Santorum Appears To Be Toast

This is good (from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette):

Before every election, the Post-Gazette routinely sends letters to the candidates seeking material for the Voters Guide. Back in March, as part of that process for the primary, the newspaper sent a letter to Rick Santorum at his home address, at least the one that he claims. Back from Penn Hills came the letter with a sticker from the U.S. Postal Service checked as "Not Deliverable As Addressed -- Unable To Forward."

That is all you need to know about the nasty dispute between the Republican Sen. Santorum and his Democratic opponent, Bob Casey Jr., in the November election. The whole thing is rooted in one inconvenient fact for Sen. Santorum: He doesn't live here anymore.

This is not to say that he doesn't visit Penn Hills from time to time. But while he may meet the legal requirements for residency, his home is in Virginia with his wife and children. This is well-known and it has been for quite a while. Indeed, it was at the heart of the objection by some Penn Hills residents to the local school district paying for the senator's children to be enrolled in a cyber charter school. The theory was that -- let us emphasize it again because it is central to the current problem -- he doesn't live here anymore.

Latest poll numbers (via Political Wire): "A new Rasmussen Reports poll in Pennsylvania shows Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) falling further behind in his race for re-election. Bob Casey (D) now leads Santorum 56% to 33%."

I couldn't be happier. I dislike Santorum even more than I dislike Bill Frist (but not as much as I dislike the traitorous Pat Roberts).

I Love This

From The Guardian:

Al Gore has made his sharpest attack yet on the George Bush presidency, describing the current US administration as "a renegade band of rightwing extremists".

In an interview with the Guardian today, the former vice-president calls himself a "recovering politician", but launches into the political fray more explicitly than he has previously done during his high-profile campaigning on the threat of global warming.

Denying that his politics have shifted to the left since he lost the court battle for the 2000 election, Mr Gore says: "If you have a renegade band of rightwing extremists who get hold of power, the whole thing goes to the right."

Isn't it funny that we have a president who is right of Hitler politically, but any time someone criticizes that incompetent, extremist sonofabitch, he or she is accused of being a leftist?

I was watching BushCo Whore Extraordinaire Paula Zahn last night interviewing Rep. John Murtha with regard to the Haditha Massacre/Cover-Up, and she practically accused Murtha of being a traitor for criticizing BushCo on this issue. Murtha handled himself pretty well; but as I was watching it, I couldn't help but think that things might be different today had Zahn and the rest of the Corporate Media been that aggressive with Bush Regime officials during the run-up to the Iraq Catastrophe.

Speaking of which, it looks like Bush's hopes of beginning troop withdrawals prior to the 2006 Mid-Term Elections may be fading fast:

The Pentagon's hopes of making substantial reductions in U.S. troop levels in Iraq this year appear to be fading as a result of resurgent violence in the country, particularly in the Sunni Arab stronghold of Al Anbar province, military officials acknowledge.

Army Gen. George W. Casey, commander of U.S.-led forces in Iraq, said Tuesday that he was moving 1,500 "backup" troops from Kuwait to Al Anbar, the western region that includes the war-torn cities of Fallouja and Ramadi.

Publicly, Pentagon officials insisted Tuesday that the move was temporary and unrelated to Casey's much-delayed recommendation on overall troop levels, now expected to be made next month. But other officers have privately acknowledged that the worsening situation in Al Anbar — particularly in Ramadi, which U.S. officials say is now under insurgent control — is likely to prevent any significant drawdown this year.

Don't forget what Dick "Dick" Cheney said a year ago yesterday: "The level of activity that we see today from a military standpoint, I think, will clearly decline. I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency."

I bet Cheney wishes he could take that one back.

We're Back

We got back from vacation yesterday. It was great. The weather in Maui was perfect, and it looks like we picked the right time to go, because I heard the weather in Central Oregon was terrible while we were gone.

I'll try to post some pictures soon.

By the way, what happened to CBS News correspondent Kimberly Dozier in Iraq really bums me out:

Dozier, along with cameraman Paul Douglas and soundman James Brolan, were traveling in a U.S. military convoy working on a story about Memorial Day when a car bomb exploded. Douglas and Brolan, both British citizens, were killed. A U.S. soldier and an Iraqi translator also died in the blast.

The explosion occurred on the same day a series of blasts killed at least 40 people in Iraq and wounded dozens more in the worst wave of violence to hit Baghdad in days.

I watched a couple of her reports from Iraq earlier this month, and although they were excellent, I felt that she was putting herself in harm's way more than she needed to. I read somewhere that Bob Schieffer told her before this particular incident that she should take less dangerous assignments.

Mustang Island

We arrived in Maui late Friday evening after a long delay in Los Angeles. Our plane out of L.A. had an "unpleasant aroma" near the back end of the passenger cabin - they couldn't find the source, so they had to find us a different plane (I guess it must have been a pretty bad odor). We didn't arrive in Maui until about 10 pm local time.

Per Blade's recommendation, we had lunch at Mama's Fish House on Saturday. It was great. I had the mahimahi stuffed with lobster, crab, and Maui onion (Ron -- we're going to try that Okazuma place you recommended tonight for dinner -- we could easily walk there from where we are staying).

The first thing I noticed about Maui is that there are those new retro Mustang automobiles everywhere, undoubtedly because the rental agencies are overloaded with them. We've only seen one accident since we've been here, and it involved a new Mustang. I used to think those cars were cool -- now I'm getting a little tired of them.

