I'm Just F'in Sayin'

(Source: The Gallop Organization)

Paul Hackett is closing in on Republican Jean Schmidt in the special election race for the open Congressional seat in Cincinnati. Republicans are running scared and pouring money into Schmidt's campaign (and of course doing everything they can to bury Hackett). Digby has a good post on why candidates like Hackett are just what our limp Democratic Party needs.

You can donate to Paul's campaign here. Time's running out (the election is this Tuesday).

The other day we had this:

Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. has repeatedly said that he has no memory of belonging to the Federalist Society, but his name appears in the influential, conservative legal organization's 1997-1998 leadership directory...

Yesterday, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Roberts "has no recollection of being a member of the Federalist Society, or its steering committee." Roberts has acknowledged taking part in some Federalist Society activities, Perino said...

Roberts is one of 19 steering committee members listed in the directory, which was provided to The Post by Alfred F. Ross, president of the Institute for Democracy Studies in New York, a liberal group that has published reports critical of the society.

And now we have this:

John Bolton, President Bush's nominee for U.N. ambassador, neglected to tell Congress he had been interviewed in a government investigation into faulty prewar intelligence that Iraq was seeking nuclear materials in Africa, the State Department said...

(State Department spokesman Noel Clay) said Bolton "didn't recall being interviewed by the State Department's inspector general" when he filled out the form. "Therefore, his form, as submitted, was inaccurate," Clay said. "He will correct it."...

"It seems unusual that Mr. Bolton would not remember his involvement in such a serious matter," said Biden, the senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "In my mind, this raises more questions that need to be answered. I hope President Bush will not make the mistake of recess appointing Mr. Bolton."

It would appear that everyone associated with George W. Bush is beginning to resemble the paranoid psychotic from Peter Gabriel's song I Don't Remember:

I got no means to show identification
I got no papers show you what I am
You'll have to take me just the way that you find me
What's gone is gone and I do not give a damn
Empty stomach, empty head
I got empty heart and empty bed
I don't remember
I don't remember

I don't remember, I don't recall
I got no memory of anything at all
I don't remember, I don't recall
I got no memory of anything
-anything at all

Strange is your language and I have no decoder
Why don't you make your inentions clear
With eyes to the sun and your mouth to the soda
Saying, "Tell me the truth, you got nothing to fear"
Stop staring at me like a bird of prey
I'm all mixed up, I got nothing to say
I don't remember
I don't remember

I don't remember, I don't recall
I got no memory of anything at all
I don't remember, I don't recall
I got no memory of anything
Anything at all

I don't remember, I don't recall
I got no memory of anything at all
I don't remember, I don't recall
I got no memory of anything
absolutely anything at all
I don't remember

On The Today Show last week, Elvis Costello sang The Scarlet Tide with Emmylou Harris and pointedly changed the words. Here are the original lyrics:

Well I recall his parting words
Must I accept his fate?
Or take myself far from this place
I thought I heard a black bell toll
A little bird did sing
Man has no choice
When he wants everything

Chorus:
We'll rise above the scarlet tide
That trickles down through the mountain
And separates the widow from the bride
Man goes beyond his own decision
Gets caught up in the mechanism
Of swindlers who act like kings
And brokers who break everything
The dark of night was swiftly fading
Close to the dawn of the day
Why would I want him
Just to lose him again

For The Today Show performance, Elvis initially sang:

I thought I heard a black bell toll
Up in the highest dome
Admit you're wrong
Just bring the boys back home

The second time he sang:

I thought I heard a black bell toll
Up in the highest dome
Admit you lied
And bring the boys back home

If you have Windows (insert snarky comment here), you can click The Today Show link and (I think) they have the video. For Macsters like myself, click on the pic of E.C. and Emmylou and watch the complete song.

(Thanks to CostelloNews.com for the tip; Lyrics courtesy of The Elvis Costello Home Page)

"We did not need to use a secret military tribunal, detain the defendant indefinitely as an enemy combatant or deny the defendant the right to counsel. The message to the world from today's sentencing is that our courts have not abandoned our commitment to the ideals that set our nation apart."

(...the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks have made Americans realize they are vulnerable to terrorism and that some believe) "this threat renders our Constitution obsolete...If that view is allowed to prevail, the terrorists will have won."

- U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour, sentencing Ahmed Ressam to 22 years in prison for plotting to bomb the Los Angeles airport on the eve of the millennium.

Republicans are "swift boating" Democratic candidate Paul Hackett, an Iraq war veteran who is running for a Congressional seat in Cincinnati. Steve Gilliard has more (including how to donate to Hackett's campaign) and here's Hackett's website to learn more about the candidate.

Main Entry: ob·vi·ous
Pronunciation: 'äb-vE-&s
Function: adjective
Etymology: Latin obvius, from obviam in the way, from ob in the way of + viam, accusative of via way -- more at OB-, VIA
1 archaic : being in the way or in front
2 : easily discovered, seen, or understood
synonym see EVIDENT

Panel: Bush Was Unready for Postwar Iraq

An independent panel headed by two former U.S. national security advisers said Wednesday that chaos in Iraq was due in part to inadequate postwar planning.

Planning for reconstruction should match the serious planning that goes into making war, said the panel headed by Samuel Berger and Brent Scowcroft. Berger was national security adviser to Democratic President Clinton. Scowcroft held the same post under Republican Presidents Ford and George H.W. Bush but has been critical of the current president's Iraq and Mideast policies.

"A dramatic military victory has been overshadowed by chaos and bloodshed in the streets of Baghdad, difficulty in establishing security or providing essential services, and a deadly insurgency," the report said.

"The costs, human, military and economic, are high and continue to mount," said the report, which was sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations, an independent foreign policy group.

Two years after a stunning three-week march on Baghdad, U.S. and Iraqi military forces have been unable to secure and rebuild the country, and reconstruction has fallen victim to a lack of security, the report said.

The White House has reacted to similar criticism in the past by saying there was significant postwar planning.

In a speech last month to soldiers at Fort Bragg, N.C., President Bush pointed to the Iraqi elections and efforts to improve roads, schools and basic services. "Rebuilding a country after three decades of tyranny is hard, and rebuilding while at war is even harder. Our progress has been uneven, but progress is being made."

The report said the critical miscalculation of Iraq war-planning was the conclusion that reconstruction would not require more troops than the invasion itself.

Not only are more troops needed but they should be trained for postwar duty, the task force said.

In Iraq, the task force said, postwar requirements did not get enough attention, and there were misjudgments, as well. This, the report said, "left the United States ill-equipped to address public security, governance and economic demands" after the war.

And this, in turn, undermined U.S. foreign policy and gave an early push to the insurgency in Iraq, the task force said.

In Afghanistan, as well as Iraq, the report said, the postwar period has been marked by inefficient operations and billions of dollars of wasted resources.

How could anyone (ANYONE) continue to believe in this Administration?

01) "Take My Breath Away" by Jessica Simpson
02) "Meant to Live" by Switchfoot
03) "Daughters" by John Mayer
04) "I Just Wanna Live" by Good Charlotte
05) "I Don't Want to Be" by Gavin DeGraw
06) "Don't Tell Me" by Avril Lavigne
07) "Sunday Morning" by Maroon 5
08) "I Drove All Night" by Celine Dion

Sony/BMG would have to pay me at least $10 million to get these songs anywhere near my computer.


