Why Vex Maureen Dowd With Facts Or A Truth Commission?

Why should we bother with tedious things like facts and truth commissions?  Maureen Dowd illustrates again that once the reality-based community has settled on a story line, facts are a nuisance best forgotten or overlooked.

From her latest column:

In The Washington Note, a political and foreign policy blog, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s former chief of staff at State, wrote that the “harsh interrogation in April and May of 2002 ... was not aimed at pre-empting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and Al Qaeda.”

More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when the Bush crowd was looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq.

I used to agree with President Obama, that it was better to keep moving and focus on our myriad problems than wallow in the darkness of the past. But now I want a full accounting. I want to know every awful act committed in the name of self-defense and patriotism.

Although it might have required five or ten seconds with Google, that claim by Lawrence Wilkerson has been debunked by Thomas Joscelyn of the Weekly Standard.

Here is the relevant Wilkerson article and the key passage:

Likewise, what I have learned is that as the administration authorized harsh interrogation in April and May of 2002--well before the Justice Department had rendered any legal opinion--its principal priority for intelligence was not aimed at pre-empting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and al-Qa'ida.

So furious was this effort that on one particular detainee, even when the interrogation team had reported to Cheney's office that their detainee "was compliant" (meaning the team recommended no more torture), the VP's office ordered them to continue the enhanced methods. The detainee had not revealed any al-Qa'ida-Baghdad contacts yet. This ceased only after Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, under waterboarding in Egypt, "revealed" such contacts. Of course later we learned that al-Libi revealed these contacts only to get the torture to stop.

There in fact were no such contacts. (Incidentally, al-Libi just "committed suicide" in Libya. Interestingly, several U.S. lawyers working with tortured detainees were attempting to get the Libyan government to allow them to interview al-Libi....)

As Mr. Joscelyn notes, al-Libi made the claim of Iraqi-Al Qaeda contacts in February 2002 and recanted then in Jan 2004; this was reported by the Times in Oct 2005.

Maybe instead of belaboring her with new facts we could exhort Ms. Dowd to explore the facts already in evidence.  Of course, that might interfere with her preferred storyline.

MORE:  If Cheney was so intent on torturing detainees to confess to fictitious ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda, why was his brutal effort so unsuccessful?  This SSCI review of the pre-war intel failures, including the failed intelligence on Iraq-Qaeda ties, ought to be chock-a-block with debunked claims made by detainees under duress.  But I can't find them cited.

And on the other side, Andy McCarthy notes the successful torture commited by George Bush as Governor of Texas, which produced evidence that induced the Clinton Administration to cite an Iraq-Qaeda tie in their 1998 indictment of bin Laden.

TOO FUNNY:  Ms. Dowd admits to inadvertently plagiarizing Josh Marshall.  Inshallah.

Comments

[clarice]

You think you're smarter than Maureen and the entire Grey Lady lineup don't you, TM? Admit it.

[bad]

And on the other side, Andy McCarthy notes the successful torture commited by George Bush as Governor of Texas, which produced evidence that induced the Clinton Administration to cite an Iraq-Qaeda tie in their 1998 indictment of bin Laden.

Bush is a great man. I just didn't realize how great til now. Thanks, TM!!

[Captain Hate]

Modo has her facts wrong; wow, who'd a thunk? Maybe it's time for another book-writing *cough* drying out *cough* sabbatical for her. Maybe she can find a man to worship her in the style she feels she deserves; it could happen just like an asteroid could hit us at 6 pm EDT 5/17/09.

[Thomas Collns]

I'm waiting for MoDo's book on an analysis of how the study of bonobos can enhance our national security. After all, she has already written an op-ed on how men's dating patterns can be improved if they take the bonobo approach. See LUN.

[narciso]

A drunk jackrabbit is smarter than Mo Dowd, Krugman strikes me as some one his misplaced
his macroeconomics text, and has been winging it for at least 8 years. Friedman is the blind squirrel, who eventually gets something right, but often for the wrong reason, and Brooks, well is U. Chicago admitting he was their's, more to the point
does Podhoretz still remember him.

