Karl Rove

Redstate notes that "Cheney Warned Of Iraq 'Quagmire'":

I don't know what to say. Maybe something like I hate it when he's right? I don't think Iraq is a quagmire. Progress is being made. So much so that even the New York Times had to acknowledged it and there is talk of some Democrats being worried about facing a voter backlash for pandering to the left wing defeatists.

I was speaking with a Marine Master Sargent last week. He was getting ready for his second deployment to Iraq. Asked what he thought of our efforts he said He has 25 years in the Corps, looking to make it 30, he expects he will have three more Iraq tours. He thought for a moment and said 'we just need more time. You have to give us more time.'

The problem with Cheney's use of the q-word is that ever since we gave up in Vietnam, quagmire equates to failure in our political lexicon. We have not failed in Iraq, not yet, regardless of what the Democrats and the main stream media say. Another problem is that we can't look at the post-9/11 world through pre-9/11 lenses. September 11th changed everything.

Did September 11th change anything but the level of fear-mongering by the right? I'm still waiting for someone to explain how 9/11 changed anything fundamental about our strategic security. Yeah it was scary, but was it "throw out the Constitution" scary? Blitzkrieg in Poland changed everything. Pearl Harbor changed everything. The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand changed everything. The "shot heard 'round the world" changed everything.

But did the mass-murderous fanaticism of 19 criminal skyjackers change everything? Or did it just change us?

Karl Rove's departure announcement comes while we as a country wrestle with the utter debacle that he helped create: the violent occupation of Iraq. It was our ill-intentioned, ill-conceived and woefully ineptly executed invasion and occupation of Iraq, not 9/11, that changed everything. It was our polarization of the world by an administration hell-bent on destroying Saddam Hussein, the man who betrayed the oil men (and let's all now remember all those photos of Saddam shaking hands with American "statesmen"), that changed everything.

It is the continuing state of the State of Iraq that has changed everything. Iraq, which had nothing to do with 9/11. (Hello? Is anyone on the right keeping their ears unplugged?)

This isn't about party. Most of the Democrats in Washington are culpable in enabling the worst foreign policy blunder in America's history, too. This is about bringing America back to the good fight, the smart play, the leadership role in the world -- leading by example, not by sending our finest fighting men and women into neighborhoods to establish democracy at the point of a gun, not by keeping our soldiers and Marines (and as many, if not more, private "contractors") in those neighborhoods with the impossible mission of policing a civil war.

Meanwhile the guy behind the attacks that supposedly "changed everything" -- Osama bin Laden, remember him? -- where is he? "Oh, don't talk about him. Al-Qaeda is in Iraq!" the right cries a cappella. Yeah, some of them are. I wonder why.

The right seems to be obsessed with appearing strong rather than being strong. While the mission of the war on Iraq and the definition of "victory" remain terribly vague, what's becoming quite clear is that this war has become a point of pride for the fragile ego of the modern American conservative.

Conservatism once stood for small government and balanced budgets. Conservatism once opposed "nation building." Conservatism once fought for civil liberties. No longer.

The takeover of the Republican Party by the neocons and "holy rollers" (as Victor Gold calls them) -- that changed everything.

Members of the Beltway press are big on sneering at "the blogs." Amateurs, they say. We tell the people what's important, they say.

But then we see this:

White House adviser Karl Rove boogied, backed by NBC's David Gregory, Brian Wiliams burped the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" and the President cracked wise, all to the general delight, and occasional gales of laughter, of journalists gathered for the Radio & Television Correspondents Association dinner in Washington.

Rove was a better sport than a dancer, tapped by the surprise entertainment--Whose Line is It Anyway's Colin Mochrie and Brad Sherwood--for an improv rap number featuring "MC Rove," with Gregory as one of his backup dancers, and based on information supplied by Rove that, among other things, he collected stamps and liked to "tear the tops" off of small animals.

Rove got into the spirit of the bit, though when President Bush was asked to supply a rap nickname for Rove, his response was "Your Fired!" Sherwood then suggested Rove had offered his resume to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, one of a host of legislators in attendance at the annual dinner at the Washington Hilton.

...and wonder why they wonder why we bloggers turn a jaundiced eye towards their coverage of Washington. How many stories got press attention only because bloggers pushed it? Would we even be talking about the Justice Department fiasco if a blogger had not raked for coals?

Keep belching, Mr. Williams. Very dignified behavior for our "professional" fourth estate.

