WATCHDOG FURTHER UNRAVELS

A problem with covering the Bush administration executive branch is that rogue political appointees often stick around, and, below the radar. Take Scott Bloch, the director for the Office for Special Counsel, the federal agency in charge of protecting whistleblowers and investigating the illegal politicization of federal agencies. Bloch has not done these jobs to a point where both the top House oversight Democrat (California’s Henry Waxman) and Republican (Virginia’s Tom Davis) want him out. The FBI even raided Bloch’s office in May.

But Bloch remains. His communications director, however, does not. Government Executive’s Robert Brodksy reported yesterday that spokesman Jim Mitchelll was fired. Mitchell inspired respect from even Bloch’s critics, including this reporter, for being prompt and professional in defending OSC. Why he’s out isn’t clear. Meanwhile, the OSC will likely be left to "twist in the wind" until the end of the Bush administration.-MB

 STATE OF POST-DENIAL

The Washington Post gives the cliffnotes version of the The War Within– the fourth book by Bob Woodward, a Post associate editor, on the Bush administration at war in Afghanistan and Iraq. According to the Post’s Steven Luxenberg, Woodward reveals that the President has set up an operation to spy on Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Also, Woodward credits new covert CIA techniques to kill insurgents as the primary reason violence in Iraq has decreased this year.

The spying revelation is particularly eyebrow raising since Bush tells Woodward how strong his relationship is with Maliki. The War Within will be released Monday.

Woodward’s last book, State of Denial, gave a crisp account of how deluded Bush administration officials were about both Saddam Hussein possessing weapons of mass destruction and what it would take to rebuild Iraq. The book may even have played a small role in the Democratic takeover of Congress. Now, though, neither political party is associating itself with the Bush administration’s Middle East misadventures.-MB

 IRAQIS WANT TO PURCHASE PRICEY U.S. PLANES

Ace Wall Street Journal defense contracting reporters August Cole and Yochi J. Dreazen tell us that the Iraqi government wants to buy 36 F-16 fighters from the U.S. Air Force. The purchase might make Iraq less dependent on U.S. air support in fighting insurgents and would certainly fill the coffers of defense contracting behemoths Lockheed Martin and Boeing. But there’s concern "about the placement of advanced weaponry in the hands of a nascent government of a country struggling for stability."

This is a long, A1 story, and, indeed, seems important and interesting. But it’s hard to know what to make of the request. Does this show the myopia of Iraq’s Maliki government, looking to blow their budget on fancy planes while the country lacks working electricity? Is the story here that the Iraqi government could be taken over by U.S. enemies…who will have access to U.S. planes? The motives and meaning of Iraq’s military build-up might not be known for a few years.-MB

 MEANWHILE, DICK CHENEY SETS U.S. POLICY TOWARD GEORGIA

Shhh! The New York Times’ Steven Lee Meyers reports that Vice President Dick Cheney flew to Georgia on Thursday and had a one-on-one talk with President Mikheil Saakashvili. They were likely talking about the $1 billion in aid Cheney promised the country, or the NATO membership the Vice President thinks Georgia should attain. Or maybe Cheney’s decision to give Georgia money for economic recovery but not fancy new weapons.

The point here is that the Vice President seems to be more than in control about what to do with Georgia after Russia’s brief invasion. Both the Democratic and Presidential candidates have run away, and kept running, from the policies of Bush-Cheney. But Cheney’s mark on Georgia is another example of the significant changes wrought by the Bush administration and how difficult they’ll be to undo.-MB

 WHATISTAN? PENTAGON STAYS FOCUSED ON IRAQ

The Washington Post’s Karen DeYoung and Ann Scott Tyson report that the Pentagon doesn’t want any of its 146,000 U.S. troops in Iraq to be leaving until George W. Bush leaves the White House. In early 2009, though, about 7,500 troops would be withdrawn. And around 3,500 soldiers would be re-deployed to Afghanistan. There are currently 33,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, though 14,000 are under the command of NATO.

