I Wish Kerry Would Have Acted Like This In 2004 (w/ Update)

The White House wants John Kerry to apologize making the comment that people who don't do well in school "get stuck in Iraq." The GOP claims that Kerry insulted U.S. troops. Kerry states that the comment was directed at Bush. Here is Kerry's response to this latest right-wing attack on him:

"If anyone thinks a veteran would criticize the more than 140,000 heroes serving in Iraq," states Kerry, "and not the president who got us stuck there, they're crazy.

"I’m sick and tired of these despicable Republican attacks that always seem to come from those who never can be found to serve in war, but love to attack those who did," the statement continues.

"I'm not going to be lectured by a stuffed suit White House mouthpiece standing behind a podium, or doughy Rush Limbaugh, who no doubt today will take a break from belittling Michael J. Fox's Parkinson's disease to start lying about me just as they have lied about Iraq," rails Kerry, in the statement. "It disgusts me that these Republican hacks, who have never worn the uniform of our country lie and distort so blatantly and carelessly about those who have."

Kerry asserts that it is the President and Vice President Cheney who owe troops an apology for misleading the country into war, saying they have "widened the terrorist threat instead of defeating it."

"These Republicans are afraid to debate veterans who live and breathe the concerns of our troops, not the empty slogans of an Administration that sent our brave troops to war without body armor," the statement continues. "Bottom line, these Republicans want to debate straw men because they're afraid to debate real men. And this time it won’t work because we're going to stay in their face with the truth and deny them even a sliver of light for their distortions."

He concludes, "No Democrat will be bullied by an administration that has a cut and run policy in Afghanistan and a stand still and lose strategy in Iraq."

Good words, but just a couple years too late, Senator.

UPDATE: I'm at home right now laughing my ass off. The Corporate Media are spinning this Kerry thing madly, hoping to make a story out of it, trying to convince everyone that this is a catastrophe of the first order for the Democrats. Paula Zahn's head is practically exploding.

Man, if Karl Rove can make this mole hill into a mountain, then he truly is the Prince of Fucking Darkness.

Good News Regarding The Hubble Telescope

From MSNBC:

After years of debate, NASA Administrator Mike Griffin gave the go-ahead on Tuesday for what could be one of the space shuttle program's most dramatic missions: a final repair visit to the Hubble Space Telescope.

"We are going to add a shuttle servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope to the shuttle's manifest, to be flown before it retires," Griffin told agency employees here at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. The news was greeted with a standing ovation.

The service call is tentatively scheduled for launch no earlier than May 2008, with Discovery as the designated shuttle, Griffin said. The mission would be aimed at keeping the orbiting observatory, which has provided thousands of dazzling pictures of the cosmos during its 16 years in orbit, in operation for seven years more.

A Very Tight Race For The Senate

From TPM Muckraker:

CNN just released a batch of polls of key Senate races -- and they show that the battle for the Senate is too close to call. Assuming Dems knock off trailing GOP incumbent Senators in Montana, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Rhode Island, Dems then need to pick up two more seats to win the Senate. If they hold New Jersey -- where the CNN poll shows Dem Robert Menendez up 51%-44% over GOPer Tom Kean, Jr. -- then then need to win two out of three of the closer contests in Virginia, Tennessee and Missouri, and CNN finds all to be extremely tight. In Virginia, Dem Jim Webb is leading Senator George Allen, 50%-46%; in Missouri, Senator Jim Talent and Dem Claire McCaskill are deadlocked at 49%; and among likely voters in Tennessee, GOPer Bob Corker is ahead of Dem Harold Ford, Jr., 52%-44% -- though among registered voters Corker is leading only 47%-45%, which is within the poll's margin of error.

How To Respond To The Latest GOP Bullshit Talking Point

I've seen them use it twice so far, but I'm sure they've whipped it out more times than that. Bill O'Lielly used it against David Letterman, and Lynne Cheney used it against Wolf Blitzer. The talking point is in the form of a question, and the question is: "Do you or don't you want the United States to win the War in Iraq?"

Of course, the obvious way to respond to such a question is: "We won that war already, didn't we?" And when the extremist starts stammering to give a response to that simple retort, you interrupt him or her and ask: "OK, I'll answer your original question, but first I need to know what your definition of 'win' is when it comes to Iraq."

And that's how you deal with that particular GOP talking point.

Epic Backpacking Adventure -- September 1977

Last month, I posted a description of a backpacking trip I took with Dan and Carl into a basin in the Three Sisters Wilderness. I noted in that post that I had first visited the area back in the seventies with some grade school friends. Well, I attended the wedding of my friend Phil last weekend, and he gave me a disc with some photos from the trip we took in 1977. Here are a few of them.

At left is Phil, John and me at the trailhead. Lawrence, Phil's dad, took the photo. I was 14 years old at the time. That was the first year the big trailhead parking lot was there -- the year before, the trailhead was right on Century Drive, and the parking area was nothing more than a pull-out on the side of the road.

That's Phil and me on the right. We climbed a cinder cone and John took that photo of us from higher up on the cone. I was an avid tree climber when I was younger -- don't do a lot of that these days.

On the left is a picture of me on the summit of the cinder cone with John. The picture at the very top of this post shows the little monument we built on the summit. We spent an entire week at this particular lake, so we had lots of time to explore the area while we were there.

But we still managed to find some time to fish. That's me on the right holding a 17-inch brook trout caught at the cliff area that I described in my earlier post (the CCC shelter is behind me). The lake used to be stocked with brook trout, but they stopped doing that in the 1990s when it was determined that the brookies were wiping out the local frog population by eating the frog eggs that were laid in shallow water. Now the lake is stocked with cutthroat and rainbow only.

We didn't bring any flotation devices with us, so we did our best to improvise while there (left). When we were up there the year before, we actually built a raft by tying logs together. The raft fell apart while we were in the middle of the lake, though. Our attempt to take the log out onto the lake had a similar ending.

The picture on the right was taken on our way back to the trailhead at the end of the trip (at the point where the Six Lakes Trail meets the Senoj Lake Trail, two miles east of the Pacific Crest). I have a specific memory of the taking of this photo, because the place where I put my hand on the tree was covered with pitch so I had pitch all over my hand for the rest of the hike out.

Thanks for the photos, Phil -- they brought back a lot of memories.

You Know Things Are Bad For The Republicans . . .

. . . when a Congressional race in Idaho is up for grabs:

"For the first time since the early 1990s, the outcome of a statewide election appears in doubt with just 10 days to go. An Idaho Statesman/Today's 6 poll says races for governor, 1st Congressional District and school superintendent are essentially tied."

In the governor's race, Rep. Butch Otter (R) leads newspaper owner Jerry Brady (D) by a single percentage point. Meanwhile, Bill Sali (R) has a 2 percentage point lead over Larry Grant (D) in Idaho's 1st congressional district.

"Democrats haven't won a governor's race since 1990 or a seat in Congress since 1992, but a call for change nationally is reaching Idaho. Coupled with Republican candidates who inspire negative feelings, Democrats have a shot."

Lynne Cheney Turns Out To Be Just As Extreme As Her Neo-Fascist Husband

No surprise there, of course. Here is an excerpt from Wolf Blitzer's recent interview with Dick Cheney's wife:

CHENEY: You know, I understand your point. It’s kind of the point of a lot of people right now, to try to distort the administration’s position, and if you really want to talk about that, I watched the program on CNN last night, which I though — it’s your 2006 voter program, which I thought was a terrible distortion of both the president and the vice president’s position on many issues. It seemed almost straight out of Democratic talking points using phrasing like “domestic surveillance.”

I love it. The GOP spends the last five years giving us Orwellian phrases like "Healthy Forests" and "Clear Skies," and Mrs. Cheney is pissed off that CNN used the phrase "Domestic Surveillance"? She actually thinks that the phrase "domestic surveillance" is a clever Democrat creation. If she's right, then the Democrats really need to work on their framing. How about "Gestapo-like surveillance program"? That has a nice ring to it.

In any event, I have no doubt that Mrs. Cheney is also mad that CNN uses the phrase "suicide bomber" instead of the GOP-approved phrase "homicide bomber."

God I hate these people. They obviously hate America. I wish they'd all just move to Argentina and give us our country back.

Sen. Sam Brownback Needs To Stop Acting Like A Dick

From The Carpetbagger Report:

[Sen. Sam] Brownback — [R-Kan.] who, up until quite recently, insisted that every judicial nominee, without exception, deserves an up-or-down vote — learned that Michigan Court of Appeals Judge Janet T. Neff was on hand for a public ceremony in which two lesbians pledged their commitment to one another in Massachusetts. It was not a marriage ceremony and, despite some rumors to the contrary, Judge Neff was in the audience and did not officiate.

