while I agree, these are "bush" wars and believe we need to keep that in the public's mind, let's not kid ourselves - obama is pickin' up where he left off.

Yes, just pulling out of the bush disasters was probably not feasible, but maintaining same failed policies should not be an option either.

"Maintaining same failed policies" is a problem for sure. Where they are *illegal* policies, I'm happy to be just as hard on the media for failing to cover it.

That said, I see nothing like the type of illegalities of the Bush Admin (so far), and the blood letting still continues from those policies without accountability. All ensuring, they will happen again. And worse. (By Obama, and/or by anybody else.)

Brad - you are not paying attention. The current administration is no more transparent than the previous and will not release visitor logs either.

We are still using depleted uranium and God-knows what else in Iraq and Afghanistan - these are clearly violations of international law - war crimes.

As we blog, in your name an even larger assault is going on in Afghanistan than bush conducted in Fallujah. Those were vicious, illegal attacks on a civilian population - primarily killing innocent women and children.

More than 1 million civilian deaths so far and no sign of letting up.

If claim not to know where the "illegal" policies are, you are not looking.

Really.

Or how about this one:

Administration Asks for Two Month Delay on CIA Torture Report

That "holy grail" CIA torture report that is reportedly wil undercut claims that torture provided any useful intelligence, the one that was supposed to have been released yesterday, and a few weeks before that, might be held now until August 31.

Those that cover up or do not prosecute war crimes are also guilty of them. International law is clear on this.

Just another example of obama selling out his base and picking up where dur chimpfurher left off?

Another Joe said:

Brad - you are not paying attention. The current administration is no more transparent than the previous and will not release visitor logs either.
...
If claim not to know where the "illegal" policies are, you are not looking.

Thanks for holding my feet (and everyone else's!) to the fire AJ. I assure you, I am most certainly paying attention.

But let me take another run at my previous comments then.

For a start, to say that the Obama administration is "no more transparent than" Bush, is just not true. They may not be transparent *enough* (and they certainly aren't, not by a long shot), but they are not "no more transparent than" Bush, anymore than "Democrats are just as bad as Republicans", as I see so often averred. Dems may suck, but they are sucking in an entirely different league than the Republicans, and to put them in the same league, does an injustice to the conscious evil that is the GOP right now (versus the consistent failure which is the Democratic Party right now.) It may seem an overly nuanced difference, but it isn't. At least as I see it.

The "illegalities" you point out above in re: the Obama administration are in a very different league, as I see it, from Bush's world o' crime. While you may consider the war in Afghanistan/Pakistan to be "illegal" (and it may be), it is of a piece of what Obama told everyone in the world he planned to do. Nothing particularly surprising there, and it's what he ran on, and was elected on (and among the reasons I didn't vote for him).

I disagree with the policy, as I did many of Bush's. But it wasn't policies that I generally criticized even the Bush Administration for. It was the lying, the deception, the hypocrisy, the failure, etc.

Many years went by in the Bush Admin where I despised his policies, but didn't particularly criticize him (at least publicly, from platforms such as this) for them.

We're into the weeds here, and it's often difficult to detail my particular sense of news judgement (at least as far as what I find worth publishing on The BRAD BLOG), as much goes into that judgement. And it evolves. It's often determined by the question: "Do I have anything to add to what's already been said and covered?" And other times driven by what I find myself emotionally connected to in some way or another, which is not quite as easy to quantify, explain and/or understand (even for me).

So there's quite a bit of disjointed thoughts for you, too much nuance, and none of it necessarily definitive. But I thought your critique/thoughts deserved a reply in turn. Hoping, for now, some of those thoughts offer insight into my particular way of thinking. For good or bad. Or anything else.

It is intellectually dishonest to say that obama, with about six months in office, is somehow less secret in withholds less information than chimpy did in 8 years.

The point is - ON EVERYTHING THAT MATTERS, obama is AT LEAST as secret as chimpy. And don't give me any of this crap that somehow THIS lack of transparency is somehow MORE transparent than any one else's secrecy and obstruction of justice. The "less pregnant" argument does not apply.

And this is coming from the man that ran on "open government" - a blatant lie.

More Obama Secrecy --- This Time On Cheney's Plame Interview

Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised at this point. But the latest example of the Obama administration mimicking the Bushies in opting for secrecy over openness feels like one of the most infuriating yet.

There are MANY more examples - obama is showing he has very little integrity.

