Perfect Storm-Ularity: Simultaneous Tipping Of Climate, Pandemic, Economy & Politics

Wrong Rice? Close enough

If an American civilization survives the next decade, perhaps it will infer numerological significance from the fact that each of the tipping points, which is discussed below, probably became inevitable on or around February 20, 2020, which was the 20th day of the 2nd month of the 20th year of the 20-numbered century, i.e., my birthday.

I. The “Climate-ularity” tipping point hardly needs belaboring, beyond reminding readers that pandemics like this month’s are likely to become more numerous-- even in the unlikely event that global temperatures can be re-stabilized only slightly higher than those of recent millennia.


II. The “Pence-ularity” tipping point will be the day when Vice President Pence, recently assigned to communicate daily on pandemic response with heads of all executive departments, realizes that:


• a clear majority of the heads of those departments, and Mr. Pence, all simultaneously understand and discuss the fact that

 • the feedback loops, between collapses of public health, financial markets, medical and other supply chains, other economic activity, public (and intra-governmental) confidence and order,

 • have redefined their personal paths, of least risk, towards cabinet removal of President Trump on 25th Amendment grounds of unfitness,

• despite subsequent President Pence’s re-election being near-impossible after likely defection of Trump-loyalist voters.

III. The “Spook-ularity” tipping point will be the day when a majority of Democratic Party powerbrokers decide to publicly formalize the Democratic Party’s merger with the National Security State, as follows:

A. “Going Big” is safer than going small when ceasing to disguise the fact that the Democratic establishment’s early March consolidation, behind Presidential candidacy of Joe Biden:

• sought solely to prevent nomination of Bernie Sanders, and
• never sought to make fast-ailing Biden face the challenges of a general election and of governing.

B. In order to justify a bait-and-switch of the Presidential ticket nomination, the most effective campaign message will be “Repel Russian Invasions”-- which has been the increasingly dominant political theme, since mid-2016, of both the Democratic Party establishment and the Intelligence Community.


C. The Democratic Party is the only vehicle available for the Intelligence Community to continue its recent increases in direct electoral involvement, because “Agreement Incapability” caused Trump:


• first to reject, or not understand, the Intelligence Community’s 2016-2017 attempt to “make him an offer he couldn’t refuse,” and

• second to recruit the Republican Party’s propaganda organs, voter base, and consequently most of its elected officials, into demonizing and (more importantly) demanding transparency from the Intelligence Community.

D. The Presidential nominee most suited to “Repel Russian Invasions” will be a decorated military combat and leadership veteran with bipartisan name recognition and academic credentials, of which the most obvious choice is David Petraeus:


• whose one year heading the CIA is Goldilocksian (just long enough to understand its structure and some of its culture, but not long enough to have a spooky image); and

• who has been acting very much like a potential candidate, having:


(i) reaffirmed need for U.S. military "presence” everywhere);

(ii) broadened profile; and

(iii) practiced evasive action against tough questions (see Feb. 26)

• whose negatives are manageable:


(i) Petraeus’s post-government roles with mega-contractor KKR being an awkward target for the MIC-loving and petrodollar-loving Trump-Kushner clan, and

(ii) Petraeus’s “leaks to paramour” scandal being mitigated by how mild this scandal now looks in contrast with Trump-era duelling leaks, and by his paramour’s own background in military intelligence (which actually gives Petreaus the option of hinting that he was “set up” by rogue agents of Obama, who was widely suspected of viewing Petraeus as a Presidential challenger).

E. The Vice-Presidential nominee most suited to be Petraeus’s running mate, in light of establishment rhetoric and turnout-related perspectives, would obviously be a minority woman, of which the most obvious choice is Condaleeza (“Condi”) Rice:


• whose positives include:


(i) Condi’s age (66 on Nov 14 2020 and 73 before the 2028 primaries) which is old enough to minimize jealousy/resistance from the next generation of “her turn” hopefuls such as Harris, Abrams, Klobuchar, Warren and Gillibrand, not to mention “his turn” hopefuls such as Buttigieg, Booker, Newsom, Cuomo, Rep. Castro and Mayor Castro; and
(ii) Condi’s “Russia expert” profile, which enables the anti-Trump ticket to double down on arguments that: (a) Trump is Putin blackmailee (and Trump delaying arms to Ukraine was strategically huge); (b) Bernie was a Putin dupe (and Tulsi was somewhere between Bernie and Trump on Putin association scale); (c) complaints about the Democratic Presidential (and Congressional) nomination process are Putin-sowed divisiveness; and (d) Mike Pompeo and Nikki Haley (not to mention Pence and Trump himself) know comparatively little about pre-Trump foreign affairs.

• whose main negatives have become positives:


(i) Rice’s association with 9/11 and Iraq invasion would fit a largely completed pivot, from passive to active, of the de facto Democratic establishment position that “no more apologies are needed for what we now call an error in the intelligence on Iraq WMD”, and

(ii) Rice’s association with the Bush dynasty would reinforce the Democratic campaigning and fund-raising pitches that “all knowledgeable people are unified against the crazy ignoramus Trump, not to mention against the twin extremes of Pence and Bernie.”

F. The above reasons for nominating General Petraeus will be magnified if, as seems likely, the mood of the times requires a leader “respected by the military,” because, for example, federal troops are widely deployed:


• to prevent pandemic-panicked individuals-cum-mobs from overrunning or at least disrupting hospitals and other infrastructure; and/or
• to minimize warlike group clashes involving over-armed Trump-loyalists, and/or other resistance to a perceived (perhaps correctly) one-way transition towards a super-national, or other fully non-democratic, governmental structure.

How Hillary's VP Choice Can Make Her More Than A Post-Script To The Clinton-Bush-Obama Era

-by emorej a Hong Kong

Some wild ideas get more and more logical as you think about them. Although this election cycle has conditioned many (more) of us to expect the worst from Hillary, perhaps it is still possible for her to surprise us (in a good way) with her Vice-Presidential selection.

The tea leaves are depressing, notably the conventional wisdom that Elizabeth Warren and Sherrod Brown are too populist and independent-minded to fit well on Hillary's ticket, and that the other (leaked) shortlisted candidates all have even worse flaws, as summarized in this recent Dylan Matthews article. Warren and Brown are unlikely choices, too, because they each would be replaced in the U.S. Senate by a Republican governor, and neither of them seems to want to be selected.

