I Felt Sorry For Dana Perino Today

She was clearly struggling in her attempt to explain that President Bush really wasn't lying to the country about Iran's ability to build a nuclear weapon. You can watch the video of Perino's press conference here (be warned, though -- it is a bit tough to watch).

Thing are so bad for Bush right now that even Fox News had a headline on its website today which read "Bush Administration Credibility Suffers After Iran NIE Report."

And check this out:

The latest National Intelligence Estimate concluding that Iran discontinued its nuclear weapons program four years ago has claimed one casualty: CNN has postponed speculative documentary "We Were Warned -- Iran Goes Nuclear."

The two-hour spec, which was slated for Dec. 12 under the "CNN Presents" banner, was "set partially in the future," featuring a what-if scenario as former government officials -- playing fictional cabinet members -- debate how to deal with the Iranian threat.

That special was "based on a different set of rules and a different set of conditions," said CNN veep-senior exec producer Mark Nelson, noting that the surprising NIE report "changed everything."

What was Mussolini's definition of fascism again?

Welcome To Front-Runner Status, Gov. Huckabee

From the Huffington Post:

As governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee aggressively pushed for the early release of a convicted rapist despite being warned by numerous women that the convict had sexually assaulted them or their family members, and would likely strike again. The convict went on to rape and murder at least one other woman. * * *

Huckabee is also getting nailed on not knowing anything about yesterday's biggest story -- the Iran NIE. Of course, the real problem for Huck is going to be the fact that he thinks the Earth is only 6000 years old. After eight years of Bush, do we really need another president who dismisses scientific fact merely because his extremist religion tells him to?

Merry Christmas From Senator Larry Craig

I guess this was inevitable:

David Phillips. Mike Jones. Greg Ruth. Tom Russell.

Four gay men, willing to put their names in print and whose allegations can't be disproved, have come forward since news of U.S. Sen. Larry Craig's guilty plea. They say they had sex with Craig or that he made a sexual advance or that he paid them unusual attention.

They are telling their stories now because they are offended by Craig's denials, including his famous statement, "I am not gay, I never have been gay." Those words, spoken on live national TV on Aug. 28, are now memorialized on a just-released-for-Christmas Talking Senator Larry Craig Action Figure.

David Phillips is a 42-year-old information technology consultant in Washington, D.C., who says Craig picked him up at a gay club in 1986 and that they subsequently had sex.

Mike Jones is a former prostitute who told the world he had sex with the Rev. Ted Haggard last year. The former Colorado Springs evangelist at first denied it but eventually confessed. Jones says Craig paid him for sex in late 2004 or early 2005.

Greg Ruth was a 24-year-old college Republican in 1981 when he says he was hit on by Craig at a Republican meeting in Coeur d'Alene.

Tom Russell, now 48, is a former Nampa resident who lives in Utah. Russell said his encounter with Craig occurred at Bogus Basin in the early 1980s.

A fifth gay man, who is from Boise but who declined to be named for fear of retaliation, offered a recent and telling account: He was in a men's restroom at Denver International Airport in September 2006 when the man in the next stall moved his hand slowly, palm up, under the divider. Alarmed, the man said he waited outside the restroom and then identified the man in the adjoining stall as Craig, whom he had met in Idaho. * * *

Thanks for the link, Todd.

And speaking of Republicans, check this out:

Mike Huckabee has leaped ahead of Republican presidential rival Mitt Romney in Iowa, seizing first place in a new Des Moines Register poll of likely Republican caucus participants.

Huckabee wins the support of 29 percent of Iowans who say they definitely or probably will attend the Republican Party's caucuses on Jan. 3. That's a gain of 17 percentage points since the last Iowa Poll was taken in early October, when Huckabee trailed both Romney and Fred Thompson.

Wow.

UPDATE: Kos has this to add to the "Rise of Huckabee" story:

All of this, keep in mind, by a guy that has been utterly incompetent in raising money -- spending a grand total of $1.7 million as of the end of Q3 -- the least amount of any candidate in the race except for Alan Keyes and Mike Gravel. Talk about an object lesson about money in politics. His $2.35 million raised thus far is less than everyone except the two fringe candidates listed above, as well as Dennis Kucinich and Duncan Hunter. In other words, Huckabee has contender numbers (if not "frontrunner" ones) while his fundraising numbers hover in "fringe" territory. That's pretty amazing.

