Politics: Onward from New Hampshire

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
I'm inclined to think that the revolution in Iraq is one of the more important developments of the second half of the last century, and I'd like to read an account that gives some perspective on it, but it's obviously been tough for Western writers to write that book. Still, I'd appreciate recommendations.

There is a book that came out about the 1953 coup "All the Shah's Men." I haven't read it; l just read the reviews.

This link has interesting scholarly-like articles on Iranian history:

http://www.iranchamber.com/history/history_articles.php
http://www.iranchamber.com/history/a...ent_future.pdf

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by bilmore
Ms. Rice has a fairly cogent rebuttal of Clarke this morning:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2004Mar21.html

Josh Marshall discusses the tension between Rice and Clarke's respective accounts -- indeed, your post anticipates that I will post this in reply that I start to wonder if it wasn't intended to have exactly that effect. Here's what Marshall says:

We seem to have a bit of a contradiction, don't we?

Richard Clarke rolled out his book this evening on 60 Minutes, arguing, in brief, that the Bush administration put counter-terrorism and the hunt for al Qaida on the back burner prior to 9/11 and then after 9/11 immediately started focusing on Iraq even though there was no evidence of Iraqi involvement in 9/11 or even al Qaida terrorism generally.

Meanwhile, on the Washington Post op-ed page, Condi Rice has a lengthy column presenting what can only be called a very, very different picture.

The new administration heeded the warnings of the outgoing Clinton administration and not only focused closely on al Qaida and the rise in chatter in the summer of 2001 but was actually preparing a much more aggressive approach than anything that had been considered previously. What's more, the president himself sensed that not enough was being done and called for further scrutiny into the possibility of a domestic attack and a more aggressive plan to "eliminate" al Qaida.

The president, in the telling of Rice and her deputy Steve Hadley, seems to have been more engaged, forward-thinking and insightful on this issue than literally any other major player on the administration's national security team.

Even with all the vastness of the federal bureaucracy and the possible uncertainties of interpretation, there's no question that one of these two people -- Rice or Clarke -- is misleading us.

Rice was (and is) the president's National Security Advisor. Clarke was in charge of counter-terrorism policy at the National Security Council. Nothing discussed by either on this issue should be a mystery to the other. It's possible that neither is lying in a narrow factual sense. But, at a minimum, one must be giving us a deeply partial and misleading account.

(Clarke is yet to get the 'treatment' from the press. So we'll see how his statements hold up. But on this issue -- what happened pre-9/11 -- and the related yellowcake matter, Rice has already developed a track record of inaccurate, misleading, contradictory and contradicted statements -- which we'll be reviewing in future posts.)

This is why we have a press whose job it is not simply to frame this as a potent he-said/she-said but to dig into the details and find out who isn't leveling with us.

One place to start might be this claim which Steve Hadley made on 60 Minutes (and which is also echoed in Rice's editorial) ...

• Hadley staunchly defended the president to Stahl: "The president heard those warnings. The president met daily with ... George Tenet and his staff. They kept him fully informed and at one point the president became somewhat impatient with us and said, 'I'm tired of swatting flies. Where's my new strategy to eliminate al Qaeda?'"
  Hadley says that, contrary to Clarke's assertion, Mr. Bush didn't ignore the ominous intelligence chatter in the summer of 2001.
  
  "All the chatter was of an attack, a potential al Qaeda attack overseas. But interestingly enough, the president got concerned about whether there was the possibility of an attack on the homeland. He asked the intelligence community: 'Look hard. See if we're missing something about a threat to the homeland.'
  
  "And at that point various alerts went out from the Federal Aviation Administration to the FBI saying the intelligence suggests a threat overseas. We don't want to be caught unprepared. We don't want to rule out the possibility of a threat to the homeland. And therefore preparatory steps need to be made. So the president put us on battle stations."

We've heard the swatting at flies line before. So presumably there must have been some such conversation. The White House has referenced it again and again. But what was the context? And what did it lead to? Documents must have been generated. Directives must have been written up and executed. What are the details?

Someone is not levelling with us. If the press is worth anything it should find out who, right?

eta: Atrios is much rougher on Rice's editorial, noting one outright mistruth.

edited to duplicate Marshall's links

[baltassoc]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
"All the chatter was of an attack, a potential al Qaeda attack overseas. But interestingly enough, the president got concerned about whether there was the possibility of an attack on the homeland. He asked the intelligence community: 'Look hard. See if we're missing something about a threat to the homeland.'

Shit. Was Bush really using the term "the homeland" before 9/11?