A sliver of good news, that one can infer from this news about “vetting” of shortlisted candidates, is that, with Hillary's inner team talking to people like Warren and Brown (about more than how to beat Bernie), her team’s bubble might have finally been penetrated by realization that:

• the Dem establishment's 40 years of issue-straddling (not to mention bait-&-switch) Presidential election tactics are pretty well played out, and

• it’s risky to base a general election campaign on the negative argument that "Trump is a racist know-nothing," especially after a primary spent devaluing this type of allegation, by levying it against Berners for Progressive resistance to Hillary's coronation.

In other recent news, Condi Rice said she has “no interest” in serving as Trump's Veep running mate. This is where the wild idea comes in:

Hillary selecting Condi Rice as her Veep would have something for everybody.

If each stakeholder considered the following consequences of a Hillary-Condi ticket, then selecting Condi could be Hillary’s most popular campaign move so far:

1. Little need be said about the identity-politics messaging of adding Black female Condi to a ticket with White female Hillary. At a tactical level, this would seem the most reliable way to bait Trump into making more gender-based taunts, thereby angering women voters and endangering down-ticket Republican candidates in swingy districts.

2. Adding to the ticket a second former Secretary of State would further strengthen Hillary’s advantage among voters who are attracted by candidates holding direct experience in the USA's militaristic foreign relations, and could reduce the risk of losing voters due to bad news about terrorism, war or (what remains of) other foreign policy.

3. Condi seems to be a moderate on most issues besides her overly militaristic foreign policy towards the Middle East, and eagerness to project toughness worldwide. Any voters that reject Hillary’s ticket, because of those two immoderate positions, probably rejected Hillary herself long ago. Hillary also might find it liberating to be, for a change, only the second-most militaristic former female Secretary of State in a campaign.

4. Support for the Hillary-Condi ticket could be secured from the Republican wing, more fully joining the Democratic wing, of big donors and donation-dependent office-holders. The Clintons’ friendship with the Bushes would be redoubled, although Hillary’s campaign might be smart enough to avoid further publicity about this ‘royal’ solidarity. Of more lasting significance, the bipartisan character of the Hillary-Condi ticket would amount to a political realignment. This would make Hillary more of a historical figure than she can become by merely continuing a 40 year-old strategy (which she and Bill have gradually taken to counter-productive extremes).

5. The Democratic establishment could move past its pretense of caring about economic inequality, and could double down on its favored identity politics (within lines acceptable to big donors), including the establishment’s beloved allegations that Bernie and his supporters resemble Trump supporters in being racists and woman-haters-- in between acting as impractical purists and Republican-electing Nader-wannabees.

6. Bernie and his supporters, by being effectively kicked out of Hillary’s general election camp, would find it much easier to go all-in on the Green Party ticket (especially if Bernie is permitted to choose a like-minded non-Green figure as his Veep running mate). This would set up the relatively clear test of voter policy preferences, which most Bernie supporters have longed for, and which many Hillary supporters claim to also welcome.

7. If no general election ticket wins a majority of electoral college votes, then I predict that Hillary-Condi would be the most likely (by far) ticket to win a plurality in the subsequent vote by the House of Representatives. If this prediction is correct, then adding Condi to the ticket would actually be the lowest-risk course of action for Hillary.

8. Some Democrats would be dismayed if events caused Condi to replace Hillary at the top of the ticket, or in office. Imagine how much cognitive dissonance would result, in the brains of W-haters, from Condi’s role as one of W’s Iraq invasion architects. But something tells me they’ll find a way to rationalize it.

The Queen Of No Soul-- A Guest Post By Sebastian Doggart

Partially because I'm such a huge Federico Garcia Lorca fan-- and of Sebastian's book about him-- I was thrilled when our old pal Coleen Rowley asked me to run this perverse musical combination contrasting Aretha Franklin and Condoleezza Rice by Mr. Doggart. Just so you know, Sebastian Doggart started his career as a journalist in Peru and then Argentina and then moved back to London to direct theater. In 1997, he was a campaign manager on Martin Bell’s successful bid to become the first Independent MP to be elected to the British Parliament since 1945. He moved into TV production, where he produced and/or directed for ITV/Bravo (South Bank Show and Two Thousand Years), Channel 4/TF1 (Raid Gauloises), Film Four/Bravo (History of Movie Genres), and Channel 4 (Hollywood Vice). In 2000, he moved to the U.S., where he produced/directed Project Runway (nominated for a 2005 Primetime Emmy), ABC's Wife Swap, 15 Films about Madonna for A&E, and lots of other TV films and series, particularly for MTV. He also directed Courting Condi, a feature musical docu-tragi-comedy about Condoleezza Rice that won 26 awards on the festival circuit. Sebastian is trilingual and has written one screenplay, Casanova’s Return, and three books, including the one on Garcia Lorca and one on Latin American theater. You probably see him from time to time at HuffPo. So, without further ado... I'm very proud to welcome Sebastian Doggart to DWT:

Two events, both of which feature a public figure named 2005’s most powerful woman in the world, may go down as the most bizarre of the year. The first took place last Saturday, in San Diego, where Condoleezza Rice was the Distinguished Speaker at the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries Convention. That’s a very long way from the world-changing press conferences she was commanding at the State Department 18 months ago. The second occasion is one of the weirdest concerts ever conceived, and may spark a firestorm of controversy. Its organizers, the Mann Center of Philadelphia, are marketing $95 seats with this enticement:

The Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin pairs up with former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for an evening of classics and R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Ms. Rice will enchant us with selections from Mozart and more, and will feature Aretha on vocals... This extraordinary effort is sure to be a crowd pleaser. Don’t miss this amazing duo for one night only!

I’ve been investigating Condoleezza Rice for the last five years, and have completed two films about her, with a third due out in July. Of all the stranger-than-fiction discoveries I have made about Rice, this spectacle, scheduled to take place on July 27 in Fairmount Park, is certainly the most surreal. The Philadelphia Weekly agrees, describing it as "the most unusual musical pairing since Ben Folds & William Shatner … or maybe even Burt Bacharach & Dr. Dre.”

