The Corporate Media's Relationship With The Right-Wing Echo Chamber

As I was listening to Bush's press conference this morning, I thought of this depressing but on-the-money essay from Peter Daou over at Salon (via Kos). Daou describes how the Media, even when presenting news stories that might tend to hurt the Administration, nonetheless use certain "narratives" that simultaneously prop up Bush and put down his detractors:

You've heard the narratives: Bush is likeable, Bush is a regular guy, Bush is firm, Bush is a religious man, Bush relishes a fight, Democrats are muddled, Democrats have no message, national security is Bush's strength, terror attacks and terror threats help Bush (even though he presided over the worst attack ever on American soil), Democrats are weak on security, Democrats need to learn how to talk about values, Republicans favor a "strict interpretation" of the Constitution, and on and on.

A single storyline is more effective than a thousand stories. And a single storyline delivered by a "neutral" reporter is a hundred times more dangerous than a storyline delivered by an avowed partisan. Rightwingers can attack the media for criticizing Bush, can slam the New York Times for being liberal, but when the Times and the Post and CNN and MSNBC echo the "Bush stands firm" mantra, it adds one more brick to a powerful pro-Bush edifice.

These narratives are woven so deeply into the fabric of news coverage that they have become second nature and have permeated the public psyche and are regurgitated in polls. (The polls are then used to strengthen the narratives.) They are delivered as affirmative statements, interrogatives, hypotheticals; they are discussed as fact and accepted as conventional wisdom; they are twisted, turned, shaped, reshaped, and fed to the American public in millions of little soundbites, captions, articles, editorials, news stories, and opinion pieces. They are inserted into the national dialogue as contagious memes that imprint the idea of Bush=strong/Dems=weak. And they are false.

We see this stuff all over the place, such as when the Media kept referring to Bush as a "popular president" when the opposite was true, or on how my soon-to-be-former political party has essentially bought into all the bullshit about Bush being untouchable on security issues.

Fortunately, there has been some progress of late in combating this. Chris Matthews is under fire right now for repeatedly comparing folks who are concerned about the Iraq Debacle to Osama bin Laden. A website devoted to going after Matthews on this issue received over 100,000 visitors in five days.

You might be saying to yourself that stuff like this never works, but it does. Washington Post Ombudsman Deborah Howell wrote a column awhile back wherein she merely echoed G.O.P. talking points and stated that both Republicans and Democrats had received Abramoff campaign money. She received so much criticism for repeating that particular lie that the Washington Post had to shut down the part of its website where folks could send comments concerning Ombudsman Howell.

The editor of the American Journalism Review called the "fury and vitriol" unleashed against Howell both "stunning and disheartening."

I call it a good start.

UPDATE: This exchange took place this morning between Katie Couric and Howard Dean (from Think Progress):

COURIC: Hey, wait a second. Democrats took — Democrats took money from Abramoff too, Mr. Dean.

DEAN: That is absolutely false. That did not happen. Not one dime of money from Jack Abramoff went to any Democrat at any time.

COURIC: Let me just tell you — According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Abramoff and his associates gave $3 million to Republicans and $1.5 million to Democrats, including Sen. Minority Leader Harry Reid.

DEAN: Not one dime of Jack Abramoff money ever went to any Democrat. We can show you the FEC reports, we’d be very happy to do it. There’s a lot of stuff in the press that the Republican National Committee’s been spinning that this is a bipartisan scandal. It is a Republican-financed scandal. Not one dime of money from Jack Abramoff ever went to any Democrat, not one dime.

COURIC: Well, we’ll obviously have to look into that and clarify that for our viewers at a later date. Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Mr. Dean, Governor Dean, thanks so much for talking with us.

DEAN: Thanks very much.

I just love how aggressive members of the Corporate Media become when they are spreading BushCo lies. Of course, as Think Progress points out, the Center for Responsive Politics said no such thing.

Cruel And Unusual

The Supreme Court has blocked the execution of Clarence Hill, a Florida man convicted of a 1982 killing of a police officer, to consider his appeal over the method used to carry out the punishment: "[T]he court wants to consider if the chemicals used in the execution cause pain - thus violating a Constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment."

OK, that's all fine and good, but this paragraph of the article caught my eye:

Hill had been strapped to a gurney and intra-venous lines were running into his arms late on Tuesday night, his lawyer said, when Justice Anthony Kennedy issued a temporary stay.

Let me see if I got this straight. This guy had been on Death Row for a couple decades or so, and finally -- after all these years -- they strap him in, run lines into his arms, and are about to inject the chemicals into his blood stream . . . and then the execution is halted.

How is that not cruel and unusual?

I'm Tired Of This Old Cliche

I was watching CNN over lunch, and it had a segment about a new documentary on eating disorders. Now, the movie looks like it is a good one and it certainly addresses a serious subject, but at the end of the segment, the film's producer said, "If this documentary just saves one life, then all of our effort in producing it would have been worth it."

I'm tired of that -- you hear it all of the time, and I wish people would stop saying it. In fact, just once I'd like to hear an exchange that goes something like this:

Interviewer: "You know, your project was definitely a noble one, and even if it only leads to the saving of one life, I'm sure you'd still consider it a worthwhile effort, isn't that right?"

Interviewee: "Well, Bob, to be honest, getting this project off the ground was enormously difficult and it ended up taking a lot more effort than any of us thought it would. So no, if it saved just a single life, I don't think all the work would have been worth it. But if it saved like, say, a dozen people, now that would be a different matter entirely."

BushCo's Scandalous Katrina Response, Part II

Who could ever forget the Bush Administration's criminally negligent response to Hurricane Katrina. I'm sure BushCo wants everyone to forget about it, but you can't always get what you want.

We found out yesterday that in the 48 hours before Katrina's landfall, the White House "received detailed warnings about the storm's likely impact, including eerily prescient predictions of breached levees, massive flooding, and major losses of life and property." Unfortunately for Bush, this didn't exactly jibe with what he was saying in the first few days after the Katrina disaster:

President Bush, in a televised interview three days after Katrina hit, suggested that the scale of the flooding in New Orleans was unexpected. "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees. They did anticipate a serious storm," Bush said in a Sept. 1 interview on ABC's "Good Morning America."

Obviously, there is a lot more of this kind of stuff yet to be uncovered. The Bush Administration is certainly acting like there is, given the effort it is making to obstruct the Senate investigation:

A Senate inquiry into the government's slow response to Hurricane Katrina is being crippled by White House stonewalling, according to senators leading the investigation. The Associated Press reported Tuesday that the Bush administration is blocking officials from answering even routine questions about the times and dates of meetings and phone calls with the White House during the crisis.

According to the report, White House staffers and other federal agency employees have refused to be interviewed by congressional investigators in some cases. "No one believes that the government responded adequately," said Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman. "And we can't put that story together if people feel they're under a gag order from the White House."

Of course, such a response isn't surprising, given that the Bush looks upon Congress as nothing more than a ceremonial body with no real power. And it certainly doesn't hurt Bush to have allies in Congress who are totally unwilling to stand up to his incompetent and corrupt regime.

Incredible (But Not Surprising)

From Media Matters:

On the January 20 edition of CNN's Your World Today, homeland security correspondent Jeanne Meserve interviewed Tom Ridge, former secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), as part of a report on the DHS' decision not to raise the national threat level following Osama bin Laden's recent warning of future attacks against the United States. Meserve aired Ridge's opinion that the threat level should not be raised "based solely on the [bin Laden] tape." But, while interviewing Ridge about the threat-level decisions, Meserve failed to raise an obvious issue with Ridge: In May 2005, Ridge told an audience at a Washington, D.C., forum that while head of DHS, he had regularly been pressured by Bush administration officials to raise the threat level even though he did not believe that intelligence warranted it.

Unless Jeanne Meserve is a complete idiot, there is no way Ridge's 2005 admission could have slipped her mind. She -- or someone pulling her strings at CNN -- decided that such an inquiry would be off limits.

Of course, this is pretty much standard operating procedure for the Corporate Media these days. As Eric Boehlert pointed out last week:

One of the most depressing traits of the news media's timid performance during the Bush years has been their newfound fear of facts and the consequences of reporting them. Where Beltway journalists once eagerly corralled facts and dispensed them to the public, scribes today, like youngsters' endless checking to see if it's safe to cross the street, over-think the consequences and end up giving the Bush administration and Republicans a pass.

CNN, however, has more on its mind than merely playing it safe. It wants to attract FoxNews viewers, and you can't do that and simultaneously present the news in an intellectually honest fashion.

