president – Page 9

Shameful neglect

Two editorials today ask two different, but equally important questions surrounding the scandal at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington.

The New York Times links the “shameful neglect of wounded soldiers” to the overall war effort, once again reminding its readers that an administration puffed up with its own power callously and unnecessarily sent American troops into battle without considering the consequences.

(T)he fundamental responsibility rests with the president and his former defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, who stubbornly insisted on going to war without sufficient resources — and then sought to hide the costs of their disastrous mistakes from the American public.

Is it any surprise that the war’s wounded have been hidden away in the shadows of moldy buildings by an administration that refused to let photographers take pictures of returning coffins? Or a White House that keeps claiming that victory in this failed and ever more costly war is always just a few more months away?

The paper goes on to say that the “president needs to learn that the horrors of this war can no longer be denied or hidden away.”

The Record offers this:

Once again, the Bush administration is unprepared for the aftereffects of its rush to war in Iraq. The veterans’ health system is obviously unable to cope with the huge strain of treating so many unforeseen casualties, many of whom will need care for the rest of their lives.

Like the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, this deplorable situation once again raises profound questions about the administration’s management of government agencies. The White House has sought to limit the cost of treating wounded veterans and has underfunded their care.

Is Walter Reed the tip of the iceberg? That’s what outraged Americans are asking, and that’s what Congress and independent investigations must find out.

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Guilty guilty guilty

Scooter Libby is looking at some jail time — unless President George W. Bush uncaps his pardon pen and signs his get-out-of-jail-free card.

And given the stakes here, that “unless” looms pretty large. (Josh Marshall says it all with this post.)

Consider: This was a trial about obstruction of justice and perjury that, despite the protestations of the conservative punditocracy, raised serious questions about the lengths to which this administration would go to protect the powers it has claimed for itself.

If the administration — via the vice president’s office — was willing to engage in the kind of unsavory activities that led to the indictment and conviction of Libby to protect its prerogatives, why wouldn’t the president pardon Libby to close off whatever trail is left?

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The long campaign

What if you ran for president and no one cared? Why, you’d probably drop out. Just ask former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack.

As silly as a story like this seems when we remain a full year before the first primary, it does raise some interesting questions, as Josh Marshall asks in this post from Talking Points Memo:

(A)rguably the big story so far in the 2008 cycle is just how fast the race is developing — how quickly frontrunners are being annointed, how soon formal announcements are being made, how quickly people are dropping out, etc.

And I’m curious how much of this sped up cycle is due to blogs and web media. I don’t mean to ask whether this is the ‘netroots’ flexing its muscle, though that’s an interesting question in itself. But the pre-primary presidential winnowing process is largely a matter of buzz and a feedback loop between buzz, organzing and fundraising. People generate buzz, they get supporters, they get more money, that leads to more buzz, etc. Or in other cases, people have a lot of money. So they look formidable. And they get supporters and buzz, etc.

We can argue over whether money is driving buzz or vice versa. But a lot of the pre-primary phase is this process of sampling, often with relatively small sets of people. And the perceptions of those samples pick up steam and often become self-fulfilling. So is it the web and the more rapid sampling it allows — partly in fundraising but much more in buzz — that’s ramping the process forward and making it so fast?

I don’t have any answers, personally, but it is worth thinking about — especially with the primary season being condensed in 2008.

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No duh

Why was the little dust up between the Clinton and Obama camps the other day such a big story? Isn’t this the kind of thing that usually happens during a presidential campaign? Did we really think that everyone was going to make nice when the stakes were so high?

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Conspiracy theories

Sometimes the shortest analyses are the best. Bob Rixon deconstructs, in a few words, Sen. Hillary Clinton’s offhanded smear of an unnamed Democratic opponent:

“To underscore a point, some people may be running who tell you we don’t face a real threat from terrorism,” she said. “I’m not one of them. We have serious enemies who want to do us serious harm.”

Rixon’s critique:

That’s a Cheneyism, the vague, off-handed smearish comment that holds up a frame with no photo in it. Hmm, who could she mean? Who’s the mystery idiot?

Clinton, of course, has been a round a while and knows how to play this skunky game — her “vast right-wing conspiracy” comment during her husband’s presidency may have been based in a level of truth, but was a vast overstatement designed to undercut criticism.

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