Brownback, in one of his less-sane moves, asked the Justice Department to investigate the ceremony (it's not quite clear why), and suggested that Neff may have engaged in "judicial activism." * * *

Bigotry is always ugly and unnecessary, but at a certain point, a person's hatred becomes ridiculous, especially for those in positions of governmental power.

In an Oct. 12 letter to Brownback, released yesterday by the Senate Judiciary Committee, Neff said a minister presided over the ceremony, and she insisted her attendance would not affect her ability to act fairly as a federal judge.

"The ceremony, which was entirely private, took place in Massachusetts, where I had no authority to act in any official capacity and where, in any event, the ceremony had no legal effect," Neff wrote. She went on to explain that her family lived next door to one of the women for more than two decades.

It apparently doesn't matter. As of now, Brownback seems to sincerely believe that being friends with a gay neighbor necessarily disqualifies a person for the federal bench, even if you're nominated by the Bush White House.

I knew Brownback was an idiot, but this is ridiculous.

Big Trouble Brewing For Sen. George "Macacca" Allen?

Josh Marshall reports:

The Allen campaign refuses to return our calls asking whether Sen. Allen will release his sealed divorce records. We're not the only news outlet asking, just the only one telling you how the Allen campaign is responding. Heck, one major national daily had a reporter out in LA for at least week trying to nail down the story. It's what every Washington insider is talking about: what's inside those sealed records down in Albemarle County. Now that the Allen campaign is about to go on the airwaves about sex scenes in Jim Webb's books, maybe you should know about this too.

Political Wire has more on this. My feeling on the Virginia Senate race is that Allen will win it in a squeaker unless he says something else that is really stupid and/or more bad things come out about his past.

With regard to all this recent buzz about Allen, Taegan Goddard has this to say: "A very reputable political reporter tells me this isn't from Democratic opposition research and that it's probably coming out because many feel Allen 'crossed the line' when he started talking about Jim Webb's novels."

When I heard about the attack on Jim Webb's novels yesterday, the first thing I thought of was the novel Lynne Cheney wrote featuring two characters who were involved in a lesbian love affair. More examples of right-wing extremists including explicit sexual references in their works of fiction can be found here.

Some liberals got all over Lynne Cheney for what she wrote many years ago, but I wasn't all that bothered by it. Just because people write about something in a book doesn't necessarily mean they are big fans of it -- sometimes it does, of course -- but such criticism would be akin to attacking the author of the Bible simply because Satan was mentioned in it.

God I Hate The Liberal Media

From Think Progress:

NBC is refusing to air an ad for the new Dixie Chicks documentary, “Shut Up & Sing.” Variety reports, “NBC’s commercial clearance department said in writing that it ‘cannot accept these spots as they are disparaging to President Bush.’”

Harvey Weinstein, who is distributing the movie, issued the following statement:

It’s a sad commentary about the level of fear in our society that a movie about a group of courageous entertainers who were blacklisted for exercising their right of free speech is now itself being blacklisted by corporate America. The idea that anyone should be penalized for criticizing the president is profoundly un-American.

Here is the full trailer for the movie.

List of Underreported/Unreported Stories

Alterman found this list in a Media Matters comments section of topics that the so-called liberal media under-reported or never reported:

1) Downing Street Memos
2) Media Ownership (deregulation)
3) Disappearance of Habeas Corpus
4) Fairness Doctrine no longer enforced
5) Freedom of Information Act ratcheted up
6) Bush family close relationship with Bin Ladins
7) Bush family close relationship with the recently departed (yeah right) Ken Lay (Enron)
8) The strategic importance of running that oil pipieline thru Afghanistan
9) Congress working to draft legislation to strangle internet (net neutrality)
10) Military Bases in Iraq
11) All the old Iran-Contra players currently working for Bushco
12) The scummy manner which the medicare prescription bill was passed that has allowed drug companies to make off like bandits
13) Journalists targeted in Iraq
14) The danger posed by a 6 trillion dollar national debt
15) The danger posed by unregulated hedge funds
16) Why labor gets almost no TV time and management dominates the airwaves
17) Oil executives secretly meeting to write our energy policy (fascism)
18) Bankers allowed to write bankruptcy bill (fascism)

If I went thru my notes I could've easily found 100 more stories of great importance the "liberal" media hasn't touched.

[...]

20) Voting Integrity (a few stories hitting airwaves now weeks before election..too late)
21) Purging of voter rolls..see GregPalast.com for info that'll make u sick!
22) Depleted Uranium from the hundreds of thousands of shell casings in Iraq
23) Delay and Abramoff running sweat shops/prison camps in Marinas Islands and forcing young Chinese girls into prostitution then abortions
24) Fake, gay (not a fake gay but a fake reporter) reporter Jeff Gannon sleeping over at White House multiple times.
25) Sibel Edmonds being silenced and what she knows about 9/11, Denny Hastert and illegal arms sales.
26) Bill Frist sneaking legislation into a Defense bill to protect big Pharma from lawsuits.
27) Choicepoint collecting data on you perhaps even your DNA.

Some Good News Courtesy Of Political Wire

The first piece of good news relates to the "Michael J. Fox" Effect, and it explains why the GOP felt compelled to go after MJF so aggressively:

A new national study revealed that voters' support for stem cell research "increased after they viewed an ad featuring Michael J. Fox in which he expresses his support for candidates who are in favor of stem cell research."

Key finding: "Republicans who indicated that they were voting for a Republican candidate decreased by 10% after viewing the ad (77% to 67%). Independents planning to vote for Democrats increased by 10%, from 39% to 49%."

The second good piece of news relates to Oregon politics, and its very encouraging:

A new Riley Research poll shows Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski (D) "has pulled ahead" in the governor's race, leading challenger Ron Saxton (R) by 11 points, 47% to 36%.

Key finding: "Kulongoski has made significant gains among independent voters, the fastest-growing sector of the Oregon electorate."

Although I don't think that all members of the GOP are wicked, I do think that Ron Saxton is one of those Grover Norquist "Government Must Be Destroyed Because It Is Evil" Republicans who have no business running for political office in the post-Katrina era.

Jean Schmidt's Idiocy Never Ceases To Amaze

Yesterday I linked to what I consider to be the best politcal ad so far this season. It's an ad produced by Victoria Wulsin's campaign. Wulsin is running against "Mean Jean" Schmidt, the Ohio congresswoman who last year called Jack Murtha a coward during open debate in the House. Well, Schmidt has responded to this ad:

Rep. Jean Schmidt blasted Democrat Victoria Wulsin on Wednesday for allegedly breaking a U.S. House rule that prohibits using the broadcast of House floor proceedings in campaign ads.

"Her continued violation will land her in serious trouble with the House Ethics Committee," Schmidt's spokesman Matt Perin said in a release, referring to the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, which the release mistakenly referred to elsewhere as the "House Committee on Official Standards and Conduct."

Besides those errors, there's just one more tiny problem: Wulsin, who is challenging Schmidt in the 2nd District, is not a member of the House. Not yet anyway.

Wulsin's new ad shows Schmidt telling Democratic Rep. John Murtha that "cowards cut and run, Marines never do."

Schmidt, a Miami Township Republican, was booed after her Nov. 18, 2005, speech. It's against House rules to refer to another lawmaker by name or to disparage him on the House floor.

"The only person in this race who has broken House rules is Jean Schmidt," Wulsin spokesman Ady Barkan said. "If she didn't want people to see this ad, then she shouldn't have given that speech."

I have no doubt that Mean Jean will be making an appearance in this Monday's Top Ten Conservative Idiots.

Keeping Talking, George (You Too, Rush)

Was it Karl Rove's idea for Bush to have another press conference this morning, his second news conference in two weeks? If so, then once again, I am not impressed. And neither is at least one GOP strategist:

One Republican strategist close to the White House says this news conference was a big mistake. *** He says he was flooded with calls from Republicans nationwide who say the president needs to do less talking in the campaign's final days, not more.

I listened to some of the news conference this morning. Bush talked a lot about Iraq, and what he said was pretty pathetic. Indeed, all Bush accomplished this morning was to remind everyone of just how much of an idiot he is and just how shitty the situation in Iraq continues to be. The debacle in Iraq is so bad, in fact, that Bill Frist doesn't think that any Republicans should be talking about it right now:

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist says if Republican candidates want to succeed on Election Day, they should turn their focus away from the Iraq war.

"The challenge is to get Americans to focus on pocketbook issues, and not on the Iraq and terror issue," Frist said in an interview with the Concord Monitor on Tuesday.

And speaking of monumental screw-ups in the run-up to the Mid-Terms, does the GOP really want to challenge the Democrats on the issue of stem cell research? Last I heard, a majority of the country supports it, so you'd think the GOP would want to stay as far away from that issue as possible. After all, wouldn't it simply work to remind voters just how far out of the mainstream the GOP is right now?