The weather was particularly great today. I rained a few times on Saturday and Sunday, but no rain today. We hit Kapalua Beach this morning. The snorkeling was great -- lots of fish (including some angel fish) and a sea turtle were swimming about. We're going to try Black Rock tomorrow, and then take a boat out to Molokini on Thursday.

Danimal (and Nick) -- I bought that new Flaming Lips cd yesterday. It's a great one to listen to while cruising around Maui. I really like that "Free Radicals" song, as well as "It Overtakes Me." Have fun at that concert and at the Beck show.

Hopefully I'll be able to do one more post while here. In the meantime, here's an infuriating article from Seymour Hersh.

Harold's Blog Is Taking A Break

Linda and I are leaving this morning for ten days in Maui. We'll be back on Memorial Day.




If I can get access to a computer, I'll try to do a post or two while we're there.

Chaka -- When The Walls Fell

Dukakis -- His Tank Unfurled:

Not Sure What To Make Of This

This is interesting:

[I]n an exclusive interview, Judith Miller reveals how the attack on the Cole spurred her reporting on Al Qaida and led her, in July 2001, to a still-anonymous top-level White House source, who shared top-secret NSA signals intelligence (SIGINT) concerning an even bigger impending Al Qaida attack, perhaps to be visited on the continental United States.

Ultimately, Miller never wrote that story either. But two months later -- on Sept. 11 -- Miller and her editor at the Times, Stephen Engelberg, both remembered and regretted the story they "didn't do."

God's Plan To Punish A Couple Of Blue States

God's spokesperson has some news for America:

The Rev. Pat Robertson says God has told him that storms and possibly a tsunami will hit America's coastline this year.

The founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network has told viewers of "The 700 Club" that the revelations came to him during his annual personal prayer retreat in January.

"If I heard the Lord right about 2006, the coasts of America will be lashed by storms," Robertson said May 8.

He added specifics in Wednesday's show.

"There well may be something as bad as a tsunami in the Pacific Northwest," he said.

Here's what I don't understand. Will God cause these events, or is he merely predicting these events? Even Robertson isn't sure that he "heard the Lord right" on this. Was God mumbling to Robertson?

A Good Way To Counter The GOP Impeachment Argument

From Dick Meyers at CBS (via Political Wire):

Short of another disaster on the scale of 9/11, George Bush no longer has the power, credibility or ability to effectively govern for the rest of his term in office. Contrary to what you hear on television, governing remains more important than campaigning. Government is more important than elections -- to the extent the two can be differentiated anymore. * * *

What is apparent, is that George Bush has at his disposal none -- none -- of the tools presidents have used to turn bad situations around -- public support, party support or skilled statecraft. He's a lame duck less than two years in to his second term. You are not being governed.

I think everyone senses that this is, in fact, true. Yet it appears that a major GOP talking point in the run-up to the 2006 Mid-Terms will be: "If America gives the Democrats control of a branch of Congress, then they will impeach our president."

This is, of course, laughable, particularly given that it originates from a party who actually impeached a president for lying about a blow job. But for some reason, the Democrats think the Republicans have a winning argument here. In fact, the Democrats are so worried about this particular talking point that, last week, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi promised that the Democrats would not try to impeach Bush.

This may be the most screwed up thing I've ever seen. We have an enormously unpopular president who couldn't make the right decision if his life depended on it and a GOP-run Congress that is unwilling to do its job with regard to oversight, and the Democrats are actually letting the GOP win on an issue that they should be taking the lead on. I knew the Democrats were weak, but this is ridiculous.

Zack Roth from the Washington Monthly tackles this issue here, and he makes some good points:

Democrats might wish they could avoid talking about their investigative plans. But if they do, the press and the GOP will raise the issue for them, and they'll frame it around the prospect of impeachment. So Democrats might as well meet the challenge head on, and spend the summer making their case. Of course we'll vigorously investigate the administration if we win, they should say. And we'll do so the same way previous Democratic Congresses have investigated GOP presidents: shoulder-to-shoulder with honest Republican lawmakers willing to put country before party. The fact that the current GOP leadership chose to abandon the great American tradition of bipartisan Congressional oversight is no reason Democrats have to follow suit. Instead, they should embrace that tradition, with the faith that if they do, the president will get the legacy he deserves.

Of course, Bush apologists such as Tim Russert will respond to such an approach by asking, "Well, that's all fine and good, but the question stands -- will the Democrats impeach Bush?" Here's how that question should be answered:

"I appreciate the question, Tim -- indeed, I like the fact that you and other members of the media are finally starting to realize that this president may have committed impeachable offenses. But to be honest, we can't answer that question at this time because, thanks to a complacent press and a Republican-run Congress that has been unwilling to engage in any meaningful oversight, we do not know the extent of the Bush Administration's wrongdoing, if any. We should, but we don't.

"The system is clearly broken, but the voters can fix it if they elect Democrats to Congress this fall. If the voters don't want the system fixed and are happy with the way things are going, they should vote Republican. It really is that simple."

It Sounds Like The Da Vinci Code Movie Might Really Suck

Like just about everyone else, I read The Da Vinci Code and thought it was pretty good. But I wondered if this type of material could be made into a watchable movie. Well, if this sampling of "early" reviews is any indication, the answer to that question might be "no."

