35 years ago, + 1 day: the break-in

I meant to blog about this yesterday, but I was just too tired to blog after we got home from visiting my dad in the Poconos.

Thirty-five years ago yesterday, five men broke into the Watergate complex, home of the Democratic National Headquarters, and were caught by police after security guard Frank Willis noticed tape over a door latch (put there by the burglars to keep it from locking). The burglary touched off a cascade of events that led to the downfall and resignation of President Nixon.

Editor & Publisher had an interesting piece late last week about the anniversary that asks the question, "Would the Watergate story have been broken today?" A sample:

If Watergate had broken today, chances are someone would have posted a news story with inaccurate information too early, or the in-depth reporting needed might have been neglected in favor of quicker, more immediate, and more broad-interest scoops. That is not to say that the Post, still among the best daily papers and Web sites in the industry, would not have been on top of the story. But there is no doubt that online and immediacy demands of today could have impacted the careful, slow-building and meticulous coverage.

As for anonymous sourcing, it is clear the recent efforts to penalize confidential sources, and reporters who use them, may have an impact on reporting another Watergate today. Famed Deep Throat source W. Mark Felt, who helped guide Woodward during his parking garage meetings, may have felt more threatened with legal problems, and possibly jail, had he cooperated in today's climate -- as would Woodward and Bernstein.

Who knows, someone with a cell phone camera working in the parking garage might have snapped a photo of Woodward chatting with this unknown source. Or a blogger would have blown the whistle.

It's not an easy question to contemplate, because much of the cynicism and partisanship that exists today can be traced back to Watergate and Vietnam. (It's not a stretch to say that without Vietnam, there would have been no Watergate Scandal.)

The idealist in me likes to think that somehow the truth would still come out if such a political firestorm happened today, but the realist in me says "no way."

Why?

Because Watergate-caliber stuff has been happening in this country for over six years now, and because of the poisoned political atmosphere in Washington, the rise of Fox News and the pervasiveness of right-wing radio and the consolidation of our media, it's highly unlikely that such a scandal would be revealed today unless some major whistle blowers stepped forward.

In today's partisan atmosphere, can you imagine how harshly Woodstein would be crucified by Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Insanity? They'd be labeled "reporters with an agenda, out to get the president." Period.

And that's one of the main reasons why the Bush administration has gotten away with the mind-boggling things it has since January 2001 - when a legit news story comes out that's a major embarrassment to the administration, either the people reporting it get attacked, or the administration manipulates the media with another terrorism or War in Iraq story. Remember the timing of the Saddam Hussein verdict?

A few examples of the people who've been smeared: Richard Clarke, former counter-terrorism chief from presidents Reagan through George W. Bush; former treasury secretary Paul O'Neill; the U.S. attorneys who were fired; a number of former army generals who served in Iraq; John DiIulio, the former head of Bush's stalled effort to aid religious charities; and Matthew Dowd, a former Bush staffer who played key roles in Bush's "victories" in 2000 and 2004.

Hey, the list goes on and on. The Karl Rove template on whistle blowers and defectors is simple - impugn the integrity of the turncoats, so at least the possibility is raised that they might be speaking out because of a missed-out promotion, or a political ax to grind.

So, in the end, I don't think Watergate could be exposed like it was from 1972-1974. Our mainstream media is too corrupted, consolidated and focused on pop culture pap, and very few journalists do honest, thorough reporting anymore. The norm now sadly seems to be "report now, and we'll correct it if we need to." In other words, report now, verify later, but only if someone screams and complains loud enough that we got the story wrong.

Think I'm being too cynical? Then you haven't been paying attention to the presidential candidates' press coverage so far, specifically on the Democrats. From Hillary Clinton's wardrobe and ancient marital problems to John Edwards' "$400 haircuts," the Dems, so far, have been subjected to a great deal of superficial, biased and irrelevant reporting.

On the flip-side, candidates like Rudy Giuliani and John McCain have largely gotten a pass. Giuliani, a man who has profited greatly and shamelessly from 9-11, made about $10 million in speeches last year, and his speaking contract demanded all sorts of ridiculous luxuries; use of a Gulfstream IV Jet among them, along with a $100,000 speaking fee. And the press is bitching about a $400 haircut? Please.

Anyway, Joe Strupp, the author of the E&P piece, ended with a note of optimism:

I'm not saying all is lost in the realm of true investigative journalism. A look at the recent Pulitzer Prizes found a welcomed return, in many categories, to investigative packages and stories, with news microscopes focused on issues ranging from housing scandals in Miami to oceanic problems in the Pacific.

Those are some good examples, no doubt, but I still maintain that in the age of infotainment, there is much, much more horrific and superficial journalism in our mainstream media than even adequate reporting.

Bad Iraq news continues; Look! Over here! A Gore speech from '92

[Click for larger image]

It's interesting that the right-wing smear machine is already gearing up for Al Gore's potential candidacy. Of course, GOP shill Matt Drudge leads the way. The screen capture above is from The Drudge Report this past Tuesday. Of course, he's highlighting an Al Gore speech from 1992, part of which is below.

This speech is interesting to watch. Our country's past with Iraq and Saddam Hussein is a complicated one, and by complicated I don't mean that President Clinton is completely innocent, but he's far from the guiltiest, either.

What I found particularly poignant was Gore's Cliff-Note-tour of our country's involvement with Iraq in the 1980s. I won't get into it too much more in this piece, other than to say I've read the exact same things Gore speaks of in this video clip, lest anyone think Gore was merely spouting campaign rhetoric (the video dates from 1992).

Richard Clarke, who worked counter-terrorism under presidents Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton and Dubya, discussed in detail how Saddam brutally murdered hundreds of thousands of Iranians and Iraqis during that decade, all of which were under Republican, um, "leadership" in the White House. These facts often don't fit into the well-worn rhetoric of Republicans - that Saddam was a "brutal dictator" who "murdered his own people." Clarke details all of this and more in his stunning tome Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror, a book I highly recommend.

Sidney Blumenthal also covers our relations with Iraq in the 1980s (but less than Clarke) in his outstanding book, The Clinton Wars. Blumenthal served as President's Clinton senior political advisor during his second term.

The bottom line here is that America (Read: Ronald Reagan, and later, Bush Sr.) didn't feel the need to do anything about Iraq until the flow of oil was threatened by Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in August 1990. I can still remember, with my own two ears, Bush Sr. on television declaring that "We are going to war to defend our way of life." Seems patently absurd now, doesn't it? If it doesn't, it should.

If you read about Kuwait, it's anything but a democracy, too.

Now that the neocons' grand experiment has failed MISERABLY in Iraq, setting our foreign policy back 25 years, people like Drudge are busy digging up video tape from 15 years ago in a lame, half-baked attempt to smear a undeclared candidate for president INSTEAD OF rightfully criticizing Bush's Iraq policy of perpetual war.

It's easy for someone like Drudge to dig up old video of Gore, ignoring the events of the past 15 years. What it does NOT take into consideration is what happened following Desert Storm; sanctions, no-fly zones and close monitoring during the 1990s had Saddam mostly boxed in - he had no nuclear program, and, we now know, no WMDs.

Over 3,500 hundred Dead Americans later, to say nothing of the $500+ billion in American dollars spent in Iraq, but Drudge chooses to not talk about that; instead, a Gore speech from 15 years ago takes priority.

What a pathetic canard, even for Drudge.

The Tenet 60 Minutes interview

Please note: if you cannot view these YouTube videos, go to Crooks & Liars Here to view the Tenet 60 Minutes interview in two parts.

Here is the 60 Minutes George Tenet interview, in four parts. I have no idea how long it will remain up on YouTube - CBS clips have a tendency to be removed on a consistent basis.

