Evidence and Threat

For those desirous, Center for American Progress offers about the best list I've seen on statements made about Iraq by the White House. Not the most comprehensive (though that's also on the site)- but this list contains links to the full speeches, as well as a fact/claim distinction. Here's some:

CLAIM: Evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program…Iraq could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year. - President Bush, 10/7/02

CLAIM: [Saddam] is actively pursuing nuclear weapons at this time.- VP Cheney, 3/24/02

CLAIM: We believe Saddam has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons. - VP Cheney, 3/16/03

CLAIM: We do know that [Saddam] is actively pursuing a nuclear weapon.- National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, 9/10/02

CLAIM: Iraqis were actively trying to pursue a nuclear weapons program.- National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, 7/11/03

On the comprehensive front, see this list:

"There's no question that Iraq was a threat to the people of the United States."
- White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan, 8/26/03

"We ended the threat from Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction."
- President Bush, 7/17/03

Iraq was "the most dangerous threat of our time."
- White House spokesman Scott McClellan, 7/17/03

"Saddam Hussein is no longer a threat to the United States because we removed him, but he was a threat...He was a threat. He's not a threat now."
- President Bush, 7/2/03

"Absolutely."
- White House spokesman Ari Fleischer answering whether Iraq was an "imminent threat," 5/7/03

"We gave our word that the threat from Iraq would be ended."
- President Bush 4/24/03

"The threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction will be removed."
- Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 3/25/03

"It is only a matter of time before the Iraqi regime is destroyed and its threat to the region and the world is ended."
- Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke, 3/22/03

"The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder."
- President Bush, 3/19/03

"The dictator of Iraq and his weapons of mass destruction are a threat to the security of free nations."
- President Bush, 3/16/03

"This is about imminent threat."
- White House spokesman Scott McClellan, 2/10/03

Iraq is "a serious threat to our country, to our friends and to our allies."
- Vice President Dick Cheney, 1/31/03

Iraq poses "terrible threats to the civilized world."
- Vice President Dick Cheney, 1/30/03

Iraq "threatens the United States of America."
- Vice President Cheney, 1/30/03

"Iraq poses a serious and mounting threat to our country. His regime has the design for a nuclear weapon, was working on several different methods of enriching uranium, and recently was discovered seeking significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
- Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 1/29/03

"Saddam Hussein possesses chemical and biological weapons. Iraq poses a threat to the security of our people and to the stability of the world that is distinct from any other. It's a danger to its neighbors, to the United States, to the Middle East and to the international peace and stability. It's a danger we cannot ignore. Iraq and North Korea are both repressive dictatorships to be sure and both pose threats. But Iraq is unique. In both word and deed, Iraq has demonstrated that it is seeking the means to strike the United States and our friends and allies with weapons of mass destruction."
- Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 1/20/03

"The Iraqi regime is a threat to any American. They not only have weapons of mass destruction, they used weapons of mass destruction...That's why I say Iraq is a threat, a real threat."
- President Bush, 1/3/03

"The world is also uniting to answer the unique and urgent threat posed by Iraq whose dictator has already used weapons of mass destruction to kill thousands."
- President Bush, 11/23/02

"I would look you in the eye and I would say, go back before September 11 and ask yourself this question: Was the attack that took place on September 11 an imminent threat the month before or two months before or three months before or six months before? When did the attack on September 11 become an imminent threat? Now, transport yourself forward a year, two years or a week or a month...So the question is, when is it such an immediate threat that you must do something?"
- Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 11/14/02

"Saddam Hussein is a threat to America."
- President Bush, 11/3/02

"I see a significant threat to the security of the United States in Iraq."
- President Bush, 11/1/02

"There is real threat, in my judgment, a real and dangerous threat to American in Iraq in the form of Saddam Hussein."
- President Bush, 10/28/02

"The Iraqi regime is a serious and growing threat to peace."
- President Bush, 10/16/02