From Rotten Tomatoes:

"Part conspiracy thriller, part religious epic, part family melodrama, but not satisfying on any level, this vastly disappointing film will frustrate viewers who know the book and will bore those who don't due to the rambling and confusing storytelling." -- Emanuel Levy, EMANUELLEVY.COM

"An oppressively talky film that isn't exactly dull, but comes as close to it as one could imagine with such provocative material." -- Todd McCarthy, VARIETY

"There might be a riveting adventure thriller to be made from Dan Brown's controversial bestseller, but this is not it. Melodramatic, overlong and dare I say occasionally boring, Ron Howard's The Da Vinci Code gets lost in the maze of its puzzles and media" -- Urban Cinefile Critics, URBAN CINEFILE

Well, now we know why the studio didn't show the movie to reviewers earlier than it did. But I'm sure the film will make a killing at the box office anyway. It just might not be as big of a hit as everyone anticipated.

Could Gore Run As An Independent?

Here is a good AP piece on Al Gore. I found this part of the article particularly interesting:

"If he's the guy we see today, I think he'd be formidable," said Joe Trippi, a Democratic consultant who helped run Howard Dean's Internet-fueled presidential campaign in 2004.

"I think the real danger is if he were to run as an independent. If he did that, he would wreak havoc on the race in 2008," Trippi said. "He could say, 'I've been out of the system and we have to do it in a different way. I want to lead the way.'"

I would really like to see that happen.

Police State

Wouldn't it be great if our government put this much effort into catching the f*@king terrorists? What bothers me the most about all this is that I'm sure we're only seeing the tip of the iceberg. From the ABC Blog:

The FBI acknowledged late Monday that it is increasingly seeking reporters' phone records in leak investigations.

"It used to be very hard and complicated to do this, but it no longer is in the Bush administration," said a senior federal official.

The acknowledgement followed our blotter item that ABC News reporters had been warned by a federal source that the government knew who we were calling.

The official said our blotter item was wrong to suggest that ABC News phone calls were being "tracked."

"Think of it more as backtracking," said a senior federal official.

But FBI officials did not deny that phone records of ABC News, the New York Times and the Washington Post had been sought as part of a investigation of leaks at the CIA.

In a statement, the FBI press office said its leak investigations begin with the examination of government phone records.

"The FBI will take logical investigative steps to determine if a criminal act was committed by a government employee by the unauthorized release of classified information," the statement said.

Officials say that means that phone records of reporters will be sought if government records are not sufficient.

Officials say the FBI makes extensive use of a new provision of the Patriot Act which allows agents to seek information with what are called National Security Letters (NSL).

The NSLs are a version of an administrative subpoena and are not signed by a judge. Under the law, a phone company receiving a NSL for phone records must provide them and may not divulge to the customer that the records have been given to the government.

UPDATE: Here's an excerpt from a Salon interview with historian Matthew Aid (via Daily Kos):

We should be terrified that Congress has not been doing its job and because all of the checks and balances put in place to prevent this have been deliberately obviated. In order to get this done, the NSA and White House went around all of the checks and balances. I'm convinced that 20 years from now we, as historians, will be looking back at this as one of the darkest eras in American history. And we're just beginning to sort of peel back the first layers of the onion. We're hoping against hope that it's not as bad as I suspect it will be, but reality sets in every time a new article is published and the first thing the Bush administration tries to do is quash the story. It's like the lawsuit brought by EFF [Electronic Frontier Foundation] against AT&T -- the government's first reaction was to try to quash the lawsuit. That ought to be a warning sign that they're on to something.

You're Not Going To Believe This One

Here's what a commentator at the WorldNutDaily has to say about Bush's upcoming immigration speech (via Crooks And Liars):

[Bush] will likely offer some negligible resources for law enforcement and border security – resources which will never materialize – in return for an amnesty program that will grant American citizenship to the Mexican nationals who have helped lower America's wage rates by 16 percent over the last 32 years.

And he will be lying, again, just as he lied when he said: "Massive deportation of the people here is unrealistic – it's just not going to work."

Not only will it work, but one can easily estimate how long it would take. If it took the Germans less than four years to rid themselves of 6 million Jews, many of whom spoke German and were fully integrated into German society, it couldn't possibly take more than eight years to deport 12 million illegal aliens, many of whom don't speak English and are not integrated into American society.

Excuse me? This is one of the most outrageous things I've ever read. How dare he compare the United States to Nazi Germany.

Although I agree that the United States has clearly become a Fascist State, we couldn't possibly compare ourselves to Nazi Germany when it comes to efficiency. Just look back to Katrina if you have any doubts on that.

No, I think it would take Amerika at least twelve years to deport all the illegal aliens (unless Bush raised taxes and earmarked the new revenue to be used only for government programs directly related to the deportation of Mexicans).

By the way, the above-linked WND site has an ad for this tee shirt:




I want one.

And Now -- The Rest Of The Story

From the ABCNews blog (via Daily Kos):

A senior federal law enforcement official tells ABC News the government is tracking the phone numbers we call in an effort to root out confidential sources.

"It's time for you to get some new cell phones, quick," the source told us in an in-person conversation.

ABC News does not know how the government determined who we are calling, or whether our phone records were provided to the government as part of the recently-disclosed NSA collection of domestic phone calls.

Other sources have told us that phone calls and contacts by reporters for ABC News, along with the New York Times and the Washington Post, are being examined as part of a widespread CIA leak investigation.

So, it appears that they were wiretapping Christiane Amanpour.

Great Frank Rich Quote

"It's the recklessness at the top of our government, not the press' exposure of it, that has truly aided the enemy, put American lives at risk and potentially sabotaged national security. That's where the buck stops, and if there's to be a witch hunt for traitors, that's where it should begin."