[Terry Gain]

Here's the relevant portion of Joscelyn's evisceration of Wilkerson

Wilkerson’s facts do not add up. Al Libi’s original testimony regarding Iraq-al Qaeda links occurred months before Wilkerson says waterboarding was used to get this admission out of him. We know this because the DIA filed a report saying that it did not trust al Libi’s testimony regarding the training of al Qaeda operatives in Iraq in February 2002 -– two months before Wilkerson says the Bush administration authorized the Egyptians to use harsh interrogation methods on al Libi.

So, when Wilkerson writes that “the [Bush] administration authorized [the] harsh interrogation [of al Libi] in April and May of 2002” and al Libi “had not revealed any al Qa’ida-Baghdad contacts” until then, he is clearly wrong. Al Libi, according to the DIA, first discussed this putative tie between the Iraqi regime and al Qaeda before Wilkerson says that harsh interrogation techniques were authorized by Vice President Cheney.

Is Wilkerson a fool or a liar or both? Or does he just realize that unless a contary account such as Joscelyn's is published in the NYT or WP, his imaginaive offering is the unvarnished truth. The welfare of the Republic is being seriously damaged by the duplicity of these organizations.

[Neo]

It's just a (excuse my Obama term here) "distraction"

[matt]

I think MoDo has been experimenting with mind altering substances again. Perhaps she needs to find her own bonobo and they can pick fleas out of each others pelts. If the bonobo becomes fractious, she can always calm him with Xanax.

[Neo]

This is the only scenario I've come up with to save Pelosi's ass ..

Dick Cheney: "Everything Nancy Pelosi says is a lie"

Nancy Pelosi: "I am lying"

[PaulL]

Maybe she can find a man to worship her in the style she feels she deserves

You know who would be a nice boyfriend for Dowd? KSM.

[narciso]

Well he was a real club goer when he was practicing Taquiya in the bars of the Phillipines, so who nows they might hit it off, (Sarc)BTW, Webb recants on the idea of closing Gitmo, and Kyl give Pelosi a pass, in the LUN.

[CVDattaboyE]

'required five or ten seconds with Google'

Why bother when she'll do it for free?

[Barry Dauphin]

The MoDo column in my Sunday morning paper blames Pelosi's "difficulties" on....(drum roll, please)... Dick Cheney! Who needs Cheerios in the morning when you have MoDo to put a smile on your face.

She's certainly better than SNL (who used Obama's flip-flop on the pictures to make a Dick Cheney joke). MoDo is hysterical, SNL is pathetic. MoDo tries to be serious but ends up being funny, SNL tries to be funny, but is merely dull.

[tryggth]

Al-libi was tortured by the Egyptians in Jan. 2002 and that is when he coughed up the crap info. Crap info was covered in the Fed. 4-5 cables. DIA says yup, crap in late Feb.

Certainly not Dick's fault that the Egyptians had interest in Iraq-AlQaeda ties. And certainly Dick didn't order him moved from secret prison in Poland to Egypt in Jan. 2002.

What CIA did post FBI to al-Libi in Poland is a bit of a mystery. And why Al-Libi's location classified as "state secret" when KSM sits as celebrity in Gitmo another mystery.

Most importantly - ah, screw it.

[Sue]

Wilkerson is quoted as saying he couldn't prove any of his allegations in a court of law but dammit he knows it happened. Sort of quoted, I'm paraphrasing a little.

[Captain Hate]

You know who would be a nice boyfriend for Dowd? KSM.

You know, if SNL had any decent writers with imaginations they'd do a skit of a first date between those two kindred soul lovebirds. The comedic possibilities would be huge equally divided between the fun couple.

[tryggth]

You know, if SNL had any decent writers with imaginations they'd do a skit of a first date between those two kindred soul lovebirds.

Isn't the "The 1/2 Hour News Hour" looking for material?