*(source: Attorney General Eliot Spitzer)

Reading:

I've been pretty lucky with my book choices so far this summer (with the exception of Bellow's "Seize the Day." Sorry but I just can't get into him). Highlights include



...perhaps the perfect summertime novel for liberals: Metafiction to the max, it traces the rise and fall of civilization via a journal, a collection of letters, a mystery, a movie bio/proposal, an interview and an oral history. It's fun, challenging, sad, ultimately uplifting and a total page-turner. I also loved



...which could best be described as


+ +

(oops, wrong Homer)
+


It was written by Steve Tesich, best known for his Oscar-winning original screenplay for Breaking Away, and was published after his death.

And: I'm almost finished with



A novel about free black slaveowners, 20 years before the Civil War. Absolutely beautiful and heartbreaking.

Watching:

Believe it or not, my wife and I have only seen one movie so far this summer...but it was a great one:



It had no superheroes and no explosions. However, there was some sex and a car chase involving a goldfish. Oh, and it had this:

))<>((

For more, go here.

Viewing:

TV just doesn't seem the same without Lost and 24...we've yet to find any "Appointment TV" replacements this summer. The final season of Six Feet Under has been, more or less, a bummer. At this point, my wife and I are hoping that the entire Fisher family dies in a freak accident when the show finally comes to an end (it would be a fitting bookend to all of the freak accidents that have begun each episode). In the meantime, we've been filling our weekly TV-viewing requirements with, of course, The Daily Show, and the funniest hour on TV, Reno 911 & Stella (Tuesdays, 10-11p, Comedy Central):


















Listening:

It hasn't been the strongest summer for new music. The new Brian Eno was disappointing; try his second collection of odds and sods, Curiosities 2, instead:



It's available here.


The only disc that's truly been rocking my world this summer is The Secret Machines' new ep, "The Road Leads Where It's Led"



It's mostly a collection of covers, but boy do these New Yorkers know how to cover. Check out their version of Dylan's Girl From the North Country.

Update: Picked up the new Bob Mould last week. It's not "Capital G" great, but good Bob is better than most people's best efforts. If you're a true fan, I suggest you buy the limited edition double disc boxed set:



(Disc 2 has 6 other new songs plus 3 remixes which lean more toward Bob's recent noodling with electronica. The 6 new ones make it worth the extra dough. Plus, you get extra artwork with half-naked pictures of Bob...not that there's anything wrong with that). Click the cover below for a sample from Disc 1:






Listening Accessory:





It's a waterproof case for my iPod. Click it if you're interested in buying one. It comes in handy, especially when you have a dog like this:



Eating:

Probably the main reason we don't get to many movies is because we prefer a slow, relaxing evening filled with good food as opposed to eating stale popcorn in the dark. And, fortunately, we've been blessed with a great new restaurant in our neighborhood:



Aroma, located at 36 E. 4th St. in the greatest city in the world. It's tiny so you might want to call ahead: 212-375-0100 (tell 'em "Neil" sent ya).


Drinking:

This will do:



Cheers! Enjoy the rest of your summer...

Untitled, Will McRobb (2005)

The Wilson-Plame-Novak-Rove Blame Game timeline courtesy of FactCheck.org.

Britsh Blues Legend. Listen here.







(for my bro Bruce)

P.S. - "Bush honesty rating drops to lowest point"

...only 41 percent give Bush good marks for being “honest and straightforward” — his lowest ranking on this question since he became president. That’s a drop of nine percentage points since January, when a majority (50 percent to 36 percent) indicated that he was honest and straightforward. This finding comes at a time when the Bush administration is battling the perception that its rhetoric doesn’t match the realities in Iraq, and also allegations that chief political adviser Karl Rove leaked sensitive information about a CIA agent to a reporter. (The survey, however, was taken just before these allegations about Rove exploded into the current controversy.)

No, not the former New York Knicks forward who made a game-winning, 4-point play against the Indiana Pacers in the 1999 NBA playoffs. This Larry Johnson:

"an American, a registered Republican, a former intelligence official at the CIA, and a friend of Valerie Plame."

Listen to his Democratic Radio address here.

You were expecting a non-partisan, pro-choice, pro-environment, pro-Geneva Convention, pro-civil liberties, pro-separation of church & state, Hispanic lesbian?

18 July 2005

AN OPEN STATEMENT TO THE LEADERS OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF
REPRESENTATIVES AND THE SENATE.

The Honorable Dennis Hastert, Speaker, U.S. House of Representatives
The Honorable Nancy Pelosi, Minority Leader, U.S. House of Representatives
The Honorable Dr. William Frist, Majority Leader of the Senate
The Honorable Harry Reid, Minority Leader of the Senate

We, the undersigned former U.S. intelligence officers are concerned with the tone and substance of the public debate over the ongoing Department of Justice investigation into who leaked the name of Valerie Plame, wife of former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson IV, to syndicated columnist Robert Novak and other members of the media, which exposed her status as an undercover CIA officer. The disclosure of Ms. Plame’s name was a shameful event in American history and, in our professional judgment, may have damaged U.S. national security and poses a threat to the ability of U.S. intelligence gathering using human sources. Any breach of the code of confidentiality and cover weakens the overall fabric of intelligence, and, directly or indirectly, jeopardizes the work and safety of intelligence workers and their sources.

The Republican National Committee has circulated talking points to supporters to use as part of a coordinated strategy to discredit Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife. As part of this campaign a common theme is the idea that Ambassador Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame was not undercover and deserved no protection. The following are four recent examples of this “talking point”:

Michael Medved stated on Larry King Live on July 12, 2005, “And let's be honest about this. Mrs. Plame, Mrs. Wilson, had a desk job at Langley. She went back and forth every single day.”

Victoria Toensing stated on a Fox News program with John Gibson on July 12, 2005 that, “Well, they weren't taking affirmative measures to protect that identity. They gave her a desk job in Langley. You don't really have somebody deep undercover going back and forth to Langley, where people can see them.”

Ed Rodgers, Washington Lobbyist and former Republican official, said on July 13, 2005 on the Newshour with Jim Lehrer, “And also I think it is now a matter of established fact that Mrs. Plame was not a protected covert agent, and I don't think there's any meaningful investigation about that.”

House majority whip Roy Blunt (R, Mo), on Face the Nation, July 17, 2005, “It certainly wouldn't be the first time that the CIA might have been overzealous in sort of maintaining the kind of topsecret definition on things longer than they needed to. You know, this was a job that the ambassador's wife had that she went to every day. It was a desk job. I think many people in Washington understood that her employment was at the CIA, and she went to that office every day.”

These comments reveal an astonishing ignorance of the intelligence community and the role of cover. The fact is that there are thousands of U.S. intelligence officers who “work at a desk” in the Washington, D.C. area every day who are undercover. Some have official cover, and some have non-official cover. Both classes of cover must and should be protected.

While we are pleased that the U.S. Department of Justice is conducting an investigation and that the U.S. Attorney General has recused himself, we believe that the partisan attacks against Valerie Plame are sending a deeply discouraging message to the men and women who have agreed to work undercover for their nation’s security.