But stem cell research is a big issue once again, thanks to the idiocy of Rush Limbaugh.

I never thought I'd be pleased about something Oxycontin Rush says, but he really gave the Democrats a big boost when he accused Michael J. Fox of exaggerating his symptoms of Parkinson's Disease during a series of political ads. These ads were originally designed to target specific races back East, but thanks to Limbaugh's bullshit accusations, we're seeing them run repeatedly on network and cable news shows. You just can't buy exposure like that. [Limbaugh, by the way, did not apologize for his remarks even though elements of the Corporate Media claim that he did].

Anyway, the next two week should be pretty interesting. In fact, given what I've seen so far, I wouldn't be surprised if the GOP tried to resurrect the Terri Schiavo debate for one more go-around.

My Favorite Political Ad So Far This Season

Sure, maybe there are better ones out there, but this one struck a chord with me because it tears Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-Ohio) into ribbons, and that makes me very happy, because she really deserves it. She's one of my least favorite people in Congress, and that's saying a lot.

Schmidt was the congresswoman who called Jack Murtha a coward during debate on the House floor last year. She was forced to withdraw her words or else she would have been censured by the House leadership. The ad was masterfully produced, right down to the positioning of the words "The House Will Be In Order!"

And by the way, here is the DNC's new "Stay The Course" ad. It's pretty good too.

I'm Tired Of This Crap

Your tax dollars at work:

Last week, U.S. troops received messages from the State Department and the Pentagon explaining how to vote in the congressional race in ex-Rep. Mark Foley’s (R-FL) former district.

The emails provided detailed instructions explaining how to vote for Foley’s replacement, Joe Negron, but failed to even mention the two other candidates in the race. * * *

There is no mention in this email of the other candidates in the race, Democrat Tim Mahoney and independent Emmie Ross. As a result, Mahoney had to issue a separate message to soldiers yesterday explaining that troops could also vote for him or Ross. Mahoney’s letter also included instructions on how soldiers could vote for Joe Negron.

Please Let This Happen Before Election Day

From U.S. News:

The FBI and Justice Department appear to be expanding their probe into the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal in hopes of nabbing another member of Congress and aides, according to sources involved in the case.

The sources said that Justice is acting on more information gathered from Abramoff – who insiders say now has his own desk at the FBI to help in the investigation–and other scandal figures. It isn't backing off the public corruption case even though no new lawmakers or top Hill aides have emerged as suspects in recent weeks.

"We thought it was wrapping up, but they've indicated that it is really about to expand," said one source involved in the case. "It's not ending anytime soon or even when he goes to jail."

Of course, I doubt BushCo's Justice Department will move on any of this prior to the Mid-Terms, but who knows -- maybe they'll surprise us.

And speaking of the Mid-Terms, here are some poll results from MSNBC/McClatchy (via Political Wire):

Pennsylvania: Bob Casey (D) leads Rick Santorum (R), 51% to 39%
Rhode Island: Sheldon Whitehouse (D) leads Lincoln Chafee (R), 48% to 43%
Missouri: Claire McCaskill (D) leads Jim Talent (R), 46% to 43%
New Jersey: Bob Menendez (D) leads Thomas Kean Jr (R), 45% to 42%
Washington: Maria Cantwell (D) leads Mike McGavick (R), 52% to 37%
Ohio: Sherrod Brown (D) leads Mike DeWine (R), 48% to 40%
Montana: Jon Tester (D) leads Conrad Burns (R), 46% to 43%
Tennessee: Bob Corker (R) leads Harold Ford (D), 45% to 43%
Virginia: George Allen (R) leads James Webb (D), 47% to 43%

Half A Billion (with an update on BushCo's "Stay The Course!" Course Change)

From CBS News:

More than half a billion dollars earmarked to fight the insurgency in Iraq was stolen by people the U.S. had entrusted to run the country's Ministry of Defense before the 2005 elections, according to Iraqi investigators.

Iraq's former minister of finance says coalition members like the U.S. and Britain are doing little to help recover the money or catch suspects, most of whom fled the country. The 60 Minutes investigation also turned up audio recordings of a suspect who seems to be discussing the transfer of $45 million to the account of a top political adviser to the interim defense minister.

And if that ain't enough for you, check out this video. Or read this article:

On Sunday and Monday, the U.S. military announced the deaths of seven soldiers and a Marine, bringing the number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq this month to 86 -- the fifth-highest total in any single month since the war began. The only higher monthly tolls were 137 in November 2004, 135 in April 2004, 106 in January 2005, and 96 in October, 2005. Attacks against U.S. and Iraqi forces in Baghdad have increased more than 40 percent since midsummer, U.S. military officials say.

It is so bad in Iraq right now that even Bush himself is claiming that he never took the position that we have to "stay the course" there. I'm trying to remember a time when he didn't take that position.

UPDATE: Kos scores some great points at BushCo's expense:

You've got to love Republicans claiming that they were never for "stay the course". I mean, it takes some serious gumption to get up and lie so blatantly to people who know you are full of shit. But nope, they have no apparent sense of shame.

The funniest part of the whole mess is that "stay the course" was their own framing. It's their words. It's not like the Democrats outframed the GOP on this one. They outframed themselves.

If this whole "let's back away from our stay the course mantra and hope no one notices" plan was Karl Rove's idea, then I am definitely not impressed.

A Political Ad I'd Like To See

I've long had a problem with the GOP's strategy of claiming that we all must be very afraid of al Qaeda, and I'm not merely talking about the fact that taking such a position makes it harder for Republicans to argue that they are doing a great job of dealing with terrorism. My problem with the strategy stems from the fact that al Qaeda's main weapon is fear, and the GOP simply aids and abets the Evildoers every time it brings up how fearful we must be of al Qaeda.

The most recent example of this can be found in the Republican National Committee's latest ad, which features quotes from bin Laden showing how intent he is at causing us harm and that "What is yet to come will be even greater." The ad concludes: "These are the stakes. Vote November 7."

The Democrats' response ad practically writes itself. It should simply show a bit of the RNC's ad, mention that spreading fear is also the favorite weapon of bin Laden, and then close with something like this:

al Qaeda doesn't need operatives in the U.S. to spread fear through the American population, because the Republican National Committee seems more than happy to do al Qaeda's dirty work on that front. What do you call it when you repeatedly provide aid to an enemy?

And yes, the Democrats' response ad should end by accusing the RNC of acting like a bunch of traitors. After all, as blogger Marc Lynch notes (via Kevin Drum), the GOP is starting to act like the terrorists:

This is not just a video which suggests that Republicans will be better at fighting terror. It actually very closely resembles real al-Qaeda videos....This video would not look out of place on a jihadi forum, and it wouldn't surprise me if it actually gets posted on them and admired (although the production values are a bit low for an actual al-Sahab product).

Anyone involved in analyzing or combating al-Qaeda's media strategies has to be astounded that the Republican National Committee has financed, produced, distributed on the internet, and aired on US television what is for all intents and purposes an al-Qaeda recruitment video. The video, if it works as intended, will frighten the American people and influence American politics... just like al-Qaeda's own videos. Bin Laden couldn't be prouder, or more grateful, especially since it didn't cost him a thing.

Kevin Drum thinks that the Democrats should respond by running an ad "showing a mushroom cloud over the Korean peninsula and asking how George Bush let things get to this point." That's a good idea, but it doesn't attack the RNC ad head-on and then raise the stakes. My ad would.

Peggy Noonan: An Idiot In The Extreme

I've often noted on this blog that the good, patriotic Americans who oppose extremism in this country never go far enough in responding to the attacks from the Radical Right. And that's why I found right-wing extremist Peggy Noonan's recent Wall Street Journal column to be pretty hysterical. She writes:

Free speech means hearing things you like and agree with, and it means allowing others to speak whose views you do not like or agree with. This--listening to the other person with respect and forbearance, and with an acceptance of human diversity--is the price we pay for living in a great democracy. And it is a really low price for such a great thing.

We all know this, at least in the abstract. Why are so many forgetting it in the particular?

Let us be more pointed. Students, stars, media movers, academics: They are always saying they want debate, but they don't. They want their vision imposed. They want to win. And if the win doesn't come quickly, they'll rush the stage, curse you out, attempt to intimidate.

And they don't always recognize themselves to be bullying. So full of their righteousness are they that they have lost the ability to judge themselves and their manner.

And all this continues to come more from the left than the right in America.

Please excuse the indelicate language, but is she fucking kidding me? Does Noonan really believe that more vitriol is coming from the left than from the right? Does she ever listen to Oxycontin Rush or Heil Hannity? If not, then why not? Is it because she's been living in a Pakistani cave these last few years raising bin Laden's love child?