I've kind of wrapped my brain around the idea of the Department of Homeland Security in that the phrase makes sense in the context of a "war" on terror and the potential for direct attack on America itself instead of just American allies and and assets, but the term "homeland" has always bothered me as being a little too unamerican for my taste. It smacks of the Fatherland, a very European concept that doesn't feel appropriate in the context of America. I guess I'm saying that I'm bothered by the fact that Bush is either not aware or not bothered by the authoritarian overtones of the phrase.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by taxwonk
The people Skek is talking about are the vast majority of American workers who are living from paycheck to paycheck, with no opportunity for saving, because they have no health insurance, they have minimal benefits if any, many of them cannot now and never will be able to own a home.

Not to diminish the plight of those w/o health insurance, w/o the hope of owning a home, etc., but it is not the "vast majority" of working America, not even close.

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Bush's restaint in these situations is remarkable, but this one might call for a response.

Nah. There's nothing to gain for Bush to respond to it. It gives Carter's views more legitimacy, and that's not what they'd want.

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Not to diminish the plight of those w/o health insurance, w/o the hope of owning a home, etc., but it is not the "vast majority" of working America, not even close.

This exchange made me realize that I didn't really know the percentages of households that are homeowners.

Apparently, if you're a white household, you probably own your house. If you're not white, it's more of a 50-50 proposition.

The overall U.S. homeownership rate now stands at 68.6% overall, and of that, the minority homeownership rate is 50.6%. So sayeth a celebratory White House statement, though I'm sure more direct evidence is available.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Gattigap
Nah. There's nothing to gain for Bush to respond to it. It gives Carter's views more legitimacy, and that's not what they'd want.

There are plenty of people who can trash Carter for him, so he can be presidential.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Not to diminish the plight of those w/o health insurance, w/o the hope of owning a home, etc., but it is not the "vast majority" of working America, not even close.

I think the government should require that all parents buy heath insurance for their children. Of course it would be means tested and low income people would be given assistance as they are now with Medicaid. Those in the gap between being able to afford health insurance and too high of an income for Medicaid could get vouchers.

I remember being in law school and one of my classmates, who grew up on medicaid, talked about how she could afford health insurance for her child, but thought it was cheaper to just pay for doctor visits out of pocket. This is the mentality of many young uninsured adults in this country - they are healthy now and it is cheaper to just pay for medical care than to pay for insurance. They are right as long as all they need is preventive care while in their 20's. Too bad they are too stupid to even buy catastrophic coverage, which is really cheap at that age.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Not to diminish the plight of those w/o health insurance, w/o the hope of owning a home, etc., but it is not the "vast majority" of working America, not even close.

We're getting off track, here. Wonk's point was that the vast majority of American workers are living paycheck to paycheck, and fear job loss far more than they fear macroeconomic inefficiencies or suboptimal GDP growth. They will vote accordingly. Is that seriously in dispute?

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Gattigap
This exchange made me realize that I didn't really know the percentages of households that are homeowners.

Apparently, if you're a white household, you probably own your house. If you're not white, it's more of a 50-50 proposition.

The overall U.S. homeownership rate now stands at 68.6% overall, and of that, the minority homeownership rate is 50.6%. So sayeth a celebratory White House statement, though I'm sure more direct evidence is available.

Good now we're talking math, and once we're talking math there's a good chance someone will say hot chicks can't do math, then.......

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
There are plenty of people who can trash Carter for him, so he can be presidential.

Sometimes it's more effective to simply roll your eyes and say nothing and act like your weird old uncle has passed gas at Christmas dinner.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
There are plenty of people who can trash Carter for him, so he can be presidential.

Too bad for Carter that the chose to behave in such an unpresidential like manner. I know he isn't the president any longer (thank you jesus), however, ex-presidents have historically behaved much better than he is behaving.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
We're getting off track, here. Wonk's point was that the vast majority of American workers are living paycheck to paycheck, and fear job loss far more than they fear macroeconomic inefficiencies or suboptimal GDP growth. They will vote accordingly. Is that seriously in dispute?

Foundation for "vast majority living paycheck to paycheck"?

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Good now we're talking math, and once we're talking math there's a good chance someone will say hot chicks can't do math, then.......

Hey, Hank. Yesterday I had a couple of beers with a guy who works at SLAC. I was too awed to remember to ask him whether he works directly under Eva, but --- and you'll have to trust me on this --- he's nowhere near Eva's league. He's sorta more your traditional physics dork (no offense). The only chance he'd have for Eva to get out of shower to pee on him is if it were purely accidental, and not in the cool quantum physics sense of accidental. But he's got the proximity advantage over you. Word to the wise.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Gattigap
The overall U.S. homeownership rate now stands at 68.6% overall, and of that, the minority homeownership rate is 50.6%. So sayeth a celebratory White House statement, though I'm sure more direct evidence is available.

But that includes all households at the present time, which includes people in their 20's.

A better figure for this discussion is the number who will own a house in their lifetime. The reason being that taxwonk was claiming that the vast majority of American workers will never own a home.

It isn't a problem if workers in their 20's don't own a home, yet. If they never own a home, that is a problem.