I set my iPod to play my modest collection of Aretha Franklin songs to try and find the connections. “Son of a Preacher Man” was up first, and, yes, I could see the link. Rice’s father, John Rice, was a Presbyterian minister. According to his illustrious daughter, who is his only child, John was hoping that she would be born a boy: “I was supposed to be his all-American linebacker. He already had the football bought. I was going to be named John, like him.”

Then came the impatient first chords of “Think”, a commandment Rice has passionately followed, from her diligent studying to be “twice as good” as the white children in her class, to her meteoric academic rise to become Provost of Stanford, to the careful encouragement and advice she gave President Bush as his closest and most enduring confidante.

Next up was “I Say A Little Prayer.” Also very appropriate. According to what her biographer Glenn Kessler told me, “Rice prays every day. She goes to church regularly. She believes that God has set forth a plan. One reason why she doesn’t really look back, she doesn’t dwell on the kinds of mistakes she might have made, because what is happening is God’s plan is unfolding and this is how it’s going to be.”

A final validation of the Rice/Franklin link came in “Do Right, Woman.” How aptly this song captures her longstanding drive to do the morally correct thing! When asked by a Stanford student last year how the US should go about winning the hearts and minds of the rest of the world, she replied, “first of all, you do what’s right. That’s the most important thing.” Just in case Aretha intended her lyric to have a more political meaning, then Rice’s continuing status as a darling of the Right is a testament to her compliance with the song’s direction.

The main reason that Rice is doing this concert is that music is her life-blood. It’s in her very name, Condoleezza, which derives from the Italian musical notation, con dolcezza, or ‘with sweetness’. According to Julia Emma Smith, her neighbor and family friend, whom I interviewed in Rice’s hometown of Birmingham, “her mother started her taking piano when she was just three. By the time she was five, she could play Beethoven and other classical music. Everybody thought music was going to be her career.”

Marcus Mabry, author of the excellent biography Twice as Good, continues the story: “When she was 17, as a sophomore at the University of Denver, she went to a famous music camp at Aspen. There she saw little kids who could play from sight music that had taken her weeks or months to learn how to play. And at that point she saw she wasn’t good enough and she dropped it, with no emotion, no feeling whatsoever.”

Rice explained what happened: “I encountered the realization that if I stayed a music major, I would end up teaching kids to murder Beethoven… I didn’t wanna really be second best.”

Her piano teacher at the University of Denver, Theodor Lichtman, gave further reason why she could never have made it as a concert pianist: “In taking very specific technical directions she was very good, very obedient. Emotional directions she didn’t have an easy time with. As long as it was mechanical things-- do this, hold your hand this way-- that was fine.”

“But as soon as I touched her inside,” he said, tapping his heart, “there was a resistance.”

Rice continued to play music in chamber groups while living in both Stanford and in Washington DC. She accompanied cellist Yo Yo Ma in a 2002 performance of Brahms's Violin Sonata in D Minor for President Bush at Constitution Hall. She again performed Brahms-- whom she admires for being “passionate but not sentimental”-- in a recital for Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace in December 2008. So a performance with Queen Aretha can thus be seen as a logical progression. The pairing makes even more sense since she listed the song "Respect" as her third favorite piece of music ever in a 2006 interview with the Independent (Mozart’s Piano Concerto in D Minor, which she is scheduled to play at Fairmount Park, and Cream’s Sunshine of Your Love took first and second place, respectively. Kool and the Gang’s Celebration trailed unexpectedly in fourth place.)

Grabbing an opportunity to play with Aretha is a no-brainer for Rice-- a fun and exciting opportunity that any pianist would leap at. It also sounds a whole lot more fun than her engagement last weekend, with those laugh-a-minute members of the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries.

Although Rice pocketed a fat free from the discarded metal kings, she’s making it abundantly clear that her motives for the Fairmount Park concert are charitable. “Dr. Rice is graciously donating her services to the Mann Center,” its Chief Executive, Catherine Cahill, told me, “in support of our arts education programs for the area's inner-city youth. She’s not just a highly accomplished pianist, she also wants to give back to the community.”

Rice has no problem with such munificence after a highly lucrative 16 months following her release from the State Department’s payroll. She landed a whopping $2.5 million advance from Crown Publishers, part of Random House, to write three tomes, one on her experience in the Bush Administration, and one on her parents called Extraordinary, Ordinary People (due out this October). She’s also raked in a good salary as a professor at Stanford’s Hoover Institution (even though she has yet to teach any courses to students). And her aggressive representatives at top Hollywood agency William Morris demand six-figure speaking fees from corporations keen to leverage her experience both in government and as a former director of Chevron, J.P. Morgan, Hewlett Packard and Charles Schwab. How wonderful that such a thunderous revenue stream can allow her to confirm publicly what a “compassionate conservative” she is!

The Mann Center’s validation of her philanthropy will shore up the political capital she stands to gain from the event. Since leaving office, her public appearances have been dogged by protests, and she has wisely kept a very low profile at Stanford. Accompanying Aretha Franklin’s virtuoso rendition of two operatic arias is a classy and uncontroversial first step back into the public arena, and part of a long-term political strategy. She is one of very few African-American women in the Republican party, and that, coupled with her extensive experience in government, stands her in powerful stead on a post-Obama political stage. She’s never actually been elected to office, and has said she doesn’t like the cut-and-thrust of politics. But if she plays her cards right, I would not be surprised to see her as a vice-presidential Republican candidate, possibly with Mitt Romney, in 2016.

I am surprised that such a political resurgence is possible-- and indeed that she has been invited to perform in Fairmount Park at all. This is an opinion shared by Professor Alan Gilbert, who was Rice’s political history teacher at the University of Denver. Commenting on the announcement of the concert, he said: “I suppose it is better that she play music (soullessly) than torture people. If she were not a war criminal, it would be charming.”

War criminal? Torturer? Condi Rice?!

I had the same response while making my investigative documentary on Rice, American Faust: From Condi to Neo-Condi. Over the course of researching and producing it, I have come to share Professor Gilbert’s view that the gravity of Rice’s crimes and misdemeanors, still largely unknown to the American people, outweigh the benefits of President Obama’s view that “we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards.”