Eric Boehlert has this to say in response to Noonan's ridiculous assertions:

Noonan's attempted maneuver about grace and free speech is clunky, but it's not unfamiliar. She's simply mimicking a popular right-wing attack that happens to be a classic Rovian, jujitsu thrust, which is to acknowledge your own weakness -- unhinged hatred for liberals and bullying desire to muzzle dissent -- and relentlessly project it onto your opponents, arguing that they're the ones who have blinders on and are driven by partisan rage. Consequently, Republican pundits pretend it's high-minded conservatives -- gentlemen and women who prefer the Queensbury Rules of intellectual combat -- who are trying to cling to a fading notion of poise and civility in the public square.

Where to begin? You could start with Media Matters for America's catalog of graceless attacks made by the likes of O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Rush Limbaugh, who owe their careers to their willingness to assault political opponents and stomp on minority viewpoints. In terms of Noonan herself, travel back to last year's Terri Schiavo right-to-die controversy and try to find the grace hidden in the insults Noonan hurled against anyone who disagreed with her radical notion that Congress needed to overrule the rights of Schiavo's husband and keep Terri alive via legislation. To Noonan, her opponents had a "bizarre passion" for death, were "unstable," "unhinged," and "red-fanged and ravenous." She warned that they were paving "the low road that twists past Columbine and leads toward Auschwitz."

And keep in mind that, by 2000, Noonan had literally run out of ways to call Clinton a creep and a predator (she once suggested he was being sexually blackmailed by Fidel Castro's intelligence service), so she started demonizing Al Gore, who was "not fully stable" and "altogether as strange and disturbing as Bill Clinton." And Noonan was actually late to the Gore name-calling game, which formed the foundation for mainstream conservative commentary during the 2000 election when Gore was "a monster willing to trash the whole country" (The National Review; 12/04/00) as well as being "self-obsessed, conniving, dangerous" (The Weekly Standard; 12/04/00).

The rest of Boehlert's response to Noonan is pretty good and is definitely worth reading. I find it troubling, though, that Boehlert felt compelled to write it. I mean, isn't it obvious that Noonan is completely full of shit?

Of course it is. But extremists like Noonan have no problem writing such crap because they know that right-wing blowhards pretty much dominate the political discussion in America these days and that no one in the Mainstream Media (except for Keith Olbermann) will challenge their nonsense.

More Good News From Iraq

From the AP:

The Shiite militia run by the anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr seized control of a southern Iraqi city on Friday in one of the boldest acts of defiance yet by the country's powerful, unofficial armies, witnesses and police said.

Mahdi Army fighters stormed three main police stations Friday morning, residents said, planting explosives that flattened the buildings in Amarah, a city just 30 miles from the Iranian border that was under British command until August, when it was returned to Iraqi government control.

Heckuva job, Rummy.

Lottery Hold 'Em

I played in a hold 'em tourney at a local place called Jokers the other night. There were about 50 players in the tourney, and the buy-in got you 400 worth of chips with blinds starting at 5/10 and going up every fifteen minutes. It was a very well-run tourney, but it reminded me more of a lottery than a real poker tournament.

On the very first hand at my table, a couple of players had well over half of their stacks in play. Several people were out of the tourney in less than five minutes. I lasted about 20 minutes. I was crippled when my pocket tens lost to pocket aces, then was taken out on the next hand when my K-10 lost to pocket fives -- I got a ten on the flop, but a five showed up on the turn and I was gone.

In any event, it didn't feel like real poker -- as mentioned above, it was more like a lottery where you hope to get lucky and get dealt a good hand (or otherwise draw out to a good hand) in the first few minutes so you could survive longer than a half hour. The format didn't offer much of an opportunity to play poker, at least it didn't at my table. Liz also played -- she was at my table, and didn't last much longer than I did. She was crippled when her AJ lost to a guy holding an J-3 (a jack and a three hit on the flop). Maybe lack of skill could explain my poor performance, but Liz (aka The Head Hunter) is a good player.

I guess you could simply wait for a monster like AA or KK and then go all-in when that happens, but that isn't much fun (especially if the AA or the KK don't show up, or they do show up but get cracked). I've played in several bigger tournaments before where they try to move things along, but they all allowed at least some real poker to be played (either by giving you more chips in proportion to the starting blinds or allowing for re-buys). Maybe I was simply at an unusually aggressive table, but I doubt it.

But, as I said, it was well-run, and the place is pretty nice. I may try my luck again there someday.

New Zogby Polls Out (Plus Update On House Page Scandal)

You can see the new Zogby results here. Some of the more interesting ones:

Oregon Governor's Race -- Kulongoski (D) 47%, Saxton (R) 44%;
Ohio Governor's Race -- Strickland (D) 51%, Blackwell (R) 41%;
Ohio Senate Race -- Brown (D) 49%, DeWine (R) 45%;
Pennsylvania Senate Race -- Casey (D) 52%, Santorum (R) 44%;
New Jersey Senate Race -- Kean (R) 47%, Menendez (D) 45%;
Connecticut Senate Race -- Lieberman (CFL) 49%, Lamont (D) 43%

Santorum only eight points behind Casey in Pennsylvania? God help us. Regarding the Ohio Governor's race, I know that evil sonofabitch Ken Blackwell is running an incredibly negative campaign against Strickland, and the strategy appears to be working. And, by the way, this is hysterical.

Remember, all the GOP needs to do is get close enough in these elections to steal them, and I have no doubt there are plans in the works to do so.

And speaking of the upcoming Mid-Term elections, it looks like another member of Hastert's staff has been implicated in the DiddlerGate Scandal:

The former clerk of the House of Representatives, Jeff Trandahl, who testified for more than four hours before the House Ethics Committee today, is believed to have testified that a top aide to House Speaker Dennis Hastert was informed of "all issues dealing with the page program," according to a Republican familiar with the investigation.

The Republican source said Trandahl planned to name Ted Van Der Meid, the speaker's counsel and floor manager, as the person who was briefed on a regular basis about any issue that arose in the page program, including a "problem group of members and staff who spent too much time socializing with pages outside of official duties." One of whom was Mark Foley.

Let me see if I got this right -- Hastert's apparent position is that he wasn't aware of this problem, yet it now appears that at least two of his staffers were. If this truly is the case, then Hastert should resign on the grounds of extreme incompetence.

Too Funny

Bill Clinton said this in a speech yesterday:

"The ideological, right-wing element of the Republican Party has been building strength, partly in reaction to things that happened 40 years ago — Barry Goldwater's defeat, the excess of the '60s, Ronald Reagan's election" he said. "But this is the first time on a consistent basis, the most conservative, the most ideological wing of the Republican Party has had both the executive and legislative branches with a very distinct governing philosophy and very distinct political philosophy."

He said the United States' effort to develop new weapons and cut taxes undercut the moral arguments.

"They favor unilateralism whenever possible and cooperation when it is inevitable," Clinton said without specifically mentioning members of the Bush administration.

"The problem with ideology is, if you've got an ideology, you've already got your mind made up. You know all the answers and that makes evidence irrelevant and arguments a waste of time. You tend to govern by assertion and attacks."

Pretty hard to argue with that, right? Well, apparently it is very hard to argue with that, particularly if you are Tracy "Moth To The Flame" Schmitt, the spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee. Here's her response:

"It's not surprising to hear these attacks from a man widely recognized for repeatedly playing the blame game to cover his own mistakes."

I love it.

Meanwhile, there's a lot of buzz on the Internets saying that a certain Republican Congressman from Illinois -- who shall not be named here -- is about to be implicated in the House Page Kid-Diddling Scandal. If that does happen, I think the GOP can pretty much kiss the House goodbye.

OK, I'll give you a hint -- it ain't Hastert.

This Makes Me Happy

From Political Wire:

Rep. Ted Strickland (D-OH) now holds a 59% to 32% lead over Ken Blackwell (R) among likely voters in the race for Ohio Governor, according to a new Quinnipiac poll. Nine percent are undecided and 13% say they might change their mind before Election Day.

My regular readers know I'm not a big Ken Blackwell fan, so I'm happy to see that he's going to lose big. Katherine Harris is also losing big to Bill Nelson in the Florida Senate race -- Nelson has a 61-33 percent lead over Harris in the most recent poll.

I guess crime really doesn't pay.

Losing Afghanistan

Bush's disastrous decision to invade Iraq will undoubtedly go down as one of the worst foreign policy blunders in American history -- 2782 American troops killed there so far (including 69 dead this month already and ten troops killed today), tens of thousands of troops injured, 600,000 Iraqi civilians killed, hundreds of billions of dollars wasted.

Sure, there's plenty to be mad about, but I think this side effect of the Iraq Debacle pisses me off the most:

The U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan failed to follow through as it should have after ousting the Taliban government in 2001, setting the stage for this year's deadly resurgence, the NATO commander in the country said Tuesday.

