There's an app for that. Seriously. I'm not sure why.

Have an iPhone or iPod Touch? Get iBryan at iTunes. It's FREE. For now.

PS: Musicians - get your own app at iLike.

Labels: 1369, in the news, music, photos, video

Our friends at the best web site in the world, jonimitchell.com, report:

Michelle Mercer book signing w/Bryan Thomas in Vermont - June 13

Michelle Mercer will be reading from and signing her book Will You Take Me As I Am: Joni Mitchell's Blue Period at Northshire Books in Manchester Center, Vermont on June 13th at 7pm.

Special musical guest Bryan Thomas (no stranger to the Joni Internet community) will provide the soundtrack to the book signing with a short, live set of his inimitable music after the reading.

The bookstore is located at 4869 Main Street in Manchester Center. Call 802-362-2200 or 800-437-3700 for more information.

• The Book
• Michelle Mercer
• Northshire Books
• Joni Memories: New Orleans 2000

RSVP to this event at ===> Facebook

Labels: in the news, live, music

Just when you thought it couldn't get any more tasteless than Purple Heart band-aids on the floor of the national convention comes this disgusting display, courtesy Reuters:



Note the Obama doll in the mouth of the alligator.

Got it?

Now note the history:

Analysis of a large collection of artifacts with racist African American imagery reveals several common themes. One is the portrayal of Black people, especially (often naked) children, as food for alligators. Imagery of Blacks as "alligator bait" can be found on prints, postcards, and even in product advertising. Some modern-day items still connect Black people to hungry alligators.

"Modern-day items," indeed.

Stay classy, GOP.

Hat Tip: Slandurgurl

Labels: in the news

There ya go.

Labels: in the news

In spite of the nastiness and venom of the past several months, the uncertainty of now, and the ugliness that is certainly to come, there's nothing like holding your sleeping, two-month-old bi-racial daughter in your arms while witnessing the finale of the historic campaigns of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to put it all in perspective.

Labels: family, in the news

The junior senator from the great state of New York:

"I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on," she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article "that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."

Can you call it a dog whistle if it's this loud?

Excellent analysis here and here and here and here and especially here.

And some music to lose your mind to.

Kick | Download MP3 - 5MB

Labels: in the news

New music for ya - inspired in no small part by the ongoing nonsense, which gets worse with each passing moment. I'm so mad I had to play drums. In 6/4 time on the chorus no less. Pseudo-snare and can-drum courtesy Zoe's toy collection.

Kick | Download MP3 - 5MB



And the next time former President Clinton or former Rep. Ferraro make every effort to assure you that they're not dog-whistling, that they're just "stating a fact", that hell, some of their best offices are in Harlem, please ask yourself how their so-called facts might resonate with this activist Democrat:

J. K. Patrick, a retired state employee from a neighboring county, wore a button on his shirt that said "Hillary: Smart Choice."

"East of Lexington she'll carry seventy per cent of the primary vote," he said. Kentucky votes on May 20. "She could win the general election in Kentucky." I asked about Obama. "Obama couldn't win."

Why not?

"Race," Patrick said matter-of-factly. "I've talked to people - a woman who was chair of county elections last year, she said she wouldn't vote for a black man." Patrick said he wouldn't vote for Obama either.

Why not?

"Race. I really don't want an African-American as President. Race."

What about race?

"I thought about it. I think he would put too many minorities in positions over the white race. That's my opinion. After 1964, you saw what the South did." He meant that it went Republican. "Now what caused that? Race. There's a lot of white people that just wouldn't vote for a colored person. Especially older people. They know what happened in the sixties. Under thirty - they don't remember. I do. I was here."

Yes, he "thought about it."

And yet after eight years of George W. Bush excreting on the Middle East, the Constitution, the Department of Justice and the global economy, Mr. Patrick (a Democrat!) is more worried about the vague threat of "too many minorities in positions over the white race" than he is about Sen. McCain going full speed ahead with four more years of Bush policy.

And Mr. Patrick is not alone.

God. Bless. America.

PS: Analysis here.

Labels: in the news, music

All coverage through Jan 2, 2008
Oh my God! Obama isn't black enough! He can't get the black vote!
It's the WORST THING EVER! He's doomed!

Jan 3
Oh my God! Clinton lost Iowa!
It's the WORST THING EVER! She's doomed!

Jan. 8
Oh my God! Clinton cried!
It's the WORST THING EVER! She's doomed!

Jan. 9
Oh my God! Obama lost New Hampshire! And he's black!
It's the WORST THING EVER! He's doomed!

Feb. 21
Oh my God! McCain may have cheated on his wife with a lobbyist or something!
It's the WORST THING EVER! He's doomed!

Feb. 21
Oh my God! Clinton lost 11 primaries in a row!
It's the WORST THING EVER! She's doomed!

Feb. 25
Oh my God! Obama is a secret Muslim!
It's the WORST THING EVER! He's doomed!

Feb. 25
Oh my God! Clinton is the one who told us Obama is a secret Muslim! Voters hate dirty politics!
It's the WORST THING EVER! She's doomed!

March 5
Oh my God! Obama lost the Texas primary!
It's the WORST THING EVER! He's doomed!

March 6
Oh my God! Clinton lost the Texas caucus! And the total delegate count!
It's the WORST THING EVER! She's doomed!

March 13
Oh my God! Obama has a pastor who's black and speaks loudly into a microphone!
It's the WORST THING EVER! He's doomed!

March 13
Oh my God! McCain thinks Iran is in league with al Qaeda!
It's the WORST THING EVER! He's doomed!

March 18
Oh my God! Obama is too black now!
It's the WORST THING EVER! He's doomed!

March 19
Oh my God! Clinton embellished a trip to Bosnia!
It's the WORST THING EVER! She's doomed!

Right Now
Oh my God! It's only March and the actual election isn't until NOVEMBER!
It's the WORST THING EVER! We're doomed!




PS: Oh my God. The baby isn't here yet.

Labels: in the news

And suddenly, the Dumbest Soul Rocker in Delmar could no longer blame Sen. Clinton for not wanting to release her White House records - thanks to more crap reporting from the American media.

This. Is. Gross.

Just gross.

Who's the so-called journalist who decided to connect the dots on this?

And excrete nine paragraphs about it?

On the very day that the supposed Candidate of Foreign Policy can't figure out the fundamental who's-who of the Iraq insurgency? On the very anniversary of The Stupidest War Ever? Fast approaching 4000 U.S. soldier souls gone and tens of thousands of Iraqis - and nothing to show for it?

On this day of all days we get to look at some shitty Photoshop hack composite that includes - that dress?

Please. Make. It. Stop. It's. Hurting. My. Soul.

Labels: in the news

Or not so happy, as the case may be.

Please rewind to March 2003 for some music to weep by.



Thank you.

Labels: in the news, music

UPDATE: As of the day after, where CNN and others failed, the reviews are in and it looks like the print media actually gets it. Cheers. And onward.

There's missing the point of Sen. Obama's speech on race today - and then there's this travesty of a headline from our friends at CNN.



Might as well have said this:



Completely. Missing. The. Point.

To their credit they eventually changed the headline to "Obama: We can move beyond racial wounds."

But why is it that right out of the gate they presented his speech - his challenge to move beyond racial wounds - framed in such racially charged and anti-patriotic language? Completely betraying an inherent inability to rise to his challenge?

And CNN is not alone.

It's like you can't acknowledge the difference between the ideals of what America professes to be and the realities of what it's been - even if your endgame is a coming together, a positive movement beyond the past towards attaining that ideal.

The focus is always going to be "why are these Negroes so damn angry?"

Here's the CNN headline you'll never see:



That quote isn't made up. It's directly from the transcript of his remarks.

So is anyone going to condemn his grandmother? Ask him to "renounce and reject" her?

Why are these Negroes so damn angry?

It reminds me of the white fellow at the Halloween party wearing blackface.

I attempted to politely inform him that, while he may consider it all just a joke, blackface has an undeniably racist history.

He was offended that I was offended.

Why are these Negroes so damn angry?

Not unlike the woman who claimed there was no racist motivation when her family hurled racial epithets at a black news reporter as they were beating her to the ground.

Also: you'd think that someone as smart as this guy wouldn't refer to the accusations of using racially-charged language as a "mugging." Racist? I dunno. But race baiting? Like I said... he's a smart guy. And remember: he was cautioned to cut the shit two months ago.

Like I said, it's taking every ounce of my being to keep from exploding onto the pages of this blog about how gross and disgusting this so-called election has become.

Back to my hole.

Pleasemakeitstopitshurtingmysoul.

Labels: in the news

... it's because of crap like this:



Thank you, o marketing wizards at CBS, for boiling it down into terms we can all understand.

And thank you, America, for playing along and feeding a steady diet of junk food to the big, stupid beast that is The Media Narrative of the Democratic Primaries.

Yes, America. You know who you are.

At a time when we need to be getting ready for the long, hard slog of undoing the last eight years of stupidity, our national discourse has never been so disgustingly stupid.

And the stupid begets stupid, which begets more stupid and more stupid until the stupid can be distilled into just four words:

"Race. Gender. Ohio votes."

Pleasemakeitstopitshurtingmysoul.

UPDATE 3/11: Just when I started thinking that we, as a nation, couldn't sink any lower: Thanks, Geraldine. Of all people. Jesus.

Labels: in the news

The White House sucks. Again.

By midafternoon that day, the [bin Laden] video and a transcript of its audio track had been leaked from within the Bush administration to cable television news and broadcast worldwide. The founder of the company, the SITE Intelligence Group, says this premature disclosure tipped al-Qaeda to a security breach and destroyed a years-long surveillance operation that the company has used to intercept and pass along secret messages, videos and advance warnings of suicide bombings from the terrorist group's communications network.

In enabling the White House, Congress sucks even more.

Two months after insisting that they would roll back broad eavesdropping powers won by the Bush administration, Democrats in Congress appear ready to make concessions that could extend some crucial powers given to the National Security Agency.

Nobody remembers.

You can't trust these clowns.

Time and again, they abuse access to intelligence.

Every. Body. Sucks.

Update: Here's hoping that the suckage doesn't suck quite as much as the NY Times suggests.

Labels: in the news

From CNN this morning:

Sen. John Warner, a Virginia Republican, said Thursday that a pullout was needed to spur Iraqi leaders to action. He has recommended Bush announce the beginning of a U.S. withdrawal in mid-September, after a report is released from the top U.S. officials in Iraq, and that those troops should be back in the United States by Christmas...

In Texas, where Bush is on vacation, National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said the White House appreciated Warner's advice. But he said the president would wait for the recommendations of Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq, and the American ambassador in Baghdad, Ryan Crocker, before making any decisions.

Stop right there. It's common knowledge that the White House is actually writing the report.

So why perpetuate the fiction that the president is going to "wait" for a report when he's the one dictating the content?

All it takes is an extra sentence. Something like:

"Administration officials speaking off the record have said the general's report will actually be written by the White House, with input from officials throughout the government."

It took me two seconds to paraphrase/steal the sentence that was buried in the Los Angeles Times piece last week.

You don't even need loaded terms like "dissembling" or "spin" or "misleading" or "liarhead."

One simple sentence. That's all it takes.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: it's not that Karl Rove was some super genius for President Bush, manipulating the masses with his evil magic.

It's that so many people who should have known better took everything he was saying at face value.

It's one thing to have been following along blindly a few years ago - out of respect for the office, out of so-called patriotism, or whatever.

But after not being "greeted with flowers," after no WMD, after "last throes," after Katrina, after Gonzales, after Jessica Lynch, after Pat Tillman, after a stronger-than-ever al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden still at large - after all of these colossal miscalculations and failures, there is no more face value.

These clowns have no credibility whatsoever.

They should be the same laughing stock that Baghdad Bob was back in the day.

And yet still the president waits for the general's report.

And the dumbest soul rocker in Delmar cowers, goes fetal, sweating, shaking, waiting for it all to be over.

Labels: in the news

A history lesson from our friend Jon Stewart.



Why is this history so hard to understand?

Why is it on Comedy Central to put forth what should have been on the front pages of every newspaper in America in 2003 - before we bumbled our way into this quaqmire?

What depresses me more than the fact that the clowns in the White House have exploited 9/11 to get everything they ever wanted is the fact that America so willingly abandoned history and common sense to let 'em have it.

And continues to let 'em have it.

At this point, these kinds of lessons shouldn't even have to be taught. It should be common knowledge by now. Instinctive. In the blood.

After all, if the dumbest soul rocker in Delmar could see it coming...

Labels: in the news

Afghanistan and Iraq are going so well, we might as well start another.

But how will our dear leaders in the White House pick a fight with Iran without Congressional approval?

It's easy - they just pretend Congress has already given approval!

Today, the White House has solved that pesky problem in one fell swoop. By explicitly linking the Iranian elite guard into the post 9/11 "global war on terror" in Iraq and Afghanistan, Bush's lawyers would certainly now argue that any military strike on Iran is now covered by the October 2002 authorization to use military force in Iraq, as part of their overly sweeping response to the 2001 attacks.

If you wonder why I gave up on linking to Reality Based News back in March, it's because this crap gets worse and worse every day.

Their machinations are so transparently obvious that even the dumbest soul-rocker in Delmar can figure it out, and yet these clowns in the media and in the halls of Congress continue to let them get away with it. No one confronts, and when they come close to confronting, they never ask the right questions. To say it's frustrating is the understatement of the century.

(A good example of not confronting even when confronting: the stunning revelation that the White House will be writing General Petraeus' September progress report was in the - wait for it - 26th paragraph of that Los Angeles Times article. Talk about burying the lede. Jesus.)

Here's the one question I want answered:

Why do they want this so bad?

It's obviously not the so-called War on Terror - because if they were really fighting a War on Terror, they would have done things much differently. Like, um, going after al Qaeda instead of going after someone that they pretended was directly affiliated with al Qaeda while leaving the real al Qaeda to flourish in places where they were and to take root in the very places they weren't.

The way they've waged these wars is al Qaeda's dream. It's terrorism fertilizer. Either they're just that dumb or it's definitely not about the War on Terror.

Or both.

So what is it? Oil? Money? Halliburton? The Carlyle Group? Is it that simple? And if that's really what it's all about, if it's big money and big business pulling the strings, then just how bad does it have to get before you tell the people with the vested interest in these wars (paraphrasing the Vice President) to go screw themselves?

Why would they want another disaster this badly?

It's the same question I asked myself when they went into Iraq - a time when, despite the photo-ops of Kabul and Karzai, the Afghanistan conflict was far from resolved, even crumbling.

Why would they want another disaster this badly?

At the time, I told myself: They must know something I don't know.

Sure, Colin Powell convinced a lot of people that Iraq had WMDs, but the trifling mobile labs in his presentation to the U.N. were what finally convinced me that Iraq didn't have WMDs. Even the dumbest soul rocker in Delmar could see that if a Winnebago of Mass Destruction was the scariest thing he had to offer, there wasn't much to be scared of.

But still: They must know something I don't know.

After all, as Secretary of Defense, Dick Cheney had been the most vocal defender of the decision not to march into Baghdad during the first Gulf War. Getting rid of Saddam would be the easy part. But how could it not dissolve into civil war in the aftermath? How many soldiers to die, how many civilians to die, how many years of U.S. occupation would it take before we could leave?

"Quagmire," he said.

Quagmire.

Why would they want another disaster this badly?

They must know something I don't know.

Labels: in the news

...I would have been fired a long, long time ago.

President Bush. July 17, 2007.

I will repeat, as the Commander-in-Chief of a great military who has supported this military and will continue to support this military, not only with my -- with insisting that we get resources to them, but with -- by respecting the command structure, I'm going to wait for David to come back -- [General] David Petraeus to come back and give us the report on what he sees. And then we'll use that data, that -- his report to work with the rest of the military chain of command, and members of Congress, to make another decision, if need be.

Los Angeles Times. August 15, 2007.

Despite Bush's repeated statements that the report will reflect evaluations by Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, administration officials said it would actually be written by the White House, with inputs from officials throughout the government.

Talking Points Memo and BarbinMD have more on the bait and switch (h/t Atrois.

Labels: in the news

This video is from 1994. Why is it only surfacing now?

UPDATE: Also: this dick is down.

Labels: in the news

Went to a wedding last night. Seated next to a law student who's taking the bar exam in February.

"Constitutional law is the hardest," she said. "It relates to everything."

"You're in luck," I said. "I hear they're getting rid of the Constitution."

Sadly, I was not kidding.

Labels: in the news

Dick Cheney. July 2007.

CHENEY: I firmly believe, Larry, that the decisions we've made with respect to Iraq and Afghanistan have been absolutely the sound ones in terms of the overall strategy.

KING: Although there were mistakes.

CHENEY: Oh, sure. Yes. There are always things in war that happen that nobody anticipated, surprises, things that don't go exactly as planned, that's the nature of warfare.

Dick Cheney. April 1991.

