My Weblog

Josh Bolten: "Creative Policy Thinker"

President Bush introduced his new Chief of Staff John Bolten praising him as a creative policy thinker. 

Yes, he is. It was during his tenure as Director of the Office of Management and Budget... the White House came up with the very creative plan to not include the cost of the Iraq war in the administration's budget figures.   That allowed them to claim a reduction in the federal budget deficit when in reality under Bush's leadership, or his lack, the federal budget deficit only continues to increase.

It's funding is outside the budget in a supplemental appropriation. (And this is the administration who promised to bring back dignity to the White House...well, whatever).

Links to stories about this 'creative solution' to thos pesky budget deficit numbers:

Council on Foreign Relations.

Boston.com

Economists Say Cost of War Could Top 2 Trillion.

Press briefing by OMB Josh Bolten

I don't have anything beyond what Secretary Rumsfeld said in the last couple of days, which I believe he pegged the monthly cost at $3.9 billion. But we don't have any good basis to expect that that will be the amount going forward. There are too many variables. But the premise of your question is right. The '04 deficit we have projected does not include a figure -- an additional figure for the costs of ongoing operations in Iraq....

The first part of your question was correct, that the, for 2003, it does include our spending on Iraq, which has been appropriated already by the Congress and spending out, at latest estimate, about $3.9 billion per month. So for -- through '03, Iraq is covered. We anticipate that about $20 billion of the '03 money actually -- won't actually get spent until '04. So you see that money reflected in the '04 deficit.

But beyond that, we have not included an estimate of the cost of the Iraq war in our '04 estimate, and I don't expect that we'll be coming out with any estimate or request to the Congress until much later

Brain Drain: Iraqi style

The Iraqi brain drain

As hundreds of Iraqi doctors, professors and teachers are being murdered in what some see as a deliberate campaign, Jonathan Steele meets the ones who managed to escape

I'd like to see the Bush admin and the 'conservative' media spin this into good news. Good news? Well not all of the skilled workers and leaders have been killed, ok? C'mon on. The cup's still 10% full.... (But those that do survive survive away from Iraq...leaving as leaders those who motivated them to leave. )

Insurance Companies are Concerned Over Global Warming

Now that insurers are expressing concern over the impact of the very real global warming...maybe Bush will follow their lead. They remain among his biggest supporters. Then again, maybe no one's told him yet.

Christians Approve Torture

According to a recent poll a higher percent of Christians and Catholics approve the use of torture than their heathen brethren of atheists and agnostics..

Bush and crew know their supporters...

Link from Andrew Sullivan.

Divide and Conquer: Now with Immigration

Bush campaigned as a 'uniter, not a divider'. Yet his every move seems directed towards turning one American against the other. From Intelligent Design in the classroom, to faith-based initiatives, the war in Iraq (there's a civil war there now), illegal spying on Americans, the Patriot Act, his tax cuts, his medicare plan, his 'response' to Katrina, his polarizing the world against us...it's all part of a divide and conquer. Better to keep everyone arguing among themselves..

Now he's doing it with his plan to address the illegal immigration issue.  The impact as with all his plans is to turn one American against the other.

I guess the only area where he hasn't been a divisive force is in managing our federal budget. He's offered no leadership, vetoed no spending bill and by golly he's accomplished something: $2-3 trillion in indebtedness since arriving 5 short years ago. That must be how's he keeping control of Congress: catering to their weakness and then turning it on them. Catering to their little pork barrel projects the Congress can't walk away from...then leveraging that against them.

The real cost of the war in Iraq

Bush and Cheney have done more than merely bungle a war and damage the Army. They have destroyed the foundation of the post-Cold War world security system, which was the accepted authority of American military power. That reputation is now gone. It cannot be restored simply by retreating from Iraq. This does not mean that every ongoing alliance will now collapse. But they are all more vulnerable than they were before, and once we leave central Iraq, they will be weaker still. As these paper tigers start to blow in the wind, so too will America’s economic security erode..full post at Mother Jones..

Troops to remain until 2009...

By that admission, Bush also admits he has no idea how to win this war...nor does he care. They'll stay there until it's time for someone else to clean up this mess. Thanks, G-dub.

Democrats...just plain weak

It's amazing how difficult it is for the Democratic Party to just speak the obvious: Bush violated federal law with his plan of unauthorized and illegal wiretaps on US citizens. At the least, if Clinton was impeached for lying about oral sex in Oval Room, then shouldn't Bush be at least censured for committing a felony in the same office?

The Nation has an article sharing this same sentiment.

Where is the good news in Iraq?

Where is the good news from Iraq. Are you telling me that with all the resources of the US, its Dept of Defense, CIA and Agency for International Development, Radio Free Wherever...that they can't get the message out about Iraq and all the good things going?

Are their other media sources that are reporting 'good news' from Iraq? Other countries...? The answer is no to both.

I'm watching Hardball with Chris Mathews on MSNBC.  I'm hearing a military Press liaison officer talk about all the good news that's going on in Iraq and how it's not being covered. Well, WHAT are these stories. Tell us some.

They never do. They're trying to plant seeds of doubt in people's mind and what they see every day. Death and destruction...it's just negative media. If the media were positive what would they say?

The guests talk about how despite the coverage of this war being in line with the coverage of other wars...that a 'new story' needs to develop. They're saying the media should cover this war differently than they covered every war since the First World War.

Why? Because we're losing this war, because this administration is incompetent, because we're losing the war because this administration is incompetent. That's why the coverage needs to be different.

American Theocracy

Clear and Present Dangers is a review of American Theocracy by Kevin Phillips.

Four decades ago, Kevin Phillips, a young political strategist for the Republican Party, began work on what became a remarkable book. In writing "The Emerging Republican Majority"

He predicted:

that the movement of people and resources from the old Northern industrial states into the South and the West (an area he enduringly labeled the "Sun Belt") would produce a new and more conservative Republican majority that would dominate American politics for decades. Phillips viewed the changes he predicted with optimism. A stronger Republican Party, he believed, would restore stability and order to a society experiencing disorienting and at times violent change.

He's seen the results now.

No longer does he see Republican government as a source of stability and order. Instead, he presents a nightmarish vision of ideological extremism, catastrophic fiscal irresponsibility, rampant greed and dangerous shortsightedness. (His final chapter is entitled "The Erring Republican Majority.")

Mr. Phillips is but one more traditional Republican leader abandoning the sinking ship of the Bush Administration.