We are not lawyers and are not qualified to determine whether the leakers technically violated the 1982 Intelligence Identities Protection Act. However, we are confident that Valerie Plame was working in a cover status and that our nation’s leaders, regardless of political party, have a duty to protect all intelligence officers. We believe it is appropriate for the President to move proactively to dismiss from office or administratively punish any official who participated in any way in revealing Valerie Plame's status. Such an act by the President would send an unambiguous message that leaks of this nature will not be tolerated and would be consistent with his duties as the Commander-in-Chief.

We also believe it is important that Congress speak with one non-partisan voice on this issue. Intelligence officers should not be used as political footballs. In the case of Valerie Plame, she still works for the CIA and is not in a position to publicly defend her reputation and honor. We stand in her stead and ask that Republicans and Democrats honor her service to her country and stop the campaign of disparagement and innuendo aimed at discrediting Mrs. Wilson and her husband.

Our friends and colleagues have difficult jobs gathering the intelligence, which helps, for example, to prevent terrorist attacks against Americans at home and abroad. They sometimes face great personal risk and must spend long hours away from family and friends. They serve because they love this country and are committed to protecting it from threats from abroad and to defending the principles of liberty and freedom. They do not expect public acknowledgement for their work, but they do expect and deserve their government’s protection of their covert status.

For the good of our country, we ask you to please stand up for every man and woman who works for the U.S. intelligence community and help protect their ability to live their cover.






JOINED BY:
Mr. Brent Cavan, former Analyst, CIA
Mr. Vince Cannistraro, former Case Officer, CIA
Mr. Michael Grimaldi, former Analyst, CIA
Mr. Mel Goodman, former senior Analyst, CIA
Col. W. Patrick Lang (US Army retired), former Director, Defense Humint
Services, DIA
Mr. David MacMichael, former senior estimates officer, National Intelligence
Council, CIA
Mr. James Marcinkowski, former Case Officer, CIA
Mr. Ray McGovern, former senior Analyst and PDB Briefer, CIA
Mr. Jim Smith, former Case Officer, CIA
Mr. William C. Wagner, former Case Officer, CIA

(Letter courtesy of Talking Points Memo)


To paraphrase Janeane Garofalo from a pre-election Daily Show appearance, if you support Bush, you have "a character flaw." And apparently, you don't give a crap about national security either...

So sayeth Attaturk at Rising Hegemon who doesn't want to give Judge Roberts a "free pass" but feels the "time for getting worked up about this guy is as things emerge." What we need to continue to focus on are the continuing revelations about Rove, Plame and, yes, war crimes:

"And why exactly? Because in my opinion the gingerbread house of Chimpy is about ready to crumble, as it should, built upon the foundation of war crime. If that happens, John Roberts will take care of itself. We need to push it over the precipice, and they are dangerously close -- and they know it, the entire GOP establishment knows it. Freeper, or moderate GOPer, they all know that desperate measures are necessary to save it.

But they may not be able to, without making matters even worse for them.

We can see the writing on the wall if what Murray Waas reports is correct":

White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove did not disclose that he had ever discussed CIA officer Valerie Plame with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper during Rove’s first interview with the FBI, according to legal sources with firsthand knowledge of the matter.

The omission by Rove created doubt for federal investigators, almost from the inception of their criminal probe into who leaked Plame's name to columnist Robert Novak, as to whether Rove was withholding crucial information from them, and perhaps even misleading or lying to them, the sources said...

"As Digby notes, this is what ended up getting Martha Stewart entered in prison craft fairs.

After months and months of thinking that Bush and his cronies would never be "THAT" deceitful, the public is waking up and contemplating the truth that, yes indeed, Bush wanted this war by hook, crook, and whatever lie he could sell it on. And after Exhibit No. 1 being the lack of WMDs, Exhibit No. 2 being the now obvious lack of planning, comes the clincher the smoking gun, the deliberate outing of a CIA Operative as a means of punishing an ACCURATE critic of Bush's claims about African Yellow Cake purchases."

So, let's focus people. We already know that the press has a difficult time walking and chewing bubblegum at the same time:

(from CNN) Kagan: Well, the announcement of a Supreme Court nominee would certainly shift the spotlight away from Karl Rove and the CIA leak investigation. Rove's reported leak of an operative's identity to a journalist has been a distraction for the Bush administration in recent days.

Franken: Speaking of the Karl Rove matter, of course, that is news that is considered at the moment so yesterday. We've moved on. And of course, they're going to have big news tonight.

Go here to sign the letter.

From Bloggermann:

"...(Karl) Rove did more damage to your safety than the most thumb-sucking liberal or guard at Abu Ghraib. He destroyed an intelligence asset like Valerie Plame merely to deflect criticism of a politician. We have all the damned politicians, of every stripe, that we need. The best of them isn’t worth half a Valerie Plame. And if the particular politician for whom Rove was deflecting, President Bush, is more than just all hat and no cattle on terrorism, he needs to banish Rove -- and loudly."

(Photo courtesy of some German site I couldn't even begin to translate)

(Halloween comes early for a friend of a friend's dog)

The Rude Pundit on Karl Rove, America's favorite Turd Blossom:

"The reason Rove must be destroyed - which means he needs to be sent up for something more than perjury because simply that would allow him to be a paid consultant for the rest of his life - is that a destroyed Rove would be a maelstrom in the White House. If you remove the center from a system, a system must collapse. And so would end the Bush presidency, for Bush without Rove is like a dalmatian without an owner - so stupid from overbreeding that if it ain't got someone to tell it what to do, it'll just sit in a corner and shit itself endlessly..."

The bad news? The new set sucks. The good news? The Daily Show is still the funniest and smartest show on TV. For those of you who weren't able to tune in this week, the kind folks over at onegoodmove have not one but two excellent clips about Karl, Scotty and the "Best Leak Ever."

Yes, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff really said this:

"The truth of the matter is, a fully loaded airplane with jet fuel, a commercial airliner, has the capacity to kill 3,000 people. A bomb in a subway car may kill 30 people. When you start to think about your priorities, you're going to think about making sure you don't have a catastrophic thing first."

Chimpy sure knows how to pick 'em...

The GOP thinks Karl Rove "deserves a prize" for "Truth-Telling" and Fox News brainiac John Gibson thinks Rove "deserves a medal" for outing Valerie Plame. Via Oliver Willis (with video):

Let me repeat: John Gibson, anchor at the FOX News Channel, says he believes that we ought to expose our covert government agents and harm national security...as long as it benefits Republicans.

I don't even know where to begin...

I've noticed that some people in the blogosphere are calling Karl Rove "toast." Personally, I'm insulted. My wife is insulted. And, most importantly, our most magnificent and noble dog Toast is insulted.





We asked Toast what she thought people should be calling Karl. She just barked at us but I could have sworn she said "Traitorous Asshole."














Go here for AMERICAblog's Benedict Rove products.

Including Roxy Music in Berlin! (I know, I'm a geek). Click here.

Update: Link is no longer functional. So much for one world...

Sept. 29, 2003:

Q: You said this morning, quote, "The president knows that Karl Rove wasn't involved." How does he know that?