There can be no doubt that CNN is trying to attract FoxNews viewers. Why else would it hire Glenn Beck to host a prime time program on its Headline News channel. For those of you who aren't familiar with Beck, let's just say that he would have certainly been allowed to host his own show in Nazi Germany had he lived back then, although Hitler would have probably insisted that he tone it down a bit. You can read about Glenn Beck here.

One of these days, CNN is going to figure out that George W. Bush is unpopular and that reporting factual material that puts Bush in a bad light might actually help its ratings. CNN's reporters wouldn't have to look too hard for such material, given that the current U.S. administration is the most corrupt in a generation.

Well, This Is One Way To Pay Your Legal Bills

From Think Progress:

Over the weekend, Time magazine and the Washingtonian both reported on five photos of President Bush with Jack Abramoff, but neither publication revealed its source.

Yesterday, ThinkProgress laid out the case for why the source for the photos was likely Abramoff himself. Last night, our hunch was confirmed.

Appearing on MSNBC, Newsweek correspondent Michael Isikoff reported that it was indeed Abramoff who floated the photographs to Washingtonian.

I'm sure Abramoff will get a good price for these photos, particularly given BushCo's extraordinary effort to keep them under wraps.

More Impeachment Talk . . . But This Time It's Straight From The Elephant's Mouth

The very conservative Washington Times has an interesting article in the current issue of its Insight Magazine. The article is titled "Impeachment Hearings: The White House Prepares For The Worst," and it begins this way (via AmericaBlog):

The Bush administration is bracing for impeachment hearings in Congress.

"A coalition in Congress is being formed to support impeachment," an administration source said.

Sources said a prelude to the impeachment process could begin with hearings by the Senate Judiciary Committee in February. They said the hearings would focus on the secret electronic surveillance program and whether Mr. Bush violated the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Administration sources said the charges are expected to include false reports to Congress as well as Mr. Bush's authorization of the National Security Agency to engage in electronic surveillance inside the United States without a court warrant. This included the monitoring of overseas telephone calls and e-mail traffic to and from people living in the United States without requisite permission from a secret court.

Meanwhile, a new Gallup Poll has given us some insight as to why BushCo is working so hard this week to play down its illegal domestic spying operation:

A new USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll shows public sentiment is against the program. Fifty-one percent of Americans said the administration was wrong to intercept conversations involving a party inside the USA without a warrant. In response to another question, 58% of Americans said they support the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate the program.

So let me see if I got this straight: Even though the Republican-skewed Gallup poll shows that the country is against Bush on this issue, the Democrats still appear reluctant to challenge Bush on it. That is shameful, particularly given that we undoubtedly haven't heard the fully story yet with regard to Bush's criminal activity.

Indeed, new information is emerging almost every day on this. For example, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the former NSA chief, stated yesterday that the warrantless eavesdropping on calls and e-mails was "targeted and focused" and did not constitute a "driftnet" over U.S. cities. As Kevin Drum notes, this was an interesting admission:

Unless I've missed something along the way, this is important news. Hayden is saying that the NSA program isn't some kind of large-scale data mining operation that the authors of the FISA act never could have foreseen. Rather, it's "targeted and focused" and involves "only international calls and only those we have a reasonable basis to believe involve al Qaeda or one of its affiliates."

In other words, it's precisely the kind of monitoring that the FISA court already approves routinely and in large volumes. Another few hundred requests wouldn't faze them in the least.

In a later post, Drum adds these observations:

Administration apologists have argued that the White House couldn't seek congressional approval for this program because it utilized super advanced technology that we couldn't risk exposing to al-Qaeda. Even in secret session, they've suggested, Congress is a sieve and the bad guys would have found out what we were up to.

But now we know that's not true. This was just ordinary call monitoring, according to General Hayden, and the only problem was that both FISA and the attorney general required a standard of evidence they couldn't meet before issuing a warrant. In other words, the only change necessary to make this program legal was an amendment to FISA modifying the circumstances necessary to issue certain kinds of warrants. This would have tipped off terrorists to nothing.

It's not surprising that, as the above-linked Insight article puts it, the Bush administration is "bracing for impeachment hearings in Congress." BushCo is clearly anticipating the release of even more damaging information with regard to its criminal activity.

E.J. Dionne Weighs In On The Democrats' National Security "Dilemma"

E.J. Dionne has joined the chorus of progressive columnists who are demanding that the Democrats start doing their patriotic duty when it comes to the debate on national security:

By not engaging the national security debate, Democrats cede to Rove the power to frame it. Consider that clever line about Democrats having a pre-Sept. 11 view of the world. The typical Democratic response would be defensive: "No, no, of course 9/11 changed the world." More specifically, there's a lot of private talk among Democrats that the party should let go of the issue of warrantless spying on Americans because the polls show that a majority values security and safety.

What Democrats should have learned is that they cannot evade the security debate. They must challenge the terms under which Rove and Bush would conduct it. Imagine, for example, directly taking on that line about Sept. 11. Does having a "post-9/11 worldview" mean allowing Bush to do absolutely anything he wants, any time he wants, without having to answer to the courts, Congress or the public? Most Americans -- including a lot of libertarian-leaning Republicans -- reject such an anti-constitutional view of presidential power. If Democrats aren't willing to take on this issue, what's the point of being an opposition party?

The bottom line here is that, in the run-up to the 2002 mid-term elections, the Democrats basically rolled over on the national security issue, and we all know how effective that strategy was. Hell, even John Kerry -- who actually voted against the first Gulf War -- voted in October 2002 to let Bush invade Iraq. That was nothing but political cowardice, plain and simple.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that, if a strategy did not work for you in the past, why engage in the same strategy again? This is pretty basic stuff, folks, yet the Democrats appear to be on the verge of repeating that same mistake.

Kos Nails It

This is right on:

Let's not forget that ultimately, Osama's vision for the Arab world is far more akin to the Right's vision of America. Remember these old posts? On homosexuality, on militarism, on women's rights, on religion in school, on capital punishment, on free speech, on curtailment of civil liberties, and on a million different other issues Islamic fundamentalists don't share many disagreements with the ideologues running our country.

I still don't understand why Bush, Tweety, and other members of Amerika's Radical Right routinely pee their pants in fear at the mere mention of bin Laden's name. They instead should look upon him as a kindred spirit, given that he believes in pretty much the same kind of crap they believe in.

With Democratic Strategists Like This, Who Needs Enemies?

Some democratic consultants are getting cold feet when it comes to exploiting BushCo's PoliceStateGate Scandal. From Walter Shapiro at Salon.com:

Democratic consultants are outspoken about their political concerns over the warrantless wiretapping furor, as long as their identities are protected by don't-use-my-name-in-print anonymity.

Typical was my lunch discussion earlier this week with a ranking Democratic Party official. Midway through the meal, I innocently asked how the "Big Brother is listening" issue would play in November. Judging from his pained reaction, I might as well have announced that Barack Obama was resigning from the Senate to sell vacuum cleaners door-to-door. With exasperation dripping from his voice, my companion said, "The whole thing plays to the Republican caricature of Democrats -- that we're weak on defense and weak on security." To underscore his concerns about shrill attacks on Bush, the Democratic operative forwarded to me later that afternoon an e-mail petition from MoveOn.org, which had been inspired by Al Gore's fire-breathing Martin Luther King Day speech excoriating the president's contempt for legal procedures.

A series of conversations with Democratic pollsters and image makers found them obsessed with similar fears that left-wing overreaction to the wiretapping issue would allow George W. Bush and the congressional Republicans to wiggle off the hook on other vulnerabilities. The collective refrain from these party insiders sounded something like this: Why are we so obsessed with the privacy of people who are phoning al-Qaida when Democrats should be screaming about corruption, Iraq, gas prices and the prescription-drug mess?

Unbelievable. There is a reason that Bush tried to keep this particular scandal under wraps, and the reason had nothing to do with national security and everything to do with political damage control.

Shapiro's article was widely discussed on talk radio a few nights ago. One particular right-winged extremist called in and said something to the effect that "if the Democrats go after Bush on this NSA domestic spying issue, then it will mean the end of the Democratic party." He finished by saying that if the Democrats pushed the issue, then Bush will be able to appoint at least two more ScAlitos to the Supreme Court in the next three years.

You could actually hear the fear in this guy's voice. Bush's Brownshirts know that this illegal wiretapping has ticked off folks on both sides of the aisle and that this is not a good issue for them. [And by the way, I just love how members of the American Taliban keep insisting that ScAlito isn't "out of the mainstream," only to turn around the next day and extol him as "the worst nightmare of liberal democrats." If ScAlito really was a mainstream jurist, he wouldn't be a "worst nightmare" for anyone, except (of course) for members of the Extreme Right, who've never met a mainstream judge they didn't hate.]

