MR. KLEIN: ...This is a really tough decision. War may well be the right decision at this point. In fact, I think it -- it's -- it -- it probably is.
RUSSERT: Now that's twice you've said that: "It's the right war." You believe it's the wrong time. Why do you think it's the right war?
MR. KLEIN: Because sooner or later, this guy has to be taken out. Saddam has -- Saddam Hussein has to be taken out.

put a sock in it, Klein

cleek,

I agree in principle, but the mere fact that some one in the middle of the Establishment media is rightfully and spitefully calling out another Villager (with intemperate language no less), is an important metric. Of what, I'm not sure. But it's pretty stunning.

As for Feith, "siding with the assholes" is axiomatically the right thing to do if Feith is against it. The Stupidest Fucking Person on Earth(* As noted by Tommy Franks, who may be in the bottom-third, so he knows from Stupid) has a rep to maintain, after all.

he Geneva decision might have diminished America's moral authority. He was not. "The problem with moral authority," he said, was "people who should know better, like yourself, siding with the assholes, to put it crudely."

Jesus H. Christ. And the man is proud of his role in accelerating my country's slide into hell.

The phrase "beneath contempt" is pretty well worn out. What's next?

Can we impeach and imprison, now?

@thersites

...you forgot "waterboard."

Impeach, imprison, waterboard the lot of 'em.

Glenn Greenwald at Salon has great posts about those he calls the VSP (Very Serious People) of our foreign policy establishment. The VSP were almost to a man (and they are all men) completely wrong about every aspect of the Iraq War, but they continued to be treated with great respect and deference. They are virtually all 'Chickenhawks' as well. Just look at that picture of Feith: he looks like he would faint during a shadow boxing match!

The VSP have one god, power, and they operate from a stanpoint of celetial privilege, a deep-seated belief in their god-given right to remain on top of the international social and financial totem poles. If that means they have to crack a few heads in the 3rd World, then so be it. After all, the people they are toturing would have no idea of how to organize a cocktail party, or no idea of how to dress for the opera! Worse, yet, if they became American citizens they would probably vote Democratic...!

cazart:

While I'm sympathetic to the notion of waterboarding them, we have to keep our moral authority. Eve if it does sometimes mean siding with assholes.

(Siding with Assholes. All New Episodes on HGTV!)

"No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture."

God Bush America!

James M:
So you are calling Margaret Carlson(She that swooned over "Hollywood" Fred Thompson once) and Andrea Mitchell men? D'oh!!!

Oh? Now Joe Klein noticed? Total military service of Dick Cheney, Fred Kagan, Paul Wolfowitz, Doug Feith, David Addington, and John Yoo. Why, the answer is zero. Total deferments?

Well, the psuedo-tough guy leader Dickie Cheney secured 5 deferments. Paulie "Tet-is-for-suckers" Wolfowitz secured at least two. Dougie Feith turned 18 in 1971. I don't know Feith's situation, but this jingoist extraordinaire certainly didn't want to be a guy dying for a mistake. Leave that to the suckers. Er, I mean our brave men and women in the military. ( Isn't sickening how these assholes make admiring, respectful noise regarding the people in uniform, yet have no desire to wear it?)

War-monger expert Fred Kagan, like his dad and brother Robert, are so enamored of military history, that they prefer for OTHERS to make it. THe Cold War, the 'Nam and a DRAFT, yet not one of those three assholes served one day in the military. Wow!

Let's face it. Teaching military history and pontificating on aggressive, non-reality based war strategy, is a much safer option that actually being ORDERED into combat and having to hump your shit in the heat of Iraq while fearing for your life in a 360 degree battlefield that the "I read lots of books" experts didn't warn you about.

David Addington, aka spawn of yellow Cheney, turned 18 years old in 1975. By then the Vietnam war had winded down. A loss caused by the service of Al Gore, John Kerry and other liberals who served, because the true patriots like Cheney, Kagan, Rush Limbaugh, Karl Rove, Bill O'Reilly, Tom DeLay, Saxby Chambliss, Trent Lott, John Corny, George Allen, John Boener and other conservatives had been fooled (yeah, right) into obtaining draft deferments, or providing their local draft boards with physicians' letters attesting to bogus ailments such as bad knees. In the case of Rush, an easily treated pilonidal cyst--or was it the knee injury he sustained from warming the bench of his high school football team? the one his coach has no recollection of.