I'm struck by today's news that President Bush has designated an ecological treasure that's underwater a national monument. You can bet they made sure there was no oil there.

Also oh so ironic: Justice Antonin Scalia's Supreme Court majority opinion today that uses all sorts of ends-justify-means rationalizations to undermine a key provision of the Fourth Amendment. Scalia has just redefined judicial activism. To hell with the law -- and forget all that Founding Fathers crap -- just look at all my good reasons why we should ignore the law -- just look at the police academy!

At least the Republicans in Congress were in their usual self-righteous form today, using cheap rhetoric to try to score political points while doing everything to avoid talking about the disaster in Iraq. A lot of peacock feathers there.

In case you missed it on Wednesday, Zbigniew Brzezinski on the NewsHour [video | mp3]addressed what the Republicans won't:

Well, the president opened his press conference by make a statement, which I suspect most Americans didn't quite fully interpret correctly. This is what he said: "I have just returned from Baghdad. I was inspired to be able to visit the capital of a free and democratic Iraq."

[Holds up a map of Iraq, with a small dot on it.]

Now, this is what the president actually visited. This is an aerial map of Baghdad and, within it, the viewers can see a small spot. That is the so-called Green Zone, a fortified American fortress housing the American embassy, the American high command, and all the major institutions of the Iraqi, as he said, free and democratic government, in an American fortress....

And then, last but not least is the fact that the so-called Iraqi government, three years after the beginning of the occupation, still sits in an American fortress. It cannot venture outside of it. To call it a government is to misuse the word "government."...

[W]e have to get rid of the mindset, which is really by now totally ahistorical -- we no longer live in the age of colonialism. We no longer have to assume "the white man's burden" in order to civilize others, and I'm using these phrases in quotation marks....

Well, how many thousands of Iraqis will die in the meantime? How many hundreds, how many thousands of Americans will die in the meantime?

How much will our prestige internationally decline? How many billions of dollars will we spend on this?

Good questions. Questions the Republicans don't even want to ask, let alone answer.

But I'm sure the newly non-indicted Karl Rove will come up with some good anger points to turn citizen against citizen. Nothing stirs up the ire of the GOP like American citizens.

When it comes to anything relating to international relations and security, nobody can accuse the president of playing a game of Risk. That would take nuance. No, Mr. Bush is a simpler man -- a "decider"!

And he likes to play with his army men.

Anyone who knows anyone in the military, whatever his or her political views, knows that our armed forces are what you might call over-extended. We have soldiers and Marines, young and old, serving multiple tours of duty in Iraq. We have people long retired who've been called back to help the United States follow a foreign policy with no real plan, no sense of strategy, and certainly no intelligence (except for, of course, what they glean from tapping your phone).

Now President Bush is facing criticism from the xenophobic wing (or is it the core?) of the Republican Party regarding immigration policy.

So what is the president thinking of deciding to do?

Send in the National Guard.

One defense official said military leaders believe the number of troops required could range from 3,500 to 10,000, depending on the final plan. Another administration official cautioned that the 10,000 figure was too high.

The officials insisted on anonymity since no decision has been announced.

The president was expected to reveal his plans in an address Monday at 8 p.m. EDT. It will be the first time he has used the Oval Office for a domestic policy speech — a gesture intended to underscore the importance he places on the divisive immigration issue.

The key questions Friday were exactly how many National Guard troops might be deployed, for how long and at what cost to taxpayers — as well as the problem of possible disruption of upcoming deployments to Iraq and elsewhere overseas.

Welcome home, soldier! You survived Baghdad! Congratulations! Now get your butt into that Hummer and report for duty on the Mexican border! There are more brown people there to keep in line!

So is this really about national security? Not likely:

Southern lawmakers met with White House strategist Karl Rove earlier in the week for a discussion that included making greater use of National Guard troops to shore up border control.

Ah! The Architect is hard at work! No wonder the GOP is busy trying to whip up fear and anger. Funny that, in the name of defense and national security, they aren't talking about sending armies to the Canadian border, where terrorists have been crossing. I wonder why that is....

Der Spiegel seems to think so:

The most talked about story is a Dec. 23 piece by the German news agency DDP from journalist and intelligence expert Udo Ulfkotte. The story has generated controversy not only because of its material, but also because of the reporter's past. Critics allege that Ulfkotte in his previous reporting got too close to sources at Germany's foreign intelligence agency, the BND. But Ulfkotte has himself noted that he has been under investigation by the government in the past (indeed, his home and offices have been searched multiple times) for allegations that he published state secrets -- a charge that he claims would underscore rather than undermine the veracity of his work.

