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Stop me before I clean again
May. 14th, 2002 06:30 amWent down with the kid early, and I guess I didn't need as much sleep as all that, and it's too damn early to clean. So, it being a good news day, an update.
Another fine mess.
OK, this is a little convoluted, but trust me, it's big fun once you g et into it.
Jimmy Carter's in Cuba. In the press release from the Carter Center about the trip, it says
President Castro extended a verbal invitation to President Carter to visit Cuba when they were honorary pallbearers at the October 2000 funeral of former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. In January 2002, President Carter received a formal written invitation and began to explore possibilities for visiting Cuba. The U.S. Treasury Department issued a license April 5 for a Carter Center delegation to visit the country.
"As a leader who made human rights the centerpiece of his administration, President Carter is looking forward to a full discussion of this issue with President Fidel Castro and with other leaders in the Cuban government, the Church, and human rights communities," said Dr. Jennifer McCoy, director of the Carter Center Americas Program. "President Carter is traveling as a private citizen with no intention of entering into negotiations with the government of Cuba. This trip symbolizes his strong belief that this new century is the time to open our two countries to each other.”
Note the date of the invitation and the date of the clearance.
MSNBC, no great fan of Democrats in Washington since that whole messy antitrust business, in a stringently objective analysis piece entitled "Carter begins mystery trip: Ex-president breaks bread with U.S. archrival in Cuba" points out that
it’s not entirely clear what the globe-trotting former president hopes to achieve in the communist nation
and that
It’s also unclear why the trip was put together so hastily. Just one week before the former president was due, Cuban officials and Carter Center staff were still discussing the final program
and indeed, it does seem like an accelerated timetable, given the April approval date. So, why would Castro sign on so quickly? Well, CNN makes this salient observation:
Carter's visit, approved if not explicitly supported by the Bush administration, comes at yet another tenuous period in U.S.-Cuban relations.
U.S. farmers and businesses have joined Castro in asking Washington to end the 41-year-old embargo against Cuba, which Congress relaxed in recent years by allowing trade in food and medicine.
President Bush, however, is preparing to toughen his strategy for dealing with Castro, CNN has learned. Bush will deliver a speech next week outlining the United States' policy toward Cuba and then travel to Miami to honor Cuban Independence Day, aides told CNN.
That last bit could, I suspect, explain the expedited schedule.
So anyway, the Bush administration is facing pressure from constituencies it wants to keep happy (see this and this on his big slap in the face to free-market conservatives and the republican leadership in Congress in pursuit of farm state votes). Now, Cuba is definitely not a human rights haven, but no one in the Bush administration gives a rat's ass about that. They do, however, feel quite strongly indeed about the Governor's race in Florida, where there is an expatriate Cuban community that hates Castro with a blinding passion.
So, how to reconcile these two conflicting imperatives? Ente r John Bolton. If you take the position that Colin Powell is basically windowdressing for a far less competent and rational foreign policy that the Bush administration actuall y cares to carry out, Bolton is exhibit one. He recently added Cuba, Syria and Libya to the Axis of Evil.
Now, if this whole Axis of Evil conceit is something Bush is going to stick with (see: Iraq) as opposed to something he's willing to scrape quietly off his shoe and walk away from (see: Israel withdrawing, America not resting until we get Osama), this is a pretty serious statement. Remember, we're going to wage total war on the Axis of Evil.
Along those lines, Mr. Bolton announced last week that Cuba is developing bioweapons and supplying them to the charter axis members. Apparently he represents a faction at State that doesn't think the dangers of Cuba are being taken seriously enough. (Coverage from the varying perspective of the BBC and Fox. Check out Fox' whimsical Ari Fleischer quote).
Carter, now in a very awkward position, announced from Cuba that State told him otherwise. He said he specifically asked a bout the very same charges and was assured by the guys from State who did his briefing that they weren't true. (This could mean that the briefing officer was from a different faction - it seems unlikely that Powell would have a Bolton ally involved). He a lso suggested that perhaps Bolton's announcement could have had some connection to his visit (ya think?)
Powell spun the situation as best he could (underlings do _not_ do this sort of thing in the Army, with the possible exception of the current Secretary) with this somewhat strained interpretation of Bolton's comments. Some major US media, however, seem to be following the Bush administration spin.
The Washington Post, while it does quote an unnamed administration source as saying that they really have no idea what's going on in with Cuban bioweapons, also paraphrases Powell's comments thusly:
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, asked about Carter's comments while traveling to Iceland to attend a NATO summit, said he stood by Bolton's comments and added that they were not the first such assertions made by the Bush administration.
The Associated Press goes with this ringing endorsement of Bolton from our old buddy Otto Reich
"We stand by every word of (Undersecretary of State) John Bolton's speech," Otto Reich, the assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere, told The Associated Press.
and the Fleischer quote, although they do quote Carter on the suspicious timing, far below where any reasonable person could expect the fold to go.