Democratic consultants are, of course, buying into all the G.O.P. bullshit on how Bush is "untouchable" when it comes to National Security issues. For Shapiro, it's deja vu all over again:

[F]rom my own vantage point, the Democrats' positioning on the eavesdropping issue invites comparisons to their fetal crouch in the run-up to the Iraqi War. A majority of Senate Democrats voted for Bush's go-to-war resolution -- including John Kerry, John Edwards and Hillary Clinton -- at least partly because the pollsters insisted that it was the only politically safe position, a ludicrous and self-destructive notion in hindsight.

The problem with a consultant-driven overreliance on polling data is that it is predicated on the assumption that nothing will happen to jar public opinion out of its current grooves. As Elaine Kamarck, a top advisor in the Clinton-Gore White House and a professor at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, argued, "These guys [the consultants] just don't get it. They don't understand that in politics strength is better than weakness. And a political party that is always the namby-pamby 'me too' party is a party that isn't going to get anyplace."

I have a question for these consultants -- what if anything has Bush gotten right as Commander-in-Chief? He ignored warnings in August of 2001 that bin Laden was "determined to strike the U.S." Much to the delight of terrorists everywhere, Bush ultimately decided to respond to the 9-11 attacks by invading Iraq -- a country that both Colin Powell and Condi Rice considered not to be a threat prior to 9-11 -- and he carried out this unnecessary invasion in the most incompetent way possible. In fact, Bush routinely seems to go out of his way to help terrorists. Yet some democratic consultants are still afraid to go after him on security-related issues.

My God -- how many more BushCo failures do these people need before they find some political courage?

Molly Ivins recently gave this advice to the Democrats: "Do not sit there cowering and pretending the only way to win is as Republican-lite." I have a feeling that Ivin's warning will go unheeded.

UPDATE: The Bush Administration is deperately trying to turn the PoliceStateGate Scandal into a positive for them. From the New York Times:

With a campaign of high-profile national security events set for the next three days, following Karl Rove's blistering speech to Republicans on Friday, the White House has effectively declared that it views its controversial secret surveillance program not as a political liability but as an asset, a way to attack Democrats and re-establish President Bush's standing after a difficult year.

The Democrats can easily counter this strategy as long as they focus on three facts:

1. Bush's illegal acts were unnecessary because the FISA law allows the Administration to wiretap first then get a warrant later;

2. Bush's illegal acts didn't produce squat as far as fighting the War On Terror is concerned; and

3. Bush's illegal acts actually compromised the security of this country because they caused FBI agents to go off on wild goose chases when these agents could have been going after real terrorists.

UPDATE II: Atrios is reporting that BushCo has a new name for their illegal wiretap operation -- they are calling it a "Terrorist Surveillance Program." One of Atrios' readers posted this comment:

It's all about the polls. By calling it "Terrorist Surveillance Program," we can now have polls that question:

Do you agree that terrorists need to be surveilled. If not, why do you hate America?

The Words of a Traitor

Karl Rove had this to say about the difference between the Republicans and the Democrats when it comes to the War on Terror:

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove offered a biting preview of the 2006 midterm elections yesterday, drawing sharp distinctions with the Democrats over the campaign against terrorism, tax cuts and judicial philosophy, and describing the opposition party as backward-looking and bereft of ideas.

"At the core, we are dealing with two parties that have fundamentally different views on national security," Rove said. "Republicans have a post-9/11 worldview and many Democrats have a pre-9/11 worldview. That doesn't make them unpatriotic -- not at all. But it does make them wrong -- deeply and profoundly and consistently wrong."

Howard Dean had a pretty good response: "Karl Rove only has a White House job and a security clearance because President Bush has refused to keep his promise to fire anyone involved in revealing the identity of an undercover CIA operative. * * * The truth is, Karl Rove breached our national security for partisan gain and that is both unpatriotic and wrong."

That's not bad, but it won't generate any headlines. Here's how I think the Democrats should respond:

We agree that the Democrats differ with Karl Rove on how to fight the War on Terror. Mr. Rove believes that the best way to fight this war is to intentionally out a covert CIA agent who was working on keeping WMD out of the hands of terrorists. The Democrats, however, do not believe that committing an act of treason is a particularly effective strategy.

Start upping the ante, folks.

UPDATE: During the above-referenced speech, Rove "used his platform to excoriate Democrats for 'wild and reckless and false charges' against Bush on the issue of domestic spying. . . ." Unfortunately for Rove, prominent Republicans are also speaking out on this issue:

Today on Fox News Sunday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said Bush's warrantless domestic wiretapping program is illegal:

WALLACE: But you do not believe that currently he has the legal authority to engage in these warrant-less wiretaps.

MCCAIN: You know, I don't think so, but why not come to Congress? We can sort this all out. I don't think -- I know of no member of Congress, frankly, who, if the administration came and said here's why we need this capability, that they wouldn't get it. And so let's have the hearings.

McCain is the latest addition to a growing list of prominent conservatives -- including Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) and Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) -- who have expressed serious concerns about the legality of the program.

This is why I get angry when I hear so-called "Democratic" strategists saying that the Democrats should stay away from criticizing Bush's illegal wiretap operation because such criticism reinforces the perception that Democrats are weak on national security. Opposition to Bush's illegal spying activity is clearly bipartisan.

More on this later.

More Bad News For BushCo And Its Connection To The Jackyboy Abramoff Scandal

From TIME Magazine:

As details poured out about the illegal and unseemly activities of Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, White House officials sought to portray the scandal as a Capitol Hill affair with little relevance to them. Peppered for days with questions about Abramoff's visits to the White House, press secretary Scott McClellan said the now disgraced lobbyist had attended two huge holiday receptions and a few "staff-level meetings" that were not worth describing further. "The President does not know him, nor does the President recall ever meeting him," McClellan said.

The President's memory may soon be unhappily refreshed. TIME has seen five photographs of Abramoff and the President that suggest a level of contact between them that Bush's aides have downplayed. While TIME's source refused to provide the pictures for publication, they are likely to see the light of day eventually because celebrity tabloids are on the prowl for them. And that has been a fear of the Bush team's for the past several months: that a picture of the President with the admitted felon could become the iconic image of direct presidential involvement in a burgeoning corruption scandal—like the shots of President Bill Clinton at White House coffees for campaign contributors in the mid-1990s.

Oops.

The Democrats Owe Us An Apology . . . For Apologizing Too Goddamn Much

I'm getting tired of this:

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid on Thursday apologized to 33 Republican senators singled out for ethics criticism in a report from his office titled "Republican Abuse of Power."

"The document released by my office yesterday went too far and I want to convey to you my personal regrets," Reid said in a letter.

"I am writing to apologize for the tone of this document and the decision to single out individual senators for criticism in it."

The Democrats always seem to be apologizing for something, and it is getting very old, particularly given that they seem to always be apologizing for telling the truth. Who could forget this Dick Durbin gem from last June:

Sen. Dick Durbin went to the Senate floor late Tuesday to offer his apologies to anyone who may have been offended by his comparison of treatment of detainees at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to Nazis, Soviet gulags and Cambodia's Pol Pot.

What I really hate is when a Democrat says something that is obviously true and is then criticized by members of his own party for saying it. This happened to Howard Dean when he said last month that "the idea that we're going to win the war in Iraq is an idea which is just plain wrong." Several Democrats took issue with Dean's statement:

The critics said that comment could reinforce popular perceptions that the party is weak on military matters and divert attention from the president's growing political problems on the war and other issues. "Dean's take on Iraq makes even less sense than the scream in Iowa: Both are uninformed and unhelpful," said Rep. Jim Marshall (D-Ga.), recalling Dean's famous election-night roar after stumbling in Iowa during his 2004 presidential bid.

Excuse me? Someone finally has the guts to tell the truth about Bush's Iraq Debacle and his own party criticizes him for it? At least Dean had the smarts not to apologize for the comment, although I believe he issued a statement explaining what he meant, which although not technically an apology, is still a bit weak.

Democratic Senate candidate Paul Hackett got it right a few days ago when Republicans demanded that he apologize for calling some conservative Republicans "religious fanatics" and comparing them to Osama bin Laden. Hackett's response: "I said it. I meant it. I stand behind it."

Beautiful.

But just once I would like to see a Democrat say something so over-the-top outrageous that when he (or she) apologizes for it, I'll nod my head and say, "Yeah, what he said really did go beyond the pale and he should have apologized." In fact, I would love that, but everyone knows that will never happen. The Democrats are weak, and that is why they don't control anything on the Federal level right now.

Google Stands Up To The Bush Regime

Way to go Google:

Google Inc. is rebuffing the Bush administration’s demand for a peek at what millions of people have been looking up on the Internet’s leading search engine — a request that underscores the potential for online databases to become tools for government surveillance.

