Experience cuts more than one way: Globe-trotting, globalizing and campaigning: Since Hillary Clinton is running on her resume, built mostly as first lady of Arkansas and as first lady in the White House, it is fair to look at the Clintons’ longstanding connections to former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger, now a foreign policy advisor to the Clinton campaign.

Samuel R. ‘Sandy’ Berger, as readers may recall, was the former Clinton national security chief who removed classified documents from a National Archives reading room in October 2003, shortly before Berger was to testify to the Independent 9/11 Commission. ...   more »

88^th in continuing blog series on the administration push to war. As May 2003 wends on, the story of the mobile weapons laboratories in Iraq—trailers—gradually peters out. Meanwhile, the race for lucrative contracts for Iraq reconstruction intensifies.
May 19-26, 2003:

 

 
May 19, 2003 – White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer announces that he will be leaving. He will be replaced by Deputy Press Secretary Scott McClellan.

 

May 21, 2003 – The New York Times follows the lead on the trailers, up to a point:

“United States intelligence agencies have concluded that two mysterious ...   more »

People living in other parts of the country may not fully recognize the magnitude of the results in the three Feb. 12 'Chesapeake primaries'--Maryland, Virginia, and D.C. That Obama trounced Clinton in a high-turnout Democratic race has been widely reported. But people living elsewhere may not know the full extent of the weather event, that afternoon and evening, that produced almost unparalleled gridlock all over the tri-state area.

From an inside-the-Beltway precinct, I heard firsthand accounts of multiple vehicle accidents on every major road. Every bridge in the area iced over--meaning that EVERY bridge on roads connecting Virginia to Maryland ...   more »

87^th in continuing blog series on the administration’s war in Iraq. As May wears on, the authorities continue to consolidate their hold on Iraqi resources, while continuing to neglect reconstruction.
May 15-16, 2003:

 
 

May 15, 2003 – The Government Accountability Office (GAO) issues its first study on Iraq reconstruction, Rebuilding Iraq:

“The Iraq peace operation differs from recent ones in that the United States, rather than the United Nations, will direct operations. Also, the United States will likely provide more troops than in previous operations. For example, in the first year of the ...   more »

Efforts to prop up a story about mobile weapons labs in Iraq continue, for a short time. This one is even more absurd than the story about aluminum tubes or the one about an Iraq-Niger uranium deal. Another future scandal also continues to develop around this time, leading eventually to the alleged destruction of CIA videotapes showing the torture of two prisoners detained in connection with the USS Cole bombing.
May 9-14, 2003:

 

May 9, 2003 -- Judge Leonie Brinkema, in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., asks whether the interrogations of detainees are being ...   more »

85^th in continuing blog series on the administration push to war. White House efforts to maintain the claim about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction continue sporadically. A more sustained effort goes to cashing in on the Iraq war by business entities intimately connected with the White House. Meanwhile, the Joseph Wilson part of the Iraq-Niger uranium saga begins to heat up more. May will be another busy month for the White House and the OVP.
May 5-7, 2003:

 

May 5, 2003 – A new company named New Bridge Strategies, L.L.C., files for existence in Washington, D.C....   more »

May – August 2003           The great public unraveling of administration pre-war claims continues. Purported weapons of mass destruction cached by Saddam continue not to be found. Intelligence and news reports gradually verify that indeed Saddam was not in league with Islamist fundamentalists, including Al-Qaeda, the only terrorist network that most U.S. journalists feel the public will recognize. No evidence supports the claim that Saddam was connected to 9/11. Meanwhile, as the destruction of Iraqi civil infrastructure and disbanding of army and police forces, along with uncontrolled looting of enormous caches of unsecured conventional weapons, give rise to violence in ...   more »

83^rd in continuing blog series on the administration push to war. The White House continues to try to shift emphasis away from its prior claims about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Meanwhile, the administration continues to safeguard U.S. control of Iraqi oil.
April 28-30, 2003:

 

Apr. 28, 2003 – Bush discusses Iraq in a speech at a defense factory in Dearborn, Michigan:

“Right now, engineers are on the ground working with Iraqi experts to restore power, and fix broken water pipes in Baghdad and other cities. We're working with the International Red Cross, the Red ...   more »

Unable to bring forth the caches of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction it had promised the public, the administration engages in a series of shifting maneuvers to change the story or to divert attention from the weapons issue. Doing its best Grima Wormtongue imitation, the administration first claims that the WMD will be found, then that they must have been destroyed or moved to Syria, then that the focus of the search must be on the personnel who created them rather than on the purported weapons themselves. Like Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein before them, Saddam’s purported WMD ...   more »

I did not hear David Shuster make the comment that the Clinton campaign is "pimping out" the Clintons' daughter, but I have read the text. In defense of Shuster, it should be pointed out that the remark was a criticism of the Clintons rather than of the young woman. Shuster is no Imus.

The Clintons ARE using Chelsea, of course. They are using her on the campaign trail, in a perfectly calculated way, knowing perfectly well exactly the comment her use might draw, to 'soften Hillary's image'. Most candidates use their families, up to a point, but some do it ...   more »

81^st in continuing blog series on the administration push to war. Through friendly media outlets, the White House and the Office of the Vice President launch what will be almost their last hurrah in the campaign to claim the existence of Iraq weapons of mass destruction: the WMD were destroyed and/or removed at the last minute. This one, unlike the running story of the supposed Iraq-Niger uranium deal, does not last long.
April 21-22, 2003:

 

Apr. 21, 2003 – New versions of the story on what happened to the Iraqi WMD begin to come out, as in ...   more »

80^th in continuing blog series on the administration push to war. As April wears on, the dismantling of self-governance in Iraq proceeds, U.S. casualties continue, and Iraqi WMD and Saddam Hussein are not found, although Iraqi oil is. U.S. oil companies continue to obtain millions of barrels of Iraqi crude. Meanwhile, politics at home get somewhat dicier for the administration, which coordinates with its political allies in Texas to head off at the pass any problems stemming from a democratic election.
April 12-20, 2003:

 
 
Apr. 12, 2003 -- Ten suspects in the U.S.S. Cole bombing escape ...   more »

‘Super Tuesday’ results are in, and Sen. Barack Obama won Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, New Mexico, North Dakota, and Utah.

 
Sen. Hillary Clinton won Arizona, Arkansas, California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, and Tennessee.

 
Three of Obama’s states—Alaska, Idaho and Utah—go Republican in general elections. So do three of Clinton’s states—Arkansas, Oklahoma and Tennessee.

 
Each candidate won over 7 million ...   more »

79^th in continuing blog series on the administration push to war. Beset with increasing questions about missing Iraqi WMD, the disappearance of Saddam Hussein, U.S. casualties, and reconstruction in Iraq, the White House and the Office of the Vice President conduct extensive PR to repair and restore key images. The thrust is always on how awful Saddam was, a safe argument, and on the heroism and peacefulness of the U.S. occupation in Iraq. Administration figures also continue to imply that American military dominance over Iraq is somehow in doubt.
April 8-11, 2003:

 

 
Apr. ...   more »