Fox News (I can't be the first person to point out that this teeters on the brink of being an oxymoron) leads with this:
HAVANA — The State Department and Jimmy Carter contradicted one another Monday over claims the former president was briefed by U.S. officials about Cuba's capability to produce biological weapons.
(interesting dateline, don't you think?) and attempts to rationalize the situation with this interesting observation:
Secretary of State Colin Powell said Monday he does not know who briefed Carter. But he stood by Undersecretary of State John Bolton's statements last week that Cuba has the "capacity" to develop such arms.
Bolton said that "Cuba has provided dual use biot echnology to other rogue states. We are concerned that such technology could support biological warfare programs in those states." Powell said he doesn't think Bolton said Cuba has the weapons, but it has the potential.
Of course, that doesn't exactly contradict what Carter said, but who's counting.
Anyway, Fox follows up quickly with
The administration is hoping that Carter will turn his attention to human rights during his trip.
and gives a great deal of space to Fleischer.
Personally, I'm looking forward to Peggy Noonan's column on what Elian's dolphin friends make of all this, although I suspect I pretty much know where they're going to go with it.
In other news
Bellwether school privatization project bleeds money The Edison Project, which was going to revolutionize public education by throwing out unions and relying on parent volunteers, is not making much of a go of it. Alert the media. Oh, wait. Never mind.
The Nation thinks Secretary White should go given his involvement in the California energy crisis. Those wacky liberals. If he does have to go, he still has options. No, wiseass, not that kind of options.
Andrew Sullivan may be banned from NY Times. Trees possibly spared final indignity.
Who's Who on the NRA board Boy, that wacky Ted Nugent. Is that dude cogent or what?
Amused. In a furious battle for control of the self-made conservative mythos, O'Reilly faces off with Drudge and Limbaugh. Go husband go bear.
It gets ugly in Newark The race between the traditionalist liberal african-american Democratic mayor and his opponent, a liberal african-american googoo (short for good government - a reformer, IOW) Democrat, is reaching astonishing new lows. Unsurprisingly, this is getting far more national attention than most local races. The Post has a reasonably balanced story.
Administration agrees to investigate Administration actions in Venezuela Hope it's not too rough on itself.
In other news, the Madonna-Rupert Everett-Benjamin Bratt movie is on. I'm assuming that if I go take a hot bath right now, I'm not going to be missing Madonna dying in a freak yoga accident and Rupert Everett and Benjamin Bratt coming together to raise the child plot twist which is pretty much the only thing that could save this movie. Worse than Evita. shudder........
Another fine mess.
OK, this is a little convoluted, but trust me, it's big fun once you g et into it.
Jimmy Carter's in Cuba. In the press release from the Carter Center about the trip, it says
President Castro extended a verbal invitation to President Carter to visit Cuba when they were honorary pallbearers at the October 2000 funeral of former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. In January 2002, President Carter received a formal written invitation and began to explore possibilities for visiting Cuba. The U.S. Treasury Department issued a license April 5 for a Carter Center delegation to visit the country.
"As a leader who made human rights the centerpiece of his administration, President Carter is looking forward to a full discussion of this issue with President Fidel Castro and with other leaders in the Cuban government, the Church, and human rights communities," said Dr. Jennifer McCoy, director of the Carter Center Americas Program. "President Carter is traveling as a private citizen with no intention of entering into negotiations with the government of Cuba. This trip symbolizes his strong belief that this new century is the time to open our two countries to each other.”
Note the date of the invitation and the date of the clearance.
MSNBC, no great fan of Democrats in Washington since that whole messy antitrust business, in a stringently objective analysis piece entitled "Carter begins mystery trip: Ex-president breaks bread with U.S. archrival in Cuba" points out that
it’s not entirely clear what the globe-trotting former president hopes to achieve in the communist nation
and that
It’s also unclear why the trip was put together so hastily. Just one week before the former president was due, Cuban officials and Carter Center staff were still discussing the final program
and indeed, it does seem like an accelerated timetable, given the April approval date. So, why would Castro sign on so quickly? Well, CNN makes this salient observation:
Carter's visit, approved if not explicitly supported by the Bush administration, comes at yet another tenuous period in U.S.-Cuban relations.
U.S. farmers and businesses have joined Castro in asking Washington to end the 41-year-old embargo against Cuba, which Congress relaxed in recent years by allowing trade in food and medicine.
President Bush, however, is preparing to toughen his strategy for dealing with Castro, CNN has learned. Bush will deliver a speech next week outlining the United States' policy toward Cuba and then travel to Miami to honor Cuban Independence Day, aides told CNN.
That last bit could, I suspect, explain the expedited schedule.
So anyway, the Bush administration is facing pressure from constituencies it wants to keep happy (see this and this on his big slap in the face to free-market conservatives and the republican leadership in Congress in pursuit of farm state votes). Now, Cuba is definitely not a human rights haven, but no one in the Bush administration gives a rat's ass about that. They do, however, feel quite strongly indeed about the Governor's race in Florida, where there is an expatriate Cuban community that hates Castro with a blinding passion.
