The Dubai Debacle, Iraq and the Senate

Well, I've been away from the keyboard for a couple days and all hell's a bustin' loose. (With a hearty tip of the Hat to KISS) .

First you've got GOPers running from the President like rat-fuckers desserting a burning ship on the Dubai Debacle. It even looks like Homeland Security objected, Micheal Chertoff didn't know and John Snow was AWOL on the deal to sell six - no, wait make that Twenty-ONE - U.S. Ports to DPW. Rassmussen's latest poll shows that only 17% of Americans support the Dubai Deal. John Podheretz is about to burst a blood-vessel as he notes that Democrats are now polling better than the President (43 to 41%) on National Security. Oi Vey!

It looks to me like people are starting to wake-up to the reality that indescriminate torture and illegal spying on innocent American citizens does not make you tough guy on terrorism when you literally give the keys to the kindom away to the ownwer of one of Bin Laden's favorite Bed and Breakfast outfits.

Presidential Puppeteer Karl "Turd-blossom" Rove can see the writing on the rapidly approaching wall and is back-peddling furiously, but the Pentagon and NSA head Stephan Hadley are diggin in. This is gonna get messy folks.

Speaking of National Security nightmares, the readiness of Iraqi troops is actually going in reverse - From CNN:

Pentagon: Iraqi troops downgraded
No Iraqi battalion capable of fighting without U.S. support

The only Iraqi battalion capable of fighting without U.S. support has been downgraded to a level requiring them to fight with American troops backing them up, the Pentagon said Friday.

The battalion, made up of 700 to 800 Iraqi Army soldiers, has repeatedly been offered by the U.S. as an example of the growing independence of the Iraqi military.

The competence of the Iraqi military has been cited as a key factor in when U.S. troops will be able to return home.

It's gotten so bad that even Bully O'Leily when he's not trying to get Keith Olberman fired, has decided to join the ranks of the "cowards and traitors" such as Howard Dean, John Murtha, and William F. Buckley and is now calling for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq

During the February 20 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Bill O'Reilly suggested that the United States "hand over everything to the Iraqis as fast as humanly possible" because "[t]here are so many nuts in the country -- so many crazies -- that we can't control them." O'Reilly then claimed that the "big mistake" was actually "the crazy-people underestimation."

Meanwhile, Sen Rockefeller is calling Bullshit on CIA Director Porter Goss's latest conniption fit over NSA leaking since the Vice-Presidents Office has been leaking like a week-old pair of Depends(tm) for years.

I am surprised and puzzled, however, that Director Goss chose to lay the blame for this damage on what he describes as misguided whistleblowers. Clearly "leaks" and damaging revelations of intelligence sources and methods are generated primarily by Executive Branch officials pushing a particular policy, and not by the rank-and-file employees of the intelligence agencies.

For confirmation we need look no further than press reports from the past few days. On February 9th, the National Journal reported that I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby told a grand jury that he was "authorized" by Vice President Cheney and other White House superiors to disclose classified information from a National Intelligence Estimate to the press to defend the Administration's use of pre-war intelligence in making the case to go to war in Iraq.

This blatant abuse of intelligence information for political purposes is inexcusable, but all too common. Throughout the period leading up to the Iraq war the Administration selectively declassified or leaked information related to Iraq's acquisition of aluminum tubes, the alleged purchase uranium, the non-existent operational connection between Iraq and al Qaeda, and numerous other issues.

All of this has Harry Reid ready to do the Happy Dance in Nevada.

RENO, Nev. (AP) - Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said Friday that if midterm elections were held today Democrats would win the five seats they need to draw even in the Senate, due largely to the Bush administration's "general incompetence" at home and abroad. [...]

Reid said polls show Democrats winning Republican-held seats in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Montana, Missouri and Rhode Island.

"And we have good shots in Arizona and Tennessee," he said. "If elections were held today, we'd pick up five seats. The Senate would be 50-50. "

Perhaps by November we'll be looking at picking up more than five seats in the Senate.... and perhaps 15 to 20 in the House. Not a bad week, IMO.

Vyan