Bush congratulates his new Secretary of Education, longtime collaborator, Margaret Spellings.

And GH called her a “darling of Dick Cheney.”

They're very, very close," said Sandy Kress, a lawyer who worked at the White House for Spellings.

Jobs at the Bush Administration are turning over faster than at a Taco Bell.  While it is routine for cabinet positions to change hands during a second term at the White House, the rapid departure of so many cabinet officials so soon after the election is disconcerting.  Something is rotten in the state of our union.

During a time when we are supposed to be fighting a war on terror, the offices of Attorney General, Secretary of State, and National Security Advisor have all become vacant.  Moreover, these departures came shortly after a complete overhaul of the CIA was underway.  Only the Pentagon leadership has heretofore been spared of major change, and it wouldn't surprise me to see Donald Rumsfeld soon saddle up and ride toward the sunset for greener corporate pastures.

To those electors who voted for Bush not because of “moral values,” but because they placed greater trust in him to fight the war on terror, I ask the following: Aren't you a bit concerned by this rapid turnover in the middle of a major offensive in Iraq?  Do you not find it worrisome that officials in clandestine operations at the CIA have resigned so shortly after we received that nice little public service announcement from Osama?

But most importantly, are you not the least bit concerned that Bush is packing his entire cabinet with sycophants handpicked by Dick Cheney?  We now know exactly what Bush meant when he dodged the salient final question in the “Town Hall” debate in Missouri by admitting that the only mistakes he made as President were in some of his appointments.  Bush is sorry only for not packing his cabinet with like-minded ideologues who would never question any decision made by Dick Cheney and rubber-stamped by Bush. 

The President's pick to replace departing Secretary of Education Rod Paige tips his hand.  By choosing Margaret Spellings to head the Department of Education, Bush is attempting to surround himself with only the most loyal of servants.  Spellings is a darling of Dick Cheney and one of the architects of the miserable No Child Left Behind Act.  She proved her loyalty while faithfully serving Governor Dubya for six years in Texas.  Her appointment adds to the growing gang of lackeys Bush has assembled: Goss, Gonzales, and Rice.  

As a result, no longer will there be policy debates within the White House.  No longer will there be embarrassing leaks damaging the reputation of the Administration.  No longer will there be inconsistent messages sent by Administration officials.  No longer will any cabinet official question a decision made by Cheney and Bush, whether it be related to war, the economy, domestic or foreign policy.  Who needs a devil's advocate when God is on the President's side?

If Bush gets his way, the only folks who will remain - from the insular rooms of the West Wing to Capitol Hill, from the Pentagon to CIA Headquarters in Langley, and in all the Federal Agencies that align Constitution and Independence Avenues - are those bobbleheads who have sworn the oath of loyalty to Bush the Fuhrer.

What this means, folks, is that Bush is not at all concerned about building his legacy.  He is solely concerned with staying the disastrous course he began four years ago and making sure that any blunders get covered up.

No doubt the worthless media-run propaganda machine will comply.

On Monday, RW compared the Bush Administration to a sinking ship.  Despite his arrogant claims of having a mandate, Bush can feel the water rising at his feet.  To illustrate, the son of a former head of the CIA has lost the respect and support of the CIA leadership, and the embarrassing details are coming to light.  Thus, Bush has climbed board upon a life raft for salvation.  Goss, Rice, Gonzales, and Spellings have joined him.  Over the next several weeks, Bush, desperately seeking support, will continue to grab hold of more lackeys.

Soon Bush will have a life raft filled with spineless yes men and women.  But a life raft can only hold so much weight before it capsizes.  And as Cheney and Bush continue their pathological bent for making horrible decisions, the weight from the unquestioning support of Cheney-Bush's lackeys will eventually sink the raft.

When this happens, who will save all of us from drowning?

91 U.S. soldiers dead in Iraq this month.  We are only halfway through the month.  We're heading for the deadliest month ever at a rapid pace. 

The president's of the news divisions of the three major networks met and took questions yesterday.  They agreed that:

in retrospect, they should have more aggressively questioned the Bush administration's grounds for invading Iraq in the spring of 2003.

