An Expansive Portfolio

Pudentilla thought the name "Michael Mobbs" rang a bell. Mr. Mobbs has been referred to frequently in news stories of late. As you may recall, Gentle Reader, WaPo recently ran a story which suggested that Mr. Cheney was a big fat weenie liar when he denied having any role in steering Iraq business to his old pals at Haliburton.

As the government prepared for war in Iraq in the fall of 2002, a senior political appointee in the Defense Department chose oil services giant Halliburton Co. to secretly plan how to repair Iraqi oil fields, and then briefed Vice President Cheney's chief of staff and other White House officials about the sole-source contract before it was granted.

The senior political appointee referred to is Michael Mobbs. The article describes his role in steering your tax dollars to Haliburton:

The letter describes a briefing at which Michael H. Mobbs, a political appointee who works closely with undersecretary of defense Douglas J. Feith, acknowledged that he selected Halliburton for Iraq reconstruction work. Mobbs that he believed Halliburton's KBR subsidiary was most qualified, in part because it was familiar with plans under development by U.S. Central Command, the letter said.

Before making a final decision, Mobbs briefed top officials from several executive agencies, in a group known as the Deputies Committee, to ensure they had no objections. Among those at the meeting were Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Cheney's top aide, and White House staff members. After that meeting, Waxman's letter says, a White House official told Feith the group did not object.

A career lawyer from the Army Materiel Command, responsible for another contract with Halliburton for meals and laundry services, said that arrangement should not be expanded to include contingency planning for Iraq's oil infrastructure. "These legal reservations were overruled, however," in part because a Defense Department attorney working with Mobbs intervened, according to Waxman's letter.

All our public servants should have the range of interests and industry as Mr. Mobbs, Gentle Reader. For it was Mr. Mobbs who was the eponymous author of the first "Mobbs Declaration." The first Mobbs Declaration was a two page document in which Mr. Mobbs assured a federal district court that Mr. Mobbs had seen enough evidence to justify detaining an American citizen as an "enemy combatant." What a laconic fellow he must be. Just two pages to dispense with the role of courts in protecting the rights of citizens of the United States from the power of the federal government. To be fair, ABC News has suggested that Judge Robert Doumar of the U.S. District Court in Norfolk was not completely persuaded by Mr. Mobb's declarations. "And for Doumar it was clear that the Mobbs Declaration was a masterpiece of evasion and omission."

Judge Doumar, indeed, raised some questions about Mr. Mobbs that all of us might wish to pursue.

It did not get better for Garre when the Judge began going through the Mobbs Declaration in detail. First he wanted to know just who is this Mobbs fellow, and he was not assuaged by any of Garre's replies. Is Mr. Mobbs an employee of the United States, he demanded, or just a special adviser hired to make a statement? When Garre tried to say the Declaration defined Mobbs as a government employee, the judge leapt: no it doesn't! It says he's a special adviser! "It doesn't say he's a GS-anything!"

Fox News helpfully provides a biography. He's a bagman for the neo-cons.

They Knew, They Lied

QuickSauce is on the j.o.b., with the NYT story reporting that one unit in Abu Ghraib discovered and reported prisoner abuse as early as last November.

The disclosure of the documents raises new questions about whether senior officers in Iraq were alerted about serious abuses at the prison before January. Top military officials have said they only learned about abuses then, after a soldier came forward with photographs of the abuse.

Beats Explaining a Pedophilia Scandal

Boston Globe: Church gives pre-election scorecard
Gay marriage votes identified in mailings – story

As legislative elections loom, the Massachusetts Catholic Conference is sending letters to all 710 parishes in the state urging Catholics to ''share their profound disappointment" with lawmakers who did not vote to ban gay marriage earlier this year.

--snip—

While the letters made no reference to Election Day, they are arriving just five months before all 200 seats in the House and Senate are up for grabs on Nov. 2. The mailings did not endorse particular lawmakers or compare incumbent legislators to their opponents, but they follow earlier attempts by the bishops and the conference to influence the Legislature on gay marriage.

