Conservatism does not equal consistency

When I read this story about Dick Cheney claiming the Vice President is not part of the excecutive branch, I was just stunned. After all, Article II of the US Constitution is called "The Executive" and it's the one that mentions the vice presidency:

"...The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice-President chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows:..."

"...In every Case, after the Choice of the President, the Person having the greatest Number of Votes of the Electors shall be the Vice President. But if there should remain two or more who have equal Votes, the Senate shall chuse from them by Ballot the Vice-President..." (part of this clause was superseded by the 12th Amendment.)

"...In Case of the Removal of the President from Office, or of his Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office, the same shall devolve on the Vice President, and the Congress may by Law provide for the Case of Removal, Death, Resignation or Inability, both of the President and Vice President, declaring what Officer shall then act as President, and such Officer shall act accordingly, until the Disability be removed, or a President shall be elected..." (This clause was modified by the 20th and 25th Amendments.)

"...The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors..."

So all this reading got me thinking: one of the constant claims of conservatives is that they are FOR strict interpretation of the Constitution. Anyone they deem to be opposed to their view, usually judges, is called a "judicial activist." See here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here for examples.

So what I'm wondering is: if conservatives claim to love strict constructionism when it comes to the Constitution, shouldn't they be condemning Cheney for his "activism"?

Of course, that would require consistency on the part of conservatives, something for which they are not known.

Wes Pruden -- Shut Up, Jackass

In a June 19 column advocating a presidential pardon for former vice presidential chief of staff and current felon Scooter Libby, Washington Times Editor-in-Chief Wesley Pruden claimed that "[a]s it turns out, [former CIA operative Valerie Plame] was not a secret agent at all, but little more than a clerk assigned to clip and paste newspaper and magazine articles." Pruden concluded his bullshit column "[s]ince she was not a secret agent, under the law there was no harm, no foul."

WHY do we have to keep refighting this argument? Valerie Plame Wilson WAS a COVERT operative. Her identity was CLASSIFIED and should not have been revealed. She DID travel undercover as part of her CIA employment. She DID have a non-official cover that identified her as the employee of a civilian energy research company.

Before jackasses like Wes Pruden start braying they should know the FACTS. Like these, for instance:

It was clear from very early in the investigation that Ms. Wilson qualified under the relevant statute (Title 50, United States Code, Section 421) as a covert agent whose identity had been disclosed by public officials, including Mr. Libby, to the press.

On 1 January 2002, Valerie Wilson was working for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as an operations officer in the Directorate of Operations (DO). She was assigned to the Counterproliferation Division (CPD) at CIA Headquarters, where she served as the Chief of a CPD component with responsibility for weapons proliferation issues related to Iraq.

While assigned to CPD, Ms. Wilson engaged in temporary duty (TDY) travel overseas on official business. She traveled at least seven times to more than ten countries. When traveling overseas, Ms. Wilson always traveled under a cover identity -- sometimes in true name and sometimes in alias -- but always using cover -- whether official or non-official cover (NOC) -- with no ostensible relationship to the CIA.

At the time of the initial unauthorized disclosure in the media of Ms. Wilson's employment relationship with the CIA on 14 July 2003, Ms. Wilson was a covert CIA employee for whom the CIA was taking affirmative measures to conceal her intelligence relationship to the United States.

Valerie Plame was a covert intelligence officer covered by the Intelligence Officer's Identity Protection Act, and Lewis "Scooter" Libby lied to the grand jury. These two truths emerge from the opinion written by Judge Tatel, of the U.S. Court of Appeals, and released in February 2005. Thanks to a FOIA request by the Wall Street Journal we now have a more complete record, although key parts of his decision are still blacked out. Perhaps most of the media will now realize that they have been fed a pack of lies by the likes of Ken Mehlman, Victoria Toensing, Cliff May and others.

Valerie Plame was undercover until the day she was identified in Robert Novak's column. I entered on duty with Valerie in September of 1985. Every single member of our class--which was comprised of Case Officers, Analysts, Scientists, and Admin folks--were undercover. I was an analyst and Valerie was a case officer. Case officers work in the Directorate of Operations and work overseas recruiting spies and running clandestine operations. Although Valerie started out working under "official cover"--i.e., she declared she worked for the U.S. Government but in something innocuous, like the State Department--she later became a NOC aka non official cover officer. A NOC has no declared relationship with the United States Government.