[Sue]

Totally OT, but I just watched a clip from the movie Outrage (I think, where they out gay republicans) and I kid you not, they have some of the people who are talking about having sex with a congressman (not named in the trailer) in shadow. I laughed out loud.

[narciso]

Instead they proved that line that Guiliani,
gave in the first post 9/11 show; when they said, can we be funny and he answered are you going to start now. The Darrell Hammond and Will Farrell sketch is an example of not being funny.

[Sue]

Oh, I left out the best part. I was reading a link at TPM where some blogger is claiming Dowd plagiarized Josh Marshall when I saw the link to the movie trailer.

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/thejoshuablog/2009/05/ny-times-maureen-dowd-plagiari.php>Here is the link to TPM.

[Sue]

http://www.nytpick.com/2009/05/dowd-admits-plagiarism-to-nytpicker.html>and here is a link to a site where she admits to it. Come on Tom, you can tear her up with her "excuse".

[Porchlight]

Too hilarious, Sue. And she wasn't even smart enough to claim it was a copying/pasting accident - she claims instead that she was "talking" (not emailing!) with a friend who wanted her to make that point. Which apparently she was able to do by summoning Marshall's exact words, which she had not read.

If she had said she was emailing with a friend it would almost be plausible. But not quite.

Allahpundit has it up too:

Wow: Maureen Dowd plagiarizes lefty blogger?

[Captain Hate]

Thanks for those links Sue; between that and Liz Cheney, this has been an eggsellent Sunday, the best in a while.

Maybe the advertiser that TM uses in the top right corner should run a poll: Who is more clueless: Modo or Lollopelosi?

[PaulL]

Plagiarism is passing off someone else's work as one's own. Dowd's attempt to skate is saying that she was passing off the person on the phone's work as her own, not Marshall's.

I demand that a committee look into her misconduct and possibly fire her.

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

'You know who would be a nice boyfriend for Dowd?'

It would have to be a guy who is also still stuck in junior high school.

[PaulL]

I missed the obvious: Instead of committee, make that Truth Commission.

[Extraneus]

From Powerline, an ACORN corruption story had to be spiked by NYT because it would have been a "game changer" so close to the election.

[RichatUF]

Extraneus-

Wonder if Holder is going to be asked about this? I remember when the story leaked out and was unsurprised. It still pisses me off that the Obama campaign could so wrecklessly break the law, and aside from complaints on the right side of the blogshere and those brave young women in Ohio, no one who was supposed to care did. A few arrests after the fact in a few states aren't going to fix the corruption of the ballot.

[clarice]

Wow--that is something.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

she has already written an op-ed on how men's dating patterns can be improved if they take the bonobo approach.

Bonobos have all the fun.

[verner]

I finally saw a small blip of the ABC Morning segment with Liz Cheney,and all I can say is WOW.

Katrina is no better than Pelosi. If they don't get results with their first pack of lies, they just make more crap up.

You would think that Pincus' piece would have stopped this nonsense dead in its tracks. But I guess they have to make up some new story to justify their existence to the donor community.

911 truthers have now morphed into waterboard truthers.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

bama campaign could so wrecklessly break the law

Sigh. I fear it wasn't wreckless at all. Just slow-motion.

[pagar]

From the Powerline link.

For the New York Times, Republicans are simply the enemy. By October 2008, it was time to circle the wagons.

For the owner of the New York Times, it has been a lot, lot, lot longer than 2008, and it is not just Republicans, it is Americans.

During this era, Punch Sulzberger asked his activist son: “If an American soldier runs into a North Vietnamese soldier, which would you like to see get shot?” “I would want to see the American get shot,” replied the young man. “It's the other guy's country.” (This statement ignores the fact that most of those fighting against Americans in then-South Vietnam were soldiers invading from another country, Communist North Vietnam.)

[RichatUF]

Sigh, I should have had spellcheck on.

[Jane]

That story has been out for awhile. Glenn Beck is doing a phenomenal job with ACORN. It's worth watching.