Another "Soaring" Week Ahead For The Bush Regime?

If Jason Leopold is right, we're all going to get a really nice Fitzmas present very soon:

Within the last week, Karl Rove told President Bush and Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten, as well as a few other high level administration officials, that he will be indicted in the CIA leak case and will immediately resign his White House job when the special counsel publicly announces the charges against him, according to sources.

Details of Rove's discussions with the president and Bolten have spread through the corridors of the White House where low-level staffers and senior officials were trying to determine how the indictment would impact an administration that has been mired in a number of high-profile political scandals for nearly a year, said a half-dozen White House aides and two senior officials who work at the Republican National Committee.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, sources confirmed Rove's indictment is imminent. These individuals requested anonymity saying they were not authorized to speak publicly about Rove's situation. A spokesman in the White House press office said they would not comment on "wildly speculative rumors."

This makes sense to me. By most accounts, Rove's recent appearance before the grand jury was made in an attempt to clear a few things up in the hope of avoiding criminal charges. It doesn't sound like that strategy worked.

Meanwhile, former NSA staffer Russell Tice is going to testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee this next week, and it sounds like he might have some pretty explosive things to say:

[Tice] said he plans to tell the committee staffers the NSA conducted illegal and unconstitutional surveillance of U.S. citizens while he was there with the knowledge of Hayden. … “I think the people I talk to next week are going to be shocked when I tell them what I have to tell them. It’s pretty hard to believe,” Tice said. “I hope that they’ll clean up the abuses and have some oversight into these programs, which doesn’t exist right now.” …

Tice said his information is different from the Terrorist Surveillance Program that Bush acknowledged in December and from news accounts this week that the NSA has been secretly collecting phone call records of millions of Americans. “It’s an angle that you haven’t heard about yet,” he said. … He would not discuss with a reporter the details of his allegations, saying doing so would compromise classified information and put him at risk of going to jail. He said he “will not confirm or deny” if his allegations involve the illegal use of space systems and satellites.

Given the sensitive nature of this testimony, I'm not sure how many details the public will get with regard to what Tice has to say. Stay tuned.

Qwest Deserves A Lot Of Praise

This was my favorite part of the now-famous USAToday article on the NSA's Call Records Appropriation Program:

One major telecommunications company declined to participate in the program: Qwest.

According to sources familiar with the events, Qwest's CEO at the time, Joe Nacchio, was deeply troubled by the NSA's assertion that Qwest didn't need a court order — or approval under FISA — to proceed. Adding to the tension, Qwest was unclear about who, exactly, would have access to its customers' information and how that information might be used.

Financial implications were also a concern, the sources said. Carriers that illegally divulge calling information can be subjected to heavy fines. The NSA was asking Qwest to turn over millions of records. The fines, in the aggregate, could have been substantial.

The NSA told Qwest that other government agencies, including the FBI, CIA and DEA, also might have access to the database, the sources said. As a matter of practice, the NSA regularly shares its information — known as "product" in intelligence circles — with other intelligence groups. Even so, Qwest's lawyers were troubled by the expansiveness of the NSA request, the sources said.

The NSA, which needed Qwest's participation to completely cover the country, pushed back hard.

Trying to put pressure on Qwest, NSA representatives pointedly told Qwest that it was the lone holdout among the big telecommunications companies. It also tried appealing to Qwest's patriotic side: In one meeting, an NSA representative suggested that Qwest's refusal to contribute to the database could compromise national security, one person recalled.

In addition, the agency suggested that Qwest's foot-dragging might affect its ability to get future classified work with the government. Like other big telecommunications companies, Qwest already had classified contracts and hoped to get more.

Unable to get comfortable with what NSA was proposing, Qwest's lawyers asked NSA to take its proposal to the FISA court. According to the sources, the agency refused.

The NSA's explanation did little to satisfy Qwest's lawyers. "They told (Qwest) they didn't want to do that because FISA might not agree with them," one person recalled. For similar reasons, this person said, NSA rejected Qwest's suggestion of getting a letter of authorization from the U.S. attorney general's office. A second person confirmed this version of events.

In June 2002, Nacchio resigned amid allegations that he had misled investors about Qwest's financial health. But Qwest's legal questions about the NSA request remained.

Unable to reach agreement, Nacchio's successor, Richard Notebaert, finally pulled the plug on the NSA talks in late 2004, the sources said.

In other words, the Bush Regime knew that the FISA court would probably not go along with this -- most likely due to the illegal nature of this particular activity -- so BushCo backed down. Incredible.

I'm proud to be a Qwest customer. It is ironic that the NSA attempted to appeal to "Qwest's patriotic side," given that Qwest's ultimate response to the NSA's request may be the most patriotic thing to come out of Corporate America in years. I hope it gets a lot of new business from this.

29%

From The Wall Street Journal:

President Bush’s job-approval rating has fallen to its lowest mark of his presidency, according to a new Harris Interactive poll. Of 1,003 U.S. adults surveyed in a telephone poll, 29% think Mr. Bush is doing an “excellent or pretty good” job as president, down from 35% in April and significantly lower than 43% in January.

Roughly one-quarter of U.S. adults say “things in the country are going in the right direction,” while 69% say “things have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track.” This trend has declined every month since January, when 33% said the nation was heading in the right direction. Iraq remains a key concern for the general public, as 28% of Americans said they consider Iraq to be one of the top two most important issues the government should address, up from 23% in April. The immigration debate also prompted 16% of Americans to consider it a top issue, down from 19% last month, but still sharply higher from 4% in March.