Of course, Pruden DOES know all these facts. He chooses to ignore them, as does anyone else who insists on claiming that Valerie Wilson wasn't a covert operative and that leaking her identity was no big deal.

Air America Radio -- still crashing and burning

I can't stand "Lionel" of The Lionel Show. He's not progressive, he's not liberal. He makes much of claiming he wants to be a talk show host, not an advocate.

Well, I pay for XM Radio so that I can listen to Air America because I WANT to hear progressives and liberals on the radio.

Mark Green and the rest of his family are not doing the network any favors with the revamped lineup they introduced after taking over Air America earlier this year, with the most egregious examples being Lionel and Ed Schultz, another faux progressive.

Lionel has proved my point by having on as a guest well-known bigot Bill Donohue.

Ed Schultz proved my point by doing an interview on June 8 with Chris Simcox, a crazy, right wing, Minuteman guy.

If AA really wants to permanently turn off listeners like me, all they have to do is keep putting on fake progressives like Lionel and Schultz.

CNN shills for John McCain

By Bill Schneider

CNN Senior Political Analyst

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Does likeability matter for a presidential candidate?

It may not be the determining factor, but likeability does matter...

...Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani are rated pretty likeable by New Hampshire Republicans. John McCain is not -- maybe too much straight talk on Iraq and immigration.

So, John McCain is losing "likeability" because he's TOO HONEST?

Could it be that he lies? (Here, here, here,)

Could it be that he's a hypocrite? (Here, here, here, here)

Could it be that he's so craven he'll say or do anything to become president? (Here, here, here)

How about some objectivity here, Mr. Schneider? You're not Candy Crowley.

Quote of the day

Barney Frank on New England Cable News:

"The real Romney is clearly an extraordinarily ambitious man with no perceivable political principle whatsover. He is the most intellectually dishonest human being in the history of politics."

Lieberman wants to bomb IRAN

Jesus Christ! Joe Lieberman wants to get us into a THIRD unprovoked war! Come on! We haven't even finished the first two yet -- Iraq and Afghanistan.

Why would anyone listen to Lieberman on Iran when he's so consistently wrong?

The photo, by the way, is a McClatchey photo by Leila Fadel, and it shows Lieberman meeting with his nephew, Corporal Adam Miller. I'll hope for Miller's continued safety while I continue to hope that Lieberman stops warmongering.

O'Donnell goes off on Libby love letter writers

This video of Lawrence O'Donnell is from last night's airing of MSNBC's Countdown:

Now I’m waiting for every one of these letter writers, especially Kissinger, especially Rumsfield, especially Pace, I’m waiting for their letters to the court martials that are going on right now in the United States, young Marines who were put in impossible situations in Iraq, Keith, who find themselves on trials now that will jeopardize their freedom for the rest of their lives because of split seconds decisions they made in a war that they should not have been in.

When those kids get sentenced in their court martials, if they do, in this country, is General Peter Pace going to write a letter to their sentencers about what kind of mercy they deserve? Is Henry Kissinger who never ever saw a shot fired in his life, never spent a moment in battle, but was a champion of sending soldiers into battle in this country and to their deaths, is he going to write a letter asking for mercy for these American Marines who found themselves in this impossible war situation in Iraq, and now find themselves on trial for their lives? Who are the letters going to come from for them?

Paul Begala calls bullshit

In this awesome column on the Huffington Post, Paul Begala calls bullshit on why the so called liberal media lets Republicans get away with things the same journalists falsely accuse Democrats of.

...In a 2000 debate, Al Gore said that during wildfires in Texas he'd met with the director of FEMA. In fact, Vice President Gore had met with the deputy director of FEMA. Although I had been at the meeting as well, I didn't remember it either. But the press, spoon-fed by the Republican smear machine, used the misstatement to damn Gore as a "serial exaggerator."

So I expected the 600 journalists covering the GOP debate at St. Anselm's College to spank Mitt Romney when, in answering the first question of the night -- knowing what you know now, would you have invaded Iraq? -- Romney said that if "Saddam Hussein had opened up his country to IAEA inspectors, and they'd come in and they'd found that there were no weapons of mass destruction...we wouldn't be in the conflict we're in."...

First, Begala calls Romney on that bullshit with a link to a CNN story from 2002 called "Iraq agrees to weapons inspections."

