What is it about Democratic hawks that makes them so indistinguishable from Republican hawks? From the AP:

Undersecretary of Defense Michele Flournoy said a strategy decision on new deployments involving the U.S. and other troop-contributing nations would be made within the next few weeks, according to an official transcript released Saturday.

Flournoy, the Pentagon's policy chief, led a U.S. delegation that briefed NATO ambassadors Thursday on the Obama administration's review of the Afghan war. Officials released a transcript of her remarks from that meeting.

"No one is talking about leaving Afghanistan, or even standing pat. We are increasing our commitment and we're talking about how best to do that with both civilian and military resources," Flournoy was quoted as telling NATO ambassadors.

Tell me, Ms. Flournoy, how many thousands of troops NATO is going to be providing, given their limited participation to date and their nations' people also coming out more and more against further involvement in Afghanistan? How many more years, how many more deaths, how many more billions will it take before Afghanistan is "secure"? Honestly, someone needs to clue in Ms. Flournoy about the failed wisdom of following in the footsteps of the "stupidest guy on the face of the planet."

I have never understood the grasping need of Dem politicians to be viewed as being as tough as - and often, as foolish - Repub politicians when it comes to issues of national security. Afghanistan is not vital to American security interests - going after al Qaeda is, and they're in Pakistan. We need a strategy of containment rather than one of nation-building - we can't afford the current strategy, and it's overdue for a change.

American Street: The GOP plan to break the backs of suffering Americans

the talking dog:: Really old school

Alternate Brain: Support the Troops? NIMBY!

Scott Horton: Power Shortage for the National Security State

Inside Higher Ed: Organized against labor

INSTAPUTZ: Althouse Putziness

Really, it gets harder all the time to tell the Democrats from the Republicans, doesn't it?

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved a bill Thursday that would renew portions of the USA Patriot Act in an effort to address administration concerns about protecting terrorism investigations.

But several Democrats and civil liberties advocates said the legislation would do little to strengthen privacy protections. And some Republicans said the bill, despite amendments worked out with the administration, would still unduly burden investigators.

By a vote of 11 to 8, the committee sent to the Senate floor a measure that would extend until 2013 three surveillance provisions set to expire Dec. 31. They would allow investigators to use roving wiretaps to monitor suspects who may switch cellphone numbers, to obtain business records of national security targets, and to track "lone wolves" who may be acting alone on behalf of foreign powers or terrorist groups.

The bill would also slightly tighten the legal standard for the FBI's issuing of administration subpoenas known as national security letters (NSLs), which allow the bureau to obtain phone, credit and other personal records, and which the Justice Department inspector general has said are subject to "serious misuse."

Oh, I feel much better now, knowing it will be "slightly" more difficult for the feds to abuse constitutional rights.

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From State of the Union, National Security Advisor Ret. Gen. James Jones responds to McCain's criticism that he is playing politics with the decisions being made on troop levels in Afghanistan.

KING: But you know you have some critics. Having seen general McChrystal made his case publicly, having spoken to General Petraeus, having been to the region, some Republicans including Senator John McCain say that you, sir, and others in the White House are playing politics with this decision. I want you to listen to Senator McCain.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MCCAIN: It's well known, it's broadcast all over television, that there are individuals, including the vice president of the United States, now, unfortunately, the national security adviser, the chief political adviser to the president, Mr. Rahm Emanuel, who don't want to alienate the left base of the Democrat Party.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Is that a factor in the White House, rising Democratic opposition to sending more troops to Afghanistan? Do you, sir, say, "Mr. President, no more troops because of politics," as Senator McCain says?

JONES: Senator McCain knows me very well. I worked for Senator McCain when he was a captain. I've known him for many, many years, and he knows that I don't play politics with national -- I don't play politics, and I certainly don't play it with national security, and neither does anyone else I know. The lives of our young men and women are on the line.

This is -- the strategy does not belong to any political party, and I can assure you that the president of the United States is not playing to any political base. And I take exception to that remark.

Can they get much crazier than this? Yes they can! Every day brings another new high on the wacky scale, as rightwingers continue to sound the alarm about our new National Socialist president:

Parents across the country are rebelling against plans by President Barack Obama to speak directly to their children through the classrooms of the nation's public schools without their presence, participation and approval.