--snip--

About half of Massachusetts residents are Catholic, and 67 percent of the Legislature's

Papal Dispensations

If El Economist ran a story describing a meeting between Mr. Bush and Vincente Fox, the President of Mexico, which suggested that Mr. Bush had complained that Mr. Fox wasn't doing enough to get Mexican American voters to vote Republican, Pudentilla suspects folks in the U.S. would have been upset. Judging by how upset Republi-can'ts were over allegations that Chinese nationals donated money to Democratic campaigns, Pudentilla would think that Republi-cant's would have gone nuts at the suggestion that an American political candidate would invite a foreign government to interfere in U.S. politics. Pudentilla would think that Republi-can'ts would consider such a request, well is "treasonous" too strong a word?

Which is why Pudentilla finds the SCLM's coverage of the "Bush begs Pope to make Bishops work harder for his re-election" so odd. The Vatican is a nation-state. The Pope is the head of a foreign government that represses the political rights of women and gay people within its own boundaries and encourages those who swear it allegiance to repress the rights of women and gay people in their own countries. Nevertheless, the SCLM has really yawned on this one. Indeed, the RCs are so confident that they can get away with this interference in U.S. domestic politics that it was the National Catholic Reporter that broke the story (via Talking Points). The Catholics, in other words, are advertising Mr. Bush's request that the Vatican interfere in U.S. politics.

During his June 4 visit, Bush asked the Vatican to push the American Catholic bishops to be more aggressive politically on family and life issues, especially a constitutional amendment that would define marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

A Vatican official told NCR June 9 that in his meeting with Cardinal Angelo Sodano and other Vatican officials, Bush said, “Not all the American bishops are with me” on the cultural issues. The implication was that he hoped the Vatican would nudge them toward more explicit activism.

Other sources in the meeting said that while they could not recall the president’s exact words, he did pledge aggressive efforts on the cultural front, especially the battle against gay marriage, and asked for the Vatican’s help in encouraging the U.S. bishops to be more outspoken.

Ah, Gentle Reader, Pudentilla knows what you're thinking. The Vatican is only a pretend country and aWol was only asking the Cardinals to make American Catholics be more Catholic. But Gentle Reader, what business is it of Mr. Bush, a Methodist, to complain about Bishops to a Cardinal? And furthermore, why didn'the Cardinal kick him out of the office or ask him to take instruction as a catachumen if it was only religion they were dishing around in that pretend country?

Because Gentle Reader, it was politics they were playing, as the National Reporter story clearly indicates. aWol is using religion to pursue a political agenda and the Cardinals are using politics to pursue a religious agenda. The interests of the parties involve dovetail neatly. The Vatican would like citizens of the U.S. to be more Catholic and they would like American political life to reflect Catholic values. Mr. Bush would like as much of the Catholic vote as he can get.

And no one wants to sound like a conspiracy theorist for suggesting that it is improper, if not illegal, for Mr. Bush to request a foreign power to use its moral authority to affect the votes of millions who confess their allegiance to that power each week. Folks are afraid they'll sound like all those lunatics who were afraid that the Vatican would use its moral authority to interfer in American politics if John Kennedy were elected President. They're afraid that if they criticize aWol or the Pope, they'll sound like their criticizing American Catholics (who by now no doubt wishes all the Methodists would stop talking about their doctrines).

Which is a spineless posture to take, unless you like eating fish on Fridays.

WaPo: Dick Cheney is a Big Fat Weenie Liar

Waxman Raises New Questions on Cheney story

As the government prepared for war in Iraq in the fall of 2002, a senior political appointee in the Defense Department chose oil services giant Halliburton Co. to secretly plan how to repair Iraqi oil fields, and then briefed Vice President Cheney's chief of staff and other White House officials about the sole-source contract before it was granted.

Sunday's News




WaPo: A Look Behind the 'Wire' At Guantanamo
Defense Memos Raised Questions About Detainee Treatment as Red Cross Sought Changes [story ]

"There was no improvement in any of the four major areas of concern," an Oct. 9, 2003, [Red Cross] memo states.

From Your Mouth to God’s Ears

LA Times: Retired Officials Say Bush Must Go: The 26 ex-diplomats and military leaders say his foreign policy has harmed national security. Several served under Republicans. [story]

"The core of the message is that we are so deeply concerned about the current direction of American foreign policy … that we think it is essential for the future security of the United States that a new foreign policy team come in," said Oakley.

