In a story in The Washington Post today we’re told Bush’s proposed policy is opposed by the AFL-CIO.

“I think the government ought to allow employers to say to an employee, if you want some time off, and work different hours, you’re allowed to do so,” Bush said in Columbus.

The idea is opposed by labor leaders, who contend it would help corporate interests more than it would employees. John J. Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, a federation of unions representing more than 13 million workers, said the idea is “really about giving America’s corporations the flexibility to cheat their workers out of overtime pay after 40 hours a week.” He portrayed the flextime proposal as a sequel to recent changes in federal labor law, supported by Bush, that critics say will render 6 million workers ineligible for overtime pay. “Now, he wants to weaken the rights of the remaining workers who will still be eligible for overtime,” Sweeney said.

How does the proposal “cheat the workers”? Why does it “weaken their rights”?

There may be a good explanation but in this story neither the proposal details nor the reasons for the objections are stated.

Howard’s end? Nah! MSNBC President Rick Kaplan yesterday forgave MSNBC political analyst Howard Fineman for the latter’s snarky on-air comments about MSNBC “Hardball” host Chris Matthews on Don Imus’ radio show (which, yes, is simulcast on MSNBC).

Kaplan returned to the scene of the crime – the Imus show – where Newsweek correspondent Fineman suggested that ratings-challenged “Hardball” might be more successful if Matthews “shut up” more often.

“Sure I was irritated,” Kaplan said. But he added, “I think Howard’s great and I think that Howard’s brilliant, and I look forward to years and years of more Howard.”

A clearly relieved Fineman declined to comment yesterday.

OK, so I’ll comment: Chris, shut up!

Thanks to Shaula Evans for pointing out this Kevin Phillips article. Is the Senator listening?

Wonder what the chances are that Sen. John McCain is simply waiting until October to break with the Bush campaign and endorse John Kerry? Maybe he feels he can have the greatest impact by producing a little October surprise himself. In the waning hours of the campaign, the Bushies, desperate, achieve another low in the annals of American politics, perhaps by suggesting that Kerry pulled the guy out of the Mekong Delta because the two were having an affair. He was moved to save his lover. McCain seizes upon the dirty tactic to declare he cannot support Bush any longer, and throws the election to his Vietnam compatriot.

Bob, wake up, wake up.

John Kerry has been more aggressive than any recent leading Democrat in counterattacking when Bush’s message machine cranks up. The one subject that’s been toughest for him is the Iraq War. His votes are contradictory. And though I suspect he voted for the war in part because he was afraid politically to vote against it, he can explain the votes. And he should; otherwise, we’ll continue to get stories like this. As balanced and fair as these stories might try to be, the mere fact that they are written and headlined as this is, is damaging.

I think a risky strategy of addressing head-on the flip-flop issue on Iraq is warranted. Kerry should say:

I voted for the Iraq War because it never occurred to me – and I suspect neither to most of you — that our president would deliberately fabricate a rationale to send our sons and daughters into harm’s way. Certainly not while the job in Afghanistan was incomplete.

Be he did. And when he wasn’t willing to rescind tax cuts on the rich to pay for the war, I voted against giving him a blank check — without a plan to raise revenue for the war or to end it.

Kerry also can argue that his election is the only way we can make American safer.

The current president is mistrusted by leaders of our traditional allies, scorned by their constituents and literally hated by many Muslims. Building a strong coalition can happen only if we change administrations. George W. Bush can’t get it done.

I will put in place a new policy of cooperation and use the power of our ideas and our ideals to prove to the world’s one billion peace loving Muslims and our allies that we are ready to work with them. Our allies understand that by waging a war built on false pretenses and incompetently, we are creating more terrorists than we can ever destroy.

Osama bin Laden is no more representative of the Muslim world than Timothy McVeigh is of America. The long-term solution is to help the Muslim world achieve its vision of security and freedom throughout the world. George W. Bush cannot do that because he has no credibility with them.

By such positioning, Kerry can also counter the Bush campaign’s practice of the Lee Atwater strategy.

While I was abroad last month, columnist E.J. Dionne discussed Lee Atwater’s lingering impact on our elections. But while Dionne warns Dems to be ready to react, he failed to discuss one of Atwater’s more potent strategies. The late political operative often advised his clients to claim that their opponents are guilty of the very same thing his clients were most vulnerable on.

“It is not enough to advocate reform; you have to be able to get it done,” Bush said. “We are getting it done.”

Of course, Bush is not getting it done. He tries to inoculate himself by claiming Kerry can’t: the Atwater strategy.

Kerry has outlined a plan. It’s here. But he must emphasize that Bush cannot “get it done” because of the mistrust and fear he has engendered in the world.

According to the polls, more and more people are changing their minds about the wisdom of this war. They will respect Kerry if he admits the same.

The boss speaks simply and eloquently.

