Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying

Senator John Warner of Virginia has been admitted to INOVA Fairfax Hospital to correct an abnormal heartbeat:

U.S. Sen. John W. Warner was admitted to Inova Fairfax Hospital yesterday to correct an abnormal heartbeat, and he is expected to be home by the weekend and back at work next week, according to his Senate office.

Warner, 80, went to work yesterday but checked in with the Capitol physician’s office midmorning, according to a statement released by his office. He left for the hospital in the afternoon for a procedure to correct atrial fibrillation, or an irregular heartbeat. He is scheduled to undergo a second procedure today.

Senator Warner is one of the most respected members of the United States Senate and a leading voice on foreign policy. He represents Virginia with honor and distinction. Recently he announced that he would not seek another term in the Senate.

He is expected to make a full recovery.

Get well soon Senator.

Today the Democrats in the Senate, led by Joseph Lieberman, laid the groundwork for war with Iran. They passed a "sense of the Senate" resolution that will pave the way for war with Iran:

It is the sense of the Senate–

(1) that the manner in which the United States transitions and structures its military presence in Iraq will have critical long-term consequences for the future of the Persian Gulf and the Middle East, in particular with regard to the capability of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran to pose a threat to the security of the region, the prospects for democracy for the people of the region, and the health of the global economy;

(2) that it is a vital national interest of the United States to prevent the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran from turning Shi’a militia extremists in Iraq into a Hezbollah-like force that could serve its interests inside Iraq, including by overwhelming, subverting, or co-opting institutions of the legitimate Government of Iraq;

(3) that it should be the policy of the United States to combat, contain, and roll back the violent activities and destabilizing influence inside Iraq of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, its foreign facilitators such as Lebanese Hezbollah, and its indigenous Iraqi proxies;

(4) to support the prudent and calibrated use of all instruments of United States national power in Iraq, including diplomatic, economic, intelligence, and military instruments, in support of the policy described in paragraph (3) with respect to the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxies;

(5) that the United States should designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as a foreign terrorist organization under section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act and place the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps on the list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists, as established under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and initiated under Executive Order 13224; and

(6) that the Department of the Treasury should act with all possible expediency to complete the listing of those entities targeted under United Nations Security Council Resolutions 1737 and 1747 adopted unanimously on December 23, 2006 and March 24, 2007, respectively.

The vote was 76-22 in favor of this very dangerous resolution.

My senator, Jim Webb, voted against this resolution. He said of this resolution:

Those who regret their vote five years ago to authorize military action in Iraq should think hard before supporting this approach. Because, in my view, it has the same potential to do harm where many are seeking to do good. … .. … We haven’t had one hearing on this. I’m on the Foreign Relations Committee, I’m on the Armed Services Committee. We are about to vote on something that may fundamentally change the way the United States views the Iranian military and we haven’t had one hearing. This is not the way to make foreign policy. It’s not the way to declare war.

We have been on a long slide to war with Iran. Seymour Hersh of the New Yorker has been warning since last year that we are being led into another war. Today the Democratic Congress obliged. I wrote early last year:

I recall quipping to a friend a few weeks ago that I thought the way out of Iraq for this Administration was through Iran. What I meant at the time was that since this Administration had haplessly shifted the center of gravity of Iraqi politics to Iran, without Iran having to fire a shot, that the only way to exit out of Iraq with "credibility" was to attack Iran. Iran then becomes a continuation of a larger war "on terror" and it can then not be said that Iraq was lost since it will only become an unfinished chapter in a larger war.

It appears that the Iraq exit strategy is being implemented.

While America does gyrations over Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad’s verbal fisticuffs at Columbia University, the Congress today took a significant step toward war with Iran. The sad part is this is not even major news on any of the mainstream media outlets.

This time no one can blame George W Bush. This war is owned by the Democrats.

William Kristol continues to peddle his delusion today in the Washington Post. Kristol thinks that George W Bush will be remembered as a successful president. He cites "progress" in Iraq:

The fact is that military progress on the ground in Iraq in the past few months has been greater than even surge proponents like me expected, and political progress is beginning to follow.