Above the law?
LA TimesDefense Dealing Too Close for Comfort?
An Air Force official's relationship with Boeing continues to reverberate through the company and military. [story http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-boeing13jun13,1,3868889.story?coll=la-home-business]

In August, she could be sentenced to as many as five years in prison.
n snip –
n
In a briefing to Air Force officials in November 2001, Druyun summed up her views on reforming the Pentagon's cumbersome contract regulations: "The law is the law," she said, "but too often we are slaves to processes and rules we all know should be rewritten or discarded."

Princes and Potentates ok by Bush

NYT: Bush Asked for Vatican's Help on Political Issues, Report Says [story http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/13/politics/13george.html]

In his recent trip to Rome, President Bush asked a top Vatican official to push American bishops to speak out more about political issues, including same-sex marriage, according to a report in the National Catholic Reporter, an independent newspaper.

Hoagland: Damage Control in Iraq -

Here lies the bigger problem: The Bush administration has trapped itself in a cycle of awarding concessions on Iraq's sovereignty not to Iraqis who could use them to calm opposition to the American presence in their land, but to foreign leaders and the United Nations. This fits a strategy of disarming the Kerry campaign's promises to "internationalize" Iraq. It has nothing to do with the moral and national security reasons Bush put forward for invading Iraq.

Reagan Still Dead, But Now Buried

An anonymous reader complains that Pudentilla's complaints about the partisan nature of Reagan-fest this last week is cheap and churlishly rejects the national unity created by Reagan-fest.

But, Gentle Reader, the week of memorials devoted to Mr. Reagan didn't create national unity because of choices made by Republican party leaders. Refusing to permit Democrats a role in the events other than as silent, silenced spectators hardly generates a national unity transcending partisan identity. It is merely an exercise in partisan power and opportunism. Which is a shame, for those who wish to remember Mr. Reagan as a national figure. His memory has been demeaned by these decisions.

This week, here in Maine, we had a thoughtful, bi-partisan memorial to Mr. Reagan. [story]

AUGUSTA (AP) -- Gov. Baldacci led a short ceremony outside the Blaine House Friday morning, to honor former President Ronald Reagan.

Before an audience of about 100 people, Baldacci read a proclamation, acclaiming the former president's leadership and his ability to encourage and inspire Americans.

The Maine ceremony concluded just before the hearse carrying President Reagan's casket arrived at Washington National Cathedral in the District of Columbia for a state funeral.

The Democratic Governor of Maine had previously asked a former Republican Governor, now the spouse of a Maine Republican Senator to officially represent the state at ceremonies in honor of Mr. Reagan in D.C.

It's just not that hard to do the decent thing. Republican politicians should try it some time.

Towards A Concise Theory of Republican Ideology

Pudentilla admits to finding Republican politicians a puzzling species. As all the commentary on Mr. Reagan this week has demonstrated, they say one thing, do another, and then are credited by the SCLM with doing what they said but didn't do. Thinking about it today in the garden, Pudentilla came to some conclusions.

Republicans say one thing while they are not the party in power and do another while they are a party in power. For example, while out of power, Republicans are notorious deficit hawks. In power, they are notorious deficit makers. We can fine tune this observation by noting that Republicans are thus forced to object to Democratic programs that have the intent and/or effect of helping the economically distressed: college loan and grant programs, the minimum wage, etc.

Conversely, when in power, Republicans bust the budget on programs that have the intent and/or effect of helping the economically buttressed: tax cuts for the wealthy and defense spending. Mr. Cheney has recently attempted to add energy companies to the list of the rich and powerful who are beneficiaries of Republican largesse.

This link between defense (and now energy) spending and Republican power is paralleled by another apparent contradiction in Republican policy. When Republicans are out of power, they are frankly isolationist. No military venture is good enough for them to support. One thinks the Republican response to Kosovo, for example. In power, however, Republicans are eager to use military power, sometimes in wars whose pretext doesn’t pass the smell test - the invasions of Grenada and Panama, e.g., and sometimes in wars of larger scope and consequence, the Gulf War, the War in Iraq.

