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November 28, 2005
War crimes?
Like just about every administration, Bush's can't stand criticism. That's why the vice president's chief of staff now is under indictment for outing a CIA operative whose husband dared to criticize the administration on Iraq.
Last week, Cheney couldn't resist impugning the character of Congressman John Murtha, a decorated Vietnam vet who called on America to withdraw from the quagmire in Iraq.
Cheney and the president say that the 100 Democrats had the same intelligence they had when they voted to authorize the president to go to war.
But it's now coming out little by little that Bush and Cheney had additional reason to know -- to know -- that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction before the invasion.
It's now pretty clear that the principle source for the WMD claim, an Iraqi defector codenamed "Curveball" was not credible. Not credible.
And now, the National Journal has reported that as early as 10 days after the September 11 terrorist attacks, the President's Daily Brief by the CIA concluded that there was no connection -- no connection -- between the 9/11 attackers and Saddam Hussein. In fact, according to the National Journal, Saddam, a secular Muslim, was wary of the Al Queda fanatics.
It is one thing for our leaders to say that they simply had bad intelligence. That is obvious. But these latest revelations raise the chilling question: at what point are Bush and Cheney subject to laws against war crimes?
This is not a partisan quesiton. But if you remotely accept that they knew their pinciple source about WMD was not credible, and that our CIA told the president there was no connection between the 9/11 attackers and Saddam Hussein, can there be any other conclusion than that the leaders of the United States committed war crimes?
Posted by Ken Eudy at 07:10 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 10, 2005
Can Democrats Make the Sale
Democrats are gleeful this week. Their party won tough campaigns for governor in New Jersey and Virginia. The Gulf Coast is cranky after Katrina. The military is in an Iraqi quagmire. Gas prices are under $3.00, but still high. Scooter Libbey is under indictment. President Bush's job approval is under 40.
Retaking control of the U.S. House doesn't seem so far fetched, right? And 2008? Hillary is already calling the storage company to ready the Clinton draperies for re-installation in the Lincoln Bedroom.
But the mid-term elections are a year away, an eternity in politics. And the same public opinion polls that give Bush a failing grade for his presidency tell us something else: voters don't like Democrats much more than Republicans. They don't believe that Democrats can do a better job. They don't know what Democrats stand for.
You sort of know, almost instinctively, what Republicans stand for: lower taxes (at least for the rich) and anti-terrorism (even if they haven't been very good at it).
Quick, now, what do Democrats stand for?
I'm waiting...
Sure, they stand for social fairness, balanced budgets, and not alienating our global allies. But what soundbites do they stand for, silly?
You have to admit, for all the nuttiness of Newt Gingrich, he knew what he was doing back in 1994, when he and House Republicans unveiled the Contract with America. I call it the Contract ON America. But what the heck, it worked.
The Nancy Pelosi Democrats need a Contract, a Covenant or a Deal of some sort. A shorthand way of saying to voters, "If you buy our brand of politics and policy, here's what you're going to get"
You've got a majority of the marketplace who are willing buyers. Do you have a political party that has the ability to make the sale?
Posted by Ken Eudy at 06:40 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 03, 2005
The coverup is usually worse than the crime
North Carolina is getting a lottery, after most surrounding states have established one.
Some of the news media, notably the Raleigh News & Observer and my former employer, the Charlotte Observer, are chagrined. They hate the notion of a lottery. And they've gleefully reported every misstep.
One of the lottery operators, Scientific Games, has been ham-fisted in its effort to gain a competitive advantage over its main rival, GTech, for the inside track to run North Carolina's lottery.
The media have investigated and reported in excrutiating detail the activites of Scientific America. SG had paid a political consultant, Kevin Geddings, to help get a lottery bill enacted by the legislature. Geddings was appointed to the state commission overseeing the lottery but got amnesia about his previous payments from SG. He did not disclose them.
Scientific Games hired Meredith Norris, a young lobbyist who had worked on House Speaker Jim Black's staff and was still active in Black's political organization. She said she didn't lobby on the lottery. But she did arrange meetings between SG staff and legislators, and she paid the tab for dinners with some legislators.
The Raleigh and Charlotte media have covered these revelations as though they were the Valaachi Papers.
You know what? Those dinners and meetings wouldn't have helped Scientific Games. First of all, it wouldn't be surprising if GTech also reimbursed their lobbyists for similar dinners with legislators. For sure, the lobbyists who represent GTech in North Carolina do dine occasionally with legislators. But what of it?
I've heard it said that some legislators have the loyalty of a rattlesnake. I don't know about that. But I do know that legislators are so slammed they can't remember who paid for dinner the night before. And you cannot buy a legislator's vote by buying him or her a T-bone stake.
I've been to dozens of these dinners, and usually the conversation is more about golf games, ACC basketball, children and grandchildren or the buffoonery of certain legislators. As Zeb Alley, North Carolina's celebrated senior lobbyist once said, "It's rude to talk about business if you've invited a member to dinner."
Zeb is right, and he's the most successful lobbyist of this generation.
But it does look suspicious to citizens made skeptical or cynical with non-stop revelations from the news media.
There's no fault here, with either the politicians or the media. But if Scientific Games had been open and transparent from the start, as it has promised to be now, late in the game, it would have averted a lot of news coverage and skepticism. The coverup is usually worse than the crime.
Posted by Ken Eudy at 06:50 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack