I Actually Found This Poll Encouraging

From the latest Harris Poll (via The Wall Street Journal):

Sizeable minorities of Americans still believe Saddam Hussein had "strong links to al Qaeda," a Harris Interactive poll shows, though the number has fallen substantially this year.

About 22% of U.S. adults believe Mr. Hussein helped plan 9/11, the poll shows, and 26% believe Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when the U.S. invaded. Another 24% believe several of the 9/11 hijackers were Iraqis, according to the online poll of 1,961 adults.

However, all of these beliefs have declined since February of this year, when 64% of those polled believed Mr. Hussein had strong links to al Qaeda and 46% said Mr. Hussein helped plan 9/11. At that time, more than a third said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and 44% said several of the 9/11 hijackers were Iraqis.

Sure, it is an outrage that 22% of Americans still think that Saddam helped plan 9-11, but that percentage has been cut in half in less than a year. No wonder the Extreme Right feels the need to run these ads.

What Atrios Says

I agree with this:

When is an issue "controversial?"

When does an issue "divide the nation?"

When is it appropriate to describe a person by saying that some people love them and some people hate them?

I've never manged to see any pattern regarding what poll numbers justify such descriptions. I've seen 50-50 splits on issues described as "dividing the nation" and I've seen 75-25 splits described the same way.

Stop it.

I had the same complaint with the Terri Schiavo story. The Press repeatedly stated that Schiavo's situation was "dividing the nation." In reality, something like 80% of the nation felt that the radical extremists in the Bush Regime and in Congress should have stayed the hell out of it.

Aid And Comfort

First, George W. Bush launched an unnecessary war against Iraq, a fourth-rate military power that presented no threat to the United States. Ironically, this war -- which Bush claimed was launched as part of the overall War Against Terrorism -- ended up actually helping the terrorists.

Next, certain traitors in the Bush Administration, angry at Ambassador Joe Wilson's attempt to expose the BushCo lies that led to the Iraq Debacle, intentionally outed Wilson's wife, a CIA operative who was working on WMD proliferation issues.

Then, someone in the Bush Administration revealed the arrest in Pakistan of Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, a computer expert with ties to al Qaeda. This announcement was made in order to justify a heightened terror threat level ordered by the Bush Regime just after the 2004 Democratic Convention. [As Josh Marshall notes, terror alerts -- which were regular occurrences in the eighteen months before the 2004 election -- are few and far between these days].

Unfortunately, BushCo revealed Khan's name while he was working as an undercover agent for Pakistani intelligence. Needless to say, his effectiveness as an double agent was greatly reduced once the Bush Administration blew his cover. This was unfortunate, given that it forced British authorities to prematurely move against a London terror cell. Khan, it turned out, also had a connection to the cell that carried out the London Bombings a year later:

ABC News, citing unidentified officials, reported that the attacks were connected to an al Qaeda plot planned two years ago in Lahore. Names on a computer that authorities seized last year from Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, an alleged Pakistani computer expert for al Qaeda, matched a suspected cell of young Britons of Pakistani origin, most of whom lived near Luton, where the alleged suicide bombers met on their way to London shortly before last week's blasts, according to the report.

And now it has been revealed that Bush secretly authorized the N.S.A. to eavesdrop on Americans inside the U.S. without warrants. Bush apologists have argued that there is nothing wrong with what Bush did and that he acted to protect America. But it turns out that Bush's illegal acts might have done more to help the terrorists than to hurt them:

Defense lawyers in some of the country's biggest terrorism cases say they plan to bring legal challenges to determine whether the National Security Agency used illegal wiretaps against several dozen Muslim men tied to Al Qaeda.

The lawyers said in interviews that they wanted to learn whether the men were monitored by the agency and, if so, whether the government withheld critical information or misled judges and defense lawyers about how and why the men were singled out.

The expected legal challenges, in cases from Florida, Ohio, Oregon and Virginia, add another dimension to the growing controversy over the agency's domestic surveillance program and could jeopardize some of the Bush administration's most important courtroom victories in terror cases, legal analysts say.

Recent polls show that more than half of the country still thinks that Bush is doing a good job in his handling of the War on Terror. How much more damage must Bush do before Americans start to realize that his presidency constitutes a threat to national security?

UPDATE: Here is a great piece on PoliceStateGate by former G.O.P. representative Bob Barr (registration required).

Desperation Is Setting In

From The Wall Street Journal:

The television commercials are attention-grabbing: Newly found Iraqi documents show that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, including anthrax and mustard gas, and had "extensive ties" to al Qaeda. The discoveries are being covered up by those "willing to undermine support for the war on terrorism to selfishly advance their shameless political ambitions."

The hard-hitting spots are part of a recent public-relations barrage aimed at reversing a decline in public support for President Bush's handling of Iraq. But these advertisements aren't paid for by the Republican National Committee or other established White House allies. Instead, they are sponsored by Move America Forward, a media-savvy outside advocacy group that has become one of the loudest -- and most controversial -- voices in the Iraq debate.

While even Mr. Bush now publicly acknowledges the mistakes his administration made in judging the threat posed by Mr. Hussein, the organization is taking to the airwaves to insist that the White House was right all along.

The sad part is that these ads will probably work. What was it that Goebbels said again?

BushCo Lays Groundwork For Strategic Retreat In Iraq

I feel it is my patriotic duty to watch FauxNews on occasion. As Thomas Jefferson once said: "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." What this means to me is that every once in a while, I have to sit down and actually observe what the Fascists over at FOX are doing.

Some may point out that "every once in a while" would not satisfy Jefferson's "eternal" requirement, but I can only handle so much Ann Coulter, and she seems to be on FOX all the time. It would be easier for me if she would simply take her meds before making her appearances, but that is probably asking too much.

The latest FoxNews theme is that things are going so well in Iraq now that Bush will be able to start withdrawing our troops in early 2006. In other words, FOX has BushCo's latest Iraq talking points and is running with them.

Last Friday, Rumsfeld got the ball rolling when he told an audience of 400 to 500 U.S. troops that, "[a]t the recommendation of our military commanders and in consultation with our coalition partners and with the Iraqi government, President Bush has authorized an adjustment in U.S. combat brigades in Iraq from 17 to 15."

Of course, this has nothing to do with a recommendation of any military commander and everything to do with the 2006 U.S. mid-term elections. As I said last month, there will be significant troop reductions in Iraq starting this Spring, regardless of what the conditions are on the ground there. The political situation with the G.O.P. in 2006 will require such reductions.

But the Bush Administration has a problem. It can paint all the rosy pictures it wants, but if yesterday is any indication, Iraq promises to be a very bloody place in the months to come:

Guerrillas killed 10 Iraqi policemen and soldiers in attacks north of Baghdad on Monday, while in the capital five major explosions left at least eight dead and one U.S. soldier was killed on a patrol.

It was one of the bloodiest days in Iraq since the largely peaceful election on December 15, when rival ethnic and sectarian groups took part in a vote for a new parliament. By nightfall, at least 20 were killed and over 40 injured.

In the capital, five people were killed and 15 wounded when four car bombs exploded in quick succession as civilians traveled to work in the morning, the U.S. military said.

It later said one U.S. soldier was also killed in the city when a rocket-propelled grenade hit his patrol vehicle.

Bush may have been able to rely on the folks at TIME and The New York Times to keep their mouths shut for the last few years, but those days appear to be coming to an end. Although there are exceptions, most members of the mainstream media are now refusing to be outlets for BushCo propaganda.

What this means is that the American people will probably get the full story of all the carnage in Iraq that is certain to occur during the run-up to the 2006 U.S. mid-term elections. Since all of this carnage will be occurring as Bush is withdrawing troops from Iraq, it will be very hard for BushCo and its apologists to base such a retreat on improving conditions on the ground.

Indeed, the best that the right-winged whining machine will be able to do in the months ahead is complain about how the Liberal Media are not reporting any of the good news coming out of Iraq. Expect to hear a lot of grumbling along those lines.

A Pattern Is Emerging

From today's Washington Post:

President Bush has been summoning newspaper editors lately in an effort to prevent publication of stories he considers damaging to national security.

The efforts have failed, but the rare White House sessions with the executive editors of The Washington Post and New York Times are an indication of how seriously the president takes the recent reporting that has raised questions about the administration's anti-terror tactics.

Leonard Downie Jr., The Post's executive editor, would not confirm the meeting with Bush before publishing reporter Dana Priest's Nov. 2 article disclosing the existence of secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe used to interrogate terror suspects. Bill Keller, executive editor of the Times, would not confirm that he, publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and Washington bureau chief Philip Taubman had an Oval Office sit-down with the president on Dec. 5, 11 days before reporters James Risen and Eric Lichtblau revealed that Bush had authorized eavesdropping on Americans and others within the United States without court orders.

But the meetings were confirmed by sources who have been briefed on them but are not authorized to comment because both sides had agreed to keep the sessions off the record. The White House had no comment.

As SusanG at Kos notes: "It would be interesting to find out if these kind of official summonses are of recent vintage, or if they've been going on all long ... especially in the run-up to the Iraq invasion."

Claus-trophobia

The photo on the left is part of the "Scared of Santa" gallery that can be found here.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

BushCo Caught In Yet Another PoliceStateGate Lie

From The Washington Post:

The congressional resolution of Sept. 18, 2001, formally titled "Authorization for the Use of Military Force," made no reference to surveillance or to the president's intelligence-gathering powers, and the Bush administration made no public claim of new authority until news accounts disclosed the secret NSA operation.

But [Assistant Attorney General William] Moschella argued yesterday that espionage is "a fundamental incident to the use of military force" and that its absence from the resolution "cannot be read to exclude this long-recognized and essential authority to conduct communications intelligence targeted at the enemy." Such eavesdropping, he wrote, necessarily included conversations in which one party is in the United States.

[Former Senate majority leader Tom] Daschle's article reveals an important new episode in the resolution's legislative history.

As drafted, and as finally passed, the resolution authorized the president "to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations or persons" who "planned, authorized, committed or aided" the Sept. 11 attacks.

"Literally minutes before the Senate cast its vote, the administration sought to add the words 'in the United States and' after 'appropriate force' in the agreed-upon text," Daschle wrote. "This last-minute change would have given the president broad authority to exercise expansive powers not just overseas -- where we all understood he wanted authority to act -- but right here in the United States, potentially against American citizens. I could see no justification for Congress to accede to this extraordinary request for additional authority. I refused."

I have some advice for the gang of criminals currently running the executive branch -- you have the right to remain silent, and you really should exercise that right to the fullest when it comes to PoliceStateGate.

Opening your mouths on this issue just gets you into more trouble.

By the way, John Aravosis at AmericaBlog asks members of The Press to focus on the one PoliceStateGate-related question that the Bush Regime must answer but apparently cannot:

The Bush administration simply cannot answer this one question - if time was of the essence, why didn't they conduct the searches and get the warrants after the fact, something that is allowed under the FISA law? They conducted the searches alright, but they never once sought the retroactive warrants.

They have yet to answer this question, and this is the ONLY QUESTION you need to be immediately focusing on. There is no answer, short of the administration simply wanting to defy the law. It wasn't for expediency, because they could do the search immediately. And if they say it was because they were afraid the court would deny the warrant, that's absurd since the court has refused only 5 to 15 of 19,000 warrants that have been requested.

Ted Stevens Should Just Go Away

Senator Ted Stevens' attempt to sneak ANWR oil drilling in through the back door has failed miserably:

A quarter-century long fight over the nation's most divisive environmental issue rages on after the Senate on Wednesday rejected opening an Alaska wildlife refuge to oil drilling — even though that provision was included in a must-pass bill that funds U.S. troops overseas and hurricane victims.

It was a stinging defeat for Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, one of the Senate's most powerful members, who had hoped to garner more votes by forcing senators to choose between supporting the drilling measure, or risking the political fallout from voting against money for the troops and hurricane victims.

Instead, Stevens found himself a few votes shy of getting his wish.

Republican leaders could not break a Democratic filibuster threat over the drilling issue, falling three votes short of the 60 votes need to advance the defense spending bill to a final vote. Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., left the bill in limbo as he, Stevens and other GOP leaders gauged their next move.

After his embarrassing defeat, Stevens said: "I say goodbye to the Senate tonight."

God, I hope he means it.

I Never Thought I'd Ever Admit To This . . .

. . . but I finally agree with Tom DeLay on something. This is a direct quote of what Mr. DeLay said on the House floor:

"The time has come that the American people know exactly what their Representatives are doing here in Washington. Are they feeding at the public trough, taking lobbyist-paid vacations, getting wined and dined by special interest groups? Or are they working hard to represent their constituents? The people, the American people, have a right to know."

Sure, radical right wingers will want to point out that DeLay made this statement on November 16, 1995, but does the fact that DeLay said this a decade ago make it any less true?