I think that the proposition of going to Baghdad is also fallacious. I think if we were going to remove Saddam Hussein we would have had to go all the way to Baghdad, we would have to commit a lot of force because I do not believe he would wait in the Presidential Palace for us to arrive. I think we'd have had to hunt him down. And once we'd done that and we'd gotten rid of Saddam Hussein and his government, then we'd have had to put another government in its place.

What kind of government? Should it be a Sunni government or Shi'i government or a Kurdish government or Ba'athist regime? Or maybe we want to bring in some of the Islamic fundamentalists? How long would we have had to stay in Baghdad to keep that government in place? What would happen to the government once U.S. forces withdrew? How many casualties should the United States accept in that effort to try to create clarity and stability in a situation that is inherently unstable?

I think it is vitally important for a President to know when to use military force. I think it is also very important for him to know when not to commit U.S. military force. And it's my view that the President got it right both times, that it would have been a mistake for us to get bogged down in the quagmire inside Iraq.

I'll add that a lot of people these days are claiming that getting rid of Saddam Hussein was a good idea, but the disaster that is Iraq today is a result of bad decisions and incompetence.

That's crap.

What's most fascinating to me about Mr. Cheney's Nostradamus-like rhetorical questions from 1991 is that he's making the case that taking out Hussein and his government was just a dumb idea, period. Even with the half-million U.S. troops and a true multi-national coalition at the ready back in the day, it was a dumb idea. So to do it on the cheap in 2003 with fewer forces and little to no international support was beyond dumb.

If only they had asked the dumbest soul-rocker in Delmar. Or the 1991 version of one Richard Bruce Cheney.

Labels: in the news

A few out there are catching on to the update I added to Tuesday's post about Gonzales trying to have it both ways with his testimony.

From the left: TPMMuckracker.

From the right: National Review.

My take? Technically, Attorney General Gonzales is right. He's been careful to answer questions specifically about the program "described by the President" in January 2006. The lie is that his questioners have always been asking about the broad scope of spying activities, long before it became public and got a big fancy Orwellian name - "Terrorist Surveillance Program."

National Review suggests Mr. Gonzales is parsing to keep details of classified activities classified. They're wrong. He's parsing to keep presumably illegal activities classified.

And no one seems to remember that when all of this started, the big liarhead wasn't even under oath.

Jesus. Thanks, Senator Specter.

If the dumbest semi-retired soul-rocker in Delmar can figure this crap out, why hasn't anyone in the meanstream media stumbled on it?

UPDATE 1: Wow. I wrote "meanstream" instead of "mainstream." Paging Dr. Freud.

UPDATE 2: Here comes the meanstream with some choice leaks: the New York Times and some careful whistleblowers remind us about the "other activities" that top DOJ officials were ready to resign over: domestic data mining.

Tip. Of. The. Iceberg.

Keep those leaks coming, y'all.

Labels: in the news

Incompetent? That's EXACTLY what he wants you to think.

If his testimony in April was a train wreck, then his testimony today was the effin' Hindenburg.

But that's okay. Because in Mr. Gonzales' mind, his job as Attorney General is not to enforce the laws of the nation. His job is to serve the White House - and specifically President Bush - which is why he will say whatever it takes to keep from revealing White House involvement in the politicization of the Justice Department and the illegal domestic spy program. No matter how silly, forgetful, stupid or incompetent his answers make him seem, as long as it deflects the white-hot light of a Congressional investigation from the White House and back to him, he'll say it. He's cool with it.

The result? Classic Abbott and Costello "Who's on First" shit. Under oath. In the halls of Congress.

Starts in video at 3:30 remaining.

GONZALES: I clarified my statement two days later with the reporter.

SCHUMER: What did you say to the reporter?

GONZALES: I did not speak directly to the reporter.

SCHUMER: Oh, wait a second -- you did not.

(LAUGHTER)

OK. What did your spokesperson say to the reporter?

GONZALES: I don't know. But I told the spokesperson to go back and clarify my statement...

SCHUMER: Well, wait a minute, sir. Sir, with all due respect -- and if I could have some order here, Mr. Chairman -- in all due respect, you're just saying, "Well, it was clarified with the reporter," and you don't even know what he said. You don't even know what the clarification is. Sir, how can you say that you should stay on as attorney general when we go through exercise like this, where you're bobbing and weaving and ducking to avoid admitting that you deceived the committee? And now you don't even know. I'll give you another chance: You're hanging your hat on the fact that you clarified the statement two days later. You're now telling us that is was a spokesperson who did it. What did that spokesperson say? Tell me now, how do you clarify this?

GONZALES: I don't know, but I'll find out and get back to you.

GONZALES: I Don't Know.

SCHUMER: Third base!

The most telling phrase in that transcript is "LAUGHTER." In all-caps, no less! His testimony is so ridiculous it evokes laughter. Like the great convicted perjurer and obstructer of justice Scooter Libby before him. If it was a Saturday Night Live skit I'd think it was too over-the-top to be funny.

Even the White House wants you to think Gonzales is incompetent. Remember the leaks by those oh-so-concerned White House insiders after the April testimony? Remember all of the concerned GOP representatives predicting Gonzales would have to resign?

Bunch of liars. They want you to think Gonzales is the issue, not the White House. Liars.

Don't fall for it. He is not incompetent - he knows exactly what he's doing.

Indeed, in serving as a firewall to the White House, he is absolutely competent.

UPDATE JULY 25: Well, what have we here? If all goes well I spoke too soon and Mr. Ridiculous has perjured himself. Like Scooter Libby before him.

Don't get your hopes up. If you parse his responses, he's linguistically having his cake and eating it too - something I noticed back in April that became more obvious on Tuesday.

It's like this: if one specific - even illegal - aspect or operation of the domestic spy program was never officially authorized by the Department of Justice as part of what eventually came to be known as the so-called Terrorist Surveillance Program, then technically he's right.

Remember: the White House didn't use that term publicly until January 2006.

So to paraphrase one headline I saw late yesterday, it depends on what your definition of "program" is. Is it the illegal bullshit that was going on before Ashcroft and Comey stood their ground in the hospital room, or the revised version of the illegal bullshit that went on after the hospital visit?

In his testimony he's been super careful to always refer to the program as the after-the-fact bullshit, but in a way that's vague enough to leave the impression that the before-the-fact and after-the-fact bullshit were one and the same. Dig:

"The dissent related to other intelligence activities," Gonzales testified at Tuesday's hearing. "The dissent was not about the terrorist surveillance program."

"Not the TSP?" responded Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y. "Come on. If you say it's about other, that implies not. Now say it or not."

"It was not," Gonzales answered. "It was about other intelligence activities."

When he once again returns to the Senate to "clarify" his previous testimony, he's going to argue to the teeth that he's always been referring the "program" as whatever was finally authorized after that hospital visit.

It's absolutely misleading and I wouldn't let my four-year-old get away with that kind of an answer. But I think that's his loophole. And you could drive a Hummer through it.

Not an armored HumVee, of course. You drive through a loophole with the Hummer you have, not the Hummer you wish you had.

Labels: in the news

Any idiot could have predicted that President Bush would commute Libby's sentence.

Why not a full pardon? Because a pardon means that Libby would lose his Fifth Amendment right to refuse to testify under oath about the president and vice president's involvement in the Plame leak in future proceedings, such as, oh, maybe congressional hearings, or the civil suit filed by Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson.

Libby's crime is that he lied to investigators to provide a firewall to Bush and especially Cheney's direct involvement in the Plame leak. The lie is the perjury charge - the firewall is the obstruction of justice.

I vomit a little bit in my mouth every time I hear a conservative say that there was "no underlying crime," because the conspiracy to out Plame - orchestrated by Cheney and directly sanctioned by the president - was absolutely a crime. You go after a vice president or a president, you betta have all of your ducks in a row. Libby's lies made it hard - if not impossible - for Fitzgerald to pursue Cheney or Bush to prosecute. He had the ducks, maybe - but not in a row.

And yes - Libby didn't just misremember. He flat out lied. He was counting on journalists not talking when he told investigators he heard Plame's identity from NBC's Tim Russert "as if I was learning it for the first time" - until his notes and Cheney's notes made it clear that he'd already been informed of Plame's identity by the vice president himself. Ooops. Then his story became: I forgot that I already knew. Ooops.

I listened to all 8 hours of testimony (yes, I'm a geek, I know). Towards the end, there's an "I can't recall" that's so oddly yet conveniently placed that the grand jury actually LAUGHS at him.

FITZGERALD: Have you talked to [Ari Flesicher] at all about [this investigation] since he's left government?

LIBBY: Not that I know of. [Muffled laughs in grand jury room.] Was that a strange answer?

Listening to the actual testimony, it's never that he can't recall - it's that he remembers everything in large detail - including the made-up events of the phone conversation with Russert - right up until the moment where Fitzgerald asks him to go into detail about anything that might implicate him or the vice president in the aforementioned conspiracy. After seven hours of this B.S., that "not that I know of" becomes the straw that breaks the grand jury's back. Laughter!

In keeping Libby from going to prison, President Bush guarantees there will be no last-minute deals between Libby's lawyers and Fitzgerald, no incentive for him to finally come clean about Bush and Cheney's involvement in the Plame outing.

So Libby sees no jail time.

"Excessive," says the president.

Think about that: Even one minute of prison time for the guy who let Judy Miller sit in jail for three months is "excessive."

So now it's not just Libby who's directly obstructing justice.

By acting to guarantee Libby's silence, President Bush is a party to the obstruction, too.

Nice.

Happy Fourth of July.

Labels: in the news

President George W. Bush. July 2007.

I respect the jury's verdict. But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby's sentence that required him to spend thirty months in prison.

Gov. George W. Bush. September 1999. (Interview with Tucker Carlson for Talk magazine.)

In the weeks before the execution, Bush says, a number of protesters came to Austin to demand clemency for Karla Faye Tucker. "Did you meet with any of them?" I ask.

Bush whips around and stares at me. "No, I didn't meet with any of them", he snaps, as though I've just asked the dumbest, most offensive question ever posed. "I didn't meet with Larry King either when he came down for it. I watched his interview with Tucker, though. He asked her real difficult questions like, 'What would you say to Governor Bush?'"

"What was her answer?" I wonder.

"'Please,'" Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, "'don't kill me.'"

I must look shocked - ridiculing the pleas of a condemned prisoner who has since been executed seems odd and cruel - because he immediately stops smirking.

UPDATE: Olbermann:

Even Richard Nixon knew it was time to resign

Would that you could say that, Mr. Bush.

And that you could say it for Mr. Cheney.

You both crossed the Rubicon yesterday.

Which one of you chose the route, no longer matters.

Which is the ventriloquist, and which the dummy, is irrelevant.

But that you have twisted the machinery of government into nothing more than a tawdry machine of politics, is the only fact that remains relevant.

It is nearly July 4th, Mr. Bush, the commemoration of the moment we Americans decided that rather than live under a King who made up the laws, or erased them, or ignored them - or commuted the sentences of those rightly convicted under them - we would force our independence, and regain our sacred freedoms.

We of this time - and our leaders in Congress, of both parties - must now live up to those standards which echo through our history:

Pressure, negotiate, impeach - get you, Mr. Bush, and Mr. Cheney, two men who are now perilous to our Democracy, away from its helm.

And for you, Mr. Bush, and for Mr. Cheney, there is a lesser task.

You need merely achieve a very low threshold indeed.

Display just that iota of patriotism which Richard Nixon showed, on August 9th, 1974.

Resign.

Labels: in the news

Seven more to go.

Labels: in the news

Does it make you sad?

Get sadder at BeforetheMusicDies.com.

Cuz guess what? It's already dead.

Labels: in the news

James passes the torch to Michael and Prince. Circa 1982.

Labels: in the news

In recalling the first Gulf War, this was the argument that convinced me that invading Iraq in 2003 would be a huge mistake. Can you guess the speaker? (No, it's not Nostradamus.)

From April 1991:

I think that the proposition of going to Baghdad is also fallacious. I think if we were going to remove Saddam Hussein we would have had to go all the way to Baghdad, we would have to commit a lot of force because I do not believe he would wait in the Presidential Palace for us to arrive. I think we'd have had to hunt him down. And once we'd done that and we'd gotten rid of Saddam Hussein and his government, then we'd have had to put another government in its place.

What kind of government? Should it be a Sunni government or Shi'i government or a Kurdish government or Ba'athist regime? Or maybe we want to bring in some of the Islamic fundamentalists? How long would we have had to stay in Baghdad to keep that government in place? What would happen to the government once U.S. forces withdrew? How many casualties should the United States accept in that effort to try to create clarity and stability in a situation that is inherently unstable?

I think it is vitally important for a President to know when to use military force. I think it is also very important for him to know when not to commit U.S. military force. And it's my view that the President got it right both times, that it would have been a mistake for us to get bogged down in the quagmire inside Iraq.

"Inherently unstable."

"Quagmire."

Who is this dirty, anti-war hippie? Here's your answer.

Labels: in the news

Vote today...



...or Minnie Mouse will bust your ass.

Labels: in the news

Maybe this has been up for a while, but I've noticed that the good folks at the Pentagon have established a Web site specifically to counter news reports they don't like.

Let me rephrase that:

Your tax dollars are paying for a U.S. Department of Defense Web site established specifically to counter the free press.

Propaganda, pure and simple.

They even have an area of the site called "News Products". Got that? It's not news. It's news products. Kinda like meat by-products. Or cheese food.

Didn't the Bush administration's ass get paddled by the Government Accountability Office a while back for disseminating canned news reports?

Sigh.

More proof that our leaders can't lead. They can only market.

See also: Orwell.

UPDATE 10/31: They aren't just online. They're in full election PR mode. Online and offline. With "surrogates" supporting their favored candidates. I work in PR. PR costs money. Lots of money. The kind of money that could be used to give our troops in Iraq adequate body armor. Just sayin'.

Labels: in the news

After trying a couple of hacks and funky feed laundering, Del.icio.us seems to be the most efficient way to feed you with Reality Based News. No cutting, no pasting, no HTML: I point and click in Firefox and it's delicified, and feedburned shortly after to appear on this page. Easy.

So the latest news will always feed right here at the bryanthomas.com home page. Top o' the sidebar to ya. But you can also get it at del.icio.us/bt1soul. Or grab the Del.icio.us RSS. Or the Feedburner RSS.

Or deliciousify however the kids are deliciousifying their sc.rump.del.icio.us feeds these days.

(Thing is: this news don't taste so good.)

The archive the day's news feed will be updated nightly and maintained by Jennifer herself at realitybasednews.wordpress.com (And yes, Jennifer's still tweaking the page, give her a break.) But the latest greatest stuff will be at the bryanthomas.com, thanks to Del.Icio.Us and Feedburner.

Peace,

B.

PS: Thanks to everyone in the house last night at Unity Stage, and to the folks who helped continue the party late night at Lark Tavern. Pics and audio tomorrow.

And as a tease: guess who's sporting the full bad-ass beard these days?

Labels: in the news

For the fifth anniversary, Fallen is now available for download at the Bootleg Blog.

And Reality Based News is back online.

Peace,

B.

Labels: in the news

Baghdad morgue's revised toll for August undermines claims of steep drop in violence

Baghdad's morgue almost tripled its count for violent deaths in Iraq's capital during August from 550 to 1,536, authorities said Thursday, appearing to erase most of what U.S. generals and Iraqi leaders had touted as evidence of progress in a major security operation to restore order in the capital.

Wow. Tripled? That's really surprising. A week or so ago some conservatives were all over the claim that the recent increase in the U.S. troop presence in Bagdhad had directly resulted in a sharp decline in violence. I wonder how that could have happened? Must have been an honest mistake.

U.S. count of Baghdad deaths excludes car bombs, mortar attacks

U.S. officials, seeking a way to measure the results of a program aimed at decreasing violence in Baghdad, aren't counting scores of dead killed in car bombings and mortar attacks as victims of the country's sectarian violence. In a distinction previously undisclosed, U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Barry Johnson said Friday that the United States is including in its tabulations of sectarian violence only deaths of individuals killed in drive-by shootings or by torture and execution.

I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.

At least the Baghdad economy is thriving with new business, right?

Coffin maker Abbas Hussein Mohammed opened a new shop in Baghdad to cope with rising demand. Last month the capital's morgue received 1,536 victims of violence. Photo Credit: By Khalid Mohammed -- Associated Press

Hat tip - Atrios.

Labels: in the news

I'm a little black boy crying in a blue sky...

This cover of Joni Mitchell's "Black Crow" is also from Wafers and Wine, but it was originally recorded on a cassette 4-track for 1997's A Tape of You, a collection of covers by Joni's Internet fans. Legend has it that a copy of it made its way to Joni, which is why I tacked the "Joni's gonna hate this" bit at the end, with the sample of her laughing.

Saw her two years later playing "Black Crow" at the Day in the Garden Woodstock reunion show, summer of '98. With my hero Brian Blade on the drums. And my head exploded. I had a sober hallucination that she was singing "black boy" instead of "black crow," just like in my version. And my head exploded again.

(Also: you know the rules with the Bootleg Blog: this is an old, home-brew, four-track job, so the crappier the recording, the better, right?)

