What A Time For This To Happen

From Yahoo News:

Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., resigned from Congress on Friday, effective immediately, in the wake of questions about e-mails he wrote a former male page.

"I am deeply sorry and I apologize for letting down my family and the people of Florida I have had the privilege to represent," he said in a statement issued by his office.

The two-sentence statement did not refer to the e-mails and gave no reason for Foley's decision to abruptly abandon a flourishing career in Congress.

Foley, 52, had been a shoo-in for a new term until the e-mail correspondence surfaced in recent days.

His resignation comes less than six weeks before the elections. It was not clear how Republicans would fill his spot on the November ballot.

Campaign aides had previously acknowledged that the Republican congressman e-mailed the former Capitol page five times, but had said there was nothing inappropriate about the exchange. The page was 16 at the time of the e-mail correspondence.

It was not clear what prompted Foley to abruptly decide to give up a successful career in the House.

Foley, who represents an area around Palm Beach County, e-mailed the page in August 2005. The page had worked for Rep. Rodney Alexander, R-La., and Foley asked him how he was doing after Hurricane Katrina and what he wanted for his birthday. The congressman also asked the boy to send a photo of himself, according to excerpts of the e-mails that were originally released by ABC News.

And speaking of bad timing, it looks like the new Woodward book is definitely going to hurt the GOP in the run-up to the mid-term elections:

The CIA'S top counterterrorism officials felt they could have killed Osama Bin Laden in the months before 9/11, but got the "brushoff" when they went to the Bush White House seeking the money and authorization.

CIA Director George Tenet and his counterterrorism head Cofer Black sought an urgent meeting with then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice on July 10, 2001, writes Bob Woodward in his new book "State of Denial."

They went over top-secret intelligence pointing to an impending attack and "sounded the loudest warning" to the White House of a likely attack on the U.S. by Bin Laden.

Woodward writes that Rice was polite, but, "They felt the brushoff."

Tenet and Black were both frustrated.

Black later calculated that all he needed was $500 million of covert action funds and reasonable authorization from President Bush to go kill Bin Laden and "he might be able to bring Bin Laden's head back in a box," Woodward writes.

Black claims the CIA had about "100 sources and subsources" in Afghanistan who could have helped carry out the hit. * * *

This revelation is particularly embarrassing for Condi Rice, who just a few days ago said: "What we did in the eight months was at least as aggressive as what the Clinton administration did in the preceding years." Wrong again, Condi.

Olbermann Attacked By Terrorists (With Update)

Well, that's what yesterday's New York Post headline should read, but it doesn't. The piece is titled "POWDER PUFF SPOOKS KEITH."

The New York Post, by the way, is owned by Rupert Murdoch, the same right-winged extremist asshole who owns FauxNews. Here's what The Post has to say about the incident:

MSNBC loudmouth Keith Olbermann flipped out when he opened his home mail yesterday. The acerbic host of "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" was terrified when he opened a suspicious-looking letter with a California postmark and a batch of white powder poured out. A note inside warned Olbermann, who's a frequent critic of President Bush's policies, that it was payback for some of his on-air shtick. The caustic commentator panicked and frantically called 911 at about 12:30 a.m., sources told The Post's Philip Messing. An NYPD HazMat unit rushed to Olbermann's pad on Central Park South, but preliminary tests indicated the substance was harmless soap powder. However, that wasn't enough to satisfy Olbermann, who insisted on a checkup. He asked to be taken to St. Luke's Hospital, where doctors looked him over and sent him home. Whether they gave him a lollipop on the way out isn't known. Olbermann had no comment.

So what's the deal? I understand that Rupert Murdoch probably doesn't like Olbermann very much, but is it now legal to send letters through the mail that contain supicious white powder? The above-quoted NY Post piece sure makes it sound like it's no big deal.

And by the way, did BushCo ever figure out who was responsible for the anthrax attacks of 2001? Just asking.

UPDATE: Olbermann responds to Murdoch, and it looks like the New York Post probably impeded an FBI investigation by "reporting" on this story as it did:

[T]he New York Post never called NBC News or MSNBC seeking any comment. They would have been told that the FBI had requested we try to keep this quiet.

But of course that would have interfered with the New York Post making fun of a terror threat.

It's almost melodramatic to ask why the New York Post would choose the side of domestic terrorism, rather than choose the side of the FBI.

It's interesting too that Murdoch's paper was able to get a jump on this story so quickly -- nearly as quickly, as if they'd known it was coming.

Lastly, it's remarkable that this was actually printed by any newspaper, even in the current political climate, even in the wake of my editorial stance here, even with Rupert Murdoch's international reputation.

A month ago when reporter Steve Centanni of Murdoch's Fox News was kidnapped in Gaza -- along with his camera-man -- that network reached out to the others, this one included.

They relayed that the authorities there had urged everyone to keep reporting of the kidnapping low-key, and to a minimum, because it was believed the kidnappers did not know they had gotten hold of some one 'recognizable.'

We -- and every other major news organization -- immediately and thoroughly cooperated with Murdoch's request.

Now, in a return case, Murdoch's newspaper did not even make the single phone call that could've told it the potential damage it was doing.

So, next time a Fox or a New York Post employee is in distress -- or the government is investigating something endangering them -- and Murdoch's people ask us to hold a story?

Of course we will do so.

On this end, we're still human beings.

And Americans.

And we'd never have any problem choosing whether to support the terrorist, or the FBI.

Read the rest of Olbermann's response. It's pretty good. This whole incident should make for a great segment on his Countdown show.

Rasmussen Reports

Last night I got a call from Rasmussen Reports and was polled on many issues. When it asked me what my opinion was with regard to Bush's performance as president, it felt great to respond with "very unfavorable." I was disappointed that there was no category beyond "very unfavorable" (like "I think we should send the sonofabitch to Gitmo -- after a fair trial, of course -- and throw away the key"), but it was still great to give Bush a very negative rating.

I was polled on a lot of different questions, but the poll really focused on Measure 48, Don McIntire's latest attempt to destroy Oregon's government. I just wish folks like McIntire, Bill Sizemore, and Grover Norquist would go find some other country to live in. Haiti would be a good choice for them. They'd love it there.

Glass Houses: Why The GOP's "Let's Blame Clinton For 9/11" Strategy Is Failing

This was good for a few laughs:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice challenged former President Bill Clinton's claim that he did more than many of his conservative critics to pursue al Qaeda, saying in an interview published Tuesday that the Bush administration aggressively pursued the group even before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

"What we did in the eight months was at least as aggressive as what the Clinton administration did in the preceding years," Rice said during a meeting with editors and reporters at the New York Post.

The newspaper published her comments after Mr. Clinton appeared on "Fox News Sunday" in a combative interview in which he defended his handling of the threat posed by Osama bin Laden and said he "worked hard" to have the al Qaeda leader killed.

"That's the difference in me and some, including all of the right-wingers who are attacking me now," Mr. Clinton said in the interview. "They ridiculed me for trying. They had eight months to try, they did not try."

Rice disputed his assessment.

"The notion somehow for eight months the Bush administration sat there and didn't do that is just flatly false and I think the 9/11 commission understood that," she said.

Rice also took exception to Mr. Clinton's statement that he "left a comprehensive anti-terror strategy" for incoming officials when he left office.

"We were not left a comprehensive strategy to fight al Qaeda," she told the newspaper, which is owned by News Corp., the same company that owns Fox News Channel.

In the interview, Mr. Clinton accused host Chris Wallace of a "conservative hit job" and asked: "I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you asked, 'Why didn't you do anything about the Cole?' I want to know how many people you asked, 'Why did you fire Dick Clarke?"'

Rice portrayed the departure of former White House anti-terrorism chief Richard A. Clarke differently, saying he "left when he did not become deputy director of homeland security."

The reference to the Cole related to the attack on the USS Cole in 2000.

The interview has been the focus of much attention, drawing nearly 1.2 million views on YouTube and earning the show its best ratings in nearly three years.

Rice questioned the value of the dialogue.

"I think this is not a very fruitful discussion," she said. "We've been through it. The 9/11 commission has turned over every rock and we know exactly what they said."

Yeah, no shit it's not a very fruitful discussion, Condi. You and your extremist buddies should have figured that out prior to launching your "let's blame Clinton for 9-11" strategy. I guess you thought it would be a good campaign issue for the run-up to the 2006 mid-term elections. But you neglected to take into account that you and the rest of the Bush Regime did nothing with regard to al Qaeda in the eight months you were in office prior to 9-11.

I'm glad Bill Clinton finally decided to go on the attack on this particular issue. As Arianna notes, it's about freaking time:

After providing President Bush cover for his disastrous handling of Katrina, after trying to get himself adopted by George Bush, Sr., after giving Laura Bush the keynote slot at his Global Initiative Conference, after going along with Rupert Murdoch's fundraiser for Hillary -- after all that, he got exactly nothing.

All of Bill Clinton's tireless "bipartisanship" has been of no benefit to him, of no benefit to the country, and has only benefited George Bush and the right-wing.

I'm glad the Chris Wallace interview is flying all over the internet, but I really hope that one person who will watch it over and over again is Bill Clinton. And that on the fifth or sixth viewing it might occur to him that the more cover he gives Bush and his cronies, the more they're able to increase and entrench their power. Power they use to destroy everything that Clinton purports to stand for.

The GOP started this fight when they got their surrogate to do that bullshit 9-11 mini-series on ABC (which "coincidently" aired just a couple months before the elections) then continued the coordinated attack when they tried to go after Bill Clinton by getting Chris Wallace on FauxNews to attempt to ambush him. What a mistake. I'm glad they did it, though, because -- as Arianna noted -- it finally got Clinton to start acting like a Democrat again instead of a watered-down, diplomatic ex-president who got along great with the Bushes.