The conviction that we need to read the page of history before we can turn it underpins American Faust. Through the form of a biographical documentary, we tell a Faustian story of a woman whose hubris tempted her into a pursuit of power that destroyed her core values, and hurtled America into a perilous new direction. It’s a portrait of a woman who has changed the world but about whom most people know very little. It overturns the popular misconception of Rice as a yes-woman to Bush and reveals her as his chief confidante-- with deeper and more enduring influence than even Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, or Karl Rove-- and thus responsible for much of the Bush legacy.

The film follows her step-by step quest for power, starting at the age of ten, when, on a visit to the White House, she turned to her father and said, “Daddy, I'm barred out there because of the color of my skin, but one day I'll be in that house.” 40 years later, having achieved her dream, Secretary of State Rice said, “I want to leave office without anyone knowing where I stand on any of the issues.”


Our team did our best to portray her in a balanced way. Archival interviews with Rice herself form the core of the documentary. Her supporters include both Presidents Bush; her step-mother Clara Bailey Rice; Oprah Winfrey; mentor and later critic, Brent Scowcroft; her former fiancé, Rick Upchurch; childhood friend Celeste Mitchell; John McCain; former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger; Dick Cheney; and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Offsetting these positive accounts are some explosive criticisms. Author Laura Flanders relates how she was such a devoted board member for Chevron (despite its violent repression of Ogoni tribes-people in Nigeria) that they named an oil tanker after her. Her record as National Security Advisor is devastatingly attacked by CIA Director George Tenet and Counter-Terrorism chief Richard Clarke. They reveal how she ignored scores of warnings in the spring and summer of 2001 that an Al Qaeda attack was imminent.

Biographer Marcus Mabry pinpoints the period between 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq as the period when she abandoned her realism and advocacy of a humble foreign policy, to become a fully fledged ‘neo-con’ idealist. With the winds blowing towards Baghdad, Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s Chief of Staff, says she had no qualms about pumping up the case for waging war in Iraq (“we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud”). Congressman Robert Wexler pinpoints 56 times that Rice misled the American public. Richard Ben-Veniste, a senior 9/11 Commissioner, points to the techniques that Rice used-- wordplay, filibustering, amnesia-- to avoid telling the truth.

A question then is why Aretha Franklin would want to buddy up to a woman with such a sketchy record. Franklin has been hailed as a role model for women and people of color, while Rice’s record on both counts has been execrable. American Faust documents how, while Provost of Stanford, she pulled up the ladder of affirmative action that had secured her tenure, and implemented budget cuts that led to dozens of lawsuits for unlawful dismissals of female professors. Her behavior while the levees were breaking during Hurricane Katrina infuriated black groups who felt that she had dishonored her position as the senior black member of the government. Spike Lee comments in the film: “she was buying Ferragamo shoes on Fifth Avenue and went to see Spamalot while people were drowning.”

Maybe Ms. Franklin feels she owes Rice a debt of gratitude. After all, Rice’s boss awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom on November 9, 2005, at the White House. That kind of R-e-s-p-e-c-t may need payback.

I suspect that both Ms. Franklin and the concert organizers at the Mann Center are unaware of the film’s most explosive revelation: that it was Condoleezza Rice who is primarily responsible for the Bush Administration’s torture program. It was she who ordered the CIA to use torture techniques including genital mutilation, fingernail extraction and electrocution in countries across the world. The CIA agents who carried out these interrogations were acting under orders which came directly from the chairwoman of the Group of Principals: Condoleezza Rice. The role of the Principals-- a group that included Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Attorney Generals John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales-- was to select and authorize ‘enhanced interrogation methods’ proposed by CIA Director George Tenet.

According to Christopher Anders, attorney for the ACLU: “The CIA would come in and give a presentation of what they wanted to do, to the point where, where they were choreographing interrogations and the torture from the basement of the White House itself.”

Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Glenn Kessler says: “These ‘enhanced interrogation methods’ included water-boarding, fingernail extraction, and sleep deprivation. Condi signed off on the orders to the CIA with the words, ‘This is your Baby, go do it!’” Richard Clarke, US chief counter-terrorism adviser between 1992-2003 concurs: “Rice decided what torture to use on what person.”

American Faust reveals that the techniques that Rice approved went far beyond the mock executions and water-boarding already made public. Our film has first-hand accounts of torture techniques that make stress positions look like a slap on the wrist. Binyam Mohamed had his penis cut, and acid poured into the wounds. Khalid el Masri was drugged, sodomized and imprisoned without charges. Abu Omar was tied to a wet mattress and electrocuted. Mamdouh Habib had his fingernails torn out.

Even John Ashcroft, known for a nutty rendition of his song Let the Eagle Soar but not for his leniency to Moslem prisoners, objected to the torture meetings that Rice chaired: "Why are we talking about this in the White House?” he asked. “History will not judge this kindly."

Ashcroft’s concern was well-placed. According to historian David Rothkopf, author of Running the World: The Inside Story of the National Security Council and the Architects of American Power, “it was recognized by Condoleezza Rice, among others, that they did make a pact with the devil. They essentially said we will do whatever it takes, regardless of morality, regardless of law, in order to protect the American people.”

Rice did what she could to conceal the torture. She authorized the CIA to send detainees outside the U.S., to "black site" countries, including Thailand, Italy, Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia, Syria, Jordan, Macedonia, Egypt, Morocco, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, as well as the "torture ships"’ USS Peleliu, USS Bataan, and USS Ashland.


When Congressional and legal investigations began into the detention program, videotapes of CIA interrogations of terror suspects were destroyed. She avoided all questions about this felony, and stepped up her work as an international ambassador for the most blatant legal black hole of all, the detention center at Guantanamo bay, which she called “essential for the war on terror.”

These were the actions, then, that comprised Rice’s Faustian bargain.

They were the crimes that led to Rice becoming the Queen of No Soul.

The consequences of these crimes will cause damage for generations of Americans. The illegal imprisonments, kidnappings, and torture that Rice authorized have become a recruitment tool for anti-U.S. militants around the world. As General David Petraeus, Republican hero and the current leader of U.S. Central Command, put it: “We end up paying a price for it, ultimately. Situations like that are non biodegradable. They don't go away. The enemy continues to beat you with them like a stick.”

Brigadier General Patrick Finnegan, Dean of the Academic Board at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, agreed in last week’s New Yorker: “Torture is wrong under any circumstances,” he asserted. “The publicity surrounding Guantanamo, water-boarding and other ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ have created far more terrorists than most people understand. For a country that professes to stand for the rule of law and individual rights, we look like the worst kind of hypocrites.”