Direct Download: 060813_black_crow.mp3
Bootleg Blog Category: Covers

UPDATE: I'm going to start cross-posting the Bootleg Blog to the front page so you don't miss 'em. Coming this fall: outtakes from the pre-Ones and Zeros "Tele Sessions" (2000) and more four-track fun with cuts from 1995's "Bleed."

Labels: in the news

Ladies and gentlemen, Aasif Mandvi.

Brilliant.

1.20.2009.

PS: On an unrelated note, Venus in Furs is at the new bootleg blog.

Labels: in the news

Okay, so what's different?

The Blog. My blah blah blog is now front and center since it's the content that gets updated most frequently. That doesn't mean you shouldn't be buyin' albums though.

Reality Based News. It's on hiatus. It was burning me out. More than you know. The news just gets worse and worse. Which wouldn't be so bad if American news outlets didn't seem so much more concerned about celebrities and their babies and their babies' names and crap. You want Reality Based News? The truth about what's going on with the clowns in the White House that no one else seems to be reporting? For my money, tune in to Dan Froomkin at WashingtonPost.com each weekday. It's more truth than America deserves.

Audio Blogging. Still setting up the account, but this is what I'm most excited about. I've been threatening to do it for a while and now is as good a time as any. A place to post demos, bootlegs from live shows, works-in-progress, covers, rare stuff from way back - anything that's not on one of the four albums you should buy that I'm not afraid for you to hear. Of course, I'm afraid for you to hear everything. But you know what I mean. On deck is live stuff from the Stones tribute show/fundraiser Albie put together last fall. I'll be your knight in shining armor. Riding on a fine Arab charger.

In a sleepy Albany town there ain't no place for a street fightin' man.

Peace,

B.

Labels: in the news

The worst turmoil in years grips the Middle East.

And our president is joking about eating a pig.

REPORTER: Does it concern you that the Beirut airport has been bombed? And do you see a risk of triggering a wider war? And on Iran, they've, so far, refused to respond. Is it now past the deadline, or do they still have more time to respond?

PRESIDENT BUSH: I thought you were going to ask me about the pig.

It's beyond parody. Notice that in the clip, John Stewart just plays the straight man.

And way, way, way beyond inappropriate. Notice the look on the face of Chancellor Merkel.

Repeat after me: 1.20.2009.

Mssrs. Osbourne, Iommi, Butler and Ward - take it away.

Labels: in the news

It's a twofer: niggers and al Qaeda!



(If only they were all gay, too! Can you imagine?)

Congratulations to Mr. Rove!

And to CNN, too!

Happy Election Year, y'all! More to come!

God bless America!

UPDATE 6.27.06: At least The Daily Show has my back on how ridiculous and trumped up this all seems.

Labels: in the news

Colbert, at the annual White House Correspondent dinner:

I stand by [President Bush]. I stand by this man because he stands for things. Not only for things, he has stood on things. Things like aircraft carriers and rubble and recently flooded city squares. And that sends a strong message, that no matter what happens to America, she will always rebound with the most powerfully staged photo ops in the world.

To. His. Face.

And on and on and on.

Editor and Publisher's take:

As Colbert walked from the podium, when it was over, the president and First Lady gave him quick nods, unsmiling, and handshakes, and left immediately.

Those seated near Bush told E&P's Joe Strupp, who was elsewhere in the room, that Bush quickly turned from an amused guest to an obviously offended target as Colbert’s comments brought up his low approval ratings and problems in Iraq...

Strupp, in the crowd during the Colbert routine, had observed that quite a few sitting near him looked a little uncomfortable at times, perhaps feeling the material was a little too biting--or too much speaking "truthiness" to power.

Video



And for everyone who thought Mr. Colbert was being disrespectful, well, here's a little perspective for you from three years ago. A case study in disrespect.

Labels: in the news

Bush challenges hundreds of laws
President cites powers of his office

By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff | April 30, 2006

WASHINGTON -- President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution.

Among the laws Bush said he can ignore are military rules and regulations, affirmative-action provisions, requirements that Congress be told about immigration services problems, ''whistle-blower" protections for nuclear regulatory officials, and safeguards against political interference in federally funded research.

Legal scholars say the scope and aggression of Bush's assertions that he can bypass laws represent a concerted effort to expand his power at the expense of Congress, upsetting the balance between the branches of government. The Constitution is clear in assigning to Congress the power to write the laws and to the president a duty ''to take care that the laws be faithfully executed." Bush, however, has repeatedly declared that he does not need to ''execute" a law he believes is unconstitutional.

Former administration officials contend that just because Bush reserves the right to disobey a law does not mean he is not enforcing it: In many cases, he is simply asserting his belief that a certain requirement encroaches on presidential power.

But with the disclosure of Bush's domestic spying program, in which he ignored a law requiring warrants to tap the phones of Americans, many legal specialists say Bush is hardly reluctant to bypass laws he believes he has the constitutional authority to override.

Sick. To. My. Stomach.

Analysis here.

Labels: in the news

They aren't hard to come by these days.

Rats deserting the sinking ship and all.

So today, I give you Peggy Noonan.

Please note the reference to President Bush Sr., for whom Ms. Noonan was a speechwriter. Remember "1,000 points of light?" Yeah, that Peggy Noonan. The one who took a leave of absence from the Wall Street Journal to help the current President Bush with the 2004 re-election campaign.

Well, here's what she has to say about the man in 2006:

We are all shaped by experience. Lately I think the president could have used a time in his life when his father couldn't pay the rent. Such experiences tend to leave you unwilling to count on good luck coming, or staying.

Sometimes Mr. Bush acts as if he doesn't know you don't have to look for trouble, it will find you. When you are the American president, it knows your address by heart.

I know that on some level he knows this. The president has taken, those around him say, great comfort in biographies of previous presidents. All presidents do this. They all take comfort in the fact that former presidents now seen as great were, in their time, derided, misunderstood, underestimated. No one took the measure of their greatness until later. This is all very moving, but: Message to all biography-reading presidents, past present and future: Just because they call you a jackass doesn't mean you're Lincoln.

In the end it doesn't matter if White House staffers suddenly listen to critics, to non-pre-vetted policy intellectuals, to questioners, complainers, whiners, Wise Men, if you can find them, and people who actually have something to say. But it does matter if George Bush does.

It matters that he becomes his broadest self and comes to tolerate dissent, argument, ambiguity. That actually would be daring. It would mark not the appearance of change but change, not the appearance of progress but the thing itself.

Go. Read the whole damn thing. Now.

Labels: in the news

When last we spoke, the National Review's John Podhoretz was really, really worried about the White House crisis du jour - the Dubai ports deal.

If the White House doesn't handle this well in the next three days, the political consequences could be catastrophic.

Well, what a difference three days make.

Poll: Bush Ratings At All-Time Low

The latest CBS News poll finds President Bush's approval rating has fallen to an all-time low of 34 percent, while pessimism about the Iraq war has risen to a new high.

Americans are also overwhelmingly opposed to the Bush-backed deal giving a Dubai-owned company operational control over six major U.S. ports. Seven in 10 Americans, including 58 percent of Republicans, say they're opposed to the agreement.

CBS News senior White House correspondent Jim Axelrod reports that now it turns out the Coast Guard had concerns about the ports deal, a disclosure that is no doubt troubling to a president who assured Americans there was no security risk from the deal.

Read the full article and the numbers only get worse for the White House.

Only 32 percent approve of the handling of the Katrina crisis - down 12 points from the low of last September.

Half of Americans now disapprove of the president's handling of the war on terror.

Fully two-thirds think the Iraq War is a disaster.

And despite the fact that Americans are sick of the coverage of the Vice President's shooting incident, Mr. Cheney's approval rating has dropped to a low of 18 percent. 18 percent! Down 5 points from last month.

Any lower and all he'll have left will be his wife, the employees of Halliburton and maybe that guy he shot.

As for the ports deal: like I said, I have mixed emotions. Too many of the arguments I've heard reek of knee-jerk xenophobia.

The best argument I've heard so far is that President Bush angrily defended the deal with the threat of his first veto only a day or two after he first heard of it. And apparently long before he was briefed on the details.

For all we know, he still may not know the details.

It's a metaphor for every other Crisis of the Year of the Week this administration's bumbled its way through since the re-election.

So this is what it takes for conservatives in large numbers to rant that the White House is putting corporate crony interests and political crony interests over national security interests? Why are they waking up to it now? What about no-bid Halliburton contracts? What about tax cuts in lieu of paying for the boots on the ground in Iraq? What about fundraising while New Orleans drowned? What about destroying a CIA agent's entire covert operation for political cover? What about the fact that Karl Rove still works in the White House?

In the end, though, the irony of an angry mob turning on the very president who first incited them against all things Arab is a perfect and beautiful thing.

Well, almost perfect.

Too little, too late, really.

Iraq Death Toll Higher Than First Thought;
Violence Unleashed Last Week Killed More Than 1,300

Grisly attacks and other sectarian violence unleashed by last week's bombing of a Shiite shrine have killed more than 1,300 Iraqis, making the past few days the deadliest of the war outside major U.S. offensives, according to Baghdad's main morgue. The toll was more than three times higher than the figure previously reported by the U.S. military and the news media.

Hundreds of unclaimed dead lay at the morgue at midday Monday -- sprawled, blood-caked men who had been shot, knifed, garroted or apparently suffocated by the plastic bags still over their heads. Many of the bodies had their hands still bound -- and many of them had wound up at the morgue after what their families said was their abduction by the Mahdi Army, the Shiite militia of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

Any idiot could have told you what would happen if you invaded Iraq and removed Saddam Hussein from power without a plan to win the peace, Mr. President.

Including your father.

Labels: in the news

In a piece entitled "It Didn’t Work" - with "it" being the Iraq invasion - I give you the National Review's William F. Buckley (yes, that William F. Buckley):

Mr. Bush has a very difficult internal problem here because to make the kind of concession that is strategically appropriate requires a mitigation of policies he has several times affirmed in high-flown pronouncements. His challenge is to persuade himself that he can submit to a historical reality without forswearing basic commitments in foreign policy.

He will certainly face the current development as military leaders are expected to do: They are called upon to acknowledge a tactical setback, but to insist on the survival of strategic policies.

Yes, but within their own counsels, different plans have to be made. And the kernel here is the acknowledgment of defeat.

Here's the catch: invading to "free" Iraqi citizens from Saddam Hussein was only the White House's stated objective. It was never the real objective. Otherwise they would have had more boots on the ground to win the peace. They would have anticipated sectarian violence. They would not have rejected the experts who told them exactly how this would all play out. They would have had a plan.

Mission accomplished.

In other news: President Bush's sky-is-falling brand of xenophobia comes back to bite him on the ass. Right through his magic flight suit. Again, from the National Review, this time conservative John Podhoretz confronting another harsh reality for the GOP:

Rasmussen has a new poll up in which -- hold on now -- Democrats in Congress are outpolling President Bush on national security. By a margin of 43 to 41 percent, Americans say they trust Congressional Democrats more than Bush when it comes to protecting our national security. And by a margin of 64-17 percent, they oppose the sale of the ports to Dubai.

The deal is dead. It won't survive after a 45-day extension or a 450-day extension. Congressional Republicans have no choice but to be extremely aggressive and nasty toward the president and the White House, because they will be properly terrified of looking like Bush's lapdogs on a hugely unpopular matter that goes to the heart of the Republican party's political advantage in the United States.

If the White House doesn't handle this well in the next three days, the political consequences could be catastrophic.

Can I get a little gangsta lean for White House credibility?

Here's to the next three days, y'all.

B.

Labels: in the news

An honest conservative at Free Republic, responding to supporters of the president's warrantless surveillance program:

Conservatism used to be about putting limits on government's power. The conservatives who put out this press release still get it. A lot of freepers don't.

The freepers who want to ignore constitutional checks and balances, in the name of "security," will get a bite in the ass [when] Hillary [Clinton] becomes president and starts using the unchecked powers they have been so willing to grant to the executive branch.

Free. Republic. My irony meter is off the charts.

And yeah, here's that press release, from Barr, Keene and (gulp) Norquist?

Leading Conservatives Call for Extensive Hearings on NSA Surveillance; Checks on Invasive Federal Powers Essential

Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances (PRCB) today called upon Congress to hold open, substantive oversight hearings examining the President's authorization of the National Security Agency (NSA) to violate domestic surveillance requirements outlined in the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

Former U.S. Rep. Bob Barr, chairman of PRCB, was joined by fellow conservatives Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform (ATR); David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union; Paul Weyrich, chairman and CEO of the Free Congress Foundation and Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation, in urging lawmakers to use NSA hearings to establish a solid foundation for restoring much needed constitutional checks and balances to intelligence law.

"When the Patriot Act was passed shortly after 9-11, the federal government was granted expanded access to Americans' private information," said Barr. "However, federal law still clearly states that intelligence agents must have a court order to conduct electronic surveillance of Americans on these shores. Yet the federal government overstepped the protections of the Constitution and the plain language of FISA to eavesdrop on Americans' private communication without any judicial checks and without proof that they are involved in terrorism."

It's not the surveillance, stupid.

It's the warrants.

Or lack thereof.

Labels: in the news

Looks like we have our answer.

From the Washington Post, August 23, 2002:

Secret Court Rebuffs Ashcroft
Justice Dept. Chided On Misinformation
Dan Eggen and Susan Schmidt
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, August 23, 2002; Page A01

The secretive federal court that approves spying on terror suspects in the United States has refused to give the Justice Department broad new powers, saying the government had misused the law and misled the court dozens of times, according to an extraordinary legal ruling released yesterday.

A May 17 opinion by the court that oversees the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) alleges that Justice Department and FBI officials supplied erroneous information to the court in more than 75 applications for search warrants and wiretaps, including one signed by then-FBI Director Louis J. Freeh.

[snip]

The documents released yesterday also provide a rare glimpse into the workings of the almost entirely secret FISA court, composed of a rotating panel of federal judges from around the United States and, until yesterday, had never jointly approved the release of one of its opinions. Ironically, the Justice Department itself had opposed the release.

Stewart Baker, former general counsel of the National Security Agency, called the opinion a "a public rebuke.

"The message is you need better quality control," Baker said. "The judges want to ensure they have information they can rely on implicitly."

[snip]

Despite its rebuke, the court left the door open for a possible solution, noting that its decision was based on the existing FISA statute and that lawmakers were free to update the law if they wished.

Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee have indicated their willingness to enact such reforms but have complained about resistance from Ashcroft. Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) said yesterday's release was a "ray of sunshine" compared to a "lack of cooperation" from the Bush administration.

(Hat tip to Shock at Daily Kos.)

Unbelievable.

In 2002, the FISA court actually recommended reform through legislation - due process - as a solution to the problem.

Unbelievable.

The Justice Department gets a slap on the wrist so the President avoids the FISA court altogether.

The law says you go to the court for warrants. Period. The court says if you need reform, go to Congress. Period. Reform legislation, at the time, would most likely have sailed through Congress. Period.

The president chose to go ahead and spy anyway, completely bypassing the courts and the legislature.

The president broke the law.

This is a serious constitutional crisis.

Conservative columnist George Will in today's Washington Post:

The president's authorization of domestic surveillance by the National Security Agency contravened a statute's clear language. Assuming that urgent facts convinced him that he should proceed anyway and on his own, what argument convinced him that he lawfully could?"

I know I sound like a broken record, but I'll say it again: conservatives should be more angry than liberals about this.

The honest ones are.

Labels: in the news

The point is not just that the president was spying on American citizens.

The president has the right to use the National Security Agency to spy on anyone in the U.S. suspected of being an "agent of foriegn power."

All he has to do is clear it with the secret FISA court, established under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. The FISA court has granted nearly 19,000 warrants since it was established and denied only five.

There's even a loophole if time is of the essence: if it's an emergency, the president can go ahead and spy. He just has to run it by FISA within 72 hours.

So here's the question: Why bypass a court that has only denied 5 of 19,000 warrants in 25 years?

(Sorry I've been off the grid a bit lately. I'll update ya soon.)

Labels: in the news

President Bush:

U.S. President George W. Bush rejected critics calling for a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq in a speech on Saturday to U.S. troops laying out why he believes the Iraq war is worth the sacrifice.

"In Washington there are some who say that the sacrifice is too great, and they urge us to set a date for withdrawal before we have completed our mission. Those who are in the fight know better," Bush said in excerpts of a speech he was to deliver to U.S. troops at Osan Air Base in South Korea.

Iraqi leaders:

Iraqi leaders, meeting at a reconciliation conference in Cairo, urged an end to violence in the country and demanded a timetable for the withdrawal of coalition troops from Iraq.

In a final statement, read by Arab League chief Amre Moussa, host of the three-day summit, they called for "the withdrawal of foreign troops according to a timetable, through putting in place an immediate national program to rebuild the armed forces." No date was specified.

"The Iraqi people look forward to the day when the foreign forces leave Iraq, when it's armed and security forces will be rebuilt and when they can enjoy peace and stability and get rid of terrorism," the leaders said in the statement.