Et Tu, Condi?

We've gotten all this talk over the last few years from various members of the Bush Regime about how the decision to invade and occupy Iraq was the correct one and that anyone who says otherwise is a traitor. And that's one of the reasons why I found Karl Rove's recent attempt to blame Congress for the Iraq Catastrophe so interesting. I mean, if it was such a great decision to begin with, Karl, then why are you so lamely trying to distance yourself and your former boss from it?

Condi Rice has also engaged in a bit of history re-writing herself. As anyone who occasionally reads this blog knows, I don't have much respect for our current Secretary of State, and this lack of respect on my part pretty much started when Rice uttered her now-infamous statement: "I don't think anybody could have predicted ... that [terrorists] would try to use an airplane as a missile." Of course, there were plenty of pre-911 predictions along these lines. Let's face it, Condi -- you blew it.

It turns out, however, that this wasn't Rice's only attempt to distance herself from her own incompetence. Washington Post reporter Glenn Kessler, author of The Confidante: Condoleezza Rice and the Creation of the Bush Legacy, recently revealed on C-Span that after Bush promoted Rice to Secretary of State, she continued her attempts to distract the public from her own miserable performance as National Security Adviser (from Think Progress):

She had a very deliberative public relations strategy when she became Secretary of State to help erase the images of how ineffective she had been as National Security Adviser. And I describe how one of her aides even planted a question with a friendly journalist to ask whether she would be interested in running for president — to give her the aura of someone who might have presidential aspirations, make her seem more powerful than she was.

And that all helped negate American memories over her very direct role in the invasion of Iraq.

I've long thought that all the talk about Rice becoming president was silly in the extreme, so it makes me feel a little better to learn that such talk was all bullshit anyway.

Rove Would Have Made A Great Nazi

Karl Rove has taken the Nazi's "the bigger the lie the more people will believe it" idea and has really run with it:

According to Karl Rove (on Charlie Rose), the Bush Administration did not want Congress to vote on the Iraq War resolution in the fall of 2002, because they thought it should not be done within the context of an election. Rove, you see, did not think the war vote should be "political".

Moreover, according to Rove, that "premature vote" led to many of the problems that cropped up in the Iraq War. Had Congress not pushed, he says, Bush could have spent more time assembling a coalition, and provided more time to the inspectors.

It's not only all bullshit, but it is gold-plated bullshit, especially that last part about Congress not giving the weapons inspectors enough time. I can't wait to hear what Rove will come up with next in his epic stuggle to re-write the history of the Bush Regime.

Has Another Universe Been Discovered?

This is interesting:

Astronomers announced in August 2007 the discovery of a large hole at the edge of our universe. Since then, theoretical physicist and cosmologist Laura Mersini-Houghton and colleagues have claimed it is an “unmistakable imprint of another universe beyond the edge of our own.”

The article entitled “Astronomers Find Enormous Hole in the Universe” discusses the August 2007 discovery of the hole. It is located at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory website.

Dr. Laura Mersini-Houghton is a theoretical physicist and cosmologist at the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill).

The hole is estimated to be almost one billion light-years across, where one light-year is about 9.5 trillion kilometers (5.9 trillion miles) and is located within the constellation Eridanus.

The Mersini-Houghton team states that the hole is another universe at the edge of our own universe. Such an explanation, if true, would be the first experimental evidence of such an exo-universe, or a universe outside of our own universe. * * *

Cool Astro Photo

The photo at left was taken moments after a Delta IV Heavy rocket performed a burn and dump of remaining fuel prior to payload separation. The Orion Nebula is at the bottom of the image. The launch occurred at Kennedy Space Center, and the payload was a defense satellite. This photo was taken by astronomers at the Comanche Springs Astronomy Campus near Crowell, Texas. You can watch a slide show of it here.

Bush's Iraq Debacle Claims Yet Another Political Victim

From the Wall Street Journal (via Daily Kos):

Australian Prime Minister John Howard suffered a humiliating defeat in national elections Saturday, according to preliminary results, most likely ending the political career of one Asia's most enduring conservative leaders and a key ally of U.S. President George W. Bush in the region.