The contradictory positions Democrats have taken, on the other hand seem much less, opportunistic, if that is not too gentle a characterization. NAFTA, for example, was an issue in which Democrats in power took a different position than they did when out of power. But these differences reflect infra-party conflict. Some Democrats were free traders, some were more protectionist (or “fair traders”). Clinton’s folks were free traders and they pushed the policy through over objections of one wing of the party. I don’t think we can characterize Republican contradictions in this way. After all, there are only five Republican senators insisting on meaningful “pay go” budget rules in response to the Bush deficit – hardly a “wing” of any party. And it is not as if any Republicans say they are “for deficits.” In other words, there is no meaningful debate on fiscal policy within the Republican Party the way there is a debate on free trade within the Democratic Party. The Republicans all say they are for fiscal responsibility. The difference is quite simple.

All but five of them are lying.

Reagan Still Dead

And in a sad coincidence, Ray Charles died today as well. Pudentilla sends her condolences to the Charles family.

Reagan Still Dead -
Former President Now Dead On the East Coast - and You're Paying For It

Pudentilla heard on the news today that no Democrats were going to speak at the services for Mr. Regan in Washington. "That's odd," she thought. "It's a national ceremony celebrating the life of a national leader and paid for with funds from the national fisc? How can the ceremony exclude Democrats from speaking roles?"

Then she heard Tom Daschle say, "if that's what the family wants, Democrats are fine with it." But surely it's not for the Reagan family alone to say? If the Reagans wanted to hold a private service in California and only invite Republicans to attend, that would of course be their privilege. But if they wanted a state funeral, then concerns other than the family's would also arise and need to be attended to in the ceremony. And surely, if the purpose of the state funeral were to honor a national leader, members of the Republican leadership would insist on a non-partisan funeral - as would be their right and duty.

If, on the other hand, the Republican party wanted to turn Mr. Reagan's funeral into a Republican carnival to help Mr. Bush's electoral prospects, and the family agreed and the Republican Party was willing to pay for it, that again, would be the privilege of those involved. If the networks wanted to cover such a maudlin spectacle for Mr. Bush, that would also be their privilege (althought Pudentilla would probably watch Debby Travis Makeover on HGTV instead).

On NPR today, one story reported that the Reagan family had filed a 300 page document with some federal department shortly after Mr. Reagan was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, describing the ceremony they wanted in great detail. So it's not like we can't find out if the Reagan family deliberately wanted to exclude Democrats from speaking at the funeral. And if they did, it's not like responsible persons in the Republican party didn't have years to find out and explain to them that if they wanted Mr. Regan remembered as a national and not a partisan figure, at a state funeral, they had to create a national and not a partisan ceremony.

But if the Reagans and the Republicans wanted a partisan spectacle, they can't pay for it with Pudentilla's tax dollars. To whom should Pudentilla send the bill?

We Write Letters

Pudentilla just sent the following to her Senators. Feel free to cut and paste.


Dear Senator,

I write to express my concern about the “torture memos” described in recent stories in the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post As I understand it, lawyers for the Departments of Defense and Justice have taken the following positions: First, they have redefined the term “torture,” so as to permit physical and psychological abuse far in excess of that permitted in any definition of the term previously accepted by the Army’s Field Manual, international treaties to which the United States is signatory or laws passed by the Congress of the United. Second, the lawyers assert that the President of the United States has the authority, inherent in his power as Commander-in-Chief, to issue orders authorizing the use of torture despite prohibitions against the use of torture in treaties that the United States has signed and the Senate has approved. The lawyers also assert that the President has the authority to authorize torture despite prohibitions against the use of torture in laws that Congress has passed. Attorney General Ashcroft has, according to today’s papers, refused to release a copy of the DOJ torture memo to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He has not asserted executive privilege as the basis for this refusal. He has not cited any legal precedent to justify this refusal. These reports about the torture memo prompt me to ask you the following questions:



