or like the president of the United States? The question is do they respect the policies of the United States government? And you bet they did. Because we showed strength and power and influence. I thought one commentator put it pretty good. The most powerful thing that Barack Obama has done to win the respect of the Islamic people, of the Muslim people around the world was three well-placed shots to in a negotiation with terrorists who had hijacked a U.S. boat.

JUNE 22, 2005

ROVE: But perhaps the most important difference between conservatives and liberals can be found in the area of national security. Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers. In the wake of 9/11, conservatives believed it was time to unleash the might and power of the United States military against the Taliban; in the wake of 9/11, liberals believed it was time to… submit a petition. I am not joking. Submitting a petition is precisely what Moveon.org did. It was a petition imploring the powers that be” to “use moderation and restraint in responding to the… terrorist attacks against the United States.”

I don’t know about you, but moderation and restraint is not what I felt as I watched the Twin Towers crumble to the earth; a side of the Pentagon destroyed; and almost 3,000 of our fellow citizens perish in flames and rubble.

Moderation and restraint is not what I felt – and moderation and restraint is not what was called for. It was a moment to summon our national will – and to brandish steel.

MARCH 20, 2008

ROVE: Well, remember, we removed, as you said, Saddam Hussein in 22 days. But then the enemy, the Al Qaeda extremists, decided to make the central battlefield in the global war on terror. This will be worth that if we win. If we win we will have dealt the enemy a huge blow in a battlefield they chose to confront us on.
And it will send a powerful message throughout the Islamic world. I think Bernard Lewis of Princeton is accurate. That the Muslim world is waiting to see who is going to win the conflict. Is it going to be the West or is it going to be Al Qaeda? And by winning, we will send a powerful message that the momentum is on our side. And it will rally the Muslim world to us. It will also create a huge influence in the Middle East. Think about the creation of the democracy in the historic center of the Middle East with the third-largest oil reserves in the world. If we have a functioning democracy in Iraq, that’s an ally in the war on terror, a counterweight to mullahs Iran and to Assad in Syria, this will create a very hopeful center of reform and energy for reform throughout the Middle East.

"You know what? Who cares about whether or not they [Muslims] approve or like the president of the United States? The question is do they respect the policies of the United States government? And you bet they did. Because we showed strength and power and influence."

It’s when they do the Dirty Harry talk that the abject ignorance of the people we let run our country for eight years really comes through. I think they actually believe what they’re saying. And what an unlikely lot to talk like that – a Yale Cheerleader, a college drop-out, a Yale flunk-out… None of them had any military experience. None of them has the Dirty Harry charisma, yet when push comes to shove, they espouse a notion of world politics that went out of favor with the fall of the Monarchs and exists only in primitive places in the world. Sadly, I don’t think it goes any deeper than something like, "We need to kick some ass." They actually pulled their power play on us, you and me, and it damn sure didn’t make us respect them. They showed their "strength and power and influence" and it created an army of those of us who oppose them on a daily basis.

And as for Rove’s comment, "Who cares about whether or not they [Muslims] approve or like the president of the United States? The question is do they respect the policies of the United States government?" We know the answer to his question. They don’t respect the policies of the United States government, and I don’t blame them after what we did in response to 9/11 – after what we did at Abu Ghraib.

The Hill’s Campfire Games on Intelligence Briefings
By: emptywheel
June 5, 2009

The Hill has a childish article out–one that encourages our Congress to function like a child’s playroom, and one that manufactures "news" at the whim of its sources. The "story," as told by the Hill, is that Republicans attended a closed briefing, and then came out and made claims about what they heard in the briefing.

Now, reading those first few paragraphs, you’d think you’d find a series of quotes from Republicans in the article that supported the claim that torture "had led to information that prevented terrorist attacks," right? The Hill promised "on the record interviews." As it turns out, the Hill gives us just one on-the-record quote from a Republican who attended the briefing, and it doesn’t quite live up to billing:

Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.), a member of the subcommittee who attended the hearing, concurred with Hoekstra [who was not at the briefing, that they told him interrogation worked].
 
“The hearing did address the enhanced interrogation techniques that have been much in the news lately,” Kline said, noting that he was intentionally choosing his words carefully in observance of the committee rules and the nature of the information presented.
 
“Based on what I heard and the documents I have seen, I came away with a very clear impression that we did gather information that did disrupt terrorist plots,” Kline said.