After only watching the first couple of minutes, if your reaction is anything like mine, you will view Tenet as a combative, tragic, incompetent government bureaucrat who in many ways was caught up in the incompetence of a criminally negligent administration. Maybe that's harsh, but that's my impression before reading his book, At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA, which I just bought yesterday and will start reading very soon, maybe tonight.

Here's Part II...

It's tough to not get angry listening to Tenet. "Have you ever seen the terrain in Tora Bora?" No, Mr. Tenet, I haven't, but one would think the greatest armed forces on the planet would have the resources and means to capture or kill bin Laden. Tenet has plenty of excuses, and his combative, defensive, intentionally ambiguous words about the CIA's torture methods are troubling, but I'm also aware that I know nothing compared to Tenet about the War on Terror. Yes, I've no doubt that extreme methods need to be used on occasion, but we're America - we aren't supposed to torture people. I don't understand why that idea is so foreign to people.

I'm not without sympathy for Tenet, but I'm convinced he believes his own lies, too; to listen to him, the CIA deserves no blame for 9-11 at all. Revolting.

Part III...

Here, Tenet has more credibility, because what he says about the administration ignoring the evidence, and twisting his "slam dunk" comment for its own PR purposes rings true, without question. I'm not basing that on partisan dislike for the Bush administration, I'm basing that on other books I've read on the subject, including Bob Woodward's State of Denial: Bush at War, Part III; Richard Clarke's Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror; and Ron Suskind's book on Paul O'Neill, The Price of Loyalty : George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill.

The footage of Colin Powell giving his speech at the U.N. is particularly painful. I remember reading in Newsweek Magazine a stunning cover story about how Powell at first refused to read what White House speech writers wrote for him to say at the U.N., saying, "this speech is bullshit." It's tragic that Tenet couldn't put a stop to Powell's speech, which, from what I've read, contained a whole pack of inconsistencies and assertions based on the flimsiest of evidence.

Part IV...

Who to believe? Tenet, or the Bush administration, about the etymology of "slam dunk"? Tough to pick one there. Someone's lying.

His defensive nature about his acceptance of the Presidential Medal of Freedom is pretty telling. It's worth repeating - he could have turned the medal down. Interesting how he justifies himself: "I was accepting the medal for the work we did in Afghanistan, not for Iraq."

Medals, and their recipients, cannot and should not discriminate.

One cannot and should not be eligible for a medal some of the time, Mr. Tenet.

A Tenet teaser for Sunday night

This is a short excerpt of a 60 Minutes interview with former CIA Director George Tenet that will air tomorrow night.

I've already written that I can't wait to read the man's book, and I'm looking forward to it more and more with each passing excerpt and story that appears about it in the press.

Tenet's book and all of the publicity surrounding it has got to be very embarrassing for the Bush White House, if for no other reason than Bush's decision to decorate him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honor a civilian can earn.

I guess I have to give Tenet a little credit there, then, because that gives him some cover when the administration will no doubt try to smear him. However, Tenet deserves some scorn for that, too; he didn't have to accept the award.

"Okay, you've got your medal, so mum's the word, okay?"

Tenet deserves more than a little blame for 9-11 happening on his watch. Many have called it the greatest intelligence failure in history, and I'd have to agree; the only other thing that even comes close is the attack on Pearl Harbor. But again, it will be interesting to see how the Bush White House spins that one, because it can't blame Tenet for 9-11 without Bush taking some of that same heat. It's probably not a very pleasant weekend to be around the president. Boo hoo. It's not a pleasant weekend to be in Iraq, either.

Speaking of Iraq, Tenet's take on who's responsible for another brilliant intel failure - that of Iraq's phantom WMDs - should make for good reading. There's evidence aplenty that Tenet was being leaned on to provide the "intelligence" surrounding Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction." Other books and many other former administration officials have outlined that Bush decided to go to war, then he went to find the intelligence to back up his decision. Richard Clark and Paul O'Neill have both outlined that in detail in their respective books, and Bob Woodward has done it in multiple books, pieces and interviews.

Tenet's much-anticipated book, At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA, goes on sale Monday.

I have to get this one - it's my #1 must-read of the summer.

I'll bring you the 60 Minutes interview when I can get footage of it early next week.

New Tenet book should be a solid read

I'm putting together a list of books I want to get through this summer, and former CIA Director George Tenet's book, At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA, will be somewhere on that list.

Tenet is a study is contradictions, in my view, especially when dealing with the run-up to the War in Iraq, as well as the 9-11 attacks. You pick those two scabs, you uncover a lot of puss. There's no question in my mind that he deserves to shoulder some of the blame for 9-11, the greatest intelligence failure in U.S. history.

As for the War in Iraq, he deserves some blame, but he also jumped on a grenade for the Bush administration. We've all heard about his mindless assertion that the intelligence proving Iraq's WMD fetish was "a slam dunk." Hell, it wasn't even a lay-up.

So, I'm very interested to read his side of the story on these two critical events and what his perspective is. I wonder if it will be a "tell-all" book of sorts, much like Richard Clarke's Against All Enemies and Ron Suskind's book on Paul O'Neill, The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill. (By the way, both books are excellent - if you haven't had a chance to read them, I highly recommend both.) If Tenet's book is on par with those two, we're in for a good read, and some additional insight into the schizophrenic workings of the Bush White House.

The more I think about it, Tenet's book just vaulted to hear the top of my reading list. I'll bring you my thoughts later this summer after I've digested this much-anticipated book.

P.S. - Keep an eye on the White House's reaction to this book. If it's in the vein of Clarke's and O'Neill's, the question won't be if they'll Swiftboat Tenet, but when.

Tenet's book goes on sale April 30.

Russ Feingold on Bush's threatened veto

Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold appeared on Countdown With Keith Olbermann a few nights ago to talk about President Bush's promised veto and rhetoric about the emergency appropriation for the War in Iraq. Feingold is as spot on and articulate as anyone I've heard on the subject.

Feingold rightfully points out that there is plenty of precedent on ending funding for combat operations during war time, most notably during the Clinton Administration when we had forces in Somalia during Operation Restore Hope. After we lost 18 U.S. troops in the Battle of Mogadishu. (By the way, I tire of hearing Repubes deride Clinton for the loss of those soldiers - he deserves some blame, but it was President George H.W. Bush who put our troops in Somalia in December 1992.)

Anyway, Feingold hit it right on the head - if Bush vetoes the spending bill, it's going to be on his head, or at least partially. He rightfully reasons that the Democrats were sent to Congress to do the bidding of the people, and that's to end this war:

Well, it's just incredible to me that the president of the United States is planning on vetoing a bill that actually provides the funds that he wants for this next phase of the war. And the reason is, is, that he thinks he shouldn't have to follow the will of the American people, which was expressed in November, and that is that somehow this war has to start to end.

The bill is a very reasonable approach, and the president is being beyond stubborn in saying that we have to provide the funds and have no reaction at all to the fact that the people of this country want us out of this war. It's incredible to me that the president is this detached from reality.

Of course, some hear this and get all hysterical, that the Democrats are simply Bush hating. No, they are not. What we are seeing now is a president who had no oversight for the first six years of his presidency. Bush is totally incapable of compromise, or reaching across party lines. For a man who ran in 2000 as "A uniter, not a divider," he's shown a shocking indifference to even having a dialogue with the Democrats. More from the interview:

OLBERMANN: He referred to, in this news conference, in some of the questions, some who believe our strategy there is not working, a group who believes that we should not be there in the first place. Is it possible, do you think, Senator, that the president does not realize that this group of some people constitutes about seven out of every 10 Americans?

FEINGOLD: Well, he must know at some level, but he refers to the fact that we're back in our states, listening to the people in our states, as a vacation. Well, he needs a vacation like that, or he needs to get back onto a place like Wisconsin, in the rural areas where I am this week, Keith, doing town meetings, where people are telling me, For God's sakes, when are you going to get out of there? How can you possibly have this thing continue? What is the president thinking?