I have thought long and hard about how such a highly educated, cultured woman of faith as Dr. Rice could have fallen to the infernal point of ordering medieval acts of torture, fomenting a catastrophic war, and supporting the trampling of the rule of law and the Constitution. This is a similar conundrum to the one posed by historians and philosophers after World War II. How could well-schooled Nazi officers spend their evenings weeping over Rilke poems, and playing Schubert in string quartets, and then wake up the next morning to gas thousands of men, women and children? Education and culture did not bring more humanity to man, just more knowledge to create more sophisticated forms of violence and barbarity-- just as it did with Dr Rice and the decisions she made on which torture cocktails to be distributed.

So what happens now? Earlier this month, I was at Kent State University, which was commemorating the 40th anniversary of the shootings by National Guardsmen that left four students dead, and nine injured. I was helping the Kent State Truth Tribunal record testimonies. I met some of the injured and the families of those killed. They all shared an enduring outrage and anger that no one has ever been held accountable-- let alone imprisoned-- for the massacre. Doris Krause, mother of one of the fallen, 19-year-old Allison Krause, told me: “I hope this is the last time I come back here. Even after forty years, there is so much bitterness.”

There will be no closure around the barbaric acts of May 4, 1970 unless formal culpability is assigned to, or accepted by, those responsible for the killings-- not just the guardsmen who fired, but right up the chain of command responsibility. That means Ohio Governor James A. Rhodes (who made a public statement the day before the massacre that “we are going to eradicate the problem, we’re not going to treat the symptoms”), right up to President Nixon and his Vice-President Spiro Agnew (who urged university authorities to “just imagine the students are wearing brown shirts or white sheets and act accordingly”).

The same principal of command responsibility applies to the Bush Administration’s torture program. Its legacy will continue to poison U.S. military and civil society, and act as a rallying call to her enemies, until Rice and her accomplices are held accountable. In American Faust, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, whose position as Colin Powell’s Chief of Staff made him a first-hand witness to her actions, states: “I think Americans should be appalled that Dr. Rice was sitting giving the authority to water-board.” Marjorie Cohn, former President of the Lawyers Guild, calls for her to be removed from her current research position at Stanford University: “We hope to continue this pressure until Rice and her fellow war criminals are punished for their crimes.” Alan Gilbert, Rice’s former history professor at the University of Denver, identifies the specific laws she has broken under the US Constitution, the UN Convention against Torture, of which the US has been a signatory since 1988, and the Geneva Conventions of 1949. Manfred Nowak, the UN’s chief Torture Commissioner, says: “There’s an obligation under the Convention against torture, to investigate every allegation against torture, and there is a responsibility to bring this person to justice.” Christopher Anders of the ACLU states: “You can be sitting in the State Department and if you’re making decisions that are authorizing and facilitating a crime being committed, you’re responsible for that crime.”

With such a "smoking gun" still in her hands, it is flabbergasting that Rice remains at large. We filmed her at Stanford University (where ABC news cheerily reported her new love of golf) claiming, Nixon-like, that “by definition, if the President authorized it, it did not violate our obligations under the Convention against Torture.” This is as brazen a perversion of the law as the memos written by White House attorneys claiming ‘water-boarding’ was legal, which Rice used as further justification for her torture program.

Escaping punishment is one thing. Flaunting her infamy like a pop star is another. And that’s where the Fairmount Park concert becomes a real outrage. Her appearance is the equivalent of Sergeant Larry Shafer, the one National Guardsman who has admitted firing on the Kent State students, accepting an invitation, two years after the shootings, to sing an aria at the Metropolitan Opera; or Governor Rhodes taking a cameo role on Dynasty. There’s no artistic reason for Rice, a mediocre pianist by her own admission, to be on that stage with the incomparably more qualified Ms. Franklin, whom Rolling Stone magazine ranked No. 1 on its list of the Greatest Singers of All Time. Rice is on the ticket because of the notoriety she gained while desecrating the posts of National Security Advisor and Secretary of State, two of the most honored positions of authority in the country. It makes Governor Rod Blagojevich’s appearance on Celebrity Apprentice look the epitome of good taste.

There is a time for telling stories, and there is time for action born of civic duty-- or, in Ms. Franklin’s words to “Do right, woman.” As a documentarian, I have done my best to tell Rice’s story objectively. But the failure of the media, Congress, and the judiciary to pursue the evidence now publicly available on these crimes is intolerable. I am now working with a growing group of activists to try, as a first step to bringing Rice to justice, to have her banned from the Fairmount Park stage on July 27th, and to prevent this real-life equivalent of Springtime for Hitler proceeding. Allies here include Coleen Rowley, a former FBI agent-turned-whistleblower, who, along with two other women, won Time’s Person of the Year in 2002; and the Stanford-based Action Condi group. Earlier this week, Steven Jewell MD, one of its leading advocates, a retired emergency physician, wrote this letter to Rossen Milanov, the conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra:

By appearing on stage with Ms. Rice, you associate yourself and the Philadelphia Orchestra with crimes against humanity. Under Article 8 of the Rome Conventions, torture is defined as a crime against humanity, along with genocide, slavery, systematic rape, and disappearances of political opponents.

It would be a grave mistake to tarnish your own reputation and that of the orchestra with this event, and I urge you to do the right thing for the orchestra and your own reputation. Those who condone torture are complicit in the continuation of a horrible crime. I remind you of the holocaust poem that addresses the torment of the "Good German" during the Nazi period:

"THEY CAME FIRST for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

THEN THEY CAME for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

THEN THEY CAME for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

THEN THEY CAME for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up."

I implore you to do the right thing.”

Maestro Milanov has yet to respond.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “Commit a crime, and the earth is made of glass.” Those words were recently cited by Rwandan President Kagame as an inspiration to him in his efforts to heal the wounds left by the 1994 genocide that left 800,000 dead, and to secure truth, justice and reconciliation in his country. The successes his community tribunals have achieved (although recent reports of re-education camps have shown this program has been far from perfect), give hope that, given the right political will, a similar process of holding the criminals accountable, and then moving on, could happen in the US. Measures could be implemented to prevent torture from recurring. But President Obama and his Attorney General Eric Holder have made it clear that justice for the torturers is not a priority for them.