By the way, it looks like DeLay's hopes of regaining his post as House majority leader are fading fast.

Bathtub Drowning Time

The GOP is at it again:

The Republican-controlled Senate passed legislation to cut federal deficits by $39.7 billion on Wednesday by the narrowest of margins, 51-50, with Vice President Dick Cheney casting the deciding vote.

The measure, the product of a year's labors by the White House and the GOP in Congress, imposes the first restraints in nearly a decade in federal benefit programs such as Medicaid, Medicare and student loans.

Don't forget -- the Senate passed more tax cuts for the rich just last month.

So let's see -- tax cuts for the rich combined with cuts in federal programs that benefit the poor and middle class mixed in with an Iraq Debacle that continues to drain the treasury. Grover Norquist's dream of cutting government "down to the size where we can drown it in the bath tub" is definitely starting to come true.

George A. Akerlof, co-winner of the Nobel Prize in economic sciences, is right -- what the GOP is doing really is a form of looting.

This Could Get Ugly

Sounds like Abramoff is about to spill the beans:

Jack Abramoff, the Republican lobbyist under criminal investigation, has been discussing with prosecutors a deal that would grant him a reduced sentence in exchange for testimony against former political and business associates, people with detailed knowledge of the case say.

Mr. Abramoff is believed to have extensive knowledge of what prosecutors suspect is a wider pattern of corruption among lawmakers and Congressional staff members. One participant in the case who insisted on anonymity because of the sensitivity of the negotiations described him as a "unique resource."

Remember, of all the GOP scandals going on right now, this is the one that most worries Republicans -- at least it was a couple months ago. PoliceStateGate may have replaced it in that category.

More Amazing Stuff On PoliceStateGate

You can't really blame Bush for trying to get the New York Times to cancel their story on how BushCo was eavesdropping on American citizens without a warrant, particularly when you read stuff like this (via Kos):

George W. Bush, in Buffalo, NY, on April 20, 2004, at 9:49 a.m., talking about the USA Patriot Act:

Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution.

It's just amazing. Bush was so desperate to put the Patriot Act in a good light that he stood before the country and outright lied. Bush has put a new spin on the Nazi's "the bigger the lie the more people will believe it" idea. Bush obviously thinks that the more he lies, the more people will become anesthetized to all of his lying.

And if that doesn't piss you off, then this might:

The New York Times first debated publishing a story about secret eavesdropping on Americans as early as last fall, before the 2004 presidential election.

But the newspaper held the story for more than a year and only revealed the secret wiretaps last Friday, when it became apparent a book by one of its reporters was about to break the news, according to journalists familiar with the paper's internal discussions.

Needless to say, 2005 has been a pretty embarrassing year for the New York Times. But I just can't believe that The Times had a story as big as PoliceStateGate -- a story that unequivocally exposed George W. Bush as a criminal -- and they just sat on it.

Good Triumphs Over E-vil

Great news:

"Intelligent design" is "a religious alternative masquerading as a scientific theory" and cannot be mentioned in biology classes in a Pennsylvania public school district, a federal judge said Tuesday, ruling in one of the biggest courtroom clashes on evolution since the 1925 Scopes trial.

Dover Area School Board members violated the Constitution when they ordered that its biology curriculum must include the notion that life on Earth was produced by an unidentified intelligent cause, U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III said.

Thanks for the heads-up on this, JB and Slic[k].

Nice Try, George

Gee, if Bush really thought that what he was doing was completely legal, why did he try so hard to keep it covered up? From Newsweek:

No wonder Bush was so desperate that The New York Times not publish its story on the National Security Agency eavesdropping on American citizens without a warrant, in what lawyers outside the administration say is a clear violation of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. I learned this week that on December 6, Bush summoned Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger and executive editor Bill Keller to the Oval Office in a futile attempt to talk them out of running the story. The Times will not comment on the meeting, but one can only imagine the president’s desperation.

The problem was not that the disclosures would compromise national security, as Bush claimed at his press conference. His comparison to the damaging pre-9/11 revelation of Osama bin Laden’s use of a satellite phone, which caused bin Laden to change tactics, is fallacious; any Americans with ties to Muslim extremists—in fact, all American Muslims, period—have long since suspected that the U.S. government might be listening in to their conversations.

Bush claimed that “the fact that we are discussing this program is helping the enemy.” But there is simply no evidence, or even reasonable presumption, that this is so. And rather than the leaking being a “shameful act,” it was the work of a patriot inside the government who was trying to stop a presidential power grab.

Bad News For Peter Jackson?

Peter Jackson's remake of King Kong did not get off to as good of a start as some had hoped:

Director Peter Jackson's costly remake of "King Kong," one of the most hyped movies of the year, started off with more of a whimper than a roar at the North American box office, according to sales data issued Sunday by its distributor Universal Pictures.

The special-effects behemoth sold $66.2 million worth of tickets in its first five days since opening Wednesday. For the three days beginning Friday, its sales were $50.1 million, enough to propel it to No. 1 at the weekend box office.

Universal said it was thrilled with the opening of Jackson's rumble in the jungle, given its running time of more than three hours, but industry analysts said they had expected the monkey movie to open nearer $90 million.

Of the four people I know who have seen it, all four like it but two of them said it was too long.

It's About Time

Christians are finally getting their own nudist camp (needless to say, this article comes via Raw Story):

IN THE beginning was the word of God and God never said anything about brassieres or boxer shorts. Thus was born Natura, America’s first Christian nudist camp.

After two years of biblical debate over Adam and Eve and their fig leaves and whether or not nudity is sinful, a 67-year-old Quaker grandfather is preparing to open a modern-day Garden of Eden 40 miles north of Tampa, Florida.

Bill Martin’s ambitious plan for a 200-acre Christian- oriented Family Naturist Village has survived legal challenges, doctrinal disputes and a plague of internet prudes. Land is now being cleared for the opening next year of what may become the world’s only Christian community to feature nude volleyball.

Despite howls of complaint from fundamentalists who have likened Martin to the Antichrist — and described his nudist plans as “graphic evidence of America’s moral collapse” — Natura intends to build 50 houses around a non-denominational church where clothing for services will be optional.

I don't know why the Christo-Fascists are up in arms over this. After all, Adam and Eve were nudists before they were kicked out of the Garden of Eden. What ever happened to Fundamental Christianity and its literal interpretation of The Bible?


Perhaps the fundamentalists feel that humans -- due to Adam and Eve's failures -- don't deserve the spiritual honor that goes along with being able to walk around naked. I guess I could accept such an interpretation. But if they feel that nakedness is somehow sinful, then they are quite obviously hypocrites.

This Is Such A Crock

Bush claimed last week that he "wrestled" with his decision to invade Iraq:

President George W. Bush said on Friday that he wrestled for months over the decision to go to war in Iraq but that he remains convinced it was the right decision.

In the latest in a series of comments in which he has gone further than in the past to acknowledge heated debate over the war, Bush told PBS in an interview that he never tried to guess casualty numbers before the March 2003 invasion but said he understood the risks.

"I'll never forget making the decision in the Situation Room, and it affected me," he was quoted as saying in the transcript of the interview for "The News Hour with Jim Lehrer."

"I got up out of the chair and walked around the South Lawn there and I thought, you know, I knew the decision I had just made -- by the way, that I had been wrestling with for months -- was the right decision," Bush said.

Yeah, right. When I read the above-quoted load of crap, I was taken back to February of 2002 -- a full year before the beginning of the Iraq Debacle -- when Bush famously said, "F*ck Saddam -- we're taking him out." Indeed, the only thing he and his administration wrestled with for months is how best the Bush Regime could present this Iraq Lie to the American people. Paul Wolfowitz, in a rare display of BushCo truth-telling, filled us in on that whole process:

A couple of months after the 2003 attack on Iraq, Wolfowitz gave an amazing interview to Vanity Fair magazine in which he said: "The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy, we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on, which was weapons of mass destruction as a core reason" to attack Iraq.

The press knows about those pre-war remarks concerning Bush's desire to "f*#k Saddam." Every time Bush comes forward with some bullshit line about how he got "bad intel" or how he labored over his decision regarding the Iraq Invasion, why isn't someone in the press corps responding with, "If that is so, Mr. President, how come TIME magazine quoted you a saying -- a full year before the invasion -- 'F*ck Saddam -- we're taking him out!'?"

I'd love to see that happen. But it never will.

And It's Not Even Winter Yet

I Didn't See This Coming

I'm kidding, of course:

After 25 years at CNN cable news, columnist Robert Novak, now embroiled in the Plame/CIA leak case, will be exiting on Dec. 31, and joining Fox News.

"We appreciate his many contributions and wish him well in future endeavors," said Jon Klein, president of CNN/U.S., in a statement this morning.

The decision was said to be "mutual," but Novak said this morning that while he didn't really want to stay he also felt CNN no longer wanted him. He has been off the air since August when he stormed off a CNN set during a live interview after uttering an obscenity. He served a brief suspension and apologized for the incident but had never returned to CNN since.

Judith Miller is next. She'll feel right at home over there.

I Hate Reading Stuff Like This

Some days, I just don't want to hear anymore about how the G.O.P. is ruining this nation. Whether it be BushCo's evil positions on global warming, or on torture, or on our fallen war dead, or on the domestic dissemination of illegal "covert propaganda" using taxpayers' money, or on how BushCo routinely commits acts of treason by compromising the War on Terror merely to score political points, the whole thing just wears me down sometimes.

The Bush Regime and its co-conspirators know that most Americans feel this way most of the time, and that is why they are able to get away with all of their crap. And it certainly doesn't hurt them to have media whores like David Broder stating that the whole debate on whether Bush lied this country into spending its blood and treasure on the Iraq Debacle is "largely irrelevant" and that we should "move past that."

I am sure Broder probably feels the same way about news like this (thanks for the link, Slic[k]):

A political operative with hacking skills could alter the results of any election on Diebold-made voting machines -- and possibly other new voting systems in Florida -- according to the state capitol's election supervisor, who said Diebold software has failed repeated tests.

Ion Sancho, Leon County's election chief, said tests by two computer experts, completed this week, showed that an insider could surreptitiously change vote results and the number of ballots cast on Diebold's optical-scan machines.

Is it any wonder that the final tally in Florida and Ohio for the 2004 election failed to match the exit polling when the results of every other state did? Don't forget that the head of Diebold -- well, I should say the former head of Diebold given that he was recently forced to resign due to alleged violations of federal securities law and God knows what the hell else -- committed himself to "helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes" for Bush in 2004.

The problem is that there will never be a real investigation as to what really happened either in the 2000 or 2004 elections. Someday, in the distant future, an historian will write a book called "The Great BushCo Deceit: How America's Worst President Was Able To Serve Two Full Terms" wherein all this fraud will be fully exposed, but I won't live to see it.

UPDATE: OK, so I guess it is possible that I might live long enough to read such a book (but I'll be pretty old, that is for sure).

Victory!

The Senate just kicked the Bush Regime's ass on the issue of the reauthorization of the Patriot Act:

The U.S. Senate on Friday rejected attempts to reauthorize several provisions of the nation’s top anti-terror law as infringing too much on Americans’ privacy, dealing a major defeat to President Bush and Republican leaders.

In a crucial vote early Friday, the bill’s Senate supporters were not able to get the 60 votes needed to overcome a threatened filibuster by Sens. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., and Larry Craig, R-Idaho, and their allies. The final vote was 52-47.

This Is Terrible

The polar bears are drowning (via Think Progress by way of AmericaBlog):

Scientists for the first time have documented multiple deaths of polar bears off Alaska, where they likely drowned after swimming long distances in the ocean amid the melting of the Arctic ice shelf. The bears spend most of their time hunting and raising their young on ice floes.

In a quarter-century of aerial surveys of the Alaskan coastline before 2004, researchers from the U.S. Minerals Management Service said they typically spotted a lone polar bear swimming in the ocean far from ice about once every two years. Polar-bear drownings were so rare that they have never been documented in the surveys.

But in September 2004, when the polar ice cap had retreated a record 160 miles north of the northern coast of Alaska, researchers counted 10 polar bears swimming as far as 60 miles offshore. Polar bears can swim long distances but have evolved to mainly swim between sheets of ice, scientists say.

So, what is BushCo doing about global warming? If your guess was "not a goddam thing," you'd pretty much be right:

More than 150 nations, including nearly every industrialized country except the United States, agreed Saturday to negotiate a second phase of mandatory cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. Those include carbon dioxide, methane and other gases accumulating in the atmosphere from fossil-fuel burning. A 1997 treaty negotiated in Kyoto, Japan, covers the first phase through 2012, but the United States, whose tailpipes and smokestacks are responsible for one-quarter of the world's greenhouse gases, won't participate.