"There are many dangers in the world, the threat from Iraq stands alone because it gathers the most serious dangers of our age in one place. Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists."
- President Bush, 10/7/02

"The Iraqi regime is a threat of unique urgency."
- President Bush, 10/2/02

"There's a grave threat in Iraq. There just is."
- President Bush, 10/2/02

"This man poses a much graver threat than anybody could have possibly imagined."
- President Bush, 9/26/02

"No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq."
- Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 9/19/02

"Some have argued that the nuclear threat from Iraq is not imminent - that Saddam is at least 5-7 years away from having nuclear weapons. I would not be so certain. And we should be just as concerned about the immediate threat from biological weapons. Iraq has these weapons."
- Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 9/18/02

"Iraq is busy enhancing its capabilities in the field of chemical and biological agents, and they continue to pursue an aggressive nuclear weapons program. These are offensive weapons for the purpose of inflicting death on a massive scale, developed so that Saddam Hussein can hold the threat over the head of any one he chooses. What we must not do in the face of this mortal threat is to give in to wishful thinking or to willful blindness."
- Vice President Dick Cheney, 8/29/02

Words. words...words

neat little pntification on civility and 'political correctness' over at crooked.

The common analysis underlying both demands for "political correctness" (this actual phrase was never used, except jocularly as far as I know, until critics seized on it, but terms such as "sensitivity" or "inclusive language" cover much the same ground) and for "civility", is that offensive words give rise to offensive acts. In both cases, there's some ambiguity over whether the problem is with the offence to the recipient or with the reinforcement of the hostile/prejudiced attitudes of the speaker, but the central claim is that modes of speech are an appropriate subject of concern and that some form of government action to encourage more socially appropriate modes of speech, ranging from subtle pressure to direct coercion, is desirable. The only difference between the two positions is that they have different lists of inappropriate words.

Don't miss the Times, on "He Hate Me."
A great read....intro's the story with:

That's right, in front of an expanding and grateful contingent of reporters already bored by calculatingly courteous coaches and the strategic wonders of ball-control offense, Cooper and He Hate Me are demonstrating their peculiar bonding scheme whereby Cooper greets his new friend and attempts to flip him over his shoulder.

Then they hug because He Hate Me, known to his mother and assorted family and friends back home in Lakeland, Fla., as Rod Smart, is just so filled with unrestrained joy and so enamored of being a part of the ultimate football event, even if the staid N.F.L. (No Fun League) requires him to wear his birth name and not his appellation of choice on the back of his Panthers jersey.

Will TNR switch endorsements?

On to Edwards (from today's Etc...)

Alongside last night's fifth-place showing, I think the e-mail pretty much speaks for itself. But beyond the question of whether or not Lieberman is deluding himself, I think there's a real issue at stake here. That is, Lieberman isn't just making himself look foolish by staying in the race. (If that were all that was going on, Lord knows I'd be all for it.) He's actively hurting the chances of the one person who can still beat John Kerry and save the Democratic Party from apocalyptic defeat in November: John Edwards. That's because, as my colleague Frank Foer points out today, Edwards is the most moderate remaining candidate in the field, and therefore the candidate most likely to benefit from Lieberman's withdrawal. The longer Lieberman sits on his (admittedly dwindling) base of support, the harder it becomes for Edwards to consolidate the anti-Kerry vote.

O'Reilly apology watch...

Don't hold your breath. The buck is brilliantly being passed to the CIA. Professor Balkin sighs.
Always worth remembering, though, the prescient lines:

"Here's, here's the bottom line on this for every American and everybody in the world, nobody knows for sure, all right? We don't know what he has. We think he has 8,500 liters of anthrax. But let's see. But there's a doubt on both sides. And I said on my program, if, if the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam Hussein and it's clean, he has nothing, I will apologize to the nation, and I will not trust the Bush Administration again, all right? But I'm giving my government the benefit of the doubt."

Now- here's an important point: Complaining about O'Reilly or the larger Fox News is not what this is all about. What is significant is that this type of "promise" from March 18, 2003 reveals WHY we went to war.

