"Suicide" At Gitmo

Read this horrifying account of three alleged suicides at Gitmo. Is this the smoking gun? Will this be the catalyst to finally move the administration to investigate the possible war crimes of the Bush/Cheney folks? One can only hope these crimes are investigated and prosecuted. It sickens me to think that the Obama administration would continue to look the other way.

The Geithner Chronicles

I can think of no good reason Geithner should still be our Treasury Secretary. Here is a good case against him.



Game. Set. Match. Time for Geithner to go.

Meet the Obama's

The White House released the official family portrait of the Obamas this morning. The First Family turned to famed celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz for the photo, which was taken in the Green Room, a parlor on the first floor of the executive mansion.

(h/t TPM)

Tail Finds It Increasingly Difficult To Wag Dog

Rik Hertzberg takes his shots at the wing nut welfare state run by its corporate media masters.

What is different now is the evolution of a new political organism, with paranoia as its animating principle. The town-meeting shouters may be the organism’s hands and feet, but its heart—also, Heaven help us, its brain—is a “conservative” media alliance built around talk radio and cable television, especially Fox News. The protesters do not look to politicians for leadership. They look to niche media figures like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Michael Savage, and their scores of clones behind local and national microphones. Because these figures have no responsibilities, they cannot disappoint. Their sneers may be false and hateful—they all routinely liken the President and the “Democrat Party” to murderous totalitarians—but they are employed by large, nominally respectable corporations and supported by national advertisers, lending them a considerable measure of institutional prestige. The dominant wing of the Republican Party is increasingly an appendage of the organism—the tail, you might say, though it seems to wag more often from fear than from happiness. Many Republican officeholders, even some reputed moderates like Senator Chuck Grassley, of Iowa, have obediently echoed the foul nonsense.

I don’t see any flaw in that logic. Do you?

Picture of the Day

Obama and the crowd of supporters at the August 6 campaign rally for Creigh Deeds in Tyson's Corner, Virginia.

White House/Pete Souza

Barack Obama Is The First President My Children Will Remember

How Much Is That Ambassadorship In The Window

Scott Horton pulls together several pieces of recent reporting that describe the apparent process of handing out ambassadorships by the Obama administration. It isn't so much that these posts are given to successful fundraisers but that these individuals seem to have little else to recommend them for these diplomatic posts.

And for generations, one unseemly aspect of fundraising has been the de facto sale of ambassadorships. As the Los Angeles Times noted in a recent editorial, the United States is the only major country that regularly hands out choice ambassadorships as a favor for campaign funding bundlers. The process cheapens our diplomatic relations and sends a bad message to the states to which these ambassadors are sent. And it’s getting cruder and greedier. A cynic studying the latest batch of nominees might conclude that the price of an ambassadorship has soared from roughly $200,000 under the Rovian regime to $500,000 under Rahm Emanuel.

I agree with this assessment of the facts, and find myself in agreement with Horton. Unfortunately it appears he does make one error in his piece and he has either misread the articles linked to in the following paragraph or is using a source to which he provides no link.

Another is Phil Murphy, a Goldman Sachs executive who served as the Democratic Party’s national finance chairman, tapped to represent the United States in Berlin. The Murphy appointment so troubled German leaders that they held up agrément–the diplomatic process under which the receiving nation agrees to accept the ambassadorial designee–so that Chancellor Angela Merkel could press the case for a career diplomat or serious political figure. Merkel made her appeal at the G-8 meeting at L’Aquila, but Obama was unswayed. The Germans finally relented and grudgingly accepted the appointment.

The linked piece specifically states:

Apparently there were no objections to Murphy, 52, a former banker at Goldman Sachs. He could be officially named by Obama as his pick for Berlin as early as this week. Obama has already announced his postings for other important European cities like Paris and London.
The fact that it has taken so long to officially name Murphy, whose Berlin ambitions were first reported in May, has created an atmosphere of astonishment in diplomatic circles.

Acknowledging how awkward it has been not to have an ambassador in place yet nearly six months into the Obama presidency, Anne-Marie Slaughter, the director of policy planning at the State Department jokingly quipped during a speech at the American Academy in Berlin on Tuesday that the pick for Germany would "be in place before the end of the first term." The remark sparked laughter throughout the room. "Everybody in Washington knows how important a post this is," she added. "It's not just because the Russians have a good ambassador, but because our own relationship with Germany is very important."

Sources close to the White House have attributed the delays to a comprehensive new review for top posts in the Obama administration. As a result of a tax scandal earlier this year, this procedure has become even stricter. In Murphy's case, there was a lot to review. During his more than two decades at Goldman Sachs, he built up a fortune estimated at several hundred million dollars. More recently, he served as the Democratic Party's national finance chairman, helping to fill the party's coffers.

The Merkel did not hold up the Murphy appointment, it was a choice made by the Obama administration when they increased the scrutiny of all appointments after some early missteps. With that said it is at least troubling that it appears to be business as usual when it comes to the appointment of our ambassadors.

Hitting The Reset Button

After listening to Obama's entire speech again and reading through the blogosphere it seems to me that a good portion of the commentariat of the same blogosphere missed the point of the speech. This speech was Obama’s way of hitting the reset button on our foreign policy as it relates to the Middle East and the rest of the world effected by our so-called Global War On Terrorism. Secretary Clinton’s forceful words on Israeli settlements and President Obama’s willingness to address Arabs and Muslims as equals is sending the right message. The stage is now set for a new beginning. Let’s see what the administration actually does. The proof will come through how foreign policy is conducted and how we spend our money. Until then all the punditry means nothing.