He is truly out of touch with the people of this country. This is not a position of a few people in the Democratic Party. It is virtually a consensus of the American people that we have got to have an orderly end to this war, safely redeploy the troops in the next few months.

[...]

Senator Harry Reid and I have concluded that a bill or an amendment that would make that date a year from now, March 31, 2008, is the next step, if necessary, if he truly does veto the supplemental bill.

OLBERMANN: To the power of the purse, for all the president's talk of alleged irresponsibility on the part of Congress in his news event this morning, it would seem, in his answer to that question about the power of the purse, the president was forced to admit that what you and your colleagues are doing is, in fact, entirely legitimate. And if that's true, and he says it's true, doesn't that make his veto the cause of any interruption of funding for the troops, in the unlikely event that happens?

FEINGOLD: Absolutely, Keith, unless we've shifted into a monarchy. The whole idea of our system is that these powers are divided. The president's the commander in chief, but the Congress is given the power of the funding, the appropriations power. We had to provide the funding in the first place, and if we decide this war is a bad idea, which I think just about everybody's concluded, then it's our—not just our right, but our responsibility to say, "Well, by X date, we will no longer do the funding."

And if you—you can ask Republican senators who say this is a bad idea, why did they vote for a date to cut off the funding for Somalia in the early '90s? Remember Black Hawk Down, we lost those 18 brave Americans, and we said, You know, this isn't working out very well, we ought to stop this.

And so John McCain and John Warner and all of us voted for a date certain by which the troops were safely redeployed. And at the end of it, the funding was cut off. They've already voted for this approach. It's not extreme. It's right in the absolute core of our constitutional powers and our responsibilities as members of Congress.

###

Uh oh - I'm bringing up those pesky 1990s again. How inconvenient. I not-so-fondly remember Repubes howling and screaming whenever President Clinton did anything militarily. No matter the cause, he never, ever had the support of a Republican-controlled Congress - Somalia (which he inherited), Bosnia, Kosovo or any actions to combat terrorism.

At every turn, it was Republicans who were screaming about Clinton's misuse of the military, or worse. Funny how I never heard "When troops are in harm's way, we don't question the operation - we get behind the president." Feingold rightfully reminded viewers of this the other night.

Speaking of supporting the president, one final thought. I realize that it's difficult for most of us (myself included, on most occasions) to reflect on our foreign policy in the 1990s through a 9-11 looking glass. Fine.

But, what really roils me is the persistent, idiotic rumors that float around the Internet about Clinton not doing enough about Osama bin Laden while he was president. Part of that is a valid point - he even admitted as much during his contentious interview on Fox News with Chris Wallace last September.

However, I also vaguely remember President Clinton wanting to do more to fight terrorism, but the Republican-controlled Senate and House wouldn't give him the budget increases he asked for. I also remember his missile attacks on Baghdad in retaliation for the attempted assassination of President Bush Sr. in Kuwait, and also the missile attack on a bin Laden compound that missed the terrorist by hours.

But again, to hear Republicans talk about it, they all wanted to invade Afghanistan and get bin Laden immediately, but Clinton didn't want to. Lies, lies, lies. In fact, when Clinton was leaving office, the one thing that the Clinton team told the incoming Bush administration to pay particular attention to was bin Laden. Call that one Operation Ignore, as the Bushies did nothing.

Richard Clarke, the counter-terrorism expert, served under presidents Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton, and until 2003, President George W. Bush. He's confirmed the current Bush administration's willful indifference to bin Laden during the first eight months of the administration. And this has also been confirmed by Bob Woodward and Paul O'Neill, the former treasury secretary. But, they're all lying, right Mr. President?

For more reading, I highly recommend Richard Clarke's book, Against All Enemies; and Ron Suskind's book, The Price of Loyalty : George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill.

These are two fantastic books, told by former Bush administration insiders, and they both offer insight into how Bush wanted to go to war in Iraq before 9-11, a conveniently forgotten fact.

The truth of the matter is that Bush and the far right want perpetual war, with no end in sight. It's hard to conclude otherwise, considering their stubbornness and obfuscation in the face of Democrats' attempts to end this war.

Bill Clinton outFOXes journalistic jackass

Here's the much ballyhooed interview between Chris Wallace and former President Bill Clinton. I'll put all three parts on here, and comment below. Above is part I - part II to follow...



Above is part II



And part III.

What a sad commentary on American, um, "journalism." In short, Chris Wallace is nothing short of a fucking hack - dispatched to bully Clinton with Fox's right-wing agenda. This entire interview was staged to get to Clinton; to rile him and to get him to lose his temper. Mission accomplished, Fox News, and Rupert Murdoch.

But, I'm not criticizing the former president. I'm offering lots of praise for his reaction. These mother fuckers deserve the scorn the president so rightfully heaps on them - Clinton has been castigated by the right-wing media for years - since long before he was elected in 1992. My only crit of Clinton is this - it's about time, Mr. President. You should have done it long ago.

Seems like a million years ago when the worst this country had to worry about was whether Bill Clinton had an affair with Ms. Lewinsky. We should be so lucky now. And it's a good time to once again briefly bring up this inconvenient GOP fact - the Republicans who were out to get Clinton were every bit as hypocritical as Clinton - Henry Hyde, Bob Livingston, Newt Gingrich & Tom DeLay, to name a few (the first three all having had extra-marrital affairs of their own).

Thank you, Mr. President, for trying to get bin Laden. I love it that Clinton mentions how he tried to get Osama after the African embassy attacks, but was accused of diverting attention away from his own troubles. I also enjoyed his references to Richard Clarke - if you haven't yet read his book, Against All Enemies, I urge you to do so. It's as relevant today as it was nearly three years ago when it was released.

And lastly, I applaud the president for publicly calling bullshit on the strategy that Rove and Co. will employ this fall to try to retain power in Congress - trying to scare the living shit out of us all. It certainly won't work with me, but the unfortunate thing is that it will work for millions of Americans who would rather make the "safe" choice by voting Republican.

I have two other quick thoughts on Wallace. 1. I've never heard such disrespect of a former president, regardless of party, by another would-be reporter. Unreal. 2. At various points in the interview, it almost sounds as if Wallace is working for the Bush White House, as he challenges Clinton, with a dismissive smirk on his face, about "launching cruise missiles" to get bin Laden. I'm sure Wallace is a legend at Fox News now, or should I say ITAR-TASS.

I urge everyone to take the time to examine the issues thoroughly from a variety of sources to really make an informed decision. I'm reasonably confident that most, if they've done any homework at all, will make the wise choice, and that's to kick the idiots out of office who have done nothing but politicize the war on terror since September 12, 2001.

Go get 'em, Bill. Our country is lucky to have you.

Update: YouTube has been pulling off the video clips of the interview because evidentally FoxNews has been bitching and complaining that they are being posted without permission. There seems to be a tug of war going on - some of these clips get pulled down, then people repost them to YouTube, so hopefully the three that I link to stay up, but just in case they aren't available when you click on them, here's the complete transcript of the interview. Yes, it's long, but in lieu of being able to see the real thing, trust me, it's worth the read. I will keep trying to repost the videos if these one's get pulled. The transcript follows...

MR. WALLACE: I'm Chris Wallace. U.S. intelligence has said the Iraq war has spawned new terrorists. Next on "Fox News Sunday," the interview everyone will be talking about: former President Bill Clinton in a combative discussion about his attempts to bring Osama Bin Laden to justice. He says his right-wing critics are giving President Bush a free pass.

