Think Progress

IRAQ -- PRES. CLINTON: EDELMAN IS AN 'IDEOLOGICAL HOLDOVER' FROM CHENEY'S INNER CIRCLE: On Saturday, former President Bill Clinton sharply criticized Under Secretary of Defense Eric Edelman, who recently rebuffed Sen. Hillary Clinton's (D-NY) request for Pentagon briefings to Congress on the administration's redeployment plans. In a letter to Clinton, Edelman wrote, "premature and public discussion of the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq reinforces enemy propaganda." Edelman's position is directly contradicted by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who testified that debate over Iraq redeployment has been "helpful in bringing pressure to bear on the Maliki government." Interviewed by ABC News, the former president "called Edelman 'one of the more ideological holdovers' in the Defense Department." "I think it's wrong to politicize national security," Clinton added. In the first Bush administration, Edelman, serving under then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, was part of a "shop" set up to "think about American foreign policy after the Cold War, at the grand strategic level." The project also included Paul Wolfowitz and Scooter Libby [New Yorker, 4/1/02]. From 2001-2003, Edelman served as a national security adviser to Cheney. In 2003, he was named as U.S. ambassador to Turkey, where he attempted to convince Turkey to cooperate with the Bush administration's plans to invade Iraq. Turkish columnist Ibrahim Karagul noted, "Edelman is probably the least-least liked and trusted American ambassador in Turkish history." In 2005, President Bush recess appointed Edelman to replace Douglas Feith. Additionally, Edelman came up with the idea of leaking information to the press as a way to rebut Amb. Joe Wilson's public criticisms of the administration's case for war. After Scooter Libby was convicted of obstructing the probe into who leaked the name of Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, Edelman wrote a letter of leniency praising Libby's "loyalty to individuals."

RADICAL RIGHT -- WHITE HOUSE LAVISHES BASELESS PRAISE ON NEOCONSERVATIVE COLUMNIST KRISTOL: Last week, Weekly Standard columnist Bill Kristol penned an op-ed in the Washington Post heaping praise on the presidency of George W. Bush, claiming, "I suppose I'll merely expose myself to harmless ridicule if I make the following assertion: George W. Bush's presidency will probably be a successful one." Kristol lauded Bush for his neutering of Medicare, the appointment of right-wing Supreme Court justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito, and even claimed that "we now seem to be on course to a successful outcome" in Iraq. Today, Washington Post reporter Howard Kurtz reveals that Bush was pleasantly surprised by Kristol's op-ed and "read the July 15 Outlook article that morning and recommended it to his staff." Increasingly, only fringe elements of the conservative movement like Kristol are lauding Bush's presidential tenure. A new Gallup Poll shows that the latest quarterly approving rating of Bush's presidency is "the worst he has had," with a string of sub-40 percent quarterly approval ratings now exceeding the run that former President Nixon had leading up to to his resignation. Furthermore, only 26 percent of Americans think the country is "on the right track." Kristol's ties to the White House have been long-standing, as he has been a close media ally of the White House on issues ranging from Iraq to Iran to the CIA leak scandal. Most recently, he accurately predicted Bush's commutation of Scooter Libby. White House aide Pete Wehner recently defended Kristol as "intellectually independent and intellectually courageous."

IRAQ -- NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE DIRECTOR: BUSH ADMINISTRATION MANIPULATED IRAQ INTELLIGENCE: A new biography on Vice President Dick Cheney by Weekly Standard staff writer Stephen F. Hayes contains some "revealing nuggets" about the infamously secretive Vice President. On Meet the Press this weekend, host Tim Russert highlighted a passage that said current Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Mike McConnell "was honored to be asked [to be DNI], but he had serious reservations. He had been unimpressed with many aspects of the Bush administration and its conduct of the war on terror, particularly what he felt was a politicized use of intelligence in the lead-up to the Iraq war." McConnell reportedly "seemed to side with those who believe that the administration manipulated intelligence on Iraq for political purposes before the 2003 invasion." Specifically, McConnell decried the "secondary unit" established within the Pentagon to "reinterpret information" prior to the war. An internal Pentagon investigation released in February revealed that former Undersecretary of Defense Doug Feith utilized the Counter-Terrorism Evaluation Group within the Pentagon to create and promote false links between Iraq and al Qaeda. Then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz "asked Feith's analysts to ignore the intelligence community's belief that the militant Islamist al-Qaida and Saddam's secular dictatorship were unlikely allies." Subsequently, Feith "disseminated alternative intelligence assessments on the Iraq and al-Qaida relationship...to senior decision-makers." Despite the overwhelming problems with both the intelligence that led to the Iraq war and the war's execution, Cheney still maintains that Rumsfeld was a "great secretary of defense." According to Hayes, he "absolutely" did not agree with the President's decision to fire Rumsfeld.

Steve Thomma of McClatchy writes, "When pressing a tough sale, Bush is a lousy salesman." "He's never really sold the country or Congress something it didn't already want. And when he's tried to sell something the people or the politicians didn't want, he's fallen flat." Thomma cites Bush's sales pitches on reforming immigration, privatizing Social Security, and staying in Iraq.

The Washington Post reports on an executive order issued by President Bush last week entitled, "Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq." In the extreme, it could be interpreted as targeting the financial assets of any American who undermines the administration's Iraq policy.

Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR), a member of the House Homeland Security Committee, was denied access to the White House plan for operating the government after a terrorist attack. "I just can't believe they're going to deny a member of Congress the right of reviewing how they plan to conduct the government of the United States after a significant terrorist attack," he said.

A few months ago, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice decided to write an opinion piece about Lebanon, but no one would publish it. Price Floyd, the State Department's director of media affairs, said, "I kept hearing the same thing: 'There's no news in this.'" The piece, he said, was littered with glowing references to President Bush's wise leadership. "It read like a campaign document."

"After a rare bipartisan agreement in the Senate to expand insurance coverage for low-income children, House Democrats have drafted an even broader plan that also calls for major changes in Medicare and promises to intensify the battle with the White House over health care." 

"Three parked cars exploded in a predominantly Shiite area in Baghdad on Monday, killing at least 12 people and wounding 19, according to police, and the U.S. military said car bombs had killed two troops over the weekend."

"The United States and Iran have set a date for ambassador-level talks in Baghdad on the deteriorating security situation in Iraq -- the first such meeting since late May, U.S. and Iraqi officials said Sunday."

"Major military offensives and a changed focus on increasing security have slowed efforts to train Iraqi forces to take control of Iraq, the top U.S. training official said." Brig. Gen. Dana Pittard told USA Today, "Transitioning [to Iraqi control] is not a main priority, but it's still a priority."

"Under a Senate bill to be introduced today, computer programmers, call-center staffers and other service-sector workers who make up the vast majority of the nation's workforce would for the first time be eligible for a generous package of income, health and retraining benefits currently reserved for manufacturing workers who lose their jobs to international trade."

And finally: What's the difference between Jessica Lynch and Jessica Simpson? "When Cheney threw out the first pitch before a 2003 game between the Cincinnati Reds and Chicago Cubs, Cheney was first informed that pop singer Nick Lachey "would sing the national anthem before the game and would be accompanied by his girlfriend, Jessica Simpson. Cheney thought Simpson's name sounded familiar. He asked his staff: 'Is that the soldier who was captured in Iraq?'"