Who Believes Him?

"I wouldn't ask a mother or a dad -- I wouldn't put their son in harm's way if I didn't believe this was necessary for the security of the United States and the peace of the world. I strongly believe it, and I strongly believe we'll prevail. And I strongly believe that democracy will trump totalitarianism every time. That's what I believe. And those are the belief systems on which I'm making decisions that I believe will yield the peace."
-- George W. Bush, Cleveland, July 10, 2007
This "belief" thing runs alarmingly deep. In his Cleveland speech, he said "I believe" 75 times. Here are some of the other things he said he believes:.
"That's what I believe." Six times, to punctuate a point, he said it; "that's what I believe."
I can't help thinking that it's not just a rhetorical tic. In Bush's faith-based epistemology, the strongest possible justification for any action he takes is that he believes in it. Not that it's true; not that it's supported by evidence; not that it's consistent with the Constitution; not that it enforces the law; not that it's desired by the vast majority of the American people -- but that, like the Nicene Creed, he believes it.
Republicans often complain that Democrats want to criminalize policy differences. The truth is that the President has aggressively theologized policy differences. "Un roi, une loi, une foi" was the French monarchy's formulation of this anti-democratic idea: one king, one law, one faith.
It would be too generous to call Bush an ideologue; his beliefs (unlike Cheney's, or the Project for the New American Century) don't aspire to the poisonous coherence of neoconservatism. Instead, what Bush possesses is a narcissism that he markets as a civic religion. He believes he was elected as the Defender of the Faith, and that it is we who are accountable to him, rather than he who is accountable to us.
It was Thomas Jefferson who best described what's most pernicious about belief-based leadership: "It is always better to have no ideas than false ones; to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong."
Marty Kaplan
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CIA Said Instability Seemed 'Irreversible'
By Bob WoodwardWashington Post Staff WriterThursday, July 12, 2007;
Early on the morning of Nov. 13, 2006, members of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group gathered around a dark wooden conference table in the windowless Roosevelt Room of the White House.
For more than an hour, they listened to President Bush give what one panel member called a "Churchillian" vision of "victory" in Iraq and defend the country's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki. "A constitutional order is emerging," he said.

Later that morning, around the same conference table, CIA Director Michael V. Hayden painted a starkly different picture for members of the study group. Hayden said "the inability of the government to govern seems irreversible," adding that he could not "point to any milestone or checkpoint where we can turn this thing around," according to written records of his briefing and the recollections of six participants.
"The government is unable to govern," Hayden concluded. "We have spent a lot of energy and treasure creating a government that is balanced, and it cannot function."
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Anderson Cooper 360 with Michael Ware CNN Iraq coorespondent.
COOPER: Michael, I want to play something that Senator Lieberman said about the war in Iraq. Let's -- let's listen.SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN (D), CONNECTICUT: The war is not lost in Iraq. In fact, now American Iraqi security forces are winning. The enemy is on the run in Iraq. But, here in -- in Congress, in Washington, we seem to be, or some -- some members seem to be on the run, chased, I fear, by public opinion polls.

COOPER: Is the enemy on the run in Iraq, Michael?WARE: No, certainly not.And I think we need to be aware that it's enemies. I mean, America doesn't face just one opponent in this country, but a whole multitude, many of whom are becoming stronger, the longer the U.S. occupation here, or presence here, in Iraq continues. So, unfortunately, I'm afraid that Senator Lieberman has taken an excursion into fantasy.

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Powers I Had No Idea the President Had


WASHINGTON (AP) _ President Bush has ordered his former White House counsel, Harriet Miers, to defy a congressional subpoena and refuse to testify Thursday before a House panel investigating...

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Jonathan Schwarz:
Impeach Cheney
Today is the launch of ImpeachCheney.org. It’s an effort by Robert Greenwald’s Brave New Films and a big coalition of progressive organizations to try to put the impeachment of Cheney on the national agenda in a serious way. (I’m currently doing some work for After Downing Street, which is part of the effort.)
The first step is for as many people as possible to sign the Impeach Cheney petition. Then before long there will be further news, including fancy national spokespeople and further actions to take for those who want to get more involved. Those with blogs can start by posting these logos on their site.
So I strongly encourage you to go sign the petition now. In all of American history, has there ever been a government official who deserved impeachment more than Dick Cheney? Let’s get our act together and do it.
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McDermott calls for Cheney impeachment
Congressman Jim McDermott released a copy of a speech (not a letter as I originally wrote) he gave on the House floor today saying Vice President Dick Cheney should resign or face impeachment.
McDermott has not been among members of Congress who have already called for impeachment of Cheney and/or President George Bush. He says he will now sign on as a co-sponsor to H.R. 333, Rep. Dennis Kucinich's resolution — introduced in April — calling for impeachment of Cheney:
For months I have believed that impeachment was a dire course of action. Over these same months, I have seen the vice president repeatedly drive our nation into increasingly dire situations, in Iraq, in Iran, and within our own country as he tramples over the Constitution like it is a doormat.
For months, I have considered if America would best be served by bringing forth articles of impeachment against the vice president. I kept asking myself: Is the vice president's conduct that dire, because impeachment is the closest thing here is to internment on political death row.
McDermott says he has become convinced that impeachment is necessary because he claims Cheney has repeatedly held himself above the law.
Since the president permits this flagrant disregard for the Constitution, it is up to the Congress to act and defend the American people.
With each new revelation, America has seen only glints of what has been happening in total secrecy.
For all that we don't know, this much we do know: the vice president holds himself above the law. And, it is time for the Congress to enforce the law. I believe the evidence is overwhelming and articles of impeachment against the vice president should be drawn up.
McDermott's had advice for Cheney, too, if the vice president wants to resign:
Call it a medical condition; call it a political condition; call it what it is — the departure of a person who forgot that he works for the American people.

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Iraqi politicians call on civilians to arm themselves
By Robert H. Reid, Associated Press Writer
Published: 09 July 2007
Prominent Shiite and Sunni politicians called on Iraqi civilians to take up arms to defend themselves after a weekend of violence that claimed more than 220 lives, including 60 who died yesterday in a surge of bombings and shootings around Baghdad.
The calls reflect growing frustration with the inability of Iraqi security forces to prevent extremist attacks.
The weekend deaths included two American soldiers - one killed Sunday in a suicide bombing on the western outskirts and Baghdad and another who died in combat Saturday in Salahuddin province north of the capital, the US command said. Three soldiers were wounded in the Sunday blast.
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As CNN's Bill Schneider informs us, a majority of Americans think the Iraq war was a mistake. Indeed 62% of people think so. Sadly, however, I think our leaders lack the courage to communicate the magnitude of that mistake, its consequences, and most importantly, how that mistake came to be. Most of them - politicians and pundits alike - were complicit.