Thursday Roundup: War of the Words

I think President Bush has been listening to those crazy left-wing bloggers too much. He seems to have liked the many comparisons between Iraq and Vietnam so much, he's started using them himself. Of course, he's taking them in a different direction — one that many would argue isn't quite historically accurate.

Bush is apparently seeking to characterize Vietnam as a failure born of our lack of tenacity in the region. The implication is clear in his speech that he sees the atrocities that occurred in Vietnam and Cambodia as a consequence of our not having stayed long enough in Vietnam. Seeing as that went from 1959 to 1975, and caused 1.5 million casualties, I'm not exactly sure what that would say for his intentions for Iraq. The article above cites some historians naming a number of other problems and inaccuracies with Bush's metaphor.

There's been criticism from many fronts of the political progress in Iraq, in that there hasn't been any. Prime Minister Maliki is often at the center of that criticism, with some going so far as to call for his replacement. As he was meeting with Syria, Maliki's frustration with the American criticism became evident as he said that if outside forces are unhappy with how things are going in Iraq, Iraq "can find friends elsewhere." The situation is a very serious one, so it is odd that you can describe the political posturing of each side as "antics," but with the sort of schoolyard rhetoric we're starting to see, that's the point we're getting to.

And no, we aren't kidding about the seriousness of the situation. For instance, did you know that militias have begun seizing critical infrastructure points like the electrical grid? This is a bad deal — a group in charge of a switching station can withhold power to some parts of Iraq, creating real problems. It sounds a little like Mad Max, only with electricity and without Australians. At any rate, this is another serious problem in a long line of serious problems.

Moving on from Iraq, if you were amused by the problem Dick Cheney had a few days ago with not knowing things about his department that he could've learned from his own Web site, you'll be further tickled to know that neither does President Bush.

The administration made the claim yesterday that the White House's Office of Administration was not subject to the Freedom of Information Act in answer to a lawsuit trying to obtain information regarding the disappearance of millions of White House emails. Of course, not only does the White House web site state that it is indeed subject to the open-records law, but the office has previously responded to numerous FOIA requests.

The other day we talked a little about Michigan's designs on possibly bumping its primary up to the middle of January. Now they are one step closer to doing just that, as the state Senate (led by Republicans) voted yesterday to move it to January 15th. Here's something I missed in the original article: Democrats are still arguing over whether to have a primary or a caucus. Also, as Democrats control the state house, the version they pass probably won't much resemble the Senate version. We'll keep an eye on things for you.

Just like Romney is keeping an eye on Giuliani, trying to beat him up on immigration. Giuliani is liberal about many things, and immigration is another one of many flashpoint issues that put him at odds with the rest of his party. Romney has started a media campaign describing Giuliani's New York as a "sanctuary city," implying that Giuliani doesn't care about immigration and will ostensibly throw open the borders of the country and let just anyone in, as New York does. Someone should run a radio ad asking why Giuliani is still leading in the polls by a wide margin even though he's so liberal. We really mean that — someone should figure it out.

It may be less of a mystery to figure out why Brian Flood, the inspector general of the Health and Human Services commission, tendered his resignation this week. Statesman has this:

Flood’s April report, prepared at state senators’ request, said that Health and Human Services Commission officials poorly managed a project to enroll Texans in public assistance via call centers. The call centers and TIERS, the computer system that powers them, had cost taxpayers more than $500 million.

The watchdog post is never an easy job. As no specific reason for his resignation was given, the speculation is that perhaps he did his job too well; we may never know.

Yesterday night, Texas performed its 400th execution since an 18-year moratorium on the death penalty ended in 1982. While the requisite protests occurred outside and for several days the system has been examined and criticized, the most pronounced call for change came from an enormous federation of foreign nations: the European Union called on Texas to place a moratorium on capital punishment, a practice the EU has long fought against and sought to eliminate. Rick Perry's reply was what you might expect: something about throwing "off the yoke of a European monarch" and fighting for freedom.

Two more odd bits of news. American politicians with tanking poll numbers could take a lesson from Russian president/Bond villain Vladimir Putin who, after taking off his shirt to give the Russian press a little something for the ladies, has experienced a tabloid rush of support and fascination. While I can see tabloids running with something like this, the fact that it is being treated as actual news by just about every major press outlet in the U.S. is depressing.

Maybe instead of this being news, we could all learn about how the ballot order for constitutional amendments is decided... wait, what's that? The order is decided by a bingo hopper? The Secretary of State actually has to operate the hopper personally? I suppose they leave this stuff out of civics class on purpose.