Taibbi on his new RS article, good stuff

Another Joe said:

It is intellectually dishonest to say that obama, with about six months in office, is somehow less secret in withholds less information than chimpy did in 8 years.

Um, AJ, you are welcome to disagree with me. You are not welcome to call me "intellectually dishonest", unless you have evidence to that end.

If you don't understand the difference between withholding/protecting documents based on (what you and I believe is) a misguided, and incorrect principle/policy, versus withholding documents to hide evidence of crimes, I don't know what to tell you.

Lawless detention is the least of it.

Just about every right wing publication is making a hairy deal out of this interview with Helen Thomas, but on the "progressive" side? Crickets.

Helen Thomas has been our hero for the last eight years, and she comes out and expresses a very cogent gripe about Obamanian media manipulation, and staged questions from Pitney --- which was obvious to anyone who watched --- and we gots crickets over in "the reality-based community"?

you said:

If you don't understand the difference between withholding/protecting documents based on (what you and I believe is) a misguided, and incorrect principle/policy, versus withholding documents to hide evidence of crimes, I don't know what to tell you.

lets apply this standard of understanding differences, to the bush admin and your assertions.

Iraq. the bush admin cherry picked information to make its case. it believed, and told congress that this was the case, but it was not like congress was in the dark. it was not like
every single major intelligence report out there did not clearly state that wmds in iraq was a strong educated guess, but that it was an ASSUMPTION in the absence of actual data.

THIS was poorly covered by the media (okay, horribly covered). But the information was out there. Also, the case that two key things had changed by march of '03 was not sufficiently made.

1) no UN support (not to mention the fact that we were arguably in violation of international law, and had certainly rendered the UN process all but moot at our discretion -- a scary concept for Europe to witness, seeing this from the outside). legitimate internationl support, and even UN sanctioning, was imperative in a strategic action such as this (hearts and minds, appearance of imperialism, etc.)

2)weapons inspectors had gone back into Iraq --- UNDER THE LEGITIMATE THREAT OF FORCE, THE PUBLICLY SPECIFIED REASONS FOR JOHN KERRY'S VOTE GIVEN ON THE FLOOR OF THE SENATE --- BUT WHO COVERED THAT???? IN '04 --- not only gone back, but for the first time in four years, and even more since legitimate weapons inspections had occurred.

and the inspectors were saying "wait. we don't see evidence yet to support our assumptions."

But who made this case in march of '03? almost nobody. and certainly not loud enough. (no one made it in '04 either, when in some ways it was even more relevant.)

the liberal blogosphere seems to argue that most of America was against the war from the start, because the liberal blogosphere tends to confuse the liberal blogosphere with the rest of the world, and will find or warp some stat to back it up. the point is, few were making this case (and fewer, even more foolishly, were making it in 2004 to combat the misrepresentations of both the Bush Campaign, and a rather parroting like media on the whole Iraq war thing.) and a Lot of people as a result backed the iraq action at the beginning. (even some who say now they never did.) heck, we even got so out of control we george orwell like absurd renamed congressional cafeteria french fries "freedom fries." (- though this rightly freaked out at least some people.)

There is another aspect to this as well. This is not to debate whether strategically the war was a good idea or could have been. (I submitted an Op Ed to the washington Post in february of 2003 arguing against it because it would appear to the world --and particularly the Mid East --differently than it really was, and as part of this would unnecessarily aid in al-q cell like recruitment, it would distract resources from Afghanistan and a big portion of al-Q, it would bring al-Q or al- Q mimics into Iraq and possibly create a training ground for terrorism, the state might devolve into warring factions or civil war, and even with limited success the downside risk, soldiers' lives, huge costs (costs which should have gone directly to eradicating al-Q, securing fissile materials, international intelligence, and other direct terrorism eradication measures), and bad pr were not worth it. all probably true.

one reason I left out of the piece I submitted for credibility purposes was perhaps the most compelling of all --- the Bush Administration talked a good game, but didn't really know what it was doing. (Also true, in hindsight, but I was pretty comfortable with the assessment at the time.))