According to Ulfkotte's report, "western security sources" claim that during CIA Director Porter Goss' Dec. 12 visit to Ankara, he asked Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to provide support for a possibile 2006 air strike against Iranian nuclear and military facilities. More specifically, Goss is said to have asked Turkey to provide unfettered exchange of intelligence that could help with a mission.

DDP also reported that the governments of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Oman and Pakistan have been informed in recent weeks of Washington's military plans. The countries, apparently, were told that air strikes were a "possible option," but they were given no specific timeframe for the operations.

This doesn't look good. Apparently Bush the Lesser seems to think he can do what Ronald Reagan and Daddy couldn't do back in 1981, when the Iranian regime was new and had been holding American hostages. President Reagan, who at that time was something of a reckless cowboy when it came to foreign policy, opted to trade arms for hostages during his election rather than launch a military assault after his inaugural.

But let's look at what's quite possibly the real reason such an attack is being contemplated: Bush is "the wartime president," according to his political image, and we all know that when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. War is what Bush does. He seems to like it.

And I'm sure Karl Rove is pushing hard for this option. Nothing like exploiting international conflict for domestic political gain in an election year!

Sources in German security circles told the DDP reporter that Goss had ensured Ankara that the Turkish government would be informed of any possible air strikes against Iran a few hours before they happened. The Turkish government has also been given the "green light" to strike camps of the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in Iran on the day in question.

The DDP report attributes the possible escalation to the recent anti-Semitic rants by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose belligerent verbal attacks on Israel (he described the Holocaust as a "myth" and called for Israel to be "wiped off the map") have strengthened the view of the American government that, in the case of the nuclear dispute, there's little likelihood Tehran will back down and that the mullahs are just attempting to buy time by continuing talks with the Europeans.

If Bush wants to divide the world more completely, I can't think of a more effective way of doing so. Unfortunately, over the past year we've seen parades of military experts on the various cable and network news shows explaining how the Iranians have dug in so deep and hardened their facilities so much that even a nuclear ground strike could not guarantee success.

Let's hope "God" doesn't tell Bush to launch nukes. Everyone, pray for Bush to hear calmer voices in his head.

Even if it weren't a nuclear attack, going into Iran would be a horrible mistake. Iran is a sophisticated society, with a long-established middle class, education and literacy rates that rank highly even by Western standards, deep suspicion and wariness of its neighbors, and an historical legacy that goes back to ancient Persia. If Bush gets a bug up his ass about lunatic rhetoric from the mullah minority that temporarily controls Iran, and does something stupid, it will only unite the people behind the vastly unpopular government and make real change there all the less likely.

Peaceful, "orange revolutions" have been more successful so far -- in the Ukraine, of course, and possibly in Lebanon. Alas, there's no way for Karl Rove to wait for something similar to happen in Iran. They need something quickly. Something flashy. Something that pushes Abramoff and Iraq and Osama bin Laden and the spiraling national debt and the deepening poverty in our own country off the front page, and gives the cable news networks a new war to sell.

Talk about wag the dog!

[via Talk Left. Now also on Raw Story.]

What else can you conclude when a bunch of draft-dodging holier-than-thous only now realize that the war on Iraq is on everybody's mind?

The lessons drawn by a variety of Bush advisers inside and outside the White House as they map a road to recovery in 2006 include these: Overarching initiatives such as restructuring Social Security are unworkable in a time of war. The public wants a balanced appraisal of what is happening on the battlefield as well as pledges of victory. And Iraq trumps all.

"I don't think they realized that Iraq is the totality of their legacy until fairly recently," said former congressman Vin Weber (R-Minn.), an outside adviser to the White House. "There is not much of a market for other issues."

File that one under "Duh!" It really leaves me wondering if Bush and his cohorts really thought they could veer off of the war on al-Qaeda and go attack a dictator who seemed to make a career of taunting American Presidents with impotent remarks -- and still be able to just go in and push a right-wing agenda against the poor, all the while embarking on the biggest pork feeding frenzy in the history of the world.

Lord knows the Republicans LOVE their pork.

Of course, the knee-jerk response called for by Karl Rove -- the man who saw 9/11 as an opportunity for partisan political exploitation -- was to simply attack and smear anyone who dares criticize the president.

