Tracking Teh Crazie - Cruz And The Birthers!

Over at Talkingpointsmemo, Josh Marshall has been spending some time on Senator Ted Cruz' presidential eligibility (given that the Senator was born in Canada to an American mother).

For the record Marshall writes:

I can tell you Ted Cruz’s politics are awful. And having had significant life overlap with him I can tell you that at virtually every point in his life - at least from his late teens through mid-thirties (after that I have less evidence) - he’s quickly developed a reputation as a raging a-hole. His new workplace - the Senate of the United States - just continues the pattern. But he’s definitely a ‘natural born’ citizen and thus constitutionally qualified to serve as President of the United States.

And for the record I am total agreement with Marshall on this.

That's not to say that that it's not great fun to watch Cruz squirm on his own eligibility question.  If there's no issue about his eligibility then why did he feel it necessary to release his birth certificate?  Or renounce his Canadian citizenship?

This is why.  From World Net Daily (aka birther central):

Conservative icon, radio host and author of the No. 1 book in the country right now, Mark Levin said he’s sick of “birthers” after encountering a particularly “obnoxious” one at a hot, crowded book-signing event.

The man, whom Levin described as “disrespectful” toward him and the other fans, reportedly pointed at Levin and told him he was wrong in concluding that Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, is eligible to be president.

The issue of constitutional eligibility, which reached the U.S. Supreme Court multiple times during Barack Obama’s runup to the White House, now is surging again, only the target this time is Cruz, who was born in Canada to an American mother and a Cuban father.

But you'll note the attack is not coming from the left (see Josh Marshall, above) but from the birthers now confronting other conservatives (like Levin) using the same "logic" that they used to prop up their previous Obama-birther frenzy.

For example, let's look at the "dual citizenship" part of the story - from the flawed camera obscura that is Jerome Corsi:

The State Department is maintaining a “counter-misinformation” page on an America.gov blog that attempts to “debunk a conspiracy theory” that President Obama was not born in the United States, as if the topic were equivalent to believing space aliens visit Earth in flying saucers.

However, in the attempt to debunk the Obama birth-certificate controversy, the State Department author confirmed Obama was a dual citizen of the U.K. and the U.S. from 1961 to 1963 and a dual citizen of Kenya and the U.S. from 1963 to 1982, because his father was a Kenyan citizen when Obama was born in 1961.

In a number of court cases challenging Obama’s eligibility, dual citizenship has been raised as a factor that could compromise his “natural born” status under Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution. The cases argue dual citizenship would make Obama ineligible even if documentary evidence were shown the public, such as the hospital-issued long-form birth certificate that indicates the place of his birth and the name of the attending physician. [Emphasis added.]

It's the same for the "American mother gives birth abroad" side.  If it didn't work for Obama then how can a true American (like the one who confronted Levin) think it's OK for anyone else?

This has been the birther discourse for years.  We shouldn't be surprised that they're going after one of their own.

Funny how that works out, eh?

Josh Marshall on Yesterday's Primary

Gen Petraeus This Week - Some Things to Keep In Mind

First there's this from the Washington Post by Karen DeYoung.

The U.S. military's claim that violence has decreased sharply in Iraq in recent months has come under scrutiny from many experts within and outside the government, who contend that some of the underlying statistics are questionable and selectively ignore negative trends.

Reductions in violence form the centerpiece of the Bush administration's claim that its war strategy is working. In congressional testimony Monday, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, is expected to cite a 75 percent decrease in sectarian attacks. According to senior U.S. military officials in Baghdad, overall attacks in Iraq were down to 960 a week in August, compared with 1,700 a week in June, and civilian casualties had fallen 17 percent between December 2006 and last month. Unofficial Iraqi figures show a similar decrease.

Others who have looked at the full range of U.S. government statistics on violence, however, accuse the military of cherry-picking positive indicators and caution that the numbers -- most of which are classified -- are often confusing and contradictory. "Let's just say that there are several different sources within the administration on violence, and those sources do not agree," Comptroller General David Walker told Congress on Tuesday in releasing a new Government Accountability Office report on Iraq.

Senior U.S. officers in Baghdad disputed the accuracy and conclusions of the largely negative GAO report, which they said had adopted a flawed counting methodology used by the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency. Many of those conclusions were also reflected in last month's pessimistic National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq.

Which triggered this analysis from Josh Marshall:

DeYoung's article gives us a couple bits of information that help us start to unravel the mystery. First, the military command in Baghdad is in a spat with the GAO, which the generals accuse of using a flawed methodology. (GAO's analysis basically disagreed with them on all particulars.) DeYoung's piece includes the very telling detail that the GAO is using the same methodology that the CIA and the DIA favor. So it would seem that it's not only a question of the government versus outside observers. The military command in Baghdad sounds like it's completely isolated even within the US government on how to compute the numbers.

More recently, Marshall pointed out that Petraeus' methology itself is classified:

In other words, it's not just a matter of getting the numbers from Petraeus and his staff and deciding whether you believe them or not. They won't even tell us what the numbers are -- let alone how they came up with them. All they'll say is that they're very good. Or in some cases that there's X percentage drop over the course of the surge. Or an isolated number here or there.

But actual hard numbers? Going back over the last couple years? For some reason we're not allowed to see those.

Perhaps Petraeus and Crocker will sit down tomorrow and share all this data as part of their presentation. But if not, this is the issue. What possible security need is served by keeping this data secret? And with all we've been through, can anyone believe that if the numbers were solid that we'd wouldn't be being buried in data right now? [emphasis added]

Much like the "proof" that Saddam actually had WMD just before the invasion. That he somehow (by truck convoy or plane - the story keeps shifting) got them safely tucked away in the Bekaa valley in Syria. Jack Kelly had a whole column on it February, 2006 where he ends things with a tart:

Those who have bet their political futures that Saddam had no WMD may be starting to sweat.