Last year, Katharine Mieszkowski at Salon described the BushCo position on global warming this way:

Don't expect President Bush to discuss global warming -- the world's most serious environmental problem -- on the campaign trail in the next eight weeks. The former oilman from Texas doesn't dare alienate his friends in the fossil fuel and auto industries, prime purveyors of global warming. Bush still refuses to admit that burning Chevron with Techron in our Jeep Grand Cherokees and megatons of coal in our power plants has brought us 19 of the 20 hottest years on record since 1980.

"You're talking about a president who says that the jury is out on evolution, so what possible evidence would you need to muster to prove the existence of global warming?" says Robert F. Kennedy Jr., author of the new book "Crimes Against Nature." "We've got polar ice caps melting, glaciers disappearing all over the world, ocean levels rising, coral reefs dying. But these people are flat-earthers."

I guess very little has changed in a year. Unfortunately, we still have three more years of this idiot. Intelligent Designer help us.

Fun Stuff For The Fans of "24"

Although I am a big "24" fan, I have found some aspects of the show a bit puzzling over the years. So has Emmy-winning writer Ken Levine -- he has come up with what a script rejection letter for that TV series might look like (via Hoffmania):

Thank you for your script “5:00 – 6:00 P.M.” Unfortunately it does not fit our needs. There were a number of choices you made that suggest you’re not really familiar with our show. On page 12 you have Jack eating. No one ever eats. You also refer to take-out cartons strewn all over CTU. For future reference, only agents and approved personnel are given security clearance to CTU, not Domino Pizza boys. We pride ourselves on reality. On page 16 you have Jack saying he needs to use the bathroom. Why not a manicure? We have no time for such frivolous activities.

Pay careful attention to the clock. You have Tony driving out to Simi Valley from headquarters downtown in 52 minutes. Everyone knows, at that hour of the day, it only takes 10 minutes, 13 if there’s heavy traffic.

Not once in your script did you have anyone say, “Just let me do my job!” I almost didn’t recognize it as a “24”.

Definitely read the rest of Levine's post. It is pretty good. A new season of "24" begins on January 15.

Your Tax Dollars At Work

Great:

A year ago, at a Quaker Meeting House in Lake Worth, Fla., a small group of activists met to plan a protest of military recruiting at local high schools. What they didn't know was that their meeting had come to the attention of the U.S. military.

A secret 400-page Defense Department document obtained by NBC News lists the Lake Worth meeting as a “threat” and one of more than 1,500 “suspicious incidents” across the country over a recent 10-month period.

“This peaceful, educationally oriented group being a threat is incredible,” says Evy Grachow, a member of the Florida group called The Truth Project.

Maybe I'm old fashioned and still engaged in September 10, 2001 thinking, but the Pentagon might want to consider spending the taxpayers' money by going after the terrorists instead. Just a thought.

Bush Accepts Responsibility For Fixing Intel

OK, so I didn't watch or listen to Bush's speech on Iraq this morning, but I did watch a little of the post-speech coverage on CNN. Although it sounds like Bush just recycled a bunch of stuff he's been saying about Iraq for a couple years now, I did notice that CNN was putting on the bottom of the screen: "BUSH ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR WAR, FIXING INTEL."

I knew that Bush would never admit that his regime fixed the intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq Debacle, but just for a second I thought that maybe he had come clean on all that. I think whomever prepared that screen caption meant that Bush promised to fix (i.e., repair) the system behind the "bad" intelligence that Bush claims forced him to invade a fourth-rate military power that couldn't even threaten its own neighbors let alone the United States.

But the word "fix" for me now means something more akin the what it means in the phrase "the fix is in," particularly given what the Downing Street Memo had to say about Bush's attitude in the summer before the Iraq Invasion:

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.

Best of the Freeway Blogger

This guy is pretty great.

Folks in Kansas Need To Watch What They Say

A few years ago, Ari Fleischer, Bush's former press secretary, warned Americans that "they need to watch what they say, watch what they do." This professor apparently didn't get the message:

The Douglas County Sheriff's Department on Tuesday was investigating a case in which a professor whose planned course on creationism and intelligent design was canceled after he derided Christian conservatives said he was the victim of a roadside beating.

University of Kansas religious studies professor Paul Mirecki was treated at a hospital and released Monday.

Tuesday, Mirecki told KMBC by phone that he's finished talking to reporters. He said, "It's gotten out of hand with the media. Sorry, gotta go," and then hung up, KMBC's Micheal Mahoney reported.

He did tell the Lawrence Journal-World for a story Tuesday that two men who beat him were making references to the class that was to be offered for the first time this spring. Originally called "Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationism and other Religious Mythologies," the course was canceled last week at Mirecki's request.

The class was added after the Kansas Board of Education decided to include more criticism of evolution in science standards for elementary and secondary students.

Instead of deriding Christian conservatives, this professor should have kept his mouth shut. Does he think he lives in a free country or something?

The DeLay Game

First we got this from Denny Hastert:

Hastert has scheduled the first House session of 2006 for Jan. 31 -- after a holiday break of more than a month, and two weeks after senators are due to return to Washington. The late start gives DeLay, a Texas Republican, a greater amount of time with which to dispose of the charges, as new leadership elections could not occur until the House is back in session.

Now we get this from the folks prosecuting Tom DeLay:

Prosecutors asked a judge Monday not to let Rep. Tom DeLay's trial begin while they appeal the dismissal of one of the three campaign-finance charges against the former House majority leader.

If Judge Pat Priest agrees to a delay, it could be another blow to DeLay's hopes of regaining his leadership post.

The Texas Republican was forced to step down under House GOP rules after being charged earlier this year, and he cannot regain his post as long as he remains under indictment. For that reason, he has asked for a dismissal of the case, or else a prompt trial, in hopes of becoming majority leader again when Congress reconvenes in late January.

I'd be suprised if the judge agreed to delay DeLay's trial, but all this back and forth is certainly good for a laugh.

Will All-Out War Be Waged Over ScAlito?

It is starting to sound that way:

The GOP team working with the White House to win confirmation of conservative Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito is putting out a warning to Alito's Democratic critics: Question his ethics and character at your own peril. In their sights: Sens. Edward Kennedy and Joe Biden. "We're absolutely prepared to have an ethics debate with Teddy Kennedy," says one insider who mentioned the "C" word: Chappaquiddick. "Questioning Alito's credibility and character will be hit back hard," said one of the Alito supporters.