Rove, Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman and White House strategic planning director Peter H. Wehner urged the president to dust off the 2004 election strategy and fight back, according to officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share internal deliberations. White House counselor Dan Bartlett and communications director Nicolle Wallace, however, counseled a more textured approach. The same-old Bush was not enough, they said; he needed to be more detailed about his strategy in Iraq and, most of all, more open in admitting mistakes -- something that does not come easily to Bush.

"I made a mistake." hehehehe. "Whaddayagonnadoabowdit?" hehehehe.

Although Rove raised concerns about giving critics too much ground, the younger-generation aides prevailed. Bush agreed to try the approach so long as he did not come off sounding too negative. Peter D. Feaver, a Duke University specialist on wartime public opinion who now works at the White House, helped draft a 35-page public plan for victory in Iraq, a paper principally designed to prove that Bush had one.

Pretty sad at that. How interesting it's written by a PR man, not a military specialist. How cynical.

When Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) proposed pulling troops out of Iraq, the White House issued an unusually harsh and personal response comparing him to liberal filmmaker Michael Moore. The original draft, officials said, had been even tougher.

Decorated Marine veteran. Populist filmmaker who never saw service. Sure, same difference.

The humility theme was woven into speeches, often in the first two minutes to keep viewers from turning away. Aides had noticed that anger at Bush after Hurricane Katrina subsided somewhat after he took responsibility for the response. The idea, one senior official said, was like fighting with a spouse: "You need to give voice to their concern. That doesn't necessarily solve the division and the difference, but it drains the disagreement of some of its animosity if you feel you've been heard."

"Sure, dear, I hear that you're upset. Now let me produce this 35-page document that proves why you're wrong and I'm right."

No one in the White House expects the speech to include anything of the magnitude of Social Security. As one aide put it, instead of home runs, Bush will focus on hitting singles and doubles. "The lesson from this year," said Grover G. Norquist, a GOP activist close to Rove, "is you cannot do anything dramatic unless you have 60 votes" in the Senate, where Republicans are five shy of the count needed to break a filibuster.

I assume that means policies short of drowning the government in a bathtub. What with how the Republicans have made government bigger than ever before, with massive budget and trade deficits, it would have to be a pretty big bathtub these days. Maybe the global warming that Bush and Cheney claim doesn't exist will be able to do it.

Despite the gain in polls, some advisers see trouble ahead. Bush's top aides are telling friends they are burned out. Andrew H. Card Jr., already the longest-serving White House chief of staff in a half-century, is among those thought to be looking to leave. Rove's fate is uncertain, as he appears likely to remain under investigation in the CIA leak case, people close to the inquiry said.

Some are concerned that although Bush has changed his approach, he has not changed himself. He has been reluctant to look outside his inner circle for advice, and even some closest to Bush call that a mistake because aides have given up trying to get him to do things they know he would reject.

Ah, but God talks to Bush. We have to remember that. Bush hears God's voice in his head, and then marches out and sends American troops and spends American treasure and destroys American credibility -- all the while feeling righteous and holy.

If only God actually were talking to Bush!

Having realized that whining, smirking and chuckling isn't convincing anyone that he knows of which he speaks, President Bush now has a plan for Iraq:

Facing criticism and impatience about the conflict, Bush went on the offensive with the release of a 35-page plan titled "Our National Strategy for Victory in Iraq."

I don't know about you, but at this point I wonder if the president even read all 35 pages. Okay, I'm being silly -- we all know that staffers wrote this, probably under the guidance of Karl Rove.

The strategy document is full of the same old assertions [in .pdf format], only now they're compiled in a single document -- no doubt so they can point to the document as proof of their assertions.

• The terrorists regard Iraq as the central front in their war against humanity. And we must recognize Iraq as the central front in our war on terror.

- Osama Bin Laden has declared that the “third world war…is raging� in Iraq, and it will end there, in “either victory and glory, or misery and humiliation.�

- Bin Laden’s deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri has declared Iraq to be “the place for the greatest battle,� where he hopes to “expel the Americans� and then spread “the jihad wave to the secular countries neighboring Iraq.�

- Al Qaida in Iraq, led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has openly declared that “we fight
today in Iraq, and tomorrow in the Land of the Two Holy Places, and after there the
west.�

✔ As the terrorists themselves recognize, the outcome in Iraq – success or failure – is critical to the outcome in the broader war on terrorism.