The plans announced by Obama also have been cited as raising the specter of the Civilian National Security Force, to which he's referred several times since his election campaign began, but never fully explained.

"He's recruiting his civilian army. His 'Hitler' youth brigade," wrote one participant in a forum at Free Republic.

"I am not going to compare President Obama to Hitler. We'll leave that to others and you can form your own opinions about them and their analogies. … However, we can learn a lot from the spread of propaganda in Europe that led to Hitler's power. A key ingredient in that spread of propaganda was through the youth," wrote a blogger at the AmericanElephant.com blog, where the subject of the day was a national "Keep-Your-Child-at-Home-Day."

"Totalitarian regimes around the world have sought to spread their propaganda and entrench their power by brainwashing the children. I guess it's easier to indoctrinate a six-year-old instead of fighting a 26-year-old or being challenged by a 46-year-old in the voting booth," the blogger wrote.

At issue was an announcement that Obama plans to deliver a message directly to students via the Internet into public school classrooms across the nation on Sept. 8.

According to announcement posted on ServiceWire.org, Obama will address students "about the importance of persisting and succeeding in school" at 1 p.m. Eastern at the WhiteHouse.gov website.

See, that right there? That proves it! Because if children actually pay attention, learn to read and write and apply critical thinking skills, they're actually a lot less likely to read fine publications like World Nut Daily - except when they're mining them for comedy gold like this.

The announcement said the federal Department of Education "is encouraging educators, students and parents to use this opportunity to help students get focused and begin the school year strong."

The government also is publicizing a list of suggestions for students and teachers to do in preparation for the speech, including studying Barack Obama's writings and presidency.

Obama had announced the speech during a child reporter's visiting the White House.

During the interview, Obama said, "On September 8, when young people around the country are … will have just started or are about to go back to school, I'm going to be making a big speech to young people all across the country…"

But opposition is assembling quickly, similar to the concerns expressed on the AmericanElephant blog:

"Now the former community organizer and current president of the United States is making an unprecedented speech to the school children of our nation. I'd like to believe his motives were pure and politics didn't play into this. But viewing this administration's track record doesn’t afford such benefit of the doubt.

"When the president browbeats property owners who want to protect their legal rights… when the president admits he doesn't know the facts but impugns the integrity of a police force… when the president calls me a liar for reporting what is actually in the health care bills and encourages my neighbors to report me to some enemies list… when the president apologizes to nations around the world and bows to a Saudi king… he loses the benefit of the doubt," the blogger wrote.

"Without benefit of the doubt, the president doesn't get to speak to my children unchallenged," the writer said.

Whereas starting a war based on fake information and killing hundreds of thousands of civilians - and letting an entire city of American brown people die - well, that inspires blind devotion, right? Which pretty much lets us know where these folks are coming from.

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Liz Cheney told the Washington Times that she might consider a run for some kind of political office, which was the shoe we've all been waiting to drop since we started seeing her face over all the cable channels the past couple of months:

The daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney said Monday that running for political office is on her horizon.

"It's something I very well may do," said Elizabeth "Liz" Cheney, a lawyer and State Department appointee who has worked on two Republican presidential campaigns.

This of course set the cable heads who've had her on previously to chattering, including Chris Matthews, and she appeared on Sean Hannity's Fox News program and answered the question noncommittally. Uh-huh.

Now we're waiting for the other shoe to drop, which will be for Cheney to be declared one of the "fresh upcoming faces" for the GOP as it struggles to redefine itself in the post-Bush era. Nothing like a Cheney for that task, eh?

On the other hand, now that a majority of Republicans now think Sarah Palin is not qualified to be president, they need to start looking ahead. And for all her less-appealing qualities -- particularly the sneer she shares with her father -- she is at least seemingly competent and capable and reasonably intelligent. Which makes her a big improvement on Palin right away.

One certainly can see what Republicans would like about her: As you can see from the rest of the Hannity segment, she was out there touting her charge that the looming possibility of torture investigations proves "we can't trust Democrats with national security".

In other words, she fearmongers and lies and distorts right up there with the best of 'em. But then, she learned at the knee of one of the best.

Besides, I'm not sure that it's altogether a bad thing to have such a vivid reminder of the manifest failures of Bush/Cheney conservatism as another scheming Cheney out there fronting for the GOP.