Brutal.

I Think BushCo Will Withdraw Hayden's Nomination

This MSNBC article is full of interesting stuff. It starts off by referring to the USA Today article which reported that the National Security Agency, with the help of the phone companies, has been building a database of every phone call made in the country. Then the article reported this:

The report came as the former NSA director, Gen. Michael Hayden — President Bush’s choice to take over leadership of the CIA — had been scheduled to visit lawmakers on Capitol Hill Thursday. However, the meetings with Republican Sens. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska were postponed at the request of the White House, said congressional aides in the two Senate offices.

The White House offered no reason for the postponement to the lawmakers.

Hayden, who headed the NSA from 1999 to 2005, would have overseen the call-tracking program during his tenure, USA Today said.

Needless to say, the timing couldn't have been worse for Hayden specifically and the Bush Administration generally. This revelation will undoubtedly produce a huge political shitstorm, meaning that Bush will probably have no choice but to withdraw Hayden's nomination.

Sen. Specter, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, appeared to be a bit upset over all this -- he said he would call the phone companies to appear before his committee -- and Senator Pat Leahy was ticked off as well:

Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, sounded incredulous about the report and railed against what he called a lack of congressional oversight. He argued that the media was doing the job of Congress.

“Are you telling me that tens of millions of Americans are involved with al-Qaida?” Leahy asked. “These are tens of millions of Americans who are not suspected of anything. ... Where does it stop?”

The Democrat, who at one point held up a copy of the newspaper, added: “Shame on us for being so far behind and being so willing to rubber stamp anything this administration does. We ought to fold our tents.”

It's been a long time since I've heard anyone accuse the media of doing its job. I found that refreshing.

But here's the unbelievable part of the MSNBC article: "Meanwhile, the Justice Department has abruptly ended an inquiry into the warrantless eavesdropping program because the NSA refused to grant its lawyers the necessary security clearance."

This is going to get very ugly.

UPDATE: Check out this excellent Keith Olbermann interview of Constitutional law expert Jonathan Turley.

Cool Picture of Comet Schwassmann-Wachmann 3

On the left is a photo of Fragment C of Comet Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 as it passes by the Ring Nebula. This and other photos can be found here.

The fragments are about to make their closest approaches to Earth. Fragment B was easily spotted through my binoculars this morning at about 3:30, even though the moon was still up. It was pretty much directly overhead.

And speaking of cool pictures, below is a photo of the spire currently growing in Mt. St. Helens' crater.

Duke-Stir Tells Feds To Piss Up Rope

From The North County Times (via Josh Marshall):

Randy Cunningham has not been helping federal authorities as they continue to probe the former North County congressman's web of corruption, a top Pentagon investigator said Tuesday.

Rick Gwin, special agent in charge of the Defense Criminal Investigative Service's western regional office, said he is troubled by the lack of assistance, particularly in light of Cunningham's plea agreement that calls for him to tell all that he knows.

"In my opinion, he has not been cooperative and I have not gotten any information from him to further develop other targets," Gwin said in a telephone interview from his office in Mission Viejo. "I was hoping that from a jail cell, he might become more cooperative, but we just don't have the cooperation that I think we should have."

I found this comment from Gwin particularly interesting: "This is much bigger and wider than just Randy 'Duke' Cunningham. All that has just not come out yet, but it won't be much longer and then you will know just how widespread this is."

Great Tomasky Article

Michael Tomasky has a great article in The American Prospect about the Democrats called "Party In Search Of A Notion." He argues that the Democrats have actually become an effective opposition party -- they got Bush to back down on his Social Security plan, his proposed changes to Davis-Bacon, and the Dubai ports deal -- and have some good ideas, but lack what our president's father called "the vision thing."

What the Democrats still don’t have is a philosophy, a big idea that unites their proposals and converts them from a hodgepodge of narrow and specific fixes into a vision for society. Indeed, the party and the constellation of interests around it don’t even think in philosophical terms and haven’t for quite some time. There’s a reason for this: They’ve all been trained to believe -- by the media, by their pollsters -- that their philosophy is an electoral loser. Like the dogs in the famous “learned helplessness” psychological experiments of the 1960s -- the dogs were administered electrical shocks from which they could escape, but from which, after a while, they didn’t even try to, instead crouching in the corner in resignation and fear -- the Democrats have given up attempting big ideas. Any effort at doing so, they’re convinced, will result in electrical (and electoral) shock.

Tomasky argues that the Democrats need to abandon their fear of failure and start thinking like they used to:

Today, for the first time since 1980, it is conservative philosophy that is being discredited (or rather, is discrediting itself) on a scale liberals wouldn’t have dared imagine a few years ago. An opening now exists, as it hasn’t in a very long time, for the Democrats to be the visionaries. To seize this moment, the Democrats need to think differently -- to stop focusing on their grab bag of small-bore proposals that so often seek not to offend and that accept conservative terms of debate. And to do that, they need to begin by looking to their history, for in that history there is an idea about liberal governance that amounts to more than the million-little-pieces, interest-group approach to politics that has recently come under deserved scrutiny and that can clearly offer the most compelling progressive response to the radical individualism of the Bush era.

Yes.

This Really Doesn't Make A Whole Lot Of Sense, Unless . . .