Scott McClellan: Well, I've made it very clear that it was a ridiculous suggestion in the first place. ... I've said that it's not true. ... And I have spoken with Karl Rove.

Q: It doesn't take much for the president to ask a senior official working for him, to just lay the question out for a few people and end this controversy today.

A: Do you have specific information to bring to our attention? ... Are we supposed to chase down every anonymous report in the newspaper? We'd spend all our time doing that."

Q: When you talked to Mr. Rove, did you discuss, "Did you ever have this information?"

A: I've made it very clear, he was not involved, that there's no truth to the suggestion that he was.

July 11, 2005:

Q: Do you want to retract your statement that Rove, Karl Rove, was not involved in the Valerie Plame expose?

A: I appreciate the question. This is an ongoing investigation at this point. The president directed the White House to cooperate fully with the investigation, and as part of cooperating fully with the investigation, that means we're not going to be commenting on it while it is ongoing.

Q: But Rove has apparently commented, through his lawyer, that he was definitely involved.

A: You're asking me to comment on an ongoing investigation.

Q: I'm saying, why did you stand there and say he was not involved?

A: Again, while there is an ongoing investigation, I'm not going to be commenting on it nor is ... .

Q: Any remorse?

A: Nor is the White House, because the president wanted us to cooperate fully with the investigation, and that's what we're doing.

My, my, how time flies when we're telling lies. There's a lot more, courtesy of the AP.

The Gaggle finally takes McClellan to task. Crooks and Liars has the video; AMERICAblog is on top of Scotty's pile of lies.

"I sometimes feel that Alfred E. Neuman is in charge in Washington," (Hillary) Clinton said during the inaugural Aspen Ideas Festival, organized by the Aspen Institute, a non-partisan think tank.

The former first lady drew a laugh from the crowd when she described Bush's attitude toward tough issues with Neuman's catch phrase: "What, me worry?"

A Republican National Committee official said the former first lady was "part of today's angry and adrift Democrat Party," while a spokesman for one of her potential 2006 Senate rivals said she was guilty of "insulting the president."

"At a time when President Bush and most elected officials are focused on the security of our nation, Mrs. Clinton seems focused on taking partisan jabs and promoting her presidential campaign," added New York's GOP chairman, Stephen Minarik. "Her priorities are clearly out of whack."

Republicans would never, ever stoop so low as to insult an elected official or act in a partisan manner...

""I've never been able to understand (Howard Dean's) appeal. Maybe his mother loved him, but I've never met anybody who does. He's never won anything, as best I can tell." - Vice President Dick Cheney, clearly not acting angry or adrift

"Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war. Liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers." - Karl Rove, mild-mannered architect of Republican civility, who would never "put partisan politics above the security of our nation."

...especially since the President and his men are doing such a competent job of defending us from the evildoers:

U.S. forces launched a manhunt for four "dangerous" Arab al Qaeda militants who escaped from U.S. detention in Afghanistan on Monday, hours after another search found the body of a missing U.S. commando.

In a fresh embarrassment for U.S. forces reeling from their worst combat losses in Afghanistan since invading in 2001, the four were reported missing from the heavily guarded detention center at the main U.S. base early in the morning.

And then of course there's the White House pre-London bombing budget proposal for the Transportation Security Administration:

The White House budget proposal for the TSA contained $4.7 billion for aviation security and just $32 million for railroads, subways, buses and other forms of surface transportation.

I believe I'd actually prefer a humor magazine mascot to be running our country. How could it be any worse than it currently is?

...but for some reason you couldn't bother to pay attention. It can all be found in these two excellent articles:

George Packer's "The Home Front" in The New Yorker

and

James Wolcott's "To Live and Die in Iraq" in Vanity Fair.

The sad, drunken and clearly impotent Christopher Hitchens thought the Packer article about our "distant war" was "portentous" (I'm assuming Snitchens meant portentous as in "pompous" as opposed to "grave or serious" because, as we all know, it takes one to know one) but raw emotion + truth + excellent prose is always a good combo in my book. The Wolcott article is less raw; it somehow manages to include humourous touches about an unbelievably serious subject without offending. Well, it didn't offend me...I can't speak for the British boozehound.

*You, not you.

From Newsweek:

It was 11:07 on a Friday morning, July 11, 2003, and Time magazine correspondent Matt Cooper was tapping out an e-mail to his bureau chief, Michael Duffy. "Subject: Rove/P&C," (for personal and confidential), Cooper began. "Spoke to Rove on double super secret background for about two mins before he went on vacation ..." Cooper proceeded to spell out some guidance on a story that was beginning to roil Washington. He finished, "please don't source this to rove or even WH [White House]" and suggested another reporter check with the CIA...

For two years, a federal prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, has been investigating the leak of Plame's identity as an undercover CIA agent. The leak was first reported by columnist Robert Novak on July 14, 2003. Novak apparently made some arrangement with the prosecutor, but Fitzgerald continued to press other reporters for their sources, possibly to show a pattern (to prove intent) or to make a perjury case. (It is illegal to knowingly identify an undercover CIA officer.) Rove's words on the Plame case have always been carefully chosen. "I didn't know her name. I didn't leak her name," Rove told CNN last year when asked if he had anything to do with the Plame leak. Rove has never publicly acknowledged talking to any reporter about former ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife. But last week, his lawyer, Robert Luskin, confirmed to NEWSWEEK that Rove did—and that Rove was the secret source who, at the request of both Cooper's lawyer and the prosecutor, gave Cooper permission to testify.

The controversy arose when Wilson wrote an op-ed column in The New York Times saying that he had been sent by the CIA in February 2002 to investigate charges that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from the African country of Niger. Wilson said he had found no evidence to support the claim. Wilson's column was an early attack on the evidence used by the Bush administration to justify going to war in Iraq. The White House wished to discredit Wilson and his attacks. The question for the prosecutor is whether someone in the administration, in an effort to undermine Wilson's credibility, intentionally revealed the covert identity of his wife.

In a brief conversation with Rove, Cooper asked what to make of the flap over Wilson's criticisms. NEWSWEEK obtained a copy of the e-mail that Cooper sent his bureau chief after speaking to Rove. (The e-mail was authenticated by a source intimately familiar with Time's editorial handling of the Wilson story, but who has asked not to be identified because of the magazine's corporate decision not to disclose its contents.) Cooper wrote that Rove offered him a "big warning" not to "get too far out on Wilson." Rove told Cooper that Wilson's trip had not been authorized by "DCIA"—CIA Director George Tenet—or Vice President Dick Cheney. Rather, "it was, KR said, wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd [weapons of mass destruction] issues who authorized the trip." Wilson's wife is Plame, then an undercover agent working as an analyst in the CIA's Directorate of Operations counterproliferation division. (Cooper later included the essence of what Rove told him in an online story.) The e-mail characterizing the conversation continues: "not only the genesis of the trip is flawed an[d] suspect but so is the report. he [Rove] implied strongly there's still plenty to implicate iraqi interest in acquiring uranium fro[m] Niger ..."

In other words, per Digby:

"Karl Rove and others in the White House exposed an undercover CIA agent in order to cover up their lies about Iraq."