Labels: in the news

U.S. President George W. Bush (R) playfully pretends to box against Muhammad Ali, who responds by circling his finger to indicate the president is crazy to offer a fight, after Bush presented Ali with the Presidential Medal of Freedom at a ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington November 9, 2005. Bush presented the highest civil award recognizing exceptional meritorious service to 14 honorees from the sport, entertainment and political world at the ceremony. (REUTERS/Jason Reed).

Video.

Labels: in the news

Senator Carl Levin, on the heels of last week's smackdown of Majority Leader Bill Frist, releases a declassified report on the use of intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq War to the New York Times.

A top member of Al Qaeda in American custody was identified as a likely fabricator months before the Bush administration began to use his statements as the foundation for its claims that Iraq trained Al Qaeda members to use biological and chemical weapons, according to newly declassified portions of a Defense Intelligence Agency document.

The document, an intelligence report from February 2002, said it was probable that the prisoner, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, "was intentionally misleading the debriefers" in making claims about Iraqi support for Al Qaeda's work with illicit weapons.

The document provides the earliest and strongest indication of doubts voiced by American intelligence agencies about Mr. Libi's credibility. Without mentioning him by name, President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Colin L. Powell, then secretary of state, and other administration officials repeatedly cited Mr. Libi's information as "credible" evidence that Iraq was training Al Qaeda members in the use of explosives and illicit weapons.

Okay. That's the New York Times.

If you're wondering about al-Libi's incentive to lie, you've got to go to the latest Newsweek:

With al-Libi, too, the initial approach was to read him his rights like any arrestee, one former member of the FBI team told NEWSWEEK. "He was basically cooperating with us." But this was post-9/11; President Bush had declared war on Al Qaeda, and in a series of covert directives, he had authorized the CIA to set up secret interrogation facilities and to use new, harsher methods. The CIA, says the FBI source, was "fighting with us tooth and nail."

[snip]

Al-Libi's capture, some sources say, was an early turning point in the government's internal debates over interrogation methods. FBI officials brought their plea to retain control over al-Libi's interrogation up to FBI Director Robert Mueller. The CIA station chief in Afghanistan, meanwhile, appealed to the agency's hawkish counterterrorism chief, Cofer Black. He in turn called CIA Director George Tenet, who went to the White House. Al-Libi was handed over to the CIA. "They duct-taped his mouth, cinched him up and sent him to Cairo" for more-fearsome Egyptian interrogations, says the ex-FBI official. "At the airport the CIA case officer goes up to him and says, 'You're going to Cairo, you know. Before you get there I'm going to find your mother and I'm going to f--- her.' So we lost that fight." (A CIA official said he had no comment.)

So he was tortured.

He fabricated the link between Iraq and al Qaeda so they would stop torturing him.

This from a White House ruled with an iron first by a Vice President who just last week appealed to the Senate to reverse the ban on prisoner abuse. Thankfully, they didn't:

The White House has threatened to veto the bill if it includes the measure, saying the provision would restrict the president's ability to protect the country.

[snip]

Mr. McCain took to the Senate floor on Friday to criticize opponents of his provision, including the House Republican leadership, which is delaying work on the spending bill in what Democrats say is an effort to spare Vice President Dick Cheney an embarrassing setback.

Mr. Cheney lobbied Mr. McCain unsuccessfully to exempt the Central Intelligence Agency from the provisions. House Republicans have told the White House the measure will probably pass.

I'm going to be sick.

Labels: in the news

"By sitting down, she was standing up for all Americans." - Rep. John Lewis.

Rosa Parks. 1913-2005.

Labels: in the news

...and wait.

I read some stuff online yesterday claiming that the special prosecutor in the CIA leak case was targeting President Bush as well as Vice President Cheney.

While the posting was thorough enough to make it seem like it might be from a legit source, the crucial detail of former Secretary of State Colin Powell showing the infamous Plame memo to Bush and Cheney on Air Force One sent my bullshit detector a ring-ring-ringin'.

Because, for obvious reasons, the president and the vice president are never on the same plane. Duh.

And suddenly I remembered how we've been played by these cats in the White House so many times before. They are slippery, slippery, slippery.

So as of now, I'm officially not getting my hopes up.

I think there will be indictments, sure. And Washington is certainly buzzing with lots of talk of indictments at the highest level, and contingency plans.

But I don't want to get caught up in the pre-schadenfreude thing.

After all - remember the exit polls on election day?

See ya next week y'all.

(Or maybe tomorrow night at Firlefanz?)

Peace,

B.

Labels: in the news

First, the Washington Post:

"As the investigation into the leak of a CIA agent's name hurtles to an apparent conclusion, special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has zeroed in on the role of Vice President Cheney's office, according to lawyers familiar with the case and government officials. The prosecutor has assembled evidence that suggests Cheney's long-standing tensions with the CIA contributed to the unmasking of operative Valerie Plame...

Then came Raw Story:

A senior aide to Vice President Dick Cheney is cooperating with special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald in the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson, sources close to the investigation say.

Individuals familiar with Fitzgerald's case tell RAW STORY that John Hannah, a senior national security aide on loan to Vice President Dick Cheney from the offices of then-Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs, John Bolton, was named as a target of Fitzgerald’s probe. They say he was told in recent weeks that he could face imminent indictment for his role in leaking Plame-Wilson's name to reporters unless he cooperated with the investigation.

Others close to the probe say that if Hannah is cooperating with the special prosecutor then he was likely going to be charged as a co-conspirator and may have cut a deal.

Then came US News and World Report:

Sparked by today's Washington Post story that suggests Vice President Cheney's office is involved in the Plame-CIA spy link investigation, government officials and advisers passed around rumors that the vice president might step aside and that President Bush would elevate Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

[snip]

Said another Bush associate of the rumor, "Yes. This is not good." The rumor spread so fast that some Republicans by late morning were already drawing up reasons why Rice couldn't get the job or run for president in 2008.

[snip]

"Folks on the inside and near inside are holding their breath and wondering what's next," said a Bush adviser. But, he added, they aren't focused on the future of the vice president. "Not that, at least not seriously," he said.

And then a final word from former CIA operative Larry Johnson:

Had lunch today with a person who has a direct tie to one of the folks facing indictment in the Plame affair. There are 22 files that Fitzgerald is looking at for potential indictment. These include Stephen Hadley, Karl Rove, Lewis Libby, Dick Cheney, and Mary Matalin (there are others of course). Hadley has told friends he expects to be indicted. No wonder folks are nervous at the White House.

And it will come back around.

Merry Fiztmas.

Labels: in the news

Just another day at the office...

Karl Rove nosed his Jaguar out of the garage at his home in Northwest Washington in the predawn gloom, starting another day in which he would be dealing with a troubled Supreme Court nomination, posthurricane reconstruction and all the other issues that come across the desk of President Bush's most influential aide.

But Mr. Rove's first challenge on Wednesday morning came before he cleared his driveway: how to get past the five television crews and the three photographers waiting for him. He flashed his blinding high beams into the camera lenses and sped by.

That is the way things are for the Bush White House these days. The routines are the same. But everything, in the glare of the final stages of a criminal investigation that has reached to the highest levels of power in Washington, is different.

Just another day at the office...

President George W. Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, appeared before a federal grand jury on Friday for a fourth and most likely last time as prosecutors neared a decision on whether to bring indictments over leaking a covert
CIA operative's name.

Rove, the most powerful and controversial political strategist in Washington, made no comment as he entered the federal courthouse to begin his testimony, hoping to convince grand jurors that he did nothing illegal.

Prosecutors have told Rove they can not guarantee that he will not be indicted over the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity.

Labels: in the news

...for special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald.

From today's Washington Post:

New York Times reporter Judith Miller answered questions yesterday about a previously undisclosed conversation she had with Vice President Cheney's chief of staff in June 2003 and is scheduled to testify before a grand jury today to answer more questions in the investigation of how a covert CIA operative's identity was leaked to reporters.

Special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald, who has indicated he is nearing a decision about whether to charge anyone in the case, questioned Miller about notes she said she discovered last week involving a June 23, 2003, conversation with Cheney's top aide, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, according to a source familiar with Miller's account.

According to the source, the notes reveal that the two discussed Bush administration critic and former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV about three weeks before the name of Wilson's wife, covert CIA operative Valerie Plame, appeared in a syndicated column written by Robert D. Novak...

Numerous lawyers involved in the 22-month investigation said they are bracing for Fitzgerald to bring criminal charges against administration officials. They speculated, based on his questions, that he may be focused on charges of false statements, obstruction of justice or violations of the Espionage Act involving the release of classified government information to unauthorized persons. The grand jury's term is to expire Oct. 28.

"This is not a guy who would walk away with nothing," said one lawyer involved in the case.

And from the Wall Street Journal:

There are signs that prosecutors now are looking into contacts between administration officials and journalists that took place much earlier than previously thought. Earlier conversations are potentially significant, because that suggests the special prosecutor leading the investigation is exploring whether there was an effort within the administration at an early stage to develop and disseminate confidential information to the press that could undercut former Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife, Central Intelligence Agency official Valerie Plame...

Mr. Rove, who has already testified three times before the grand jury and was identified by a Time magazine reporter as a source for his story on Mr. Wilson, is expected to go back to the grand jury, potentially as early as today, to clarify earlier answers.

Lawyers familiar with the investigation believe that at least part of the outcome likely hangs on the inner workings of what has been dubbed the White House Iraq Group. Formed in August 2002, the group, which included Messrs. Rove and Libby, worked on setting strategy for selling the war in Iraq to the public in the months leading up to the March 2003 invasion. The group likely would have played a significant role in responding to Mr. Wilson's claims.

Meanwhile, back at the White House:

HOWARD FINEMAN, NBC CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Right now, my sense, in reporting this, Chris, is that the Bush family, political family, is at war with itself inside the White House. My sense is, it's—it's—it's—it's Andy Card, the chief of staff, and his people against Karl Rove, the brain.

MATTHEWS: Right.

FINEMAN: And that runs through a whole lot of things, whether it's Harriet Miers or Katrina. But it all starts with Iraq.

And some submerged, but now emerging divisions within the administration over why we went into that war, how we went into that war and what was done to sell it. There are people [who] are out for Karl Rove inside that White House, which makes his situation even more perilous.

My understanding, from talking to somebody quite close to this investigation, is that they think there are going to be indictments and possibly Karl Rove could be among them,, if not for the act of the leaking information about Valerie Plame, then perhaps for perjury, because he's now testified four times.

And there are conflicts between what Matt Cooper told the grand jury and what Rove evidently told the jury himself. And Patrick Fitzgerald, the prosecutor, is an absolute stickler for detail who has no political axe to grind here, other than keeping his own credibility. Having put Judy Miller in jail, having gone to the lengths he had, my understand is, he has got some people here, not only Rove, but perhaps Scooter Libby, the vice president's chief of staff.

MATTHEWS: I also get the sense he reads the law book. He doesn't care about the politics.

(CROSSTALK)

FINEMAN: That's what I meant. That's what I meant. He doesn't care about the politics.

Labels: in the news

Chestnut brown canary
Ruby throated sparrow
Sing a song don't be long
Thrill me to the marrow

After 85 days in jail for refusing to name her source, New York Times reporter Judith Miller testified on Friday about conversations with a top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney to a grand jury investigating who leaked the name of a CIA operative.

Legal sources close to the case said Miller, who was freed on Thursday, gave the federal grand jury in Washington a detailed account of two conversations she had in July 2003 with Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

[snip]

The lawyers said [special prosecutor Patrick "Bulldog"] Fitzgerald could now move quickly to bring indictments in the case, or he could conclude that no crime was committed and end his investigation and possibly issue a report on his findings.

Fitzgerald had indicated he could wrap up his investigation once he obtained Miller's testimony.

SHAKE UP WHITE HOUSE?

The outcome could shake up the Bush White House, already reeling from criticism over its response to Hurricane Katrina and the indictment of House Republican leader Tom DeLay on a conspiracy charge related to campaign financing.

The leak investigation has ensnarled Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, as well as Libby. The White House had long maintained that they had nothing to do with the leak but reporters have since named them as sources.

Here's the full thang.

And you make it hard...

Doo doo doo doo doo, doo doo doo doo doo doo...

Labels: in the news

O beautiful, for spacious skies...

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay was indicted by a Texas grand jury Wednesday on a charge of conspiring to violate political fundraising laws, forcing him to temporarily step aside from his GOP post. He is the highest-ranking member of Congress to face criminal prosecution.

[snip]

DeLay's temporary departure and the prospect of a criminal trial for one of the Republicans' most visible leaders reverberated throughout the GOP-run Congress, which was already struggling with ethics questions surrounding its Senate leader.

That Senate leader, of course, would be the good Dr. Frist.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist faces a near-term ordeal unwelcome to anyone, particularly an ambitious politician: an official probe into his personal financial dealings by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The SEC authorized a formal order of investigation of Frist's sale in June of HCA Inc. shares, people with direct knowledge of the inquiry said yesterday. The order allows the agency's enforcement unit to subpoena documents and compel witnesses to testify, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the order hasn't been made public.

House Majority Leader? Check.

Senate Majority Leader? Check.

Next up?

Mr. October.

(PS: Angry women's rights activists in Turkey spoke truth to White House Mideast envoy Karen Hughes today. Icing on a day of cake.)

Labels: in the news

Another conservative voice senses the tide may be turning against the White House.

This time it's John Podheretz of the National Review:

TIME AND NEWSWEEK AND WHITE HOUSE "SOURCES"

[John Podhoretz]

Both magazines [Time | Newsweek] have huge finger-pointing packages -- packages that rely heavily on self-exculpatory detail from people like Gov. Kathleen Blanco and officials in Louisiana and New Orleans. What's interesting about the stories is that they suggest there's been a change at the Bush White House because they feature unnamed sources saying nasty things about the president. One of the remarkable aspects of this White House has been the fanatical loyalty its people have displayed toward Bush -- even talking to friendly journalists like me, it's been nearly impossible to get past the feel-good spin. If that's really changing, if staffers are beginning to separate themselves from their boss emotionally and indulge in on-background carping and cavilling, then two things are true. 1) Bush is about to suffer the agony that has afflicted all previous recent administrations -- the "who said that!" rages that distract our leaders and make them feel isolated in their jobs. 2) News stories are about to get a whole lot more interesting, and White House reporters are going to stop complaining about how hard it is to cover Bush.

Maybe someone in the White House is as disgusted with the recent actions and inactions of this administration as the rest of America.

Labels: in the news

More and more conservatives each day are speaking truth to power.

This time, it's Doug Bandow of the Cato Institute:

The real question is, why did Washington take so long to mobilize [the National Guard]? The administration underestimated the problem, failed to plan for the predictable aftermath, and refused to accept responsibility for its actions - just like when the president took America into war based on false and distorted intelligence. Then the administration failed to prepare for violent resistance in Iraq. The Pentagon did not provide America's soldiers with adequate quantities of body armor, armored vehicles and other equipment. New terrorist affiliates sprang up, new terrorist recruits flooded Iraq, and new terrorist attacks were launched around the world, all contrary to administration expectations. In none of these cases has anyone taken responsibility for anything.

Now Hurricane Katrina has surprised a woefully ill-prepared administration. Bush and his officials failed in their most basic responsibility, to maintain the peaceful social framework within which Americans normally live and work together.

George W. Bush initially responded to Sept. 11 with personal empathy, political sensitivity and policy nuance. But his failures now overwhelm his successes. The administration's continuing lack of accountability leaves it ill-equipped to meet equally serious future challenges.

Labels: in the news

From Rod Dreher, at the National Review blog:

THE COST OF CRONYISM [Rod Dreher]
It would be very wrong, I believe, to let the ignominious Michael Brown be the scapegoat for FEMA's sins. Check out this front-pager from the [Washington Post]. Turns out that a raft of FEMA's top leaders have little or no emergency management experience, but are instead politically well connected to the GOP and the White House. This is a scandal, a real scandal. How is it possible that four years after 9/11, the president treats a federal agency vital to homeland security as a patronage prize? The main reason I've been a Bush supporter all along is I trusted him (note past tense) on national security -- which, in the age of mass terrorism, means homeland security too. Call me naive, but it's a real blow to learn that political hacks have been running FEMA, of all agencies of the federal government! What if al-Qaeda had blown the New Orleans levees? How much worse would the crony-led FEMA's response have been? Would conservatives stand for any of this for one second if a Democrat were president? If this is what Republican government means, God help the poor GOP Congressmen up for re-election in 2006.

It's encouraging that so many conservatives are acknowledging what I've been saying all along: It's not the policies of the Bush administration, per se, it's the way they are implemented. It's that the sales pitch has become so much more important than what they're actually selling.

I'm going to continue collecting these "honest answers" from conservatives and eventually archive them on a page on the site. If you see any, lemme know.