1. Do you believe that the Pentagon’s new definition of the term “torture” is appropriate? If so, why do you believe previous definitions of the term were inadequate?
2. Do you believe that the President of the United States has the authority, inherent in his power as Commander-in-Chief, to issue orders authorizing the use of torture despite prohibitions against the use of torture in treaties that the United States has signed and the Senate has approved? If so could you please provide me with historical examples and legal precedents that would justify this belief?
3. Do you believe that the President has the authority to authorize torture despite prohibitions against the use of torture in laws that Congress has passed? If so could you please provide me with historical examples and legal precedents that would justify this belief?
4. Do you know whether the President has issued executive orders authorizing the use of torture? If you don’t know, could please ask members of the administration and obtain a definitive answer and let me know?
5. Do you believe that Attorney General Ashcroft has the discretion to refuse to turn release the DOJ torture memo to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee? If so, could you please provide me with historical examples and legal precedents that would justify this belief?


Senator, I often write to you with partisan objections to policy positions you have taken. Today, I am writing not as a member of a party, but as a citizen who cherishes the regime of laws and Constitutional principles that govern the exercise of political power in the United States. I believe these memos reflect a way of thinking that threatens that regime of laws and principles. I urge you to stand against that threat.

Some Funerals are More Equal Than Others

NYT: As War Toll Rises, Governors Face Delicate Decisions (story)

Kathy Brown of Glens Falls, N.Y., whose son, Nathan, 21, was killed in Iraq on April 11, said she would have liked Mr. Pataki to have attended her son's funeral but understood he was busy. Still, she said, Mr. Pataki called "out of the blue" and spoke to her husband, Ricky, for several minutes. "We were pleased," she said.

But, she said, she resented President Bush for not attending any funerals. "I think he should attend every single solitary funeral and spend more time in Iraq and less time in Texas," she said. "Yes he's busy, but our soldiers are not too busy to serve."

She said she did receive a letter from President Bush, but she was offended that it arrived by Federal Express. "He couldn't have had someone hand it to us?" she asked.

Grave Desecration?

If it is true that the Merry Men are hoping Mr. Bush will get a bounce in the polls from Mr. Reagan's funeral, is it fair to say that Mr. Bush is jumping up and down on Reagan's grave?

Reagan still dead.


Nothing is happening in the news media other than the continuing fact of Mr. Reagan's death. All other facts are swallowed up by the overwhelming truth of this fact. Mr. Reagan is still dead.

Draft the Administration’s lawyers first

NYT: Lawyers Decided Bans on Torture Didn't Bind Bush (story)

The memo showed that not only lawyers from the Defense and Justice departments and the White House approved of the policy but also that David S. Addington, the counsel to Vice President Dick Cheney, also was involved in the deliberations. The State Department lawyer, William H. Taft IV, dissented, warning that such a position would weaken the protections of the Geneva Conventions for American troops.

Pudentilla asks: Did DOJ lie to the Supreme Court in the Padilla Case?

The March memorandum also contains a curious section in which the lawyers argued that any torture committed at Guantánamo would not be a violation of the anti-torture statute because the base was under American legal jurisdiction and the statute concerns only torture committed overseas. That view is in direct conflict with the position the administration has taken in the Supreme Court, where it has argued that prisoners at Guantánamo Bay are not entitled to constitutional protections because the base is outside American jurisdiction.

WaPo: Memo Offered Justification for Use of Torture
Justice Dept. Gave Advice in 2002 (story)

In the Justice Department's view -- contained in a 50-page document signed by Assistant Attorney General Jay S. Bybee and obtained by The Washington Post -- inflicting moderate or fleeting pain does not necessarily constitute torture. Torture, the memo says, "must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death."

By contrast, the Army's Field Manual 34-52, titled "Intelligence Interrogations," sets more restrictive rules. For example, the Army prohibits pain induced by chemicals or bondage; forcing an individual to stand, sit or kneel in abnormal positions for prolonged periods of time; and food deprivation. Under mental torture, the Army prohibits mock executions, sleep deprivation and chemically induced psychosis.

--snip--

"Every flag JAG lodged complaints," said one senior Pentagon official involved in the process, referring to the judge advocate generals who are military lawyers of each service.