All the Wallace interview did was remind everyone just how smart Bill Clinton is and how good a president he really was compared to the moron we have in there now. They've now turned the pre-9/11 approach to bin Laden into a mid-term campaign issue when all they had to do was keep their mouths shut on this and it never would have come up. After all, this stuff really is old news -- it's a five-year-old story, for God's Sake -- and the record clearly shows that BushCo dropped the ball on the whole al Qaeda deal in the run-up to 9/11.

I think the GOP strategy relied on the ABC mini-series convincing everyone that Clinton was to blame for 9-11, but the blogosphere did a great job of putting pressure on ABC to take out all the false parts of the show, which watered it down big time as a GOP hit piece. Indeed, all the controversy actually worked to educate the public somewhat on the extent to which Clinton really did go after bin Laden.

Was it Karl Rove's idea to bring up the whole pre-9/11 deal as a campaign issue? If so, it was a monumental screw up in my opinion. Once again, its success relied on the stupidity of the American people, who -- unfortunately for the GOP -- seem to be a bit smarter these days.

I'm sure Rove's idea was to shore up the GOP's base in an attempt to make some of these mid-term election results close enough so that GOP operatives could steal them, but independents are going to be a big factor in the mid-terms and, as this poll indicates (thanks for the link, Slick), independents clearly feel that Bush bears more responsibility for 9/11 than does Clinton. Indeed, a lot of Republicans also feel the same way -- only 71% of Republicans think Clinton is more to blame for 9/11 -- which does not bode well for GOP candidates this year.

Epic Backpacking Adventure

I have a recurring dream. Well, it's not exactly recurring, because every time I have this dream it's always a little different. And it's not really a dream -- it's more like a nightmare.

When I was in grade school, I took two great backpacking trips into a basin that is part of the Three Sisters Wilderness in Central Oregon. It's a ten-mile hike into this lake-rich area, and on each trip, we spent a full week in there with no TV, no radio, no hot and cold running water, etc. The only real signs of civilization were the occasional jet trails cutting into the clear blue sky overhead. As I got older I would often have dreams of returning to this area and fishing those pristine waters again.

But in the past five years or so, my dreams about this particular place started to change. At first, the changes involved getting into the basin and finding crowds of people in there and garbage floating on the lakes. Then, lakeside houses and boat docks started appearing in my dream version of this area. In one dream, we were hiking into the basin when we came across a small but bustling town situated right in the middle of the wilderness area, with a road leading into it. My last dream involving this area featured some sort of rock-crushing operation taking place on the shores of one of the lakes which caused its waters to become cloudy.

I would always wake up from these dreams with an uneasy feeling as well as the determination to get back into this area to see for myself how it has held up over the years. I planned to go in there last September, but a bad knee forced me to cancel those plans (I went on a great fly-fishing trip to the Deschutes River instead). But this year I was determined to finally get back in there, and Danimal and Carl agreed to go with me.

We hit the trail at about 1:15 on Friday afternoon. As you can see from the photos, the weather was perfect and it remained that way for the entire trip. It took us about four hours to hike the nine miles to our destination. The trail starts at around 5000 feet elevation, which is the approximate elevation of where we were headed, so there isn't any major elevation gains or losses along the way. But the last short climb up to the lake felt like it took an eternity even though it was not that steep. Exhaustion has a way of making time move slower. When we finally got close enough to get a view of the lake through the trees, the sun was low in the west and the sunlight was sparkling off of the water's surface. It was a great sight to see given that we just hiked nine miles and really wanted to get the packs off our backs.

We set up camp near an old shelter, which was built in 1938 by the CCC. When I first visited this lake in 1976, the shelter was still in pretty good shape and we actually slept in it. Now the shelter is falling apart, and an entire section of the roof is missing. Maybe someday they'll repair it.

After setting up camp, we fished for about 90 minutes before it got dark. It was very discouraging. I had one fish on for a while -- which I lost when it apparently wrapped itself around a submerged log -- but that was it. I became concerned that we might not catch any fish on this trip, which would really suck given how far we had to walk to get to this place.

But Danimal took the skunk off of the trip early the next morning when he landed a 17-inch cutthroat trout right in front of our camp (on the left is a picture of Dan with his fish). I was still in my tent trying to sleep when that happened, but I was up and about pretty fast after Dan walked up to my tent and showed me his catch.

Dan soon landed two more cutthroat trout -- each 17-inches long -- and we hooked and lost another fish right in front of our camp before deciding to go to a spot near a cliff which had some deeper water.

My grade school friends and I had done well at that spot thirty years earlier, and it didn't disappoint this time. Dan hooked two trout there and landed one, and I landed a hard-fighting cutthroat that was very eager to wrap my line around one of those submerged logs. In fact, Carl lost a nice trout that was actually able to wrap the line around a log on the bottom. We lost several fish that way on this trip.

About a half hour after losing that fish, Carl hooked and landed what would turn out to be the biggest fish of the trip -- the fat, 16-and-a-half-inch rainbow pictured at right. Although this wasn't the longest fish we caught, it weighed two-and-a-half pounds and was at least a half pound heavier than the second largest fish we caught.