Ah, yes you say, but what about the rest of the Newsweek article which includes this:

A source close to Rove, who declined to be identified because he did not wish to run afoul of the prosecutor or government investigators, added that there was "absolutely no inconsistency" between Cooper's e-mail and what Rove has testified to during his three grand-jury appearances in the case. "A fair reading of the e-mail makes clear that the information conveyed was not part of an organized effort to disclose Plame's identity, but was an effort to discourage Time from publishing things that turned out to be false," the source said, referring to claims in circulation at the time that Cheney and high-level CIA officials arranged for Wilson's trip to Africa.

Take it away, Roger:

What the hell is this bullshit? The disclosure of Plame's identity (as the wife of Joseph Wilson) was the friggin' crime. It was disclosure of information to Cooper. Under the law, it doesn't friggin' matter (1) if there was an organized effort; (2) whether Rove intended for Cooper to publish; or (3) whether Rove's motive was to knock down a rumor. Repeat: None of those things friggin' matter. The only possible issue left is whether Rove knew Plame was a covert agent. The e-mail is silent on the matter -- although the fact that Rove didn't want his name connected to the leak strongly suggests his guilt in that regard.

This passage also illustrates the abuse of anonymous sources. If the source isn't Rove's attorney (who is quoted on the record elsewhere in the article), then there's no way he or she has first-hand knowledge of what Rove told the grand jury. So this jackass is simply providing uninformed spin - making an argument based on the language of the e-mail. Why should Newsweak give someone with no knowledge, but only spin, a promise of confidentiality?

Grrrrrrrrrr indeedy.

Untitled, Will McRobb (2005)

Many, many moons ago, I had the good fortune to guest DJ a couple of times for the best freeform radio station in, perhaps, the world: WFMU. I've decided to share my shows with you, my "online magazine" public. Click the radio for Show #1: "Here I Am, In My Room" (I'll let you know when Show #2: "Hello Out There America" is available). Enjoy...

"The Economist makes a good point today:

What the attacks also show, however, is that well co-ordinated though the four explosions were, they were not terribly effective. Chance plays a big role in such attacks. The bombs in Madrid last year which killed 191 people might have killed many more had the station roof collapsed. The September 11th hijackings might have killed fewer than the eventual 2,752 had the twin towers of the World Trade Centre not melted down and collapsed. As The Economist went to press, the toll in the four London bombs was not clear, but the estimate of at least 33 deaths was thankfully far smaller than in Madrid. By the terrible calculus of terrorism, the attacks should thus be counted as a failure - sign of weakness, not strength.

And no WMDs. For that, relief."

Yeah Andy, I bet the people who were on this bus are relieved about this giant example of failure.








Tom Tomorrow kindly reminds us of Andy's past wankerness:

"If the terrorists leave us alone in Iraq, fine. But if they come and get us, even better. Far more advantageous to fight terror using trained soldiers in Iraq than trying to defend civilians in New York or London."

"...all who can are urged to copy it and put it on the internet and do whatever you can do with it. Please, please do not pay hard-earned money for it."
- Wayne Coyne, The Flaming Lips

(Click CD cover to download. Thanks Wayne!)

...'cause God knows we all could use a little levity:









TomCruiseIsNuts.com

Well, I guess we can forget hearing about the Wilson-Plame-Rove-Iraqgate story in the MSM. We've gone Code Orange and it's gonna be nothin' but terror, 9/11, Pataki, Bloomberg, Giuliani, Bush, Blair, so-called experts, wingnuts and neocons, 24/7. And, of course, those of us who have dared to doubt Dear Leader will be blamed for the latest attacks.

So it will be up to the lowly bloggers to continue to fan the flames of Iraqgate. Digby has a great post on how this complex story can be told simply and directly. In a nutshell:

"Karl Rove and others in the White House exposed an undercover CIA agent in order to cover up their lies about Iraq."

"This is not an attack against the rich and powerful. It is not an attack on the politicians, but on the common working people of London.

"We have seen that you are not afraid to take your own lives but what you did is just mass murder.






"I can tell you now that you will fail in your long-term objectives to destroy our free society." - London mayor Ken Livingstone

"The war on terror goes on."

- George W. Bush, President, Crusader, Bike Rider

A federal judge today ordered Judith Miller of The New York Times to be jailed immediately after she again refused to cooperate with a grand jury investigating the disclosure of the identity of a covert C.I.A. operative.

But she should be going to jail for her irresponsible reporting:

When the full history of the Iraq war is written, one of its most scandalous chapters will be about how American journalists, in particular those at the New York Times, so easily allowed themselves to be manipulated by both dubious sources and untrustworthy White House officials into running stories that misled the nation about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. The Times finally acknowledged its grave errors in an extraordinary and lengthy editors note published Wednesday. The editors wrote:

"We have found ... instances of coverage that was not as rigorous as it should have been ... In some cases, the information that was controversial then, and seems questionable now, was insufficiently qualified or allowed to stand unchallenged. Looking back, we wish we had been more aggressive in re-examining the claims as new evidence emerged -- or failed to emerge ... We consider the story of Iraq's weapons, and of the pattern of misinformation, to be unfinished business. And we fully intend to continue aggressive reporting aimed at setting the record straight."

The editors conceded what intelligence sources had told me and numerous other reporters: that Pentagon favorite Ahmed Chalabi was feeding bad information to journalists and the White House and had set up a situation with Iraqi exiles where all of the influential institutions were shouting into the same garbage can, hearing the same echo. "Complicating matters for journalists, the accounts of these exiles were often eagerly confirmed by United States officials convinced of the need to intervene in Iraq. Administration officials now acknowledge that they sometimes fell for misinformation from these exile sources. So did many news organizations -- in particular, this one."

The reporter on many of the flawed stories at issue was Judith Miller, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and authority on the Middle East. The Times, insisting that the problem did not lie with any individual journalist, did not mention her name. The paper was presumably trying to take the high road by defending its reporter, but the omission seems peculiar. While her editors must share a large portion of the blame, the pieces ran under Miller's byline. It was Miller who clearly placed far too much credence in unreliable sources, and then credulously used dubious administration officials to confirm what she was told.

(snip)

In its editors note, the Times admitted Miller's "informant also claimed that Iraq had sent unconventional weapons to Syria and had been cooperating with Al Qaeda -- two claims that were then, and remain, highly controversial. But the tone of the article suggested that this Iraqi 'scientist' -- who in a later article described himself as an official of military intelligence -- had provided the justification the Americans had been seeking for the invasion. The Times never followed up on the veracity of this source or the attempts to verify his claims."

Miller, who knew all of this already at the time I interviewed her, remained righteously indignant, unwilling to accept that she had goofed in the grandest of fashions.

"You know what," she offered angrily. "I was proved fucking right. That's what happened. People who disagreed with me were saying, 'There she goes again.' But I was proved fucking right."

I've always been curious about this last quote and often wondered how Miller, unless she was completely batshit insane, could make such a dubious claim. And then, through the magic of Google, I came across this:

Now, at first glance this makes no sense whatsoever, since nothing in her article has been proven right. In fact, very little in any of her reporting on this subject was accurate. But -- what if we are all misunderstanding Miller? What if by "fucking right" she meant "having sex correctly"?

