Tom Ridge and the Terror Alert of Doom

I have always tried to avoid the worst of anti-Bush hysteria, mainly because I thought well-intentioned, ideologically-driven incompetence was a much better explanation for what went on during that administration than cackling Evil Villainery. Besides, I've always thought that ranting on about the evilness of the principals and their imagined acts distracted from the evilness of the things they actually did do, which were no less evil just because they were motivated by negligence and stupidity. Banality of evil and all that.

And now we have this.

I never put any stock in the idea that anyone in the Bush administration would actually purposefully manipulate this country's national security apparatus to win an election, both because I discounted the whole cackling hand-rubbing image, and because while I knew they were dumb, I never thought anyone could be that dumb.

Well, almost no one.

As is the usual way of these things, we're hearing about it third or fourth hand from the second cousin of someone who read a draft of a book that looks an awful lot like a grindstone, by someone who has plenty of axes lined up and ready to go. So I don't think we can say what really happened yet.

For example:

"[Ridge says he was] pushed to raise the security alert on the eve of President Bush's re-election, something he saw as politically motivated and worth resigning over."

Key phrase there, and you don't know what to make of it until you read the book. Suffice to say we don't have all the facts yet.

Also,

"We went over backwards repeatedly and with great discipline to make sure politics did not influence any national security and homeland security decisions," -- former WH CoS Andy Card

Which I buy, actually.

But that doesn't mean it didn't happen anyway. That's the kind of thing Cheney's office would have done just because someone told them not to.

"Of course we'll hit our own troops. But appearances must be maintained. Fire at will."

Still, grain of salt firmly in place, I'm tempted to give Ridge the benefit of the doubt. He always struck me as a good guy stuck with one of the most poorly-thought-out job descriptions in all of Washington, and that's saying something.

"Could you take responsibility for the security of the entire nation without any real authority? Knew you could. 'Preesh."

So I buy it, at least on the face of it. All that remains is to see who said what when, and exactly how bad it really was.

This never-ending stream of revelations about the Bush administration, each one confirming that not only as bad as we thought, but it was actually worse, does nothing to shake my faith in humanity. I didn't have that much to begin with. Humanity is capable of far worse; despite what some lulubirds shriek, we've never even scratched the surface of the Nazi or Stalinist kind of evil. But it has shaken my faith in this country. That we could have ever let things get so bad, that we're so slow to face what actually happened, and that we'll probably never hold anyone truly accountable... at least the Constitution held, and we changed governments. But it took so little for us to get scared out of our most basic principles, and to betray our better natures as a people.

-- The Prolix Wag
My faith in myself, of course, remains profoundly unshaken.

How to Run Counterterrorism Operations Like a 5-Year Old

Okay, so it looks like the Double Secret Probation CIA Op they were hiding from Congress was, in fact Cheney's Super Assassin Hit Squad Go!

Scary part? Not a photoshop.

One of the more infuriating things my eldest daughter has a habit of doing is of taking something she knows she needs permission for, without asking for permission. Especially when it's something that I would have gladly given her - nay, wanted to give her - but now couldn't because she took it without asking. And I have to then punish her.

Why does she do it? Same reason we all did it when we were kids. Because the parent or parents in question might have said "no".

Which is exactly how the Bush Administration chose to run the vast majority of their counterterrorism operations. Hell, it's how they chose to run the country.

Here's the thing: there are conservatives out there who will be howling bloody murder about how this is a perfectly valid program, what's the problem, how can you help our enemies, don't you love Amurr'ka, etc. etc.

To my fine friends on the right: Shut up. That isn't what this is about, at all.

If you can find me one liberal who thinks that hunting down the leadership of Al Quaeda and assassinating them one by one (or dozens by dozens) is a bad idea, I will personally punch them in the face. Twice.

We all knew the CIA was going to be doing this; it's their job. We want the CIA to be doing this. We'd be angry if they weren't. But we live in a constitutional democracy. And that means you have to ask permission.

But Congress might have (not would have - not in a million years - but might have) said no. And like the finest five-year-old minds since time immemorial, Bush/Cheney/Feith/Yoo/et. al. decided that meant they shouldn't ask.

As much as they would love it to be, it is most emphatically not the Executive Branch's job to say what is and is not legal. That's for Congress, in all of its wonderful, dysfunctional glory, to argue about. The Executive Branch then does it, to the best of their ability. This is all for a very good reason: because if you don't do it that way, you get stuff like this.

And if you do stuff like that, you get America, circa 2001-2008.

America, circa 2001-2008.

Bit of advice: if you're some mid-to-top level CIA admin, and Dick Cheney tells you to keep something under your hat? You make damn double sure to tell everyone you legally can about it, because if keeping it secret isn't illegal, then it's immoral, and if it isn't immoral, it's unethical, and any way you slice it, your ass will burn for it some day, not his.

Guaranteed.

-- The Prolix Wag
Why be patronized by anyone else?

Picture a fist punching John Yoo in the face, forever.

Two new revelations this week in the whimpering, dragging-itself-along-the-forest-floor, gut-shot wounded animal that is the Saga of the Bush Years. First, the wiretapping program was way more extensive than the first five or six times they admitted it was more extensive than they said it was before. Second, the CIA hid a big program from Congress, which may or may not be "executive assassination rings" that reported to Dick Cheney.

So much for outrage fatigue.

You know what? You know that whole look-forward-not-backward, we've-got-bigger-things-on-our-plate, we're-still-at-war line the Obama administration has been selling? I'm over it. I am well and truly over it. I want criminal investigations, and I want them six years ago. If these cowardly hidden things that were done in my name had good cause, if they were done in good faith so that my children could sleep safe at night, then let's pull them out and see if they can breathe in the light of day. If not, let the bastards rot in jail, or at the very least sweat under the lights in front of a committee and the American people.

Once upon a time, Ford pardoned Nixon to "heal the country". It wound up doing just about the exact opposite. Transparency heals. Accountability heals. Truth heals.

And by god, I think we're owed some. I really do.

-- The Prolix Wag
Because sometimes righteous indignation is just that.