[narciso]

Katrina Van DenHuevel is much worse than Pelosi, She seems to want to do penance for the good act that her father UN envoy William Van Den Heuvel, participating in along with JFK, Dulles, Cardinal Spellman did in finding Diem in a Maryland seminary and cultivating him for the office he would
eventually hold in South Vietnam.

[RichatUF]

Jane, maybe a spot on the radio, the story seems to be heating up again? I've been meaning to ask JM Hanes if she got anywhere with the Obama Youth "Organizing for America" and how it interacts with the White House and the DNC*.

*A sidebar-an avenue of attack on the Scare Force One "photo-op" could be to get Gov. Kaine's calander for that day to figure out if he was doing state business or at Andrew's doing DNC "party building activities".

[Terry Gain]

TOO FUNNY: Ms. Dowd admits to inadvertently plagiarizing Josh Marshall

Inadvertently, word for word, comma for comma

[daddy]

TM, you have no idea how hard I am pulling for the demise of the New York Times. Last week, in a swanky, trendy hotel in San Francisco, the paper that they slid under the door wasn't the San Francisco Chronicle or the San Francisco Examiner, but was instead the NYTimes. Rats!

Really, take a moment to think about this. Here you are waking up eager and alert in the most gorgeous city in America and ready to Carpe Diem, 'Sieze The Day!' So thats the spirit in your sinews as you arise in this most outrageously liberated population in America in terms of sexuality, artsy-fartsy trendiness, City-Lightweights Bookstore-ish intellectualism, Gay-pride marriage-ishness, environmental-bohemian multi-culti-non-fat-non-judgemental North Beach bistro "workers of the world unite if it feels good do it"-ism on the planet. Yet instead of imbibing that downstairs in the lobby along with my mochiatto-low frap decaf, lemon twisted, brown sugared, cappochino Kona beans run thru the arse of a non-Capitalist exploited Malaysian ferret, instead I'm stuck with whatever offerings Maureen Dowd or Frank Rich pumped out last night on the crapper before deadline. Sheesh. Are they seriously so mentally bereft of ideas from their local journalistic sages, that they imagine that visitors at 300 bucks a night would rather wake up at Fisherman's Wharf to the "Krug & Fried" Girly-men of Times Square, rather than risk exposure to the local Nob Hill idiots? Apparently so.

Honestly, think about that. Can you imagine going to some swanky hotel in New York City and waking up to find the freakin' San Francisco Chronicle under your door? Laughable. And then, while commenting about it as you pay the $300 a night bill, being dismissively told that it's "cutting edge"?

Years ago I suggested to these moron's in a letter to the editor, that they go to the Berkeley Library way back files, and simply devote column space each day of the year to reprinting whatever San Fran Newspaper stories reporter Mark Twain wrote on any calendar day for their Great Grandma's amusement 150 years prior. I've read bunches of them, and they're wonderful. Who wouldn't want to read that? But instead they ignored my advice and imagined that reprints of a long dead Herb Caen and Dilbert would carry them through to the 2050's.

Please go under NYTimes. At 300 dollars a night I want the privelege of witnessing just what an embarrassment the San Fran papers are, and the pleasure of observing them shrink to the size of American toilet paper (which according to the BBC or The Telegraph I forget which) is reponsible, ala Global Warming, for destroying the planet.

[RichatUF]

fixed?

[Semanticleo]

"they have some of the people who are talking about having sex with a congressman (not named in the trailer) in shadow. I laughed out loud."

See what I mean about that sense of humor?

I guess you had to be there.

[glenda]

Jane-- I have watched Beck's acorn story, too.
It's unexplainable how someone is not investigating these crooks! They have a phony pyramid scheme of companies all officed in a dump (former funeral home) in New Orleans quarter that Spike Lee swore the government and George Bush blew up the levees!

[Semanticleo]

"Ms. Dowd admits to inadvertently plagiarizing Josh Marshall'

I seem to recall Maguire failed to cite
Thomas Hobbes as the source for one of his posts.