"Simply stated, we let down the American people on weapons of mass destruction, and I sincerely regret that," Westin said.

Two weeks after the election, its a little late boys, a little late. 

Interested in the reporter at the center of the Marine Shooting story?  His name is Kevin Sites and he has a blog.

Patrick Farley brings his many gifts to a new online Graphic Novel:  Mother of All Bombs.

LA Times reports that of the over 1,000 persons detained by U.S. forces in Fallujah, only 15 are non-Iraqi.  If we don't smell the coffee on this one and realize that the problem is that we haven't won the hearts and minds of ordinary Iraqis, success will always elude us.

Wholesale prices up 1.7% in October.  The highest one-month increase in over 14 years.

Make trouble, fail, make trouble again, fail again . . . till their doom

War is the continuation of politics." In this sense war is politics and war itself is a political action; since ancient times there has never been a war that did not have a political character....
Chairman Mao. 

We need new direction in Iraq right now.  Some big political move--something.  Today  Zarqawi 's chilling vision of the war was put out for all too see:

"The war is very long, and always think of this as the beginning,''

These guys are good.  Its time to stop underestimating them and do something.

Can't say we didn't tell you so.

An exhausted Marine cracks and kills a wounded insurgent while NBC's camera's roll.  These types of incidents are bound to happen and need to be punished.  Of course it will be too late.  Any benefits to be found from striking at Fallujah will quickly melt away in the endless al Jazzera repeats of this little bit of footage.

Its the fault of the leaders in the end.  Without a political strategy in place to win the peace, the inevitable errors of a few lead to poltical defeat after political defeat.  When they write the history of this war they will look to this incident as a turning point. 

People, our leadership is lost.  We must hang on tight for the next four years.  Eventually the dawn will come. 

The Bush Administration shake-ups mean only one thing--the hand of Vice-President Cheney has been strengthened immensely.  The departure of people not closely tied to the President and with some independent power base can only strengthen those that have already created their power base.

In short, it means that Dick Cheney will now have complete control over the foreign policy of the United States.  At the beginning of the administration, it was theorized that the Cheney-Rumsfeld axis was opposed to Colin Powell at State.  The real unknown was Condi Rice.  Experts wondered aloud if she would connect with Powell to counterbalance the “Vulcans” or whether she would chart a middle course or even side with the hawks. 

In the run up to the Iraq war it became clear that Condi was going to side with the hawks.  Powell was isolated, and a second vote at the U.N. Security Council was dropped before the folly of the Iraq war.

Now Powell is on the way out.  The only persons left at the foreign policy apex are Rice, Cheney and Rumsfeld.  Rice, a weak manager at the best of times, will see herself completely isolated at State and a mere puppet of the powers that be, Cheney and Rumsfeld.  Expect both to be in the driver's seat of U.S. foreign policy for some time to come.

The result is not unexpected.  The two expert bureaucratic warriors have long given one another a hand up in the infighting their presence has provoked.  Masters of Beltway power, they have climbed steadily to the top, shoving aside many qualified leaders who lacked the dolchstoss skills of these two virtuosos of the art. 

What does this mean?  More bone-headed foreign policy moves and an expanding quagmire in the Middle East. 

Update Tuesday 11:20 AM: Slate's Fred Kaplan agrees--a win for Cheney.

Colin Powell resigning.
Agriculture Secretary Ann Venneman resigning. 
Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham resigning.

What's that about a sinking ship? 

How far we've come in these later days. . .

Ich schwöre bei Gott diesen heiligen Eid, daß ich dem Führer des Deutschen Reiches und Volkes Adolf Hitler, dem Oberbefehlshaber der Wehrmacht, unbedingten Gehorsam leisten und als tapferer Soldat bereit sein will, jederzeit für diesen Eid mein Leben einzusetzen.

New CIA director Porter Goss is purging the CIA of “officers disloyal to Bush.” 

Normally, I'm not the protesting type, but this has a beauty and simplicity which is undeniable.