The only way that will happen is through a concerted grass-roots movement. Every citizen can participate in this endeavor. Here are some suggestions on how you can make a difference:

1. Urge the Philadelphia Orchestra to refuse to play with Condoleezza Rice. You can e-mail the conductor Rossen Milanov at ym19701307@gmail.com and the orchestra leadership at avulgamore@philorch.org, cHeininger@philorch.org , kblodgett@philorch.org, chamilton@philorch.org , amadonia@philorch.org, mmestichelli@philorch.org, smillen@philorch.org, and jrothman@philorch.org

2. Pressure the Mann Center to dump Rice from its program. Contact its chief executive, Catherine Cahill at 215.546.7900, or ccahill@manncenter.org If you don’t hear back from her, contact the Center’s corporate partners and sponsors-- including Boeing, Ernst & Young, Bank of America, Merck, and National Endowment for the Arts-- and ask them to make their continued support conditional on the removal of Rice from the concert bill. A full list of sponsors is at http://www.manncenter.org/support/SalutetoourPartners

3. Implore Aretha Franklin not to sing to Rice’s tune. E-mail her through her agent, Dick Allen of William Morris Endeavor, at da@wmeentertainment.com or tel: 310 285 9000. Post an appeal to other Aretha fans to back the campaign at http://www.facebook.com/arethafranklin and www.myspace.com/arethafranklin

4. Contact Rice’s representatives at William Morris Endeavor Agency, Jim Wiatt and Wayne Kabak, and ask them to stop what they have called the “reinvention and evolution” of her career, and consider the implications of WME aiding and abetting a torturer and war criminal. Tel: 310 285 9000. Do the same to her agents for speaking engagements, Washington Speakers Bureau, at 703.684.0555

5. Organize a peaceful public protest. Find out where Rice is appearing by becoming a friend of our film at http://www.facebook.com/pages/American-Faust-From-Condi-to-Neo-Condi/73789637249?ref=ts. If we don’t succeed in having Rice removed from the bill, join us in public protest on July 27, prior to the concert in Fairmount Park.

6. Call Attorney General Eric Holder (202 514 2000) and tell him to uphold the Rule of Law and order a full investigation of torture, including those who ordered it.

7. Write to President Obama and ask him not to compromise his principles of equal justice under the law for political expediency, to honor his promise to close Gitmo, and to cease illegal extraordinary renditions to black site countries.

8. Arrange a citizen’s arrest of Rice, in keeping with the provisions of the Penal Code of the state where the arrest is to take place.

9. Raise awareness of Rice’s crimes by recommending American Faust to your friends, or arranging a screening in your community. Get the film.

10. Join the Alliance for Justice and support its campaign to arrest, try and imprison Rice and others implicated in authorizing torture.

11. Write to your Congressperson and Senator and ask them to investigate those responsible for breaking the laws on torture.

12. Sign a petition at www.stanford.edu/group/antiwar/cgi-bin/crpetition.php stating that you “believe that high officials of the U.S. Government, including our former Provost, current Political Science Professor, and Hoover Institution Senior Fellow, Condoleezza Rice, should be held accountable for any serious violations of the Law (including ratified treaties, statutes, and/or the U.S. Constitution) through investigation and, if the facts warrant, prosecution, by appropriate legal authorities.”

13. Support the movement to expel Rice from her post at Stanford University. Join the Action Condi group at https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/action_condi and write to the Stanford Alumni Society and urge them to set up an escrow account for donations that will only be released once Rice has been expelled from the University.

14. Volunteer for, or donate to, groups fighting for human rights and the abolition of torture such as: War Criminals Watch, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the American Civil Liberties Union and Reprieve.

Do right, ladies and gents! Join the conspiracy of truth and justice!

NOW THERE'S TORTURE AND THERE'S TORTURE... NOT THAT WE DO EITHER

If you weren't reassured yesterday when Bush declared that we don't torture no one, perhaps you can still be suckered by two declarations in tomorrow's NY Times, one from Miss Condi about keeping an eye and a firm grip on Bush's private Republican army, the mercenary criminal enterprise known as Blackwater, and then yet another declaration by the Liar-in-Chief that torture is not torture when Republicans do it to guys he decides are the bad guys. I guess he is the Decider and he gets to decide what is and what isn't torture (although numerous treaties legitimate presidents signed long before his cronies staged the coup that placed them in the White House kind of defined that stuff already). Sounds like a technicality someone at the Hague can try to sort out someday.

OK; I have a feeling that setting brutal, vicious, unaccountable, murdering mercenaries loose on a civilian population counts as a war crime. Should Condi hang? Don't ask me; I think every legislator in Congress who ever voted for any of their schemes is culpable. And the one who took impeachment off the table...

Anyway, Condi, on behalf of the Bush Regime, wants to keep Blackwater in Iraq, regardless of what Congress, too afraid to provoke a constitutional clash, thinks. So she says she'll keep an eye on them. Feel better? (Not so much; but I would if it was Naomi Wolf who was watching Blackwater.)

The department will also install video cameras in Blackwater armored vehicles to produce a record of all operations that could be used in investigations of the use of force by private security contractors. The State Department will also save recordings of all radio transmissions between Blackwater convoys and military and civilian agencies supervising them in Iraq.

...The State Department measures announced on Friday are the first concrete response by the American government to the violent episode on Sept. 16 in central Baghdad involving several Blackwater teams that left as many as 17 Iraqis dead. Officials said the State Department would send dozens of its diplomatic security service agents to Baghdad so that there would be enough people in place to accompany every Blackwater convoy.

The State Department was facing new questions on Friday about its handling of another case, involving a former Blackwater guard who is suspected of shooting a bodyguard to an Iraqi vice president while drunk last Christmas Eve.

The former guard, Andrew J. Moonen, now lives in Seattle after being dismissed from Blackwater and sent home from Iraq 36 hours after the shooting, with the approval and help of the State Department.

But within weeks of losing his job at Blackwater, Mr. Moonen was hired by a Defense Department contractor and sent to Kuwait to work on logistics related to the Iraq war, a spokesman for the contractor, Combat Support Associates, said Friday. Mr. Moonen worked for the company from February until August of this year, said the spokesman, Paul Gennaro.

