Several hours ago I happened upon C-Span's broadcast of the 35th anniversary of the Watergate break in.  I was struck by Krogh's phrase "Reposing special trust in your integrity".

Nixon's lack of ethics and Watergate, multiplied by ten leads to Reagan and Iran-Contra, which multiplied by ten leads to Bush and Abu-Graib.

Now join me below the break for an interesting journey among the lesser characters of a forgotten era.

Running through my email, I encountered the latest desperate plea from Senator Clinton concerning Pennsylvania.

She definitely is struggling to keep a meager win in place.

My response below the fold.

I just received an email asking for money, from the DCCC. So I logged on to their website to tell them what I told their phone flacks:  "e... s...".

Then I checked their blog.  They are taking serious flack.  See the crap below the fold.

The current New York Times Editorial entitled "A Real-World Army" calls for

President Bush publicly acknowledging the need to increase the size of the overstretched Army and Marine Corps.

Larger ground forces are an absolute necessity for the sort of battles America is likely to fight during the coming decades: extended clashes with ground-based insurgents rather than high-tech shootouts with rival superpowers.

This is Mainstream Pigheaded stupidity.

More.....

Charles Rangel, successor to Adam Clayton Powell, will be the new chairman of the House Ways and Means committee.

He eloquently skewers both the anti-health care crowd and the reporter.

Here are his comments.

In the headline of today's (October 27, 2006) lead editorial, the Arizona Republic says "Mitchell Over the Bully".

The biggest problem in Congress is extreme partisanship, and Rep. J. D. Hayworth, R-Ariz., is among Capital Hill's worst offenders.

Last night Br Barnett posted The reality of Iran's contested quasi-entry into the Core.

The argument is that Iran, looking at the mess in Iraq, listening to its trading partners in the Old Core (Germany, France) and its trading partners in the New Core (Russia, India, China), has decided that it will get what it wants in the nuclear arena.

You want your "global test" for the use of U.S. military power?

Well, it's here on Iran. It's here on Iran because on how we screwed the postwar pooch in Iraq.

You mess up as the world's policeman and you get put on probation for a while.

The lead editorial in Nature vol 443 p 121 discloses another instance of the arrogant power grab by the Bush Administration.

...the Bush administration has reversed two decades of precedent and declared that important whistleblower protections in the Clean Water Act do not apply to federal workers.

Thomas Barnett (The Pentagon's New Map), posted the following this evening in his blog entry entitled Getting real on the fake state that was Iraq:

Friedman's dead-on in his analysis that we've lost the basic "middle" of Iraq by not quelling the insurgency

To me, that's what is so frightening about the "stay the course," deer-in-the-headlights look we're getting from W. right now. Forget strategic imagination. I just want some clear sense of strategic diagnosis.

More:

Think of freeway overpasses.  Think of the chain link fences along these overpasses. Think of the holes as pixels. Think of styrofoam cups as pixels turned on.

Think IMPEACH BUSH written in styrofoam cups on that chain link fence.

I am off to catch a flight to a conference, or I would go back and get a picture to post.  Perhaps another Phoenix Kossack can get it.  Drive east bound on I-10 from 19th Ave to 7th Ave. Just before you get to the deck park tunnel.

It is a neat way to do the sign. Grab a sheet of graph paper, plot it. Get 5 friends and you can put it up in less than 60 seconds.

Here is a question that will throw fear into the heart of every Republican.

Why are you anti-business?

In a debate or news conference, this will fluster them. For the most part, they will talk about the tax breaks and other government programs they champion. These you can dismiss as Corporate Welfare, and return to that embarassing question of "why are you anti-business?"

Let me explain below the fold.

Just finished watching The McLaughlin Group on PBS.

Normally (like the past five years of the Bush Admin), Eleanor would have uttered three words of criticism of Bush (Yeah, pick the topic), and she would have gotten shouted down by McLaughlin and the other three right wing guests.

Well, not tonight.

The New York Times calls out the Bush Fiasco:

I sat transfixed as Thomas Barnett did his amazing PowerPoint show on CSPAN last night on his 2006 book "A Blueprint for Action".  His analysis is extremely critical of the Bush Administration for its blundering, ham-fisted handling of Iraq.  Not, that Barnett disagrees that something needs to be done with the Middle East.  It is that his analytical brief runs to six pages, whereas Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld cannot put six words together about their rationale (`global war on terror' is only four).

I particularly enjoyed his notion that the current crisis is being run by Ford Administration retreads.

Yesterday, in Part I I suggested to Herb Paine that one possible way to fram the entire debate against the incumbent and current administration is to frame yourself as the Responsible Parent and the incumbent as the Selfish Child.

We applied this to External Threats.

Today we deal with Internal Threats, as well as the three essays.

Earlier this summer I had several conversations with Herb Paine, who is running in AZ-03. He asked me to comment on some emails he had received. What follows is the response I sent him. Part I explores the foundational frames and external security. Part II will look at internal security and the three emails.

C-SPAN2 - 18 July 2006

In testimony before the Armed Services Committee of the House of Representatives on Tuesday this week, John P Roth, Deputy Comptroller and Undersecretary of Defense stated:

"No one, neither the Secretary of Defense (Rumsfeld), anyone from his office, nor anyone from the Pentagon asked for a multi-year estimate of the cost of the war in Iraq."

AUMF is not a Declaration of War

On C-SPAn today:

Senator Feinstein asked Gonzales if the AUMF carried the strength of a declaration of War.

Gonzales answered that it did not.

At which point, Feinstein and everyone gasped.

Then she asked again, and Gonzales clarified: it did not, as there had not been a declaration of war in the past 60 years.

So where does this leave the Administration. If there is no war, there is no Commander In Chief authority.

All of Bush's powers as a War President are null and void.