But to be openminded about this action requires that one understand that there was a legitimate strategic reason for this action, that DID NOT have to do with oil. You don't have to agree with it, you can even think it was terribly misguided, but the lack of recognition that there was one, and the possibility that those who promoted this action actually did believe in it, undermine credibility with all but the liberal blogosphere and some of the remainder of what has become one part of a rather bifurcated Iraq action view, for the most part; and plays a big part in why a far right cabal had so much influence for so long --- because the notes they were hitting with people WERE NOT EVEN BEING recognized, let alone adequately addressed. (this continues today, by the way. but the problem is far greater, actually, with respect to their rhetoric and claims when there isn't really a legimitate side to the story, but why reasonable people are following far right rhetoric) --- here there was, Iraq was a strategic action --- needs to be identified and understood, not scoffed at, which has been the typical liberal blogosphere response, and was the primary response of active democrats, including the kerry campaign, in '04; causing (along with an unchecked media)democrats to lose an election that a sack of cement should have won. (and what do Democrats do today, of course, blaming everybody but themselves? they blame Kerry.)

The yellowcake slip up was an issue, but at least it was based upon belief (again, cherry picking, and constantly engaging in asserting things which had some potential substanace to them, as declarative fact --- something the Bush Administration did constantly, and the media, and frankly, most Democrats (by not framing it correctly and focusing on turning this into THE story) let them get away with it.

Brad, I have seen your blog on rare occasions, from time to time, and I think you do great work, and commend you here.

But the following statement by you, as much as it is simply taken as "everyone knows this" as seemingly unalterable, incontrovertible fact, (which makes it fairly safe to assert) is simply not objective.

on any of the crimes involved with sending us into a war that's killed over 4,000 Americans, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, and has otherwise put our national security at dangerous risk for decades to come.

(Technically, and depending upon the definition, there were "crimes" committed arguably, in relation. The clandestine overruling and set aside of FISA --even if it was for "good" motive, resulting in warrantless spying, was at the least a direct breach of Articles 1 and 2 of the Constitution (though I don't see the implicit media supported conflation between that and IRAQ as opposed to eradicating and averting domestic terrorism), but of course the media did not cover this corrctly either, because of cockamamie unitary presidency theories, which of course render the basic purpose for our Constitution's establishmment in the first place null and void. Etc.)

And, I agree with the general nature of your sentiment, that had the media spent as much time and resources on the Bush administration, its record, its actions, its rhetoric, its processes, yes, we would not be so poorly informed a nation (nor would the Bush administration been eight years), and not nearly as bad off as we are right now.

And frankly, our democracy would be a lot more vibrant. If you claim it is anyway, consider that amongst the white vote, McCain, let alone with Palin as his running mate, would be our president today: After a campaign that made the bush campaign in '04 look reasonably genuine. (another media ass kiss job, by the way, but democrats have allowed the far right to frame it once again, and thus the question is whether or not the media "favored Obama," with either answer --- "yes" or "no" not remotely close to the actual reality of the media's excessive pandering to McCain in relation to the facts. even their coverage of Palin was a little skewed --- in relation to the facts. she came off as extreme to many, because she is incredibly uniformed and exceedingly misleading in her rhetoric, and, dissing the media constantly, the media at least covered her somewhat.)

I guess that's enough food for thought for now, huh

Budweiser55 -

Thanks for your 2 (actually 10) cents on this. Though I had a very difficult time discerning your point, frankly.

On a couple of them, I'll quickly respond:

Iraq. the bush admin cherry picked information to make its case. it believed, and told congress that this was the case, but it was not like congress was in the dark.

It didn't "believe". Which is why they had to cherry pick. If they believed so strongly, they could have made ALL of the evidence available, and also allowed the UN inspectors to have their additional requested 30 days. But they didn't. And yes, Congress was left in the dark on much of this. They were shown only limited info, and only in a very limited way (come to this location to look at the thousands of pages of docs for X number of hours, no notes may be taken, and the vote will be tomorrow! for example.)

the kerry campaign, in '04; causing (along with an unchecked media)democrats to lose an election that a sack of cement should have won.

And your evidence that he lost is what exactly?

The yellowcake slip up was an issue, but at least it was based upon belief

A "slip"?! It was no slip. It was very much on purpose. They don't "slip" on SOTU speeches, perhaps the most vetted of all Presidential addresses. That information had been removed time and again from previous speeches. They were told it wasn't valid. They included it in the SOTU anyway. It was no slip, and it was not based on a "belief", when their own Intelligence Director told them it was bogus on several occasions.

As to my "objectivity" on the passage you quoted, I don't know that I ever claimed it was objective or subjective. I do, however, stand behind it's accuracy. 100%.

It didn't "believe". Which is why they had to cherry pick. If they believed so strongly, they could have made ALL of the evidence available, and also allowed the UN inspectors to have their additional requested 30 days.

