Bookworm

Call Him John the Careless

George F. Will - Call Him John the Careless.

Perhaps Palin's confusion about the office for which she is auditioning comes from listening to its current occupant. Dick Cheney, the foremost practitioner of this administration's constitutional carelessness in aggrandizing executive power, regularly attends the Senate Republicans' Tuesday luncheons. He has said jocularly that he is "a product" of the Senate, which pays his salary, and that he has no "official duties" in the executive branch. His situational constitutionalism has, however, led him to assert, when claiming exemption from a particular executive order, that he is a member of the legislative branch and, when seeking to shield certain of his deliberations from legislative inquiry, to say that he is a member of the executive branch.

Thomas Friedman: 9/11 and 4/11

"When a person is addicted to crack cocaine, his problem is not that the price of crack is going up. His problem is what that crack addiction is doing to his whole body. The cure is not cheaper crack, which would only perpetuate the addiction and all the problems it is creating. The cure is to break the addiction. Ditto for us. Our cure is not cheaper gasoline, but a clean energy system. And the key to building that is to keep the price of gasoline and coal — our crack — higher, not lower, so consumers are moved to break their addiction to these dirty fuels and inventors are moved to create clean alternatives. . . If you want to know what an alternative strategy might look like, read the speech that Al Gore delivered on Thursday to the bipartisan Alliance for Climate Protection. Gore, the alliance’s chairman, called for a 10-year plan — the same amount of time John F. Kennedy set for getting us to the moon — to shift the entire country to “renewable energy and truly clean, carbon-free sources” to power our homes, factories and even transportation. Mr. Gore proposed dramatically improving our national electricity grid and energy efficiency, while investing massively in clean solar, wind, geothermal and carbon-sequestered coal technologies that we know can work but just need to scale. To make the shift, he called for taxing carbon and offsetting that by reducing payroll taxes: Let’s “tax what we burn, not what we earn,” he said. Whether you agree or not with Gore’s plan, at least he has a plan for dealing with the real problem we face — a multifaceted, multigenerational energy/environment/geopolitical problem."  [Op-Ed Columnist - 9/11 and 4/11 - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com.]

Yet again, it does make you wonder what would have happened if Al Gore had been elected President by the American People the Supreme Court in 2000.  I'm obviously still of the opinion that that a smart science-minded guy without familial ties to the oil industry would've been the better choice.

On the other hand, by not becoming President, Gore has been able to focus on critically important issues in a way our Chief Executive would not be able to do.

And while I agree with Friedman's take on this, for the most part, the consumer can't just "decide" to stop on a dime and stop using fossil fuels.  If the government really wants a quick turn-around on this, we're going to need help changing the heating systems in our houses.  There would have to be a multi-year phaseout of the use of heating oil -- and assistance for people who couldn't afford to switch out their current heating system.  If you want people to use public transportation and/or drive hybrids, there would probably have to be some public monies to help support new and existing public transportation initiatives.  There are large swaths of this country where it's too sparsely populated to support adequate public transportation.  There would have to be an adequate supply of hybrids to buy and charging stations along the interstates.  (Note: I'm not 100% sure how hybrids work!  Think they only go so far on a charge or something?  Or is that just completely electric cars?)

Updated 7/22/2008:  Oh, and the public transportation already in existence will have to be better than described here.

NYT Op-Ed: Justice Department no ordinary agency

"Congress has to save the Justice Department, something President Bush shows no interest in doing. It should pass a resolution of “no confidence” in Mr. Gonzales, and push for his removal. But it also needs to insist on new leadership that will restore the department’s traditions of professionalism and impartiality, and re-establish that in the United States, the legal system does not work to advance the interests of a political party." [Why This Scandal Matters - New York Times]

Rumsfeld Resigns

 

"Just days after telling reporters that he would keep Mr. Rumsfeld on for the rest of his term, Mr. Bush said that the two had agreed “after a series of thoughtful conversations” that it was time for Mr. Rumsfeld, a magnet for criticism about management of the war, to go." [NY Times]

Do We Really Want to Go There?

"I know that the members of the Bush Administration have never seen a conflict of interest that they didn't want to perpetrate, and that it is very tempting, if you are power mad, to assert, "I want total power, so I am going to say I have it, and you are going to let me have my way, even though every day in every way I show that I don't have the intelligence or good judgment to wield the power I want," but do we really want to go there as a nation?"  [Jane Smiley: Bizarro President | The Huffington Post]

Late-night comics target Bush

"During the first three months of the year, Bush has been the punch line of 307 monologue jokes by Jay Leno, David Letterman and Conan O'Brien, according to the Center for Media and Public affairs. . . That compares to 197 jokes during the same period last year. . . Most of the jokes are about Bush's intelligence, rather than his policies, the center said. For example: "Did you know former President James Garfield could write Latin with one hand and Greek with the other at the same time?" Leno said. "That was Garfield. When President Bush heard about it, he said, `We had a talking cat for president?'" [AP]  *giggle* 

Tell Us What You Really Think, Jane

"People. . . wonder why George W. Bush continues to pursue policies that 1) damage America 2) are highly unpopular 3) are misguided and 4) are against both international and US law. How about this for a reason--no matter what he does, the journalists who are supposed to hold him to account are breaking bread with him and laughing at his jokes? . . . How is he supposed to actually comprehend that he is on the wrong track, that he has put the nation on the wrong track, that he needs to reform and change his ways, if no one makes sure that he feels social opprobrium for what he has done?" [Jane Smiley | The Huffington Post]

New W.H. Press Secretary

Text of President Bush's announcement Wednesday naming Tony Snow as new White House press secretary, as transcribed by CQ Transcriptions.  Italicized comments in parenthesis by me. [Please note:  I don't know Mr. Snow's work, and this isn't meant as a personal attack on him.  This is primarily just an opportunity to make snarky comments about Bush.]