Mountain View-based Google has refused to comply with a White House subpoena first issued last summer, prompting U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales this week to ask a federal judge in San Jose for an order to hand over the requested records.

The government wants a list all requests entered into Google’s search engine during an unspecified single week — a breakdown that could conceivably span tens of millions of queries. In addition, it seeks 1 million randomly selected Web addresses from various Google databases.

Thanks for the link, JB.

Murtha's Military Service Is Under Attack

E.J. Dionne has this to say about BushCo's latest attempt to discredit Rep. John Murtha's military service:

What's maddening here is the unblushing hypocrisy of the right wing and the way it circulates -- usually through Web sites or talk radio -- personal vilification to abort honest political debate. Murtha's views on withdrawing troops from Iraq are certainly the object of legitimate contention. Many in Murtha's party disagree with him. But Murtha's right-wing critics can't content themselves with going after his ideas. They have to try to discredit his service.

Moreover, the right has demonstrated that its attitude toward military service is entirely opportunistic. In the 1992 presidential campaign, when the first President Bush confronted Bill Clinton -- who, like Cheney, avoided military service entirely -- conservatives could hardly speak or write a paragraph about Clinton that didn't accuse him of being a draft dodger. In October 1992, Bush himself assailed Clinton. "A lot of being president is about respect for that office and about telling the truth and serving your country," Bush told a crowd in New Jersey. "And you are all familiar with Governor Clinton's various stories on what he did to evade the draft."

There is really only one way to respond to this. Murtha needs to accuse Bush of deserting his post during the VietNam War. David Mamet said it this way:

John Kerry lost the 2004 election combating an indictment of his Vietnam War record. A decorated war hero muddled himself in merely “calling” the attacks of a man with, curiously, a vanishing record of military attendance. Even if the Democrats and Kerry had prevailed (that is, succeeded in nullifying the Republicans arguably absurd accusations), they would have been back only where they started before the accusations began.

Control of the initiative is control of the battle. In the alley, at the poker table or in politics. One must raise. The American public chose Bush over Kerry in 2004. How, the undecided electorate rightly wondered, could one believe that Kerry would stand up for America when he could not stand up to Bush? A possible response to the Swift boat veterans would have been: “I served. He didn’t. I didn’t bring up the subject, but, if all George Bush has to show for his time in the Guard is a scrap of paper with some doodling on it, I say the man was a deserter.”

Amen.

McCarthyism On The Cheap

NPR had some extensive coverage on this today:

An alumni group is offering students up to $100 per class to supply tapes and notes exposing professors who allegedly express extreme left-wing political views at the University of California, Los Angeles.

One of the professors calls it McCarthyism.

The year-old Bruin Alumni Association says it is concerned about professors who use lecture time to press positions against President Bush, the military and multinational corporations, among other things. Its Web site has a list of what it calls the college's 30 most radical professors.

$100 per class? What a bunch of Cheap Alumni Bastards (now there's a good title for them). It's not necessarily $100 per class either -- it is "up to $100" per class.

It's About Time Someone Said It

From the Columbus Dispatch (via Political Wire):

Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Paul Hackett was unapologetic a day after Ohio’s Republican leader called on him to apologize for calling some conservative Republicans religious fanatics and comparing them to terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden.

Hackett said religious fanatics of any type should be ashamed.

"I said it. I meant it. I stand behind it," he said.

Hackett said in a Sunday column in The Dispatch: "The Republican Party has been hijacked by the religious fanatics that, in my opinion, aren’t a whole lot different than Osama bin Laden and a lot of the other religious nuts around the world."

Although I agree for the most part with what Hackett said, I do disagree with him on one point: Osama bin Laden and a lot of the other religious nuts around the world are different from the ones in this country because bin Laden is not running this country, and the religious fanatics who have hijacked the G.O.P. -- Bush, Frist, and (until recently) DeLay -- do happen to be running the country right now.

Martha-Ann "Mrs. Alito" Bomgardner Wins Supporting Actress Emmy

Justice Sunday 14 and Justice Sunday 17 tie for the Outstanding Reality Program Award

January 15, 2007
________________

Compiled from State-Controlled Wire Sources

Martha-Ann Bomgardner, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, won the Emmy last night for Outstanding Supporting Actress In A Miniseries Or A Movie. During her acceptance speech, Bomgardner thanked members of the Corporate Media, who routinely referred to her as "Mrs. Alito" during last year's broadcast of The Alito Confirmation Hearings.

Trinity Broadcasting Network led the field of winners with 31 Emmys. HBO was second, winning three Emmys, including one for its documentary on the history of the Trinity Broadcasting Network.

The Corporate Media's extensive coverage of Bomgardner's crying scene was widely credited for taking the steam out of the Democratic Party's opposition to Samuel Alito and clearing the way for his confirmation. The Democratic Party was dissolved shortly thereafter, and Justice Alito has since authored several key Supreme Court decisions, including In Re Doe's Uterus, which declared all female reproductive organs in the United States to be government property, and Madison v. Marbury, which transformed the U.S. Supreme Court into a largely ceremonial body with no real power.

Bomgardner also thanked former U.S. Senator Lindsay Graham for his "superb" direction during her crying sequence. "We practiced that scene over and over," said Bomgardner during an after-ceremony press conference. "Lindsay was very patient with me."

Senator Graham was also honored for his work on The Alito Confirmation Hearings, winning the Emmy for Outstanding Directing For A Miniseries, Movie Or Dramatic Special. Graham, who resigned the Senate last year, is currently working on a sequel to Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will.

The award ceremony was delayed nearly five months due to heavy fighting abroad. During the ceremony, President-For-Life George W. Bush thanked the American troops currently fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, Korea, Yemen, Venezuela, Bolivia, and France.

The Price Of Freedom Is Eternal Vigilance (Unless It Interferes With Your Vacation Schedule)

It looks like the vacation schedules of certain Senators interfered with the effectiveness of the Democrats' ability to coordinate with each other at the ScAlito hearing (from the New York Times via AmericaBlog):

Democratic aides said there had been even less strategy than usual in trying to coordinate the questioning by the eight Democratic senators. The situation was complicated because senators and staff were out of Washington before the hearing.

But that doesn't necessarily mean that a little more coordination would have resulted in a "Perry Mason" moment featuring a mentally exhausted ScAlito finally coming clean under intense Democratic questioning and announcing that Roe v. Wade must be overturned, that he actually founded the Concerned Alumni of Princeton group, and that the Bill of Rights is itself unconstitutional. The Democrats could have prepared for months and that wouldn't have changed ScAlito's answers one bit.

The problem is that somewhere along the line, the Corporate Media got the notion that ScAlito has a lock so long as no such Perry Mason moments occur. And it appears that our spine-less Democrats have bought into that notion. In other words, the Democrats are still on vacation.

Re-Elect Gore

How do you know Al Gore just gave a great speech? Because the radical right wing attacks him. The RNC spokeswoman had this to say about Gore today:

Al Gore’s incessant need to insert himself in the headline of the day is almost as glaring as his lack of understanding of the threats facing America. While the president works to protect Americans from terrorists, Democrats deliver no solutions of their own, only diatribes laden with inaccuracies and anger.

RNC Chair Ken Mehlman also chimed in: "Republican Party Chairman Ken Mehlman said Gore is 'more interested in desperately trying to get attention than he is in focusing on the facts and the law.'"

Of course, Gore was speaking of a subject on which BushCo has even received criticism from other right wingers, and that subject is the PoliceStateGate Scandal:

Former Vice President Al Gore, charging that President Bush's record on civil liberties posed a "grave danger" to America's constitutional freedoms, urged the appointment of a special counsel to investigate Bush's authorization of warrantless domestic surveillance by the National Security Agency.

In a detailed and impassioned speech sponsored by liberal and conservative groups on Monday, Gore said that while much remained unknown about the spying program, "What we do know . . . virtually compels the conclusion that the president of the United States has been breaking the law, repeatedly and insistently."

I particularly liked this part of Gore's speech, where he explains exactly why following the rule of law is necessary:

Vigilant adherence to the rule of law strengthens our democracy and strengthens America. It ensures that those who govern us operate within our constitutional structure, which means that our democratic institutions play their indispensable role in shaping policy and determining the direction of our nation. It means that the people of this nation ultimately determine its course and not executive officials operating in secret without constraint.

The rule of law makes us stronger by ensuring that decisions will be tested, studied, reviewed and examined through the processes of government that are designed to improve policy. And the knowledge that they will be reviewed prevents over-reaching and checks the accretion of power.