It seems to me that O'Reilly echoes a popular perception amongst supporter of te war; to wit, despite differences of opinion as to exactly what Hussein retains in weapons--it is most likely something beyond conventional weapons. Thus, we should invade because it maybe alot, and the risk that he has alot of WMD is greater than the risk that we will have invaded a country with no WMDs. This is the line of reasoning in Bush's 2003 State of the Union address, where he lists all the various weapons he had and could offer no record of destroying.
As O'Reilly's March 2003 comment makes clear- the weapons were CENTRAL to our invading logic. Despite the administration's play with rhetoric, refiguring the meaning of threat, and redifining WMDs- the weapons were central to the popular logic.
Of course, this is where we objectors objected. If WMDs are central to our logic for invasion- why not carry on inspections? Hussein can't do anything aweful under the world's combined lenses....so let's inspect the *#% out of the country and get a clear understanding of where we are. Indeed- the desire for more inspection was an aknowledgment that our Intel might be incomplete; which...ding ding ding...IT WAS.
Lastly. Everytime I hear an administration figure going on about public support for the Iraq war not resting on WMDs I figure we could figure this out empirically.
Do a poll with the following questions:

1) did you support the war?

2) If so, in your own words, why?

3) If: a) prolonged and trustworthy weapons inspections had conclusively shown that Hussein possessed no WMDs; and b) was no greater threat to the U.S. than Cuba, would you have supported the war?

4) If so, why?

Bush 2004 Campaign Pleadges to Restore Honor and Dignity to the White House

That satirical tasting onion puts out a classic top story.

BOSTON- Addressing guests at a $2,000-a-plate fundraiser, George W. Bush pledged Monday that, if re-elected in November, he and running mate Dick Cheney will "restore honor and dignity to the White House.
"After years of false statements and empty promises, it's time for big changes in Washington," Bush said. "We need a president who will finally stand up and fight against the lies and corruption. It's time to renew the faith the people once had in the White House. If elected, I pledge to usher in a new era of integrity inside the Oval Office."

Balkin and Sunstein

Things come together. Professor Balkin writes about the affect of weblogs on internet-speech with regard to Sunstein's "Republic.com." (recently added to the now reading list to the right.)

The development of the blogosphere mitigates, to a considerable degree, two key concerns about freedom of speech on the Internet. University of Chicago legal scholar Cass Sunstein made both of these points eloquently in his book Republic.com. The first concern was that the public sphere would become fragmented because there were so many speakers, no common sources that everyone was exposed to, and new filtering technologies allowed people to filter out the speech they did not like and only read the topics and opinions that interested them. The second concern was that people would become increasingly extreme in their views because there is no Internet equivalent to the fairness doctrine. Liberals would listen only to liberals, conservatives would listen only to conservatives, and the resulting ideological division would produce ideological polarization with increasingly extreme positions, further fracturing the public sphere and preventing democratic deliberation. For this reason, Sunstein at one point suggested requiring people with websites to include links to people with contrary views, or, if that posed constitutional difficulties (it would) at the least giving tax or other incentives for people to add links to others. Sunstein imagined a sort of Fairness Doctrine in Cyberspace. When it was pointed out that Cass didn't have any such links on his own site, he promptly placed a link to Richard Epstein and Catharine Mackinnon on his home page.


In hindsight, both of Sunstein's concerns about freedom of speech seem overstated and his proposed remedy seems not only ineffectual but beside the point because it misunderstood how the Internet differs from traditional mass media. The development of the blogosphere helps us see why this is so.

Give a read.

Cue Dragnet Theme; or Email-Gate

Folks, we have got to put values back into politics. This story- which may or may not break out into scandle-dom- should really give us pause.

It looks like, over the period of a year, GOP staff members infiltrated secret democratic emails.

From the spring of 2002 until at least April 2003, members of the GOP committee staff exploited a computer glitch that allowed them to access restricted Democratic communications without a password. Trolling through hundreds of memos, they were able to read talking points and accounts of private meetings discussing which judicial nominees Democrats would fight -- and with what tactics.