With that in mind, let's look at the quote again, with minor changes:

"You know what," she offered angrily. "I was proved to be having sex correctly. That's what happened. People who disagreed with me were saying, 'There she goes again.' But I was proved to be having sex correctly."

You see? Now it makes perfect sense. Remember that Miller has come under intense criticism not just for her atrocious reporting; many people also claimed she was still, as of 2003, having sex incorrectly.

Of course, the whole world knows Miller had sex incorrectly during the eighties. That's never been in dispute. Indeed, thousands of people (mostly Iranian) were killed.

The question was whether she was still having sex incorrectly as of 2003. The US and UK intelligence agencies were certain she was, and claimed Miller was a threat not just to her neighbors but the entire world. However, their certainty now appears to have been based on "evidence" manufactured by Ahmad Chalabi.

Mystery solved.

(file)

The Big Turd Sandwich has gotten himself into yet another bicycle accident:

Scott confirmed that POTUS collided with a police officer during his bike ride. He was about 45 minutes into his ride, Scott said, when the accident occurred. The officer was in a security detail on the grounds of Gleneagles. The President slid on the paved surface, suffering scrapes on his hands and arms that later required treatment and bandaging by his White House physician. The officer was taken to a local hospital as a precaution, Scott said. The extent of his harm wasn't immediately clear, although he might have an ankle injury.

I'm so glad we sent Bush to Scotland to represent us. Makes you proud to be an American...

(Click for more album covers ruined by evil corporations)

Remember when the world liked us, they really, really liked us...for about 3 seconds?

(from Le Monde, Paris, France, Sept. 12, 2001)

In this tragic moment, when words seem so inadequate to express the shock people feel, the first thing that comes to mind is this: We are all Americans! We are all New Yorkers, just as surely as John F. Kennedy declared himself to be a Berliner in 1962 when he visited Berlin. Indeed, just as in the gravest moments of our own history, how can we not feel profound solidarity with those people, that country, the United States, to whom we are so close and to whom we owe our freedom, and therefore our solidarity? How can we not be struck at the same time by this observation: The new century has come a long way.

Sept. 11, 2001, marks the ushering in of a new age that seems so far from the promise of another historic day, Nov. 9, 1989 [the breaking of the Berlin Wall], and a somewhat euphoric year, 2000, which we thought might conclude with peace in the Middle East.

And so a new century moves ahead, with powerful technology, as shown by the sophistication of the war operation that struck America’s symbols: those of its enormous economic power in the heart of Manhattan [and] of its military might at the Pentagon. The beginnings of this century defy understanding unless you promptly and indiscriminately subscribe to the cliché that is already the most widespread: the triggering of a war of the South against the North.

But to say this would be to credit the perpetrators of this murderous madness with “good intentions,” or with some plan, whereby the oppressed peoples would be avenged against their sole oppressor, America. That would have allowed them to claim “poverty” as their authority, thus committing an affront to it! What monstrous hypocrisy! None of those who had a hand in this operation can claim they intend the good of humanity. Actually, they have no interest in a better world. They simply want to wipe ours off the face of the Earth.

The reality is more certainly that of a world with no counterbalance, physically destabilized, and thus more dangerous since there is no multipolar balance. And America, in the solitude of its power, in its status as the sole superpower, now in the absence of a Soviet counter-model, has ceased to draw other nations to itself; or more precisely, in certain parts of the globe, it seems to draw nothing but hate. In the regulated world of the Cold War, where the various kinds of terrorism were more or less aided by Moscow, a certain degree of control was still possible, and the dialogue between Moscow and Washington never stopped. In today’s monopolistic world, it is a new barbarism, apparently with no control, which seems to want to set itself up as a counter-power. Perhaps, even in Europe, from the Gulf War to the use of F-16s by the Israeli army against the Palestinians, we have underestimated the intensity of the hate, which, from the outskirts of Jakarta to those of Durban, among the rejoicing crowds in Nablus and Cairo, is focused against the United States.

But the reality is perhaps also that of an America whose own cynicism has caught up with. If Bin Laden, as the American authorities seem to think, really is the one who ordered the Sept. 11 attacks, how can we fail to recall that he was in fact trained by the CIA and that he was an element of a policy, directed against the Soviets, that the Americans considered to be wise? Might it not then have been America itself that created this demon?

Be that as it may, America is going to change. Profoundly. America is like a large ocean liner, sailing for a long time on the same course. When the course is changed, it is changed for a long time. And, even though the expression may be overworked, the United States has suffered an unprecedented shock. Pearl Harbor marked the end of isolationism, so deeply rooted that it was not even moved by Hitler’s barbarity. After Pearl Harbor, everything changed. And America accepted it all, from the Marshall Plan to sending GIs to every point of the globe. Then came the Vietnam debacle, which led to a new doctrine, that of the rare but massive use of force, accompanied by the dogma of “zero casualties” for the United States, as illustrated during the Gulf War. All of that has now been swept away. There is no doubt that every means will be employed against enemies who, up to now, have remained elusive.

The new hand that has begun to be dealt out in blood, at this stage, will bring with it at least two foreseeable consequences. Both have to do with alliances: It is certainly the end of an entire strategy conceived in opposition to Russia, the Soviet Union at the time. Russia, at least in its non-Islamic areas, is going to become the main ally of the United States. Perhaps it is also the end of an alliance that the United States had traced out in the 1930s and soundly established in the 1950s with Sunni Muslim fundamentalism, such as it is defended particularly in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. In the eyes of American public opinion and its leadership, Islamic fundamentalism, in all its forms, risks being designated as the new enemy. Indeed, the anti-Islamic reflex, immediately after the attack on a federal building in Oklahoma City, resulted in statements that were ridiculous, if not downright odious.

Beyond their obvious murderous madness, these latest attacks nonetheless follow a certain logic.

Obviously it is a barbarous logic, marked by a new nihilism that is repugnant to the great majority of those who believe in Islam, which, as a religion, does not condone suicide any more than Christianity does, and certainly not suicide coupled with the massacre of innocent people. But it is a political logic, which, by going to extremes, seeks to force Muslim opinion to “choose sides” against those who are currently designated as “the Great Satan.” By doing this, their objective might well be to spread and deepen an unprecedented crisis in the Arab world.

In the long term, this attitude is obviously suicidal, because it attracts lightning. And it might attract a bolt of lightning that does not discriminate. This situation requires our leaders to rise to the occasion. They must act so that the peoples whom these warmongers are seeking to win over and are counting on will not fall in step behind them in their suicidal logic. This we can say with some dread: Modern technology allows them to go even further. Madness, even under the pretext of despair, is never a force that can regenerate the world. That is why today we are all Americans.

Oh boy, did we change. Thanks to Bush & Co., we became crusaders. Oy to the world. This is how much they like us now:


(source: Pew Global Attitudes Project)

To be fair, we have gone up a wee bit in world opinion from 2004 to 2005 partly because of U.S. aid for tsunami victims in Asia. I guess Condi Rice was right when she said "the tsunami was a wonderful opportunity to show not just the U.S. government, but the heart of the American people. And I think it has paid great dividends for us."

Ricky Gervais has some advice for ending both hunger and Phil Collins. Click his pic and make sure you watch all of the clips (you can skip the Madonna clip, however).