Our interview with former president Bill Clinton. This week he hosted his second-annual Global Initiative Forum in New York. More than $7 billion was pledged to tackle some of the worst problems in developing countries, such as poverty, disease and climate change. As part of the conference, Mr. Clinton agreed to his first one-on-one interview ever on "Fox News Sunday."
The ground rules were simple: 15 minutes for our sit-down, split evenly between the global initiative and anything else we wanted to ask. But as you'll see now in the full, unedited interview, that's not how it turned out.

MR. WALLACE: Mr. President, welcome to "Fox News Sunday."

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Thanks.

MR. WALLACE: In a recent issue of The New Yorker, you say, quote, "I'm 60 years old, and I damn near died and I'm worried about how many lives I can save before I do die." Is that what drives you in your efforts to help in these developing countries?

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Yes. I really -- but I don't mean -- that sounds sort of morbid when you say it like that.

MR. WALLACE: No, you said it.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: I actually -- but yeah -- but the way I said it, the tone in which I said it was actually almost whimsical and humorous, that is. This is what I love to do. It is what I think I should do. That is, I have had a wonderful life. I got to be president. And I got to live the life of my dreams. I dodged a bullet with that heart problem. And I really think I should -- I think I owe it to my fellow countrymen and people throughout the world to spend time saving lives, solving problems, helping people see the future.

But as it happens, I love it. I mean, I feel that it's a great gift. So it's a rewarding way to spend my life.

MR. WALLACE: Someone asked you -- and again, I don't want to be too morbid -- but this is what you said: He asked you if could wind up doing more good as a former president --

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Yeah.

MR. WALLACE: -- than as a president. And you said, "Only if I live a long time."

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Yeah, that's true.

MR. WALLACE: How do you rate, compare, the powers of being in office as president and what you can do out of office as a former president?

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Well, when you are president you can operate on a much broader scope. So, for example, you can simultaneously be trying to stop a genocide in Kosovo, you know, make peace in the Middle East, pass a budget that gives millions of kids a chance to have after-school programs and has a huge increase in college aid at home. In other words, you've got a lot of different moving parts, and you can move them all at once.

But you're also more at the mercy of events. That is, President Bush did not run for president to deal with 9/11, but once it happened, it wasn't as if he had an option. Once I looked at the economic -- I'll give you a much more mundane example. Once I looked at the economic data, the new data, after I won the election, I realized that I would have to work much harder to reduce the deficit and therefore would have less money in my first year to invest in things I wanted to invest in.

MR. WALLACE: So, what is it that you can do as a former president?

PRESIDENT CLINTON: So what you can do as a former president is, you don't have the wide range of power, so you have to concentrate on a few things. But you are less at the mercy of unfolding events. So, if I say, look, we're going to work on the economic empowerment of poor people on fighting AIDS and other diseases, on trying to bridge the religious and political differences between people, and on trying, you know, to avoid the worst calamities of climate change and help to revitalize the economy in the process, I can actually do that.

I mean, because tomorrow when I get up if there's a bad headline in the paper, it's President Bush's responsibility, not mine. That's the joy of being a former president. And it is true that if you live long enough, and you really have great discipline in the way you do this, like this CGI, you might be able to affect as many lives or more for the good as you did as president.

MR. WALLACE: When we announced that you were going to be on "Fox News Sunday," I got a lot of e-mail from viewers. And I've got to say, I was surprised. Most of them wanted me to ask you this question: Why didn't you do more to put bin Laden and al Qaeda out of business when you were president? There's a new book, I suspect you're already read, called "The Looming Tower." And it talks about the fact that when you pulled troops out of Somalia in 1993, bin Laden said, "I have seen the frailty and the weakness and the cowardice of U.S troops." Then there was the bombing of the embassies in Africa, and the attack on the Cole.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Okay, let's just go through it.

MR. WALLACE: Let me -- may I just finish the question, sir? And after the attack, the book says that bin Laden separated his leaders, spread them around because he expected an attack, and there was no response. I understand that hindsight is always 20/20 --

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Let's talk about it.

MR. WALLACE: -- but the question is, why didn't you do more, connect the dots and put him out of business?

PRESIDENT CLINTON: All right, let's talk about it. I will answer all those things on the merits. But first, I want to talk about the context in which this arises. I'm being asked this on the Fox network. ABC just had a right-wing conservative running their little "Pathway [sic] to 9/11," falsely claiming it was based on the 9/11 commission report, with three things asserted against me directly contradicting the 9/11 commission report.

And I think it's very interesting that all the conservative Republicans who now say I didn't do enough claim that I was too obsessed with bin Laden. All of President Bush's neocons thought I was too obsessed with bin Laden. They had no meetings on bin Laden for nine months after I left office -- all the right-wingers who now say I didn't do enough said I did too much, same people. They were all trying to get me to withdraw from Somalia in 1993, the next day after we were involved in Black Hawk Down. And I refused to do it, and stayed six months, and had an orderly transfer to the United Nations.

Okay, now let's look at the all the criticisms. Black Hawk Down, Somalia: There is not a living soul in the world who thought Osama bin Laden had anything to do with Black Hawk Down, or was paying any attention to it, or even knew al Qaeda was a growing concern in October '93.

MR. WALLACE: I understand that. And I --

PRESIDENT CLINTON: No, wait. No wait. No wait. Don't tell me -- you ask me why I didn't do more to bin Laden. There was not a living soul -- all the people who now criticize me wanted to leave the next day. You brought this up, so you get an answer. But you can't --

MR. WALLACE: I'm perfectly happy to -- (inaudible).

PRESIDENT CLINTON: All right, secondly --

MR. WALLACE: Bin Laden says --

PRESIDENT CLINTON: But bin Laden may have said --

MR. WALLACE: Bin Laden said that it showed the weakness of the United States.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: But it didn't. It would have shown the weakness if we had left right away. But he wasn't involved in that. That's just a bunch of bull. That was about Mohamed Aidid, a Muslim warlord murdering 22 Pakistani Muslim troops. We were all there on a humanitarian mission, and we had no mission -- none -- to establish a certain kind of Somali government or keep anybody out. He was not a religious fanatic --

MR. WALLACE: But Mr. President --

PRESIDENT CLINTON: There was no al Qaeda --

MR. WALLACE: With respect, if I may. Instead of going through '93 and --

PRESIDENT CLINTON: No, no. You ask it. You brought it up.

MR. WALLACE: May I ask a general question --

PRESIDENT CLINTON: You brought it up.

MR. WALLACE: And then you can answer? The 9/11 commission, which you talk about -- and this is what they did say, not what ABC pretended they said.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: What do they say?

MR. WALLACE: They said about you and President Bush, and I quote, "The U.S. government took the threat seriously, but not in the sense of mustering anything like the kind of effort that would be gathered to confront an enemy of the first, second, or even third rank."

PRESIDENT CLINTON: First of all, that's not true with us and bin Laden.

MR. WALLACE: Well, I'm talking about the 9/11 commission.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: All right, let's look at what Richard Clarke said. You think Richard Clarke has a vigorous attitude about bin Laden?

MR. WALLACE: Yes, I do.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: You do, don't you?

MR. WALLACE: Yes, he has a variety of opinions and loyalties, but yes.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: That's right. He has a variety of opinions and loyalties now, but let's look at the facts. He worked for Ronald Reagan; he was loyal to him. He worked for George H.W. Bush; he was loyal to him. He worked for me, and he was loyal to me. He worked for President Bush; he was loyal to him. They downgraded him in the terrorist operation. Now, look what he said. Read his book and read his factual assertions -- not opinions; assertions.
He said we took vigorous action after the African embassies. We probably nearly got bin Laden. I authorized -- now, wait a minute. Wait, wait, wait. Now, wait a minute.