I have to question whether Mr. Kristol’s definition of "progress" is the same as mine, or whether his definition of "progress" is in the national interest. However, whatever he is selling, its clear that George W Bush is buying. And to the detriment of the country and the presidency.

While the Democrats in Congress try once again to put muscle behind their words, Republican senators, most notably Richard Lugar of Indiana, are trying to lead the President toward a kinder gentler withdrawal by asking him to present a new strategy for Iraq in October. Neither strategy will work.

While it has been clear to many citizens from the very beginning, the Iraq Study Group report last December changed the conversation in Washington from how to win in Iraq to how best to salvage America from George W Bush’s blunder. George W Bush responded to the report like a petulant school boy - he did exactly the opposite of what was prudent and what was recommended. Instead of considering what was in the best interest of the country, he listened to the delusions of Fred Kagan and the amoral preachings of the likes of William Kristol.

Like his Secretary of Homeland Security, George W Bush sides with his gut over facts or evidence. In his defiant press conference earlier in the week in response to his own administration’s report of massive failure in Iraq, Mr. Bush laid to rest any notion that he was connected with reality:

I know some in Washington would like us to start leaving Iraq now. To begin withdrawing before our commanders tell us we are ready would be dangerous for Iraq, for the region, and for the United States. It would mean surrendering the future of Iraq to al Qaeda. It would mean that we’d be risking mass killings on a horrific scale. It would mean we’d allow the terrorists to establish a safe haven in Iraq to replace the one they lost in Afghanistan. It would mean increasing the probability that American troops would have to return at some later date to confront an enemy that is even more dangerous.

This kind of thinking leaves little room for nuance, as the Republicans in the Senate are hoping for. Still I have much sympathy for Senator Lugar’s approach. The alternative, the Democratic approach of cutting off funding for the troops, will undoubtebly lead to a constitutional showdown between the president’s article II commander-in-chief powers and the Congress’s Article I war making and funding powers. There is very little doubt in my mind that in this constitutional crisis the presidency will be the loser. The result of George W Bush’s intransigence and his assertion of vast executive authority will ironically be a weakened presidency. Under a different president, faced with such an outcome, the president would avoid this game of chicken for the sake of the country and the office he holds. A more enlightened president would take the escape hatch provided by Senator Lugar and the Iraq Study Group. But not this president.

So, it seems to me that we have really two options. We can let George W Bush run out the clock of his presidency by remaining in Iraq and continuing this fiasco, or we - through our elected representatives in Congress - can bring this war to an end by exercise of constitutional authority over the executive’s actions.

Letting this president run out the clock means the deaths of over a thousand more American soldiers and many more Iraqis, a further destabilization of the region, a further increase in hatred toward America - a hatred that will inevitably manifest itself in attacks against the homeland, and lasting damage to the balance of power in government. Letting this president run out the clock without challenge from the other co-equal branches of government means setting a precedent for authoritarian usurpation of executive power. America will lose, not only the Iraq war, but its own identity and way of life. Osama bin Laden will no doubt approve.

Bringing this war to an end by Congressional action will cause damage to the institution of the presidency by tipping the constitutional balance and injecting the Congress into the exercise of foreign policy. This institutional damage may be avoided by declaring this presidency, the presidency of George W Bush, as an aberration. It should be argued that Mr. Bush has himself damaged the presidency and the national interest by his orchestration and execution of this war -a high crime and misdemeanor. The conversation should not only be about how we get out of this war, but must also include how we got into this war. The former should be the basis for Congressional action to end this war, the latter should be the basis for the Congressional exercise of its Article I powers to impeach and remove the president from office. To balance Congressional action to defund this war, impeachment proceedings must begin. Impeachment will confirm that Congressional intervention was necessary to reign in this president and not the presidency.

It is a sad day in America when we must talk about the impeachment of a president. But the presidency and the nation is far more important than the political legacy of George W Bush. So, while William Kristol and his ilk spin to salvage Mr. Bush’s legacy, we the citizens through our elected representatives must act to salvage the constitutional office of the presidency from this president. In doing so, we will have ended a senseless war and the unnecessary and avoidable deaths of thousands.