From Political Wire:

U.S. News and World Report: "Intelligence insiders say that former CIA Director Porter Goss was given less than a day to pack his bags by new White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten, who is moving swiftly to put a new and more aggressive face on the administration."

"Despite Monday's praise by President Bush for Goss, with whom he held an exit ceremony last Friday at the White House, the insiders say that the decision to dump Goss came hard and fast. One says that Goss revealed to his senior staff on Friday that Bolten had called him last Thursday night to ask if he had 'thought through an exit strategy.' On Friday morning, Bolten made a second call to demand Goss's resignation that day, which he gave."

So are they trying to convince us that Bolten, who has been on the job since April 14, just decided to fire Goss last Thursday, and did so merely to "put a new and more aggressive face" on the administration? Clearly something happened with regard to Goss which lit a fire under Bolten's ass.

Top 10 Reasons Gore Will Run in 2008

From The Ostroy Report:

1. Legislative Experience: two terms in the House, two in the Senate

2. Executive Experience: two terms as vice president

3. Economic Experience: presided over historic seven years of prosperity

4. Iraq: His staunch anti-war stand was early and forceful

5. Environment: His decades of sounding the global warming alarm give him more credibility on this issue than any other candidate

6. Family Values: Stemming from their record-label-warning campaign days, the Gores project strong family values and a sense of morality

7. Passion: Since 2000 he's been the most outspoken critic of Bush and the GOP

8. Results: He won the popular vote in 2000; was robbed of the electoral college. He won 51-million votes in 2000, more than any other Democrat candidate in history, more than any Republican except Ronald Reagan in 1984, and 500,000 more than George Bush. Just think of the numbers he could put up after eight dreadful years of Bush

9. Fundraising: Gore has big, powerful, wealthy benefactors waiting on the sidelines to pour money into his campaign, and has the ability to compete with Hillary Clinton in this critical area. He also has the support of grass-roots organizations like MoveOn.org, and is a favorite in the ever-increasingly important blogosphere

10. Skeleton-Free Closet: At this point in his career, if there was any dirt to drudge up, we'd have seen it by now

The two major issues that will really help Gore in '08 are Iraq and global warming. The Iraq Debacle will be the issue in the run-up to the 2008 election, and Gore was against the invasion from the start. And no one is more credible than Gore on the global warming issue, which should also be big in 2008, particularly if we have bad hurricane seasons in 2006 and 2007.

Gore/Obama 2008.

Bush's Fish Story (With Updates)

From Kos:

Bush says the highlight of his presidential career was catching a 7.5 pound perch in his lake. Except that...

The only problem is that the world's record for the largest freshwater perch caught is 4 pounds 3 ounces.

So Bush either doubled the world record, and didn't report it, or he's a liar.

Incidentally, see how three presidents answered the question, "What was the best moment of your presidency?"

Apparently, since Bush didn't have any "best moments," he had to invent one.

UPDATE: Kos readers had some good things to say about this latest scandal:

"This bolsters the case for 'imperchment'"

"Perchery: the deliberate false exaggeration of fish size"

It is being reported that Bush might have actually said "bass" but the German newspaper who interviewed him translated it wrong. I don't care about that. Al Gore never said he invented the internet, yet the right wingers and the Corporate Media ran with it. How is this any different?

UPDATE II: The White House will reportedly release the "official" transcript of the interview soon which will clear all of this up. But I don't think that will help matters much, because all this will do is remind people that Bush thinks catching a 7.5-pound fish was the highlight so far of his presidency.

In fact, there may be no way the White House can win on this one, unless the German phrase for "catching a 7.5 pound perch at my ranch" sounds remarkably like the German phrase for "toppling Saddam's statue."

Every Vote Counts

This is pretty good (thanks for the link, JB):

Two voting-age sons of a northern Ohio candidate didn't go to the polls Tuesday, and their father's race ended in a tie.

William Crawford, trying to retain his seat on the central committee of the Erie County Democratic Party, and challenger Jean Miller each received 43 votes in the primary balloting.

Officials plan to conduct a recount, but the race may have to be settled by coin flip, said David Giese, the county's Democratic Party chairman and an elections board member.

Crawford was able to laugh about it Wednesday, but he said his sons are going to be getting an earful for skipping the election.

Good Riddance

CNN is reporting that CIA Director Porter Goss just resigned. Maybe he's involved in that GOP hooker scandal after all?

UPDATE: Georgia as Daily Kos lays it all out:

This isn't part of some White House shake-up. This is a scandal-plagued Bush appointee resigning just as an investigation into another Republican corruption scandal hits too close to home.

Former Republican lawmaker and current CIA Director Porter Goss's name has surfaced time and time again in the Republican bribe scheme, which began with a focus on disgraced Republican Congressman Duke Cunningham and his Republican lobbyists (hmm, do I think I mentioned "Republican" enough in that sentence?).

It is Goss's hand-picked #3 man at the CIA, Kyle "Dusty" Foggo who is under serious investigation in connection with a massive bribery scheme that touches on sweetheart deals, million dollar contracts, and yes, even hookers.

You will recall that Ken Silverstein, based on a source, noted that the prostitution scandal could touch a former lawmaker "who now holds a powerful intelligence post." Speculation abounded that Porter Goss fit that description perfectly.

It may not be the hookers. It may not be his possible participation in a million-dollar bribery scheme affecting our national security. It may be that he hated his job, and the CIA hated him. Or it may just be that Goss decided to spent time with his family.

