Robert Fisk on Tony Blair:

My Dad used to call people like Blair a “twerp” which, I think, meant a pregnant earwig. But Blair is not a twerp. I very much fear he is a vicious little man. And I can only recall Cromwell’s statement to the Rump Parliament in 1653, repeated – with such wisdom – by Leo Amery to Chamberlain in 1940: “You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go.”
Robert Fisk: Blair’s lies and linguistic manipulations – Independent Online Edition > Robert Fisk

Robert, tell us how you really feel…
Speaking of Blair, rumors abound that he is under consideration as the replacement for Paul Wolfowitz in the Presidency of the World Bank.

Pawn tries not to pile-on the easy political topics. There is only so much interest in the latest flap in the US Attorney imbroglio, for example, and not much reward in picking the low-hanging fruit. Sometimes, though, one just cannot pass it up.

Here, then, in the very spirit of a White House that thought nothing of trying to slip the domestic spying program past then debilitated A.G. John Ashcroft:

“I was very upset. I was angry. I thought I had just witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man who did not have the powers of the attorney general because they had been transferred to me. I thought he had conducted himself — and I said to the attorney general — in a way that demonstrated a strength that I had never seen before, but still I thought it was improper,” [former Deputy A.G. James B.] Comey told the [Senate Judiciary] committee.
Aide: Sick Ashcroft pressed to approve domestic spying – CNN.com

Slate has no similar compunction, and pile-on they do in their new interactive guide to graft, corruption and incompetence in the current administration:

Having a hard time keeping track of all 10,000 GOP scandals? Between fired U.S. attorneys, deleted RNC e-mails, sexually harassed pages, outed CIA agents, and tortured Iraqi prisoners—not to mention the warrantless wiretapping, plum defense contracts, and golf junkets to Scotland—you could be forgiven for losing track of which congressman or Bush administration flunky did which shady thing. Renzi—now, was that the guy with the skeezy land deal? Or the woman Paul Wolfowitz promoted?
An illustrated guide to Republican scandals. – By Holly Allen, Christopher Beam, and Torie Bosch – Slate Magazine

In a bookend to the testimony of Ashcroft’s Deputy, Comers, we have the resignation of his successor, Paul McNulty. The ranks are getting might thin over there at Justice:

Mr. McNulty, the fourth and highest-ranking Justice Department official to resign since the uproar began in Congress over the dismissals of the United States attorneys, had told friends for weeks that he was planning to step aside.
Gonzales’s Deputy Quits Justice Department – New York Times

Mr. Wolfowitz, is prominently featured in most guides to bad governance. Ironically while he tries to promote good governance at the World Bank, his top aide in good governance and transparency had to step down because Wolfowitz’s own ethical lapses have made the job untenable. The bank is now calling for Wolfowitz to follow his aide out the door.

The report charged that Mr. Wolfowitz broke bank rules and the ethical obligations in his contract, and that he tried to hide the salary and promotion package awarded to Shaha Ali Riza, his companion and a bank employee, from top legal and ethics officials in the months after he became bank president in 2005.
Citing what it said was the “central theme” of the matter, the report said Mr. Wolfowitz’s assertions that what he did was in response to the requests of others showed that “from the outset” of his tenure he “cast himself in opposition to the established rules of the institution.”
“He did not accept the bank’s policy on conflict of interest, so he sought to negotiate for himself a resolution different from that which would be applied to the staff he was selected to head,” the committee said, adding that this was “a manifestation of an attitude in which Mr. Wolfowitz saw himself as the outsider to whom the established rules and standards did not apply.”
Bank’s Report Says Wolfowitz Violated Ethics – New York Times

Picking up on a theme with great currency, Vladimir Putin purportedly said this:

“We do not have the right to forget the causes of any war, which must be sought in the mistakes and errors of peacetime,” Mr. Putin said. “Moreover, in our time, these threats are not diminishing,” he said. “They are only transforming, changing their appearance. In these new threats, as during the time of the Third Reich, are the same contempt for human life and the same claims of exceptionality and diktat in the world.”
Putin Is Said to Compare U.S. Policies to Third Reich – New York Times

That reliable font of ill reasoned rantery, Lou Dobbs, has let loose on religious influence on politics. Dobbs was mute on this topic until some religious leaders took aim at one of Dobbs’ favorite populist themes, Illegal Immigration.