...So for Mitt Romney to say it was Saddam who kicked the inspectors out, well, I thought he'd be crushed for his ignorance -- or his dishonesty. I almost felt sorry for him.

But after the debate, nothing.

I couldn't believe it. I understood why Romney's Republican opponents didn't correct him. They need the public to believe the myth that Saddam wouldn't allow weapons inspectors in. In fact, Bush has repeated this same lie. Republicans want to blur the record, to revise history, so we don't have to confront the fact that if Mr. Bush had given the weapons inspectors more time to do their job, they would have concluded Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction. No weapons, no threat. No threat, no war.

But I was -- and am -- stunned at the lack of scrutiny by the media. The New York Times found the space to correct some bit of arcana they believe Romney misstated about Z-visas -- a form of visa that does not exist, incorporated in a bill that will not become law. And yet the Times, like most of its colleagues and competitors, ignored the fact that Romney told a big, fat whopper about why Mr. Bush went to war -- and why tens of thousands of people are now dead...

There you have it. Gore makes a small error while recounting an otherwise accurate memory and is called a liar. Romney actually lies and reporters yawn.

What liberal media?

Marine Corps double standard

See my previous post.

Here's the latest:

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A military panel has recommended a general discharge for an Iraq war veteran who wore his uniform during a war protest and later responded with an obscenity to a superior who told him he might have violated military rules.

Marine Cpl. Adam Kokesh participated in the protest in March, clad in a uniform that had his name tag and other insignia removed. After he was identified in a photo caption in The Washington Post, a superior officer sent him a letter saying he might have violated a rule prohibiting troops from wearing uniforms without authorization.

After a hearing Monday before an administrative separation board at the Marine Corps Mobilization Command, the panel decided not to recommend an other-than-honorable discharge, choosing instead the general discharge.

"This is a nonpunitive discharge," said Col. Patrick McCarthy, chief of staff for the mobilization command. "The most stringent discharge that could have been received is other than honorable, and the board chose to raise that up to a general discharge."

I just want to say shame on the administrative separation board. If a Marine wears his uniform to a Republican party event, he's not punished. If a Marine wears parts of a uniform to political event that is not Republican, he gets his honorable discharge downgraded to a general discharge.

The hypocrisy and double standard are so blatantly apparent I don't even have to explain it. It should be clear that Bush administration supporters in uniform are turning the military into an adjunct of the Republican party.

The photo of Adam Kokesh is an AP photo by Lawrence Jackson.

Iraq vet's honorable discharge threatened

An Iraq war veteran could lose his honorable discharge status after being photographed wearing fatigues at an anti-war protest.

Marine Cpl. Adam Kokesh and other veterans marked the fourth anniversary of the war in Iraq in March by wearing their uniforms -- with military insignia removed -- and roaming around Washington on a mock patrol.

Now, a military panel has been scheduled to meet with Cpl. Kokesh on Monday to decide whether his discharge status should be changed from "honorable" to "other than honorable."

"This is clearly a case of selective prosecution and intimidation of veterans who speak out against the war," Cpl. Kokesh said. "To suggest that while as a veteran, you don't have freedom of speech is absurd."

Contrast the Marine Corps' reaction to Kokesh with its reaction to this event from 2006, when US Marines in uniform appeared at the Laramie County, Colorado Republican dinner, a CLEAR violation of law, regulation and policy:

The uniformed troops who appeared at the Larime County Republican Party's Lincoln Day Dinner last weekend did not violate military code, said a spokeswoman for the Marine Corps Headquarters' public affairs office.

"I don't think there's any trouble to be had," said the spokeswoman, who declined to give her name, citing protocol. "It's a touchy issue because lots of honorees are being invited to things like this. It's a shame people are trying to turn it into more than that."

Organizations from both parties have been asking military members returning from Iraq and Afghanistan to attend their events to be honored, and the Marine Corps will turn down those requests if the troops are expected to speak, act in an official capacity to assist with the event or endorse a party or candidate, the spokeswoman said.

Strictly being honored at an event, however, is not against regulations, she said.

Officials at the Pentagon deferred to the Marine Corps for a ruling on the appearances.

So, to sum up -- going to Republican fundraisers in uniform, OK. Going to anything other than Repblican fundraisers, NOT OK.