But the press has a duty to find out why one of our nation's top intelligence officials just up and quit all of sudden on a Friday afternoon.

Members Of Corporate Media Continue To Protect Corrupt Bush Regime

As I mentioned yesterday, someone finally got in Rumsfeld's face and questioned him on all the lies he told about Iraq. And it wasn't a member of the corporate media -- they didn't do that in the run-up to the Iraq Disaster (even though that's their job), so why start now.

No, it was former CIA analyst Ray McGovern. To sum up, Rumsfeld denied yesterday that he said he knew where the WMD in Iraq was located, and McGovern essentially called Rumsfeld a liar and stated that Rumsfeld did indeed say that he knew where the WMD was located.

In other words, someone was lying yesterday. Of course, I knew it was Rumsfeld because I actually follow this stuff, but the average American probably doesn't know. So I watched some of the evening news coverage of this last night to see whether the Corporate Media would actually point out the liar in all this.

They didn't. In fact, based on the coverage I saw, one would assume that Rumsfeld was the straight talker in all this and McGovern was a crazy lunatic would didn't have his facts straight.

CNN was no different. Here are some of the questions Paula "Eva Braun" Zahn asked McGovern yesterday (via Daily Kos):

Zahn: Did you go to this speech today with the intent of challenging Secretary Rumsfeld?

Zahn: What was it, then, that you wanted to accomplish by following [a heckler's] pointed question?

Zahn: Essentially, what [Rumsfeld] told you is: I never said exactly where the weapons of mass destruction were. I was referring to, we had a pretty darn good idea where the sites were ... Do you buy what he said today? [Note: What Rumsfeld told McGovern was that he "did not say" that he knew where Saddam's WMD were, when in fact he said exactly that in a March 2003 TV appearance.]

Zahn: How much of an ax do you have to grind with Secretary Rumsfeld?

Zahn: There was a point where it appeared as though you were going to get kicked out ... Donald Rumsfeld encouraged whoever I think had their hands on you at the time to let you stay there. Does he get any credit for that today?

You can watch Zahn's hostile interview of McGovern here (McGovern handled himself pretty well).

I think what is going in here is that Zahn and the rest of the Corporate Media know they screwed up by blindly accepting all the BushCo bullshit during the run-up to the Iraq Debacle, but instead of coming clean with regard to that screw-up, they've decided to continue to protect Bush (and thus themselves) on all this. How brave of them.

UPDATE: I guess Anderson Cooper interviewed McGovern last night and did a fair, thorough job, but I have no doubt that he was the exception.

Colbert

I finally got around to watching Stephen Colbert's performance at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner (if you haven't seen it yet, you can watch it here). It was great -- he didn't go far enough, in my opinion, but it was a good start -- and it apparently infuriated Bush to no end.

It certainly infuriated Bush's apologists, like Richard Cohen, who had this to say:

Colbert was not just a failure as a comedian but rude. Rude is not the same as brash. It is not the same as brassy. It is not the same as gutsy or thinking outside the box. Rudeness means taking advantage of the other person's sense of decorum or tradition or civility that keeps that other person from striking back or, worse, rising in a huff and leaving. The other night, that person was George W. Bush.

Colbert made jokes about Bush's approval rating, which hovers in the middle 30s. He made jokes about Bush's intelligence, mockingly comparing it to his own. "We're not some brainiacs on nerd patrol," he said. Boy, that's funny.

Colbert took a swipe at Bush's Iraq policy, at domestic eavesdropping, and he took a shot at the news corps for purportedly being nothing more than stenographers recording what the Bush White House said. He referred to the recent staff changes at the White House, chiding the media for supposedly repeating the cliche "rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic" when he would have put it differently: "This administration is not sinking. This administration is soaring. If anything, they are rearranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg." A mixed metaphor, and lame as can be.

Why are you wasting my time with Colbert, I hear you ask. Because he is representative of what too often passes for political courage, not to mention wit, in this country. His defenders -- and they are all over the blogosphere -- will tell you he spoke truth to power. This is a tired phrase, as we all know, but when it was fresh and meaningful it suggested repercussions, consequences -- maybe even death in some countries. When you spoke truth to power you took the distinct chance that power would smite you, toss you into a dungeon or -- if you're at work -- take away your office.

But in this country, anyone can insult the president of the United States. Colbert just did it, and he will not suffer any consequence at all. He knew that going in. He also knew that Bush would have to sit there and pretend to laugh at Colbert's lame and insulting jokes. Bush himself plays off his reputation as a dunce and his penchant for mangling English. Self-mockery can be funny. Mockery that is insulting is not. The sort of stuff that would get you punched in a bar can be said on a dais with impunity. This is why Colbert was more than rude. He was a bully.

As I was reading the above-quoted shit from Cohen's column -- and let me just take the time now to state the obvious and call Richard Cohen a f#@king idiot -- I couldn't help but think about why Bush is the worst president in American history, and it has to do with the fact that he is so isolated from the real world that he doesn't even read newspapers -- geesus, he's proud of the fact that he doesn't read the papers -- and he rarely if ever speaks in front of an audience that isn't full of hand-picked Bush lovers.

Indeed, Colbert may have been the first person in five years who has been able to speak to Bush in this fashion. Cohen apparently has a problem with that. My problem is that it didn't happen sooner.

And by the way, Richard -- Colbert's Hindenburg joke kicked ass. You're just too stupid to realize it.