At left is a picture of Dan and Carl as we were getting ready to leave this spot and go back to camp for lunch. As you can see, it is a great place from which to bank fish. The lake is probably 15 feet deep where that log is visible (upper right corner of photo). This particular lake has some very clear water.

We continued to catch fish all day. The fishing, however, was not fast and furious -- we probably averaged one strike for every 45 minutes of fishing; and except for a short period of time on Saturday evening when we landed three fish in about 5 minutes, the bite was spread out and steady all day long.

We hooked about 20 fish this trip, landed 12, and kept six of them to eat (there's two of them cooking at right). We had trout for breakfast, lunch, and dinner on Saturday. We ate so much trout, in fact, that I carried back most of the food I had packed in.

Dan had the hot hand this trip fishing-wise, and was responsible for at least half of the fish we hooked and landed. Most of the trout we caught were in the 16-17 inch range. All of them were in excellent condition and fought hard.

I definitely want to go back in there next September, but spend three nights instead of two, because it takes me at least three nights to recover from the hike in to the lake (every muscle and joint in my body is aching as I write this). But it was great to get back in there after all these years and see that, except for the deteriorating shelter, the place looks just the same as it did three decades ago.

Can We Call It A Civil War Now?

One hundred and six people are killed every day in Iraq (from The Australian via Hoffmania):

The number of civilians slain across Iraq climbed to unprecedented levels in July and August, with 6599 people killed by violence in that time.

A report from the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq said the July total of 3590 deaths was unprecedented since the US-led invasion in 2003, while the August figure of 3009 was also among the worst.

Many of the average 106 killed per day were tortured to death with cables, acid and power drills, the report said.

It also raised new questions about US and Iraqi forces' ability to bring peace to Baghdad, where the bulk of the deaths occurred.

In its previous report, two months ago, the UN mission gave a combined figure of 5818 for the two months of May and June. The latest two-month figure shows an increase of more than 13 per cent over that number. * * *

Wonderful

From NewsMax:

In the past week, Karl Rove has been promising Republican insiders an "October surprise" to help win the November congressional elections.

President Bush's political strategist is also saying that the final two weeks before the elections will see a blitz of advertising, and the Republican National Committee is deploying an army of volunteers to key locations to help the grass-roots effort and monitor the elections.

The RNC is offering to fly in volunteers and cover their expenses.

Rove is not saying what the October surprise will be. Asked if he would elaborate and give his thinking about the coming elections, Rove told NewsMax that his take largely parallels what RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman said in a Sept. 5 NewsMax story.

As for the October Surprise, Rove said, "I'd rather let the balance [of plans for the elections] unroll on its own."

If the October Surprise turns out to be an attack on Iran, it will be the least surprising October Surprise in history.

And I just love the part about Rove sending out operatives to "monitor" the elections. That's hysterical, in fact.

Very Bad News For The GOP

Although there is a lot of bad new for Republicans in the recent New York Times/CBS poll - i.e., 30% appoval for BushCo's handling of Iraq and an overall 37% approval rating for Bush -- the following numbers jumped out at me:

By overwhelming margins, respondents said that members of Congress were too tied to special interests and that they did not understand the needs and problems of average Americans. Two-thirds said Congress had accomplished less than it typically does in a two-year session; most said they said they could not name a single major piece of legislation that cleared this Congress. Just 25 percent said they approved of the way Congress was doing its job.

Are voters finally starting to realize that people who hate government shouldn't be in government? I guess we'll find out soon enough.

Whitehouse Leads Chafee

This is interesting (from Political Wire):

In Rhode Island's U.S. Senate race, a new American Research Group poll finds Sheldon Whitehouse is at 45% and Lincoln Chafee is at 40%.

Key findings: Whitehouse gains a slight edge because 72% of Democrats say they would vote for Whitehouse. Although 69% of likely voters have a favorable opinion of Chafee, compared to 51% for Whitehouse, over 80% of those saying they have a favorable opinion of Whitehouse say they would vote for Whitehouse, compared to 56% for Chafee. Democrats who like both candidates say they would vote for Whitehouse.

I like Lincoln Chafee -- he's against Bush on virtually every issue (which is unique for a Republican these days) -- but he is only one person and party politics must be the overriding concern here. The GOP understands this. That's why Rove and Company threw a lot of support Chafee's way in the recent Republican primary, despite the fact that Chafee's opponent was pro-Bush all the way.

If I was Whitehouse, I'd have nothing but praise for Chafee, and I would be critical on only point, namely, he's a Republican, and we can't afford to send any more Republicans back to Congress.

From Jack Ohman of The Oregonian

Yet Another Bullshit GOP Ploy?

From Atrios:

CNN is reporting that the Senate Armed Service Committee has rejected the Bush's latest "compromise" offer on torturing people. I have yet to figure out if this is a real conflict or an elaborate dance.

I had the exact same thought as I was listening to a report on this issue this morning on NPR. This whole dispute between Bush and the three GOP senators (plus Colin Powell) seems like a set-up to make Bush look tough against all them tinhorn terrorists. He's so tough, in fact -- and so full of hatred for the evildoers -- that even his own party has to tone him down. It's like the American people are being subjected to a form of the "good cop/bad cop" routine.