I can hardly wait. Meanwhile, Bill Frist says he is ready to drop The Big One if the Democrats try to stall Alito's nomination:

"The answer is yes," Frist said when asked if he would act to change Senate procedures to restrict a Democratic filibuster. "Supreme Court justice nominees deserve an up-or-down vote, and it would be absolutely wrong to deny him that."

Sure, Frist is an established liar, but I really hope he is telling the truth on this whole nuclear option thing. I would love to see something like that happen.

This Probably Isn't Too Far From The Truth

From The Onion:

Telephone logs recorded by the National Security Agency and obtained by Congress as part of an ongoing investigation suggest that the vice president may have used the Oval Office intercom system to address President Bush at crucial moments, giving categorical directives in a voice the president believed to be that of God.

While journalists and presidential historians had long noted Bush's deep faith and Cheney's powerful influence in the White House, few had drawn a direct correlation between the two until Tuesday, when transcripts of meetings that took place in March and April of 2002 became available.

In a transcript of an intercom exchange recorded in March 2002, a voice positively identified as the vice president's identifies himself as "the Lord thy God" and promotes the invasion of Iraq, as well as the use of torture in prisoner interrogations.

Latest Pat Oliphant Cartoon

This Doesn't Surprise Me

Bush is always commenting about how his political enemies don't support the troops. Of course, everyone knows that BushCo doesn't give two shits about our troops, but this pretty much proves it:

There's controversy over how the military is transporting the bodies of service members killed overseas, 10News reported.

A local family said fallen soldiers and Marines deserve better and that one would think our war heroes are being transported with dignity, care and respect. It said one would think upon arrival in their hometowns they are greeted with honor. But unfortunately, the family said that is just not the case.

Dead heroes are supposed to come home with their coffins draped with the American flag -- greeted by a color guard.

But in reality, many are arriving as freight on commercial airliners -- stuffed in the belly of a plane with suitcases and other cargo.

John Holley and his wife, Stacey, were stunned when they found out the body of their only child, Matthew, who died in Iraq last month, would be arriving at Lindbergh Field as freight.

John Aravosis at AmericaBlog says it best:

Again, think what the Republicans would do with this information if the shoe was on the other foot. TV commercials, election ads, press conferences, and more. Will our guys even mention it?

Why Did 7WTC Collapse Again?

As this Village Voice article notes, there are still a lot of questions left unresolved with regard to the events on September 11, 2001. The reason for the collapse of 7WTC is certainly one of the biggies:

Seven World Trade Center—where, besides OEM, the CIA, Salomon Smith Barney, and other entities had offices—was the last building to collapse on 9-11. It was also probably the first steel skyscraper anywhere to collapse solely because of fire. We still don't know why. While NIST has completed its twin towers reports, it has delayed its 7 WTC report twice; it's currently not expected until next spring.

Several 7 WTC tenants, including OEM and the Secret Service, had tanks filled with diesel fuel to power emergency generators. If that fuel leaked and burned, it may have heated the building's steel supports to the point of failure, but according to FEMA's report on the collapse this "best hypothesis has only a low probability of occurrence."

I knew there was a big mystery surrounding the collapse of 7WTC, but I had no idea that the National Institute of Standards and Technology has twice delayed the release of its report on this matter.

Interesting.

Murtha Hits Back At Lieberman

As far as I know, John Murtha has yet to respond to John McCain's statement the other day that Murtha is old and emotional and therefore should be ignored on the issue of the Iraq Debacle. [If I am wrong on this and Murtha has responded, let me know so I can post a link to it.]

But Murtha has responded to Joe Lieberman's comment the other day that "[i]t is time for Democrats who distrust President Bush to acknowledge that he will be commander in chief for three more critical years and that in matters of war we undermine presidential credibility at our nation’s peril." Murtha's response: "Undermining his credibility? What has he said that would give him credibility?"

And while I'm on the subject of Lieberman, I would really love to see this happen:

White House officials are telling associates they expect Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to quit early next year, once a new government is formed in Iraq, sources said yesterday.

Rumsfeld's deputy, Gordon England, is the inside contender to replace him, but there's also speculation that Sen. Joe Lieberman - a Democrat who ran against Bush-Cheney in the 2000 election - might become top guy at the Pentagon.

That's not as farfetched as it might first appear.

The Daily News has learned that the White House considered Lieberman for the UN ambassador's job last year before giving the post to John Bolton, a Bush adviser said.

Bush has a lot of faults, but he always rewards loyalty, and nobody has been more loyal to BushCo than Lieberman.

A Great Response To BushCo's "Flypaper" Argument

From Atrios:

So, according to the speech today, we're back to "we're fighting them there so we don't have to fight them here."

Turning another country into a battleground isn't exactly the way to win the hearts and minds.

I like it.

I Actually Agree With Bush On This

The Radical Religious Right is unhappy with the Bush "Holiday" card:

Bush "claims to be a born-again, evangelical Christian. But he sure doesn't act like one," said Joseph Farah, editor of the conservative Web site WorldNetDaily.com. "I threw out my White House card as soon as I got it."

Religious conservatives are miffed because they have been pressuring stores to advertise Christmas sales rather than "holiday specials" and urging schools to let students out for Christmas vacation rather than for "winter break." They celebrated when House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) insisted that the sparkling spectacle on the Capitol lawn should be called the Capitol Christmas Tree, not a holiday spruce.

Here's the Bush response: "Their cards in recent years have included best wishes for a holiday season, rather than Christmas wishes, because they are sent to people of all faiths."

Am I missing something, or are the Bushes making complete sense on this?

Up Yours, McCain

I used to think that John McCain was not a horse's ass. In fact, I actually felt bad for McCain when the BushCo Attack Machine went after him in 2000:

It didn't take much research to turn up a seemingly innocuous fact about the McCains: John and his wife, Cindy, have an adopted daughter named Bridget. Cindy found Bridget at Mother Theresa's orphanage in Bangladesh, brought her to the United States for medical treatment, and the family ultimately adopted her. Bridget has dark skin.

Anonymous opponents used "push polling" to suggest that McCain's Bangladeshi born daughter was his own, illegitimate black child. In push polling, a voter gets a call, ostensibly from a polling company, asking which candidate the voter supports. In this case, if the "pollster" determined that the person was a McCain supporter, he made statements designed to create doubt about the senator.

Thus, the "pollsters" asked McCain supporters if they would be more or less likely to vote for McCain if they knew he had fathered an illegitimate child who was black. In the conservative, race-conscious South, that's not a minor charge. We had no idea who made the phone calls, who paid for them, or how many calls were made. Effective and anonymous: the perfect smear campaign.