(Thanks to the ever vigilant freakgirl for the tip)

Let's review what we know, shall we?

• President Bush's statements on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction:

"Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons."

United Nations address, September 12, 2002

"Iraq has stockpiled biological and chemical weapons, and is rebuilding the facilities used to make more of those weapons."

"We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have."

Radio address, October 5, 2002

"The Iraqi regime . . . possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons."

"We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas."

"We've also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas. We're concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAVS for missions targeting the United States."

"The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. Saddam Hussein has held numerous meetings with Iraqi nuclear scientists, a group he calls his "nuclear mujahideen" -- his nuclear holy warriors. Satellite photographs reveal that Iraq is rebuilding facilities at sites that have been part of its nuclear program in the past. Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons."

Cincinnati, Ohio speech, October 7, 2002

"Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent."

State of the Union Address, January 28, 2003

"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."

Address to the nation, March 17, 2003
(source: John W. Dean, CNN.com)

• Saddam Hussein did not possess stockpiles of illicit weapons at the time of the U.S. invasion in March 2003 and had not begun any program to produce them, a CIA report concludes.

In fact, the long-awaited report, authored by Charles Duelfer, who advises the director of central intelligence on Iraqi weapons, says Iraq's WMD program was essentially destroyed in 1991 and Saddam ended Iraq's nuclear program after the 1991 Gulf War.
(source: CNN.com)

• “The problem lay not with intelligence professionals, but with the Bush and Blair administrations. They wanted a war, so they demanded reports supporting their case, while dismissing contrary evidence. . .”

"The public was told that Saddam posed an imminent threat. If that claim was fraudulent, the selling of the war is arguably the worst scandal in American political history -- worse than Watergate, worse than Iran-contra."
(source: Paul Krugman, The NY Times)

• Did the Bush administration manipulate intelligence about Saddam Hussein's weapons programs to justify an invasion of Iraq?

Based on my experience with the administration in the months leading up to the war, I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat...

In February 2002, I was informed by officials at the Central Intelligence Agency that Vice President Dick Cheney's office had questions about a particular intelligence report. While I never saw the report, I was told that it referred to a memorandum of agreement that documented the sale of uranium yellowcake — a form of lightly processed ore — by Niger to Iraq in the late 1990's. The agency officials asked if I would travel to Niger to check out the story so they could provide a response to the vice president's office...

It did not take long to conclude that it was highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever taken place...

(As for the actual memorandum, I never saw it. But news accounts have pointed out that the documents had glaring errors — they were signed, for example, by officials who were no longer in government — and were probably forged. And then there's the fact that Niger formally denied the charges.)...

Then, in January, President Bush, citing the British dossier, repeated the charges about Iraqi efforts to buy uranium from Africa.
(source: Joseph Wilson, The NY Times)

• A week later, Wilson received the payback. Conservative columnist Robert Novak, quoting two unnamed administration sources, reported that Wilson’s wife, Valerie Wilson (nee Plame), was a CIA operative working in the counterproliferation field. Novak revealed her identity to suggest that Wilson had been sent to Niger due to nepotism not his experience. The point of Novak’s column was to call Wilson’s trip and his findings into question.

The real story was that Novak’s sources–presumably White House officials–might have violated the law prohibiting government officials from identifying a covert officer of the United States government. Outing Valerie Wilson was a possible felony and–to boot–compromised national security. Two months later, the news broke that the CIA had asked the Justice Department to investigate the Wilson leak. And a US attorney named Patrick Fitzgerald has been on the case since the start of this year, leading an investigation that has included questioning Bush.
(source: David Corn, Bushlies.com)

• Now that Time Inc. has turned over documents to federal court, presumably revealing who its reporter, Matt Cooper, identified as his source in the Valerie Plame/CIA case, speculation runs rampant on the name of that source, and what might happen to him or her. Friday night, on the syndicated McLaughlin Group political talk show, Lawrence O'Donnell, senior MSNBC political analyst, claimed to know that name--and it is, according to him, top White House mastermind Karl Rove.

Today, O'Donnell went further, writing a brief entry at the Huffington Post blog:

"I revealed in yesterday's taping of the McLaughlin Group that Time magazine's e-mails will reveal that Karl Rove was Matt Cooper's source. I have known this for months but didn't want to say it at a time that would risk me getting dragged into the grand jury."
(source: Editor & Publisher)

• (Joseph) Wilson indicates that the work up on him beginning March, 2003, turned up the information on Valerie (Plame) -- which was then shared with Karl Rove who then circulated it through Administration and neo-Conservative circles. He cites conservative journalists who claimed to have had the information before the Novak column.

So the question is -- in the work-up process beginning about March 2003, who had the information re: Plame? I think it was John Bolton. At the time he was State Department Deputy Secretary with the portfolio in WMD and Nuclear Proliferation. Assuming that Valerie Plame's identity was that of a NOC (No Official Cover) the information about her would have been highly classified, compartmentalized, and only those with a need to know would know. Bolton's Job probably gave him that status. However to receive it he would have to sign off on the classification -- that is he would have to agree to retain the security the CIA had established.
(source: Hullabaloo)

• It is undisputed among all parties that Plame's covert work involved principally the gathering of intelligence related to weapons of mass destruction, which put her at an important nexus of operations in the runup to the Iraq War. At another nexus point across town, during the same period, was John Bolton.

While Plame and other covert operatives acted as the raw sources of WMD intelligence, Bolton was one of the significant administration officials guiding the acceptance and use of that intelligence.
(source: Daily Kos)

• Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton, while offering no new evidence, assured Congress that WMDs would indeed be found. And he advised that a new unit called the Iraq Survey Group, composed of some 1400 experts and technicians from around the world, is being deployed to assist in the searching.
(source: John W. Dean, CNN.com, 6/6/03)

• It might not be putting too fine a point on it to say that news reports have painted Bolton as a counterintelligence agent for the White House; a figure charged not only gathering with the "correct" intelligence to support the administration position, but with retaliation against sources of information or analysis contrary to the Bush Administration's desired pre-Iraq-War interpretations in order to refute, stifle, or punish those sources. Some of these counterintelligence operations -- and given the targets of Bolton's wrath, that would appear to be an accurate, if inflammatory, term to use -- appear to have taken place on Bolton's own initiative, such as his efforts to remove State Department employees who advanced WMD analyses different from endorsed Bush Administration views.
(source: Daily Kos)

• White House officials declined yesterday to give senators the extra documents they are seeking regarding John R. Bolton, President Bush's choice to become ambassador to the United Nations, setting up a major standoff with Senate Democrats over the long-troubled nomination.

Democratic senators sidetracked a final vote on Bolton's nomination late Thursday, saying they will keep it from the Senate floor until the Bush administration hands over the information they have been seeking for two months.
(source: Boston Globe)

So, WHAT ARE THEY HIDING?

It appears the Bush administration is guilty of both the crime(s) and the cover-up(s).

• To put it bluntly, if Bush has taken Congress and the nation into war based on bogus information, he is cooked. Manipulation or deliberate misuse of national security intelligence data, if proven, could be "a high crime" under the Constitution's impeachment clause. It would also be a violation of federal criminal law, including the broad federal anti-conspiracy statute, which renders it a felony "to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose."