A commitment to openness, truthfulness and accountability also helps our country avoid many serious mistakes. Recently, for example, we learned from recently declassified documents that the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which authorized the tragic Vietnam war, was actually based on false information. We now know that the decision by Congress to authorize the Iraq War, 38 years later, was also based on false information. America would have been better off knowing the truth and avoiding both of these colossal mistakes in our history. Following the rule of law makes us safer, not more vulnerable.

Gore effectively summed up why Bush will go down in history as America's worst president. It is because Bush is essentially an "anti-American" -- someone who is more than willing to defy our nation's laws in order to pursue an agenda that is even too extreme for folks like former G.O.P. Congressman Bob Barr.

Not surprisingly, a majority of Americans aren't too happy with Bush either:

By a margin of 52% to 43%, Americans want Congress to consider impeaching President Bush if he wiretapped American citizens without a judge's approval, according to a new poll commissioned by AfterDowningStreet.org, a grassroots coalition that supports a Congressional investigation of President Bush's decision to invade Iraq in 2003.

The poll was conducted by Zogby International, the highly-regarded non-partisan polling company. The poll interviewed 1,216 U.S. adults from January 9-12.

This poll must be particularly troubling for Bush, given that he has admitted that he wiretapped Americans without a judge's approval. And it doesn't look like Bush will be able to argue that his illegal wiretapping activity led to significant breakthroughs. From the New York Times:

In the anxious months after the Sept. 11 attacks, the National Security Agency began sending a steady stream of telephone numbers, e-mail addresses and names to the F.B.I. in search of terrorists. The stream soon became a flood, requiring hundreds of agents to check out thousands of tips a month.

But virtually all of them, current and former officials say, led to dead ends or innocent Americans.

F.B.I. officials repeatedly complained to the spy agency that the unfiltered information was swamping investigators. The spy agency was collecting much of the data by eavesdropping on some Americans' international communications and conducting computer searches of phone and Internet traffic. Some F.B.I. officials and prosecutors also thought the checks, which sometimes involved interviews by agents, were pointless intrusions on Americans' privacy.

Bush seems to have a knack for wasting limited resources, whether it be requiring F.B.I. agents to needlessly check out floods of dead-end information, or bogging down a significant portion of the Army's combat strength in Iraq, a country that posed no threat to us.

Do you feel safer yet?

Republican Smokescreens

The G.O.P. is doing two things in an attempt to minimize the effect of the Abramoff Scandal: (1) claim that it is a bipartisan scandal, and (2) attempt to take the lead in drafting legislation that would minimize the effect that lobbyists can have on members of Congress.

An example of the first line of strategy can be found in this Washington Times article from last Wednesday which reported that Harry Reid was somehow involved in the Abramoff Scandal:

A Justice Department investigation into influence-peddling on Capitol Hill is focusing on a "first tier" of lawmakers and staffers, both Republicans and Democrats, say sources close to the probe that has netted guilty pleas from lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Law-enforcement authorities and others said the investigation's opening phase is scrutinizing Sens. Conrad Burns, Montana Republican; Byron L. Dorgan, North Dakota Democrat; and Minority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, along with Reps. J.D. Hayworth, Arizona Republican, and Bob Ney, Ohio Republican.

The Las Vegas Review Journal, however, takes issue with the "reporting" of the Washington Times:

The Justice Department is not focusing on Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada as part of an investigation of lobbyist Jack Abramoff, a source close to the probe said Wednesday in challenging a published report.

The source, who requested anonymity, said the Justice Department is leading the investigation, which includes other agencies.

"But the Justice Department does not have a list of lawmakers who are being investigated," the source said.

However, not all right wingers are like the Washington Times on this issue. I agree with this Republican:

Jeff Flake, an Arizona Republican congressman who co-led the petition drive that helped oust Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, said in an interview yesterday: “We don’t just need a new majority leader, we need a course correction.

“A lobbyist can’t be corrupt unless he has somebody to bribe, and we’ve created a culture that just breeds corruption,” he charged.

He's absolutely right. Members of the GOP are scrambling to enact new anti-lobbying legislation in the wake of the Abramoff Scandal -- you know, to make it look like they are doing something -- but the reason Abramoff is in trouble is because he broke the law and the reason that a lot of GOP Congressmen might be in trouble is because they broke the law. As Rich Lowry of the conservative National Review recently wrote:

GOP lawmakers are rushing to introduce lobbying reform. Anything that increases transparency is welcome. But lobbying reform's animating pretense is that lawmakers are all upstanding — until they come under the corruptive spell of lobbyists. In every transaction, however, there has to be a willing buyer and seller.

Outlandish and Inconceivable

This is good:

A judge on Tuesday ordered two British men to stand trial on charges of leaking a government memo in which President Bush reportedly suggested to British Prime Minister Tony Blair bombing the headquarters of the Arab satellite news channel Al-Jazeera.

Civil servant David Keogh, 49, and Leo O'Connor, 42, a lawmaker's former researcher, were charged in November with breaching the Official Secrets Act. Both men are free on bail awaiting trial.

This is the funny part of the article:

The Daily Mirror reported the memo revealed details of a conversation between Bush and Blair at the White House on April 16, 2004. According to the newspaper, Blair argued against Bush's suggestion to bomb Al-Jazeera's headquarters in Doha, Qatar. The Daily Mirror said its sources disagreed on whether Bush's suggestion was serious.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan called the newspaper's claims "outlandish and inconceivable." Blair has said he had no information about any proposed U.S. action against Al-Jazeera.

John Aravosis at AmericaBlog summed it up this way: "Well, if Scottie says the accusations in the documents are 'outlandish and inconceivable' then the documents are fakes and the British government can't claim their protection under the Official Secrets Act."

And speaking of attacking one's opponents, Bush is once again lashing out at anyone who questions how he took this country to war. He bravely voiced the following opinions in a speech earlier in the week before a hostile audience, to-wit: the Veterans of Foreign Wars:

Bush, who has faced a barrage of criticism over his handling of Iraq, said Americans know the difference between honest critics who question the way the war is being handled "and partisan critics who claim that we acted in Iraq because of oil, or because of Israel, or because we misled the American people."

He added, "So I ask all Americans to hold their elected leaders to account and demand a debate that brings credit to our democracy, not comfort to our adversaries."

So who are these partisan critics? Well, Bush didn't have the guts to tell us himself, but his aides did: "Bush did not mention names, but aides said he was referring to Democratic Party chief Howard Dean, along with Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, and Sen. Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, among others."

From Ben Sargent of the Austin American-Statesman

"Organic" Is Going By The Wayside

A friend of mine is a manager in the store featured in this New York Times article:

Six years ago "organic" was the next big thing in grocery shopping, but the term has begun to lose its luster. It has been co-opted by agribusiness, which has succeeded in watering down the restrictions of the definition. Today "local" and "sustainable" are the new culinary buzzwords.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the six New Seasons markets in and around Portland, Ore. At New Seasons, "homegrown" is not only the coin of the realm, it's the heavily promoted mantra. * * *

Anyone Remember This Scandal?

From TruthOut.org:

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is said to have spent the past month preparing evidence he will present to a grand jury alleging that White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove knowingly made false statements to FBI and Justice Department investigators and lied under oath while he was being questioned about his role in the leak of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity more than two years ago, according to sources knowledgeable about the probe.

Although there have not been rumblings regarding Fitzgerald's probe into the Plame leak since he met with the grand jury hearing evidence in the case more than a month ago, the sources said that Fitzgerald has been quietly building his case against Rove and has been interviewing witnesses, in some cases for the second and third time, who have provided him with information related to Rove's role in the leak. It is unclear when Fitzgerald is expected to meet with the grand jury again.

ScAlito Should Have Simply Come Clean On The C.A.P. Issue

From Armando at Kos:

After stating again this morning that he had no recollection of joining Concerned Alumni for Princeton, the racist and sexist organization that objected to women and minorities being admitted at Princeton, despite having included it in his job application to work for Ed Meese in 1985, Alito this morning now pretends to remember WHY he joined an organization he says he does not remember joining.

So Alito's story on CAP is that 'he didn't do it, and if he did do it, he doesn't remember, and if he did do it and does remember, then he had a good reason for doing it.'

My gawd, it takes some chutzpah to come up with that one.

The truth and Alito are finding it hard to stay in the same room right now.

Alito did come off looking pretty sleazy this morning when confronted with this C.A.P. issue. I know I'd have a little more respect for him if he simply stated:

"Look Senator, I was trying to get a job working for Ed Meese. Ed Meese!! You remember that guy, don't you? I figured that a guy like Mr. Meese would appreciate the fact that I was a member of a group that objected to women and minorities being admitted to Princeton.

"As I got older, I started wishing that I had never joined that organization, but I knew that my affiliation with that group would help me more than it hurt me when it came to getting a job working for Ed Meese, and that's why I put it in the application. When applying for a job, you always have to remember who your audience is."

At least such a response would have been closer to the truth. But the bottom line here is that Alito is coming off looking like a pretty creepy dude. He's clearly an extremist's extremist, and if the Democrats don't filibuster this guy, then the lot of them might as well resign from the Senate and go live on an island somewhere.

Ted Stevens Is A Liar

After he unsuccessfully attempted to sneak ANWR oil drilling in through the Senate's back door last month, Alaska Senator Ted Stevens threw a fit and said: "I say goodbye to the Senate tonight."

Well, surprise -- it looks like Stevens is not a man of his word (from Political Wire):

Despite threats he would quit the U.S. Senate, Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) instead told the Anchorage Daily News he's going to ignore those "former friends" who blocked his plan to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.

Said Stevens: "I'm not traveling with them anymore, and I'm not going to play tennis or swim or do various things with them."

The Empire Strikes Back

From The Guardian:

American troops in Baghdad yesterday blasted their way into the home of an Iraqi journalist working for the Guardian and Channel 4, firing bullets into the bedroom where he was sleeping with his wife and children.

Ali Fadhil, who two months ago won the Foreign Press Association young journalist of the year award, was hooded and taken for questioning. He was released hours later.

Dr Fadhil is working with Guardian Films on an investigation for Channel 4's Dispatches programme into claims that tens of millions of dollars worth of Iraqi funds held by the Americans and British have been misused or misappropriated.

The troops told Dr Fadhil that they were looking for an Iraqi insurgent and seized video tapes he had shot for the programme. These have not yet been returned.

What form of government are we teaching the Iraqis again?

By the way, James Moore, author of "Bush's Brain," got a taste of this kind of harassment right here in Amerika:

This week last year I was preparing for a trip to Ohio to conduct interviews and research for a new book I was writing. My airline tickets had been purchased on line and the morning of departure I went to the Internet to print out my boarding pass. I got a message that said, "Not Allowed." Several subsequent tries failed. Surely, I thought, it's just a glitch within the airline's servers or software.

I made it a point to arrive very early at the airport. My reservation was confirmed before I left home. I went to the electronic kiosk and punched in my confirmation number to print out my boarding pass and luggage tags. Another error message appeared, "Please see agent."

I did. She took my Texas driver's license and punched in the relevant information to her computer system.

"I'm sorry, sir," she said. "There seems to be a problem. You've been placed on the No Fly Watch List."

Thanks for the link, Alane.

War Is Peace, Or -- Was The Iraqi Information Minister Simply Seeing the Future?

Who could forget the great words of Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf, the former Iraqi Information Minister who repeatedly assured Iraqis that Bush's invasion of Iraq back in 2003 was falling on its face and that Iraq would ultimately prevail. Here are a few of his greatest hits (from WeLoveTheIraqiInformationMinister.com):

"Now even the American command is under siege. We are hitting it from the north, east, south and west. We chase them here and they chase us there. But at the end we are the people who are laying siege to them. And it is not them who are besieging us."

"We have them surrounded in their tanks"

"I can say, and I am responsible for what I am saying, that they have started to commit suicide under the walls of Baghdad. We will encourage them to commit more suicides quickly."

"Faltering forces of infidels cannot just enter a country of 26 million people and lay besiege to them! They are the ones who will find themselves under siege. Therefore, in reality whatever this miserable Rumsfeld has been saying, he was talking about his own forces. Now even the American command is under siege."

It's interesting how some of al-Sahaf's words have lost their hilarity now that Bush's Iraq Quagmire is about to enter its fourth year. Indeed, BushCo is starting to sound more and more like that Iraqi Information Minister every day. It was Dick Cheney who said last May that "[t]he level of activity that we see today from a military standpoint, I think, will clearly decline," and "I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency."

Over 500 American troops have been killed in Iraq since Cheney made those ridiculous remarks, but that isn't stopping BushCo from piling on even more Orwellian spin. The chairman of the Joints Chiefs got into the act over the weekend when he responded to the fact that nearly 30 U.S. troops had been killed in Iraq since last Thursday:

Asked if the attacks were a sign that the December elections had failed to diminish the insurgency in Iraq, Gen. Peter Pace said the opposite was true.

Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that with each of the country's three elections, voter turnout increased, indicating that "the terrorists failed at each of their primary missions of stopping the vote."

"What's clear to me is that each of the elections has been a major blow to al Qaeda," Pace said at a Pentagon news conference Thursday. "I think what you're seeing now is a continuing attempt to disrupt the proper formation of the Iraqi government, and I'm confident they will fail."

So what's the deal? Should we start worrying when the number of insurgent attacks are down, and start to feel better about Bush's War when the violence surges? Or is it all good? SusanG at Kos sums it up this way:

I guess from Pace's point of view, it's been a great few days for Iraqis and U.S. troops.

Back here in the real world, where The Onion's take on reality is making more sense than those of our military commanders, I'll go with their August 2004 headline: Please Stop Bringing It On.

Our hearts, prayers and thoughts go out today to the families of the U.S. troops and the Iraqis who have been killed in recent days.

Finally

When Bush's approval rating was in the low 50 percentile, members of the Mainstream Media did not hesitate to refer to Bush as a "popular" president, even though the term "polarizing president" would have been more appropriate. I was just talking with some folks over the weekend about how members of the Media never call Bush an "unpopular president" now that his approval rating has been hovering around 40% for quite a while.

Well, the times they are a-changin'. Bill Schneider from CNN said this on Saturday (via Atrios):

This could be a big change and it could well be that these new leaders could include some who are not particularly loyal to the White House and the White House agenda with an unpopular president. They have to face re-election this year. You could find a Republican majority that's going to try to seek its own way and not simply follow the White House.

Religious Fanatics Unwittingly Reveal Weakness in Capitol Hill Security

Even extremists who hate America can sometimes end up helping America by mistake (God certainly does work in mysterious ways):

Insisting that God "certainly needs to be involved" in the Supreme Court confirmation process, three Christian ministers today blessed the doors of the hearing room where Senate Judiciary Committee members will begin considering the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito on Monday.

Capitol Hill police barred them from entering the room to continue what they called a consecration service. But in a bit of one-upsmanship, the three announced that they had let themselves in a day earlier, touching holy oil to the seats where Judge Alito, the senators, witnesses, Senate staffers and the press will sit, and praying for each of the 13 committee members by name. * * *

Capitol Hill police said they weren't aware that the three had entered the hearing room earlier, but added that hearing rooms typically aren't locked because "they're not of interest to anyone."

Clearly these rooms are of interest to some people. I wonder what they put on Senator Kennedy's seat?

Dean Cut Through All The Crap This Morning

If you missed Howard Dean on Wolf Blitzer's show this morning, Atrios has the link to the best part of it. Dean tore apart all of the GOP's lies on how the Abramoff Scandal is also a Democrat Scandal, and it was glorious.

Wolf's frustration at the end of the interview was particularly enjoyable. Blitzer had obviously bought into all of the Republican bullshit on the Abramoff Affair, and he clearly did not take kindly to Dean telling him where the bear goes through the buckwheat on this particular scandal.

UPDATE: The transcript can be found here.

UPDATE II: This is pretty funny:

White House aides are trying to identify all the photos that may exist of President Bush and lobbyist Jack Abramoff together, Time reports.

"Bracing for the worst, Administration officials obtained from the Secret Service a list of all the times Abramoff entered the White House complex, and they scrambled to determine the reason for each visit." According to one aide who has seen the list, Abramoff attended Hanukkah and holiday events at the White House. Press secretary Scott McClellan said Abramoff might also have attended large gatherings with Bush.

Bush certainly has reason for concern. As the L.A. Times noted last summer, "[a] U.S. grand jury in Guam opened an investigation of controversial lobbyist Jack Abramoff more than two years ago, but President Bush removed the supervising federal prosecutor and the inquiry ended soon after."

From Mike Luckovich of the of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Do They Swear On The Bible In Italy?

An Italian court will decide whether or not Jesus existed. From CNN:

The case pits against each other two men in their 70s, who are from the same central Italian town and even went to the same seminary school in their teenage years.

The defendant, Enrico Righi, went on to become a priest writing for the parish newspaper. The plaintiff, Luigi Cascioli, became a vocal atheist who, after years of legal wrangling, is set to get his day in court later this month. * * *

Cascioli says Righi, and by extension the whole Church, broke two Italian laws. The first is "Abuso di Credulita Popolare" (Abuse of Popular Belief) meant to protect people against being swindled or conned. The second crime, he says, is "Sostituzione di Persona," or impersonation.

"The Church constructed Christ upon the personality of John of Gamala," Cascioli claimed, referring to the 1st century Jew who fought against the Roman army.

A court in Viterbo will hear from Righi, who has yet to be indicted, at a January 27 preliminary hearing meant to determine whether the case has enough merit to go forward.

The atheist doesn't think he has much of a chance in the case: "It would take a miracle to win," said Cascioli.

Central Oregon Woman Figures Prominently In Turkish Anti-War Protests

Bush Vows To Subject "Agitator" To Ultra-Illegal Domestic Surveillance Upon Her Return To U.S.

From Wire Reports

For the past two weeks, Turkey has been inundated with waves of anti-war protests. Although this is not the first time such protests have broken out there, the latest rallies against George W. Bush and his War in Iraq are different in that most of them have been organized by an American tourist.

The tourist's name is Roxy -- her full name has been withheld for privacy reasons. Roxy has been a thorn in the sides of Turkish officials who are attempting to control all of the civil unrest that has coincided with her trip. "She has organized anti-Bush protests not only in İstanbul, Ankara, and Beyoglu, but also in Rize and Bursa," said Suleyman Evren, a member of the Turkish parliament. "She is a great menace."

So far, however, all attempts by Turkish authorities to capture and expel Roxy have failed. "She's wily, this one," said Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul. "We're starting to wonder if she ever sleeps." Below is a picture of Roxy sneaking out of a protest she organized in Izmir -- the police arrived only moments later.

President Bush, who was at his Crawford ranch today to engage in some emergency brush clearing, made it clear to reporters that Roxy's activities in Turkey will not go unpunished. "If you think the surveillance we conducted on Christiane Amanpour was unconstitutional, just wait and see what we have planned for this agitator," said Bush.

Press Secretary Scott McClelland attempted to minimize the President's comments today at a press briefing. "The situation with Ms. Holm is an ongoing investigation," said McClelland, "and as I've previously stated, while that investigation is ongoing, the White House is not going to comment on it. It is, after all, ongoing -- the investigation, that is."

Stuff Like This Doesn't Surprise Me Anymore

From Political Wire:

"A secret Pentagon study has found that as many as 80 percent of the marines who have been killed in Iraq from wounds to the upper body could have survived if they had had extra body armor," the New York Times reports. "Such armor has been available since 2003, but until recently the Pentagon has largely declined to supply it to troops despite calls from the field for additional protection, according to military officials."

DeLay Resigns His Majority Leadership Post

Delay is out as House Majority Leader:

It's been quite a fall for Tom DeLay, R-Texas, the House majority leader who formally stepped down today as he awaits trial on charges of conspiracy and money laundering. He retains his seat in Congress but reliquishes his leadership role.

In addition to his own legal troubles, which include charges that he laundered campaign money used in state legislature races, DeLay's association with lobbyist Jack Abramoff has further hurt his reputation. Abramoff pleaded guilty Tuesday to federal charges of conspiracy, fraud and tax evasion in a corruption probe that has linked him with lawmakers from both parties.

This is particularly satisfying given how hard DeLay and his allies have struggled to keep alive his hopes of returning as majority leader.

UPDATE:

Before stepping down as majority leader, Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX) "held a series of private discussions with current and former colleagues over the last two days, most of whom told him to give up any hope of returning to the leadership following Abramoff’s conviction," Roll Call reports.

Former RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie "even flew to Houston to offer DeLay the same advice. Gillespie and the GOP lawmakers told DeLay that it would be impossible for him to return as Majority Leader, a position also echoed by his senior aides. DeLay then decided that it was 'better to step down rather than be thrown out.'"

Several House Republican aides told Hotline On Call that "the White House sent Gillespie but also says DeLay "refused to meet with Gillespie."

Conason On The Abramoff Scandal

Joe Conason over at Salon exposes the religious hypocrisy underlying the Abramoff Scandal:

Rarely has the contrast between the rhetoric of the religious right and the behavior of its leaders been so starkly exposed as in the Abramoff scandal. The most obvious example was the manipulation of Christian activists in Louisiana and Texas by [Ralph] Reed, former executive director of the Christian Coalition, who said he was helping them fight gambling when he was actually using them to promote Indian casinos (and to make a few million bucks for himself).

That episode alone should have alerted honest Christians to the moral rot within the Republican leadership that professed to represent their interests. But there is of course much more evidence of the religious cynicism of Abramoff and his cronies.

The rest of Conason's article is definitely worth checking out.

The Real Danger Behind BushCo's Illegal Wiretapping

Back in 2004, George W. Bush said that he didn't think The War On Terror was winnable:

When asked "Can we win?" the war on terror, Bush said, "I don’t think you can win it. But I think you can create conditions so that the — those who use terror as a tool are — less acceptable in parts of the world."

That is one of the few truthful things Bush has said so far as president. But as Gene Lyons notes, Bush's illegal wiretapping of American citizens takes on an enhanced degree of creepiness in the context of an unwinnable war:

If allowed to stand, Bush’s actions will have taken the United States a long way down the road to military dictatorship. Indeed, that’s essentially what his legalistic enablers, starting with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Vice President Dick Cheney, argue : that in wartime, the commander-in-chief can take any action he deems appropriate to protect the nation, bypassing Congress and the courts to assert the primacy of the presidency until declaring victory in the “war on terror.”

As terrorism is not an enemy, but a tactic—a vile, cowardly tactic, but by definition not subject to being defeated—the metaphorical war against it could last indefinitely. And as long as it lasts, the commander-in-chief rules by fiat. Our constitutional rights exist at his sufferance.

I'm hoping that Judge ScAlito is asked a lot of questions along these lines during his confirmation hearing. Senators Schumer and Kennedy appear willing to make these types of inquiries:

Alito's endorsement of expansive presidential authority can be found in speeches he made to the conservative Federalist Society and in a memo he wrote as a Justice Department lawyer in 1984, Schumer said.

In a separate news briefing, Kennedy added that in addition to the speeches and memo, Alito's 15-year record as an appellate judge also reveals a pattern of deferring to government authority. "We have to ask ourselves, is there any limit to executive authority that this nominee will recognize?" Kennedy said.

Could Alito's life-long goal of becoming a Supreme Court Justice be the first casualty of the PoliceStateGate Scandal (after the Constitution and The Bill of Rights, of course)? It should be an interesting confirmation hearing.

And speaking of The War On Terror -- at least Bush thinks it is part of the War on Terror -- eleven American soldiers were killed in Iraq yesterday:

The U.S. military on Friday announced the deaths of six more American troops killed in the recent barrage of violence that has swept Iraq, bringing to 11 the number of troops killed on the same day.

A U.S. Marine and soldier died in the attack by a suicide bomber who infiltrated a line of police recruits in Ramadi on Thursday, killing at least 58 and wounding dozens. Two soldiers were also killed in the Baghdad area when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb, the military said Friday.

In addition, two U.S. Marines were killed by separate small arms attacks while conducting combat operations in Fallujah, the military said.

Thursday was "the fourth deadliest day in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, with at least 136 total deaths, including the U.S. troops."

Another Photo From Roxy's Trip

On the left is a picture of a carpet store in Istanbul. No, Roxy did not send me this picture. I still have not heard from her; but before she left, she told me she might look at some rugs while she is there, so it is possible that her travels took her near this store.

I hope she gets home before BushCo launches its attack on the Iranian nuclear facilities. Although Turkish officials have denied it, it has been reported that Bush plans to use Turkey as a base for these air strikes.

Roxy is probably safe, though -- I doubt Bush will launch these attacks any time soon. He'll wait until the U.S. Midterm Elections draw near.

Did BushCo Engage In Warrantless Wiretapping on CNN's Christiane Amanpour?

From TV Newser (via Josh Marshall):

Yesterday, MSNBC.com published a transcript of Andrea Mitchell's interview with author James Risen about the CIA's domestic spying program. In it, Mitchell asked Risen if he had uncovered evidence that CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour was eavesdropped upon. It was a specific and pointed question that led AMERICAblog to ask if the veteran journalist had been spied on by the Bush administration. This afternoon, MSNBC.com removed the portion of the transcript that referred to Amanpour. (Here's what it originally said.) In a statement to TVNewser tonight, NBC explained why:

"Unfortunately this transcript was released prematurely. It was a topic on which we had not completed our reporting, and it was not broadcast on 'NBC Nightly News' nor on any other NBC News program. We removed that section of the transcript so that we may further continue our inquiry."