And our old friend Novak steps in again to impliment questionable GOP ethics:

Democrats now claim their private memos formed the basis for a February 2003 column by conservative pundit Robert Novak that revealed plans pushed by Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, to filibuster certain judicial nominees. Novak is also at the center of an investigation into who leaked the identity of a CIA agent whose husband contradicted a Bush administration claim about Iraqi nuclear programs.

Citing "internal Senate sources," Novak's column described closed-door Democratic meetings about how to handle nominees.

Its details and direct quotes from Democrats -- characterizing former nominee Miguel Estrada as a "stealth right-wing zealot" and describing the GOP agenda as an "assembly line" for right-wing nominees -- are contained in talking points and meeting accounts from the Democratic files now known to have been compromised.

Novak declined to confirm or deny whether his column was based on these files.

"They're welcome to think anything they want," he said. "As has been demonstrated, I don't reveal my sources."

Let me again say that this story is about character. The memos and the use thereof stem out of the confirmation battles. That debate should be a public one, and a thoughtful one- a point the GOP itself tried to make with its two day debate-a-thon last fall. In that vein, the debate should be as fair, rhetorically, as possible- one ground rule: no using stolen emails.
To his great credit (and to my increasing admiration of his principle, if not his ideas) Orin Hatch wanted no part of this- and tried to nip it in the bud:

After the contents of those memos were made public in The Wall Street Journal editorial pages and The Washington Times, Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah, made a preliminary inquiry and described himself as "mortified that this improper, unethical and simply unacceptable breach of confidential files may have occurred on my watch."

Hatch also confirmed that "at least one current member of the Judiciary Committee staff had improperly accessed at least some of the documents referenced in media reports."

Well....let's see where all this goes.

You know you've hit the Big Time...

when Drudge is after you. The Ole unReliable has a feature on the suposed inconsistency of Mr. Edwards in social security $ going to the market.

In a speech on October 6, 1998 in Raleigh, Senator Edwards told a group of senior citizens that Social Security surpluses - money not needed immediately to pay benefits - should be invested and kept separate. A portion of the money, up to 10 percent, could be invested in the stock market and the remainder put in secure investments such as treasury bills, Edwards explained.

On September 27, 1998, Edwards told a gathering at Elon College how a small part of the Social Security fund should be invested in stocks and bonds "to see the kind of returns it would produce."

The inconsistency is that Edwards opposes the option of private social security accounts with an option to invest in the stock market.

Josh Marshall has a much more concise response to this than I'll submit- so go give a read. Very quickly- the point is that Ewards never supported fulll fledged separate accounts in the market. He supported (when the market was strong) the idea of putting surpluses to investments. At the time, it was something about which reasonable people differed on both sides of the aisle. That he might change his ideas on it in the face of market decline is not irresponsible, rather, the opposite.
In any event- GO EDWARDS...you've got the secret police on you now!

Favorite line from last night:

"Already, the Kay Report identified dozens of weapons of mass destruction-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations. Had we failed to act, the dictatator's weapons of mass destruction programs would continue to this day."

What in all hell is a WMD-related program activity? This should be his last SOTU address for this reason alone: that he took us into a war with "weapons of mass destruction," changed that to WMD "programs," and now has the gall to add on wmd RELATED program ACTIVITIES!!

For those keeping count, that's four words turned into seven.

EPA trumps States' regulators

Ruling out today: the EPA can override state officials and demand some anti-pollution measures that may be more costly than those allowed by the state.
from the Times:

The 5-4 decision, a victory for environmentalists, found the EPA did not go too far when it overruled a decision by Alaska regulators, who wanted to let the operators of a zinc and lead mine use cheaper anti-pollution technology for power generation.