Mayhaps, both instances are hardly worth mentioning.

[RichatUF]

daddy, you might not have long to wait. They've got about 34 million in the bank, did a lease-back on their building, and in hawk to Carlos Slim. Google might buy them though, so they'll probably never go away.

[Semanticleo]

"If Cheney was so intent on torturing detainees to confess to fictitious ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda, why was his brutal effort so unsuccessful?"

Indeed. Because, no doubt, if Cheney had been waterboarded, he would have confessed to the Tate/LaBianca Murders. (Let me cite the source as former Gov J, Ventura)

Perhaps, no subject was crazy enough to make the link between AQ and Iraq.

As to why the timeline is insignificant?

In the SOU of 2003 the infamous '16 words' and their lawyerly composition, were meant to counter any future charges that the data for the runup to the War had been cooked to satisfy the hegemonous mind-set of the WH.

[narciso]

Leo, don't you ever get tired of being wrong the link to the Huffington Post, (I generally don't go there, but you could pretend to click it, and find out the truth. We didn't uncover that particular fact, your side such as it is, did; it operates from a flawed meme, I never found
Marshall's obscure thesis in early American history, really that authoritative but that's just me.

[Semanticleo]

This whole subject is just too rich for one post. Maguire, would yo do your usual serial killing of the subject over several postings so the entire breadth of the matter can be discussed?

It would be much appreciated. Please, sir, may I have another?

[Semanticleo]

Not fixed, yet RichatUF

[Semanticleo]

Bold is easy on the eyes.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

I think your eyes are stuck, Leo. Which actually would explain a lot.

In the meantime, Jennifer Rubin has an interesting piece up.

[Sue]

I read elsewhere that MoDo was instrumental in outing Joe Biden's plagiarizing. The irony is delicious.

[narciso]

For reasons passing understanding, I was watching the umpteeth replaying of G.I. Jane, I generally avoid it like the plague, but there was a scene when the eponymous
"Jane" was blindfolded, as was having water poured into her, to simulate drowning, is that part of SERE training, or is that just
the SEAL training regimen.

[Topsecretk9]

Maureen Dowd Admits Inadvertently Lifting Line From TPM's Josh Marshall

Blue on blue popcorn?

[Topsecretk9]

"If Cheney was so intent on torturing detainees to confess to fictitious ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda, why was his brutal effort so unsuccessful?"

Duh

because he wasn't there in person.

[Obamadoesaquake]

Pelosi' is getting attacked by everyone; the boner - who's really covering for Mr.Steele and his Hopkins Doctors, nurses and psychiatrist contract torturers. he got his job approving the torture too. So, should she work Boner or Steel? The answer might be it's really not prostitution because she's doing it for her government and it's really not sex, but violence. She should get to know Plame better like Hilly.

[Topsecretk9]

I read elsewhere that MoDo was instrumental in outing Joe Biden's plagiarizing. The irony is delicious.

my fingers are blue form my dyed popcorn

[daddy]

Just saw the Liz Cheney ABC roundtable a second time and it's worth watching again.

You can see Carville waiting prepared with that 50% Poll nonsense and I think "deer in the headlights" Kristina knows it's coming and is desperately looking for rescue at that point. Then Lynn comes in, overrides Stephy and those 2 trying to get her to shut up and not make her point, and she completely kicks rear end. Carville is seriously rocked back on his heels at that point and lamely trys to rebuild that talking point at his next opportunity but she stuffs it right back down his throat. He will go home tonight and Mary Matellin will rag on him that he got his butt kicked solid on National TV by little old Liz Cheney. Kristina is too stupid to know that's true but Carville will absolutely know it's true, and he will now enlist his compadres in the party and the MSM to try to purposely and methodically destroy Liz Cheney as a Republican Party Spokesperson because she is smart, tough and effective.
So　my prediction for the next few weeks is to watch Carville and his buddies try to do a Saul Alinsky on Liz Cheney. With Carville, I think its personal.