MR. WALLACE: You fought to use cruise missiles.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: No, no. I authorized the CIA to get groups together to try to kill him. The CIA was run by George Tenet, that President Bush gave the Medal of Freedom; he said he did a good job setting up all these counterterrorism things. The country never had a comprehensive anti-terror operation until I came there. And if you want to criticize me for one thing, you can criticize me for this: After the Cole, I had battle plans drawn to go into Afghanistan, overthrow the Taliban and launch a full-scale attack to search for bin Laden. But we needed basing rights in Uzbekistan, which we got after 9/11. The CIA and the FBI refused to certify that bin Laden was responsible. While I was there, they refused to certify. So that meant I would have had to send a few hundred Special Forces in, in helicopters and refuel at night. Even the 9/11 commission didn't do that.

Now, the 9/11 commission was a political document, too. All I'm asking you is, anybody who wants to say I didn't do enough, you read Richard Clarke's book --

MR. WALLACE: Do you think you did enough, sir?

PRESIDENT CLINTON: No, because I didn't get him.

MR. WALLACE: Right.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: But at least I tried. That's the difference in me and some, including all the right-wingers who are attacking me now. They ridiculed me for trying. They had eight months to try. They did not try. I tried. So I tried and failed. When I failed, I left a comprehensive anti-terrorist strategy, and the best guy in the country, Dick Clarke, who got demoted.

So, you did Fox's bidding on this show. You did your nice, little conservative hit job on me.

MR. WALLACE: But --

PRESIDENT CLINTON: What I want to know --

MR. WALLACE: But wait a minute, sir. I'm going to ask a question. You don't think that's a legitimate question?

PRESIDENT CLINTON: It was a perfectly legitimate question. But I want to know, how many people in the Bush administration you ask this question of. I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you ask, why didn't you do anything about the Cole? I want to know how many people you ask, why did you fire Dick Clarke? I want to know how many people you ask about this.

MR. WALLACE: We ask, we ask -- have you ever watched "Fox News Sunday," sir?

PRESIDENT CLINTON: I don't believe you ask them that.

MR. WALLACE: We ask plenty of questions --

PRESIDENT CLINTON: You didn't ask that, did you? Tell the truth, Chris.

MR. WALLACE: On the USS Cole?

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Tell the truth, Chris.

MR. WALLACE: With Iraq and Afghanistan, there's plenty of stuff to ask, sir.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Tell the truth, Chris. Did you ever ask that? You set this meeting up because you're going to get a lot of criticism from your viewers because Rupert Murdoch's supporting my work on climate change. And you came here on false pretenses and said that you'd spend half the time talking about --

MR. WALLACE: I --

PRESIDENT CLINTON: About -- you said you'd spend half the time talking about what we did out there to raise $7 billion plus, in three days, from 215 different commitments, and you don't care.

MR. WALLACE: I -- President Clinton, if you look at the questions --

PRESIDENT CLINTON: I thought you'd (have an audience here ?).

MR. WALLACE: You'll see half the questions about it. I didn't think this was going to set you off on such a tear.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: You launched into it. It set off on a tear because you didn't formulate it in an honest way, and because you people ask me questions you don't ask the other side.

MR. WALLACE: Sir, that's not so.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: And Richard Clarke --

MR. WALLACE: That is not true.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Richard Clarke made it clear in his testimony --

MR. WALLACE: Would you like to talk about the Clinton Global Initiative?

PRESIDENT CLINTON: No, I want to finish this thing.

MR. WALLACE: All right.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: All I'm saying is, you falsely accuse me of giving aid and comfort to bin Laden because of what happened in Somalia. No one knew al Qaeda existed then.

MR. WALLACE: But did they know --

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Now, wait. Wait.

MR. WALLACE: -- in 1996 when he declared war on the U.S.? Did they know in 1998 --

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Absolutely.

MR. WALLACE: When he bombed the two embassies?

PRESIDENT CLINTON: And who talked about it?

MR. WALLACE: Did they know in 2000 when he hit the Cole?

PRESIDENT CLINTON: What did I do? I worked hard to try to kill him. I authorized a finding for the CIA to kill him. We contracted with people to kill him. I got closer to kill him than anybody's gotten since. And if I were still president, we'd have more than 20,000 troops there, trying to kill him. Now, I've never criticized President Bush, and I don't think this is useful. But, you know, we do have a government that thinks Afghanistan is only one-seventh as important as Iraq. And you ask me about terror and al Qaeda with that sort of dismissive thing, when all you have to do is read Richard Clarke's book to look at what we did in a comprehensive systematic way to try to protect the country against terror.

And you've got that little smirk on your face. You think you're so clever. But I had responsibility for trying to protect this country. I tried and I failed to get bin Laden. I regret it. But I did try. And I did everything I thought I responsibly could. The entire military was against sending Special Forces into Afghanistan and refueling by helicopter. And no one thought we got do it otherwise because we could not get the CIA and the FBI that al Qaeda was responsible while I was president. And so, I left office. And yet, I get asked about this all the time.

They had three times as much time to deal with it, and no one ever asked them about it. I think that's strange.

MR. WALLACE: Can I ask you about the Clinton Global Initiative?

PRESIDENT CLINTON: You can.

MR. WALLACE: I always intended to, sir.

PRESIDENT CLINTON. No, you intended, though, to move your bones by doing this first, which is perfectly fine. But I don't mind people asking -- I actually talked to the 9/11 commission for four hours, Chris. And I told them the mistakes I thought I made. And I urged them to make those mistakes public, because I thought none of us had been perfect. But instead of anybody talking about those things, I always get these clever little political deals, where they ask me one set of questions and the others guys another set. And it always comes from one source. And so --

MR. WALLACE: I want to ask you about the Clinton Global Initiative, but what's the source? I mean, you seem upset, and I --

PRESIDENT CLINTON: I am upset, because I --

MR. WALLACE: And all I can tell you is, I'm asking you this in good faith, because it's on people's minds, sir.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Well, there's a reason it's on people's minds. That's the point I'm trying to make. There's a reason it's on people's minds, because there's been a serious disinformation campaign to create that impression. This country only has one person who's worked on this terror. From the terrorist centers under Reagan, to the terrorist centers from 9/11 -- only one, Richard Clarke. And all I can say to anybody is, do you want to know what we did wrong or right? Or anybody else did? Read his book. The people on my political right who say I didn't do enough spent the whole time I was president saying, why is he so obsessed with bin Laden; that was "wag the dog" when he tried to kill him.

My Republican Secretary of Defense -- and I think I'm the only president since World War II to have a Secretary of Defense of the opposite party -- Richard Clarke and all the intelligence people said that I ordered a vigorous attempt to get bin Laden, and came closer, apparently, to anybody that has since.

MR. WALLACE: All right.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: And you guys try to create the opposite impression, when all you have to do is read Richard Clarke's findings, and you know it's not true. It's just not true. And all this business about Somalia, the same people that criticize me about Somalia, were demanding I leave the next day -- the same exact crowd.

So, if you're going to do this, for God sakes, follow the same standards for everybody --

MR. WALLACE: I think we do, sir.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: And be flat, and fair --

MR. WALLACE: I think we do.

MR. WALLACE: One of the main parts of the global initiative this year is religion and reconciliation. President Bush says that the fight against Islamic extremism is the central conflict of this century. And his answer is promoting democracy and reform. Do you think he has that right?

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Sure. To advance, advocate democracy and reform in the Muslim world? Absolutely. I think the question is, what's the best way to do it? I think also the question is, how to educate people about democracy? Democracy is about way more than majority rule. Democracy is about minority rights, individual rights, restraints on power. And there's more than one way to advance democracy.

But do I think, on balance, that in the end, after several bouts with instability -- look how long it took us to build toward democracy. Do I think on balance it would be better if we had more freedom and democracy? Sure I do. And do I think specifically the president has a right to do? Sure I do. But I don't think that's all we can do in the Muslim world. I think they have to see us as trying to get a just and lasting peace in the Middle East.