[emphasis in original]

Again, they're trying to assert that the civil war in Iraq is a foreign operation, instead of a conflict between Iraqis with over 1000 years of historical conflict. How ironic that one of the biggest problems about our Iraq occupation -- that al-Qaeda uses it as a recruitment poster -- is what the Bush Administration crows about as reasons for staying.

The document reads like a division report in a corporate boardroom. It's full of bullet points of declarations and assertions, but little actual argument and essentially no supporting evidence to support their claims. Maybe some paid analysts can take the time to scrutinize the language and find something that's actually new ... or convincing.

The document has an appendix called "The Eight Pillars" which purports to lay out a strategy for success -- a tacit admission that the 28 pages coming before fail to do just that. (I expect the phrase "The Eight Pillars" will be rolling off wingnutter lips over the coming days.)

Right up front is one that is almost ludicrous in content:

Defeat the Terrorists and Neutralize the Insurgency

STRATEGIC OBJECTIVE: Iraq is not a source of terrorists or terrorist resources, and neither terrorists, Saddamists, nor rejectionists are able to prevent Iraq’s political and economic progress. They cannot stop the Iraqi government’s development of a constitutional representative democracy, the provision of essential services, a market economy that provides goods, services, and employment for Iraqis, or the free flow of information and ideas.

They go on to assert that the Iraqis fighting US forces are actually foreigners. And they argue that all we need to do is establish peace and stability in order to stop terrorism -- in Iraq. Setting aside the circular logic for a moment, I wonder how we are to stop the ever-increasing and ever-more-bloody violence of the uprisings without establishing the very kind of police state Saddam Hussein had.

These pillars go on and on with other steps that, it seems to me, are more than a few days late and way way way more than a few dollars short.

Why didn't they think of any of this before?

The Bush quote at the end is perhaps most telling:

This enemy considers every retreat of the civilized world as an invitation to greater violence. In Iraq, there is no peace without victory. We will keep our nerve, and we will win that victory.

Then maybe we should focus our "war on terror" efforts on the real terrorists, instead of trying to play favorites in an Iraqi civil war and declaring it a war on terror.

I may not be a warrior (neither is Bush), but it seems to me that it takes more than bravado to win a war. And if war is merely the practice of politics by other means, then this war is steering our politics down the wrong path -- to more bloody massacres, more corruption, more criminality and, in the end, financial ruin.

Just don't expect Bush to realize it, let alone admit it. He has a gift for running things into the ditch. He thinks he's found virtue in that by labeling pig-headed stubbornness as "decisiveness." Three more years of this kind of "leadership" is looking increasingly disastrous. America will survive, but at what cost?

After seeing Frontline's report, The Last Abortion Clinic (see it all online), Sunsara Taylor has some choice words for the quality of political debate:

I am sick of the notion that its not "politically correct" to compare what is happening in this country to what happened in Nazi Germany. I am sorry--when they showed the clip of Bush announcing the ban on "partial birth abortion" all I could think of was Hitler--of his posture of moral superiority at the cost of millions of lives, of the fanfare, of the populace that acquiesced with evil. And, Hitler DID outlaw abortion.

Some choice words for people who'd rather pretend the issue doesn't exist or isn't important:

And, no, the widespread horrors of battery and rape are not lost on me. But ending all this is exactly bound up with the overall struggle to liberate women, including by fighting for our fundamental right to control our own bodies and reproduction.

In reality, saying that abortion is not the only womens issue is making the argument that we shouldnt focus so much attention on this issue. It is based on either the illusion that you can make progress for women without preserving and destigmatizing abortion and birth control or based on willful ignorance. Take your pick--neither is worth doing.

On some people's reactionary responses to feminism for somehow stigmatizing staying home to raise kids:

So, yes, women do have undue burdens and double standards put on us--but get over this notion of how you were oppressed by the womens movement because you want the right to stay home and raise kids. That has always remained not only an option for those who can afford it, but it is the main promoted and upheld option for most women in society--which probably has a lot to do with why you and your sister have been conditioned to long for that role.

On NARAL's strategy of fighting Samuel Alito's nomination by writing letters:

Recognizing the irony, I wrote an email to NARAL complaining about their insistence that their base be politically passive in the face of the remaking of the Supreme Court by only sending emails instead of pouring into the streets to turn things around. In it I said, "Look, even you arent going to be moved by an email I send, I doubt you'll even respond. So, why should I expect more from someone who doesnt even claim to be a fighter for abortion rights like those you want me to email?" Of course, I heard nothing from them.