Shaving the Rump Smooth

DougJ posting at Ballon Juice offers up this latest from our friends in the GOP:




Graham is right. This push toward some sort of conservative orthodoxy required of all who wish to remain in the party will not win elections anywhere but the the Deep South and Idaho. The "purer" the GOP becomes the more likely it is for a right leaning but more centrist party to actually take root. The GOP has until 2012 to get its shit together. Unless they start making for serious ground by then look for a third party to rise.

These guys lost Indiana to the Democrats. Indiana. When a bona fide conservative like Jim Huntsman (who just happens to have moderate 21st century views on a couple a social issue and isn't a rabid climate change denier) resigns from a job that could have been a platform for launching a 2012 Presidential campaign you know the rump has been shaved pretty damned smooth.

Al Giordane:

Some said Obama was crazy, back in 2007 and 2008, to reach out to what conventional wisdom thought was an impenetrable GOP base... Crazy, like a fox.

And that's about right. Obama, the consummate politician is way ahead of his opponents. They still haven't figured him out and they are quickly losing ground. Now that doesn't mean he is a shoo in for 2012 but the opposition grows weaker everyday.

Troubling News

SecDef Bill Gates ordered a change of command in Afghanistan. It happens. A four star general losing his job rather unceremoniously is a bit of news but what is most troubling abou this episode is the change of command as much as it is who is now replacing McKiernan. He is being replaced by a man who may very well be responsible for war crimes. This is troubling to me. How is it that a President elected on a message of change can then turn around and PROMOTE a man who might be a war criminal?

I am growing impatinet with the new President. This is very bad news.

100 Days

White House Photo

Obama And The Tiger

(White House photo)

Overview Of 2010 Budget Proposal

Obama's FY 2010 Budget Overview

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Lemmings: Watch Out for that Cliff!

With the the Republican Congressional caucus sniffing Rush's panties; they are about to become exactly what Tom Delay dreamed of: an ideologically pure caucus so far out on the fringes of the Right they'll make Newt look like a centrist. They will lose the votes of New England Republicans and possibly Lugar and a few others in the Senate on many important issues. In the House, with so few moderate Republicans left it's hard to say how many will see the light before they go all lemming and run over the cliff with Rush and Gingrey.

If the Republicans were actually arguing the merits of the stimulus program rather than coming up with phony BS from a CBO "report" that did not exist, and just plain lying, they might be a worthy opposition party. Instead they seem content to be villains in a Keystone Cop movie.

(via Balloon Juice)

Obama's Pakistan Policy

Destabilizing Pakistan with these airstikes on suspected terrorist hideouts will be costly in the long run. Will the price be too high? Cernig say yes.

But secondly because such attacks really are morally unsupportable given the way they are planned and carried out. One attack inside Pakistan has already missed its target and killed entirely innocent civilians instead. We know from events in Afghanistan that the USAF seems to have a terrible predeliction for bombing wedding parties because some tribal enemy fingers the neighbouring village as being a nest of militants. And I simply don't believe the possible death of a "possible terrorist leader" is worth three children's lives under any circumstances. There's no point to reclaiming the moral high ground by closing prisons and banning torture if you're going to hand it away again with indiscriminate airstrikes - and airstrikes are by their nature indiscriminate despite what the PR brochures on "precision" bombs might say.

The Spoils

Elections have consequences:

Challenged by one Republican senator over the contents of the [economic stimulus] package, the new president, according to participants, replied: “I won.”

That is sweet music to my ears.

Disappointing News

This is disappointing:

President-elect Barack Obama's swearing-in ceremony will feature big names like minister Rick Warren and legendary singer Aretha Franklin, the Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies announced Wednesday.

I love Aretha. Rick Warren is a twelve sandwich eating piece of shit.

Barack is 44

It's official:

In all 50 states and the District of Columbia, the 538 electors performed a constitutional process to legally elect Democrat Barack Obama the 44th president.

More than 131 million voters cast ballots — the most ever in a presidential election. But Obama's election is not complete until Congress tallies the outcome of Monday's Electoral College vote at a joint session scheduled for Jan. 6.

Monday's voting was largely ceremonial, the results preordained by Obama's Nov. 4 victory over Republican Sen. John McCain. Obama won 365 electoral votes, to 173 for McCain. With every state reporting, all the electors had cast ballots in accordance with the popular votes in their states.

Good News for the VA

WaPo:

Retired Army Gen. Eric K. Shinseki will be introduced tomorrow as President-elect Barack Obama's nominee to head the Department of Veterans Affairs, a Democratic official familiar with the announcement said today.

Shinseki was a soldier's soldier. Damn good man and he always took care of his troops. Obama is serious about taking care of the troops after they've returned home.

A New National Security Direction?

With President-Elect Obama preparing to roll out his National Security team sometime over the next couple of weeks I went back and reread this piece, written last summer, by the inimitable Andrew Bacevich.

The challenge facing Obama is clear: he must go beyond merely pointing out the folly of the Iraq war; he must demonstrate that Iraq represents the truest manifestation of an approach to national security that is fundamentally flawed, thereby helping Americans discern the correct lessons of that misbegotten conflict.

The impetus for my concerns were renewed after reading his book The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism. I will wait for Mr Obama to take office and the confirmation process to begin before I make any substantive comments on the direction of his policy.