And as for the McCain bald-headed doofus, the first line out of his mouth was almost always to criticize Bush/Cheney by conceding some anti Bush Admin point in his first sentence and then, having supposedly established his cred by that method, then he trys to make whatever point he was interested in making without realizing he's already lost the game. He actually almost once nods his head in agreement at something Van DerHeuvel says. Liz needs to take him to the woodshed and either tell him to straighten up, or better yet, simply shut up and get out of the way so she can go on offense unimpeded by such buffonery.

[peter]

Great post, Daddy, but according to the Slimes, since you're a pilot you are horrendously underpaid overworked and haven't slept in days, so maybe it was all a figment of your imagination, and you were really staying in Buffalo in a Motel 6?

[Neo]

This is stunning

[Old Lurker]

Good Samuelson today via RCP.

Calls Obama out on the proposed debt...and calls out the media for being silent about it.

LUN

[Old Lurker]

There is also a good Laffer-Moore in the WSJ re the mobility of high earners who take themselves and their companies out of high tax states and move them to low tax states. I won't LUN it since that triggers the subscription nonsense for non subscribers. If I can find it elsewhere, it's worth a read.

Wonder how many times DoT & Centralcal will vote in CA tomorrow? Perhaps they can hire some Acorn thugs to show how it is done?

[pagar]

OL, from the Samuelson link.

95 percent of "working families" receive a tax cut.

I don't believe that the 2009 tax forms are going to proof that statement correct. Changing withholding tables does not equal a tax cut, IMO.

[Old Lurker]

Pagar, JMH the other day had a great list of "Truths" in Obamaspeak all in the form "He says X and that translates to Y". So yes of course you can add that 95% tax scam to the list.

[Old Lurker]

Here's the Laffer-Moore LUN.

I was amused to read it as just last week I reported here the SHOCK my state of Md had when, having passed a soak-the-rich sutax just last year, they found 33% fewer taxpayers self-reporting as rich this year.

[verner]

Nancy's Paranoia from the prowler LUN

Now she thinks Stenie and the blue dogs are out to get her...HaHa.

OK, let's make the enemies list:
Obama/Rahm/Panetta
Stenie Hoyer
Blue Dog Democrats
Every single Republican on the Hill
The CIA

I think she's toast.

[hit and run]

So, here's MoDo:

we're fixing it on the web, to give josh credit, and will include a note, as well as a formal correction tomorrow.

I Question The Timing.

Funny they would move to make a correction in less than 24 hours when it involves a lefty blogger.

Not funny, ha-ha, either.

[hit and run]

Verner:
OK, let's make the enemies list

Don't forget The Jews.
And Fox News.
And Rush.
And Big Oil.
And The Patriarchy.

Oh, and The Pope, too.

If the entire panoply of the VRWC is against you, who can be for you?

[Old Lurker]

Don't forget 60 year old white men, Hit.

[centralcal]

Good morning, OL. I only voted once (by mail) - don't think Acorn is gonna help here on the California propositions.

Last week talk radio had the Dem and Repub as they always do, to debate the coming election issues. They agreed across the board - "NO." That has never happened before :) Polls are predicting defeat.

The ball is being slammed back into Ahnolds court!

[Appalled]

Based on the information provided in TM's comments, his links, and Mr. Wilkinson, the following timeline is possible:

January 2002 -- Al Libri tortured in Egypt. He confesses to Saddam -- Al Qaeda links.

February 2002 -- Al Libri, now in CIA hands recants some -- he adds no details to stories -- he contradicts himself. Leading to the skeptical reporting in February.

April--May 2002 -- Cheney, hearing the results from CIA does not match the original terstimony from more extreme methods, requests that the enhanced methods be used. Perhaps, at this point, Al Libir provides information similar to that provided in Egypt.

