Fred Fielding Goes Long

Okay, buckle up and grab the dashboard. The route of Republican logic (snort at that oxymoron) we are about to traverse is as twisted a path as any Missouri two-lane blacktop.

White House Counsel Fred Fielding has sent along a letter ‘splainin’ why the White House is refusing to let Sara Taylor and Harriet Meyers testify if there is any record of the exchange.

Writes F²

"Obviously, there has been a lot of discussion back and forth in that regard. The position that the president took and conveyed to the committees and the offer of compromise did not include transcripts. The accommodation was designed to provide information, not to appear to be having testimony without having testimony. One of the concomitants of testimony, of course, is transcripts.

"As far as the debate goes, often cited is that a transcript is not wanted because otherwise there would be a perjury trap. And, candidly, as everyone has discussed, misleading Congress is misleading Congress, whether it's under oath or not. And so a transcript may be convenient, but there's no intention to try to avoid telling the truth." (emphasis added)

Perjury trap? Are they planning to lie?

I guess if you are a part of this freakshow, it’s better to be assumed a liar than to open your mouth to prove it.

Sara Taylor was overheard explaining to a friend at lunch that “orange makes me look sallow.”

Thursday catblogging: renaming one of the critters edition

This is the cat formerly know as Buddy. As that critter will not stay off the table, we are hereafter calling him Impeachment.

Morning News Roundup

Hang on to your hats, kiddies – it’s shaping up to be one hell of a day.

I am looking for the remote – I need to hit the “pause” button for a sec and make with processing this all.

Where to start…

How about with the fact that so many people were calling the Senate switchboard this morning to express their support for Leahy calling time, that it crashed the system.

Or with the fact that Russia just laid claim to a huge chunk of the North Pole for the oil beneath it – and the pole is an international zone, owned and claimed by no nation, under international law. This coincides with the price of oil hitting $70.09 bbl. briefly.

How about the fact that a nuclear power plant is burning in Germany?

And I haven’t even gotten to the White House snubbing the rule of law. Or AG AG pressuring the U.S. Attorney in Arizona to seek the death penalty in a case where there was no body. (I guess to him, if you can’t find one, you make one?)

[I have a question for a couple of people. If you didn’t care before that some attorneys got fired, are you starting to care yet?]

I honestly have lost patience with the rest of the country. The fucking Republic is in peril, and too many people don’t seem to give a rat’s ass.

This is a personal affront to me. If you aren’t right pissed by now, what is it going to take? And I am dead fucking serious when I ask that question. What the fuck is it going to take before you pick up the phone and do your part to crash the Senate switchboard?

Batiste: Stop conflating 'insurgents' & al Qa'eda - they are not the same thing

Major General John Batiste, appearing before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on Wednesday had some strong words for this feckless administration and the inept, criminally incompetent way they have prosecuted the war in Iraq.

He is at least as furious as I am at the rebranding effort underway (the MBA presidency has all the characteristics of a failed enterprise), by the administrations spin doctors to paint all insurgents who oppose the occupation of their country by the U.S. military with the “al Qa’eda” brush.

Watch it – and remember that there is a sound gap for a few seconds on either side of the minute mark. It does lose the audio for a couple of seconds, but the part I want you to hear is loud, clear and strong.

For what it’ worth, I do not play along with the administrations message framers, and I never have. Instead, I use some variation of the more intellectually honest term jihadist. While all al Qa’eda are jihadists, not all jihadists are al Qa’eda.

The tendency to blur the lines between insurgent groups was addressed at length in the white paper Rethinking Counterinsurgency by Dr. Stephen Metz that was summarized here a few weeks ago. Dr. Metz warns against the tendency to engage in this deception. It inevitably strengthens the standing of those you desire to defeat, in reality, in the perception of the public and inevitably in the minds of the counterinsurgency forces that are battling against them.

The General is absolutely correct. None of us should sleep well at night.