BUSH: Good morning. I'm here in the briefing room to break some news: I've asked Tony Snow to serve as my new press secretary.  Tony already knows most of you, and he's agreed to take the job anyway. (I love being President because everyone laughs no matter how lame my joke is.) And I'm really glad he did. I'm confident that Tony Snow will make an outstanding addition to this White House staff (because Fox News already basically works for us, anyway). I am confident he will help you do your job (which is to print whatever lies and obfuscations I've made up over breakfast on a given day). My job is to make decisions (too bad I make so many bad ones). And his job is to help explain those decisions to the press corps and the American people (while keeping a straight face and pretending it's not all a crock of bull). He understands like I understand that the press is vital to our democracy.  As a professional journalist(*cough, cough*), Tony Snow understands the importance of the relationship between government and those whose job it is to cover the government (but he's agreed to work for me and help subvert this relationship). He's going to work hard to provide you with timely information about my philosophy (The Tao of Pooh), my priorities (finish up Dad's old business and invade lots of countries and help our friends in the oil business make lots of money) and the actions we are taking to implement our agenda. He brings a long record of accomplishment to this position. . . During his career in print journalism, he's been cited for his work (Wait, "cited" -- is that like traffic tickets?) by the Society of Professional Journalists, The Associated Press and Gannett. For seven years he served as the host of "Fox News Sunday." Most recently, he reached Americans all across our country as the host of "The Tony Snow Show" on Fox News Radio and "Weekend Live with Tony Snow" on the Fox News Channel. He's not afraid to express his own opinions (and we encourage that, as long as they are in complete agreement with my opinions). For those of you who've read his columns and listened to his radio show, he sometimes has disagreed with me. I asked him about those comments, and he said, "You should have heard what I said about the other guy." I like his perspective, I like the perspective he brings to this job, and I think you're going to like it, too (time for a group hug). Tony knows what it's like to work inside the White House. In 1991, he took a break from journalism to serve as director of speechwriting and deputy assistant to the president for media affairs. He's taught children in Kenya (so he'll have no problem relating to me). He belongs to a rock band called Beats Working (which name certainly aligns with my personal philosophy). . . I'm proud to welcome Tony as part of our team. Appreciate you, buddy."  [Washington Post]

Al Gore: "America's Constitution is in grave danger"

". . .[J]ust one month ago, Americans awoke to the shocking news that. . .the Executive Branch has been secretly spying on large numbers of Americans for the last four years and eavesdropping on "large volumes of telephone calls, e-mail messages, and other Internet traffic inside the United States." The New York Times reported that the President decided to launch this massive eavesdropping program "without search warrants or any new laws that would permit such domestic intelligence collection."

During the period when this eavesdropping was still secret, the President went out of his way to reassure the American people on more than one occasion that, of course, judicial permission is required for any government spying on American citizens and that, of course, these constitutional safeguards were still in place.

But surprisingly, the President's soothing statements turned out to be false. Moreover, as soon as this massive domestic spying program was uncovered by the press, the President not only confirmed that the story was true, but also declared that he has no intention of bringing these wholesale invasions of privacy to an end.

At present, we still have much to learn about the NSA's domestic surveillance. What we do know about this pervasive wiretapping virtually compels the conclusion that the President of the United States has been breaking the law repeatedly and persistently.

A president who breaks the law is a threat to the very structure of our government. Our Founding Fathers were adamant that they had established a government of laws and not men. Indeed, they recognized that the structure of government they had enshrined in our Constitution -- our system of checks and balances -- was designed with a central purpose of ensuring that it would govern through the rule of law. As John Adams said: "The executive shall never exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them, to the end that it may be a government of laws and not of men." [Salon.com; subscription (or viewing an ad) required to read full article]

Spy in the White House?

"After the Robert Hanssen spy scandal in 2001, the Federal Bureau of Investigation began a major overhaul of its internal security to prevent employees from pilfering secret records. Among the measures was the increased use of internal computer audits to spot employees like Mr. Hanssen who might be reading records they had no reason to review.

But Leandro Aragoncillo, hired last year as an analyst for the bureau at Fort Monmouth in Eatontown, N.J., appears to have done just that for months without being noticed, officials say. Mr. Aragoncillo is accused of improperly combing the computer system to print or download 101 classified documents on the Philippines, including 37 marked "secret," and passing the information to Manila in his native country."  [NY Times]