If you go with this version, you explain the Wilkinson charges (which have been rumbling around the leftosphere for a couple of months), while providing a motive to Cheney that is a little different than "I just want to torture my way to war with Iraq."

TM's way says "Wilkinson is a credulous fool whose sources are lying to him." Given the severity of the charge, I would doubt Wilkinson would level it unless he has some good reason to believe what he's told.

[Sue]

I would doubt Wilkinson would level it unless he has some good reason to believe what he's told.

Oh god. His entire article is laced with Sith Lord and Darth Vader and you believe he wouldn't level those charges unless he believed them? He was in Powell's State department. He hates Cheney and will say anything whether he has facts to base it on or not. He even admitted he couldn't prove his allegations he just believed them.

[Rick Ballard]

OL,

Thanks for the link. I found this quote:

One last point: States aren't simply competing with each other. As Texas Gov. Rick Perry recently told us, "Our state is competing with Germany, France, Japan and China for business. We'd better have a pro-growth tax system or those American jobs will be out-sourced." Gov. Perry and Texas have the jobs and prosperity model exactly right. Texas created more new jobs in 2008 than all other 49 states combined. And Texas is the only state other than Georgia and North Dakota that is cutting taxes this year.

The Texas economic model makes a whole lot more sense than the New Jersey model, and we hope the politicians in California, Delaware, Illinois, Minnesota and New York realize this before it's too late.

heartening, although "before it's too late" no longer applies to CA or NY or IL.

Progs should be encouraged to move to NY and NJ so that they can enjoy the fruits of their lack of labor.

I see that GS is pimping BAC this morning. That's a real "cross your fingers and close your eyes" play but it might keep the market staggering higher until the vastly oversold increase in housing starts comes into play as the new "green shoot". Housing actually turned some time ago but it can't go far at all - the weight of the debt serf collars is just too heavy.

[Old Lurker]

Rick, as you know the greatest danger lurking that will derail the normal corrective forces at play will be the nationalizing of these local stupidities. Once Wyoming residents have to pay for the blunders in CA, MI, NY & NJ (even more than now), then the Progs will have plugged the escape hatches. I'm still planning a move to TX when they secede.

[Ignatz]

-It really looks like the grinder this time is going to be credit contraction which will hit Ogabe's empty headed supporters much harder than the productive population in general.-

Rick,
From a previous thread, I had to comment before taking off this morning.

I can tell you that this cog in the productive population gear is being hit pretty hard by the credit contraction. Credit for equipment and land financing is much tougher to get, to the point of impossibility in some cases.
I suspect large companies will have a far easier time of it, but small business is currently getting kicked in the seat of the pants right along with Ogabe's marching morons.

[verner]

Wilkerson is a LOOOOOOON. He is about as credible as Ray McGovern and Mel Goodman.

By the way, How idiotic is Katrina Van den Huevel? She called for Ray McGovern to be DCIA in 2006.

This is all about money and looking important. Now that the AlinskyMessiah has been elected their coffers must be emptying, as the lefttards decide that we no longer need human rights watchdogs and pro Catro lobbyists.

They're just trying to stay in the game.

[PaulL]

Pelosi has a reason to be paranoid. An awful lot of people are after her.

[Cecil Turner]

If you go with this version, you explain the Wilkinson charges . . .

Sorry, there's simply no way to square Wilkerson's main argument (that the Administration tortured a compliant subject to get the desired result), and the primary supporting contention (i.e., "The detainee had not revealed any al-Qa'ida-Baghdad contacts yet.") with the timeline. He's clearly wrong. And his previous silliness on detainee abuse (and the fact that his story keeps getting better) makes me disinclined to extend a suspension of disbelief to his maunderings. But on this particular point, there's no "version" that makes his story work, unless you ignore part of that story.

[PeterUK]

"I would doubt Wilkinson would level it unless he has some good reason to believe what he's told."

The same way Joseph Charles Wilson IV would not fabricate stories.

[Rick Ballard]

"but small business is currently getting kicked in the seat of the pants right along with Ogabe's marching morons."