One thing is for certain -- they sure seem to be going out of their way to make this "dispute" as open and public as possible.

Great Special Comment From Olbermann

Watch it here.

PlameGate Update: Novak Goes After Armitage

From CBS News:

Syndicated columnist Robert Novak has turned on his own source. Novak says Richard Armitage, the man who told him Valerie Plame was a CIA agent, didn't disclose her identity in a casual manner, and instead urged him to make her a column item.

"Armitage did not slip me this information as idle chitchat, as he now suggests. He made clear he considered it especially suited for my column," Novak wrote.

Armitage gave a different version of event to CBS News. The former Bush administration deputy secretary of state said he disclosed Plame's CIA status in response to an "offhand question" from Novak.

"I didn't put any big import on it and I just answered and it was the last question we had," Armitage said.

I Hope Someone In The Press Asks Bush This Question

From Political Wire:

If the war on terror is really a "struggle for civilization" itself, as President Bush claimed last night, why do we have just 130,000 troops in Iraq?

You would think that if America were really engaged in such an epic battle -- "for all the marbles," as one friend paraphrased it -- we would put up a bigger fight.

Good point.

Here's The Path To 9/11 Miniseries I'd Like To See

Al Franken already wrote the script treatment for a Path to 9-11 miniseries in his book Lying Liars -- this is the first couple of paragraphs from the chapter called "Operation Ignore" (via Atrios):

Bill Clinton's far-reaching plan to eliminate al Qaeda root and branch was completed only a few weeks before the inauguration of George W. Bush. If it had been implemented then, a former senior Clinton aide told Time, we would be handing [the Bush Administration] a war when they took office." Instead, Clinton and company decided to turn over the plan to the Bush administration to carry out. Clinton trusted Bush to protect America. This proved, nine months later, to be a disastrous mistake - perhaps the biggest one Clinton ever made.

Clinton's National Security Advisor Sandy Berger remembered how little help the previous Bush administration had provided to his team. Believing that the nation's security should transcend political bitterness, Berger arranged ten briefings for his successor, Condoleezza Rice, and her deputy, Stephen Hadley. Berger made a special point of attending the briefing on terrorism. He told Dr. Rice, “I believe that the Bush administration will spend more time on terrorism in general, and on al Qaeda specifically, than any other subject.'' * * *

Even if you've already read Lying Liars, click on the above link and read the rest of the chapter to refresh your memory on just how bad a job the Bush Regime did in the run-up to 9/11. It's astounding.

MSNBC Fires Eric Alterman

Here is his post addressing the termination:

* * * Whether my termination is, in fact, a product of a political decision at GE/NBC, which according to reports I read and gossip I hear, has lately taken a much firmer hand in guiding the content of both MSNBC and MSNBC.com, I have no way of knowing. I have never even spoken with the Web site’s current editor-in-chief, nor has anyone communicated with me beyond my immediate circle of editors. Outspoken liberals in the MSM have long been an endangered species. (From the beginning, a Wall Street Journal editorial page writer attacked the site for "conferring mainstream legitimacy on Eric Alterman.”) Even less common, I suppose, are Web sites that feel free to criticize their corporate parents, the pollution they cause, the lying, incompetent, ideologically extremist and corrupt presidents they coddle, and perhaps most especially, the all-but incomprehensible choices they make when doling out cable TV news programs.

It would surprise no one if this site caused some discomfort at 30 Rock, if and when they happen to notice it. But speculation is not the same thing as evidence, and the good folks at MSNBC.com and GE/NBC can, I’m sure, give you good reasons why dumping Altercation is the right thing to do from a business standpoint —though the natural speculation that arises is a damn good argument against the kind of media concentration that allows a company like GE to own NBC in the first place. * * *

I'm surprised he lasted this long. After all, MSNBC likes to fire liberals, especially if they are posting good numbers (watch out, Olbermann). But Alterman did like to attack the Corporate Media -- his What Liberal Media? book was a good read -- so I guess it is possible that he pissed off a few too many people.

Altercation is not dead, however. Media Matters has given Alterman a home starting September 18.

BTW, this is pretty funny.

Rumsfeld's Idiocy Comes Full Circle

This is pathetic:

Long before the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld forbade military strategists to develop plans for securing a postwar Iraq, the retiring commander of the Army Transportation Corps said Thursday.

In fact, said Brig. Gen. Mark Scheid, Rumsfeld said "he would fire the next person" who talked about the need for a postwar plan.

Rumsfeld did replace Gen. Eric Shinseki, the Army chief of staff in 2003, after Shinseki told Congress that hundreds of thousands of troops would be needed to secure postwar Iraq. * * *

"The secretary of defense continued to push on us that everything we write in our plan has to be the idea that we are going to go in, we're going to take out the regime, and then we're going to leave," Scheid said. "We won't stay."

Scheid said the planners continued to try "to write what was called Phase 4," or the piece of the plan that included post-invasion operations like security, stability and reconstruction.