Friday was a regular Regime propaganda offensive. At the same time Condi was promising to hold a tighter leash on those awful Blackwater murderers rascals, Bush was screeching, in defiance of common knowledge-- a trick he used to get away with more regularly-- that "This government does not torture." The frequency and intensity of his blatant lying almost qualifies. But not as much as waterboarding. And although treaties Bush has surely never read but by which he is bound stipulates that there are no exceptions to the thou shalt not torture rule, Bush says he can do whatever he wants.

“I have put this program in place for a reason, and that is to better protect the American people,” the president said, without mentioning the C.I.A. by name. “And when we find somebody who may have information regarding a potential attack on America, you bet we’re going to detain them, and you bet we’re going to question them, because the American people expect us to find out information-- actionable intelligence so we can help protect them. That’s our job.”

And rounding up random teenagers in Aghan marketplaces and dumping them into a cell for months and months... is that his job too? As for protecting the American people... well it's demonstrable and without contention that no one has ever done a worse job at that. No. One. Ever.

The he claimed he ran all this by the appropriate members of Congress and they agreed. They beg to differ. According to Senator Rockefeller, Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, "The administration can’t have it both ways. I’m tired of these games. They can’t say that Congress has been fully briefed while refusing to turn over key documents used to justify the legality of the program.”

Life is too short to bother reading about Condi massaging her "legacy," so instead let's let Tom Tomorrow show that it's been a fiendish Dem plot

It's a good morning, and a great kickoff for the long weekend, with the sun, breezes blowing, and for once my morning paper neither (a) undelivered or (b) stolen. What's more, the shiny new digs the NYT boys and girls have moved into seem to have inspired them with a sense of humor--even on the front page!

Right there above the fold today is a head for a DIPLOMATIC MEMO by Helen Cooper which reads:

"As Her Star Wanes, Rice Tries to Reshape Legacy"

I laughed, then laughed some more. Condi? Suddenly worried about her legacy? What was she thinking about all those years while she acted as cheerleader-stooge-enabler for Cheney, Rummy, and the Chimp? Okay, we like to be open-minded here at DWT, let's take a stab at it:

* On Condi's watch the percentage of Americans who can find Iraq on a map has risen from "unmeasurable" to 2.6 percent. This is pretty good when you consider that apparently 70 percent of Americans can't find America on a map, meaning that at most 30 percent can. (Okay, the numbers are made up. At least the "2.6 percent." I do remember hearing somewhere that something like 70 percent of Americans can't find America on a map.)

* It might all have been ever so slightly worse if our Condi hadn't been on the inside, first as national security adviser and then as secretary of state, to say, "I don't think we--" (before being cut off by Cheney or Rummy). If it's going to be her "legacy," however, it would be nice to have a shred of evidence for the proposition, like even a single "for instance."

You know, since Condi is reputed to be an excellent amateur pianist, and therefore presumably someone with some wider exposure to classical music, it's a shame she didn't think, when she began pondering her legacy, about the scene in Verdi's Don Carlos where the Marquis of Posa throws every argument he can think of into trying to persuade the Hapsburg (and Catholic) King Philip II of Spain to end the infernal bloodbath he has been inflicting on (Protestant) Flanders.

We should talk about this amazing scene sometime. It cost Verdi enormous anguish; he rewrote it three times. But in the end he nailed it. In the context of legacy-buffing, the line that leaps to mind is Rodrigo's "O King, don't let history ever say of you: 'He was Nero.'" ("Il fut Neron" in the original French--or "Ei fu Neron" in the more commonly performed Italian translation--is set as a series of B's, just below middle C, comfortably below the vocal "break" and so likely to be manageable by the baritone the way the composer asks for it: ppp, or very, very softly.

To be honest, I can't tell you any more about how our Condi hopes to spruce up her legacy. I didn't read any more. I took the headline belly laugh and ran. If I were advising her, though, I would incline in the direction of trying to explain it all via a conspiracy of the sort that Tom Tomorrow has been conjuring up. (Thanks to my friend Paul for passing these glorious strips on--I just forget to check for my weekly Tom T fix.) Don't forget that you can click anywhere on the strips to enlarge them.

THE US EMBASSY IN IRAQ IS AS BIG AS VATICAN CITY-- BUT IT DOESN'T FUNCTION ANY BETTER THAN THE REST OF THE STATE DEPARTMENT

This morning's Washington Post has a story on the front page about how Ryan Crocker, Bush's new ambassador to Iraq, says the monument to Bush Imperialism, the gargantuan American Embassy in Baghdad, which will probably be demolished in the not too distant future, doesn't function adequately. Is Mr. Crocker off his rocker? Is there anything touched by the hand of Bush that does function adequately? Start with Bush's most enduring achievement: Iraq-- and then give up.

Today I heard Condoleeza Rice, the one Bush has playing the role of Secretary of State (of the United States of America), on the radio making a pompous and self-satisfied speech about democracy and the Palestinians. Unless you had some kind of a memory that goes beyond the last 3 episodes of American Idol you probably would have never guessed that Hamas won the elections. Presumably she knows and she was purposely attempting some misdirection for the purposes of internal propaganda. The new U.S. policy for the area is to try to bolster Fatah, a policy that is sure to backfire since it will make Abbas appear to be a puppet of Israeli-American machinations. Hard to imagine a worse crew to tackle one of the world's thorniest diplomatic conundrums.

Some analysts have questioned the legality under Palestinian law of Abbas's dismissal of the Hamas-dominated government after Hamas seized the Gaza Strip from security forces loyal to Abbas. But Rice and other U.S. officials brushed aside such concerns, insisting he had every right to create a new government-- one that now appears willing and able to negotiate with Israel.

...Hamas won the 2006 elections largely on its reputation for efficiency in providing social services and a reputation for incorruptibility, in contrast to that of Abbas's Fatah party, which has long dominated Palestinian politics.

...Under U.S. pressure, the Palestinian Basic Law was amended several years ago to limit the powers of the president to dismiss the government, largely because the late Yasser Arafat was the Palestinian leader at the time.

Nathan Brown, an expert on Arab politics at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said in an analysis that both Hamas's actions in Gaza and Abbas's actions in response failed the constitutional tests. "The result is likely to be two lawless governments," he said. "Neither will be accountable to Palestinian society or institutions in any way."