So, how to reconcile these two conflicting imperatives? Ente r John Bolton. If you take the position that Colin Powell is basically windowdressing for a far less competent and rational foreign policy that the Bush administration actuall y cares to carry out, Bolton is exhibit one. He recently added Cuba, Syria and Libya to the Axis of Evil.
Now, if this whole Axis of Evil conceit is something Bush is going to stick with (see: Iraq) as opposed to something he's willing to scrape quietly off his shoe and walk away from (see: Israel withdrawing, America not resting until we get Osama), this is a pretty serious statement. Remember, we're going to wage total war on the Axis of Evil.
Along those lines, Mr. Bolton announced last week that Cuba is developing bioweapons and supplying them to the charter axis members. Apparently he represents a faction at State that doesn't think the dangers of Cuba are being taken seriously enough. (Coverage from the varying perspective of the BBC and Fox. Check out Fox' whimsical Ari Fleischer quote).
Carter, now in a very awkward position, announced from Cuba that State told him otherwise. He said he specifically asked a bout the very same charges and was assured by the guys from State who did his briefing that they weren't true. (This could mean that the briefing officer was from a different faction - it seems unlikely that Powell would have a Bolton ally involved). He a lso suggested that perhaps Bolton's announcement could have had some connection to his visit (ya think?)
Powell spun the situation as best he could (underlings do _not_ do this sort of thing in the Army, with the possible exception of the current Secretary) with this somewhat strained interpretation of Bolton's comments. Some major US media, however, seem to be following the Bush administration spin.
The Washington Post, while it does quote an unnamed administration source as saying that they really have no idea what's going on in with Cuban bioweapons, also paraphrases Powell's comments thusly:
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, asked about Carter's comments while traveling to Iceland to attend a NATO summit, said he stood by Bolton's comments and added that they were not the first such assertions made by the Bush administration.
The Associated Press goes with this ringing endorsement of Bolton from our old buddy Otto Reich
"We stand by every word of (Undersecretary of State) John Bolton's speech," Otto Reich, the assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere, told The Associated Press.
and the Fleischer quote, although they do quote Carter on the suspicious timing, far below where any reasonable person could expect the fold to go.
Fox News (I can't be the first person to point out that this teeters on the brink of being an oxymoron) leads with this:
HAVANA — The State Department and Jimmy Carter contradicted one another Monday over claims the former president was briefed by U.S. officials about Cuba's capability to produce biological weapons.
(interesting dateline, don't you think?) and attempts to rationalize the situation with this interesting observation:
Secretary of State Colin Powell said Monday he does not know who briefed Carter. But he stood by Undersecretary of State John Bolton's statements last week that Cuba has the "capacity" to develop such arms.
Bolton said that "Cuba has provided dual use biot echnology to other rogue states. We are concerned that such technology could support biological warfare programs in those states." Powell said he doesn't think Bolton said Cuba has the weapons, but it has the potential.
Of course, that doesn't exactly contradict what Carter said, but who's counting.
Anyway, Fox follows up quickly with
The administration is hoping that Carter will turn his attention to human rights during his trip.
and gives a great deal of space to Fleischer.
Personally, I'm looking forward to Peggy Noonan's column on what Elian's dolphin friends make of all this, although I suspect I pretty much know where they're going to go with it.
In other news
Bellwether school privatization project bleeds money The Edison Project, which was going to revolutionize public education by throwing out unions and relying on parent volunteers, is not making much of a go of it. Alert the media. Oh, wait. Never mind.
The Nation thinks Secretary White should go given his involvement in the California energy crisis. Those wacky liberals. If he does have to go, he still has options. No, wiseass, not that kind of options.
Andrew Sullivan may be banned from NY Times. Trees possibly spared final indignity.
Who's Who on the NRA board Boy, that wacky Ted Nugent. Is that dude cogent or what?
Amused. In a furious battle for control of the self-made conservative mythos, O'Reilly faces off with Drudge and Limbaugh. Go husband go bear.
It gets ugly in Newark The race between the traditionalist liberal african-american Democratic mayor and his opponent, a liberal african-american googoo (short for good government - a reformer, IOW) Democrat, is reaching astonishing new lows. Unsurprisingly, this is getting far more national attention than most local races. The Post has a reasonably balanced story.
Administration agrees to investigate Administration actions in Venezuela Hope it's not too rough on itself.
In other news, the Madonna-Rupert Everett-Benjamin Bratt movie is on. I'm assuming that if I go take a hot bath right now, I'm not going to be missing Madonna dying in a freak yoga accident and Rupert Everett and Benjamin Bratt coming together to raise the child plot twist which is pretty much the only thing that could save this movie. Worse than Evita. shudder........