Even if the troops didn't stay, "at least we have to plan for it," Scheid said.

"I remember the secretary of defense saying that he would fire the next person that said that," Scheid said. "We would not do planning for Phase 4 operations, which would require all those additional troops that people talk about today.

"He said we will not do that because the American public will not back us if they think we are going over there for a long war."

Well, at least Rumsfeld got that last part right.

Quote Of The Century

"There – it’s – you know, one of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror."

George Bush said it last week in an interview with Katie Couric (thanks for the link, Blade).

Someone should have informed Bush that the GOP strategy during the run-up to the Mid-Term elections heavily relies on the Republicans' ability to link Iraq with the War On Terror.

Geesus, doesn't our president read the newspapers?

Kudos to Harvey Keitel

Harvey Keitel has been a favorite actor of mine ever since he played Winston "The Wolf" Wolfe in 1994's Pulp Fiction, so I was pleased to hear last summer that Keitel would play John O'Neill in an ABC miniseries on 9/11. I figured that if Keitel was involved, then it would be a serious treatment of a serious subject.

But with all the news of late that the ABC mini-series was going to be a SwiftBoat-type attack on the Clinton Administration, I started thinking that Keitel was perhaps an undercover right wing extremist who signed on to the project for political reasons. But this New York Post article restored my faith in him:

When Oscar nominee Harvey Keitel signed on to play Deputy FBI Director John O'Neill, who perished in the World Trade Center attacks, he thought the film's aim was to be historically correct, he said.

"It turned out not all the facts were correct," which led to "arguments," he said on CNN.

Virtually from Day 1 of shooting, "Keitel put his own researcher on the case," looking to correct historical, character and other inaccuracies he found in the script, said John Dondertman, a production designer on the film.

That led to Keitel rewriting most of his own lines - which in turn meant almost daily revisions for cast members who had scenes with him.

A particular point of contention was a scene in which O'Neill, observing reams of Arabic documents, asks his assistant, "Do we have Arab translators?" only to be told, "I don't know of any. I'll call around."

"Keitel couldn't understand why the FBI didn't have Arabic translators, so the dialogue was changed on the spot," said a script supervisor.

On one occasion, Keitel holed up in his hotel for an entire day with director David Cunningham revising the script.

Other times, Cunningham would "fumble through the 9/11 Commission book trying to figure out how to correct details Keitel called into question," said the script supervisor.

Good for you, Harvey. Of course, what all this really means is that the original script -- i.e, the one that existed before Keitel's re-writes -- had to be one of the biggest pieces of shit in television history.

Toles

ABC's Disclaimer

This is pretty funny. ABC will be running this disclaimer throughout its upcoming 9/11 mockumentary:

The following movie is a dramatization that is drawn from a variety of sources including the 9/11 Commission Report and other published materials, and from personal interviews. The movie is not a documentary. For dramatic and narrative purposes, the movie contains fictionalized scenes, composite and representative characters and dialogue, as well as time compression.

Yeah -- no shit the movie contains fictionalized scenes. Bill Clinton is pretty angry over this whole deal:

A furious Bill Clinton is warning ABC that its mini-series "The Path to 9/11" grossly misrepresents his pursuit of Osama bin Laden - and he is demanding the network "pull the drama" if changes aren't made.

Clinton pointedly refuted several fictionalized scenes that he claims insinuate he was too distracted by the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal to care about bin Laden and that a top adviser pulled the plug on CIA operatives who were just moments away from bagging the terror master, according to a letter to ABC boss Bob Iger obtained by The Post.

The former president also disputed the portrayal of then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright as having tipped off Pakistani officials that a strike was coming, giving bin Laden a chance to flee.

"The content of this drama is factually and incontrovertibly inaccurate and ABC has the duty to fully correct all errors or pull the drama entirely," the four-page letter said.

Meanwhile, it is now being reported that an FBI agent who was working on the mini-series as a consultant quit halfway through the production because "he believed the writers and producers were 'making things up.'"

Even the head of a conservative media watchdog group has stated that ABC should "correct" the scenes "that do not have any bearing on reality." I wasn't going to watch the show, but now I might have to. It will be interesting to see how ABC responds to all this pressure.

Can We Finally Get Out Of Iraq Now?

BushCo's most recent explanation as to why we have to stay the course in Iraq is because if we leave the terrorists alone in Iraq, then they'll attack us here. But that rationale now seems pointless given that Pakistan -- our "ally" in the War on Terror -- has signed a peace treaty with the Taliban (who are still our enemies, right?):

Pro Taliban militants and the Pakistani government signed a peace deal on Tuesday, according to Pakistani negotiators.

The militants said they would stop attacks in Pakistan and across the Afghan border on the condition that the Pakistani government stop air and ground operations in the Waziristan region and dismantle newly built checkposts.

People arrested during military operations will also be released under the agreement and confiscated property, including weapons, would be returned.

And if that isn't enough for you, there is this:

The surprising announcement comes as Pakistani army officials announced they were pulling their troops out of the North Waziristan region as part of a "peace deal" with the Taliban.