It's important to recall that when Richard Nixon resigned, he was about to be impeached by the House of Representatives for misusing the CIA and FBI. After Watergate, all presidents are on notice that manipulating or misusing any agency of the executive branch improperly is a serious abuse of presidential power.

Nixon claimed that his misuses of the federal agencies for his political purposes were in the interest of national security. The same kind of thinking might lead a President to manipulate and misuse national security agencies or their intelligence to create a phony reason to lead the nation into a politically desirable war. Let us hope that is not the case.
(source: John W. Dean, CNN.com)

Sorry Mr. Dean, but there are four words that prove that this is indeed the case: The Downing Street Memos:

• Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.

Now, let's talk about what Bush has done "in the interest of national security." The 2004 election tipped toward Bush, not because of gays, guns and God, but because people thought he was the right man to protect our country. Yes, the same Commander in Chief who, with the help of his talented administration, screwed the pooch on 9/11:

Bush administration officials told former Sens. Gary Hart, D-Colo., and Warren Rudman, R-N.H., that they preferred instead to put aside the recommendations issued in the January report by the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century. Instead, the White House announced in May that it would have Vice President Dick Cheney study the potential problem of domestic terrorism -- which the bipartisan group had already spent two and a half years studying -- while assigning responsibility for dealing with the issue to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, headed by former Bush campaign manager Joe Allbaugh.

The Hart-Rudman Commission had specifically recommended that the issue of terrorism was such a threat it needed far more than FEMA's attention.

And who could forget Condi Rice's big moment in the spotlight?

RICHARD BEN-VENISTE: Isn't it a fact, Dr. Rice, that the August 6 PDB warned against possible attacks in this country? And I ask you whether you recall the title of that PDB?

CONDOLEEZZA RICE: I believe the title was, "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States."
(source: CNN.com)

9/11, as our president is fond of saying, changed everything and enabled Bush to annoint himself our "War President":

I'm a war president.  I make decisions here in the Oval Office in foreign-policy matters with war on my mind.  Again, I wish it wasn't true, but it is true.  And the American people need to know they got a president who sees the world the way it is.  And I see dangers that exist, and it's important for us to deal with them.

Okay, so we'll of course grant him the war in Afghanistan. Right move. Right time. But then he had to drain our resources in Afghanistan, putting our soldiers and our mission there at risk, as well as all of us here at home, and go and invade Iraq because it was an "imminent threat." When the administration's lies about WMDs in Iraq became apparent, Bush & Co. changed the storyline and became fond of telling us that removing Saddam Hussein has made the world a safer:

Three years ago, (Bush said), Iraq was ruled by "a proven mass murderer who refused to account for weapons of mass murder." (Note: "weapons of mass murder," not "weapons of mass destruction"; and "refused to account for," not "refused to disarm.") Now, Bush went on, Iraq is "becoming an example of reform to the region." Because America "helped to end the violent regime of Saddam Hussein, and because we're helping to raise a peaceful democracy in its place, the American people are safer."

As the pundits say, that remains to be seen. Maybe Iraq will emerge from the chaos as an exemplar of reform; maybe it will slide further into chaos and only encourage neighboring tyrannies to intensify their clampdowns. Meanwhile, terrorists, who it turns out didn't enjoy safe haven in Iraq before the war, have carved out camps in its aftermath. Leading Shiites are forming unsettling alliances with Iran. The Kurds are balking at any incursions on their autonomy. And, in the first month of Iraqi sovereignty, the most cherished consumer item for many citizens—thousands line up for one—is a passport to get the hell out of there.

And doesn't this make you feel more secure?

The CIA believes the Iraq insurgency poses an international threat and may produce better-trained Islamic terrorists than the 1980s Afghanistan war that gave rise to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda, a U.S. counterterrorism official said on Wednesday.

A classified report from the U.S. spy agency says Iraqi and foreign fighters are developing a broad range of deadly skills, from car bombings and assassinations to tightly coordinated conventional attacks on police and military targets, the official said.

Once the insurgency ends, Islamic militants are likely to disperse as highly organized battle-hardened combatants capable of operating throughout the Arab-speaking world and in other regions including Europe.(source: Reuters)

Oh, America is safe I guess. Glad I don't live in "other regions." The fact that Iraq has become a training ground for terrorists was more or less reaffirmed by Bush in his speech to the nation from Fort Bragg in which he quoted the man he failed to capture in Afghanistan:

Some wonder whether Iraq is a central front in the war on terror. Among the terrorists, there is no debate.

Here are the words of Osama bin Laden: This third world war is raging in Iraq. The whole world is watching this war. He says it will end in victory and glory or misery and humiliation.

So, it's pretty clear to me and my fellow "elitists" that our President is a capital "F" failure in the very area (WAR) that made him so much more attractive than John Kerry to 51% of the American voters: He failed to protect us on 9/11; he's failing in Afghanistan; he failed us in Iraq; he's failed our veterans; a member of his administration "violated the law prohibiting government officials from identifying a covert officer of the United States government...and–to boot–compromised national security"; and, most importantly, Bush lied to Congress and the American people in order to start this sad, sad war in Iraq.

So what do we do? We can start with this:



And then, after Karl the Traitor is sent to Gitmo, we can connect all of the dots and impeach The Big Turd Sandwich and his entire corrupt adminstration.



(Click for Articles of Impeachment)

"Every generation needs a new revolution." - Thomas Jefferson

If this post involved too much reading and cross-referencing for some of you, may I politely suggest listening to this musical collage I made a couple of years ago which pretty neatly sums up many of the lies and failures of George W. Bush, War President.

(Pee Wee image stolen from i-mockery.com. Rove image stolen from Rising Hegemon.)

Sign the Declaration

BRING THEM HOME NOW! is a campaign of military families, veterans, active duty personnel, reservists and others opposed to the ongoing war in Iraq and galvanized to action by George W. Bush's inane and reckless challenge to armed Iraqis resisting occupation to "Bring 'em on."

Our mission is to mobilize military families, veterans, and GIs themselves to demand: an end to the occupation of Iraq and other misguided military adventures; and an immediate return of all US troops to their home duty stations.

The truth is coming out. The American public was deceived by the Bush administration about the motivation for and intent of the invasion of Iraq. It is equally apparent that the administration is stubbornly and incompetently adhering to a destructive course. Many Americans do not want our troops there. Many military families do not want our troops there. Many troops themselves do not want to be there. The overwhelming majority of Iraqis do not want US troops there...

As military veterans and families, we understand that hardship is sometimes part of the job. But there has to be an honest and compelling reason to impose these hardships and risks on our troops, our families, and our communities. The reasons given for the occupation of Iraq do not rise to this standard.

Without just cause for war, we say bring the troops home now!

Not one more troop killed in action. Not one more troop wounded in action. Not one more troop psychologically damaged by the act of terrifying, humiliating, injuring or killing innocent people. Not one more troop spending one more day inhaling depleted uranium. Not one more troop separated from spouse and children. This is the only way to truly support these troops, and the families who are just as much part of the military as they are.

Bush says "Bring 'em on." We say "BRING THEM HOME NOW!"

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