In related news, did everyone hear the NPR story this morning about the military commissions in Guantanamo? The defense attorneys aren’t getting administrative staff (e.g., paralegals), translators or discovery. This is how the Pentagon is acting on the first cases – when everyone is watching. How do Republi-can’ts spell “constitutional?” With contempt.

Compare and Contrast


Maine Public Radio ran a story on German pows in Houlton, Maine during WWII, this evening on its news show, Maine Things Considered.

There simply wasn’t room in existing POW camps in Europe after the invasion of Europe, so the allies shipped the German prisoners home where they worked on local farms and in local industries. According to the story, folks at the time viewed the use of German POWs in the USA as a test of the Geneva Convention provisions on humane treatment of POWs. Because of the American experiment, folks concluded that the Geneva Convention could and would work.

Admittedly (and with all due respect to the natural wonders of northern Maine), the prisoners had no where to go. But even so, security was almost non-existent. Military officers let a 15 year kid pick the prisoners up from the base and take them out to the farm, for example, one day when all the guards were on sick call. No one tried to escape.

One of the former pows interviewed commented on how the local folks received them quietly, but without prejudice or demonizing. The experience of being a POW in Maine transformed his life. In retrospect, he was glad it happened to him. He came back this year with fellow former pows to visit. The town held a potluck dinner to welcome them back.

Which brings Pudentilla to the WSJ story on DOD memo telling the President to authorize torture on his own authority. The story is now available on the net at infoshop.

In the memo, DOD lawyers argued, " that the president wasn't bound by laws prohibiting torture and that government agents who might torture prisoners at his direction couldn't be prosecuted by the Justice Department." Phil Carter at Intel Dump provides a critique of the legal reasoning. His conclusion?

There is no general Presidential power to nullify the laws of the United States, nor the laws of war which have been codified in treaties. Advice to the contrary is wrong, and any actions which follow this advice are probably unlawful as well.

Pudentilla supposes that one might argue that there is a difference of kind and not degree between a WWII German prisoner of war and the POWS whom the Pentagon wishes to torture. Indeed, the WSJ article offers us some illumination on that point:

A military official who helped prepare the report said it came after frustrated Guantanamo interrogators had begun trying unorthodox methods on recalcitrant prisoners. "We'd been at this for a year-plus and got nothing out of them" so officials concluded "we need to have a less-cramped view of what torture is and is not."

The POWs, it seems, had not provided the information the Pentagon wanted after more than a year. Two options were open to the DOD. The first was to question the selection criteria by which prisoners were determined to possess valuable information. Was it possible, did it even occur to Rummy and Feith and Wolfie, that they may have been wrong?

The other option was to torture the POWs until the Pentagon got the information it knew they had to have. In order to pursue this option, however, DOD would have to throw the Geneva Conventions out the window and subvert the Constitution of the United States. Gentle Reader, Pudentilla gives you one guess as to which option aWol and his Merry Men chose.

Reagan R.I.P. Roundup

Correctives for the SCLM’s maudlin self-indulgent hagiography:

Steve Gilliard; Juan Cole; Legal Fiction; and
SullyWatch, Matt Yglesias, Christopher Hitchens and Timothy Noah (via Roger Ailes), AngryBear, catallaxy (via the Road to Surfdom, with Tim Dunlop's own commentary, Political Animal, Paul Krugman, RiverRocks


Billmon:

To me, the tremendous conservative nostalgia for Ronald Reagan is a sign of a movement that is, if not in decline, then poised on the cusp of it. It's an implicit admission that the golden age, when a conservative ideologue like Reagan could win the support of an overwhelming majority of Americans (and not just the instinctual cultural loyalty of red state America) has passed away.

Pudentilla hopes that Billmon is right. Her fondest wish is that five years from now folks will talk about Reagan as the apogee and aWol as the nadir of this odd coalition of hateful Christians, neo-cons, fiscal wastrels and civil tyrannists who have taken over the Republi-can’t party. [Steve Gilliard has more on that.] The conventional wisdom is that “the Movement” began with Barry Goldwater. But what about the Republican party of Mr. Bush would Goldwater have agreed with? An other interesting sign of the decay within “the Movement” is the absence of a next generation. Bill Frist? That’s all they got?