Labels: in the news

From Joe Scarborough:

With so many trying to figure out why so few acted professionally in the first days of this epic crisis, I offer an insider's view of who is to blame for this national disgrace. We begin with Harry Truman who famously declared that the buck always stops at the president's desk. For those who now define the term conservative as unwavering support for George W. Bush, even this suggestion is maddening. But the bottom line is that despite the fact the president was strapped with two governors who bungled this crisis badly, in the end it is the president who sends in the National Guard and FEMA relief. The president's suggestion that the size of this storm caught all by surprise just doesn't get it. His administration was 48 hours late sending in the National Guard and poor Americans got raped and killed because of those mistakes. A painful assessment from a supporter of the president, but also true.

Note that Scarborough also finds much fault in the action - or lack of action - on the part of Democratic Louisiana Governor Blanco and Republican Mississippi Governor Barbour.

And I say good. Local, state, federal, whatever.

You earn my respect when you can find fault regardless of party lines.

Labels: in the news

NBC 5 Chicago reports:

In a document that went out from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the agency asked for firefighters with very specific skills and who were capable of working in austere conditions. When they got to a center in Atlanta, they found out their jobs would be public relations.

"Our job was to advertise a phone number for FEMA," said Portage Assistant Fire Chief Bill Lundy. "We were going to be given shirts and hats with a phone number on it and flyers, and sent to shelters, and we were going to pass out flyers."

Lundy and Calhoun said they don't want to bash FEMA or its mission, Rogers reported. They said they only want to help, and that there were plenty of other firefighters in the room who felt the same way.

"There was almost a fight," said Portage Assistant Fire Chief Joe Calhoun. "There was probably 700 firefighters sitting in the room getting this training, and it dawned on them what we were going to be doing. And then it got bad from there."

Lundy and Calhoun's first task was an eight-hour course on sexual harassment and equal opportunity employment procedures, Rogers reported. Neither firefighter would be involved in technical rescues of trapped people or any of their other specialties.

"We're trained in tactical medicine," Lundy said. "We weren't being used for that. We were being used to hand out flyers."

Their boss, Portage Fire Chief Tim Sosby, said he was only too happy to loan out his two men, but thinks they were right to come back home.

"It seemed like an incredible misuse of valuable resources," Sosby said.

Labels: in the news

He responds to disaster too damn slow,
Ignoring all the chaos in the Superdome.
Michael Brown. He's a clown.
That Michael Brown. He's a clown.
He's gonna get caught, just you wait and see:
"Why is everybody always picking on me?"

Here's a classic Karl Rove move.

Have the president say to the public: "Brownie, you're doin' a heckuva job!"

Then you leak the dirt on him.

And with it, the blame:

The government's disaster chief waited until hours after Hurricane Katrina had already struck the Gulf Coast before asking his boss to dispatch 1,000 Homeland Security employees to the region — and gave them two days to arrive, according to internal documents.

Michael Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, sought the approval from Homeland Security Secretary Mike Chertoff roughly five hours after Katrina made landfall on Aug. 29. Brown said that among duties of these employees was to "convey a positive image" about the government's response for victims.

Before then, FEMA had positioned smaller rescue and communications teams across the Gulf Coast. But officials acknowledged Tuesday the first department-wide appeal for help came only as the storm raged.

Classic Rove.

Labels: in the news

From the New York Times:

Under the command of President Bush's two senior political advisers, the White House rolled out a plan this weekend to contain the political damage from the administration's response to Hurricane Katrina.

It orchestrated visits by cabinet members to the region, leading up to an extraordinary return visit by Mr. Bush planned for Monday, directed administration officials not to respond to attacks from Democrats on the relief efforts, and sought to move the blame for the slow response to Louisiana state officials, according to Republicans familiar with the White House plan.

I sound like a broken record: this administration can not lead the country. It can only campaign the country.

Note how they aren't rolling out a plan to correct what went wrong. Note how they aren't rolling out a plan to make sure that America is truly prepared to minimize casulties in the event of a disaster, whether natural or man-made.

None of that. "Now is not the time to point fingers!" they say, as they point fingers. "Now is not the time to play politics!" they say, as they play politics.

Yet another campaign.

See, I don't want to see the president hugging people standing miles from the Superdome. I don't want to see the president meeting with officials at the levee. Even if it were real and not "orchestrated" - well, the CEO president should know that's just micromanagement shit.

So what do I want in a president right now?

I want him mad. MAD! I want him kicking ass and taking names. I want him in a command center, barking out orders, moving heaven and earth to help the people and the infrastructure of a decimated Gulf Coast.

Don't you?

But even then: too little, too late. What matters is not the support they're giving now, it's what they didn't do Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of last week and in the several days of fair warning before.

What matters is what the president chose to do instead.

Because while Mr. Bartlett and Mr. Rove "orchestrate" their campaign to "move the blame," I recall that the Governors of Louisiana and Alabama and Mississippi weren't on vacation until Wednesday - Day Three of the disaster. I recall that the mayors of New Orleans and Gulfport and Biloxi weren't spending the days after the initial disaster laughing over a birthday cake with Senator John McCain. Or laughing while playing guitar. Or laughing through "Spamalot," like our beloved Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice.

All I know is that if President Bush was even half the leader that his supporters claim him to be, he wouldn't be in damage mode at all.

Supporters would be able to crow at how the Dept. of Homeland Security and FEMA kicked ass and saved lives.

They'd be saying "Chertoff-Brown in 2008!"

But instead, this president has put his supporters on defense.

Forced yet again to make a meal of the tiniest crumbs of excuses, micro-rationalizing everything to let their guy off the hook.

So for those of you who still defend the president and his administration, I have two more questions for you:

Did last week meet your expectations for a government response to disaster in a post-9/11 America?

Would you be working so hard to lay the blame on state and local officials and the victims themselves if a President Kerry had been skiing in Aspen until Day Three of the disaster?

Just askin'.

Labels: in the news

From David Brooks, on the Newshour:

...So you had a surge of strength; people felt good about the country even though we'd been hit on 9/11. Now we've been hit again in a different way (and) people feel lousy. People feel ashamed. And in part that is because of the public presentation. In part that is because of the failure of Bush to understand immediately the shame people felt. Sitting up there on the airplane and looking out the window? That was terrible! And the three days of doing nothing, really, on Bush was terrible. Even today, I found myself -- and as you know, I support his policies quite often – (but I) look at him today, and earlier in the program...this is how Mark Shields must feel looking at him. I'm angry at the guy, and maybe it'll pass for me, but a lot of people, and a lot of Republicans, uh, are furious right now.

You can hear his voice cracking as he speaks.

Labels: in the news

You support the president? Here's an honest question.

Were you hoping that your guy in the White House say, last Friday, would have cleared his vacation schedule to coordinate from Washington instead of teleconferencing from Crawford? It would have given you a big opportunity to give the bird to Cindy Sheehan and her fellow protestors, right?

You clowns keep protesting, you could have said. Our man is busy doing the business of the American people. Keepin' them safe.

I actually predicted that he would have cut his vacation short the weekend before the storm for just this reason. After all, as of Saturday Katrina was still rated as a Category 5. It was still a worst-case sccenario. But beyond the fact that it was probably just the right action for a president to take - it was the perfect opportunity for the president and his handlers to diffuse the situation just outside the gates of his Crawford ranch without directly addressing it. Getting to the business of the people. Being presidential. Works every time.

But he didn't clear his schedule. He kept on biking. And speaking at fundraisers. And speaking at invitation-only events. Right through Wednesday - Day Three of the disaster.

But forget all that. Even if he didn't leave Crawford for Washington ahead of the storm, were you hoping that he would have had a sky full of helicopters descend on New Orleans on Tuesday or Wednesday? Not just New Orleans, but the entire Gulf coast. And not just helicopters, but boats, trucks, planes, buses, aid, a military show of force and compassion to show off everything the Department of Homeland Security had been preparing for in the past few years. Meals-ready-to-eat and bottled water raining down from the heavens. To show off how much your president had his act together. To prove that he was, in fact, the right American to have in the White House in the event of a wide-scale terrorist attack.

Were you waiting for it? Were you hoping?

This is it America, you could have said. This is the test-case scenario and our president is passing with flying colors. He's in charge. And the Homeland Security team created on his watch is passing with flying colors, too.

Ha, America! We told you so!

With the expectations raised by the spectre of weapons of mass destruction, by "mission accomplished," by the Iraqi insurgency's "last throes" to name just a few examples - do you ever get tired of defending President Bush and his administration? Do you ever get tired of placing the blame on everyone else? Do you ever get tired of not being able to say "I told you so!" to all of his critics?

Forget about how he's let me down.

Do you ever get tired of how he's let YOU down?

If this sounds shrill or snarky, it is not my intention.

It's an honest question.

Because I just read this litany of disturbing excuses for the president's inaction in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and I can't quite comprehend the inappropriateness, the tastelessness, the lack of compassion in words such as these:

It's not George Bush's fault that there were sick people and old people and people without cars in New Orleans. His job description does not include making sure every adult in America has a car, is in good health, has good sense, and is mobile.

That's not just a random extreme right-winger posting anonymously to the odd conservative blog.

That's Ben Stein, who, for all of his Ferris Bueller fame, is considered to be a serious scholar of conservative thought.

I don't know what's worse - if he's trying to be funny, or if he isn't.

Because either way, not only are the bodies of the "old" and "sick" and those "without cars" still warm - they are floating, they are rotting, they are being eaten by rats in the streets.

Is this the kind of defense that the president forces you to come up with?

Is this the kind of defense you want to be offering for anyone you really care about?

Is this how far one goes to avoid being able to admit that one man has not met their true expectations of righteousness and good?

Is this what it's come down to?

Again: this is an honest question.

Labels: in the news

Even on DAY SIX of the disaster - Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff is STILL spouting this complete bullshit.

"That 'perfect storm' of a combination of catastrophes exceeded the foresight of the planners, and maybe anybody's foresight," Chertoff said.

He called the disaster "breathtaking in its surprise."

But engineers say the levees preventing this below-sea-level city from being turned into a swamp were built to withstand only Category 3 hurricanes. And officials have warned for years that a Category 4 could cause the levees to fail.

And the most recent warning? Summer 2005. With the federal government's full participation.

From the simulation, officials estimate that a storm like Hurricane Pam would:

• cause flooding that would leave 300,000 people trapped in New Orleans, many of whom would not have private transportation for evacuation;


• send evacuees to 1,000 shelters, which would likely remain open for 100 days;


• require the transfer of patients from hospitals in harm’s way to hospitals in other parts of the state;


• trigger outbreaks of tetanus, influenza, and other diseases likely to be present after a storm;


• create 30 million cubic yards of debris and 237,000 cubic yards of household hazardous waste.

As a result of the Hurricane Pam Exercise, agencies are in the process of applying what they learned to their emergency response plans. Those changes include:

• assisting people without transportation – the American Red Cross is developing a program that would ask private citizens to collect people at area churches and transport them.


• identifying more than 700 shelters and planning the locations for the remaining sites.


• outlining patient movement details and determining how to set in motion existing immunization plans.


• establishing a command structure that would employ up to 800 searchers.


• identifying existing landfills capable of accepting hazardous waste and outlining debris removal plans.

One important result of the exercise was the understanding among agencies at all levels of the seriousness of such an event. "A White House staffer was briefed on the exercise," said van Heerden. "There is now a far greater awareness in the federal government about the consequences of storm surges."

And what does Dr. van Heerden say today?

VH: Well when I explained to them that they really needed to pre-position tents for these, to build tent cities for these refugees, I was told by one of the FEMA women, very sarcastically, that "Americans don't live in tents."

RC: What are you going to say to this FEMA woman if you see her now.

VH: I'll wring her neck.

RC: I told you so, huh ?

VH: I mean to me, you know, the most awful thing is the people who have died unnecessarily.

RC: You're angry.

VH: I'm damn angry. You know I hope Congress gets in there and nails those who are responsible. And don't look in Louisana, look outside. Because in Louisiana from the Governor on down, they've done an excellent job. But somewhere else that it all fell apart.

The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world...

Labels: in the news

Yeah, right.

President Bush took responsibility for this mess on August 27, 2005.

On his own letterhead:

The President today declared an emergency exists in the State of Louisiana and ordered Federal aid to supplement state and local response efforts in the parishes located in the path of Hurricane Katrina beginning on August 26, 2005, and continuing.

The President's action authorizes the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to coordinate all disaster relief efforts which have the purpose of alleviating the hardship and suffering caused by the emergency on the local population, and to provide appropriate assistance for required emergency measures, authorized under Title V of the Stafford Act, to save lives, protect property and public health and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe in the parishes of Allen, Avoyelles, Beauregard, Bienville, Bossier, Caddo, Caldwell, Claiborne, Catahoula, Concordia, De Soto, East Baton Rouge, East Carroll, East Feliciana, Evangeline, Franklin, Grant, Jackson, LaSalle, Lincoln, Livingston, Madison, Morehouse, Natchitoches, Pointe Coupee, Ouachita, Rapides, Red River, Richland, Sabine, St. Helena, St. Landry, Tensas, Union, Vernon, Webster, West Carroll, West Feliciana, and Winn.

Specifically, FEMA is authorized to identify, mobilize, and provide at its discretion, equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the emergency. Debris removal and emergency protective measures, including direct Federal assistance, will be provided at 75 percent Federal funding.

Representing FEMA, Michael D. Brown, Under Secretary for Emergency Preparedness and Response, Department of Homeland Security, named William Lokey as the Federal Coordinating Officer for Federal recovery operations in the affected area.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: FEMA (202) 646-4600.

I don't see Ray Nagin's name and number anywhere on that statement.

Let alone the hundreds of other Gulf Coast mayors who feel their government failed them last week.

Food and water STARTED arriving to these towns on Friday: fully four days after Katrina's landfall and a full week after the release of this statement.

Labels: in the news

Paperwork?

Several states ready and willing to send National Guard troops to the rescue in New Orleans didn't get the go-ahead until days after the storm struck — a delay nearly certain to be investigated by Congress.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson offered Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco help from his state's National Guard last Sunday, the day before Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana. Blanco accepted, but paperwork needed to get the troops en route didn't come from Washington until late Thursday.

Thursday was Day Four.

Day Four.

Paperwork?

Oh well. Just remember, citizens: September is National Preparedness Month. Here's the Tip of the Day!

Labels: in the news

From the great state of Lousiana, Sen. Mary Landrieu:

But perhaps the greatest disappointment stands at the breached 17th Street levee. Touring this critical site yesterday with the President, I saw what I believed to be a real and significant effort to get a handle on a major cause of this catastrophe. Flying over this critical spot again this morning, less than 24 hours later, it became apparent that yesterday we witnessed a hastily prepared stage set for a Presidential photo opportunity; and the desperately needed resources we saw were this morning reduced to a single, lonely piece of equipment. The good and decent people of southeast Louisiana and the Gulf Coast – black and white, rich and poor, young and old – deserve far better from their national government.

Labels: in the news

You must listen.

You must.

Here:

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin:I don't want to see anybody do any more goddamn press conferences. Put a moratorium on press conferences. Don't do another press conference until the resources are in this city, and they come down to this city, and stand with us, with their military trucks and troops that we can't even count. Don't tell me there are 40,000 people coming here, they're not here! It's too goddamn late!

Get off your asses and let's do something. Let's fix the biggest goddamn crisis in the history of this country!

Garland Robinette, WWL Radio: I'll tell you, right now, you're the only politician that's called, and called for arms like this. And whatever it takes, the governor, the president... whatever law precedent it takes, whatever it takes... I bet that the people listening to you are on your side.

Nagin: Well, I hope so, Garland. I am just... I'm at the point now, where it don't matter. People are dying. They don't have homes. They don't have jobs. The City of New Orleans will never be the same. And it's time.

(Then there's silence. Background studio noise comes up as the microphones self-adjust to pick something up. You hear sniffling... Nagin's in tears. Interviewer too.)

Robinette: We're both pretty speechless here.

Nagin: I don't know what to say. I've got to go. Okay. Keep in touch.

You must listen.

You must.

Here.

(And in the meantime? Another press conference.)

Labels: in the news

Much easier to give than to try and talk about it.

Labels: in the news

President Bush, in his address to military families in Idaho yesterday:

The will of the majority, coupled with minority rights and human dignity and rights for women is important for a free society. They understand that. (Applause.) But what's important is that the Iraqis are resolving these issues through debate and discussion, not at the barrel of a gun. (Applause.)

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world:

Political violence surged Thursday along many of Iraq's ethnic and sectarian fault lines, while Shiite and Sunni Arab political leaders haggled past a third deadline without reaching accord on a draft constitution.

As the two-day death toll around Iraq reached 100, fighting between two powerful Shiite militias in the southern city of Najaf subsided, with 19 reported dead overall. The clashes Wednesday night and Thursday between the Mahdi Army, loyal to Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr, and fighters allegedly linked to the government-allied Badr Organization were the deadliest between Iraqi militia forces since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003.

And as for the women's rights the president is championing?

