Just In Case

Just in case ... you thought the President and the administration had learned anything from their experiences in the last few years, his speech today proves otherwise.

Whole passages seemed recycled from speeches given before the invasion of Iraq, which has a strangely delusional feel in the context of what we now know. I'll post a link to the text.

According to the President, Saddam refused to disarm, so the United States did not choose war, Saddam did. We can't allow threats to fully materialize, or let bad men have weapons of mass destruction. We are bringing peace to Iraq.

(Oh, my goodness, he's actually using the 'Truman and Japan' comparison as I type. In public. I'm embarassed for my country.)

Just in case ... you though the President and the administration had learned anything from the uproar and the world condemnation over our use of torture, and were serious about working with John McCain to arrange some sort of compromise, the news from the Pentagon proves otherwise.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 13 - The Army has approved a new, classified set of interrogation methods that may complicate negotiations over legislation proposed by Senator John McCain to bar cruel and inhumane treatment of detainees in American custody, military officials said Tuesday.

The techniques are included in a 10-page classified addendum to a new Army field manual that was forwarded this week to Stephen A. Cambone, the under secretary of defense for intelligence policy, for final approval, they said.

The addendum provides dozens of examples and goes into exacting detail on what procedures may or may not be used, and in what circumstances. Army interrogators have never had a set of such specific guidelines that would help teach them how to walk right up to the line between legal and illegal interrogations.

Some military officials said the new guidelines could give the impression that the Army was pushing the limits on legal interrogation at the very moment when Mr. McCain, Republican of Arizona, is involved in intense three-way negotiations with the House and the Bush administration to prohibit the cruel treatment of prisoners.

In a high-level meeting at the Pentagon on Tuesday, some Army and other Pentagon officials raised concerns that Mr. McCain would be furious at what could appear to be a back-door effort to circumvent his intentions.

"This is a stick in McCain's eye," one official said. "It goes right up to the edge. He's not going to be comfortable with this."

Just in case ... you thought that all that talk about the danger of vastly expanded government surveillance powers was just hooey, and felt sure that law-abiding, God-fearing, peaceful Americans would be safe from having government agents compiling records of their activities, what cars they drive and who they communicate with.

WASHINGTON - A year ago, at a Quaker Meeting House in Lake Worth, Fla., a small group of activists met to plan a protest of military recruiting at local high schools. What they didn't know was that their meeting had come to the attention of the U.S. military.

A secret 400-page Defense Department document obtained by NBC News lists the Lake Worth meeting as a “threat” and one of more than 1,500 “suspicious incidents” across the country over a recent 10-month period. ...

Other documents obtained by NBC News show that the Defense Department is clearly increasing its domestic monitoring activities. One DOD briefing document stamped “secret” concludes: “[W]e have noted increased communication and encouragement between protest groups using the [I]nternet,” but no “significant connection” between incidents, such as “reoccurring instigators at protests” or “vehicle descriptions.”

The increased monitoring disturbs some military observers.

“It means that they’re actually collecting information about who’s at those protests, the descriptions of vehicles at those protests,” says [NBC News military analyst Bill] Arkin. “On the domestic level, this is unprecedented,” he says. “I think it's the beginning of enormous problems and enormous mischief for the military.”

This gives a new sense of importance to the efforts of Senator Russ Feingold on the Patriot Act renewal.

The White House has fought reasonable safeguards for constitutional freedoms every step of the way. It has resisted congressional oversight and often misled the public about its use of the Patriot Act. Now the Attorney General is arguing that the conference report is adequate "protection for civil liberties for all Americans." It isn't and, with your help, we can send it back to the drawing board.

The White House hasn't learned a thing, and has no intention of doing anything differently. Don't mistake the fact that the President actually took questions from his audience on Monday as a sign that he has any intention of listening to anyone. As was clear in his conversation with NBC's Brian Williams, the President is quite comfortable in his bubble, and quite determined to do just as he has always done.

President Bush: Whether or not it needed to happen, I'm still convinced it needed to happen.

Williams: You said again today if you had to do it all over again you'd do...

President Bush: I would.