Pudentilla extends sincere condolences to the Reagan family.

[updated to add more sites]

Déjà vu?

Friday, May 2, 2003: CNN: Bush calls end to 'major combat' (story)

From the flight deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln, President Bush announced in a nationally televised address that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended."

Saturday, June 6, 2004: NEWS.com.au: Sadr's militia defeated: US(story)

"The Moqtada militia is militarily defeated. We have killed scores of them over the last few weeks, and that is in Najaf alone," Brigadier General Mark Hertling, one of the top US commanders in charge of Najaf, told AFP.

Pudentilla prays that this time they are telling the truth.

A revealing choice of words

From the AP story, by Rebecca Harrison titled, France Holds First Gay Wedding, Despite Govt. Threat.

Mayor Noel Mamere, who is leading an assault on traditional family values, defied Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin to wed the two men.

Perhaps, Ms. Harrison, M. Mamere is leading an assault on state sanctioned bigotry and discrimination.

On Getting What You Don't Deserve

According to the AP,, Mr. Bush gave the Pope the Presidential Medal of Freedom today.

Pudentilla asks, "why?"

According to the Boston Globe, Catholic University refused to let a student form a chapter of the N.A.A.C.P. because it was redundant and because the N.A.A.C.P. was pro-choice.

School administrators kept raising various concerns, he said, and in April, they told him that allowing the NAACP on campus would not be consistent with the mission of the university or the Roman Catholic Church.

So now we know, freedom is inconsistent with the mission of the Roman Catholic Church.

Unapologetic

Scorpio is on the j.o.b. He links to Slacktivist, who found the Christianity today article about Bush’s remarks to “religion editors and writers.” In his remarks, Bush insisted that he had never apologized to the Arab world for the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. He was sorry folks had been humiliated, but he never apologized.

This is “depends on what the meaning of “is” is” logic for the Hateful Christian base. I would guess that Mr. Bush also thinks that the Hateful Christians would find it unmanly of aWol to apologize for the rape of female hostages and the electrocution of prisoners by Marines . Rush probably things he should make campaign ads about these stories. Pudentilla thinks aWol should retire to a monastery and spend the rest of his life in prayerful atonement, but she knows he won’t.

Being the unelected commander of the largest army in the world means never having to mean you’re sorry.

Queer for College?

They say the draft is coming to a young person you love by June 2005. (story). Pudentilla believes that middle class college students will embrace this call to service with as much enthusiasm as the chicklets, Barbara and Jenna, have shown for the volunteer military. So how to get out of the draft could very well be the burning question on the dailyjolt for years to come. And to be fair, everyone 18-26 will be eligible. The Chicklets, of course, will have access to better and more sophisticated advice for avoiding the draft than most of their contemporaries – and Pudentilla doesn’t mean aWol. She means, Mary Cheny, the DC draft dogers secret weapon. What will Mary Cheney counsel aWol’s children. "SAY YOU’RE QUEER!. You know the military can’t take you if you say you’re dykes." Perhaps Mary will take them shopping for Dock Martins and L.L. Bean plaid shirts and denim jeans in Freeport, Maine. Will Poppy chuckle when he sees the girls in buzz cuts?

Pudentilla doesn’t believe the draft will be reinstated. But if it is, Pudentilla believes that college jocks will be nicer to the kids in the theater department than they have been for years.

Spies and Lies

Yesterday’s papers had many stories describing the DOJ defense of their detention of Jose Padilla without any process for two years. As Steve Gilliard notes, this defense is based on statements Mr. Padilla apparently has made while in custody. Given what we know aWol’s Merry Men are capable of doing to prisoners in their custody, Pudentilla wonders how valuable the statements are in building the case against Mr. Padilla. Mr. Padilla, moreover, was denied the right to consult an attorney about the government’s questions about conduct that the government alleges threatened national security.