I think they have to see us as willing to talk to people who see the world differently than we do.

MR. WALLACE: Last year, at this conference, you got $2.5 billion dollars in commitments, pledges. How did you do this year?

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Well, this year we had 7.3 billion [dollars] as of this morning.

MR. WALLACE: Excuse me, 7 --

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Point three billion [dollars] as of this morning. But 3 billion [dollars] of that is -- now this is over a multi-year. This is up to 10-year commitments. But 3 billion [dollars] of that came from Richard Branson's commitments to give all of his transportation profits for a decade to clean energy investments. But still, that's -- the rest is over 4 billion [dollars].

And we will have another 100 commitments come in, maybe more, and we'll probably raise another -- I would say at least another $1 billion probably before it's over. We've got a lot of commitments still in process.

MR. WALLACE: When you look at the 3 billion [dollars] from Branson, and, plus the billions that Bill Gates is giving in his own program, and now Warren Buffett, what do you make of this new age of philanthropy?

PRESIDENT CLINTON: I think that -- for one thing, really rich people have always given money away. I mean, you know, they've endowed libraries and things like that. The unique thing about this age is, first of all, you have a lot of people like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett who are interested in issues at home and around the world that grow out of the nature of the 21st century and its inequalities. The income inequalities, the health care inequalities, the education inequalities. And you get a guy like Gates who, you know, build Microsoft, who actually believes that he can help overcome a lot of the health disparities in the world. And that's the first thing.

The second thing that ought to be credited is that there are a lot of people of average incomes who are joining them because of the Internet. Like in the tsunami, for example, we had $1.2 billion given by Americans; 30 percent of our households gave money, over half of them over the Internet.
And then the third thing is you've got all these -- in more countries you've got all these nongovernmental groups that a guy like Gates can partner with, along with the governments. So all these things together mean that people with real money want to give it away in ways that help people that before would have been seen only as the object of government grants or loans.

MR. WALLACE: Let's talk some politics. In that same New Yorker article, you say that you are tired of Karl Rove's B.S., though I'm cleaning up what you said.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: But I do -- but I also say, I'm not tired of Karl Rove. I don't blame Karl Rove. He -- if you've got a deal that works, you just keep on doing it.

MR. WALLACE: So what is the B.S.?

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Well, every even-numbered year, right before an election, they come up with some security issue. In 2002, our party supported them in taking weapons inspections in Iraq, and was 100 percent for what happened in Afghanistan, and they didn't have any way to make us look like we didn't care about terror. And so, they decided they would be for the homeland security bill that they had opposed, and they put a poison pill in it that we wouldn't pass, like taking the job rights away from 170,000 people, and then say that we were weak on terror if we weren't for it. They just ran that out.

This year, I think they wanted to make the questions of prisoner treatment and intercepted communications the same sort of issues, until John Warner and John McCain and Lindsey Graham got in there, and it turns out there were some Republicans that believed in the Constitution and the Geneva Conventions, and had their own ideas about how best to fight terror. The Democrats, as long as the American people believe that we take this seriously, and we have our own approaches, and we may have differences over Iraq, I think we'll do fine in this election.

But even if they agree with us about the Iraq war, we could be hurt by Karl Rove's new foray if we just don't make it clear that we too care about the security of the country. But we want to implement the 9/11 commission recommendations which they haven't for four years. We want to intensify our efforts in Afghanistan against bin Laden. We want to make America more energy independent. And then they can all, if they differ on Iraq, they say whatever they want on Iraq.

But Rove is good. And I honor him. I've always been amused at how good he is, in a way. But on the other hand, this is perfectly predictable. We're going to win a lot of seats if the American people aren't afraid. If they're afraid and we get divided again, then we may only win a few seats.

MR. WALLACE: And the White House, the Republicans want to make the American people afraid?

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Of course they do. Of course they do. They want us to be -- they want another homeland security deal. And they want to make it about, not about Iraq, but about some other security issue where, if we disagree with them, we are, by definition, imperiling the security of the country. And it's a big load of hooey. We've got nine Iraq war veterans running for the House seats. We've got President Reagan's secretary of the Navy as the Democratic candidate for the Senate in Virginia. A three-star admiral who was on my National Security Council staff, who also fought terror, by the way, is running for the seat of Curt Weldon in Pennsylvania.

We've got a huge military presence here in this campaign, and we just can't let them have some rhetorical device that puts us in a box we don't belong in. That's their job. Their job is to beat us. I like that about Rove. But our job is not to let him get away with it. And if they don't we will do fine.

MR. WALLACE: Mr. President, thanks for one of the more unusual interviews.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Thanks.

ABC = All But Caving? (To right wingers)

Predictably, this is a story that's not going away anytime soon. Former Clinton administration officials are pissed, as they should be. Many people are deriding ABC for "interpreting" and "dramatizing" events on 9-11. As if 9-11 requires dramatizing.

Clinton's staff fired off a letter to ABC demanding certain portions of the movie be changed, including one scene depicting Clinton as being too distracted by the Lewinsky scandal to go after Islamic terrorists who blew up embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Clinton's former National Security Advisor, Sandy Berger, and former counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke are similarly outraged.

To wit, Clarke's response:

1. Contrary to the movie, no US military or CIA personnel were on the ground in Afghanistan and saw bin Laden.

2. Contrary to the movie, the head of the Northern Alliance, Masood, was nowhere near the alleged bin Laden camp and did not see UBL (that's Usama bin Laden, as Clarke refers to him - RJ).

3. Contrary to the movie, the CIA Director actually said that he could not recommend a strike on the camp because the information was single sourced and we would have no way to know if bin Laden was in the target area by the time a cruise missile hit it.

##

There you have it, from Clarke, who was counterterrorism chief under Bush I, Clinton and Bush II until shortly after 9-11, when he quit in disgust.

Another amusing anecdote, this one from Tucker Carleson, a conservative that I normally admire (I occasionally watch his show on MSNBC). As reported in Media Matters today, Tucker wants this argument both ways. Well, he can't have it.

Here's what Media Matters had to say:
During a discussion with Media Matters for America president and CEO David Brock on the September 7 edition of MSNBC's Tucker, host Tucker Carlson falsely claimed that when CBS chose not to air the 2003 biopic, The Reagans, he had "sort of agreed" that the move constituted "censorship," just as he now argues that it will be "censorship" if ABC is pressured into not running The Path to 9/11. In fact, in 2003, Carlson specifically denied that CBS' decision to pull The Reagans was "censorship," saying that the use of the word in the context of CBS' Reagan movie "devalue[d] the term" and defending CBS' decision to pull the film because it was "inaccurate."

##

What the fuck, Tuck?!? You're better than that.

Oh, and one more thing - yesterday I wrote of the urban legend that persists that Clinton could have had bin Laden. The source of this bullshit is Fateh Erwa, a known liar. The Washington Times, one of the most radical right-wing papers in the country, had this to say about Erwa and his allegations:

"No one should believe these allegations" from "Fateh Erwa, a Sudanese intelligence officer known for his penchant to deceive, that there was an offer to hand bin Laden over to the United States."

Folks, if the Washington Times is saying it, trust it, because that paper never, EVER misses an opportunity to make Clinton look bad.

Enough said.

ABC needs to do the responsible thing, and pull or significantly alter this movie. My prediction? The network will puss out, because all of the major media outlets (excluding Fox News, for obvious reasons) are afraid of being labeled "liberal" and of getting attacked by the right wing distortion machine.

The movie's a disgrace, and so is Tom Kean for being involved in it.

Lies and distortions should be called out as lies and distortions, no matter when they happen. They can't just be bad when it's politically convenient, Mr. Carlson.