Kline makes two claims:

1. The hearing did "address" techniques that have been in the news lately
2.  We did gather information that did disrupt terrorist plots

And from this, the apparently English-challenged Hill writer, Jared Allen, claims that GOP members–plural–said they "were informed that the controversial methods have led to information that prevented terrorist attacks." In the bits Allen quotes, after all, Kline makes no claims they were even briefed about what information they got from torture, and he certainly makes no claim that the information that disrupted terrorist plots came from torture. Maybe Kline said it, but if so, Allen forgot to report it. Just like he forgot to report the other on-the-record interviews proving this case. Now what Allen does give us, in abundance, is on-the-record quotes from Republicans who didn’t attend the briefing. There’s Crazy Pete Hoekstra, who wasn’t at the briefing:

“Democrats weren’t sure what they were going to get,” said Rep. Pete Hoekstra (Mich.), ranking Republican on the Intelligence panel, referring to information on the merits of enhanced interrogation techniques. “Now that they know what they’ve got, they don’t want to talk about it.”
[snip]
Hoekstra did not attend the hearing, but said he later spoke with Republicans on the subcommittee who did.  He said he came away with even more proof that the enhanced interrogation techniques employed by the CIA proved effective.
 
“I think the people who were at the hearing, in my opinion, clearly indicated that the enhanced interrogation techniques worked,” Hoekstra said.

It seems to me the story from these quotes ought to be:

• The Ranking Member of HPSCI thinks people should immediately talk about the content of classified briefings
• The Ranking Member of HPSCI treats hearsay–the comments of his members who attended a briefing–as proof
• The Ranking Member of HPSCI is politicizing intelligence

But instead, Allen seems to have followed Hoekstra down the road of taking hearsay evidence as clear proof [it’s not even clear that Allen asked Hoekstra who he had talked to about the briefing]. And then, Allen relies on a quote from John Boehner that doesn’t even pertain to this briefing.

“It’s been three weeks since I asked Speaker Pelosi to back up her allegations that the CIA lied to her or purposely misled her,” Boehner said at his weekly press conference. “Allowing this to hang out there is unconscionable. And I just think the silence from Speaker Pelosi is deafening.”

That’s it. That’s what the Hill’s Jared Allen gave us to back up his claim that Republicans, in on-the-record interviews, made claims about those briefings. I don’t know whether Jared Allen is this dumb or what, but congratulations to Crazy Pete–you sure found your mark, a reporter so gullible he’d print your story, absent any proof, and with it declare "a firestorm" that serves your political spin. 

Me, I think the Hill’s marshmallow just went up in flames.

STEP 1: REFRAME THE ISSUE INTO ANOTHER ISSUE YOU’D RATHER TALK ABOUT OR DEFEND.

STEP 2: FLOOD THE MEDIA WITH THE POINT YOU WANT TO MAKE, IGNORING THE ORIGINAL POINT AT ALL COSTS.

STEP 3: LIE OR DISTORT WHENEVER POSSIBLE TO MAKE THE REFRAMED POINT TRUE, WHETHER IT IS OR NOT. EVEN IF YOU GET CAUGHT IN THE LIE, YOU’VE STILL GOTTEN PEOPLE AWAY FROM THE ORIGINAL POINT.

Sound familiar? Like 9/11, the IRAQ WAR, the outing of VALERIE PLAME, the unwarranted N.S.A. Spying, the Torture Program, firing the U.S. Attorneys, etc.

So, in spite of they fact that emptywheel has just disembowelled yesterday’s attempt to make points on the "Torture is useful" front, let’s get back to the center of things. Torture is un-American, against U.S. Laws, and our Geneva Convention committments. "Effective" is immaterial [and, by the way, it also doesn’t work]…

End of the Panic?
New York Times
By David Leonhardt
06/05/2009

Despite the jump in the unemployment rate, today’s jobs report qualifies as very good news. The economy lost 345,000 jobs in May, the smallest loss since October and a significantly smaller one than economists were expecting. The monthly job loss has now declined for four straight months, after a peak decline of 741,000 jobs in January. The report also showed smaller job losses in March and April than the Labor Department had previously estimated.

“What’s happening here is the end of the post-Lehman panic, which hugely accelerated the pace of losses,” Ian Shepherdson, chief United States economist at High Frequency Economics, wrote to clients.

The unemployment rate — now 9.4 percent, its highest level since 1983 — doesn’t usually signal a turning point in the economy. It’s known as a lagging indicator, because it continues to worsen for months even after the economy starts to improve. A better indicator is the monthly change in overall employment, and it suggests the worst job losses of the Great Recession may now be over.

Jobless Rate Hits 9.4 Percent in May; Layoffs Slow
By Neil Irwin
Washington Post
June 5, 2009

Employers slashed jobs at a much more measured rate than expected in May, even as the unemployment rate soared above 9 percent for the first time in 26 years, the Labor Department said today. According to data that simultaneously show how deep the recession has become and offer hope that it might taper off in the months ahead, a net total of 345,000 net jobs were cut in May — terrible by most standards but the smallest rate of job loss since September.

Economists had expected a much worse loss, of as many as 525,000 jobs. The Labor Department also said that April job losses were somewhat less severe than originally reported.