Rice, asked about the legality of Abbas's actions, said: "Our view, very strongly, is that what President Abbas has done is legitimate and it is responsible and we're going to support that action." Other U.S. officials, speaking privately, said they had little concern that legal niceties were being ignored, given Hamas's power grab.

"How do I put this diplomatically? Who cares?" said Ghaith al-Omari, a former Abbas aide now at the New America Foundation. "It is the politics of survival now."

Well, wasn't our Condi supposed to be one of the world's A-1 Sovietologists? OK, probably not, but can you blame her for trying to hold onto the gig?

In case you missed this news, Al Kamen's got it in his Washington Post "In the Loop" column today:

Remember the Soviets?

The Russians are most unhappy with the proposed U.S. missile shield in Europe to protect the United States from Iranian missiles. The Russians somehow think this poses a threat to their nuclear deterrent. Of course, since the Iranians don't have nukes yet, it's probably predictable the Russians would wonder. Remember: We never wait for a mushroom cloud.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in Oslo yesterday for a NATO meeting, told reporters that "the idea that somehow 10 interceptors and a few radars in eastern Europe are going to threaten the Soviet strategic deterrent is purely ludicrous."

She said the administration wants to talk to Moscow based on a "realistic" view, rather than "one that is grounded somehow in the 1980s."

The "Soviet strategic deterrent"? Who's grounded in the 1980s?

WHY CAN'T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG, MAHMOUD? BASHIR?

It takes a big man to admit he was wrong and rethink his position and do exactly what his critics asked him to do regardless of having once said he would refuse to consider it. When I was CEO of a company I used to look for people like that. But you have to be careful because the other kind of person who will demonstrate the same overt behavior is a weak and desperate person. And you don't want to have them around.

Through his Iraqi puppet-- some would say Quisling-- government, Bush has finally agreed to the diplomatic conference Democrats and the Iraq Study Group have been urging on him for some time. Today's Washington Post reports that Condoleeza expects to chair a "neighbors conference" with Iran, Syria and Iraq in April. Is she baking cookies and bringing sandwiches? (Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Turkey all have contiguous borders with Iraq. Are they coming too?)

"The violence occurring within the country has a decided impact on Iraq's neighbors," Rice told the Senate Appropriations Committee, which is considering the administration's nearly $100 billion request to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. "And Iraq's neighbors as well as the international community have a clear role to play in supporting the Iraqi government's effort to promote peace and national reconciliation within the country."

The Three Stooges Neither Bush, nor Cheney, nor Rice has agreed to direct talks with Iran (or Syria), presumably because they're assisting Iraqi insurgents, although that hasn't deterred the Three Stooges from non-stop talk with Saudi Arabia, by far the biggest supplier of the most deadly weapons to the insurgents in Iraq. In fact, it is estimated that at least 70% of American casualties in Iraq have Bush's Saudi business partner's paw prints on them.


There's been a lot made lately-- on both sides of the aisle-- about Rice's inadequacy for a job beyond what she was originally hired for (tutor for retardo-boy). She proves it every time she opens her mouth. She told whoever was paying attention to her silliness that al-Maliki "believes and President Bush and I agree that success in Iraq requires the positive support of Iraq's neighbors. This is one of the key findings, of course, of the Iraq Study Group and it is an important dimension that many in the Senate and in the Congress have brought to our attention." How many Americans-- and how many Iraqis-- have died since Bush dug in his heals and refused to pay any attention to this suggestions?

This Regime is simply so egregiously incompetent that they can't even make a go of putting on a good face anymore. Is it any wonder that today's ABC/Washington Post Poll shows us that only 35% of Americans feel they can "trust the Administration to honestly/accurately report intelligence about possible threats from other countries? That is very serious and Congress is flirting with malfeasance in not moving towards impeachment. A Gallup poll also came out today and only a fool would be surprised to see that 73% of respondents feel that leaders of other countries around the world do not respect Bush.

YES, CONDI IS A MORON MASQUERADING AS AN INTELLECTUAL

I've been lecturing, occasionally, at Stanford for two decades. I never met Condolezza Rice when she was at the far right "think" tank there, the Hoover Institute, nor when she was Provost at Stanford for 6 years in the '90s. I've asked a lot of faculty members who did meet her what she was like. The most positive thing anyone has ever told me about her is that she was an OK piano player. Academically she was always a joke, someone who had managed to get through a series of third-rate schools because of a good memory and some charm but little with little ability for analysis or real comprehension. Bush's father hired her as a tutor for his learning-disabled son when they decided to run him for president (of the United States). The results are clearly displayed every time one turns on the TV or opens a newspaper.

You know how McCain mentioned the other day that Donald Rumsfeld would go down in history as the worst Secretary of Defense ever? He was too polite to say who is going down in history as the worst Secretary of State ever. (Hint: not Colin Powell or Madeleine Albright.) Tonight, however, Keith Olbermann was more forthright. John's got the video up at Crooks and Liars and it really is not to be missed. Anyone who is still wondering why our nation is held in so low esteem everywhere in the world no longer has to worry it was all done by Bush and Cheney. Olbermann points out that the incomprehensible drivel she was spouting yesterday on Fox-- and John's got that up too-- was so retarded that "if it had been included in a remedial history paper at the weakest high school in the nation, would've gotten the writer an "F"-- maybe an expulsion... The Secretary's resume reads that she has a Masters' Degree and a Ph.D in Political Science. The interviewer should have demanded to see them, on the spot." Watch the video.

Then read Glenn Greenwald's overview of the Iraq tragedy about another rank Bush Regime operative, the ever more odious Joe Lieberman. And if you're still managing to hold your last meal down, try Dan Froomkin's explanation of who let the dog out to run and bother people in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Meanwhile Americans overwhelmingly favor Jack Murtha's bill to block Bush's escalation while the entire Republican caucus and more than a few reactionary Democrats led by Rahm Emanuel and Steny Hoyer, are determined to scuttle it and continue Bush's war agenda.


UPDATE: EVEN RICHARD PERLE POINTS OUT SHE'S INCOMPETENT

And if anyone has experience with incompetence... Anyway in a longwinded, self-serving interview today with some far right propaganda outlet, the loathsome warmonger and Neocon, Richard Perle goes out of his way to name all the disastrous choices Bush has made personnel-wise. And who's the first one out of his mouth: Condi-- "way in over her head."