On the Senate floor today, Senator Richard Lugar, Republican of Indiana, delivered the speech that may signal the beginning of the end of the American occupation of Iraq:

Mr. President, I rise today to offer observations on the continuing involvement of the United States in Iraq. In my judgment, our course in Iraq has lost contact with our vital national security interests in the Middle East and beyond. Our continuing absorption with military activities in Iraq is limiting our diplomatic assertiveness there and elsewhere in the world. The prospects that the current “surge” strategy will succeed in the way originally envisioned by the President are very limited within the short period framed by our own domestic political debate. And the strident, polarized nature of that debate increases the risk that our involvement in Iraq will end in a poorly planned withdrawal that undercuts our vital interests in the Middle East. Unless we recalibrate our strategy in Iraq to fit our domestic political conditions and the broader needs of U.S. national security, we risk foreign policy failures that could greatly diminish our influence in the region and the world.

 

The current debate on Iraq in Washington has not been conducive to a thoughtful revision of our Iraq policy.  Our debate is being driven by partisan political calculations and understandable fatigue with bad news — including deaths and injuries to Americans. We have been debating and voting on whether to fund American troops in Iraq and whether to place conditions on such funding. We have contemplated in great detail whether Iraqi success in achieving certain benchmarks should determine whether funding is approved or whether a withdrawal should commence. I would observe that none of this debate addresses our vital interests any more than they are addressed by an unquestioned devotion to an ill-defined strategy of “staying the course” in Iraq. 

 

I speak to my fellow Senators, when I say that the President is not the only American leader who will have to make adjustments to his or her thinking.  Each of us should take a step back from the sloganeering rhetoric and political opportunism that has sometimes characterized this debate.  The task of securing U.S. interests in the Middle East will be extremely difficult if Iraq policy is formulated on a partisan basis, with the protagonists on both sides ignoring the complexities at the core of our situation. 

 

Commentators frequently suggest that the United States has no good options in Iraq. That may be true from a certain perspective. But I believe that we do have viable options that could strengthen our position in the Middle East, and reduce the prospect of terrorism, regional war, and other calamities. But seizing these opportunities will require the President to downsize the U.S. military’s role in Iraq and place much more emphasis on diplomatic and economic options. It will also require members of Congress to be receptive to overtures by the President to construct a new policy outside the binary choice of surge versus withdrawal.  We don’t owe the President our unquestioning agreement, but we do owe him and the American people our constructive engagement.

 

…

 

Mr. President, the issue before us is whether we will refocus our policy in Iraq on realistic assessments of what can be achieved, and on a sober review of our vital interests in the Middle East. Given the requirements of military planners, the stress of our combat forces, and our own domestic political timeline, we are running out of time to implement a thoughtful Plan B that attempts to protect our substantial interests in the region, while downsizing our military presence in Iraq. 

 

We need to recast the geo-strategic reference points of our Iraq policy. We need to be preparing for how we will array U.S. forces in the region to target terrorist enclaves, deter adventurism by Iran, provide a buffer against regional sectarian conflict, and generally reassure friendly governments that the United States is committed to Middle East security. Simultaneously, we must be aggressive and creative in pursuing a regional dialogue that is not limited to our friends. We cannot allow fatigue and frustration with our Iraq policy to lead to the abandonment of the tools and relationships we need to defend our vital interests in the Middle East. 

 

If we are to seize opportunities to preserve these interests, the Administration and Congress must suspend what has become almost knee-jerk political combat over Iraq. Those who offer constructive criticism of the surge strategy are not defeatists, any more than those who warn against a precipitous withdrawal are militarists. We need to move Iraq policy beyond the politics of the moment and re-establish a broad consensus on the role of the United States in the Middle East. If we do that, the United States has the diplomatic influence and economic and military power to strengthen mutually beneficial policies that could enhance security and prosperity throughout the region.  I pray that the President and the Congress will move swiftly and surely to achieve that goal.