Voters were ready to hand control of the government to Australia's opposition Labor party, headed by former diplomat Kevin Rudd, who has promised to boost relations with China, pull some troops from Iraq, and re-make Australia as a leader in the global effort to stop global warming. The defeat appears so complete that the 68-year-old Mr. Howard, Australia's second-longest-serving prime minister, appeared likely to lose his own parliamentary seat, which he has held for 33 years.

To be fair, it looks like local issues dominated this particular campaign, but I'm sure that Iraq didn't help the situation much.

When Real-Time Flip-Flopping Just Isn't Enough

Rudy Giuliani said this in a recent interview with regard to why he voted for McGovern in 1972 (via Talking Points Memo):

"I had traditionally been a Democrat," Giuliani told me in a recent interview in Las Vegas. "It was almost like a reflex mode. I actually remember saying to myself, 'If I was a person really deciding who should be president right now, I'd probably vote for Nixon, because I think the country would be safer with Nixon.'"

I Love This

From Political Wire:

A new SurveyUSA poll finds Sen. Mitch McConnell's (R-KY) net approval rating turning negative for the first time. His approval rating is now at 44%, the lowest since tracking began in May of 2005, and his disapproval is at an all-time high of 47%.

Over the last 31 months, McConnell has had job approval ratings ranging from a low of 48% to a high of 56%. His net approval, determined by subtracting disapproval from approval, ranged from +4 last month to +24 in June of 2005. This month, for the first time, McConnell has a negative net approval of -3.

McConnell is up for re-election next year.

This Is Interesting

Last January, I suggested that Guy Pearce would be a perfect choice to play the father character in the film version of of Cormac McCarthy's The Road. Well, it looks like that is what's going to happen:

Not too long ago, Viggo Mortensen told MTV that he was in talks to play the lead in the adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's The Road. Since then, ShockTillYouDrop has learned that Guy Pearce will be playing the character. The story concerns a father and son traveling through a post-apocalyptic wasteland full of violent cannibals. So unless Pearce is playing Viggo's son, there's not much room for both of them in this picture.

Mortensen would have been a good choice as well, but Pearce is skinnier so he'd probably be more believable in the role because the main characters are starving. Another actor who would have been good as the dad is Christian Bale, but he's starved himself twice already (for Rescue Dawn and The Machinist) and doing so again would probably risk his life.

This will be a tough book to adapt to the big screen. I'm very interested to see what they come up with.

Rudy's 911 Call

Rudy Giuliani said this during a recent debate: "The reality is that I'm not running on what I did on Sept. 11."

Well, he certainly has an interesting concept of reality (from today's New York Post via Hoffmania):

Rudy Giuliani is trumpeting his leadership in the wake of 9/11 in campaign mailings to voters in Iowa and New Hampshire.

In one piece, Giuliani is hailed as "America's Mayor" who displayed "Strength through Leadership."

While Giuliani's supporters have long boasted about his performance after the attacks, he himself had not, until now, mentioned it as prominently.

"After the worst attacks on US soil, Rudy Giuliani went to work rebuilding New York City and faith in America," reads the mailing, which features a photo of the former mayor set over the city skyline.

Giuliani, it says, "led the largest rescue and recovery operation in US history."

Perhaps Rudy's 9-11 push has something to do with this.

And speaking of presidential politics, here is an excellent post from Kevin Drum. And this is very interesting.

Nice Try, Assholes

Quote Of The Week

"I'm no authority, but I'm not in favor of war unless it's an emergency."

106-year-old Frank W. Buckles, one of the last surviving veterans of World War I (quoted in the Washington Post).

Chris Pine Will Play Kirk In New Trek Movie

That's him on the immediate left next to Shatner. The rest of the cast is also in place.



Zachary Quinto, the bad guy from Heroes, will play Spock. Karl Urban - the guy who played Eomer in the Lord of the Rings movies -- will play McCoy. Simon Pegg of Shawn of the Dead and Hot Fuzz fame will play Scotty. John Cho (star of Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle and the upcoming Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay) will play Sulu.

