Ben Sargent & His Damn Pitchers!

A picture is worth a thousand words? Poor W. Ben Sargent and Garry Trudeau won't give him a break. (He used up all of those at Andover, Yale, and Harvard.) If this be (fair & balanced) treason, make the most of it.

Whatever It Takes, Part II

First, W calls for $87 BILLION to rebuild Afghanistan and Iraq. More than the feds spend on education. Now, Governor Goodhair calls a THIRD Special Session ($1.7 MILLION per Special Session) to fulfill Tom (The Hammer) DeLay's quest for Identity politics in Texas. Majority Leader DeLay is hellbent to produce a Republican majority in the Texas delegation in the House of Representatives. Actually, Congressman DeLay pursues Republican hegemony now, tomorrow, and forever. Am I exaggerating? The story I heard goes like this: Tom DeLay lights up a stogie in the House restaurant, and a waiter comes over and says, "I'm sorry, sir, but this is a government building, and no smoking is permitted." To which Mr. DeLay, House majority leader extraordinaire, barks, I am the government. And this is the idiot who is behind the expenditure of $5.1 MILLION in public funds for 3 Special Sessions of the Texas Legislature. W, The Hammer, and Goodhair: The Dream Team. It's my nightmare. If this be (fair & balanced) treason, make the most of it.

[x ABCNEWS.com]
Texas Governor Calls a Third Special Session to Redraw Congressional Districts

The Associated Press

AUSTIN, Texas Sept. 9 —

Republican Gov. Rick Perry on Tuesday called a third special session of the Legislature to redraw Texas' congressional districts after the Democrats thwarted two previous attempts by fleeing the state. Perry said the session would begin on Monday.

During two previous GOP efforts to redraw Texas' congressional map, Democratic lawmakers slipped across the state line, beyond the reach of the law in the Lone State State, depriving the Republicans of the quorum needed to conduct business.

September 11th

The governor's announcement came after 10 Senate Democrats who have been in New Mexico boycotting the Legislature relented and announced that they would return to Texas and take part in an expected third special session.

Eleven Democrats in all slipped across state lines July 28 and stayed away for about six weeks to block a vote on redistricting. But one of the 11, Sen. John Whitmire of Houston, defected last week and said he would attend another special session if the governor called one.

That left the 10 remaining Democrats without the numbers to block a quorum.

"If (Whitmire) makes a quorum, then we need to be on the Senate floor," state Sen. Judith Zaffirini said.

Twenty-one of the Senate's 31 members must be present for business to be conducted.

The senators who remained out of state said they would attend a federal court hearing in Laredo on Thursday in the lawsuit they filed. The court case alleges Republican legislative leaders have violated the Voting Rights Act and the Democrats' rights to political free speech.

Democrats have a 17-15 majority in the current Texas congressional delegation. The GOP is pushing plans that would give them as many as 21 seats.

The push to redraw congressional districts during an off-census year has brought cries from the Democrats that the Republicans are not playing fair. U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas has played a major role in pushing for the redistricting in his home state.

Efforts to address redistricting have failed three times this year during the Legislature's regular session and during two special sessions.

During the regular session, the bill failed when more than 50 Democratic House members fled to Oklahoma.

Republican Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, who presides over the Senate, has said he expects the upcoming session to last about two to three weeks.

Copyright © 2003 ABCNEWS

Whatever It Takes?

This Op-Ed piece is a little better than William Safire's dismissive merchants of dismay, but the key question is whether national resolve will hold firm if violence in Iraq does not abate. I am afraid that W has bitten off more than he can chew. Most commentators gloss over the cut-and-run response of the Reaganites after the truck bombing of the U. S. Marine encampment in Beirut in the early 1980s. Iraq is making the losses in Beirut look like a Sunday School picnic. Whatever it takes. Bring 'em on. Mission accomplished. Where are the WMD? Where is the Dickster? Vice President Cheney is as invisible as Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. So many questions, so few answers. $87B? The casualties are approaching 500. If this be (fair & balanced) treason, make the most of it.

[x NYTimes]
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Whatever It Takes
By DAVID BROOKS

The Bush administration has the most infuriating way of changing its mind. The leading Bushies almost never admit serious mistakes. They never acknowledge that they are listening to their critics. They never even admit they are shifting course. They don these facial expressions suggesting calm omniscience while down below their legs are doing the fox trot in six different directions.

Sunday night's presidential speech was a perfect example. The policy ideas Bush sketched out represent such a striking series of policy shifts they amount to a virtual relaunching of the efforts to rebuild Iraq. Yet the president unveiled them as if they were stately extensions of the policies that commenced on Sept. 11, 2001.

Fortunately, while in public members of the administration emphasize their own incredible foresight, in private they are able to face unpleasant facts and pivot in response. Sometime around the middle of August, while the president was on the ranch, members of the Bush team must have done a candid and scathing review of how things were going in Iraq.

This was the time, remember, when leading Republicans were falling out of love with Donald Rumsfeld. They were outraged with Rumsfeld's unwillingness to even consider the possibility that the U.S. might need more troops in Iraq and a much bigger Army over all. Several Republicans were also coming to doubt the competence of the people running Iraq policy. While on visits to Baghdad, they were finding that civilian reconstruction efforts were absurdly underfinanced and understaffed. What's more, there were no Iraqis in Paul Bremer's administrative headquarters. The Iraqi Governing Council had been appointed, but its members were being treated like figureheads.

By the time the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad was bombed on Aug. 19, President Bush was willing to strike out on a new course. It was in a phone call that day with Condoleezza Rice, a close Bush adviser reports, that Bush observed that the tragedy of the bombing might be turned into an opportunity to internationalize the rebuilding effort. Colin Powell was dispatched to talk with Kofi Annan about a resolution authorizing a greater U.N. role. Annan was receptive.

The decision to go to the U.N. is not the most important policy revision Bush executed. The coming U.N. debate will give a lot of second-tier powers the chance to preen about sending troops they don't have and making contributions they can't afford, but nobody should fool themselves into thinking it is in any way crucial to the region. Powell has estimated there may be a mere 10,000 to 15,000 additional international troops. Some technocrats from the Sorbonne may supplement the ones from Johns Hopkins, but the U.N. offensive is a long journey for only a modest reward.

The truly important initiatives Bush launched were, first, to sharply increase the level of spending on Iraq, and therefore increase the likelihood that major infrastructure problems will be addressed. With this, Bush is not only taking on the antiwar Democrats, but also the so far silent but oh-so-sullen fiscal conservatives in his own party.

Second, Bush has finally signaled that the U.S. is going to hand over real authority to newly selected Iraqi ministers. Yesterday, Bremer released a seven-step process for handing power back to the Iraqis that reads like a treatment program for Imperialists Anonymous. If this process is carried out, Americans administrators will be serving Iraqi executives, not the other way around.

Some close advisers suspect the violence may not abate in Iraq until early next year, and it will be interesting to see whether Americans can sustain their morale over that time. Still, as Bush makes these pivots, I'm reminded of the way Ronald Reagan made his amazing policy shifts at the end of the cold war, some of which outraged liberals (Reykjavik) and some of which outraged conservatives (the arms control treaties with Mikhail Gorbachev). Presidents tend to be ruthless opportunists, no matter how ideological they appear. Even as he announced his strategy on Sunday night, Bush left open the possibility that he might be compelled to shift again and send in more U.S. troops if circumstances warrant.

The essential news is that Bush will do whatever it takes to prevail, and senior members of his administration are capable of looking honestly at their mistakes. You will just never be able to get any of them to admit publicly they've ever made any.

Copyright © 2003 The New York Times Company