Here's some perspective from Iraqi women's rights activist Safia Souhail, who was used as a prop during the president's Feb. 2005 State of the Union address:

When we came back from exile, we thought we were going to improve rights and the position of women. But look what has happened — we have lost all the gains we made over the last 30 years. It's a big disappointment.

Billmon says it best. As usual.

Perhaps she would have had more realistic expectations for the constitution the White House has come to support if she'd been wearing one of these on her ear during the State of the Union address.

Bill Moyer, 73, wears a "Bullshit Protector" flap over his ear while President George W. Bush addresses the Veterans of Foreign Wars at their 106th convention Monday, Aug. 22, 2005, in Salt Lake City. Moyer served in Korea and Vietnam, and in the post- WWII occupation of Germany. AP/Douglas C. Pizac.

Labels: in the news

Check this headline:



Sigh.

There is no leadership from this administration.

Just salesmanship.

Everything is a public relations campaign.

Like here. And here. And here.

At least some of President Bush's fellow conservatives are waking up.

At least some of his fellow conservatives are running away from the idea of just doing more of the same.

Like here. And here. And here. And here. And here.

I blogged the following on the Reality Based News page after the most recent such public relations campaign in June.

This is what I find so infuriating about this administration. They are perpetually in campaign mode. Everything is about the sale, not the substance. There's no governing, no real leadership - just flacks, polls and fake town hall meetings.

They've had every opportunity to change some of the policies that have lead us into a quagmire - send more troops, send more armor, secure the border, cooperate with neighboring nations, require their top terrorism and Middle East intelligence hires to have a knowledge of terrorism and the Middle East, listen to (the few) dissenters within their own administration. But they refuse. They just change the words used to describe the situation, and the reasons we're there, for the thousandth time.

The White House even happily admits that Tuesday's address to the nation was the result of hiring a war PR team. And what has that team told them? That deaths don't matter if you just act confident.

Let me say that in another way.

Your tax dollars went to hire a PR team that told your president that if he addresses the nation with confidence, deaths don't matter.

Again: it boggles my mind that conservatives aren't more angry than liberals about this type of so called leadership. Especially during wartime.

And we have always been at war.

That I could just cut and paste those words with no editing so soon after they were first written to describe yet another PR campaign to turn public opinion on the Iraq war speaks volumes, methinks.

Within those two months, no changes in policy.

Just changes in words used to describe the policy. (Which the president soon changed back again. Zero sum.)

Just crossed fingers over a constitution establishing a government that looks more like Iran than America.

Sprinkled with a dash of more tired, sad invoking of the murder of 3000 innocents on September 11 that Iraq had nothing to do with.

In the meantime, a soldier speaks.

Go read it.

The whole damn thing.

Peace,

B.

Labels: in the news

A conservative speaks:

It's time for us conservatives to face facts. George W. Bush has pissed away the conservative moment by pursuing a war of choice via policies that border on the criminally incompetent. We control the White House, the Senate, the House of Representatives, and (more-or-less) the judiciary for one of the few times in my nearly 5 decades, but what have we really accomplished?

[snip]

While we remain bogged down in Iraq, of course, Osama bin Laden remains at large somewhere. Multi-tasking is all the rage these days, but whatever happened to finishing a job you started? It strikes me that catching Osama would have done a lot more to discourage the jihadists than anything we've done in Iraq.

A conservative speaks:

For what it's worth, this is where I get off the bus. The principal mission of the so-called "war on terror" – which is actually a war on militant Islam – is to destroy the capacity of the international network of jihadists to project power in a way that threatens American national security. That is the mission that the American people continue to support.

[snip]

Now, if several reports this weekend are accurate, we see the shocking ultimate destination of the democracy diversion. In the desperation to complete an Iraqi constitution – which can be spun as a major step of progress on the march toward democratic nirvana – the United States of America is pressuring competing factions to accept the supremacy of Islam and the fundamental principle no law may contradict Islamic principles.

But even if I suspended disbelief for a moment and agreed that the democracy project is a worthy casus belli, I am as certain as I am that I am breathing that the American people would not put their brave young men and women in harm's way for the purpose of establishing an Islamic government. Anyplace.

You've been had.

We've all been had.

Thanks for acknowledging.

Now: whaddya gonna do about it?

Labels: in the news

This one speaks for itself.

From today's Washington Post - page one, above the fold:

U.S. Lowers Sights On What Can Be Achieved in Iraq
Administration Is Shedding 'Unreality' That Dominated Invasion, Official Says

By Robin Wright and Ellen Knickmeyer
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, August 14, 2005; Page A01

The Bush administration is significantly lowering expectations of what can be achieved in Iraq, recognizing that the United States will have to settle for far less progress than originally envisioned during the transition due to end in four months, according to U.S. officials in Washington and Baghdad.

The United States no longer expects to see a model new democracy, a self-supporting oil industry or a society in which the majority of people are free from serious security or economic challenges, U.S. officials say.

"What we expected to achieve was never realistic given the timetable or what unfolded on the ground," said a senior official involved in policy since the 2003 invasion. "We are in a process of absorbing the factors of the situation we're in and shedding the unreality that dominated at the beginning."

So who do you think that leaky "senior official" is?

Excellent sleuthing by Dr. Tom Rice at Daily Kos has a best guess - and the answer may surprise you.

Hint: this leaker has leaked before.

Labels: in the news

I hope everyone was able to get their popcorn at the concession stand before the show officially started yesterday.

And what a great opening scene it was.

The Associated Press has the story.

Crooks and Liars has the video.

Goes sumpin' like this:

During a discussion of U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris' chances of being elected to the Senate, Robert Novak stormed off the set of CNN's Inside Politics after calling "bullshit" (literally) on a rib-poking comment from his arch-nemesis, former Clinton aide James Carville.

Which seemed like the usual rib-poking, until you read between the lines.

CARVILLE: [Novak]'s got to show these right wingers that he's got a backbone, you know. It's why the Wall Street Journal editorial page is watching you. Show 'em that you're tough.

NOVAK: Well, I think that's bullshit, and I hate that. Just let it go.

And then he was gone.

Stood up, pulled off his mic, tossed it, he's outta there.

But why would Novak storm off in a discussion of Katherine Harris?

It's the bit about "backbone."

Novak appears to have been first in line to spill the beans about his sources to the grand jury in the CIA leak case, possibly because he honestly believed he had nothing to hide, but more likely because he and Rove colluded on their testimony beforehand. Matt Cooper's notes and testimony have since rendered a lot of their collusion inoperative, and may have further implicated them in a crime.

So a lot of White House apologists are wishing that Novak had kept his big mouth shut right about now, a la Judith Miller, who's still sitting in jail under civil contempt charges.

That's why Carville's "show 'em that you're tough" comment hit home.

It's also clear that the next topic for discussion was to have been the CIA leak case, as host Ed Henry explained afterward:

...And I'm sorry that Bob left the set a little early. I had told him in advance we were going to ask him about the CIA leak case. He was not here for me to be able to ask him about that. Hopefully we'll be able to ask him about that in the future.

So Bob knew it was coming, and most likely was stressing over the large copy of Who's Who in America sitting next to Henry on the news desk during the heated discussion. So what, you say? Well, that's the book Novak claimed he used to discover Valerie Plame's name, under Joseph Wilson's listing, as part of Rove's "I never revealed her name" wink-and-nod, lawyerly, Clintonian defense. Novak knew he was about to be grilled about it, and called on his many contradictory statements about it.

Also weighing heavy on ol' Bob: Republican Senator Arlen Specter is charging Bob with libeling his staffer.

The buzz is that perjury and obstruction of justice indictments in the CIA leak case are just a matter of time.

And that those charges may be the least of it.

So that was the big action opening yesterday.

Starring Bob Novak as himself.

Today, we establish the setting for the rest of the picture:

Approval of Bush's handling of Iraq, which had been hovering in the low- to mid-40s most of the year, dipped to 38 percent. Midwesterners and young women and men with a high school education or less were most likely to abandon Bush on his handling of Iraq in the last six months.

American troops have suffered heavy casualties in Iraq in recent days. On Wednesday, 14 Marines were killed in the Euphrates River valley in the worst roadside bombing targeting Americans since the war began in March 2003.

William Anderson, a retired Republican from Fort Worth, Texas, said Bush "has the right intentions, but he's going about them the wrong way. Iraq is one of the issues that everybody has a problem with," Anderson said."There are some big discussions about it around town. Everybody's got their agreements and disagreements. It seems like there's no end. Is it going to end up another Vietnam?"

Continuing worries about Iraq may do more than drag down Bush's standing with the public. They could become a major issue in the 2006 midterm congressional races, and if the war is still going in 2008, they could be a factor in the presidential race....

A factor in 2006? You bet, if Republicans in Texas are talking truth like William Anderson.

Because it's the trust, stupid:

The drop in the number of people who see Bush as honest was strongest among middle-aged Americans as well as suburban women, a key voting group in the 2004 election. A further erosion of trust could make it tougher for Bush to win support for his policies in Congress and internationally.

"The reason that trust is so important has to do with the long-standing belief that you could trust him, even if you don't always agree with him and don't understand what he's doing," said Bruce Buchanan, a political scientist at the University of Texas. "The honesty dip is partly caused by a loss of faith in his credibility on Iraq."

And the unscientific visual:



Keeping in mind that the "Most E-Mailed" stories on Yahoo are typically the stuff of the science of why men have nipples and teachers licking wounds.

As I write this, the article on the new poll is also the "Most Viewed" and "Most Recommended."

Just sayin'.

And the piece de resistance: this warning from a guy from Georgia named Newt Gingrich, who knows a thing or two about tumultuous mid-term elections:

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.) warned fellow Republicans yesterday not to ignore the implications of the party's narrow victory in Tuesday's special election in Ohio, saying the public mood heading into next year's midterm elections appears to helping Democrats and hurting Republicans.

"It should serve as a wake-up call to Republicans, and I certainly take it very seriously in analyzing how the public mood evidences itself," Gingrich said. "Who is willing to show up and vote is different than who answers a public opinion poll. Clearly, there's a pretty strong signal for Republicans thinking about 2006 that they need to do some very serious planning and not just assume that everything is going to be automatically okay."

In Tuesday's special election, Republican U.S. Rep. Schmidt beat out her challenger, Iraq veteran Paul Hackett, by a mere 4 percentage points in a GOP-heavy district that voted for President Bush over Senator Kerry nearly 70-30 in November 2004.

Just sayin'.

Labels: in the news

Oh what I would give to have either of these flawed human beings back in the White House.

In the meantime, more startling revelations about the CIA leak case in today's Washington Post, with more hints that this case is going to be about much more than Karl Rove and a couple of phone calls.

The special prosecutor in the CIA leak probe has interviewed a wider range of administration officials than was previously known, part of an effort to determine whether anyone broke laws during a White House effort two years ago to discredit allegations that President Bush used faulty intelligence to justify the Iraq war, according to several officials familiar with the case.

Prosecutors have questioned former CIA director George J. Tenet and deputy director John E. McLaughlin, former CIA spokesman Bill Harlow, State Department officials, and even a stranger who approached columnist Robert D. Novak on the street.

In doing so, special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has asked not only about how CIA operative Valerie Plame's name was leaked but also how the administration went about shifting responsibility from the White House to the CIA for having included 16 words in the 2003 State of the Union address about Iraqi efforts to acquire uranium from Africa, an assertion that was later disputed.

By all accounts, Fitzgerald is running a tight, tight, ship: unlike Ken Starr's operation, his office ain't leaking nothing. But it's obvious from the recent string of articles in the Post, the Times, Bloomberg and elsewhere that some former higher ups in the administration are talking to each other, and helping the press piece things together based on the questions Fitzgerald asked them.

Powell?

Tenet?

Both?

If only they'd spoken up when it really counted.

Ounce of prevention and all.

Also, someone goes on the record (for once): it's former CIA spokesperson Bill Harlow, chipping away at the few things that columnist Robert Novak has said before he conspicuously went so silent.

Harlow, the former CIA spokesman, said in an interview yesterday that he testified last year before a grand jury about conversations he had with Novak at least three days before the column was published. He said he warned Novak, in the strongest terms he was permitted to use without revealing classified information, that Wilson's wife had not authorized the mission and that if he did write about it, her name should not be revealed.

Check.

This points to the fact the players in this game aren't the Bush White House versus public opinion (the School of Direct Mail Marketing and Preaching to the Base and Everyone Else Be Damned, from whence Gepetto Rove and Pinnochio Bush were spawned).

This is the Bush White House versus the rule of law.

This is the Bush White House versus the career intelligence professionals in the CIA who feel they were used and abused to go to war on false charges.

And it looks like those CIA officials have handed Patrick "Bulldog" Fitzgerald one heluva case.

The grand jury is up in October, with indictments to follow.

Pop your popcorn, sit back, and watch the show.

And to point out just how wide this may get: may I remind you of what John Dean (yes, Nixon's lawyer, THAT John Dean ) had to say more than a year ago about President Bush retaining outside counsel for this investigation:

On this subject, I spoke with an experienced former federal prosecutor who works in Washington, specializing in white collar criminal defense (but who does not know [Bush's private counsel] Sharp). That attorney told me that he is baffled by Bush's move - unless Bush has knowledge of the leak. "It would not seem that the President needs to consult personal counsel, thereby preserving the attorney-client privilege, if he has no knowledge about the leak," he told me.

What advice might Bush get from a private defense counsel? The lawyer I consulted opined that, "If he does have knowledge about the leak and does not plan to disclose it, the only good legal advice would be to take the Fifth, rather than lie. The political fallout is a separate issue."

A "cancer on the presidency," indeed.

And may I remind you: a condition of Bush's eventual meeting with Fitzgerald was that he not be under oath.

This message brought to you by the estate of Orville Redenbacher.

UPDATE JULY 28:

The juicy juice just gets juicier, as The Huffington Post posits the theory that Judy Miller may have received the tip on Wilson's wife from her (innocent?) intelligence contacts while working her WMD beat and, in fact, leaked the info back to the White House - who in turn did everything they could to get the Valerie Plame name out to the masses while being careful not to get their fingerprints on it. I mentioned the idea of leak laundering briefly a coupla posts ago, but Arianna articulates it much better than I could. And it seems Huffington's talking directly to people inside the NY Times shop about the pro-Miller and not-so-pro-Miller factions emerging. You'd also think she'd be receiving more sympathy from her peers in the media, who may be sixth-sensing that something about her martydom don't smell so good.

All interesting, but it also raises questions: If Judy Miller (kinda) started it, or at least introduced the idea of Wilson's wife to the White House after hearing it from another source, shouldn't she be taking the Fifth instead of invoking a reporter's privileges?

Unless of course she thought that would be enough.

Still more: now there's talk of them talking about canning Fitzgerald when the grand jury is up in October.

Tune in next week.

Same batshit crazy time.

Same batshit crazy channel.

Labels: in the news

From today's Washington Post, on President Bush's Supreme Court nominee John Roberts:

In September 1982, Roberts played the role of diplomatic coach, advising Smith on how to handle an upcoming meeting with Coretta Scott King, the widow of the slain civil rights leader. The Carter administration's Justice Department had supplied a $250,000 grant to the Atlanta-based King Center for Non-violent Social Change, to teach conflict resolution in the hopes of reducing violent crime.

The grant, approved in 1980, had run out and the Reagan administration planned not to renew it. Roberts, in a Sept. 16, 1982, memo, called the program "very poorly run" and said that it had only received funding because of "political ties" between King and Homer Broome Jr., a black Justice Department official. But rather than share those concerns bluntly with King, Roberts advised, Smith should instead tell her "there is simply no money available for additional funding," and "indicate support for the activities of the King Center, and even pleasure that the Justice Department was able to be of assistance in advancing" its goals.

So basically lie to her, right?

No wonder the president likes him.

He'll fit right in.

Labels: in the news

From CBS News/Associated Press:

For two years, the White House has insisted that presidential adviser Karl Rove had nothing to do with the leak of a CIA officer's identity. And President Bush said the leaker would be fired.

But Mr. Bush's spokesman wouldn't repeat any of those assertions Monday in the face of Rove's own lawyer saying his client spoke with at least one reporter about Valerie Plame's role at the CIA before she was identified in a newspaper column...

White House press secretary Scott McClellan refused to answer questions about Rove at two news briefings Monday.

From that press briefing:

Q Scott, I mean, just -- I mean, this is ridiculous. The notion that you're going to stand before us after having commented with that level of detail and tell people watching this that somehow you decided not to talk. You've got a public record out there. Do you stand by your remarks from that podium, or not?

MR. McCLELLAN: And again, David, I'm well aware, like you, of what was previously said, and I will be glad to talk about it at the appropriate time. The appropriate time is when the investigation --

Q Why are you choosing when it's appropriate and when it's inappropriate?

MR. McCLELLAN: If you'll let me finish --

Q No, you're not finishing -- you're not saying anything. You stood at that podium and said that Karl Rove was not involved. And now we find out that he spoke out about Joseph Wilson's wife. So don't you owe the American public a fuller explanation? Was he involved, or was he not? Because, contrary to what you told the American people, he did, indeed, talk about his wife, didn't he?