 

UPDATE: There is a report in the Bangladesh paper New Nation that the letter from the senators is a forgery. However, I just got off the phone with Senator Joe Biden’s office. They confirmed for me that the letter was indeed sent and the content of the letter is as was widely reported. We should keep in mind that the New Nation is owned by an advisor to the military government, and the new report from the New Nation may be part of a disinformation campaign.

UPDATE 2: The press person from Senator Biden’s office called me to tell me that the letter had been released to the press. So there should be no confusion about its authenticity. I love it when government works this efficiently and is this responsive to a citizen. Kudos to the staff at Senator Biden’s office. Senator Biden’s Washington office number is 202-224-5042.

UPDATE 3: The New Nation carries on the charade. They have a detailed story on their front page now claiming the letter is a forgery. Never mind that I and others have confirmed from Senator Biden and Senator Kerry’s office that they in fact did send this letter. Wow! Simply wow! The newspaper owned by Mainul Hosein, the military government’s information advisor, is playing the role of Baghdad Bob perfectly. Don’t let the facts hit you on the way to publishing your paper.

UPDATE 4: Salam Dhaka has confirmation from Senator Kerry’s office. Shada Kalo has confirmation from Senator Kennedy’s and Senator Lugar’s offices. He also has more information about the "reporting" from the New Nation.

———————

Actually, its a "Dear Fakhruddin" letter. Members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, joined by a number of other prominent senators, sent a letter to the titular head of the Bangladesh military government, Fakhruddin Ahmed, urging the following:

1) promptly lift the state of emergency and restore full civil and political rights to all citizens of Bangladesh; and

2) announce, within the next two months, a roadmap towards free and fair elections to be held as soon as possible, with input of the political parties and civil society leaders, so that a democratically-elected government can be restored as soon as possible.

The letter can be viewed here.

The letter was signed by the following bipartisan group of senators:

Joe Biden
Edward Kennedy
Hillary Clinton
John Kerry
Richard Lugar
Chris Dodd
Barbara Boxer
Robert Menendez
Chuck Schumer
Joe Lieberman
Norm Coleman
John Sununu
Russ Feingold
Johnny Isakson
Frank Lautenberg

This letter comes on the heels of a trip to Washington by Bangladeshi special envoy Farooq Sobhan. During his trip, Mr. Sobhan met with the National Security Council, the State Department and members of Congress to lobby on behalf of the military government in Bangladesh. I am guessing the trip didn’t go well.

So the first South Asian to hold the post of United States Attorney is a 34 year old woman with a taste for the extravagant. She is also "dictatorial" and "ideologically driven". Her subordinates are demoting themselves in protest. Meet Rachel Kunjummen Paulose, the current United States attorney for the District of Minnesota - because the United States Senate certainly did not.

Ms. Paulose held a coronation ceremony, complete with a color guard and choir, on March 9th of this year. She defended herself in an embarrassing videotaped interview with the local ABC television station. Patrick Fitzgerald, she ain’t.

How does such a young woman with limited experience rise so quickly to become a United States Attorney? Let’s ask her predecessor, Thomas Heffelfinger, who resigned last year before he could be fired by Gonzo and company:

Heffelfinger supervised Paulose when she was a young assistant prosecutor in the office. He would not comment on her qualifications. "I was 58 when I left. She was 32 when she started," he said. "I brought significantly different things to the job than she brings to the job — without valuing them one way or the other."

Not exactly a stellar endorsement.

What did the United States Senate think of her qualifications during her confirmation hearings? They thought nothing of her. That is to say they did not look into her qualifications whatsoever.

President Bush nominated Ms. Paulose on August 3, 2006 after appointing her as the interim US Attorney. News reports state that she was unanimously confirmed by the US Senate on December 9, 2006:

The U.S. Senate unanimously confirmed Rachel Paulose as the U.S. Attorney for Minnesota early Saturday.

The 33-year-old Paulose, of Eagan, had been acting U.S. attorney for about nine months. President Bush nominated her for the permanent job about four months ago.

Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., said in a news release that he urged the Senate Judiciary Committee to allow full a Senate vote on Paulose before the Senate adjourned early Saturday.

Paulose met Wednesday with outgoing Sen. Mark Dayton, D-Minn., and got his support. However, it appeared that the Senate session would end before it took up her confirmation.

