pudge's Journal: Tuesday Thoughts

I'm late in getting this out, as life delayed it. And I don't have much to say anyway. The Sunday shows only inspired me to write about one thing, and it wasn't all that interesting.

A Senator Says What?

Robert C. Byrd, Democrat Senator from West Virginia, is out slamming Bush. This is nothing new, of course, but this time he has a book to back him up. On Meet the Press, Tim Russert read back a passage to him:

"In the end, only 22 other members voted to oppose this despicable grant of authority (for war). ...Never in my half century of congressional service had the United States Senate proved unworthy of its great name. What would the framers have thought? In this terrible show of weakness, the Senate left an indelible stain upon its own escutcheon. Having revered the Senate during my service for more than forty years, I was never pained so much."

So, what of Kerry and Edwards? Byrd replied, "They were misled. I'm confident of that. And I have a feeling that that is why they voted as they did."

So the Senate did a bad thing, but Kerry and Edwards were merely misled. Gotcha. Could you be any more disingenous, Senator? Read that whole section of the interview, it's crazy.

Joe Wilson

Not for nothing, but when I slammed Joe Wilson last summer -- saying that his story was at best a minor footnote, and didn't really discount anything at all, and that far too much was being made of it -- I got slammed by various people for it. I am now accepting apologies. ;-)

Sandy Berger

I have made many requests of many on the left to wait and see, to not jump to conclusions, to use evidence and not innuendo, when thinks look bad for the administration. Recent examples include the various memos that vaguely hint at administration condoning of torture in Iraq, or a supposed coverup of supposed wrongdoing in the Valerie Plame incident, or the insinuation that Cheney was doing something sinister in his energy task force meetings.

And now I call on my right-minded brethren to extend the same courtesy to the left in regard to Sandy Berger. I realize my call is likely in vain, but maybe it will have more effect than my previously mentioned requests.

We know a lot about what Berger did, but we don't know why he did it, we don't know what was on the missing papers, we don't know why no action has yet been taken against Berger despite it being known about for many months.

The only defenses of Berger I've seen so far are that it was unintentional -- which as best I can tell, is plausible -- and the old redirection, "why is this being talked about now? Is this an intentionally timed pre-convention surprise?" As to the former, I have no answer, except that it warrants some investigation.

To the latter, I note that it is irrelevant to the fact of the wrongdoing, and that it doesn't seem all that strange for such an explosive fact from the impending 9/11 Commission report to be leaked a few days early. I am no expert, but heck, if it is me, I'd rather this waited a few days, so it would be new news when the convention started, when the report is actually released, so the Democratic convention is more overshadowed by it, and the timing can't be assaulted.

But again, even if the timing is intentional, that doesn't have anything to do with the fact of the wrongdoing. I didn't care about this objection to Richard Clarke's book (whether it had merit or not), and I don't care about it here.

Yup.

[nandorman]

Indeed, nothing says "it was all perfectly innocent" like sticking notes down your socks. And knowingly taking classified documents out of a super-secure area. I actually agree with you that there could be a logical (and as-innocent-as-is-possible-given-it's-Washington-D C) explanation. After all, Clinton is now saying that he and Sandy had a good laugh over it. That's enough to convince me! Nandor

Re:Yup.

[pudge]

Note that we don't know anything was in his socks, or that it was intentional. He contests both.

Re:Yup.

[helix400]

Indeed, nothing says "it was all perfectly innocent" like sticking notes down your socks.

There's been a lot of confusion over this. CNN reports that "Law enforcement sources said archive staff members told FBI agents they saw Berger placing items in his jacket and pants, and one archive staffer told agents that Berger also placed something in his socks. That latter allegation drew a sharp response from Berger associate and former White House lawyer Lanny Davis, who challenged any unnamed official who

Re:Yup.

[SiliconJesus]

Uh - I work at the Archives - there are no 'secret' or 'top secret' documents stored here (at least not that are part of the official 'Archive'), although once an Archive has been handed over to NARA, only copies can be removed other than being put on display.

Re:Yup.

[pudge]

Maybe they weren't "part of the official 'Archive'"? Everyone seems to be saying they were top secret, and I've not seen Berger or his lawyer deny this.

The intent of Public Office

[ellem]

When the Founding Fathers came up with Public Office they fully expected wealthy, intelligent men to submit to Public Service for a few years and then to get back to their lives. No one expected anyone to serve for 40+ years. "Get a job!" They would have yelled. Term limits, strict harsh term limits.