Although the casting looks to be pretty solid, I still think there is a good chance this movie will suck. I was under the initial impression that the film was going to be about Kirk and Spock's final days in the Academy -- followed by their first space mission together as junior officers -- and I thought that might be interesting. But now it sounds like it will be set aboard the Enterprise and Kirk will be the captain.

I hope I'm wrong and the movie turns out to be good, but I just think that the whole Star Trek concept has run out of steam. What they should do instead is let the franchise rest for about a decade and then return with a television series set about 100 years later than Next Generation.

Maybe they could do a series where the Federation is destroyed and the survivors of the last starship -- Enterprise -- lead a rag-tag fugitive fleet on a lonely quest to find a new home (or something like that).

This Could Get Ugly

From Reuters:

Kurdish rebels killed 17 Turkish soldiers and wounded 16 others in an ambush on Sunday, prompting crisis talks in Ankara to consider a military strike against rebel bases in Iraq.

The attack, the worst in more than a decade by rebels of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), came four days after Turkey's parliament overwhelmingly approved a motion to allow troops to enter northern Iraq to fight guerrillas hiding there.

"We are very angry. ... Our parliament has granted us the authority to act and within this framework we will do whatever has to be done," an ashen-faced Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan told reporters.

Is A Presidential Pardon In Alberto Gonzales' Future?

It is starting to sound like one might be necessary (from the Spokesman-Review):

The U.S. Inspector General may recommend criminal prosecution of departed Attorney General Alberto Gonzales at the conclusion of an investigation, possibly as early as next month, the fired former U.S. attorney for Western Washington told a Spokane audience Friday. * * *

“My best guess is [the Office of Inspector General's final report to Congress] will be released sometime next month,’’ and likely will include recommendations for criminal prosecutions of Gonzales and maybe others, McKay said.

Gonzales “lied about” reasons for the firings when questioned under oath in July by the Senate Judiciary Committee and now has hired a lawyer and is refusing to answer questions from the Inspector General, McKay said.

The White House said McKay was fired for poor performance ratings of his office, but the ex-U.S. attorney said he and his office got exemplary reviews just three months before he was fired.

Of course, Gonzales would never see the inside of a jail cell [Fredrick, are you in a betting mood?] In fact, unlike what happened to Scooter Libby, I'm certain that Bush would pardon Gonzales before a trial even started.

But that doesn't mean they shouldn't at least begin a criminal prosecution. I lost count of how many times Gonzales lied under oath before Congress.

Sure, he wasn't the only Bush official to do so -- lying seems to be standard operating procedure for the White House these days. Call me old-fashioned, but I think the Attorney General for the United States of America should be held to a higher standard, even though a criminal prosecution would amount merely to a temporary inconvenience for that sonofabitch.

It Begins

Snowfall in Bend on October 20. This is the earliest first snowfall of the season that I can remember.

Yesterday Was A Good Day For The Democrats

Maybe it was the result of a recent poll showing Bush with a 24% approval rating, but something definitely clicked yesterday for the Democrats -- well, at least for two Democrats.

This is what California Democratic Rep. Pete Stark said during yesterday's House debates over whether to override Bush's veto of legislation to expand the SCHIP program (the override attempt failed):

First of all, I'm just amazed that they can't figure out-- the Republicans are worried that we can't pay for insuring an additional ten million children. They sure don't care about finding $200 billion to fight the illegal war in Iraq. Where are you gonna get that money? You gonna tell us lies, like you're telling us today? Is that how you're going to fund the war? You don't have the money to fund the war or children, but you're going to spend it to blow up innocent people, if we could get enough kids to grow old enough for you to send to Iraq to get their heads blown off for the President's amusement.

Of course, the Republicans immediately demanded a retraction, but Stark would have none of that. He simply responded by offering more criticism of the "chicken hawks in Congress who vote to deny children health care." Stark apparently understands how to deal with Republicans -- raise the stakes, and when the Extreme Right complains about it, then re-raise.

And Democratic Senator Chris Dodd found some guts as well:

Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) announced in a breathless press release this afternoon that he would block the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) "from being considered by the full Senate and from receiving a vote on the Senate floor." The statement came as the Senate Intelligence Committee met to consider the legislation -- and weeks before it is likely to reach the floor.