I think a clearer picture is starting to emerge as to why Bush avoided using the secret FISA court to secure warrants for his surveillance activities. BushCo's reluctance to take that route seems mystifying on its face, given that the FISA court has been pretty "liberal" when it comes to approving wiretaps. As CNN reports:

According to the Justice Department, from 1979 to 2004 the court approved 18,724 wiretaps and denied only three, all in 2003. (Despite the 2002 presidential order allowing the NSA to work without a warrant when it chooses to, the agency has continued in many cases to apply for them. Last year it sought 1,754.) But the court has been subjecting the applications to closer examination. It made what the Justice Department calls "substantive modifications" to 94 of last year's requests--for example, reducing the scope, timing or targets in the original application.

But the Bush Regime knew that even the extremely lenient FISA court wouldn't tolerate acts such as eavesdropping on a reporter without a pretty darned good reason. It makes me start to wonder who else has been subjected to BushCo eavesdropping.

By the way, Bush apparently had his fingers crossed when he signed the McCain-sponsored anti-torture bill last Friday:

When President Bush last week signed the bill outlawing the torture of detainees, he quietly reserved the right to bypass the law under his powers as commander in chief.

After approving the bill last Friday, Bush issued a ''signing statement" -- an official document in which a president lays out his interpretation of a new law -- declaring that he will view the interrogation limits in the context of his broader powers to protect national security. This means Bush believes he can waive the restrictions, the White House and legal specialists said.

''The executive branch shall construe [the law] in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President . . . as Commander in Chief," Bush wrote, adding that this approach ''will assist in achieving the shared objective of the Congress and the President . . . of protecting the American people from further terrorist attacks."

Some legal specialists said yesterday that the president's signing statement, which was posted on the White House website but had gone unnoticed over the New Year's weekend, raises serious questions about whether he intends to follow the law.

Those "legal specialists" definitely have a talent for understatement.

Roxy Makes Contact (Sort Of)

Welcome to all the new readers of my blog who are coming here for information regarding Roxy and how her trip to Turkey is going. The idea was for Roxy to post comments on my blog about her trip and then I would post them as blog entries. Except for the fact that I haven't heard from Roxy, the plan has worked extremely well.


Danimal's wife, Liz, reportedly got a call yesterday from Roxy. Liz is recovering from surgery and Roxy called her to see how she was doing. I asked Danimal what Roxy said about how her Turkey trip was going. Danimal's response was to shrug and walk off.



Well, that's it for now. Don't forget to return here frequently for additional exciting updates on Roxy's epic trip.

At Least Sixty American Newspapers Have Asked The President To Step Down

Greg Mitchell at Editor & Publisher got a lot of "negative mail" over a story he wrote about how reputable publications were mentioning The "I" Word with regard to Bush's recent admission that he had committed impeachable offenses. Here is Mitchell's response to this negative feedback:

[I]t amazes me when people make fun of the very notion that a president under a dark cloud might be asked to leave office, or given a push, in light of the very recent experience involving one William Jefferson Clinton. This seems especially poignant, in light of President Clinton leaving office with an approval rating over 60%, while the current occupant of the White House sits at around 40%. Then there's the perennial debate over the relative demerits of fooling around with an intern vs. fooling an entire country into going to war based on false evidence (and anything else you'd care to add on top of that).

In any case, while still not taking a position on impeachment, I thought it would be interesting to look back at how the press reacted to the Clinton Crisis of 1998. Did newspaper editorials condemn Clinton for his screwing around, and lying about it, and leave it at that, or did they come out squarely for his exit from office?

What follows, from an Associated Press rundown on September 15, 1998, is a long list of newspapers that "called for President Clinton's resignation." AP added that some of those listed "did so before the release of Kenneth Starr's report on Sept. 11."

Mitchell then lists some 60 newspapers that asked Clinton to step down over the PenisGate Scandal.

You Gotta Love This

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned:

Michael Scanlon found himself at the center of one of the biggest political scandals in Washington history as a result of cheating and lying -- but not the type involving the numerous clients he was paid to lobby Congress for, former coworkers and friends of his ex-fiancee say.

Scanlon was implicated in the Abramoff scandal by his former thirtysomething fiancee, Emily J. Miller, whom he met in the late 1990s while working as communications director for former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX), three former associates who worked with Scanlon at DeLay's office said. Colleagues say Miller went to the FBI after Scanlon broke off their engagement and announced his intention to marry another woman.

More Evidence Of Intel Cherry-Picking During Run-Up To Iraq Debacle

The book that prompted the New York Times to finally come forward with what it knew about Bush's illegal wiretapping program has some interesting things to say with regard to other topics, including this:

A new book on the government's secret anti-terrorism operations describes how the CIA recruited an Iraqi-American anesthesiologist in 2002 to obtain information from her brother, who was a figure in Saddam Hussein's nuclear program.

Dr. Sawsan Alhaddad of Cleveland made the dangerous trip to Iraq on the CIA's behalf. The book said her brother was stunned by her questions about the nuclear program because — he said — it had been dead for a decade.

New York Times reporter James Risen uses the anecdote to illustrate how the CIA ignored information that Iraq no longer had weapons of mass destruction. His book, "State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration" describes secret operations of the Bush administration's war on terrorism.

The book reports that "some 30 family members of Iraqis made trips to their native country to contact Iraqi weapons scientists, and all of them reported that the programs had been abandoned." Clearly, the CIA was trolling for evidence that Iraq had ongoing WMD programs, and disregarded the overwelming evidence that these programs had been long abandoned.

Risen's book also describes yet another intelligence screw-up that occurred on Bush's watch:

In another chapter on a "rogue operation," the book said a CIA officer mistakenly sent one of its Iranian agents information that could be used to identify virtually every spy the agency had in Iran. The book said the Iranian was a double agent who turned over the data to Iranian security officials.

The book said the information severely damaged the CIA's Iranian network, and quoted CIA sources as saying several of the U.S. agents were arrested and jailed.

Anyone out there feel safer yet?

By the way, 2180 U.S. soldiers have been killed in Bush's illegal war in Iraq thus far.

BushCo Takes The Offensive On PoliceStateGate

The last few days have been pretty interesting ones as far as the PoliceStateGate Scandal is concerned. First of all, Bush wants to find out who exposed him as a criminal:

The Justice Department disclosed Friday that it was investigating who had leaked classified information about President Bush's top-secret domestic spying program — paving the way for a potentially contentious criminal probe that could reach high into the White House, Congress and the courts.

Several U.S. officials familiar with the investigation — which is in its infancy — said it would be conducted by FBI agents trained in probing national security and counterintelligence matters.

The officials said the investigation would focus primarily on disclosures in the New York Times that Bush had authorized the National Security Agency to conduct surveillance on people in the U.S. without getting warrants from a special federal court established to approve them.

I hope they find the person who leaked it so that whomever takes Bush's place in the White House can give this patriot the Medal of Freedom.

Meanwhile, I'm starting to change my opinion just a little bit regarding former Attorney General John Ashcroft. It has been widely reported that James Comey, Ashcroft's No. 2 man at the Justice Department in 2004, refused to authorize the secret wiretap program when Ashcroft was recovering from surgery. As Kos notes, however, this Newsweek article revealed some interesting information with regard to what happened when Andy Card and Roberto Gonzales tried to get Ashcroft to overrule Comey:

[I]n March 2004, White House chief of staff Card and White House Counsel Gonzales visited Ashcroft, the seriously ill attorney general, to try to get him to overrule Comey, who was officially acting as A.G. while Ashcroft was incapacitated. Ashcroft refused, and a battle over what to do broke out in the Justice Department and at the White House. Finally, sometime in the summer of 2004, a compromise was reached, with Comey onboard: according to an account in The New York Times, Justice and the NSA refined a checklist to follow in deciding whether "probable cause" existed to start monitoring someone's conversations.

I was stunned to read that even Ashcroft started having concerns about this unauthorized wiretapping program. That says a lot. I'm sure we'll be hearing a lot more about this very intriguing intra-Administration battle in the months to come.

Mission Accomplished

That is, if the mission was to waste billions of taxpayer dollars on nothing:

The Bush administration does not intend to seek any new funds for Iraq reconstruction in the budget request going before Congress in February, officials say. The decision signals the winding down of an $18.4 billion U.S. rebuilding effort in which roughly half of the money was eaten away by the insurgency, a buildup of Iraq's criminal justice system and the investigation and trial of Saddam Hussein.

Just under 20 percent of the reconstruction package remains unallocated. When the last of the $18.4 billion is spent, U.S. officials in Baghdad have made clear, other foreign donors and the fledgling Iraqi government will have to take up what authorities say is tens of billions of dollars of work yet to be done merely to bring reliable electricity, water and other services to Iraq's 26 million people.