Also (side rant) one of the main themes of 1984 which the Left and Right use as a forewarning of what the other side is doing forgetting that the GOVERNMENT is the bad guy is that Language has no meaning.

Re:The intent of Public Office

[buffer-overflowed]

It's relatively simple to get term limits. Just don't vote for the incumbent after X years. Ever. Stick to it, and convince a bunch of other people and you've got term limits.

Considering our incumbency rate is almost 99%, I doubt most people want term limits.

Oh and Senator Byrd is a nut(and also doesn't give a damn), but he funnels so much cash into WVa he'll stay there until he dies or retires.

Re:The intent of Public Office

[ellem]

I wonder if he still has his sheets.

Re:The intent of Public Office

[buffer-overflowed]

I think he traded them in for a slew of memorial highways through and to nowhere(like 119, which meanders parallel to I-79 and had no real purpose but to funnel construction cash into the state).

Re:The intent of Public Office

[pudge]

I don't buy that at all. There are so many reasons why in theory those term limits are ineffective, and practice bears it out.

First, there's the necessary advantage from name recognition an incumbent gets. Better the devil you know than the devil you don't. Second, there's seniority: why vote someone out who gives your state more power when the other states are doing the same?

It's time for a Constitutional amendment.

Re:The intent of Public Office

[buffer-overflowed]

If enough people believe in term limits then they can implement that policy themselves within the current system. You have primaries and then the general election. If you choose to vote for the incumbent(in either or both), then you probably don't truly believe in term limits. That's my point. It wouldn't take too long for the message to take hold.

It's kind of like government funded charity. If enough people support it to make it pass... why does it need to pass? Can't all the supporters just donate m

Re:The intent of Public Office

[pudge]

If you choose to vote for the incumbent(in either or both), then you probably don't truly believe in term limits. That's my point.

And *my* point -- as already stated -- is that your point is not merited by the facts on the ground. You might truly believe in term limits, but be unwilling to sacrifice your state's seniority for it, or be unwilling to throw the bum out because you don't know enough about his potential replacement to risk it.

Anyway, our country has already decided term limits are acceptabl

Re:The intent of Public Office

[buffer-overflowed]

I understand what you're saying, I just don't happen to agree with it.

If you(and in this case I'm using you as a general term for everyone who takes such a position) don't view it as important enough to invalidate other concerns(or rather, because you aren't willing to take a chance that others, even if they agree with you, will come to the same conclusion) then the problem is most likely inertia. Inertia can be overcome.

The argument that you don't know enough about his possible replacement kind of falls

Re:The intent of Public Office

[pudge]

If you ... don't view it as important enough to invalidate other concerns ... then the problem is most likely inertia. Inertia can be overcome.

Whether it *can* be overcome is beside the point. Many things can be overcome. Bad ballots in Florida can be overcome by people paying more attention to what the hell they are doing, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to fix the ballots. Ability is not the issue at all.

We all know that incumbency reelection rate is high, and we all know that people are larg

Kerry misled?

[cascadefx]

They may have all been misled, but they could have done some reading on thier own and, FOR GOD's SAKE, asked some harsher and tougher questions. No one did and that is a stain on Kerry in my book... but it is a bigger stain on Bush. He could have done the same. He championed the action and Congress followed.

It wasn't as if there wasn't a vocal group of current and past foriegn service and UN inspectors that said the claims were baseless.

If nothing else, they all could have waited for better confirmatio

sought uranium from Africa

[jamie]

When Bush gave his State of the Union, saying the Brits had "learned" that Saddam sought uranium from Africa, a lot of people pointed out that this might not be true. ("Learned," of course, directly implies that the fact "learned" is true.) The White House admitted shortly thereafter that it might not be true, and admitted the president should never have said it. In fact we still don't know it's true. So the president asserted something in a State of the Union address that he didn't know to be true. Most pe

Re:sought uranium from Africa

[pudge]

"Learned," of course, directly implies that the fact "learned" is true.

No, it doesn't. I actually think the way the statement was crafted was an admission we did not know it to be true, else why lay it on the Brits? It weakened the whole statement.

Later, in a related incident, someone senior at the White House probably broke federal law and damaged the national security of this country by a retaliatory attack on a whistleblower.

Where "probably" is not what the rest of us use the word to mean: you ha