Which brings Pudentilla to the too good to pass up cheap shot about Mr. Bush’s decision to consult a lawyer in the government’s investigation of the Plame affair (story). In that investigation, the government is attempting to determine which member of the administration deliberately leaked the name of a C.I.A. employee to the media in order to politically punish the operative’s husband. Apparently, it is a crime to deliberately leak the name of C.I.A. operatives. Pudentilla assumes there are national security consequences for such actions. So, aWol gets a lawyer, but Padilla doesn’t. Well, as the old proverb says, with the rich and mighty, always a little patience.

Next, it seems like our paid operative, Mr. Chalabi, told Iranian officials that the U.S. had broken their security codes (story). He learned this information from a drunken Defense Department official. Iran is a country in the Middle East that has enjoyed a relationship of great hostility with the U.S. for about 30 years and which is very close to owning some nukes. Mr. Bush claims that Iran is part of an axis of evil. Pudentilla feels quite confident in her assumption that providing this information to Iran undermined U.S. national security interests. Perhaps we could arrest Mr. Chalabi and then detain him. We would not even need his admissions to make a case.

Finally, some people who undermine our national security have all the luck. It seems that the DOJ released Nabil al-Marabh from detention on immigration charges and sent him to Syria. Mr. al-Marabh planned to blow up a fuel truck inside a NY tunnel. (story) Syria, gentle reader, is a country that aWol and his Merry Men have accused on more than four occasions of supporting terrorists. It seems that DOJ and FBI field officers were working hard to make cases but the headquarters kept shooting them down. Given the information that DOJ and FBI had about Mr. al-Marabh from independent sources and his own statements (note: he was represented by counsel), Pudentilla wonders, is it possible that Nabil al-Marabh and Doug Feith were drinking buddies?

Officers & Gentlemen

Body and Soul has a summary of the most recent revelations about the prisoner abuse scandal. Bottom Line – Colonels and Generals thought using dogs during prisoner interrogations was a good idea. The Political Animal notes that the abuse started immediately upon the arrival on the notorious MP guard unit. He concludes that the MPs didn’t think this stuff up on the plane ride over and thus, it is not unreasonable to conclude that they acted under orders pursuant to a higher up’s plan. Another Bottom Line – civilan contracters with no experience were doing interrogations at Abu Ghraib, under a contract with the Interior Department. The Interior Department you ask?

Pudentilla's Prediction: The amount of forensic accounting that will have to be done to understand the extent of corruption by the present regime is truly daunting to consider.



Sashing the Cardinal

And now a word about Cardinal George of Chicago. He’s the chap who ordered priests in Chicago to deny communion to those who attended Church on the Feast of the Pentacost wearing a rainbow colored sash in support of gays and lesbians. No one has suggested that the Cardinal has heard the confession of any sash-wearing would be communicants. The Cardinal certainly hasn’t. So the Cardinal and the priests who followed his orders couldn’t say that the sash-sayers had committed any sins. They could only say that such folks supported gays and lesbians (a so broadly defined belief that, while it is certainly nice, it is surely theologically meaningless). Even were Pudentilla to take the Cardinal at his word (and she is not so foolish), he still cannot define the sin that the sash-sayers have committed.

According to the Advocate:

The memo says the sashes are a symbol of opposition to the church's doctrine on homosexuality and exploit the communion ritual. "The Rainbow Sash movement wants its members to be fully accepted by the church not on the same conditions as any Catholic but precisely as gay," George wrote."With this comes the requirement that the church change her moral teaching."

Kind of makes you glad that guys like George weren’t around when the Pope decided to change the Church’s teaching that the Jews killed Jesus, doesn’t it? In other words, because the sash-sayers want the Church to do something it hasn’t done (an assertion of political belief or theological desire, but not an action which can be evaluated as sinful), the Cardinal denies them the sacrament. Romans used to behave like this to Christians. I hope Dante was right about Cardinals like Mr. George.

How safe do you feel?

Pudentilla dropped her partner off at the airport this morning. She Who Must Be Deferred to Graciously (she’d kill me if I said “Obeyed”) flew to Detroit and then Tokyo. She called Pudentilla during her layover. If all goes well, she’ll call again tomorrow evening. So Pudentilla’s thinking a lot about the fact that the love of her life’s safety depends on the indifference of jihadists to this particular flight and the competence of aWol’s Merry Men in defending it. It will not be a good night.