If he is in Pakistan, bin Laden "would not be taken into custody," Major General Shaukat Sultan Khan told ABC News in a telephone interview, "as long as one is being like a peaceful citizen."

Pakistan is now saying that Major General Shaukat Sultan Khan was grossly misquoted, but you can read the transcript for yourself and decide if he was misquoted.

Bush famously said with regard to the war on terror: "If you're not with us, then you are against us." In fact, Bush made this statement yesterday:

[W]e're determined to deny terrorists the support of outlaw regimes. After September the 11th, I laid out a clear doctrine: America makes no distinction between those who commit acts of terror, and those that harbor and support them, because they're equally guilty of murder.

Those are fine words, but I suspect that Bush will simply give Pakistan a pass on all this; and if he does, then BushCo's war on terror is a joke and we should get the hell out of Iraq.

More On ABC's HorseShit 9-11 Mini-Series

If any of you have doubts about whether ABC's upcoming "Path To 9/11" will actually be a right wing hack job, this review from the ultra-conservative FrontPageMag should put those doubts to rest:

I recently attended an advance screening of ABC’s outstanding, epic miniseries "The Path to 9/11" (airing this September 10-11), and I came away enormously impressed. Writer/producer Cyrus Nowrasteh ("Into the West"), director David Cunningham ("To End All Wars"), and the whole production team have done a magnificent job in presenting the complex events leading up to 9/11 with accuracy, fairness, and artistry. * * *

Let me start by saying that "The Path to 9/11" is one of the best, most intelligent, most pro-American miniseries I've ever seen on TV, and conservatives should support it and promote it as vigorously as possible.

This is the first Hollywood production I’ve seen that honestly depicts how the Clinton administration repeatedly bungled the capture of Osama Bin Laden. One astonishing sequence in "The Path to 9/11" shows the CIA and the Northern Alliance surrounding Bin Laden’s house in Afghanistan. They're on the verge of capturing Bin Laden, but they need final approval from the Clinton administration in order to go ahead. They phone Clinton, but he and his senior staff refuse to give authorization for the capture of Bin Laden, for fear of political fall-out if the mission should go wrong and civilians are harmed.

National Security Adviser Sandy Berger in essence tells the team in Afghanistan that if they want to capture Bin Laden, they'll have to go ahead and do it on their own without any official authorization. That way, their necks will be on the line - and not his. The astonished CIA agent on the ground in Afghanistan repeatedly asks Berger if this is really what the administration wants. Berger refuses to answer, and then finally just hangs up on the agent. The CIA team and the Northern Alliance, just a few feet from capturing Bin Laden, have to abandon the entire mission. Bin Laden and Al Qaeda shortly thereafter bomb the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, killing over 225 men, women, and children, and wounding over 4000. The episode is a perfect example of Clinton-era irresponsibility and incompetence.

Not surprisingly, all the stuff in the mini-series about Sandy Berger refusing official authorization is complete bullshit.

We Are Now Officially Living In A Fascist State

Unless you've been living in a cave for the past week, you undoubtedly know that ABC is planning to air a mini-series called "The Path To 9/11" wherein the Clinton Administration will be blamed for allowing the 9-11 attacks and the Bush Regime will get a complete pass, even though Bush was warned one month before the attacks that bin Laden was "determined to strike the U.S." and yet he did nothing in response.

Well, it now appears that no sponsor is willing to get anywhere near this piece of propaganda (from Variety Magazine via Think Progress):

ABC has decided the best sponsor for its upcoming Sept. 11 mini is no sponsor at all.

After originally announcing its intention to air "The Path to 9/11" with limited commercial interruption, the network now will air both parts of the $30 million Harvey Keitel starrer without any advertising.

What's more, the Alphabet will potentially limit its backend profits by allowing consumers to download the complete miniseries -- for free -- via Apple's iTunes Music Store. Mini also will be streamed for free via ABC.com, and XM Radio has pacted with the network to make an audiocast of the film available to its subscribers.

ABC Entertainment prexy Steve McPherson said the commercial-free strategy was the most appropriate route to take with this project.

"We looked at different scenarios (and) talked to possible (advertising) partners, and none of it made sense," McPherson said. "This is the most respectful way to present this."

I suspect that "none of it made sense" because nobody wanted any part of ABC's fascist bullshit.

People Like This Idiot Are Actually Allowed To Vote

Anyone wonder how the GOP was able to get enough votes in 2004 to steal the presidential election? It's because there are a lot of people out there who are as stupid as Michael Kurman from Buffalo Grove, Illinois. He's the guy who sent this letter to the editor to the Chicago Tribune:

What about Andrew?
August 24 has come and gone. Not a word about that historical date in the news. August 24, 1992. The 14th anniversary of this tragic event. Head scratcher, huh?

HURRICANE ANDREW. 164 Miles per hour winds destroyed Homestead Fla.

$25 billion in damages of which $16 billion were insured.