But what did the Senate do after receiving her nomination on August 3, 2006? Nothing. The Judiciary Committee did not vote on her nomination. They did not send her nomination to the full Senate for a confirmation vote. Instead, on the last day of the 109th Congress, Bill Frist, then Senate Majority Leader of the Republican controlled Senate, asked that the Judiciary Committee be "discharged" from further consideration of Ms. Paulose’s nomination. This from the congressional record on December 8, 2006:

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate immediately proceed to executive session to consider the following nominations on today’s Executive Calendar: Calendar Nos. 62, 63, 407, 670, 783, 900, 901, 904, 1000, 1001, 1002, 1003, 1004, 1005 through 1008, 1010, 1011, 1012, 1013, 1014, 1017, 1018, 1019, 1020, 1021, 1022, 1023, 1024, and all nominations on the Secretary’s desk.

I further ask consent that the following committees be discharged from further consideration of listed nominations and the Senate proceed to their consideration en bloc:

Judiciary Committee, Rachel Paulose PN1905; Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Paul Schneider PN2127; Foreign Relations, Dianne Moss PN1846, foreign service promotion lists PN 2097, PN 2130, and PN 2085.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

With that discharge resolution, a rarely used procedure in the United States Senate, Bill Frist brought Ms. Paulose’s nomination to the floor without any committee hearing or committee vote. A few hours later the United States Senate confirmed Ms. Paulose’s nomination along with over a hundred other nominations before heading out of town and before a new Democratic Senate took over.

If you are going to place a young, inexperienced "best buds" of Monica Goodling as a United States Attorney you will need a compliant United States Senate that does not take its "advice and consent" responsibilities under the United States Constitution very seriously. Mr. Bush had such a Senate in the 109th Congress.

It seems to me if you are going to replace experienced and respected United States Attorneys with cronies of the Bush Administration with dubious qualifications , you do not take the rule of law very seriously. It seems to me that when US Attorney jobs are handed out as political rewards to cronies like ambassadorships have been in the past, the message sent to the populace is that politics triumphs the rule of law. It seems to me that is a direct assault on the United States Constitution. To the extent that the United States Senate has colluded with the Executive Branch in carrying out the politicization and trivialization of the Justice Department, we the citizens are being abandoned by your elected representatives in favor of political favors.

We are left with the embarrassing sight of a United States Attorney whose ego eclipses her qualifications. We are left with Rachel Paulose.

Senator Jim Webb of Virginia delivered the Democratic response to President Bush’s State of the Union speech tonight. I think I can safely say that in eight minutes Senator Webb laid waste to President Bush’s "surge" fantasies.

There was confusion and there was leadership tonight on Capital Hill. Senator Webb provided the leadership:

With respect to foreign policy, this country has patiently endured a mismanaged war for nearly four years. Many, including myself, warned even before the war began that it was unnecessary, that it would take our energy and attention away from the larger war against terrorism, and that invading and occupying Iraq would leave us strategically vulnerable in the most violent and turbulent corner of the world.

I want to share with all of you a picture that I have carried with me for more than 50 years. This is my father, when he was a young Air Force captain, flying cargo planes during the Berlin Airlift. He sent us the picture from Germany, as we waited for him, back here at home. When I was a small boy, I used to take the picture to bed with me every night, because for more than three years my father was deployed, unable to live with us full-time, serving overseas or in bases where there was no family housing. I still keep it, to remind me of the sacrifices that my mother and others had to make, over and over again, as my father gladly served our country. I was proud to follow in his footsteps, serving as a Marine in Vietnam. My brother did as well, serving as a Marine helicopter pilot. My son has joined the tradition, now serving as an infantry Marine in Iraq.

Like so many other Americans, today and throughout our history, we serve and have served, not for political reasons, but because we love our country. On the political issues - those matters of war and peace, and in some cases of life and death - we trusted the judgment of our national leaders. We hoped that they would be right, that they would measure with accuracy the value of our lives against the enormity of the national interest that might call upon us to go into harm’s way.