. . .of the country.  From quasi-socialist fighter to Bush shill.  My what a few years will do to a man.

Rod Paige is resigning as Secretary of Education.  We'll see if he's volunteering to fight real terrorists.

Ashcroft thinks judges shouldn't question Bush's wartime decisions.

Ashcroft describes his the nature of his thankless job working against pornography.

Think again.  Insurgents have Mosul under siege.  Insurgents in Fallujah hide in a city of 250,000 people.  Mosul is nearly seven times larger.  Which would you rather hide in?  To paraphrase Chairman Mao, The insurgents are like fishes and the people the ocean. Fishes cannot live without the ocean.  Which ocean would you rather swim in?  

Two words: Copper Green.

New Microsoft search service rocks!  How do I know?  Because a search for “iron mouth” ranks us number one.

The Death Star  White House, January 2001

Princess Leia Princess Paul O'Neill : But Alderaan Iraq is peaceful! We have no weapons terrorists, you can't possibly...
Governor Tarkin Grand Moff Rumsfeld: [impatiently] Would you prefer another target, a military terrorist target? Then name the system country! I grow tired of asking this so it'll be the last time: Where is the rebel terrorist base?
Princess Leia Princess Paul O'Neill : Dantooine Afghanistan. They're on Dantooine in Afghanistan.
Governor Tarkin Grand Moff Rumsfeld: There. See, Lord Vader Cheney, she can be reasonable. Continue with the operation. You may fire invade when ready.
Princess Leia Princess Paul O'Neill: What?
Governor Tarkin Grand Moff Rumsfeld: You're far too trusting. Dantooine Afghanistan is too remote to make an effective demonstration - but don't worry; we'll deal with your rebel friends soon enough.

Apparently, our advance into Fallujah is appropriately named:

There has been less organized resistance than expected so far, said Lt. Col. Pete Newell with Task Force 22 of the 1st Infantry Division.

Military officials have said 3,000 to 5,000 insurgents may be inside the city, but they acknowledge many may have slipped away amid widespread reports that an offensive was coming.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have placed between 10,000 and 15,000 of our finest into this battle and apparently we will end up killing about 200 people by the end of it.  Looks like another stunning victory for George W. Bush.  

Update: Bullet Proof Vest Seized!

Update: Enemy Fighters long gone:

We believe most of the al-Zarqawi senior leadership has departed," one military source said.

Another reported:

“Our scout ships have reached Dantooine Fallujah. They found the remains of a Rebel base, but they estimate that it has been deserted for some time. They are now conducting an extensive search of the surrounding systems.”

The initial conventional wisdom on the election was that the Democrats lost because they did not reach out to so-called “values voters,” middle and working class people whose economic interests lied with the Democratic Party, but who agreed with the moral vision of the Republican Party.  No doubt some of these voters exist, but it seems that this story is being overplayed.

Indeed, as Andrew Sullivan pointed out yesterday, when the numbers are examined, it appears that “values”  played less of a role in this election than in past elections.  Seems shocking doesn't it?  Not really.

Indeed, if the election was lost on anything, it was that the Democratic Party's viewpoint on the war in Iraq couldn't be stomached by the majority of the American population.  The position of the party was that Iraq was the “wrong war,” that the American people had been deceived into believing that a war against Iraq was an integral part of the War on Terror. 

But accepting this position meant that Americans would have to accept two propositions which they simply could not take: (1) that the people of this country had accepted a blatant lie and happily marched off to war; (2) and that America was therefore, in some sense engaged in an unjust war.

Accepting the first position, that Americans had been duped into supporting the war was made harder because it was so obviously true.  Indeed, the fact that the WMD lie was obvious to all made the proposition harder to swallow.  No one wants to accept that they have been completely duped and should have know better.  Accepting Bush's obvious falsehoods was more psychically acceptable to the American public than accepting the idea that they had failed the basic test as citizens, and failed to hold their leaders accountable. 

Accepting the second position was even harder.  Everyone wants to believe that the U.S. is always on the side of good and is always working to help others.  Abu Ghraib made a great impression on the American psyche.  America was clearly the party doing wrong.  The leak of the memos didn't help either.  It made a moral case for something very wrong at the core of the American war effort, a case that was very bitter to swallow.