John Yoo, is, in addition to being an asshole, a fine example of the non-serving, phony tough buy ilk.

tec619,

Oh so well put. I have to constantly remind my republican loving acquaintances of how much into war their leaders are as long as someone else does the actual fighting.

God Bush America!

Shh! No more four letter words, please!

It's instructive to note that there has never been another King John in England either, since the Magna Carta was signed by same. Let's extend that custom to the New World as well.

Nice tec619. I can't wait, the chickehawks will be coming out of the woodwork during the general...I've been stocking up on ammo. I love chickenhawk hunting!

Man, Joe Klein will be first against the wall...

Klein can say what he wants on his blog, but will it find its way into Time print?

Joe, I stand corrected! Actually, after I posted I thought that I should probably include Condi too, although she really doesn't seem to have had much impact on anything...

What Brojo said.
When Klein puts this into PRINT media or onto the teevee, then he begins his rehabilitation. The odds on that?

A little off topic, but the book and movie Pollyanna are not about someone who is foolishly naive and stupidly optimistic, as the current usage would imply. The character (played by Mary Pickford in a film shown again just last week) is somebody attempting to deal with serial tragedies in her own life by trying to find something to be glad about. In doing so, she exemplifies bravery to the audience in a sympathetic way. A minor point, but Pickford is worthy of comment and defending. At least Kevin did not misuse the word exponential, as so many innumerate reporters do.

For at least 16 months after the Sept. 11 terror attacks in 2001, the Bush administration believed that the Constitution's protection against unreasonable searches and seizures on U.S. soil didn't apply to its efforts to protect against terrorism.
That view was expressed in a secret Justice Department legal memo dated Oct. 23, 2001. The administration on Wednesday stressed that it now disavows that view.
''Our office recently concluded that the Fourth Amendment had no application to domestic military operations,'' the footnote states, referring to a document titled ''Authority for Use of Military Force to Combat Terrorist Activities Within the United States.''
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Noted by David Kurtz of TPM.

Isn't some sort of declaration needed to suspend all or part of the Constitution and a justification provided to the electorate for doing it?
Martial law? Something? Is it provided for anywhere to do it secretly without advise & consent of either of the other two branches of government? And if "domestic military operations" are justification to suspend the 4th Amendment what's to stop the Executive from asserting it renders null several others? Like Presidential term limits? The 8th against cruel & unusual punishment? The 6th assuring a speedy, fair and PUBLIC trial by an impartial jury of your peers? Does anyone fricking care anymore? WTF?

Before President Bush past presidents have been reluctant to use U.S. troops within the borders of the U.S. They have always been leery of the image of armed military troops patrolling American cities or the U.S border with Mexico . Under the Civil War-era Posse Comitatus Act, federal troops are prohibited from performing law enforcement actions, such as making arrests, seizing property or searching people. No one seems to know how this would apply to troops patrolling the border.
In a stealth maneuver, President Bush has signed into law a provision which, according to Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), will actually encourage the President to declare federal martial law (1). It does so by revising the Insurrection Act, a set of laws that limits the President's ability to deploy troops within the United States . The Insurrection Act (10 U.S.C.331 -335) has historically, along with the Posse Comitatus Act (18 U.S.C.1385), helped to enforce strict prohibitions on military involvement in domestic law enforcement. With one cloaked swipe of his pen, Bush has undo those prohibitions.

Public Law 109-364, or the "John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007" (H.R.5122), which was signed by the commander in chief on October 17th, 2006, in a private Oval Office ceremony, allows the President to declare a "public emergency" and station troops anywhere in America and take control of state-based National Guard units without the consent of the governor or local authorities, in order to "suppress public disorder."