Richard Cohen summarizes Dubya’s flip-flop presidency.

…when you’re proud of your positions, and confident of their rightness, you want to explain them. When you’re afraid to talk about them, well . . .”

Link

Novak has had a few columns recently critical of the GOP. Maybe he’s sensing that the Bushies will eventually out his sources in the Plame leak and he’s getting in his licks while he can. More likely he’s worried that the platform will be another compassionate conservative one. Like it matters.

The Justice Department has declined to charge Republican Sen. Richard Shelby from Alabama with leaking classified information even though sources tell The Washington Post that it believes the senator told Fox News that two messages intercepted on 9/10/01 that read in Arabic that “[t]he match is about to begin” and “[t]omorrow is zero hour” weren’t translated until 9/12/01. The Post story suggests he did so to discredit George Tenet, whom Shelby wanted fired as director of the CIA.

So why didn’t Ashcroft’s department want to prosecute the GOP senator and instead referred the matter to the Senate Ethics committee? No points for getting the answer right; it would just prove you’re awake.

No word yet if the Justice Department will be referring the Valerie Plame investigation to the RNC.

More at Eschaton.

Much was promised before the invasion of Iraq that the money to finance it would come from Iraq, specifically its oil fields. Of course that was another of the miscalculations from the Bush administration.

But there was some Iraqi money to work with – from oil and frozen assets of the Hussein regime The Coalition Provisional Authority (aka Paul Bremer) said Iraqi money would be spent with Iraqi companies.

But the CPA never released information about specific contracts and the identities of companies that won them, citing security concerns, so it has been impossible to know whether these promises were kept.

The CPA has said it has awarded about 2,000 contracts with Iraqi money. Its inspector general compiled records for the major contracts, which it defined as those worth $5 million or more each. Analysis of those and other records shows that 19 of 37 major contracts funded by Iraqi money went to U.S. companies and at least 85 percent of the total $2.26 billion was obligated to U.S. companies. The contracts that went to U.S. firms may be worth several hundred million more once the work is completed.

And guess who ahead of the line – Dick Cheney’s Haliburton.

There was little control of Iraqi money.

…the CPA at times violated its own rules, authorizing Iraqi money when it didn’t have a quorum or proper Iraqi representation at meetings, and kept such sloppy records that the paperwork for several major contracts could not be found. During the first half of the occupation, the CPA depended heavily on no-bid contracts that were questioned by auditors. And the occupation’s shifting of projects that were publicly announced to be financed by U.S. money to Iraqi money prompted the Iraqi finance minister to complain that the “ad hoc” process put the CPA in danger of losing the trust of the people.

Kellogg Brown & Root Inc., a subsidiary of Halliburton, was paid $1.66 billion from the Iraqi money, primarily to cover the cost of importing fuel from Kuwait. The job was tacked on to a no-bid contract that was the subject of several investigations after allegations surfaced that a subcontractor for Houston-based KBR overcharged by as much as $61 million for the fuel.

And the leading Iraqis who were working with the U.S. had little say in how Iraqi money was spent and that much of it was awarded through no-bid contracts.

Critics of the CPA accused the occupation authority of using Iraqi money to bypass U.S. contracting rules on competition, oversight and monitoring for controversial projects.

“With American firms charging 10 times as much as Iraqi firms for construction work, with sole-source contracts being awarded, with allegations of money-wasting . . . is it likely that the CPA was doing its best to ensure Iraqi money was spent in Iraqi interests? It doesn’t look like it,” said Anthea Lawson, an analyst for Christian Aid, a nonprofit group that has been investigating the spending of Iraqi oil money.

Svetlana Tsalik, director of the Iraq Revenue Watch project of the Open Society Initiative think tank, said there were few clear distinctions between which pot of money — U.S. or Iraqi — the CPA would use to pay for reconstruction. “Whenever it had expenses that looked unpalatable for the U.S. public they would just dip into Iraqi funds,” Tsalik said.

…In most cases, to spend congressionally appropriated funds, CPA officials had to coordinate with officials in Washington, keep detailed records, advertise contracts widely and conform to waiting periods for bids to come in. Some of the money was held up by a turf war between the Pentagon and the State Department over who controlled the reconstruction.

It was simpler to use the Iraqi money.

The bottom line, politically, is that the Bush administration used Iraqi funds, without approval of the emerging Iraqi leadership and without competitive bidding, to pay Haliburton and other companies for projects they knew would be difficult to get through Congress, or at least would have brought to light more unsavory business practices by Dick Cheny.

I have visions of Tony Soparano’s back room of the Ba-Da-Bing.

The CPA’s inspector general found in audits released last week that the occupation failed to establish “effective funds controls and accountability” for hundreds of millions of dollars that were held in cash. In fact, the investigative unit said, the keys to one of the safes that held the cash was “kept in the disbursing officer’s unattended backpack.”