Ignatz,

Oh yeah - I provided an anecdote the other day on Chase slow walking $400K 80/20/780/28% mortgage apps. There is no doubt that small businesses are going to have problems finding loans. The disappearance of the ABS "it's just OPM" funding guarantees it.

There's going to be more "green shoot" gargle coming out in an hour or so. The NAHB Housing Market Index is going to show another pop. The index low occurred in January and March came in at +75% to the low (+66.7% to the previous month). Watch the reporting focus on the contrast with the annual low rather than with the previous month.

[PeterUK]

The first "Green Shoots" of the Obama economic miracle.

[cathyf]

[quote]Oh yeah - I provided an anecdote the other day on Chase slow walking $400K 80/20/780/28% mortgage apps. There is no doubt that small businesses are going to have problems finding loans. The disappearance of the ABS "it's just OPM" funding guarantees it.[/quote]

The problem, Rick, is, as I've been arguing all along, there is a huge supply/demand aspect to the OPM problem. As the saying goes -- demography is destiny. There is the huge bolus of baby boomers who must all save for retirement all at the same time, and who will then want to all be retired at the same time. This leaves the (global) financial industry awash in capital, and the fundamental fact of the law of supply and demand is if the supply goes up then the price goes down.

The first main way that you see this expressed is in the shifting of the ratio into stupider and stupider investments. To take the penultimate bubble -- after cisco and the other good tech investments had soaked up as much capital as they could profitably put to use, there was still money left over and it had nowhere to go but to companies selling pet food over the internet.

The second problem is all-encompassing -- the price of money across the board goes down. Now the price of money has two parts: there is the risk-free rate which is the pure time value of money, and then there is the risk premium. What is clear to me, as someone born in 1963 with parents born in 35 & 36, is that if I take the same risks as my parents took I will get much lower returns, and the only way to get the returns that they got is to take much greater risks. Or, look at it another way, if I want to have the same level of financial security in my retirement as my parents have enjoyed in there's, I need to save more of my income.

Both of these mean the same thing -- vast quantities of OPM sloshing about, looking for competent, honest managers, who are constantly scrambling to find productive uses for the money. This is just asking for the next bubble and the next and the next. Pretty soon all of the money managers who got screwed on "too good to be true" will be gone, or suffering from amnesia, and they will be chasing the next flying unicorn over the meadow.

Unless, of course, our government really does cripple the economy. That would certainly be a way to shut down the oversupply of capital. Of course, you can look at Obama as being somehow the fundamentally natural response to the supply/demand problem. The baby boomers are earning all of this income and paying all of the "social security" and "medicare" taxes, which their parents don't need all of (because there are so relatively few of them). So the government must waste the money.

[Rick Ballard]

Cathy,

While I agree in principle with your argument re the amount of OPM sloshing around I believe that the total may have diminished more than you realize. The Fed Z.1 provides plenty of unhappy information concerning amounts. Table L.4, Credit Market Debt, All Sectors, by Instrument (document page 60, PDF page 67) shows the total equity market valuation dropping from $26.396 trillion in Q3 '07 to $15.190T in Q4 '08. That's a 42% haircut. The total credit outstanding increased from $48.765T to $52.593 with government borrowing vacuuming up the vast majority of the increase. When I look at PDF page 121 - Flow of Funds Matrix for 2008 - I can't sift out enough ready cash to cover Team TurboZero's debt appetite. Not without truly massive quantitative easing at any rate.

There's been a very nice rebound in equity market valuation since the first of the year but the market really looks like Wily E. Coyote staring between his feet at the canyon floor far, far below him to me. I'm probably missing something but the numbers just don't seem to add up. The Feds are going to vacuum up all the loose change that the BoomerGeezers don't stuff in their mattresses and the debt serfs are currently light pink, heading toward bright red and finally purple - where is the growth in consumption necessary to expand the economy supposed to come from? Probably not not from the 4 million folks in the "Ogabe New Leisure Class".