Some aspects of this smear were hardly so subtle. Bob Jones University professor Richard Hand sent an e-mail to "fellow South Carolinians" stating that McCain had "chosen to sire children without marriage." It didn't take long for mainstream media to carry the charge. CNN interviewed Hand and put him on the spot: "Professor, you say that this man had children out of wedlock. He did not have children out of wedlock." Hand replied, "Wait a minute, that's a universal negative. Can you prove that there aren't any?"

It was a classic Rovian attack -- it took a strength of an opponent and turn it against him. But it was an ultra-slimy attack even by G.O.P. standards, and anyone with balls would have hit back hard and would have never forgiven BushCo for doing such a thing. In fact, McCain should have considered Bush a personal enemy from that point on.

But that's not what McCain ended up doing. You see, McCain wants to be president in a Big Way. In fact, McCain later made appearances with Bush on the 2004 campaign trail (that's where the disgusting picture on the left came from). I guess McCain figured that such a move would help him in 2008. That was political cowardice, in my opinion, just like it was political cowardice for Hillary Clinton and John Kerry to vote for the Iraq War in October 2002.

Now McCain has taken his support for Bush one step further. Here is what McCain had to say a few days ago about John Murtha:

John Murtha is "a lovable guy," but "he’s never been a big thinker; he’s an appropriator." Using language that Bush never could, McCain tells me that Murtha has become too emotional about the human cost of the war. "As we get older, we get more sentimental," McCain says. "And [Murtha] has been very, very affected by the funerals and the families. But you cannot let that affect the way you decide policy."

Wow -- McCain attacked Murtha for being stupid and old, and did it all in one interview. Nice.

American Hate Groups: An Update

Yes, hate groups are alive and well in America. I was watching CNN this morning before work when this story came on:

The [conservative American Family Association] launched a boycott of Ford in May to protest marketing aimed at gay and lesbian consumers, the Detroit News said. The automaker responded by promising that most of its brands, with the exception of Sweden-based Volvo, will no longer target gay consumers through advertising.

My initial thought was that I heard the story wrong -- or that CNN reported it wrong -- because the whole thing sounded ridiculous, but it is true: a conservative hate group really did pressure Ford to stop marketing to gay and lesbian consumers, and Ford caved.

I have a few questions. Does the Amerikan Family Association (AFA) pay someone to read gay and lesbian magazines to find out who is advertising in them? I also want to know why Volvo can still advertise in these magazines. Did the AFA give Ford permission to continue the Volvo advertising, and if so, why?

Finally, why does the AFA care if Ford is trying to sell cars to gays and lesbians? Is it because these gays and lesbians might use these cars to drive to orgies? What if they ended up taking city buses or light rail to these orgies -- would that mean that groups like the AFA would then be against funding public transportation?

I mean, I can almost understand why a hate group such as Focus on the Family would close all its Wells Fargo accounts -- after all, that bank "contributed to a gay rights group that promised to use the funds to 'fight ... the anti-gay industry.'" But all Ford was doing was trying to sell a few cars to some gays and lesbians.

It is pretty clear that the AFA hates capitalism, meaning that members of that particular group must also hate America. F&#king communists.

Bush's Legacy?

Many historians now believe that George W. Bush will be remembered as the worst president ever, even worse than James Buchanan:

[Buchanan's] real failures were in refusing to move after South Carolina announced secession from the Union and attacked Fort Sumter, and in supporting both the legality of the pro-slavery constitution of Kansas and the Supreme Court ruling in the Dred Scott class declaring that escaped slaves were not people but property.

He was the guy who in 1861 passed on the mess to the first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln. Buchanan set the standard, a tough record to beat. But there are serious people who believe that George W. Bush will prove to do that, be worse than Buchanan. I have talked with three significant historians in the past few months who would not say it in public, but who are saying privately that Bush will be remembered as the worst of the presidents.

There are some numbers. The History News Network at George Mason University has just polled historians informally on the Bush record. Four hundred and fifteen, about a third of those contacted, answered -- maybe they were all crazed liberals -- making the project as unofficial as it was interesting. These were the results: 338 said they believed Bush was failing, while 77 said he was succeeding. Fifty said they thought he was the worst president ever. Worse than Buchanan.

It is fairly obvious that Bush will be considered among the worst of the American presidents. The question now is: How low can he go?

Thanks, Slic[k], for the link.

But What About The Folks Who Are Already In Limbo?

This is interesting:

Limbo -- the place where the Catholic Church teaches that babies go if they die before being baptized -- may have its days numbered.

According to Italian media reports on Tuesday, an international theological commission will advise Pope Benedict to eliminate the teaching about limbo from the Catholic catechism.

The Catholic Church teaches that babies who die before they can be baptized go to limbo, whose name comes from the Latin for "border" or "edge," because they deserve neither heaven nor hell.

I'm not sure what this means from a practical standpoint. Would folks currently in Limbo automatically go to Heaven once Limbo is eliminated from the Catholic catechism, or will the Church simply decide that Limbo never really existed? I guess we'll find out soon enough.

Seriously though, I have attended Catholic schools all my life, and I don't remember ever being taught about Limbo, so it is probably a good idea to get rid of this outdated concept in its entirety. In fact, everything I know about Limbo comes from the Jimmy Cliff song.

Another Great BushCo Idea

The U.S. has taken a lot of heat lately over reports that it has held terrorism suspects in secret Eastern Europe prisons. In fact, the European Union has threatened to impose sanctions on any country found to be hosting one of these prisons.

BushCo's response to all this? Send Condi overseas to kick some European ass:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is expected to give allies in Europe a response next week to their pressure over Washington's treatment of terrorism suspects: back off. * * *

The European Union has demanded that Washington address the allegations to allay fears of illegal U.S. practices. The concerns are rampant in among the European public and parliaments, already critical of U.S. prisoner-abuse scandals in Iraq and Guantanamo, Cuba.

But Rice will shift to offense when she visits Europe next week, in a strategy that has emerged in recent days and been tested by her spokesman in public and in her private meetings with European visitors.

She will remind allies they themselves have been cooperating in U.S. operations and tell them to do more to win over their publics as a way to deflect criticism directed at the United States, diplomats and U.S. officials said.

Or we could instead close down the secret Eastern European prisons and promise to never do it again.

I'm just kidding, of course.

