Wednesday Mashup (6/10/09)

Not a lot going on here, but just some stuff I wanted to highlight…

The drip, drip, drip from the bad Bushco days continues, as the New York Times tells us here…

WASHINGTON — So far, President Obama has managed to curb Congressional calls for a national commission to investigate Bush administration detention policies. But Mr. Obama cannot control the courts, and lawsuits are turning out to be the force driving disclosures about brutal interrogations.

…

In new responses to lawsuits, the C.I.A. has agreed to release information from two previously secret sources: statements by high-level members of Al Qaeda who say they have been mistreated, and a 2004 report by the agency’s inspector general questioning both the legality and the effectiveness of coercive interrogations.

The Qaeda prisoners’ statements, made at tribunals at the detention camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, were previously excised from transcripts of the proceedings, but they will be at least partly disclosed by this Friday, according to a court filing. The report by the inspector general, whose secret findings in April 2004 led to a suspension of the C.I.A. interrogation program, will be released by June 19, the Justice Department said in a letter to a federal judge in New York.

It’s silly for us to assume that we can control the pictures showing or words describing our past misdeeds on the Now And Forever You Godless Socialist Liburuul War On Terra! Terra! Terra!

The trickle will turn into a flood. And anyone who doesn’t recognize that, including President Obama, is a fool.

And by the way, meet our ol’ buddy Vlad Putin’s next victim (here)…

MOSCOW — The president of the Russian republic of Bashkortostan, who has hung on by his fingernails through repeated periods of friction with the Kremlin, pushed his luck last week when he gave a scathing interview to a Moscow newspaper, charging that Russia’s political institutions were “embarrassing to look at” and that the country “is walking away from the process of democratization.”

Murtaza G. Rakhimov, 75, who has led Bashkortostan, an energy-rich southwestern region, since 1990, complained in Friday’s edition of the newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets that leaders in Moscow had recreated the top-down, one-party rule that had prevailed during the Soviet Union.

“Right now, everything is decided from above,” Mr. Rakhimov told the newspaper. “The level of centralization is worse than it was in Soviet times. With respect to local people, they carry out a policy of distrust and disrespect.”

He went on to attack United Russia, the governing party led by Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin, for trying to subjugate homegrown leaders. Mr. Rakhimov was one of United Russia’s founders, and remains a member of its executive council.

“Excuse me, but the basis of a party should be formed from below,” he said. “The people trying to run this party have never commanded three chickens.”

Anyone care to bet how long it takes before iodine turns up in his bloodstream, as if by some dark sorcery, or he “accidentally” falls out of a building?

Also, today marks the signoff of Chrysler CEO Bob Nardelli; he will return to Cerebrus Capital Management, as noted here in a copy of his farewell letter.

However, the following should be noted (from here)…

Of course, Chrysler was damaged goods before Nardelli arrived. Still, it's hard to hear Nardelli say that, after bankruptcy, it is now the "appropriate time to let others take the lead in the transformation of Chrysler with Fiat." Apparently, he was good enough to drive the automaker into bankruptcy, but he can't tow it out.

…

For market analysts, Nardelli's consecutive losing turns (Home Depot before Chrysler) could signal the end of an era where CEOs spend more time in front of a camera than behind closed doors.

"When you look at CEOs, we've gotten to the point where they've become stars," Hinsdale's Nolte said. "If you go back 30 years and try to name a corporate CEO, you wouldn't have had a clue. They did a lot of other things behind the scenes that weren't noteworthy or pressworthy. They've become more PR people now, I think, than true managers."

…

If analogies work best, Nardelli's journey isn't much unlike that of a sports manager or coach who gets recycled by several professional teams, yet doesn't have much success in the position. Think Wade Phillips, Dusty Baker, Norv Turner, Marty Schottenheimer, Rick Carlisle or Don Nelson.

Just as football fans are worried which team will hire Herm Edwards now, should we dare ask who will see value in Nardelli next?

"He's gone from diversified industrial to retail to autos. The only thing he hasn't touched is health care and technology," Nolte joked. "Maybe an airline."

Actually, if Nardelli decides to walk away from Cerebrus, maybe he could get a job with Comcast’s customer service department, helping to “manage” the resolution of issues such as those noted here (and wouldn’t it be nice if he brought his “reverse Midas touch,” if you will, to an organization that truly deserves it?).

Finally, I give you Senate Repug Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, who tells us here that…

…reductions (to President Obama's NASA budget proposal), which total $650.6 million, were "destructive." The biggest proposed reduction made by the House Appropriations Committee is a $566.5 million cut from Obama's request for space exploration funding.

…

…Hutchison said that waiting to fund the NASA program would lead to layoffs and hurt one of the country's advantages over other countries.

"Having people in space is how we have come so far and have really been able to dominate space," she said.

I don’t begrudge Hutchison standing up for NASA here in 2009, but I would merely like to note the following from 2006 (here)…

We hope Sen. Hutchison has abandoned the proposition that puts national security at risk of inviting Chinese investment in our space program to offset part of budget tightening. Her misplaced priorities have forced belt tightening in the wrong place for NASA, Texas, and science on earth: cuts in the studying of what NASA learns in space has led to what experts dub "space tourism" and a change in the NASA mission statement to eliminate learning about the earth in which we live.

…

Sen. Hutchison should acknowledge that, in her continued criticism of the federal government, she is Texas' senior representative in the federal government. She claims she has tremendous power on the appropriations committee. Yet, after 13 plus years and senate seniority from Texas, she's been unable to bring home government spending in fair proportion for Texas.

Funny how unofficially running for governor tends to alter one’s perspective on these matters, doesn’t it?

Update 6/15/09: Not unofficial any more (here)...