We owed them our loyalty, as Americans, and we gave it. But they owed us - sound judgment, clear thinking, concern for our welfare, a guarantee that the threat to our country was equal to the price we might be called upon to pay in defending it.

The President took us into this war recklessly. He disregarded warnings from the national security adviser during the first Gulf War, the chief of staff of the army, two former commanding generals of the Central Command, whose jurisdiction includes Iraq, the director of operations on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and many, many others with great integrity and long experience in national security affairs. We are now, as a nation, held hostage to the predictable - and predicted - disarray that has followed.

The war’s costs to our nation have been staggering.

Financially.

The damage to our reputation around the world.

The lost opportunities to defeat the forces of international terrorism.

And especially the precious blood of our citizens who have stepped forward to serve.

The majority of the nation no longer supports the way this war is being fought; nor does the majority of our military. We need a new direction. Not one step back from the war against international terrorism. Not a precipitous withdrawal that ignores the possibility of further chaos. But an immediate shift toward strong regionally-based diplomacy, a policy that takes our soldiers off the streets of Iraq’s cities, and a formula that will in short order allow our combat forces to leave Iraq.

…

As I look at Iraq, I recall the words of former general and soon-to-be President Dwight Eisenhower during the dark days of the Korean War, which had fallen into a bloody stalemate. "When comes the end?" asked the General who had commanded our forces in Europe during World War Two. And as soon as he became President, he brought the Korean War to an end.

These Presidents took the right kind of action, for the benefit of the American people and for the health of our relations around the world. Tonight we are calling on this President to take similar action, in both areas. If he does, we will join him. If he does not, we will be showing him the way.

It is time for the President to listen to the American people, their elected representatives, and to reason. Play time is over.

Jim Webb was sworn in today as United States Senator from Virginia.

My local precinct in Loudoun County, Virginia was crowded this morning. I arrived at the polls at 9:30 am to find a long line of voters. I noticed on the election worker’s number sheet that over a 1000 voters had already voted at my precinct and many more were in line. I was in line for about 15 minutes before being able to get my ballot. If my precinct is indicative of the turnout in the rest of Loudoun County, Macaca Allen might be in serious trouble.

A Webb volunteer outside handed me a sample ballot. Interestingly, there was no Allen volunteer outside. I have to wonder if Allen was caught flat-footed by the Webb challenge and whether the much vaunted Republican ground game might not have taken the field. If Allen has conceded Northern Virginia or if he has not been able to organize, then he might be heading home to his dude ranch soon.

This year, there was one touch screen machine at the precinct and the rest were optical scanned ballots. You were given a choice of "paper or touch screen" - I chose touch screen just for the experience.

After waiting in yet another line for 20 minutes to get to the much coveted touch screen machine, I faced off against the Diebold voting appliance. This was my first experience with the world of e-voting. I can see how people can get confused by these things. It claimed that my selected candidate would have a red "X" next to his name - but in reality, there was a black box next to the selected name (on closer examination, the black box revealed itself to be very dark red with a faint "X" in the middle).

The screens on the Diebold machine were very slow to update, so that it took over 5 minutes for me to get my ballot filled in. It did give me a confirmation screen at the end of the process with the correct candidates filled in. I held my breath and pressed the screen button to submit my ballot and out popped the card to signal that I had exercised my civic duty. No paper record of the vote, just a faith in the programmers and testers at Diebold. Our democracy at the mercy of a software program.

On the drive back from the polling station, I was listening to the Diane Rehm Show on NPR. Diane was reporting on voting problems in Alexandria (Northern Virginia and heavily Democratic) where older voters were having trouble because Jim Webb’s name was truncated on the electronic voting machines.

So, Virginia is voting today. My experience is that turnout is heavy in Northern Virginia. That bodes well for Jim Webb. Now comes the hard part - counting the ballots.

Since all the pundits are doing it, I thought we could have a little fun as well. Here are my predictions for this Tuesday’s elections. Feel free to add yours in the comments.

My prediction is that the Democrats pick up the needed six seats and still not get control of the Senate because Joe Lieberman will jump ship and caucus with the Republicans.

My prediction for the House is that the Democrats pick up 26 seats and take control.