I'm Certain The Radical Right Will Blame Jack Murtha For This

Ten Marines were killed in Iraq today:

Ten Marines on foot patrol were killed and 11 wounded by a roadside bomb near Fallujah, Iraq, in one of the deadliest attack on American troops in recent months, the Marine Corps announced on Friday. A brief statement said the Marines were from Regimental Combat Team 8, of the 2nd Marine Division.

They were hit Thursday by a roadside bomb, which the military calls an improvised explosive device, or IED, made from several large artillery shells, the Marines said. IEDs are the most common cause of U.S. casualties in Iraq.

The large artillery shells used to make the IED were probably taken from one of those ammo dumps Bush neglected to secure.

Just When I Think Things Are Getting Better . . .

. . . I read something like this:

It's program ranker time. FNC had 9 of the top 10 shows on cable news in November, with Bill O'Reilly averaging an impressive 2,552,000 viewers. H&C was #2, Greta was #3, Shep was #4 and Hume was #5.

CNN's Larry King was #7. He averaged 1,012,000 viewers in November. Notably, NewsNight with Aaron Brown averaged 795,000 viewers in November before it was yanked off the air; Anderson Cooper 360 averaged 632,000.

The #1 show on MSNBC was Countdown with Keith Olbermann. It averaged a strong 462,000 viewers for the month, beating HLN's top program, Nancy Grace. Hardball was MSNBC's #2 show, and Rita was #3.

This explains why Bush's approval rating hasn't fallen under 30% -- FauxNews has the top five cable news shows, meaning that a lot of people are still happily absorbing that channel's right wing propaganda.

On a positive note, Countdown with Keith Olbermann is the number one show on MSNBC (which, as Atrios suggests, will probably mean imminent cancellation).

John Kerry Should Shut The Hell Up

Senator John Kerry was on one of the network news shows this morning attacking Bush's speech on the Iraq War. I also saw him on TV yesterday doing the same thing, which made me wonder why the Democrats are putting him out in front on this issue given that he voted for the war.

And then I read this Kos post from yesterday:

There's a little kerfuffle inside the Democratic Senate caucus over John Kerry's insistence in being part of the official party response to Bush's hilarious "plan" in Iraq. Reid originally had designated Sen. Jack Reed to provide the official response. Reed did the "prebuttal" yesterday and had a press conference set up for today.

However, John Kerry stomped over Reed by deciding he was going to hold a press conference this morning as well in a naked bid to steal the limelight. Eventually, Reid was forced to combine the two press conferences to try and maintain a unified Senate Democrat response, but Kerry's antics have generated some ill will.

Much ado about nothing? Perhaps. But several DC Democrats I've spoken to today were not happy with Kerry's antics. And given 1) Kerry's continued inability to clearly articulate a coherent position on the war (as Feldman notes), and 2) the fact that Kerry voted for it (while Reed did not), it's not hard to see why.

Anyone who routinely reads this blog knows that Kerry's vote to support the Iraq invasion pissed me off to no end, so it angers me to see Kerry force himself upon the media like this with regard to an issue on which he has zero credibility.

This type of grandstanding can only mean one thing -- Kerry plans to run for president again in 2008. Wonderful.

Walgreens Does The Right Thing

Walgreens has put four Illinois pharmacists on unpaid leave for refusing to fill prescriptions for emergency contraception (via AmericaBlog):

The four cited religious or moral objections to filling prescriptions for the morning-after pill and ''have said they would like to maintain their right to refuse to dispense, and in Illinois that is not an option," Walgreen spokeswoman Tiffani Bruce said.

A rule imposed by Governor Rod Blagojevich in April requires Illinois pharmacies that sell contraceptives approved by the US Food and Drug Administration to fill prescriptions for emergency birth control.

Pharmacies that do not fill prescriptions for any type of contraception are not required to follow the rule.

Ed Martin, an attorney for the pharmacists, on Tuesday called the discipline ''pretty disturbing" and said they would consider legal action if Walgreen doesn't reconsider.

At least six other pharmacists have sued over the rule, asserting it forces them to violate their religious beliefs.

Couldn't these radical pharmacists simply cross their fingers or something when they have to dispense emergency birth control? Or perhaps they should consider other lines of work more suited to their extremist beliefs. I hear that Iraq needs missionaries.

Richard Perle and Imperialistic Propaganda

I was watching one of those CNN "debates" yesterday between Gary Hart and Richard Perle regarding the importance of Bush's non-event speech on Iraq. Hart made a comment about how the French eventually had to get out of Indochina because of the long-running insurgency there, and Perle got upset at Hart for implying that America is engaging in imperialism in Iraq.

I had to laugh when Perle reacted that way because he is, of course, a member of PNAC and was one of the signers of the January 26, 1998 PNAC letter sent to Bill Clinton advocating the removal of Saddam's regime from power in Iraq. I mean, this guy is about as imperialistic as they come, yet he got all upset when Gary Hart correctly compared the U.S. to Imperial France and Imperial Britain.

Unfortunately, Hart didn't make a single reference to PNAC during the exchange -- is there some unwritten rule that PNAC can never be mentioned on a news program? It's also unfortunate that Hart didn't refer to this article during his debate with Perle:

As part of an information offensive in Iraq, the U.S. military is secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to publish stories written by American troops in an effort to burnish the image of the U.S. mission in Iraq.

The articles, written by U.S. military "information operations" troops, are translated into Arabic and placed in Baghdad newspapers with the help of a defense contractor, according to U.S. military officials and documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times.

Many of the articles are presented in the Iraqi press as unbiased news accounts written and reported by independent journalists. The stories trumpet the work of U.S. and Iraqi troops, denounce insurgents and tout U.S.-led efforts to rebuild the country.

Though the articles are basically factual, they present only one side of events and omit information that might reflect poorly on the U.S. or Iraqi governments, officials said. Records and interviews indicate that the U.S. has paid Iraqi newspapers to run dozens of such articles, with headlines such as "Iraqis Insist on Living Despite Terrorism," since the effort began this year.

The operation is designed to mask any connection with the U.S. military. The Pentagon has a contract with a small Washington-based firm called Lincoln Group, which helps translate and place the stories. The Lincoln Group's Iraqi staff, or its subcontractors, sometimes pose as freelance reporters or advertising executives when they deliver the stories to Baghdad media outlets.

The military's effort to disseminate propaganda in the Iraqi media is taking place even as U.S. officials are pledging to promote democratic principles, political transparency and freedom of speech in a country emerging from decades of dictatorship and corruption.

If all of this sounds a little familiar, that's because it is.

More Snow

They even closed the local schools today.

Compare to this picture posted a few days ago.