MR. McCLELLAN: David, there will be a time to talk about this, but now is not the time to talk about it.

Q Do you think people will accept that, what you're saying today?

MR. McCLELLAN: Again, I've responded to the question.

Go ahead, Terry.

Q Well, you're in a bad spot here, Scott, because after the investigation began, after the criminal investigation was underway, you said -- October 10th, 2003, "I spoke with those individuals, Rove, Abrams and Libby, as I pointed out, those individuals assured me they were not involved in this." From that podium. That's after the criminal investigation began. Now that Rove has essentially been caught red-handed peddling this information, all of a sudden you have respect for the sanctity of the criminal investigation?

MR. McCLELLAN: No, that's not a correct characterization Terry, and I think you are well aware of that. We know each other very well, and it was after that period that the investigators had requested that we not get into commenting on an ongoing criminal investigation. And we want to be helpful so that they can get to the bottom of this, because no one wants to get to the bottom of it more than the President of the United States. I am well aware of what was said previously. I remember well what was said previously. And at some point, I look forward to talking about it. But until the investigation is complete, I'm just not going to do that.

Q Do you recall when you were asked --

Q Wait, wait -- so you're now saying that after you cleared Rove and the others from that podium, then the prosecutors asked you not to speak anymore, and since then, you haven't?

MR. McCLELLAN: Again, you're continuing to ask questions relating to an ongoing criminal investigation...

The video is priceless.

Labels: in the news

Newsweek published this story just a few weeks after the election last year.

The Real Target?
Updated: 10:16 a.m. ET Nov. 22, 2004

The latest analysis of evidence that led to last summer's Code Orange alert suggests that Al Qaeda operatives were plotting a "big bomb" attack against a major landmark in Britain--but had no active plans for strikes in the United States,, U.S. intelligence sources tell NEWSWEEK...

Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge first announced the financial-buildings alert on Sunday, Aug. 1, just three days after Sen. John Kerry gave his acceptance speech at the Democratic Party convention in Boston. Ridge's references to what he called "very specific" and "alarming" intelligence about Al Qaeda surveillance of such buildings as the World Bank in Washington and the New York Stock Exchange set off a new wave of fears about a possibly imminent terrorist attack and, in the view of some, had the effect of substantially suppressing Kerry's "bounce" in the polls...

Some U.S. law-enforcement officers based in London, NEWSWEEK has learned, have become extremely concerned about evidence regarding possible active Al Qaeda plots to attack targets in Britain. According to a U.S. government official, fears of terror attacks have prompted FBI agents based in the U.S. Embassy in London to avoid traveling on London's popular underground railway (or tube) system, which is used daily by millions of commuters. While embassy-based officers of the U.S. Secret Service, Immigration and Customs bureaus and the CIA still are believed to use the underground to go about their business, FBI agents have been known to turn up late to crosstown meetings because they insist on using taxis in London's traffic-choked business center.

Full story from November is here.

And there's more here.

It gets worse.

Recall, if you will, that in August the White House leaked intelligence about the capture of al Qaeda operative to justify the Orange Alert.

That leak may have disrupted a sting being conducted by British and Pakistani officials.

U.S. leak 'harms al Qaeda sting'
Monday, August 9, 2004 Posted: 6:24 AM EDT (1024 GMT)

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- The effort by U.S. officials to justify raising the terror alert level last week may have shut down an important source of information that has already led to a series of al Qaeda arrests, Pakistani intelligence sources have said.

Until U.S. officials leaked the arrest of Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan to reporters, Pakistan had been using him in a sting operation to track down al Qaeda operatives around the world, the sources said.

In background briefings with journalists last week, unnamed U.S. government officials said it was the capture of Khan that provided the information that led Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge to announce a higher terror alert level...

"The Pakistani interior minister, Faisal Hayat, as well as the British home secretary, David Blunkett, have expressed displeasure in fairly severe terms that Khan's name was released, because they were trying to track down other contacts of his," [Senator Charles] Schumer told CNN.

Politics above all.

That tragic abuse of power and risking of lives as a political CYA is what finally pushed me over the edge to start blogging about this White House, back in August (follow the link and scroll all the way down).

I was angry then.

Beyond angry.

Now I'm just numb.


UPDATE: In the wake of the stupid, stupid conspiracy theories going around regarding the recent terrorist attacks on London, I feel compelled to clarify my intensions with this post.

The point is not to give credence to anything that suggests that British and U.S. officials willfully allowed the London bombings to happen (or worse yet, were behind it).

It's to point out how the United States specifically used a REAL counter-terrorism effort for their own political purposes last summer, putting that counter-terrorism effort in jeopardy.

The very people seeking our vote because they claimed they would make us safer in fact sold out our safety and security the first chance they got.

Gross incompetence, yes. Negligence, yes. Abuse of power, yes.

Conspiracy, no.

Look, we've got enough on the unethical dealings of this administration without having to make up stuff about how they're purposefully killing their own citizens to justify past stupidity.

We don't need to legitimize dumb rumors.

The facts are bad enough.

Here endeth the update.

Labels: in the news

"I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of our [intelligence] sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious of traitors." Former President George Herbert Walker Bush, 1999.

If you've been following the latest developments in the Valerie Plame case this holiday weekend, you might get the feeling that the tide is truly turning against the White House - specifically with news that Time magazine's recent document dump for the special prosecutor may implicate White House advisor Karl Rove in outing Plame as a CIA operative, presumably to punish her husband for telling the truth about Iraq's pursuit of nuclear weapons.

My gut tells me not to get too excited.

I don't want to give Mr. Rove more credit than he deserves by saying he is too smart for that; he may be a genius of dirty politics, but that's about it. Let's just say I bet he's got some doozy of a loophole, as Lawrence O'Donnell suggests today in his latest revelation on the case (cleverly calling it a possible "I did not inhale" defense).

But thanks to prospect.org, here's what we do know:

Rove insisted [to FBI investigators] he had only circulated information about Plame after it had appeared in Novak's column. He also told the FBI, the same sources said, that circulating the information was a legitimate means to counter what he claimed was politically motivated criticism of the Bush administration by Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson...

Rove and other White House officials described to the FBI what sources characterized as an aggressive campaign to discredit Wilson through the leaking and disseminating of derogatory information regarding him and his wife to the press, utilizing proxies such as conservative interest groups and the Republican National Committee to achieve those ends, and distributing talking points to allies of the administration on Capitol Hill and elsewhere.

Man. Notice how they couldn't use that massive Capital Hill energy to say that Wilson was wrong, because he wasn't. So they had to attack him personally.

Man.

Hunter at Daily Kos thankfully puts it all in context (and you really, really should read the whole thing):

We know from Senate investigations that John Bolton, to give one specific example of an administration official, has a special obsession with the punishment of anyone -- agent, analyst, or foreign official -- who contradicted his "preferred" pre-Iraq War intelligence analysis. What we learn from the Plame case is that that wasn't unusual behavior. White House officials mobilized en masse to extract a particularly vicious punishment via the Plame outing. En masse. Whether it proves a felony or not, it is remarkable to think that the highest levels of government would take it so intimately upon themselves to destroy a single critic -- and that they would en masse think nothing of using leaked classified information as the centerpiece of a political hit.

At this point, nothing that happens in the Plame case will shock me. We already know the shocking part -- the level of attacks deemed acceptable and justifiable by Bush and his closest advisors.

This information has been known since 2003. At any point, Bush could have dismissed the culprits. Considering how many of them were involved, he'd have his work cut out for him in the restaffing department, but nonetheless it is transparently obvious what behaviors George W. Bush finds acceptable. What movements, among his staff, he rewards...

Our country is better than these men. Felony or no, I am ashamed of them. And that shame represents a deeper patriotism than a hundred tattered flags waving from car antennae.

Happy Fourth of July.

B.

Labels: in the news

This one speaks for itself.

[US Rep. Walter B.] Jones led the fight to rename [French] fries and toast at the Capitol in protest of the French leading opposition to the war in Iraq.

Ask him about it now, and he lays his cheek in his left hand, a habit he repeats dozens of times a day when lost in thought or sadness.

"I wish it had never happened," Jones said.

Like many things about Jones, freedom fries lend themselves to caricature. They are an emotional response to a complex problem, easily reduced to a ticker line on CNN.

But Jones now says we went to war "with no justification." He has challenged the Bush administration, quizzing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other presidential advisers in public hearings. He has lined the hallway outside his office with "the faces of the fallen."

Jones represents the state's most military congressional district, running from Camp Lejeune along the coast through Cherry Point, up to the Outer Banks.

"If we were given misinformation intentionally by people in this administration, to commit the authority to send boys, and in some instances girls, to go into Iraq, that is wrong," Jones said. "Congress must be told the truth.

Go read the whole thing.

Labels: in the news

It's time for another edition of Smiling Through Terror Talk! with your host, Scott McClellan!

transcript | video

You can play along at home by taking a sip of your drink every time Scott says "protocols!"

Two sips for passive language!

Three sips for invoking September 11th!

If you want to skip ahead to the lightning round:

QUESTION: I think there's a disconnect here because, I mean, yesterday you had more than 30,000 people who were evacuated, you had millions of people who were watching this on television, and there was a sense at some point -- it was a short window, a 15-minute window, but there was a sense of confusion among some on the streets. There was a sense of fear. And people are wondering was this not a moment for the President to exercise some leadership, some guidance during that period of time? Was this not a missed opportunity for the President to speak out and at least clarify what -- that he was informed, and what was taking place at that time? If not even during the 15-minute window, why not later in the day?

MR. McCLELLAN: The President did lead, and the President did that after September the 11th when we put the protocols in place to make sure that situations like this were addressed before it was too late. And that was the case -- that was the case in this situation. And in terms of during this time, this was a matter of minutes when this was occurring. And all the appropriate security personal and Homeland Security officials and others were acting to implement those protocols. And we commend all those that worked to follow those protocols and make sure that this situation was addressed. And it worked, in terms of the protocols.

A good reporter, of course, follows up quickly and tries to move the subject away from hypotheticals, from the abstract, and get into the specifics of the situation. To get beyond the hypothetical "protocols."

QUESTION: Beyond the protocols here, I mean we're talking about just simply demonstrating to the American people, I understand what's taking place, we're in control of the situation, and I've been apprised of what is happening here -- because there were thousands of people involved in what was a very scary moment.

Scott will not be moved.

MR. McCLELLAN: Yes, and we briefed you about the circumstances of the event shortly after that. But during that time period, it's important in those minutes when this is occurring, that everybody is focused on making sure the people in the area of the threat are protected, and there are protocols in place to make sure that the people in the area of the threat are protected. Those protocols were followed. You all covered this on the coverage last night and pointed out how those protocols were followed and how jets were scrambled. This was an instance where presidential authority was not required because we had put these protocols in place after September 11th.

Really, the guy is a genius. He never answers the question, just says that same three talking points over and over and over again. And seems eager to say the same three talking points over and over and over again without answering the question. I've said it before: it seems like he's in over his head, but really, he's exactly the robot that the position calls for.

April Ryan's take is my personal favorite. She brings to light that for all the talk of protocols and preparedness, there was no intercom alert in the White House press room. Just an e-mail alert. An e-mail! Which, as she points out, sucks for you if you're not at your desk at the time.

She also points out that the Cessna got much closer to the White House than the "within three miles" talking point implies.

How's that for protocol and preparedness in a post-September 11th world?

Again, for your convenience:

transcript | video

Say it ain't so

Here's MSNBC's badge-of-honor conservative Joe Scarborough with his take on the whole thing.

After I watched [Fahrenheit] 9/11, one of the parts that made me the angriest was the part about "'My Pet Goat." I thought it was a cheap shot. I said, seven, eight, nine minutes, big deal. But here you have an attack going on - or something most Americans thought was an attack - for 15, 20, 30 minutes and the president of the United States not notified. Why?

So Joe concludes:

If the President of the United States cannot have his bike ride interrupted to learn of a possible terror attack on Washington, then he is not fit to lead this country in its war on terror.

Say it ain't so, "Regular" Joe.

Joe, remember just two years ago, when it was absolutely "un-American" to question the president's leadership in the so-called war on terror?

And today you're wondering aloud if the president even had a plan in place to protect his own house, a primary target on September 11th. Let alone the nation. Let alone our troops overseas.

So Joe: maybe you owe Danny Glover an apology?

Labels: in the news

You know how often players in the Bush administration, including the president himself, bring up Saddam Hussein in same the breath as September 11th to conflate the two?

To such a degree and so successfully that, at one point, 70% of Americans believed that Hussein had a hand in the September 11th attacks?

Well conflation got as evil and Orwellian as it's ever been this week.

Here's Vice President Cheney, talking about Social Security at yet another fake town hall:

If we don't do anything at all, if we just stay where a lot of people have said we ought to stay -- there are a number of members of Congress of the other faith who have said that we don't need to do anything.

Emphasis mine.

The other faith.

Equating party affiliation with religious affiliation.

A simple slip of the tongue, you might think? Then why were the audience members making the same slip?

My question is, I watched the press conference the other night with the President, and it seems like when the two of you come up with serious ideas that those from the other faith, in the other party, all they do is demonize...

And here:

I think we have a little bit of an easy audience this morning on convincing us of this program -- could you delineate out a few other points from the other side, or the other faith, differences maybe in what you're saying this morning, and maybe what they're saying or not saying?

Remember, they're not talking about the judiciary here. This is a Social Security town hall. They're talking about fiscal policy.

And remember: these things are so scripted they're rehearsed the day before.

There are no accidents.

I'm so angry right now I don't know what to write.

As inconceivable as so many of this administration's actions have been, for them to equate party with religion is beyond any of the Luntzian and Orwellian language games they've played before. Beyond the pale.

In a discussion of Social Security.

In a high school auditorium.

What would Jesus privatize?

You can read more about it at Daily Kos. Hat tip to Kos diarists Coldblue Steele and Magorn for the heads up and analysis.

As one poster noted:

"Wasn't this the way the Nazis described the Jews?"

Um... yes.

Do the math.

The policies are bad enough.

But even if you support the policies, you have to be uncomfortable with the way they're being sold.

If not outraged.

Shhhh... you hear that?

That knocking noise?

That's the sound of me banging my head against the wall.

Again. And again. And again. And again.

B. (son of a preacher man)

Labels: in the news

Sunday was the second anniversary of President Bush's "mission accomplished" moment.



More than 1400 Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed in Iraq since May 1, 2003, when the president announced:

"Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the Battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed."

And as of Sunday morning, May 1, 2005:

A torrent of bloodshed — at least 140 killed in five days — followed the approval of an Iraqi Cabinet that mostly shut out members of the disaffected Sunni minority.

Also on Sunday morning: the leak of a fascinating British government memo from the summer of 2002 with a matter-of-fact admission that the White House was cooking the books on Iraq intelligence in its rush to war.

To quote the document:

C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. 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.

Emphasis mine. The memo is dated July 23, 2002 - fully eight months before we started dropping bombs on Baghdad.

So there you have it, Sunday morning's confluence of Iraq War news:

1. the second anniversary of the president's "mission accomplished" PR stunt;
   
2. the breaking news confirming the insurgency to be as strong as ever;
   
3. the leak of a UK memo conceding that the American government was cooking intelligence.

So what did you get if you tuned in to CNN on Sunday?

Live-from-the-scene, non-stop, breaking, breathless coverage and talking head analysis of a hoax.

A hoax that, as of Sunday morning, was already ONE DAY OLD.

A hoax that was, at best, a local news story.

A hoax that was only a national story because CNN made it a national story.

A hoax that was only a national story because unlike the many who go missing in America every day, the "missing" person in this case was rich and "beautimous."

That's not a typo: check out this P.O.S. transcript to this P.O.S. show with its P.O.S. host from Friday night - the night before the hoax was revealed to be a hoax.

GRACE: Mr. Wilbanks, our heart goes out to you so much, sir. I'm showing a picture of Jennifer right now. She is absolutely a beautiful girl and, from all sources, beautiful on the inside and the outside. Sir, did she call you every day? Were you two in touch, her with her family?

WILBANKS: It's been - her nickname is - I call her Beautimous. It's just a thing. And she'll call me on my cell and have me on speaker phone, because she knows that when I see it's her I'll say, "Hey, Beautimous, what are you doing?" And all her co-workers and everything, everybody, get a kick out of that. It's just something between Jennifer and I.

[SNIP]

GRACE: Mr. Wilbanks, tonight you were supposed to be at the rehearsal dinner, tomorrow, I'm sure in a beautiful tuxedo walking down the aisle. But I'll tell you one thing, you have shown a lot of people tonight what courage is all about. And I'm going to go out to this break with another shot of your girl, Jennifer, because she is Beautimous to us, too.

Like I said, P.O.S. host.

So what am I bombarded with this very morning as the top story - the TOP STORY - on the CNN web site?

Now that this hoax is THREE DAYS OLD?



CNN: home of irony-free headlines.

"Perplexed?" You bet.

And as Cindy paraphrased it this morning: "Our top story: some people somewhere have emotions about something."