Brad,

thanks for the response. It didn't believe "what"? a case can be made that the bush administration was worried about the inspections reports, and thus the best time to push forward with the regime change agenda was in march, when the nation (and the media) wasn't really too focused on the actual details, and was rah rah'ing the action like it was some football game.

I am not asserting or arguing that this was the case, just that is a possibility. IF the bush administration was well informed and savvy about the situation (two big "ifs") it is a strong possibility; but I think the likelihood is more likely it was not (at least with respect to the public players --- aka bush and cheney.)

however, "belief" refers to the idea that the bush administration believed in what it was doing. that almost all terrorism (but not all) was emanating from the middle east, and the belief that some how lack of democracy played a role in this.

the fact that you - who, i emphasize, with all due respect, can have absolutely no idea --- assert as fact that they did not believe, is supportive of what I wrote above. it is presumptuous. yet also an extremely widespread view.

your explanation that "if they believed" they wouldn't have to cherry pick, is also not really accurate. they believed (or "not") they sold their case, as hard push sellers do. this administration (and much of the far right, frankly) is defined by belief, and belief shaping what facts are derived therein. they cherry pick to support those beliefs.

THIS is what the bush administration did. consistently, for eight years. they stifled dissent, they surrounded themselves with people who thought like they did, often choosing that, and ideology, frankly, over competency. paul o neill was plenty competent by bush administration standards, and was essentially forced out because he would not toe the line.

colin powell is often put into the bush cheney category, and this is flawed. powell had a decision to make; he decided, as did most of our intelligence experts, that iraq had wmd/to back the administration, and he made his best case. but disagreements beyond that (and perhaps to some extent even that as well), forced powell out. the fact is powell made a case, it was not credible to the international community. we pilloried the international community at the time, and now we pillory powell.

both are b.s.

your assertion that congress was very much left in the dark, is also, I believe, spin. where is the hard evidence of that?

I READ the intelligence reports. and guess what --- as noted above, all the major ones noted that the speculation with respect to WMDs, which we all assumed, was likely correct, but not a certainty, because we lacked data in the absence of credible inspections, to back it up.

the vote to authorize force was to back up legitimate inspections. even kerry said [essentially, but this is pretty close) "i give this vote for one reason, and one reason only. to disarm iraq of weapons of mass destruction, if same can not be accomplished through new, joint weapons inspections in joint concert with our allies."

congress knew darn well in march what those weapons inspectors were saying in february, of '02, and how long it had been since legitimate inspections had been undergone (or certainly should have known). if the administration was behind closed doors really pushing this, saying "we have more info than the CIA. DOD etc. have" and congress bought it, that is to some large degree congress' culpability. again, as mentioned above, it was also congress' culpability not to recognize the enormous PR aspect of this, and how the mission was greatly undermined from the start when it appeared as a rogue nation --- the U.S --- going against UN mandate, for WMDs that weapons inspectors (to europe) were saying may not exist after all.

by the way. kerry also said "in order to have legitimate inspections, you need the legitimate threat of force. " four years prior had been the last weapons inspections. Iraq, under Hussein, played games therein, and inspectors had not been able to do their jobs. starting in late fall '02, after the resolution passed, weapons inspectors were able to do their jobs. and that was the point.

sure, the bush administration pushed congress. but this idea of "keeping congress in the dark" when our major intelligence agencies were noting that we had no level of certainty in the absence of actual data, and the lack of authentic inspections, for years and years, is misplaced. even someone who closely followed the news alone (and yes, both the WP and NYT, although given short shrift, did cover this), let alone with congress' access, had reason to question.

as for yellowcake, you are misconstruing what was meant by the term "slip up" and perhaps it was not the best phrase. by slip, i meant screw up or half (quarter?) truth. the facts are these. the belief was that Iraq had tried to acquire the yellowcake, that there was proof of this, and it was to be included in bush's address.

prior to the address (and I wrote about this, far more critically than most were at the time, btw) intelligence experts related to the president and or his advisors (I think bush himself was actually told, but cant recall with 100 percent certainty) that they could not fully back the yellow cake allegation as an assertion of fact, and that it may even be wrong. therefore, the implication was "since we cant say for sure that this is fact, LEAVE IT OUT."