The decision to delay Iraq withdrawal — and redeployment to Afghanistan — seems largely thanks to David Petraeus, who will soon move from leader of the Iraqi forces to head of U.S. Central Command. The "surge" of U.S. troops in Iraq is Petraeus’s baby and he has disagreed with Defense Secretary Robert Gates about how soon to shift forces to Afghanistan.

Certainly both countries are volatile and underprotected. But why doesn’t the Pentagon better acknowledge, through their recommended deployments, that violence is down in Iraq and soaring in Afghanistan?-MB

 EMBEDDED IN IRAQ: A REASON TO ACTUALLY READ THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS

I always feel a bit guilty for subscribing to the New York Review of Books.  Pulling it out of the mailbox, impressed by its authoritative headlines, I step inside and put it on the front left corner of my desk, confident that I’ll tackle it in a day or two and finally become a smart, thoughtful person with unassailable knowledge and intellectual confidence.  A month later, when my desktop copy is half-covered with bills and other unread magazines and the cover has taken on a slightly yellowed tinge, I realize that I may not be fated to be a true member of the intelligentsia. 

But I keep the Review around, not just to see colorful ads for all the amazing books I’ll never get to read, but also because it has reporting that is different from so much else we all consume in one form or another.  Take a look at Michael Massing’s excellent travelogue from today’s Iraq (with most stops inside the Green Zone) and you’ll realize how much we don’t know about our government’s continuing failures in Iraq — the country we’ve been occupying for five years.  You’ll also realize just how difficult it will be to extricate ourselves in the next five. Read more »

 GOVERNMENT RESULTS LAST SEEN MARCH 2007

The Office of Management and Budget has a web site called Results.gov that is designed to show concrete results of the federal government’s work during the Bush Administration.

The site was last updated on March 23, 2007. 

I guess they must be . . . saving up the results.  Or maybe it’s just . . . too many results to fit on one web site?  I’m trying to think positive here.  -NH

 PREVENTIVE JOURNALISM ALERT: THE SHOT THAT MAY YET BE HEARD ROUND THE WORLD

The word "democracy" can have a numbing effect on the critical faculties.  Pardon me if I speak for more minds than my own, but I think many of us, steeped from childhood in the rhetoric of American civic ideals, succumb easily to the power of this ancient word.  I realized this as I read Pankaj Mishra’s wake-up call about the Kashmir in the New York Times. 

When we hear again and again that India is a democracy, we tend to relax – and to forget that democracies start wars, that voting rights and free speech don’t prevent democracies from violating human rights, and that democracies tend towards disproportionate defenses of their own liberties, often at the expense of the liberties of others.  If America is a democracy with much to answer for, why should India be spared scrutiny? Read more »

 PREVENTIVE JOURNALISM ALERT: COMPETING ENERGY PRIORITIES

Alternative energy technologies are starting to look a little more mainstream, and when wind, solar, bioenergy and other sources gain market share, politicians and government agencies are going to have some difficult choices to make.  It’s one thing to talk about new energy sources, but what about when they actually start to compete with oil and gas?  The U.S. has devoted decades and countless billions to developing a fossil fuel infrastructure.  But as Peter Slevin points out in the Washington Post, sparks fly when traditional fuels meet real competition from alternatives — especially when "old-style" power companies start to see the benefits of solar and wind and even begin to question the subsidies and set-asides they themselves have enjoyed. Read more »

 STATES RIGHT ON STATES’ RIGHTS

The phrase "states’ rights" is usually associated with the days of segregation, Jim Crow laws, and the Civil War.  But states’ rights are assuming a whole new identity in the wake of the Bush administration’s anti-regulatory legacy.  And when the states have more leeway to shape government, they often come up with solutions that can be good for the whole country.  Folks down home often see things that Washington big shots miss — or don’t want to see in the first place.  Michael Hirsh writes in a recent Newsweek about how former governor of the state of Georgia Roy Barnes foresaw the foreclosure epidemic and tried to stop it from happening in his own state.   Barnes wanted to do something revolutionary:  make lenders liable for issuing unethical or inappropriate loans.  But then Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac started camping out in the governor’s office.  Read more »