The mistake consisted of adopting "a peacetime approach" too early, British Gen. David Richards told Pentagon reporters. He said the international community has six months to correct the problem before losing Afghan support, reiterating a warning he issued last week.

"The Taliban were defeated. ... And it looked all pretty hunky-dory," Richard said of the environment at the end of 2001. "We thought it was all done ... and didn't treat it as aggressively as ... with the benefit of hindsight, we should have done." ***

Just think how mad you'd be if you had lost a family member in Afghanistan, and then had to watch in horror as Bush let the Taliban rise again in that country just so he could attack and occupy a nation that was no threat to us. Bush's incompetence with regard to the Iraq War and the War on Terror is so profound that it pretty much rises to the level of treason.

This Is Interesting

From Political Wire:

The morning after the 1994 election, while Democrats were licking their wounds, they got kicked again when Sen. Richard Shelby announced that he was switching his party affiliation from Democrat to Republican. Shortly after Shelby's switch, Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell jumped to the GOP side too. In addition, several more House Democrats who were reelected in 1994 from mostly southern states, switched to the GOP making the 1994 election a good old fashioned ass kicking of the Democratic party.

There is a realistic possibility that if the Democrats pick up at least five Senate seats on Election Night, several current Republican Senators could switch to the Democratic side of the aisle. Remember, Shelby switched because he felt Democrats were incapable of moving away from liberalism and Campbell switched because he felt Democrats were beholden to cronyism and did not respect other views among colleagues on issues important to Campbell. In 2006, cronyism is alive and well in the GOP ranks: Arlen Specter is shunned by the GOP leadership and White House for his views on domestic surveillance while Olympia Snowe, John Warner and Chuck Hagel are shunned for their views on Iraq.

I doubt Chuck Hagel would make the switch, because I think he's planning to run for president in 2008 as a moderate Republican, but Olympia Snowe might do it.

Bush Thinks Two-Thirds Of The American People Are "illogical"

From Think Progress:

Yesterday Fox News host Bill O’Reilly asked President Bush whether the “anti-Bush press” is responsible for the American public turning against the war in Iraq. Bush agreed with O’Reilly, stating that he’s “disappointed that people would propagandize to that effect because the stakes are too high for that kind of illogical behavior.”

As Think Progress notes, however, sixty-four percent of the country now disapproves of Bush’s handling of the war in Iraq, and a recent CNN poll has Bush's disapproval rating at 61%, an all-time high for that poll.

If the stakes really are as high as Bush says, why do we only have 130,000 troops in Iraq right now? Shouldn't we have more like 500,000? Bush's problem is that, over the last few years, his administration and its apologists in Congress have politicize the War In Iraq to such an extent that the particular political turd known as the Iraq Debacle is now squarely in the GOP's pocket.

GOP Determines That The Pennsylvania and Ohio Senate Races Are Un-Stealable

A couple of days ago, TPM Muckraker reported that the national GOP isn't giving any money for ads to help Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania hang on to his Senate seat. Now we learn that the GOP is also giving up on the Senate race in Ohio:

Senior Republican leaders have concluded that Senator Mike DeWine of Ohio, a pivotal state in this year’s fierce midterm election battles, is likely to be heading for defeat and are moving to reduce financial support for his race and divert party money to other embattled Republican senators, party officials said.

The decision to effectively write off Mr. DeWine’s seat, after a series of internal Republican polls showed him falling behind his Democratic challenger, is part of a fluid series of choices by top leaders in both parties as they set the strategic framework of the campaign’s final three weeks, signaling, by where they are spending television money and other resources, the Senate and House races where they believe they have the best chances of success.

Republicans are now pinning their hopes of holding the Senate on three states — Missouri, Tennessee and, with Ohio off the table, probably Virginia — while trying to hold on to the House by pouring money into districts where Republicans have a strong historical or registration advantage, party officials said Sunday. Republicans also said they would run advertisements in New Jersey this week to test the vulnerability of Senator Robert Menendez, one of the few Democrats who appear endangered.

Meanwhile, the U.S.S. Eisenhower continues its journey to the Straits of Hormuz. Billmon and Digby have more on this.

I'd be genuinely surprised if Bush did not attack Iran prior to the election. What does he have to lose? Even Bush must realize that his presidency is probably finished if the Democrats take over either the House or the Senate, so why not attack Iran.

If the strategy fails, he could always move to South America. Bush is reportedly buying huge tracts of land in Paraguay. Maybe he's planning on fleeing the United States on November 8th. If he did so, it would be his greatest accomplishment as president.

Had Enough Yet?

This is incredible. Bush apparently wants a do-over when it comes to the Iraq's "democratically-elected" government. Right Wing Extremist and Bush Apologist David Brooks said this on Chris Matthews' show:

Matthews: David, do you believe the President is looking for an out from his doctrinaire policy of staying the course?

Brooks: Not really, no I don't. I think they're looking at policy options. One of those options is trying to replace the current government which seems to be doing nothing. The second option is some sort of federation which–Joe Biden has suggested as separating Iraq. A third option and by far the least likely is going in with more troops, So there's all different three options…We have much less control over Iraq than we did two or three years ago…

For the last few years, we've been subjected to Bush's bullshit on how Democracy is on the move in the Middle East thanks to his decision to invade Iraq, but now someone with great access to the White House is claiming that our Deserter-in-Chief is looking into replacing the Iraqi government.

Can we finally stop talking about democracy in Iraq now?

Meanwhile, it now appears that Faux News' Chris Wallace actually is the BushCo whore that everyone knew he was:

More than 20,000 people emailed Chris Wallace and demanded he ask Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice this question today:

Prior to 9/11, you had eight months to respond to the al-Qaeda attack on the U.S.S. Cole. Why didn’t the Bush administration take action and put al-Qaeda out of business?

Wallace didn’t ask the question or any question on the topic. It’s the twenty-fourth time Rice has been on Fox News Sunday since 9/11 without being asked about the U.S.S. Cole.

Last month, Fox’s Chris Wallace asked President Clinton why he didn’t respond to the Oct. 12, 2000 bombing of the U.S.S. Cole. He asked the question even though the “CIA and the FBI refused to certify that Bin Laden was responsible” until early 2001, which foreclosed the possibility of a full response during the Clinton administration.

Wallace claimed he asked the question of Clinton because “I got a lot of e-mail from viewers.”

How hard would it have been for Wallace to ask that question? Hell, it would have given him some credibility. But he couldn't ask that question because (1) FoxNews is merely an extension of the extreme right wing of the Republican Party, meaning that Wallace probably has no control over what questions he asks, and (2) Condi wouldn't have been able to answer it because BushCo did nothing in response to the Cole attack.

And, by the way -- I wonder how many e-mails Chris Wallace and/or FoxNews actually received from viewers who wanted to know why Clinton didn't respond to the attack on the Cole?

Redeploy And Contain

Here is what James Baker, friend of the Bush Family, and his commission have concluded with regard to the Iraq Debacle:

A commission formed to assess the Iraq war and recommend a new course has ruled out the prospect of victory for America, according to draft policy options shared with The New York Sun by commission officials.

Currently, the 10-member commission — headed by a secretary of state for President George H.W. Bush, James Baker — is considering two option papers, "Stability First" and "Redeploy and Contain," both of which rule out any prospect of making Iraq a stable democracy in the near term.

More telling, however, is the ruling out of two options last month. One advocated minor fixes to the current war plan but kept intact the long-term vision of democracy in Iraq with regular elections. The second proposed that coalition forces focus their attacks only on Al Qaeda and not the wider insurgency.

Instead, the commission is headed toward presenting President Bush with two clear policy choices that contradict his rhetoric of establishing democracy in Iraq. The more palatable of the two choices for the White House, "Stability First," argues that the military should focus on stabilizing Baghdad while the American Embassy should work toward political accommodation with insurgents. The goal of nurturing a democracy in Iraq is dropped. * * *

So what about this "redeploy and contain" strategy? It sounds a bit like "cut and run" to me:

The "Redeploy and Contain" option calls for the phased withdrawal of American soldiers from Iraq, though the working groups have yet to say when and where those troops will go. The document, read over the telephone to the Sun, says America should "make clear to allies and others that U.S. redeployment does not reduce determination to attack terrorists wherever they are." It also says America's top priority should be minimizing American casualties in Iraq.

Meanwhile, the new Chief of the British Army said today that British troops should be out of Iraq within two years (although I heard on NPR this morning that he is trying to back away from that comment).

The Rove-Foley Connection

I guess we all knew that the White House was involved in the Foley Scandal at some level. After all, Congress these days pretty much does what the White House tells it to do. But now we are starting to get some of the details (from The New Republic via AmericaBlog):

It seems increasingly clear that the GOP congressional leadership, eager for every safe incumbent in the House to run for re-election, looked the other way as evidence accumulated that Mark Foley had a thing for pages. Holding onto his seat became more important than confronting him over his extracurricular activities.