Devastation so startling that major insurance companies teetered on the brink of financial ruin. Insurance companies such as Allstate (I worked for them at the time) suspended insurance premiums because there was no place to send the billings.

No street was recognizable.

No houses, no mailboxes, no street signs, no nothing.

A neighbor of mine was an Allstate claims adjuster. He took a temporary six-month job assignment in Homestead.

Where was the media in all of this tragedy? Where were the recurring and staged pictures of the crying people yelling for help? Where was the mayor of Homestead accusing the President of racial and social bigotry because it was the political thing to do? I don't recall the press ever interviewing the mayor of Homestead. Where did all the people go? Scattered to the four winds like half the population of New Orleans? Hardly. Just "google" Homestead to see what happened to that city. Why didn't the press indict the President for incompetence immediately before Andrew hit? OK, then. How about immediately afterward? Could it be that the President was that media darling, the do-nothing right, the do-nothing at all, Mr. Clinton? It took Clinton until the following year to upgrade Federal Emergency Management Agency to a cabinet level position.

So what happened in the aftermath? We didn't see the mobilization of the National Guard from all over the U.S. to protect the citizenry of the area. People had the good sense to act like decent citizens in a civilized country. Crime didn't shoot through the roof. Federal funds trickled in as they always do in a disaster situation. However, it was the insurance industry and their re-insurers that rebuilt the area. The press beat up the large insurers because they attempted to cancel every homeowner policy in he entire state. The Florida insurance commissioner informed those companies that if they carried out their plan, they would be prevented from renewing their profitable auto line. Allstate created a separate homeowner insurance company specifically for Florida with its own rate structure.

Can we conclude that the press loved Clinton even in times of extreme internal incompetence? Not one word of comparison between Katrina and Andrew. To call the press fair-handed and objective is an insulting joke.

Mr. Kurman's point would have been well-taken if it wasn't for the fact that Bill Clinton was sworn in as president five months after Hurricane Andrew hit the U.S.

God help us.

An Examination of BushCo's Most Recent Talking Point

I've returned early from my blogging break to address the latest BushCo talking point, namely, that "[n]obody has ever suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the 9/11 attacks." When Bush first said this last week during a press conference, I wasn't sure if this was going to turn into a GOP talking point. I mean, it seemed like kind of a stupid thing to say, so I thought perhaps that it would only be a one-time statement from our Idiot President. But Bush repeated the exact same comment in an interview with Brian Williams this week, so it is pretty clear that Bush and the GOP are up to something here.

Sure, it is true that I've never heard anyone associated with the Bush Regime outright say that Saddam ordered the 9-11 attacks, but Bush and company have oftentimes gone out of their way to link Saddam with 9-11. This is from a recent Toledo Blade editorial:

WHEN President Bush declared last week that "nobody has ever suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered" the 9/11 terrorist attacks, a large segment of the American public must have been very surprised.

They would be the die-hard supporters of the war in Iraq, the one-quarter to one-third of Americans who, according to opinion polls, believe to this day that Saddam was somehow involved in 9/11.

No one likes to think that their President is lying, but for Mr. Bush to casually reverse five years of rhetoric is like Bill Clinton claiming "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky."

No, there is no DNA evidence that we know of to indict Mr. Bush for perjury. But the public record includes repeated statements by the President, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and other administration officials that linked responsibility for the 9/11 attacks to Iraq, both directly and indirectly.

The alleged connection was the administration's strongest selling point for the war, slaking the American people's thirst for revenge for the 2001 attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C.

As Mr. Bush put it on Oct. 7, 2002, "We know that Iraq and the al-Qaeda terrorist network share a common enemy - the United States of America. We know that Iraq and al-Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a decade. … We've learned that Iraq has trained al-Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases."

Here he is again, in his 2003 State of the Union address: "And this Congress and the American people must recognize another threat. Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications, and statements by people now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of al-Qaeda." * * *

The editorial goes on to discuss how other members of the Bush Administration were constantly linking Saddam to al-Qaeda.

If Bush does decide to use his "nobody has ever suggested that Saddam Hussein ordered the 9/11 attacks" line, someone in the press corps should fire back with --

"Well, Mr. President, no one has accused you of saying anything of the sort, but by giving us such an answer, it's pretty clear that you and your Administration are still pushing some sort of Saddam/9-11 connection, right? And don't you think that's one of the reasons you are the most disliked president in a generation? Don't you think your unpopularity has a lot to do with your total lack of credibility on this particular issue?"

Wouldn't it be great to hear someone ask questions like that? I know -- Hell would freeze over before someone in our corrupt Corporate Media asked questions along those lines, but I am still allowed to dream, aren't I?

To be fair, however, the Corporate Media are now openly exposing Bush scare tactics for what they really are, namely, political ploys. Two years ago, the press would "pay no attention to that man behind the curtain" and would instead dutifully report the latest BushCo talking point regarding what we should all be afraid of.

But not anymore. I saw a segment on CNN just last week that had to do specifically with whether BushCo scare tactics will work this time around. That's a pretty major change in how these issues are being reported, and it does give me some hope.