bush decided to leave it in. this mislead the American people, as the bush administration did repeatedly. but it did not make it up. I know you argue otherwise, but the balance of the evidence still supported the yellowcake assumption (if one had to guess, arguably, points cut both ways on this) but the point is, it was still a guess. (there have been mixed reports, and perhaps you are more up on this than I am, but there have been reports since that indicate that the "guess' was in fact correct --- but this is not directly relevant to asserting what was speculation, as fact, to the American people, as a major argument for war. )

this was almost as big a slip by the media, as it was by the bush administration. bush represented something as fact, that was a guess, and we did not yet know as fact. that was known, yet we (the American people, the media) accepted it.

your tendency, and I mean no disrespect here, but democrats and liberals, since they don't have the ability to spin as does the far right, are not going to win, and get their points across, by simply trying to dis-objectively discredit their opponents. since the whole idea is that you are grounded in reason, a key initial element is to understand the mindset of those you disagree with, and what drove them. and, hence how they appeal to so many, and what buttons they touched, and why.

but instead, as good as your journalism is on many occasions, perhaps you slightly fall prey to the same sort of knee jerkish liberal leaning tendency that so many online tend to fall much more to; which is to simply ascribe motives and beliefs to your political opponents whom it is clear you don't even begin to understand, let alone some of their core arguments, thought processes, what they are grounded in, and most importantly how and why they are appealing to so many when so repeatedly being wrong (and misleading) on so much,

I cite this issue here as but one example, because the status quo iraq line (about an administration which was quite possibly in my opinion among the worst in history), simply loses credibility with most who don't already see it your way to begin with. and that, frankly, has been the democratic party and online liberal m.o for several years now --- an idea that those active seem to fight tooth and nail, while they continue to allow a relatively tiny far right wing cabal to have an overwhelmingly influence upon our national debate, and upon our easily influenced and accomodative media.

by the way, when you say "the kerry campaign, in '04; causing (along with an unchecked media)democrats to lose an election that a sack of cement should have won. And your evidence that he lost is what exactly? I understand your well felt sentiments about the election, but I think you may be missing the point. it is also, invariably, and of course without such intent, another classic way that has the effect of averting the reality of what happened in 04. I wrote a lot about blackbox,org, etc, and while perhaps overstated, Kennedy's strong piece in rolling stone, was not completely without merit. ( I am also largely with you on the b.s. that,without independent verification, is electronic voting, btw).

but that is besides the point, and whether in what was essentially a toss up horse race (one way or another) millions upon millions upon millions upon millions of Americans voted based upon basic misinformation and misperception. the idea of deflecting any such points with a statement insinuating that Kerry "didn't lose" is another way to miss this central point, and thus the importance of addressing ITs central causes. those causes were the understanding of the democratic party of with respect to what (far right) rhetoric was getting thru AND WHY; its (the democratic party's collective) communications; and the media.

you can of course also blame this on the bush campaign misrepresentations, but that is the only part of the equation that democrats did not control or otherwise have a say in other than to simply use to their advantage. in other words, they could have, instead of whining about how voters were misled by the bush campaign "lies," learned how to show that to voters, and thus undermine the lies, and undermined the bush campaign's credibility at the same time. --- by using those lies, etc. to define the bush administration, which ran on the platform of "trust" to the American people, as a campaign that in fact could NOT be trusted.) (as far the media goes, democrats could have stopped allowing the far right to control the media debate and framing, and made the coherent and broad based (rather than just democrati party appealing) case for accountability.

making arguments instead, that "kerry didn't really lose" not only misses the big picture, not only keeps it from being properly addressed (ignorance still runs amuck today, for e.g.) but keeps us from even recognizing it. But frankly, without Democrats making effective cases much beyond to those who already agreed, this made it even easier for the media simply to often semi parrot bush campaign talking points and misconstructions. A lot of the lack of this making of an effective case, since democrats were not going to win with pure spin (in fact, democrats often concluded or "told" republicans "sold") were a constant ascribing of simply evil motives to those with whom they disagreed, and failure to even recognize why so many believe as they did, what reached them, and why they were thinking like they do.

I don't mean to sound harsh on you. If I was not impressed with the some of your work, from the bit that I have seen, I would not waste the time. but since I respect your abilities, I expend the time. I hope it was not for naught.

By the way, out of respect, I wanted to send this to you solely as a private email, but did not see your address listed on your site.

Also, I'm sorry I did not give you a twitter lengthy response. over reliance upon sound bites and our twitter mentality are leading to the continual dumbing down of America (in my opinion) frankly.

Write me, if you want. you have my email address. I would welcome hearing from you.

From the "Smirking Chimp" to the "Smooth Criminal", we have the sequel. I think I'll stick to who has the real power and controls things for their own agenda and not get mired down with the puppets.