To Ms. Taylor, the only way to fight this war on women's rights is to get the Bush regime out of power. I wish it were so easy.

Personally, I think Bush is just a puppet, advised by a genius of cynical political opportunism, moved by lines of ego -- the kind of massive ego that makes you think God appointed you president and given you a Crusade to fight -- and the radical right pushing for primitive notions of rights would just put forward someone else. And it wouldn't take long, given their Manchurian Candidate machinery that indoctrinates subjects from the time they're in grade school.

Even conservative snob George Will seems rather disgusted with these holier-than-thous, but as long as these folks control the Republican Party, and continue to infest more and more of the Democratic Party, the patriarchy and its claiming of rights over women shall continue on and on.

Or: A majority of Americans hold honor and honesty as important values.

At least that's the implication of the Wall Street Journal poll, caught by Raw Story and published in the Washington Wire (though now is virtually impossible to find), indicating that 69% of Americans support public hearings into the Plame leak.

What's more, 43% of Republicans support this. Maybe they remember that George W. Bush ran in 2000 as the man to restore honor and integrity to the White House, and want him to live up to that promise -- at least to the extent that's possible, after five years of lies, war, pillaging, pork and healthy amounts of self-righteous denials of any responsibility for anything that ever went wrong.

So far, with Bush the buck stops way down in the noncom ranks.

Yet 54% of the American people hold Bush responsible. And many more want this to be looked into -- publicly.

Needless to say, the Republicans in Congress, continuing their march out of step with Americans, oppose any inquiry that might hold anyone in their party responsible for anything.

Nothing gets Bill Frist more fired up than a challenge to his image. Now he's calling for a Republican-led Congressional investigation into the off-shore torture camps -- er -- the leak of the information about the off-shore torture camps.

Dear Chairman Hoekstra and Chairman Roberts:

We request that you immediately initiate a joint investigation into the possible release of classified information to the media alleging that the United States government may be detaining and interrogating terrorists at undisclosed locations abroad. As you know, if accurate, such an egregious disclosure could have long-term and far-reaching damaging and dangerous consequences, and will imperil our efforts to protect the American people and our homeland from terrorist attacks.

The purpose of your investigation will be to determine the following: was the information provided to the media classified and accurate?; who leaked this information and under what authority?; and, what is the actual and potential damage done to the national security of the United States and our partners in the Global War on Terror? We will consider other changes to this mandate based on your recommendations.

Yes, who leaked the fact that we're torturing prisoners! And to hell with McCain and his quaint anti-torture quibbles that we all got pressured into backing.

We're talking about image. How are we supposed to conduct our war on terror if the world knows that we're behaving like terrorists, torturing prisoners?

And don't let anyone bring up the fact that experience has shown that torture doesn't work. We don't want people to realize that we're torturing prisoners to accommodate our own feelings of impotence. What's important is that people may think badly of us if they know we're torturing people. As the Washington Post reports:

While the Defense Department has produced volumes of public reports and testimony about its detention practices and rules after the abuse scandals at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison and at Guantanamo Bay, the CIA has not even acknowledged the existence of its black sites. To do so, say officials familiar with the program, could open the U.S. government to legal challenges, particularly in foreign courts, and increase the risk of political condemnation at home and abroad.

That would challenge the spin the Republicans have been putting on torture.

And we certainly don't want people to realize that we're playing politics with cheap rhetoric against the torture opponents. We want to distract people from the fact that we're pandering to the basest instincts of human nature and abandoning the moral principles that earned America such high regard in the 20th century:

We expect that you will move expeditiously to complete this inquiry and that you will provide us with periodic updates. We are hopeful that you will be able to accomplish this task in a bipartisan manner given general agreement that intelligence matters should not be politicized. Either way, however, your inquiry shall proceed.

The leaking of classified information by employees of the United States government appears to have increased in recent years, establishing a dangerous trend that, if not addressed swiftly and firmly, likely will worsen. The unauthorized release of classified information is serious and threatens our nation's security. It also puts the lives of many Americans and the security of our nation at risk.

Unless, of course, it involves leaking confidential information about the wife of an enemy of the state who dares to question the faked intelligence that was used to justify war.

That, or course, would just be "criminalizing politics."