But there's more to the story of why Foley stood for re-election this year. Yesterday, a source close to Foley explained to THE NEW REPUBLIC that in early 2006 the congressman had all but decided to retire from the House and set up shop on K Street. "Mark's a friend of mine," says this source. "He told me, 'I'm thinking about getting out of it and becoming a lobbyist.'"

But when Foley's friend saw the Congressman again this spring, something had changed. To the source's surprise, Foley told him he would indeed be standing for re-election. What happened? Karl Rove intervened.

According to the source, Foley said he was being pressured by "the White House and Rove gang," who insisted that Foley run. If he didn't, Foley was told, it might impact his lobbying career.

"He said, 'The White House made it very clear I have to run,'" explains Foley's friend, adding that Foley told him that the White House promised that if Foley served for two more years it would "enhance his success" as a lobbyist. "I said, 'I thought you wanted out of this?' And he said, 'I do, but they're scared of losing the House and the thought of two years of Congressional hearings, so I have two more years of duty.'"

The White House declined a request for comment on the matter, but obviously the plan hasn't worked out quite as Rove hoped it would.

I have no doubt that certain high ranking officials in the White House knew that Foley was a sexual predator. How do I know this? Because there is no evidence that they didn't know.

More Information On Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift

A few days ago, I posted some material with regard to Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, the Navy lawyer who led a successful Supreme Court challenge of BushCo's military tribunals for Guantanamo detainees. Swift was passed over for promotion and now has to leave the military.

Here are excerpts from an article which appeared in last June's New York Times:

A military defense lawyer told a Senate hearing on Wednesday that when military authorities first asked him to represent a detainee at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, he was instructed that he could negotiate only a guilty plea.

The lawyer, Lt. Cmdr. Charles D. Swift of the Navy, who represents a Yemeni, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, said that he regarded the effort, in December 2003, "as a clear attempt to coerce to Mr. Hamdan into pleading guilty."

Commander Swift testified that when he visited Mr. Hamdan, he discovered that the prisoner did not want to plead guilty, as the authorities had apparently believed from their earlier interrogation of him, conducted without a lawyer.

So, instead of negotiating a guilty plea, Commander Swift began a spirited defense, according to his testimony. He filed motions to ensure that he be entitled to represent Mr. Hamdan and demanded that his client be given a health examination. * * *

At Wednesday's hearing, Lt. Gen. Thomas Hemingway of the Air Force, the legal adviser to the military authority that runs the commissions, told the committee there was never any threat of coercion in Mr. Hamdan's case.

The authorities eventually charged Mr. Hamdan with crimes involving terrorism, asserting that he was a driver and bodyguard for Osama bin Laden. A federal judge halted his trial, saying the military commissions were unconstitutional. The government has appealed.

Commander Swift read a letter in which the chief prosecutor, Col. Fred Borch of the Army, wrote that he would ensure that a defense lawyer be given access to Mr. Hamdan and that "such access shall continue so long as we are engaged in pretrial negotiations."

Commander Swift said, "I was deeply troubled that to ensure that Mr. Hamdan would plead guilty as planned, the chief prosecutor's request came with a critical condition that the defense counsel was for the limited purpose of 'negotiating a guilty plea' to an unspecified offense and that Mr. Hamdan's access to counsel was conditioned on his willingness to negotiate such a plea."

General Hemingway testified that Commander Swift was mistaken and that, "in the first place, the chief defense counsel is the individual who appointed Lt. Cmdr. Swift to defend Mr. Hamdan, not the prosecutor."

This article from The Telegraph also contains some good background.

Here's The GOP's Plan With Regard To The Foley Diddler-Gate Scandal

From the Washington Post:

The GOP's emerging strategy on the Foley scandal is to try to limit losses among conservative voters who are expressing alarm about the scandal and about the apparent failure of GOP leaders to act on early warnings about Foley's behavior.

As part of that strategy, the Republican National Committee is seeking to convince conservatives that the debate is fundamentally centered on politics, not values. The RNC is shipping reams of information to conservative radio hosts, television commentators and bloggers. Those GOP talking points detail the Democratic connections of groups including the Center for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and American Family Voices, which are working to turn the scandal into an issue with national implications.

And Raw Story has this to add:

A story appearing in the American Spectator claims that news of then-Congressman Mark Foley's (R-FL) inappropriate communication with pages was supposed to be released by Democratic "party operatives" at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington or American Family Voices just ten days prior to the election.

C.R.E.W. has contended that they received Foley emails many months ago, and turned what they had over to law enforcement, rather than passing it along to journalists.

That's a pretty interesting strategy. Let me see if I got this right. The plan is to accuse the Democrats of wanting to release this information right before the election, but they were prevented from doing so because someone else -- another group of America-hating liberals, no doubt -- released it last July, but intentionally didn't release enough information for the FBI to seriously investigate the allegations, thus keeping the story under wraps while at the same time giving themselves cover because, after all, these evil liberal groups did try to tell the F.B.I. (kind of).

Wow, that's quite a plan. Is the average Rush Limbaugh listener even capable of following the bouncing ball on that one? Well, I guess it will give Hannity, Limbaugh, O'Reilly, and the rest of them something to talk about during the run-up the mid-term elections. The Dittoheads will undoubtedly nod their heads in agreement even if they don't quite grasp what the hell is being said.

And I guess this explains why the FBI is lying to everyone on this issue. It's all part of a coordinated GOP strategy to brand this whole Foley Scandal as nothing more than a Liberal Dirty Trick.

Of course, in order for such a strategy to work, the GOP will have to convince their disgruntled voters that C.R.E.W. really did not send complete versions of the Foley e-mails to the F.B.I. back in July. The facts appear to show otherwise.

But I think the real problem with the GOP strategy is the whole "who gives a shit where this came from" component that is built right into this situation. Foley did send the e-mails. He did resign from Congress. Hastert and other Republicans leaders did know for quite some time that Foley was a sexual predator. I just think that all these facts will probably overcome the GOP's "let's blame the messenger" approach, particularly given that the success of such a strategy largely depends on the Republicans' ability to re-write history.

No, I think the GOP's best shot at weathering this storm is the whole "Let's Blame The Gay Cabal In Congress" plan to which I referred in an earlier post. After all, members of the Extreme Religious Right hate gay people a lot more than they hate liberals.

Don't they?

UPDATE: This Daily Show piece on the Foley Scandal is hilarious (and quite informative as well).

Why Does American Foreign Policy Have To Be Based On The U.S. Election Cycle?

Here's something you probably won't hear from the Corporate Media -- it appears that Admiral Karl Rove has taken control of the fleet (via Buzzflash):

The nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Eisenhower and its accompanying strike force of cruiser, destroyer and attack submarine slipped their moorings and headed off for the Persian Gulf region on Oct. 2, as I had predicted in a piece in The Nation magazine a few weeks back.

The Eisenhower strike force, according to my sources, is scheduled to arrive in the vicinity of Iran around October 21, at the same time as a second flotilla of minesweepers and other ships.

This build-up of naval power around the coast of Iran, according to some military sources, is in preparation for an air attack on Iran that would target not just Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities, but its entire military command and control system.

While such an attack could be expected to unleash a wave of military violence all over Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and elsewhere against American forces and interests and against oil wells, pipelines and loading vacilities, as well as a mining of the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, with a resulting skyrocketing of global oil prices, the real goal of this new war by the U.S. would be ensuring Republican control of the House and Senate. * * *

It looks like my prediction from last June will be a bit off. I predicted that the U.S. attack on Iran will occur "sometime between mid-September and mid-October 2006." Now it is starting to look like Rove will attack sometime in late October.

Aren't you cutting it a little close there, Karl?

Who's Watching The Watchers?

It appears that the FBI was involved in a cover-up related to the Foley DiddleGate Scandal. The CNN report on this is available here.

According to the FBI, when Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) gave the Bureau Foley's e-mails last July, they were "redacted" and did not include the name of the victim. The FBI claims that these omissions "hampered" its investigation.

Melanie Sloan, CREW's executive director, flat out says in the CNN piece that the FBI is lying, and that she sent -- immediately after she received them herself -- unredacted copies of the e-mails to three different FBI squads, including the cyber squad (this was confirmed by government sources).

Sloan actually named one of the special agents who received copies from her. CNN did not reveal the name, but did attempt to contact her. The agent did not return CNN's calls.

Rumsfeld Gives Successful Navy Lawyer The Shinseki Treatment

Here is a story that I wish would get extensive media coverage but it probably won't:

The Navy lawyer who led a successful Supreme Court challenge of the Bush administration’s military tribunals for detainees at Guantanamo Bay has been passed over for promotion and will have to leave the military, The Miami Herald reported Sunday.

Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, 44, will retire in March or April under the military’s “up or out” promotion system. Swift said last week he was notified he would not be promoted to commander.

He said the notification came about two weeks after the Supreme Court sided with him and against the White House in the case involving Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni who was Osama bin Laden’s driver. * * *

Swift’s supervisor said he served with distinction.

“Charlie has obviously done an exceptional job, a really extraordinary job,” said Marine Col. Dwight Sullivan, the Pentagon’s chief defense counsel for Military Commissions. He added it was “quite a coincidence” that Swift was passed over for a promotion “within two weeks of the Supreme Court opinion.”

Washington, D.C., attorney Eugene Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice, said Swift was “a no-brainer for promotion.” Swift joins many other distinguished Navy officers over the years who have seen their careers end prematurely, Fidell said.

“He brought real credit to the Navy,” Fidell said. “It’s too bad that it’s unrequited love.”

Incompetent folks like Condi Rice and Paul Wolfowitz get promotions, while folks like Lt. Cmdr. Swift and General Eric Shinseki get shitcanned. But that's the way it works in the Bush Regime. This New York Daily News story gives us a bit of background as to why stuff like this happens:

[F]riends, aides and close political allies tell the Daily News Bush is furious with his own side for helping create a political downdraft that has blunted his momentum and endangered GOP prospects for keeping control of Congress next month.

Some of his anger is directed at former aides who helped Watergate journalist Bob Woodward paint a lurid portrait of a dysfunctional, chaotic administration in his new book, "State of Denial."

In the obsessively private Bush clan, talking out of school is the ultimate act of disloyalty, and Bush feels betrayed from within.

"He's ticked off big-time," said a well-informed source, "even if what they said was the truth."

If the Democrats take control of a branch of Congress in November, I'd hate to be in the same room with Bush when he gets the news of such an event. Although I don't think that the House would immediately act to impeach should the Dems gain control, I do think that legitimate investigations will be launched with regard to a number of issues, including illegal wiretapping and the extent to which Bush lied to get this country into Iraq. This is probably what BushCo and its enablers in Congress fear the most. Bush should be feeling a bit jumpy right now.

And by the way, if a Democrat wins the presidency in 2008, that person should acquire a list of all the people that BushCo let go in this manner or otherwise forced out, and make sure these persons are given jobs within the new administration. I don't care if these people are Republicans -- folks like Shinseki, Lt. Col. Swift, Coleen Rowley, and Richard Clarke all served this country with distinction and should be recognized for doing so.

Guilty Until Proven Innocent

Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC) has basically been a one-man GOP bullshit spewer for the last week or so. He's the main guy in the Republican Party who is pushing the notion that it was the Democrats who were responsible for leaking the fact that former Rep. Foley is a sexual predator. And McHenry was doing his bit yesterday on Wolf Blitzer's program:

MCHENRY: The question remains, though: What person, group or political entity had these nasty instant messages and possessed the e-mails in order to solicit this story? And in a partisan environment like we’re in right now in Washington, four weeks out from a national election, that question must be asked.

BLITZER: So what you’re suggesting — and correct me if I’m wrong, because you’ve been doing this for the last few days — that Democrats are behind the timing of the release of this information? Is that your accusation?

MCHENRY: Well, look, all the fact points lead to one question: Did Rahm Emanuel or Nancy Pelosi have any involvement on the strategic or tactical level? This morning on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” the question was asked of Rahm Emanuel. His reaction was he did not see the instant messages or e-mails. He repeatedly said, he did not see. I’ve asked him to testify under oath to assure the American people that he was not involved in this issue in any way, shape or form.

BLITZER: Do you have any evidence at all that Democrats or others might have been behind the timing of this scandal?

MCHENRY: Look, let’s be honest…

BLITZER: Do you have any evidence to back that charge up?

Blitzer asked McHenry four times whether he had any evidence to back up his allegation. McHenry finally answered: "Do you have any evidence that they weren’t involved?"

Rep. Martin T. Meehan (D-Mass.) has a good response to this latest GOP allegation:

If there's any evidence that you need that the values in Washington have turned upside down, you could just hear what Jack had to say. Only in Washington, D.C., can you take a group of people in charge of the House and basically have evidence that they've been looking the other way while a predator has been . . . going after 15- and 16-year-old pages, [and] they somehow . . . have the audacity to turn that into a political attack against Democrats.

Atrios also had a good response:

There is no evidence that Congressman Patrick McHenry hasn't spent the last decade kidnapping babies, raping them, killing them, and piling them up in his basement shrine to Ronald Reagan.

No evidence at all that he hasn't done this.

Quite shocking, really.

I'll say this much -- I hope it was the Democrats who leaked this story. I know all the evidence so far indicates that Republicans leaked it. But I would love it if the Democrats did it, because it would show to me that the Democrats are finally willing to get down and dirty in this fight.

And that is why I am absolutely certain that the Democrats did not leak it.

And speaking of bullshit, I love this:

Commenting on the congressional page scandal surrounding former Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) on the October 6 broadcast of Focus on the Family, James Dobson, founder and chairman of Focus on the Family, declared that the Foley affair has "turned out to be what some people are now saying was a -- sort of a joke by the boy and some of the other pages" who had reportedly come forward with sexually explicit instant messages that Foley allegedly sent. Similarly, in his October 6 column, Wall Street Journal deputy editorial page editor Daniel Henninger wrote that "a rumor emerged that in fact Mark Foley had been pranked by the House pages" and then added: "It is the first plausible thing I've heard in seven days."

OK -- now I get it. What we have here is merely a six-year-long joke. You know -- kind of like the Bush Administration.

Quote Of The Week

From TIME Magazine (via Hoffmania):

Most Profound Man in Iraq — an unidentified farmer in a fairly remote area who, after being asked by Reconnaissance Marines if he had seen any foreign fighters in the area replied "Yes, you."

The TIME piece is a must-read. It consists of excerpts from a Marine's letter home, and he has a lot of good and bad things to say about the Iraq War. Here are a few of my favorites:

Most Surreal Moment — Watching Marines arrive at my detention facility and unload a truck load of flex-cuffed midgets. 26 to be exact. We had put the word out earlier in the day to the Marines in Fallujah that we were looking for Bad Guy X, who was described as a midget. Little did I know that Fallujah was home to a small community of midgets, who banded together for support since they were considered as social outcasts. The Marines were anxious to get back to the midget colony to bring in the rest of the midget suspects, but I called off the search, figuring Bad Guy X was long gone on his short legs after seeing his companions rounded up by the giant infidels. * * *

Biggest Surprise — Iraqi Police. All local guys. I never figured that we'd get a police force established in the cities in al-Anbar. I estimated that insurgents would kill the first few, scaring off the rest. Well, insurgents did kill the first few, but the cops kept on coming. The insurgents continue to target the police, killing them in their homes and on the streets, but the cops won't give up. Absolutely incredible tenacity. The insurgents know that the police are far better at finding them than we are — and they are finding them. Now, if we could just get them out of the habit of beating prisoners to a pulp... * * *

Coolest Insurgent Act — Stealing almost $7 million from the main bank in Ramadi in broad daylight, then, upon exiting, waving to the Marines in the combat outpost right next to the bank, who had no clue of what was going on. The Marines waved back. Too cool. * * *

Biggest Hassle — High-ranking visitors. More disruptive to work than a rocket attack. VIPs demand briefs and "battlefield" tours (we take them to quiet sections of Fallujah, which is plenty scary for them). Our briefs and commentary seem to have no effect on their preconceived notions of what's going on in Iraq. Their trips allow them to say that they've been to Fallujah, which gives them an unfortunate degree of credibility in perpetuating their fantasies about the insurgency here. * * *

Biggest Outrage — Practically anything said by talking heads on TV about the war in Iraq, not that I get to watch much TV. Their thoughts are consistently both grossly simplistic and politically slanted. Biggest Offender: Bill O'Reilly. * * *

Best Chuck Norris Moment — 13 May. Bad Guys arrived at the government center in a small town to kidnap the mayor, since they have a problem with any form of government that does not include regular beheadings and women wearing burqahs. There were seven of them. As they brought the mayor out to put him in a pick-up truck to take him off to be beheaded (on video, as usual), one of the Bad Guys put down his machine gun so that he could tie the mayor's hands. The mayor took the opportunity to pick up the machine gun and drill five of the Bad Guys. The other two ran away. One of the dead Bad Guys was on our top twenty wanted list. Like they say, you can't fight City Hall. * * *

Check This Out

This is incredible:

NRCC chief Tom Reynolds -- who's supposed to be spending all his time helping other GOP Reps keep their jobs -- is now losing by an eye-opening 15 points to Dem challenger Jack Davis, according to a new Zogby International poll done for the Buffalo News. The poll shows Davis leading with 48% of likely voters, to 33% for Reynolds -- a lead that has steadily widened over the last 10 days. The poll also found that of the substantial majority following Foleygate, 57 percent disapproved of Reynolds' handling of it, while only 25 percent approved.