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Vice President Joe Biden told NBC's David Gregory that he questioned former Vice President Dick Cheney's judgement for criticizing President Barack Obama policies on national security. Biden seemed to pull his punches when asked about Cheney's motives. "Never question another man's motive," warned Biden.

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Why is it that wingers like Greta still need to ask if waterboarding is torture? Enhanced interrogations are code for torture, but we know that. I guess my brain is getting scrambled by having to watch FOX News constantly try and denounce waterboarding as not really being torture. It's enhanced, it just tastes a little better than before.

Greta: Is waterboarding torture or enhanced interrogation techniques, what words do we use on this?

McCain: It's torture. It's in violation of the Geneva Conventions of the international agreement on torture treaty...singed during the Reagan administration. It goes all the way back to the Spanish Inquisition. It's not a new technique and it is certainly torture.

Did Greta really believe she would get McCain to change his mind on this? Maybe she thought she could break him. Then they get into all the national security stories of the week. Greta wants all the documents released about Cheney and Pelosi and that's when McCain starts wanking along...

At least she brought up Graham rebuking the CIA. McCain is worried about the morale of the CIA? Are they really that weak-kneed? I doubt it, but it's a useful talking point against Pelosi because the media will never say, "hey, these guys are out their in covert world, why would they care what a politician said."

Jesus' General: Torture's Harvest

The Grey Matter: Further proof that financial institutions own congress

Dissenting Justice: Obama on National Security: I am doing the right things. I have not broken campaign promises

Daniel W. Drezner: One of the handful of conservative voices with whom I often, merely disagree (rather than consider insane)

Bitter Lawyer: 11 famous law school dropouts

Afronerd: The great Jody Watley pays a visit to Afronerd radio tomorrow at 7PM ET

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(Attorney General Edward H. Levi - you wonder what he'd have to say today)

". . .for example some of the alleged instances of misuse of the FBI over previous periods have involved directions from the White House, often from low ranking officials, given orally and couched in terms of law enforcement of national security. They involve such matters as surveillance at a political convention, investigations of a newsman unsympathetic to the administration cause, or the collection of information on political opponents. The proposed guidelines require that the request be made or confirmed in writing, specify those who may make requests, require the official initiating the investigation be identified, the purpose of the investigation stated among certain routine areas, and where a field investigation is initiated, an attestation that the subject has given consent".

Attorney General Edward H. Levi (1975-1977) addressing the American Bar Association convention in Montreal in 1975. Post-Watergate, post-Nixon. Listening to this address, I wondered what Levi would have to say about Roberto Gonzalez and the shambles the judicial system had become - falling very far from the "high moral ground" we had been so tenuously placed. I was struck by Levi's mention of the "ambiguous nature" of our Constitution as part of the genius of it. But all it of seemed to be based on an assumption it would never be manipulated to fulfill an agenda of fear. The unscrupulous placed in charge to find loopholes in order to justify immoral behavior and the degree in which those behaviors are carried out.

Dick Cheney's MAD, just not in the way you think. As Time, the AP and virtually every pundit across the political spectrum debate the meaning of Cheney's ubiquity on your television screen, it may be an old Cold War theory which best explains his strategy. The former vice president isn't merely trying to rewrite history or work the jury with his repeated claims that torture "saved thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of lives" and that there was "nothing devious or deceitful or dishonest or illegal about what was done." With his brinksmanship, Dick Cheney is threatening the political equivalent of Mutual Assured Destruction to produce a stalemate he apparently believes he will win.

Cheney's escalating campaign against the Obama administration began within days of the election. His charge that President Obama will "raise the risk to the American people of another attack" has reached a crescendo with appearances on CBS and Fox News this week. And while Cheney Tuesday blasted Obama's approach on Iran as a "giant conspiracy" which is "bound to fail," next week at the American Enterprise Institute he will offer a full-throated defense of the Bush administration's national security policies, including its regime of detainee torture.

All of which begs the question: why would a wildly unpopular figure who has proclaimed he has no future political ambitions mount such an unprecedented public campaign to criticize his successors?