Meet the 21st century's biggest non-nuclear threat

Recently, much has come to light about global warming, and just about none of it is good news. This growing problem and concern should be on every American’s mind, now and into the foreseeable future. I know that isn’t going to happen, but I hope and pray that our next president, no matter Democrat, or heaven forbid, Republican, makes this important issue a top administration priority, because our current president’s indifference is sending this horrible message to the rest of the world: “We’ve got bigger things to worry about.” The good news in all of this is that the latest scientific data should jolt even the most hearty of global warming deniers out of their smog-induced drowsiness.

New evidence strongly suggests that much of what dozens of government agencies report about on science is edited with a heavy hand at the White House, according to Rick Pilts, NASA’s top scientist on climate change. Recently, Scott Pelley of 60 Minutes interviewed Pilts about climate change, and what he had to say was highly disturbing.

His thoughts? “The strategy of people with a political agenda to avoid this issue is to say ‘There’s so much to study way upstream here that we can’t even begin to discuss impacts and response strategies. There’s much too much uncertainty,’” said Pilts. “And, it’s not climate scientists who are saying that. It’s lawyers. It’s politicians.”

Pilts, much like the much-maligned Richard Clarke (the former anti-terrorism chief – more on him in a future post), has worked for both Republican and Democratic administrations; he worked under President Clinton as well as current President George W. Bush. Every year, he wrote a report on climate change called, “Our Changing Planet.” He was responsible for writing and editing this report, and he sent a review draft to the White House. “It comes back with a large number of edits, handwritten on the hard copy, by the chief of staff of the council on environmental quality, Phil Cooney.” When asked if Cooney is a scientist, Pilts responded, “No, he is a lawyer, he was an environmental lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute before going into the White House.”

This is unsettling, to say the least, but hardly surprising considering this administration’s environmental record. The 60 Minutes report offered up hard evidence – first Pilts’ notes, then the final copy of the report. Take a look at these examples:

One line in the Pilts draft that read, “Earth is undergoing rapid change” was rewritten as “Earth may be undergoing change” in the final report.

Further down, “uncertainty” becomes “significant remaining uncertainty.”

Another line that said, “energy production contributes to warming,” was crossed out altogether.

“He was obviously passing it through a political screen. He would put in words ‘potential’ or ‘may,’ or weaken or delete text that had to do with the likely consequences of climate change,” said Pilts.

In one section, Cooney added the line, “The uncertainties remain so great as to preclude meaningfully informed decision making.”

60 Minutes obtained the final report, and Cooney’s edits made it into the final report. Pilts, clearly seeing that there was no room at the White House for people who disagree with the administration, resigned. Sound Richard Clark-ish to you? Sure does to me.

Wow, I feel so much better about global warming knowing that our president has former lobbyists who share values with oil companies making edits on climate change reports to Congress. Clearly this administration has its collective head in the smog when it comes to global warming.

More damning evidence that the administration doesn’t acknowledge/doesn’t care about global warming: In a Web exclusive I just watched the other day, 60 Minutes' Pelley had this to say about global warming, and I’m paraphrasing here:

Dr. James Hansen heads NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, which is the agency’s preeminent institute for studying the Earth and the Earth’s climate. Way back in the 1980s, Hansen was one of the first scientists to conclude that greenhouse gases were causing the Earth to warm. Since then, his research has been cutting edge in a number of ways. A few weeks ago, the Goddard Institute found that 2005 was the hottest year on record. The White House continues to say that we need more time, that there is so much we don’t understand, that we can’t conclude anything just yet. Hansen says the research and the data are in, and that there is no doubt that the Earth is warming, rapidly.

*****

When I hear and read things like that, I can’t help thinking our planet is sitting on the stove, the burner’s on high, and the water is starting to do more than simmer. So, just what is America doing about it? Our politicians stall and debate, while Earth cooks. What the hell are we waiting for? What’s even more sickening to me, and I’m sure to a significant portion of the rest of the world, is that the United States has about 5% of the Earth’s population, and we contribute anywhere (depending on where you are getting your numbers) from 25 – 33% of the Earth’s greenhouse gases. Stevie Wonder could see the disparity with those figures.

To be fair, Pelley also reports that the administration is spending billions on research on climate change, probably more than any other administration. That’s encouraging, but what this administration is not doing is acknowledging the fact that much hard, credible evidence is conclusive now, and the time to act is yesterday. In my view, what Bush is doing is simply postponing (Read: Until January 20, 2009) the necessary tough choices that will affect industry, jobs and the lifestyle that Americans are accustomed to.

Republican sycophants are quick to jump up and down and say, “But Bush recently proposed alternative fuel sources, like ethanol and hydrogen cells!” Yes, but simply putting forth these ideas, and actually offering real and tangible incentives for companies to aggressively pursue these technologies are two different things. It’s a typical Bush strategy that I’ve become all too familiar with these past 5+ years – he puts forth an idea or suggests something, then later shrugs his shoulders and says, with a straight face that Congress isn’t doing anything about it. He counts on and usually is rewarded by the public’s two-week memory span. He then later substitutes his “idea” for “doing something about the problem.”

Remember Bush’s proposal a few years ago for the U.S. to have a manned mission to Mars? It’s a lofty and admirable goal for Americans to achieve. Too bad he didn’t have one suggestion or solution to how we would pay for the $100+ billion price tag. His proposal was greeted with so much enthusiasm, he failed to mention one word about his Mars mission proposal in his State of the Union speech just days later.

Time recently ran an entire series on global warming in the April 3, 2006 issue. The report contained a number of eye-popping statistics, not the least of which is this passage:

If everyone lived like the average Chinese or Indian, you wouldn’t be reading about global warming. On a per capita basis, China and India emit far less greenhouse gas than energy-efficient Japan, environmentally scrupulous Sweden and especially the gas-guzzling U.S. (The average American is responsible for 20 times as much CO2 emission annually as the average Indian.)

It makes me shake my head in amazement that other countries don’t resent us more than they do. It’s pretty breathtaking that we aren’t taking a leadership role in the world in curbing greenhouse gases, thereby cutting down on what could be humankind’s biggest scourge since the dawn of the nuclear age.

To be fair, the Clinton Administration deserves blame here, too. Following Kyoto’s creation in 1998, Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisors did a thorough analysis of the potential impact of the treaty on U.S. GDP. The conclusions were that GDP impact could be significant. I ask you, if sea levels rise 5 feet, 10 feet or more, what impact will that have not only on U.S. GDP, but all Americans and humankind?

Although Clinton deserves some blame, President Bush earns marks that are no better on global warming. In fact, his record is substantially worse. For beginners, his thoughts on Kyoto, as found on Wikipedia:

“This is a challenge that requires a 100 percent effort; ours, and the rest of the world's. The world's second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases is China. Yet, China was entirely exempted from the requirements of the Kyoto Protocol. India and Germany are among the top emitters. Yet, India was also exempt from Kyoto. . . . America's unwillingness to embrace a flawed treaty should not be read by our friends and allies as any abdication of responsibility. To the contrary, my administration is committed to a leadership role on the issue of climate change. …Our approach must be consistent with the long-term goal of stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere.”

So, Kyoto is seemingly dead – Clinton did not and Bush will never present Kyoto for ratification in the Senate. I’m not an expert on Kyoto, and of course an environmental treaty as far reaching as this one deserves careful consideration.

But, the U.S. should be showing much more leadership on global warming. Perhaps we could come up with our own alternative, or at least work on our own to drastically cut greenhouse gases? Bush simply throws his hands in the air, says the treaty is flawed, and then proceeds to pretty much ignore this growing threat.

Prior to the 2000 election, candidate Bush ran on a promise to make mandatory cuts in carbon dioxide (greenhouse) gases. After taking office, Bush proposed voluntary emission cutbacks by companies. This is akin to telling a drug addict, “I think you should stop, so I’m asking you to cut back on your crack cocaine use, but I’m not going to make you.” Yea, right.