That's not news. That's stretching the wording to make it seem like it's news when nothing new or newsworthy has actually happened. Which is bad enough.

But she turned herself in Saturday morning.

And this is the top story on TUESDAY.

Three days.

Three days, mind you, with not a peep about the memo that's making headlines all over the U.K.

"Fixed."

"The intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

And not a peep.

Sigh.

But wait: I wonder how elaborate her kidnapping story was? Beautimous must have described her fake abducters, right? And with 24/7 coverage, CNN must have been on the record with that, too, right?

...she told [the chief of police] that when she was jogging last Tuesday, a Hispanic male and white female jumped her from behind, placed her in a van and drove off.

Hispanic male.

Gotta make your stupid fake story believable, right darling?

That fun little tidbit is in the 32nd paragraph in a 33-paragraph story.

Gotta hide it somewhere, right?

We wouldn't want CNN to interrupt our feelings of sympathy for poor, troubled, issues-havin' Beautimous, would we?

Because if we stopped caring about her - hell, we might stop watching the 24/7 coverage.

In other news: Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.

And I weep.

Peace,

B.

UPDATE 5.06.05

Albuquerque, police said Thursday that Wilbanks also claimed she had been sexually assaulted, but recanted with the rest of her story.

Here's the Associated Press story.

I'm going to go throw up now.

Labels: in the news

From Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting

Facing significant opposition to its plan to privatize part of the Social Security program, the White House is pushing reporters and lawmakers to use the expression "personal accounts," since polling data seems to indicate that "privatization" is an unpopular term with voters.

[snip]

"Private accounts" was the accurate term used by both sides of the debate until Republicans realized it wasn't polling well; they then started calling them "personal accounts," a deceptive term because citizens already have personal Social Security accounts that keep track of their individual contributions.

January 27, 2005

From Talking Points Memo

Needless to say, what's happened now is that Republicans are getting bad results in the polls. So they've come up with a new smiley-face vocabulary and they're hitting all the newsrooms telling editors that it's an example of bias to use the phrase 'nuclear option' since that's a slur devised by Democrats. [BT says: The New Yorker explains that the phrase was coined by Republican Senator Trent Lott.]

[snip]

There's no intrinsic reason why banning filibusters for judicial nominations should be called the 'nuclear option'... But one side in a debate shouldn't be able to order the refs in the game to rewrite the lexicon just because people don't like what's happening. And yet that's just what's happening. Republicans are now making a concerted push at a whole slew of news organizations, trying to convince them to stop using the term in their coverage, on the argument that it's an attack phrase concocted by the Democrats... Perhaps we can just call ending filibusters 'privatization'.

April 23, 2005

From Mr. George Orwell

"What I had really intended to say was that in your article I noticed you had used two words which have become obsolete. But they have only become so very recently. Have you seen the tenth edition of the Newspeak Dictionary?"

"No," said Winston. "I didn't think it had been issued yet. We are still using the ninth in the Records Department."

"The tenth edition is not due to appear for some months, I believe. But a few advance copies have been circulated. I have one myself. It might interest you to look at it, perhaps?"

"Very much so," said Winston, immediately seeing where this tended.

"Some of the new developments are most ingenious. The reduction in the number of verbs -- that is the point that will appeal to you, I think."

1984

PS: Why does it take The Daily Show to expose the president's fake town hall tour for what it is? To expose Frank Luntz for what he is?

Big ups to Samantha Bee.

UPDATE: The folks at Media Matters have much more on the evolution of Trent Lott's "nuclear option." Orwellian, Orwellian, Orwellian. Double plus good.

Labels: in the news

The Babylon video should be online in May. I promise. In May.

In anticipation, I'll be posting video clips of behind-the-scenes footage this week. I put together a couple clips late last night: gonzo, voyeur cam night shot footage from the set itself, plus performance footage from the "Shock and Awe" show at Firlefanz Gallery on the eve of the production.

I'll try to crunch 'em into a web-ready format tonight and post them over the course of the next week or so. In the meantime, dig the revamped live blog from the set.

Labels: in the news

From yet another brilliant White House Briefing column by the Washington Post's Dan Froomkin (subscribe already!) comes this dissection of yet another ridiculous briefing with press secretary Scott McClellan.

Eric Brewer, who's so new to the White House press corps he hasn't figured out he's not supposed to ask a real question, poses a real question: "Have the massive intelligence failures documented in the [recent WMD] report caused the President to rethink his policy of preventive war?"

Think about what our cynical friend Frank Luntz says - how mentioning September 11th is a "trick" that works to this administration's advantage - as Froomkin documents McClellan's responses, brilliantly using Google to point out how often McClellan goes back to the well for the same Luntz-inspired non-answers.

Here's what McClellan said, from the transcript. You can click on each phrase to see how many times he's used those same words before in previous briefings.

"You know, September 11th taught us a very important lesson, and that lesson was that we must confront threats before it is too late. If we had known of those attacks ahead of time, we would have moved heaven and earth to prevent them from happening. This President will not hesitate when it comes to protecting the American people. And in the post-September 11th world that we live in, the consequences of underestimating the threat we face is too high. It's tens of -- possibly tens of thousands of lives.

Brewer followed up: "What about the cost of overestimating?"

McClellan: "Are you talking about the Iraq situation?"

Brewer: "Going into Iraq, yes, with bad intelligence."

McClellan: I think we've talked about this before.The world is safer with Saddam Hussein's regime removed from power. The Iraqi people are serving as an example to the rest of the Middle East through their courage and determination to build a free future."

And at this point, Hearst columnist Helen Thomas piped in:

"The ones that are alive, you mean?"

Classic Helen. Makes me proud to have the last name Thomas.

A lot of people think that McClellan is a terrible press secretary because he never answers a question, just sticks to the talking points, the stock phrases. There's no art to his misinformation, the way that there was with, say, Ari Fleischer, whose back-and-forths with the likes of Helen Thomas were so entertaining they inspired this found poem by Hart Seely. (Hey -you can't spell "liar" with "A-R-I," said Middlebury '91 to Middlebury '82).

But I argue that McClellan is exactly what this administration needs: a broken record who nervously smiles and unsmiles through every unanswer with the same intonation, no matter the subject - be it the deficit or dead Iraqi children, same, same, same, and never a real answer. And still conflating September 11th and Saddam Hussein, even while discussing a 600-page report objectively pointing out how "dead wrong" they were to do so. Invoking September 11th per Mr. Luntz's recommendations.

Sigh.

I don't know if it's incompetence or if it's calculated, but either way it serves this White House very, very well.

Labels: in the news

From Knight Ridder, on the president's Rolling Thunder Social Security Revue:

Jon Paul Surma, a 24-year-old businessman from Rolling Prairie, Ind., said he was tapped for an appearance with Bush after he raised his concerns about Social Security at a town hall meeting with Rep. Chris Chocola, R-Ind.

Surma, who works in his family's garbage-truck business, said he'd like to eliminate Social Security, but he didn't mention that politically explosive idea to Bush. Instead, Surma focused on his belief that he'll never receive his promised benefits - a concern that dovetails with Bush's contention that younger workers have little reason to fear changes in Social Security.

The night before their appearance with Bush, Surma and the other conversation participants held a dress rehearsal with a White House aide who played the role of the president. While Surma and other participants said they were never told what to say, the practice session and the interviews that preceded it reduced the likelihood of any surprises.

White House Communications Director Nicolle Devenish said screening out opponents helps ensure a "productive discussion."

Emphasis mine. A ringer who wants to kill Social Security is part of a panel discussion on "strengthening" Social Security. An audience bused in from out-of-state helps ensure "productive discussion" - yet the news reports as if the audience is made up of locals.

If you support the President, and you think this kind of orchestrated government propaganda is okay, and you think I'm obsessive for dwelling on it, picture this:

It's 2009. Hillary Clinton is your president, and despite her setback when she was First Lady, she's now ready to make nationalized health care a reality. But a "nationalized" health care program doesn't test well in focus groups, so President Hillary directs government agencies and the media to refer to it only as a "personalized" health care program. The Health Department begins sending out video news releases informing the public about "personalized" health care. Local television news stations are airing the spots as if they're from an objective, legitimate news source. All thanks to your tax dollars. President Hillary hits the road with a stylized talk show/infomercial selling her health care plan. Everyone on stage is a ringer. Their answers are rehearsed the day before. The entire production is run by MoveOn.org. The local news outlets report on the events as if they're open forums with ordinary Americans. All thanks to your tax dollars.

This is the precedent that's being set now.

I'll say it again: it's not the policy, it's the way it's being sold.

Go read the whole thing.

You may also want to try the earlier draft of the article.

Peace,

B.

Labels: in the news

As if to underline my previous post on the Orwellian nature of today's government, a coalition of media organizations has designated March 13-20 as Sunshine Week in a bid to shed light on what a whopping 70 percent of Americans perceive as the U.S. government's increasingly restrictive access to public information.

But in addition to the many stories you'll be seeing here and there in the news this week about the government's ever-growing resistance to letting the public in, you're probably noticing a number of stories about the shady tools the government is using to output information.

Or disinformation, to be precise.

Witness: the fake news videos your tax dollars are paying for, dumped onto lazy local television news stations with rah-rah reports on government policy. (The Government Accountability Office - the investigative arm of Congress - recently denounced video news releases as "covert propaganda"; the White House response yesterday was basically, "Thanks for your opinion. We're gonna keep doing it anyway.")

Witness: the farcical Social Security road shows that are so scripted that participants gather a day in advance to rehearse their praises for Dear Leader. (It helps them "say things clearer," says a member of the Orwellian-named FreedomWorks, a right-wing advocacy group handling production duties and audience recruitment.)

Witness: the practice of planting fake journalists in the White House press room to conveniently change the subject during those rare occassions when the questions from the corps actually have some substance. (The fake White House journalist who's been in the news lately received security clearance despite using a fake name and moonlighting as a male prostitute.)

Sigh.

I'm the first to admit I'm not a big fan of this administration's policies.

But worse than the policies are the way they are sold, which is incrementally chipping away at the very foundation of the greatest nation on the planet. Newspeak. Fake town hall meetings. Propaganda passed off as objective news reports. Planted, fake reporters.

And while I'm glad to see that these ridiculous tactics are being exposed to the general public as part of a collective effort, I can't help but say:

"Duh."

And: "Too little too late."

Maybe if the press hadn't been so - afraid? lazy? indifferent? status quo? - when these stories needed to see the light of day, we wouldn't even need a Sunshine Week. I don't want to paint 'em all with one brush - that I've known about this stuff all along is proof enough that someone must have been reporting it - but damn.

Damn.

To that end: 16 days to Julia.

Giving the Daily Show a run for their money in the fake news department, this is Karen Ryan reporting.

Labels: in the news

Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?

I wonder if that's how supporters of the current White House administration feel after perusing the cynical 160-page Republican strategy piece by pollster/marketer/language master Frank Luntz - recently leaked for all to download.

Cheated.

PDFs | HTML

The farmers are feeling it. The AARP is feeling it.

The brazen bait-and-switch. From an administration that claims to put trust and loyalty above all.

Are you next?

Mind you, nothing in the Luntz document is about substance: it's all just how to sell, sell, sell it. Image is everything. Appearance is everything. Language is everything. Convince the people that you're selling what they wanna buy. And you're selling it cheap. Pay no real price, everything so nice. Sell. Sell. Sell.

Look - I know that politics is politics, it's dirty business, everybody does it. Whatever.

It's the science of it these days that kills me. There are no accidents.

Orwell said that the Newspeak employed in his novel 1984 was a distillation of language "designed to diminish the range of thought."

Is Luntz's "New American Lexicon" any different from Orwell's Newspeak?

Designed to diminish thought? Diminish debate?

Elimintating words from the lexicon when they don't work in his focus groups?

His "words that work" and "words that don't work?"

Language as a tool of control?

Encouraging Republicans to "resist the temptation" to use "facts and figures?"

Resist the temptation to use facts?

Man.

I mean, I'm just digging into it, and it READS like 1984. Like O'Brien's big explanation to Winston of how the machine that is Big Brother works.

"You must get rid of those nineteenth-century ideas about the laws of Nature. We make the laws of Nature."

But it doesn't get more cynical than this. Witness, from Mr. Luntz's strategy document:

"The defecit is a touchy subject for both Republicans and Democrats - your supporters are inherently turned off to the idea of fiscal responsibility, and Democrats see nothing but hipocrisy. The trick then is to contextualize the deficit inside of 9/11 and the war in Iraq, which Republicans sometimes do, but not early enough in their answer."

A "trick?" 9/11 is a "trick?"

Let's re-write the first part of that last sentence for Mr. Language:

The crafty procedure we should employ to deceive or defraud so we can spend even more money we don't have is to bring up the subject of the murder of 3,000 innocents on September 11th.

Which is not to mention the death of 1,500 American soldiers in a nation that had nothing to do with the murder of 3,000 innocents on September 11th.

And yeah, check your dictionary: "trick" connotes deception.

Frank Luntz is a master of the language.

He knows what "trick" means.

There are no accidents.

Think about that the next time someone invokes the tired "9/11 changed everything!" bit when they're losing an argument.

Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?

VIDEO: For a peek behind the Luntz curtain, go to PBS Frontline: The Persuaders and click on Segment 5, "Give the People What they Want." Fascinating stuff. Scary, but fascinating.

Labels: in the news

PS: That article also mentioned Common, and oh, don't get me started. Common disappointed me big time a couple-few moons ago. While I understand that pimping product is just about the only way for major-label artists to actually see green these days, you don't have to sell out by bastardizing genius VietNam-era protest songs to pimp Coca-Cola - made worse by Common and Mya's irony-free declarations that they aren't sell-outs.

(Uh-oh... BT's got a blog.)

Labels: in the news

Lightweight articles on pop culture trends are annoying in general. But nothing is more annoying or consistently as ill-informed as the stupid article on trends in hip-hop "positivity" that's been written and re-written every six months since Arrested Development appeared on the scene in the early 90s.

But in a long line of such bad articles touting what America wants so badly to hear - that thug rap is dead, that anti-bling is the new thing - this one is about the worst I've seen.

I mean, can we really call Kanye West a beacon of relentless positivity in a hip-hop waste land?

This ain't to hate on Kanye. Because I know that "Jesus Walks" earned him a Grammy. But was it songs like "The New Workout Plan" that actually got him signed?

Like the above article, this one seems to think "Workout" is about "the challenges of being health-conscious in a bling-bling-driven society." But it's the exact opposite. Witness:

"I just want to say thanks to Kanye's workout plan, I was able to pull a NBA player
and like now I shop every day on Rodeo drive."

The. Exact. Opposite.

And what part of the workout instruction "give head" is unclear? Has this guy only heard the clean version? Is it so hard to Google a lyric before writing an article for a major publication?

And by the way: it ain't just a black thing, or a hip-hop thing. I resent the underlying implication in these kinds of articles that once we get hip-hop artists to stop acting like so-called niggers, America can be America again. Dress the niggers in Ralph Lauren and all will be right in the land.

Please.

Crap culture is everywhere.

For every conservative Fox News pundit decrying Pepsi for using Ludacris as a spokesperson, there's a hypocritical Fox TV network that's getting fined by the FCC for airing soft-porn in the family hour. All under the auspices of hypocrite-in-chief Rupert Murdoch and his so-called conservative values pimpin' News Corp.

(Which is not to mention the not-so-soft-porn phone calls that holier-than-thou married pundit is making to an unwilling assistant young enough to be his daughter. And Ludacris has the last laugh.)

So yes, the same Fox clowns wincing at the sight of materialistic new-money Negroes on "Cribs" are bringing us "The Swan" every week. The same pro-marriage (read: anti-gay) network that is making money off of "The Swan" is destroying marriages in the process.

Crap culture is everywhere.

I guess I'm sensitive about this cuz I come from the Richard Pryor School of Raw and Real. Whatever the medium for your art, if you're going to be raw and real, do it for a reason. Have something to say. Self-examination above all: yourself, your society. Have something to say.



I'm reminded of Pryor's short-lived TV series. Every fight he and co-genius Paul Mooney had with NBC over content was for a sketch that had something to actually say. Not just booby talk, like Howard Stern, whose only socially redeeming value seems to be his fight for the right to talk about boobies. Not just the mean shock humor of making fun of people more famous than us, which is all that Saturday Night Live seems to offer these days. Even South Park, which is much smarter than its critics will admit, seems to be more about counting the number of times they can get away with saying "shit" on-air in a 30-minute episode. Complete with counter.

Again, this ain't to hate on Kanye. It's just an observation that people are either overlooking the X-rated tracks on his record, or X-rated just ain't considered X-rated anymore.

Either way, America eats it up. Like salad.

Have something to say.

Labels: in the news

I usually make every effort to keep the day job separate from the arts and music world, but I encourage you to check out a blog I set up recently for NYSUT President Tom Hobart, documenting his efforts to help students and teachers in tsunami-ravaged Indonesia and Sri Lanka.

Labels: in the news