Here is a Dobbs comment:

The separation of church and state in this country is narrowing. And it is the church, not the state that is encroaching. Our Constitution protects religion from the intrusion or coercion of the state. But we have precious little protection against the political adventurism of all manner of churches and religious organizations.
Dobbs: A call to the faithful – CNN.com

And one of his retractors:

If given the choice on this issue between Jesus and Lou Dobbs, I choose my Lord and savior, Jesus Christ.
Rev. Jim Wallis of Sojourners Magazine

Pawn is no fan of religious interference in politics (or in life, for that matter) but no big fan of the opportunistic populism of Dobbs. So, this looks like a tie…

Okay, Pawn was at best uncharitable to The Note the other day.  After over a month on haitus ABC News told us readers that their edgy political blog was back.  We were disheartened by what we found, to say the least.  Turns out ABC jumped the gun on their announcement by a couple of days.  The Note is now really back, and Rick Klein is doing a passable, if in-baby-steps job of delivering the informed and slightly snarky writing which made The Note a brand in the first place.

Here’s a snippet from today’s issue:

No knockout punches, no game-changers, nothing that’s likely to change the dynamic of a Big Three flanked by seven dwarves. None of them wants Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) to win the White House (surprise), all of them would rather talk about Ronald Reagan than the current president (another shocker), and Karl Rove will have to look for work in the private sector (it’s time to make money anyway).
ABC News: The Note

Keep up the good work, Rick.

In the predicable follow up to the recent report on the failed prosecution of the “Second Lebanon War” there have been many calls for Ehud Olmert’s head, job, dignity, etc. Robert Fisk, of The Independent has finally fired his shot.

So it has come to this. All those bodies, all those photographs of dead children – more than 1,400 cadavers (we are not including the 230 or so Hizbollah fighters and the Israeli soldiers who died) – are to be commemorated with the possible resignation of an Israeli prime minister who knew, and who cared, many Israelis suspect, little about war.
Robert Fisk: Olmert undone by the militia he said he could destroy – Independent Online Edition > Robert Fisk

Touché Robert

New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli has proposed a shareholder proposal to be considered by Google shareholders as part of the current proxy. His proposal would stop Google from participating in censorship and sharing user data. Here is the text of the proposal:

Internet Censorship

Whereas, freedom of speech and freedom of the press are fundamental human rights, and free use of the Internet is protected in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which guarantees freedom to “receive and impart information and ideas through any media regardless of frontiers”, and

Whereas, the rapid provision of full and uncensored information through the Internet has become a major industry in the United States, and one of its major exports, and

Whereas, political censorship of the Internet degrades the quality of that service and ultimately threatens the integrity and viability of the industry itself, both in the United States and abroad, and

Whereas, some authoritarian foreign governments such as the Governments of Belarus, Burma, China, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam block, restrict, and monitor the information their citizens attempt to obtain, and

Whereas, technology companies in the United States such as Google, that operate in countries controlled by authoritarian governments have an obligation to comply with the principles of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, and

Whereas, technology companies in the United States have failed to develop adequate standards by which they can conduct business with authoritarian governments while protecting human rights to freedom of speech and freedom of expression,

Therefore, be it resolved, that shareholders request that management institute policies to help protect freedom of
access to the Internet which would include the following minimum standards:

1)

Data that can identify individual users should not be hosted in Internet restricting countries, where political speech can be treated as a crime by the legal system.

2)

The company will not engage in pro-active censorship.

3)

The company will use all legal means to resist demands for censorship. The company will only comply with such demands if required to do so through legally binding procedures.

4)

Users will be clearly informed when the company has acceded to legally binding government requests to filter or otherwise censor content that the user is trying to access.

5)

Users should be informed about the company’s data retention practices, and the ways in which their data is shared with third parties.

6)

The company will document all cases where legally-binding censorship requests have been complied with, and that information will be publicly available.

Definitive Proxy Statement