If it's true and the primary cause of dubya's war was verified, then we certainly would have been hearing about it from all levels of the administration.

Since we didn't, it's safe to assume the whole Bekaa Valley story is crap.

And since we're not hearing solid numbers heading up to Petraeus' speaking to Congress, Josh Marshall is probably right, something's wrong.

And meanwhile the number of dead continue to rise.

Bob Schieffer's commentary is a good place to end.

For months now, the administration has been telling us, let's wait until we hear from General Petraeus before we decide where to go next in Iraq.

Well, tomorrow we hear.

The atmosphere is much like the time during the Vietnam War, when the commander then, General William Westmoreland, was brought home to answer the question: Are we winning?

He assured us we were, and the government offered a blizzard of statistics to back him up. They weren't wrong. They were just irrelevant.

All we really learned then is that we were asking the wrong question. When we have to ask, "are we winning?" we're probably losing. Victory is always obvious.

The right question would have been: Is it worth the cost?

America eventually concluded it was not, and we left the war.

Let me preempt that question to General Petraeus. We haven't lost this war, but we're not winning it. We're hanging on. Victory would be obvious. Iraqi families would be strolling the streets of Baghdad, and Osama bin Laden would be walking out of a cave somewhere with his hands up.

Instead of that question, let's hope the general will be asked what we so often forgot during Vietnam: Is this worth the cost in lives and money?

And here's a follow-up: When the Iraqi parliament went on vacation during August, I gave up on trying to help them find a way to have an effective government. They have to do that. What we need to know now is whether keeping a large American military force in Iraq is the best way to make America safer.

To me, that's the real question.

I wonder if any member of Congress will be asking Gen Petraeus whether dubya's war is worth the cost in lives and money.

Josh Marshall on Impeachment

Over at Talkingpointsmemo, Josh Marshall has an interesting posting on impeachment. In the spirit of full disclosure and as if it's not at all obvious let me reiterate that I'm all for it. Josh ain't so sure. His reasons:

Minor reasons are that it's late in the president's term and that I think impeachment itself is toxic to our political system -- though it can be less toxic than the high officials thrown from office. My key reason, though, is that Congress at present can't even get to the relatively low threshold of votes required to force the president's hand on Iraq.

Of course, he's right. And it's shameful that Congress hasn't been able to flex its constitutional muscles and force dubya's hand on his bloody war. But that doesn't mean the push for impeachment should stop. Someone has to be out front pushing for what's right and what's constitutional. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Josh's faith in his decision has been faltering a little and he gives some reasons:

This was the exchange in which Gonzales simply refused to answer one of Sen. Schumer's questions -- didn't say he didn't remember, didn't invoke a privilege, just said, No. Not going to discuss that with you. Move on to the next question.

It's not that this one incident is a matter of such consequence in and of itself -- though I would say it's pretty consequential. But it captures pretty fully and in one small nugget the terrain the White House is now dragging us on to.

As I explained in that post, testifying before Congress is like testifying in a court of law. The questions aren't voluntary. You have to answer every one. You can invoke a privilege and the court's will decide whether the argument has merit. But no one can simply decline to answer a question. And yet this is exactly what Gonzales did.

And in general:

Without going into all the specifics, I think we are now moving into a situation where the White House, on various fronts, is openly ignoring the constitution, acting as though not just the law but the constitution itself, which is the fundamental law from which all the statutes gain their force and legitimacy, doesn't apply to them.

If that is allowed to continue, the defiance will congeal into precedent. And the whole structure of our system of government will be permanently changed.

Which is precisely my point. Let's assume the next president is a Democrat, would any Republican want the next administration to ignore the constitution as flippantly and as flagrantly as this one does? The fact that they're still protecting their president, and placing party above the nation is evidence enough of the Republicans' political crudity.

Eventually some compromise will take place and what it will entail no one can say at this point but there's a large chunk of the American People itching for impeachment right now. For example, in the last few days, a the Takoma Park city council (are you reading this, Council President Shields?) voted to call for the impeachment of Bush and Cheney. There are 81 other municipalities (at this point) with similar resolutions passed.

If everyone screaming "Impeach" just closed up shop and went home because there aren't enough votes in the Congress, then what would become of the inevitable compromise?

Even if the bastards are never impeached, pushing for it will guarantee something that might not happen if those collective voices were not raised.

Good Summary

I know I haven't written much about the administrations firings of the US Attorneys - it's too complicated, it's too legalese filled, etc.

Josh Marshall has a good summary at The Hill:

It now seems clear that the U.S. attorney firing story has blossomed into a full-blown scandal. Two of the eight fired attorneys have alleged specific instances in which members of Congress or their staffs tried to goad them into dropping indictments against Democrats. One of the longest-serving members of the Senate, Pete Domenici (R) of New Mexico, has just hired a lawyer to defend his apparent role in trying to get former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias to indict a New Mexico state Democrat to help his protégé Rep. Heather Wilson (R) hold on to her seat in last November’s election.

There will be plenty of time to speculate about the administration’s motives in this affair and scope out new paths for the expanding investigation. But the real story behind the quickening pace of revelations over the last six weeks is something that is easy to miss: old-fashioned congressional oversight.

So much of what the Bush administration has been able to get away with over the last six years has been possible only because — with only a brief exception — Congress has not only been in the hands of the president’s party but ruled by a leadership focused almost entirely on covering up presidential wrongdoing rather than exercising meaningful oversight of the executive branch.

Just love that word: oversight.