Section 333, states that in "Major public emergencies; interference with State and Federal law" "the President may employ the armed forces, including the National Guard in Federal service, to restore public order and enforce the laws of the United States when, as a result of a natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident, or other condition in any State or possession of the United States, the President determines that domestic violence has occurred to such an extent that the constituted authorities of the State or possession are incapable of ("refuse" or "fail" in) maintaining public order, "in order to suppress, in any State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy."

Further unthority has been given the Pentagan by the U.S. Congress voting 252-171 to allow the Pentagon to assign military personnel under certain circumstances to help the Homeland Security Department with border security. The House added the provision to a larger military measure.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Courtesy Borderfire Report

By VSP, I take to mean crackpot realists....

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Commentary

Crackpot Realism Is Riding High
November 21, 2007
Robert Higgs

In 1958, the New Left sociologist C. Wright Mills made a seminal contribution to political science in his book The Causes of World War Three, by introducing the concept of “crackpot realism.� He applied the notion specifically to the intellectual outlook of top government officials, especially the ones known as the “serious people,� who have proven their capacity for dealing with important practical affairs by, say, managing a giant corporation, such as Halliburton or G. D. Searle, or a huge educational institution, such as Texas A&M University or the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business.

Mills’s key insight was that although such people have indeed been movers and shakers, they have moved and shaken within such a constricted milieu of experience and training that in most respects they are fools. Despite having developed supreme confidence in their own judgment and a corresponding contempt for other people’s views, they are astonishingly ignorant of many workaday aspects of the world and bewildered in the face of unexpected difficulties. As government leaders responsible for matters of war and peace, they have a tendency to paint themselves into corners of their own making and, then, seeing no way out, to conclude that their only escape lies in dropping bombs on somebody. As Mills observed, “instead of the unknown fear, the anxiety without end, some men of the higher circles prefer the simplification of known catastrophe.�

Crackpot realists never learn anything, even when the lessons are cuffing them roughly about the head and shoulders. They continue to pile on more of the same actions that got them into trouble in the first place, expecting to be seen as Churchillian heroes for staying the idiotic course they have set.
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=2072

steve duncan, is it possible plans are afoot by the admin.? If so, there will have to be a hell of a big attack, and lots of casualties to make it work. The worst part, I can't put it past them.

Feith would have been much more comfortable in a government where the army goose steps. It is amusing the Frank’s line (“stupidest fucking guy on the planet�) is going to be Feith’s political epitaph.

WANT IMPEACHMENT? Call Nancy and DEMAND IT. 1-202-225-0100

Steve Duncan...

That was an excellent, although frightening post.

The stage is now set for the indefinite rule of King George. His "wartime authority" trumps all. Including freedom and democracy.

BobG, when did Kevin use "exponential" in this context? Oh, and he's not a reporter, he just picks out shit to comment on.

jet,

Brilliant post! This is an issue that has bothered me for a long time. How could so many people who are supposedly so intelligent so consistently do such stupid stuff? Condi Rice must be the quintessential example. By all accounts she is a truly brilliant and gifted woman, but look at what she has (or perhaps I should say hasn't) done! She must have been the most ineffective NSA director and Secretary of State of all time!

Trying to figure out what triggered Joke Line's long, LONG overdue moral outrage. As recently as a few month's ago, his lips were still glued firmly to the Bush/Cheney composite backside.

Kagan is a damn fool.

Of course by now everyone knows that General Tommy Franks referred to Doug Feith as "the stupidest motherfucker on the face of the planet". And that is a direct quote...

...his claim to expertise a farce.

Oh really, does Klein have any "expertise", at least not any more than the obscenity of his own non-researched opinions, so why is it that Klein is still even employeed by TIME? I guess Murdock really likes Klein and that same Bush like swagger that defines the need to do any serious research, allow any serious monment for contemplating.

Nice too how Klein and Drum are stroking each other's egos these days, using each other as references. They have a lot in common especially when it comes helping this administration spin it's bullshit. I have to wonder if Murdock has a special place in his heart for the two them?

I'm not sure how to interpret Feith's comment.

Is Feith saying that everyone who raises issues about "moral authority" are assholes? Or is he saying that those who raise arguments are siding with the terrorists (who are the assholes?)

Equally offensive either way.