In essence, the Democratic Party's criticism of the War in Iraq forced people who supported the war against Saddam Hussein to accept that they in some way were morally responsible for a terrible error.  It was too much.

Indeed, the Democratic critique played right into the hands of the so-called “values voters.”  Republicans could easily point to the Democratic criticism of the war as another case of “liberals” forcing their values onto the vast ideological middle ground that is American politics.  “Liberal elites,” according to this view, were saying that Middle America was asleep at the wheel, that Middle America was wrong.  When looked at through the prism of the consistent views of far left of the Democratic Party, the idea had obvious traction.

Rove and company were in a great position, because, on this one issue, they were telling the truth.  The other side did think the war was wrong at its core--that the removal of Saddam was not morally right because of the means used to obtain the result.  That's a hard case to make, even if it is true. 

What is heartening about the situation is this:that the case attracted the votes of 48% of the voters.  That means that 48% of Americans could see that the war was wrong, that grave errors had been made in its prosecution, and that where America was going was a place that they did not want to be.  It means that American democracy is alive and well and that the war was the impediment to the election of a Democrat to the White House.

The Armed Forces are looking for a few good men.  Last week, the Army scoured paradise to track one down.  On Saturday, the Honolulu Advertiser reported the following:

David M. Miyasato enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserve in 1987, served three years of active duty during the first Gulf War and received an honorable discharge in 1991. He remained on inactive status for five more years, until 1996. Since then, the Kaua'i resident has married, started an auto window tinting business and this year, he and his wife had their first child.

But in September, Miyasato received a letter from the Army recalling him to active duty and directing him to report to a military facility in South Carolina on Tuesday.

"I was shocked," Miyasato said yesterday. "I never expected to see something like that after being out of the service for 13 years."

Miyasato is now suing the Secretary of the Army, asking a court to prevent the Army from ordering him to active duty. He is also asking for a court judgment declaring that he fulfilled all his obligations to the military.

Lest you think Miyasato’s plight was the result of an isolated computer error, think again.  For over a year the Army has been tapping 5,600 members of the "Individual Ready Reserves," military members who have been discharged from the Army, Army Reserve or the Army National Guard, but still have contractual obligations to the military.  Miyasato’s lawyer put it in plain terms: "My belief is that the Army is hard-pressed to recruit enough troops to send to Iraq and they're activating reserves as means to avoid implementing the draft.  I think problems will increase as more and more people are resistant to participating in the war."

Last week the Iron Mouth reported that the Selective Service System (SSS) was making its list and checking it twice.  The SSS is dipping into the Department of Education’s database, looking for a few good men and women between the ages 18 and 34.  Last year, the SSS drafted a memo to the Pentagon outlining plans to conscript medical personnel, linguists, and computer scientists under the age of 35.  The SSS is targeting young people with these specific skills to remedy the dearth of such people in the military.

In January of this year the Army began issuing “stop loss” orders to thousands of soldiers, thereby banning them from leaving the military even though they had fulfilled their obligations.  According to Loren Thompson, an analyst at the Lexington Institute, "The use of stop loss is often an indication of a shortfall of available personnel."  No kidding.  In addition, the Army is offering re-enlistment bonuses of up to $10,000 to soldiers in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait.  In a lousy job market, soldiers may have little choice but to re-enlist if they want to provide for their families.

Here’s a prediction.  The Bush Administration will quietly overhaul the federal financial aid system.  To round up the desperately needed medical personnel, the Administration could drain financial aid from nursing and medical students, while offering them a hefty GI bill.  Thus, the Administration could compel medical and nursing students from modest means to join the army in order to complete their training.

Folks, any way you slice it, we have a de facto draft.  The only question is how far the Pentagon will cast the dragnet.  This is the price of Bush's imperialism.  For now, all of us under 35 have reason to be concerned.  And for those of you who are fluent in Arabic, or who have medical training, or strong computer science skills, be afraid.  Be very afraid.