And it gets better: TPM Muckraker has this:

According to Newsweek, Fordham, then Foley's chief of staff, approached Scott Palmer after Foley's now-infamous drunken visit to the House page dorm. But most significantly, Fordham says that after the meeting, Palmer told him that he'd "informed the Speaker" about the problem -- and this was "sometime in 2002 or 2003."

My question is this: if the GOP leadership in the House knew about Foley's status as a sexual predator for all those years -- and it appears that they did -- then why did they decide to cover it up for as long as they did? Why not just get Foley to retire? That would have been the easy thing to do. From what I hear, Foley's district is a Republican stronghold, meaning that they could have gotten Foley to quietly retire and then easily keep the seat in question.

Indeed, it has been widely reported that Foley was thinking about retiring from Congress this year until NRCC chief Tom Reynolds -- the same G.O.P. congressman who is now behind by 15 points in his own district -- actually urged Foley to seek reelection! Reynolds did this even though he was aware of Foley's sleazy e-mails to the 16-year-old page. No wonder he is losing so badly back at home.

This makes no sense to me, unless there is a lot more to this story that we haven't heard yet. Don't get me wrong -- I'm not surprised that the GOP tried to cover up this whole thing. That's standard operating procedure for them. What surprises me is that they decided to cover it up when there appears to have been a much easier way out.

UPDATE: ABC's This Week, with the help of Democratic Congressman Rahm Emanuel, did a great job this morning of addressing the above-referenced issues. Congressman Reynolds was supposed to be on the program, but he cancelled. I guess he's too busy making campaign commericals which blame Hastert for everything.

Very Bad News For The G.O.P.

From Newsweek:

Come hell or high water-ran the conventional wisdom-Republicans could rely on two issues to win elections: the war on terror and values. Then came Mark Foley. The drip-drip-drip of scandal surrounding the former Congressman from Florida, which became a deluge this week, now threatens to sink Republican hopes of keeping control of Congress, says the NEWSWEEK poll out today.

And that was the good news for the GOP. More worrisome still, the Foley fiasco is jeopardizing the party’s monopoly on faith and power. For the first time since 2001, the NEWSWEEK poll shows that more Americans trust the Democrats than the GOP on moral values and the war on terror. Fully 53 percent of Americans want the Democrats to win control of Congress next month, including 10 percent of Republicans, compared to just 35 percent who want the GOP to retain power. If the election were held today, 51 percent of likely voters would vote for the Democrat in their district versus 39 percent who would vote for the Republican. And while the race is closer among male voters (46 percent for the Democrats vs. 42 percent for the Republicans), the Democrats lead among women voters 56 to 34 percent. * * *

Meanwhile, the president’s approval rating has fallen to a new all-time low for the Newsweek poll: 33 percent, down from an already anemic 36 percent in August. Only 25 percent of Americans are satisfied with the direction of the country, while 67 percent say they are not.

The fascinating part about all this is that even if the Foley Scandal somehow manages to go away -- it won't -- that would merely result in the Iraq Debacle becoming the center of attention in the run-up to the Mid-Terms (from Pew Research via Political Wire):

Iraq has become the central issue of the midterm elections. There is more dismay about how the U.S. military effort in Iraq is going than at any point since the war began more than three years ago. And the war is the dominant concern among the majority of voters who say they will be thinking about national issues, rather than local issues, when they cast their ballot for Congress this fall.

Kean Calls For Hastert's Resignation

FoxNews just reported that Thomas Kean, Jr., the Republican Senate candidate from New Jersey, just called for Denny Hastert's resignation as Speaker of the House. He's the first GOP senate candidate to do so. No mention of this yet on the Internets (at least none that I could find).

Kean is in a close race to take that seat from Robert Menendez, who now appears to have a slight lead in the polls, so it doesn't surprise me that Kean did this. It's a good move politically. In fact, I'm sure will see more of these defections in the days ahead.

UPDATE: Here is an article on this.

Some History Cannot Be Rewritten

Right wingers are always trying to re-write history. For example, Ann Coulter actually took the position in one of her books that Senator McCarthy really was a good man who fell victim to outrageous liberal propaganda. And for the past three years, BushCo has repeatedly tried to rewrite history with regard to why we invaded Iraq -- so far, we've been given over two dozen reasons for the Iraq invasion.

Randy Kuhl (Republican-NY) gives us the latest example of a GOP attempt at a history re-write. He made this comment during a recent debate in support of his position that our current GOP-controlled government has really gone out of its way to help people:

"You can see that when, in fact, this government needs to react, like it did with Katrina with immediate appropriations to help out people who were dying."

Of course, the crowd responded to Kuhl's assertion with laughter. You can watch the video of it here.

The reason I find Kuhl's comment so funny is that history will probably look back on the Katrina Debacle as the beginning of the end of the Reagan "Government Is The Enemy" Revolution. I know I reacted to Katrina with (1) horror at what I was seeing, and (2) shock that something like the Katrina Aftermath could occur in the United States, the greatest country in the world; and I have no doubt that most Americans had a similar reaction.

And that's why comments like the one made by Rep. Kuhl will always be received with laughter.

And, by the way, this is great.

The GOP's Foley Strategy: Blame The Democrats, The Internet, And The "Gay Cabal"

It looks like the GOP's strategy to blame the Democrats for the Foley Scandal might have hit a bit of a snag. From The Hill (via AmericaBlog):

The source who in July gave news media Rep. Mark Foley's (R-Fla.) suspect e-mails to a former House page says the documents came to him from a House GOP aide.

That aide has been a registered Republican since becoming eligible to vote, said the source, who showed The Hill public records supporting his claim.

The same source, who acted as an intermediary between the aide-turned-whistleblower and several news outlets, says the person who shared the documents is no longer employed in the House.

But the whistleblower was a paid GOP staffer when the documents were first given to the media.

The source bolstered the claim by sharing un-redacted e-mails in which the former page first alerted his congressional sponsor's office of Foley's attentions. The copies of these e-mails, now available to the public, have the names of senders and recipients blotted out.

These revelations mean that Republicans who are calling for probes to discover what Democratic leaders and staff knew about Foley's improper exchanges with under-age pages will likely be unable to show that the opposition party orchestrated the scandal now roiling the GOP just a month away from the midterm elections.

Of course, the corollary to the GOP's "Blame the Democrats" strategy is that the many Republicans who knew that Foley was a kid diddler never would have come forward with any of this until after the election. As I mentioned before, I think it is hysterical that certain members of the GOP are alleging that the Democrats were the ones playing politics here when it was Republicans who covered up this whole Foley thing in order to protect a House seat.

But unfortunately, I'm sure the GOP will just continue blaming Democrats for all of this, despite what The Hill article reveals. The following comment from the AmericaBlog site pretty much nails it:

The Hill story makes the assumption (wrongly of course) that the GOP is serious about this being a Dem plot. They know very well it is not -- they just need a talking point to broadcast out to the rubes and assorted mental defectives who get all their info from Rush, Hannity, et al.

Disproving that story in the Hill is useless as it will never, ever reach the audience the GOP is aiming for.

This is why FauxNews identified Foley as a Democrat the other day (and if any of you out there thinks that Fox did not do that intentionally, then I've have some Enron stock to sell you). The goal of the GOP and its operatives in the Media isn't to convince voters generally -- the goal is to keep the morons who still support Bush and the GOP on board. The upcoming mid-term elections just need to be close enough so that the GOP can steal them, and that cannot happen unless a lot of brain-dead, right-wing, Heil-Hannity-watching idiots show up to the polls in November.

By the way, Denny Hastert just came on television and blamed the Internet for all of this. His exact quote: "Our system obviously isn't designed for the electronic age of instant messages." He also appears to be blaming the congressional staffs for the Foley Scandal, and not the House Members themselves.

With regard to the "blame the Congressional Staffs" strategy, I think folks like Josh Marshall and David Corn are right -- what is going to happen here is that Hastert and the GOP will come out and blame a "Gay Cabal" in Congress for all of this (Think Progress has the details here). The allegation will be that this Gay Cabal is made up of congressional aides who went out of their way to protect perverts like Foley. Indeed, David Corn is reporting that that a list of "top-level Republican congressional aides who are gay" is now being circulated.

Such a tactic will obviously appeal to the Christo-Fascists who make up a large percentage of the above-described GOP base. But it is a risky strategy, because a lot of these gay-hating Christians will be angry at Republicans for hiring folks who are openly homosexual.