Meanwhile, the unemployment rate – which is based on a survey of households rather than of businesses – rose to 9.4 percent, from 8.9 percent in April. The last time the jobless rate was that high was 1983.

The information was welcome news, despite the rising jobless rate, because it suggested the furious pace of job losses – which peaked at 741,000 jobs lost in January – is finally easing. It is the strongest evidence yet that the economy’s downdraft of the winter has given way to a more steady, measured decline.

 

I guess we’ll have to wait until next month to see if it continues to rise, but it is on the way up. And the Consumer Price Index is due out in mid-month [though  a deflationary spiral is unlikely at this point].

Are we out of danger? I have only been a self-declared economist for about nine months, but from what I see, it looks like we’re on the way out, even though I expect we have a long "slump" ahead of us. Frankly, I find our resilience truly remarkable. A lot has happened. We’ve had a trillion dollar bail-out, and a trillion dollar stimulus, and the bankruptcy or nationalization of huge financial and industrial sectors. The Republican idiots who caused all of this are screaming their heads off about socialism [they sound like some hopeless drunk blaming his alcoholism on his wife]. And, in spite of all the chaos, our young President just walked into the middle of the muddle of the Middle East and told it like it is – and did it with style.

Now, the question is how resilient are we going to be when Osama bin Laden or the Taliban cook up yet another grand scheme to test us; or when the Republicans claim that the recovery would’ve happened without all the interventions; or when they say that Obama used the recession to take over the country for Karl Marx; or whatever new Talking Point Karl Rove, Newt Gingrich, the silly Fox News-ters, Rush Limbaugh, John Boehner, and/or the Cheney twins role out for the upcoming season.

 

Former CIA station chief challenges claims that torture thwarted terror attacks
Raw Story
By Larisa Alexandrovna
June 2, 2009

Milton Bearden, a former Central Intelligence Agency Pakistan station chief who served at the agency for three decades, says claims that the Bush administration’s so-called enhanced interrogation techniques saved American lives are likely false. The retired senior CIA officer also says that the former administration’s repeated assertions that attacks were foiled through torture are hurting US credibility abroad, endangering alliances and aiding the cause of would-be terrorists.

Bearden, who formerly headed the CIA’s Soviet/East European Division and served as station chief in Pakistan, Nigeria and Sudan, was a key figure in the funding and training of the mujahedeen in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation. He retired in 1994 but says he has communicated with contacts who agree they’ve heard of no evidence to support Bush officials’ claims. If the Bush administration had proof of a plot stopped by enhanced interrogation, they would have produced it, Bearden says. “I cannot imagine that the system would not have leaked such a story,” he insists. “It would have been leaked in a New York minute”…

Two active CIA officers agree

Two other CIA officers, who have asked to remain anonymous due to their ongoing involvement in covert operations, seconded Bearden’s skepticism that any domestic plots of significance were disrupted during the Bush administration.

“Certain officials of the Bush administration would have had no qualms about exposing any of our officers, operational methods and sources of information if it meant scoring political points,” said one CIA covert officer, whose focus is the Middle-East, referring to the outing of CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson. “The fact that [the Bush administration officials] continue to use the protection of sources and methods as a reason for why they can produce no evidence of a serious plot is not believable given what they have already made public.”

Another current CIA officer who works the Near East agreed that if any plot had actually been disrupted, someone from the Bush administration would certainly have leaked the proof, noting, “Nothing is sacred to them.”

More chatter. There have to be lots of people out there who know from their own experience that what Cheney is currently trying to sell us is irrational. The timeline just doesn’t work. He keeps talking about how the enhanced interrogation methods gave us lifesaving information, yet the main waterboarding period was before the invasion of Iraq, and before the Abu Ghraib photographs alerted us to what was going on. All of Cheney’s defense of these methods came much later, in 2005. We’d stopped with the waterboarding long before. They seem fixated on the fact that Democrat Congress members knew about it. I don’t know anything about that. But what I do know is that it looks to me like the timeline fits the allegations that the torture program came in the period when they were mounting a campaign for war.

And what Milton Beardon says is compelling to me. If the Bush Administration was biting at the bit to tell us that a two bit italian forgery about Niger uranium was real, or that missle casings were part of a plot to concentrate uranium, or that al Qaeda and Saddam were in cahoots, or pass on the fabrications of some I.N.C. guy the Germans called curveball who they’d never even met, then I think any real thwarted Terrorist Attack would have been shouted from the rooftop of the White House. And if it’s the release of documents that they want, how about they could’ve released them on January 19th, 2009. Or Cheney could just tell us about them.

Well, I would — you know, I’m, of course, a proud father, but I’d love to see her run for office some day. I think she’s got a lot to offer. And it’s been a great career for me. And if she has the interest, and I think she does, then I would like to see her to embark upon a career in politics.