But my favorite part of Cohen's article is this part: "But in this country, anyone can insult the president of the United States. Colbert just did it, and he will not suffer any consequence at all." Maybe Colbert won't suffer any consequences -- after all, Bush is incredibly unpopular these days -- but there is a long list of folks out there who have suffered consequences, not because they insulted Bush, but because they had the gall to merely speak the truth. Don't forget that members of the current administration actually committed treason by outing a CIA operative merely to retaliate against that agent's husband for speaking the truth about Iraq.

And speaking of truth (or lack thereof), Rumsfeld got torn to pieces today by a former CIA employee during a speech in Georgia:

QUESTION: So I would like to ask you to be up front with the American people, why did you lie to get us into a war that was not necessary, that has caused these kinds of casualties? Why?

RUMSFELD: Well, first of all, I haven’t lied. I did not lie then. Colin Powell didn’t lie. He spent weeks and weeks with the Central Intelligence Agency people and prepared a presentation that I know he believed was accurate, and he presented that to the United Nations. the president spent weeks and weeks with the central intelligence people and he went to the american people and made a presentation. i’m not in the intelligence business. they gave the world their honest opinion. it appears that there were not weapons of mass destruction there.

QUESTION: You said you knew where they were.

RUMSFELD: I did not. I said I knew where suspect sites were and –

QUESTION: You said you knew where they were Tikrit, Baghdad, northeast, south, west of there. Those are your words.

RUMSFELD: My words — my words were that — no, no, wait a minute, wait a minute. Let him stay one second. Just a second.

QUESTION: This is America.

RUMSFELD: You’re getting plenty of play, sir.

QUESTION: I’d just like an honest answer.

RUMSFELD: I’m giving it to you.

QUESTION: Well we’re talking about lies and your allegation there was bulletproof evidence of ties between al Qaeda and Iraq.

RUMSFELD: Zarqawi was in Baghdad during the prewar period. That is a fact.

QUESTION: Zarqawi? He was in the north of Iraq in a place where Saddam Hussein had no rule. That’s also…

RUMSFELD: He was also in Baghdad.

QUESTION: Yes, when he needed to go to the hospital.

Come on, these people aren’t idiots. They know the story.

We do indeed. And by the way, those were Rumsfeld's exact words:

STEPHANOPOULOS: And is it curious to you that given how much control U.S. and coalition forces now have in the country, they haven’t found any weapons of mass destruction?

SEC. RUMSFELD: …We know where they are. They’re in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.

I can certainly understand why there are a lot of former CIA employees out there who are hopping mad at the Bush Regime. It's one thing to have your hard work ignored, but BushCo didn't merely ignore the CIA -- BushCo ignore the CIA and then blamed it for the Iraq Fiasco. I think we'll be seeing a lot more of this in the future.

This Is Really Funny

This Atrios post is a must-read. After years of being told that George W. Bush speaks fluent Spanish, Scott McClelland now says that his soon-to-be former boss is "not that good with his Spanish."

That doesn't surprise me, of course, given that our president is an idiot, but I wonder what other BushCo lies McClelland will expose on his way out.

This Sucks

So much for the cheap Canadian vacation (via Hoffmania):

The Canadian dollar cracked 90 U.S. cents on Tuesday, setting a new 28-year high and helping Canadians to realize cheaper U.S. imports of everything from vegetables and clothing to computers.

The loonie rose to 90.38 cents, up more than half a cent from Monday's close and its highest level since 1978, when Pierre Trudeau's Liberal government ran the country and disco was still king. Canada's dollar coin has a bird, a loon, on one side, from which the nickname is derived.

The currency had an intraday peak of 90.42 cents, as the American greenback weakened against most foreign currencies and investors remained optimistic about the Canadian economy and robust oil and gold prices.

Many analysts are predicting the loonie could soon hit 95 cents or even be on par with the U.S. dollar, something that hasn't happened since the 1970s.

Comet 73 P Schwassmann-Wachmann 3

On the left is a Hubble photo of Comet 73 P Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 disintegrating. I tried to see it through binoculars on Saturday night, and although I got a view of M-13, aka the great globular cluster in Hercules (and briefly mistook it for the comet -- my astronomy is a bit rusty these days), I wasn't able to get a look at any fragments of the Comet 73 P.

I was still unable last night to locate the larger fragment through binoculars, even though everything I've read said that it should be right next to Zeta Herculis, one of the stars that form Hercules' square. The light pollution from Bend is undoubtedly screwing up my view.

Hopefully things will improve in the next week or two. What's left of the comet will be making its closest approach to Earth on May 14. The moon, however, might interfere with viewing opportunities a bit. This month's full moon will be on May 13.

Bush The Decider Is Also Bush The Aider and Comforter

So, former U.S. spy Mike Scheuer has confirmed that Bush deliberately failed to kill terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, even though his administration had many chances to do so during the run-up to the Iraq catastrophe. Read about it here.

Kevin Drum asks the right question:

So why wasn't Bush willing to hit Zarqawi, a known al-Qaeda terrorist in a known location? Scheuer says he was told it was because Bush was afraid of annoying the French — a theory that seems a bit of a stretch, non? Others believe it was because Zarqawi was politically convenient: having him alive allowed Bush to pretend that Saddam was "harboring terrorists," thus providing useful ammunition for the war.

Whichever it is, we now have a credible source telling us on the record that the Zarqawi story is true. We could have gotten him, but we chose not to. Perhaps someone will start off Tony Snow's White House career on the right foot by asking him about it on Monday.