The four dissentors, Rhenquist, Thomas, Scalia, and Kennedy argued that this undercuts states' authority: "After today's decision, however, a state agency can no longer represent itself as the real governing body. No matter how much time was spent in consultation and negotiations, a single federal administrator can in the end set all aside by a unilateral order," Kennedy wrote.

I haven't read through the decision yet- but on the states stuff, my gut says this: te EPA is a valid federal agency that has been granted power to promulgate regulations and enforce environmnetal protections throughout the country. If state authorities conflict with EPA regulations, what power does the EPA have? It is not as if state authorities can give out radio licenses that the FCC doesn't allow. The EPA's authoritative scope is no different.
Problems exist where the government impliments federal programs or regulations where previously the area regulated was under the province of state power. I wasn't under the impression that's the case here.
Conversely, that is the case in proposals such as tort reward caps, for instance. It was also the case with New Deal legislation.
Still, that something is problematic doesn't make it automatically invalid. Just new, and thus, requiring prudence.

Welcome Sweetie!!

go pay a visit to Jumbo Shrimp...the reality show for "the nanny diaries," and the thoughts of the very attractive and inviable (but keeps your hands off) chrissy fiorilli.

North Carolina...((born and) raised up, take your shirt off, twist it round your head like a helicopter...

Aye, I leave for New York for the weekend, and suddenly North Carolina's all over the news. The tarheels take out Connecticut, the Panthers take out McNabb's ribs, and Edwards gets long overdue recognition. Does me proud. Click on John-boy below to visit his site. Importantly, once there, visit the "real solutions" section (click on the solutions button at the top of the page.)

Who's afraid of the big, bad DA?

Joshua Marquis, a District Attorney in Oregon, stands up for prosecuters.

A nice TalkingPoints moment:

Number of days between Novak column outing Valerie Plame and announcement of investigation: 74 days.

Number of days between O'Neill 60 Minutes interview and announcement of investigation: 1 day.

Having the administration reveal itself as a gaggle of hypocritical goons ... priceless.

GOOOAAAAALLLLL!!!

Good evening to be a Panthers fan. That game was off the hook.


One would think that shooting yourself in the foot would amount to a loss... my heart beat is expected to return to normal just in time for the Heels' matchup with Tech tomorrow. A fun year already.<

Vikram Amar begins a series on the remaining Supreme Court cases.

This one is on the Newdow ("under God") case. He thinks standing will turn out to be the issue.

Happy 2004...
well the winter hiatus is over, and we will begin blogging with some regularity once again. I get the feeling this will be a fun spring, what with the several supreme court decisions and still to be heard cases, the dems' primary, and Carolina basketball.

Good to see you again.

So...talking about that last item:

For the Local Crowd

Is Caulton Tudor trying to attemp Dick Vitale as the most annoying sports commentator in existence? Today's column on Rashad McCants seals the deal, I will never or only with great skepticism read his work in the future.
In a nutshell, Tudor seems to rely on his own sensibilities about facial expressions and an ear for rumors to craft what may be the most stupidly obtuse sports column ever written.
According to Tudor, half of the entertainment in Carolina basketball is a so-called battle between Roy and McCants:

there's been the sideshow -- the latest installment in the unpredictable soap opera starring the first-year coach Williams and the second-year McCants.

The suspense in the latter has been thick as tar, too.

Will Roy stomp and shout at Rashad?

Will Rashad glare and pout at Roy?

Who dares blink first in this cold war of hot tempers?

Oh yeah...when I'm at the game I'm just on the edge of my seat in antsiness over the great blow out between these two.

Bullshit.

No one --except 1) conspiracy theorists (that happen to watch sports instead of politics) and 2) columnists that are better suited to write for soap opera and 'People Magazine'-- really cares about this. Sure, most of us realize that Mr. Wiliams is setting up a particular way of playing- and that some players are merely 19 years old or so and just want to get out there and play. This is not new.
It is also not a "cold war" where the better entrenched party will survive. Indeed, my suspicion is that the stories of inter-team clash stem mainly from members of the anti-Carolina squad.
Screw them and their rumors.