Over the Washington Monthly, Steve Benen ponders "is Dick running for something?" For its part, the AP explores the gamut of explanations, ranging from the sincere ("it could be that Cheney really sees a threat out there"), routine revisionist history ("He sees himself in a position where his legacy is called into question, and he wants to get his story out before history gels") to the Freudian:

Continue reading »

ProPublica: A stockpile of documents about hundreds of Guantanamo Bay detainees, some written by the prisoners themselves, could be destroyed under a little-known provision of a federal court order the Bush administration obtained in 2004.

After Downing Street: Harry Reid says Cheney tortured, but proposes letting him off!  Listen to the audio clip as Christiane Brown interviews the useless Dem leader

Seeing the Forest: More TARP fund corruption rumors

Brad Delong: New Republic Crashed-and-Burned-and-Smoking Watch

Pulp Friction: Michael Steele Crashed-and-Burned-and-Smoking Watch

BlondeSense: Homophobia (still) Trumps National Security

Dan Froomkin writes an impressive piece that exposes the torturers and their media enablers who covered up and participated in the torture policy of the Bush White House that is a must-read. It's called: "Complicity -- and Accountability -- on Torture," and he ends it on some wise words from Deepak Chopra: (correction)

"The more the right wing tries to justify the torture policy, the worse they look. Using national security to justify torture is just a bald-faced attempt to hide the truth. What really went on was simple. The Bush administration felt that Al-Qaida could not be defeated while still preserving what America stands for."

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Bill Kristol is upset that the release of the CIA torture memos will open up the potential for criminal prosecutions of Bush officials. William "the Bloody" Kristol wants to release all the CIA memos and have Dick Cheney testify about them. Wow, he even admits that torture is a crime, but brings up another right-wing canard: that releasing the CIA memos and more photographs of abuse hurts our national security.

(rough transcript)

Kristol: Torture is a crime, that is agreed upon. If these memos are so crazy, so ridiculous in their legal analysis ... three people being waterboarded, a few instances of waterboarding might not qualify as torture under certain circumstances, which is what the memos argued, then he (Obama) opened the door, and once he opened the door they're going down that road...

It's the Bush administration who authorized these things, they're still running against the Bush administration. Let's stipulate that the Bush administration did a lot for things wrong. How does that legitimize do something now that will damage our national security?

Williams: How does it damage out national security? I think when you have President Obama say somewhere we have lost our moral bearings. I don't think there's any doubt about that...

Kristol: There's a lot of doubt...

Williams: You said a moment ago that torture is illegal. You gotta remember President Reagan was out there signing the UN convention, we will not participate in torture as an American people. So something went wrong there.

Mara Liasson then argues about the Justice Department officials involved, and Brit Hume (as usual) just thinks it's all a farce. Yeah, torturing people is soooo comical, so inconsequential.

Mara: You might think that the lawyers of the Bush justice Department came out with a decision that was wrong, legally wrong and morally repugnant, but it doesn't mean that they committed a crime. That they said, ohhh we know this is torture, we're just going ot cook this up. The question is whether they did this in good faith or not. and if...

Hume: I predict Mara, based on what you're saying that any prosecution which will come out of this will be a total farce.

There will be a series of show trials with "grand inquisitions' and all the kinds of things we've been associated with. It's possible that those lawyers will get hauled before Congress and do to any investigation there Oliver North did to the e9/11 commission, which was to render it the farce that it always was from the beginning, that would be a good outcome, but this whole area ... what should be a closed chapter -- I don't see any national benefit to it...

Kristol:... I think now that the door is open, I say "bring it on." Let's have a big national debate on this. Let's have Steve Bradbury confront his accusers, who are one tenth the lawyers he is, and we're not under the pressure he was under and not a real threat. Let's have George Tenet testify. Let's have Mick Hagen testify. Let's have a serious debate, let's have Dick Cheney take on anyone that the left wants to produce about whether we were responsible, whether it was a dark chapter in our history that we have to be ashamed of or whether the US government behaved in a very fine way and I think a very impressive way...

Bloody Bill thinks Bush and Cheney's torturing of people is a very impressive way to handle prisoners.

I always love when right-wing hacks use the word "serious." It's only they who are the "serious" people, and therefore the world is only properly ruled by their hand. And he's confident that the propaganda that would be spewed by Cheney and his ilk will muddy up the waters enough to fool the American people.

Me, I'd like to see Cheney have to get in front of Henry Waxman.

December 10, 2008 C-SPAN