The scary part about our lack of leadership on global warming is its effect on the two sleeping, but quickly awakening, economic tigers in the world – India and China. To be blunt, without even factoring in the U.S. contribution to greenhouses this century, China and India could quite literally hold the fate of the world in their hands. Ask yourself – how worried should they be about their emissions when the U.S. continues to stall and even deny that there is a real problem?

Put yourself in the positions of both India and China and consider the problem from their perspectives: The United States has been burning and belching fossil fuels into the atmosphere since the mid-to-late nineteenth century, while in the process getting rich and forming the world’s largest and most expansive economy. We’ve profited, polluted and pilfered. Fast-forward to now – it’s very obvious to just about everyone that the Earth is warming at a rapid rate, the bill for the environment is due, and we’re walking out on the check. Why should China or India have their economies stymied in the name of environmental recovery when we refuse to even adequately address the problem?

A few startling facts from Time’s report:

“Barbara Finamore, director of the National Resources Defense Council’s China Clean Energy Program, estimates that China’s total electricity demand will increase by 2,600 gigawatts by 2050, which is the equivalent of adding four 300-megawatt power plants every week for the next 45 years. India’s energy consumption rose 208% from 1980 to 2001, even faster than China’s, but nearly half the population still lacks regular access to electricity – a fact the government is working to change. ‘They’ll do what they can, but overall emissions are likely to rise much higher than they are now,’ says Johnathan Sinton, China analyst for IEA [International Energy Agency].”

Time also reports that “India’s greenhouse-gas emissions could rise 70% by 2025, and the increase in China’s emissions from 2000 to 2030 will nearly equal the increase from the entire industrialized world.” Frightened yet? You should be. This will not only affect our children, but their children, and their children, and their children. This is a planet-threatening problem, yet few people seem to take notice. But, the Indian and Chinese governments are taking notice at U.S. inaction. To wit, also from Time:

“‘Our issue is that, first and foremost, the U.S. needs to reduce its emissions,’ says Sunita Narain, director of the Center for Science and Environment in New Delhi. ‘It is unacceptable and immoral that the U.S. doesn’t take the lead on climate change.’”

It’s tough to disagree with him. Bush’s position is that developing nations should be made to curb their emissions. True, but we had no restraints when we were developing and experiencing an industrial revolution, so why should other countries? True, our industry boom was before anyone realized the drastic effects on the environment, but it’s not a stretch to see our government’s hypocrisy. We need to take the lead, and take it now. Discovering not only alternatives to fossil fuel, but also ways to reverse global warming is a much bigger undertaking than flying to the moon, curing Polio, and inventing nuclear weapons put together. In fact, it’s a much bigger undertaking than all of humankind’s inventions in history put together. No one on the plant is immune to global warming’s effects.

Frustrated at our government’s inaction? Turn your frustration into determination. Here’s a small list of things you can do to make a difference, and don’t say to yourself, “I’m just one person, what kind of difference can I possibly make?” Imagine if Jonas Salk felt that way, or Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. At the risk of sounding like a desk calendar, a 1,000-mile journey begins with one step. So, take these steps to limit your contribution to energy consumption, trash and pollution. Conserving water, waste, electricity or any natural resource has an impact on the manufacture of goods and environmental impact. Here’s a quick list of things I’m doing/trying to do as much as possible.

1. Grocery store plastic bags – reuse the ones you do get, and refuse a bag when you don’t need it. I know this sounds like a simple one, but these bags are made from petroleum, if I’m not mistaken, and think of how long they will sit in a landfill. Most grocery stores give you a few cents per bag with each shopping visit, so you can save dozens and even hundreds of bags a year simply by bringing in old ones. Ever go into a convenience store and they offer you a bag when you buy as little as a pack of gum? I experience this all the time, and I refuse a bag every time. If I absolutely need a bag, I reuse it. I read somewhere that the average person uses 250 of these bags a year. Imagine if you reused the ones you already have, while using maybe 50 new ones a year and you reuse them! It would make a big difference. Now, multiply that difference by millions of people, and hundreds of millions of bags could be saved a year.

2. Turn off those lights and lower/raise your thermostats for the season. I know, I know, easier said than done, but even a few degrees makes a difference. I’m not talking about when it’s 100 or 10 degrees outside, but in the moderate spring and fall seasons, wear a t-shirt to cool off or a sweater to warm up. Every bit helps. Also, consider energy-saving bulbs. Yes, they are a bit more expensive, but they last up to 5 times longer (some more) and use a fraction of the energy. Another energy saver: turn off your computer monitor. If you have to leave your computer up and running, use the energy saver mode, and turn off your monitor when you walk away.

3. Walk! I know, again, easier said than done, since I live in the city. But, do it whenever you can, or ride a bike. With gas skyrocketing (and we may never see, no I take that back, we will NEVER see $2 a gallon again), it makes all the sense in the world to hit the pavement when you can. It becomes surprisingly addictive once you get started. And I don’t need to talk about the benefits of walking – more exercise, savings in automobile costs, weight loss, etc.

4. When you buy your next car, pick one that is fuel-efficient. Hybrids are becoming all the rage. If I were buying a new car right now, it would be a Toyota Prius. Good looking, and amazing on gas. Better yet, take mass transit when you can. Coming to the city? Why not take the train? A word of caution about the “hybrid” label though – read the fine print. Like “organic” and other buzzwords, it’s often abused for the positive PR effect. Make sure if you are buying a hybrid, you truly are getting a hybrid with the benefit of significant fuel savings.

5. Purchase from companies who are being good corporate citizens in environmental ways – be it recycling, pollution, emissions, philanthropy, whatever. Hey, even Wal-Mart is becoming a bit greener now, and if that company can do it, just about any company can. It pays to do your homework.

6. Recycle. It’s so obvious, but it’s one of the best things you can do to prevent/reduce the manufacturing of new bottles, bags, cans, glass, paper, etc. On Earth, nothing happens in a vacuum. If more paper is recycled, in theory that reduces the number of trees felled to produce the paper… more trees means more absorption of carbon dioxide… which means a cooler Earth… etc. And once you think about it, there are sooo many things that can be recycled; mobile phones – take them to your nearest Verizon store, and they get refurbished and donated to Hopeline, an org. that gives mobile phones to victims of domestic violence; ink cartridges – take them to Staples and get $3 off of your next purchase (it doesn’t even have to be the purchase of another ink cartridge), etc. You get the idea – from computer monitors, old tires, appliances and clothing – chances are, most things have a way to be recycled or reused.

7. Get politically active and demand that global warming become an important issue in campaigns both big and small. The best way for politicians to hear your voice is with your vote. When elected leaders see that the electorate is taking the matter seriously, they will take it seriously. You can be heard not only by who you vote for, but by writing letters advocating recycling (or more of it) in your area, supporting mass transit, etc. Sitting around and complaining about it does nothing. I fell in love with a bumper sticker I saw the other day – “Quit Bitching and Start a Revolution.” Exactly right.

8. Join one or several of the many organizations dedicated to preserving and saving our environment. The list is endless. One site I found that I’m taking an interest in is Our Energy. It’s worth a look, but there are many others – Greenpeace and the Sierra Club to name a few. I just joined both – I want to put my beliefs into action. If you find more sites and/or organizations or have recommendations, please leave a comment at the end of this post and I will pass it along. And of course I will be writing more about global warming in future posts.

These are just a few of the things you can do, and it really does become addicting and gratifying once you start to find all of the little ways you can make a difference. Plus, it can be a real money saver to boot. Americans need to wake up and realize that we are having a significant impact on the environment, but if we all work together, we can help cool down global warming. Let’s lead by example and show the rest of the world how it’s done – most notably, China and India.