On Wednesday, a bipartisan group of Senators and the Bush administration reached a compromise on the politically charged bill, which governs the federal government's domestic surveillance program, including a highly controversial grant of legal immunity to telecommunications companies. Civil libertarians oppose the compromise as going too far to protect telecoms that were revealed to have participated in a warrantless wiretapping program, and because the legislation wouldn't establish warrants for each individual wiretap.

Dodd said he would place a "hold" on the FISA bill, a device available to any senator to stop legislation from moving forward. "By granting immunity to telecommunications companies that participated in the president's terrorist surveillance program, even though such participation may have been illegal, the FISA reform bill sets a dangerous precedent by giving the President sweeping authorization to neglect the right to privacy that Americans are entitled to under the Constitution," Dodd explained in a statement outlining his concerns.

The rhetoric got hotter with every paragraph. "It is unconscionable that such a basic right has been violated, and that the president is the perpetrator," Dodd said. "I will do everything in my power to stop Congress from shielding this President's agenda of secrecy, deception, and blatant unlawfulness."

We'll see how all this eventually plays out, but it is a good start.

24% Of Americans Still Support Bush

From Reuters:

Deepening unhappiness with President George W. Bush and the U.S. Congress soured the mood of Americans and sent Bush's approval rating to another record low this month, according to a Reuters/Zogby poll released on Wednesday.

The Reuters/Zogby Index, which measures the mood of the country, also fell from 98.8 to 96 -- the second consecutive month it has dropped. The number of Americans who believe the country is on the wrong track jumped four points to 66 percent.

Bush's job approval rating fell to 24 percent from last month's record low for a Zogby poll of 29 percent.

And speaking of asses, here is a contest I can really get behind.

Moths To The Flame

I love it. The GOP and their harshoid mouthpieces just got their asses handed to them on the whole Graeme Frost Debacle and now it appears that they are coming back for more. This time they are trying to swift boat Bethany Wilkerson, a two-year-old girl who benefited from the SCHIP program after being born with a serious heart problem.

I think the Democrats are really on to something here. What they should do is line up at least a dozen more kids just like Graeme and Bethany and release videos featuring each one and explaining how each benefited from SCHIP.

Like lemmings to the sea, Michelle Malkin and other right wing extremists will be compelled to attack every one of these kids. The overall political effect will be like Terri Schiavo times 12.

Krugman Is Right (As Usual)

Paul Krugman's recent op-ed, "Gore Derangement Syndrome," addresses the Extreme Right's outrage over Gore winning the Nobel Peace Prize, and it is right on the money. The whole piece is great, but here is my favorite section:

* * * What is it about Mr. Gore that drives right-wingers insane?

Partly it’s a reaction to what happened in 2000, when the American people chose Mr. Gore but his opponent somehow ended up in the White House. Both the personality cult the right tried to build around President Bush and the often hysterical denigration of Mr. Gore were, I believe, largely motivated by the desire to expunge the stain of illegitimacy from the Bush administration.

And now that Mr. Bush has proved himself utterly the wrong man for the job — to be, in fact, the best president Al Qaeda’s recruiters could have hoped for — the symptoms of Gore derangement syndrome have grown even more extreme.

The worst thing about Mr. Gore, from the conservative point of view, is that he keeps being right. In 1992, George H. W. Bush mocked him as the “ozone man,” but three years later the scientists who discovered the threat to the ozone layer won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. In 2002 he warned that if we invaded Iraq, “the resulting chaos could easily pose a far greater danger to the United States than we presently face from Saddam.” And so it has proved. * * *

The Extreme Right's recent attacks on Gore have been nothing short of hilarious. As Krugman mentioned in his op/ed, the National Review Online suggested that the Nobel Peace Prize should have been shared with "that well-known peace campaigner Osama bin Laden, who implicitly endorsed Gore’s stance" (bin Laden apparently mentioned climate change in one of his videos, so that is enough for the Right Wing to allege that Gore is in cahoots with The EvilDoers).

But Imbecile Supreme Bill Kristol and his cohort-in-idiocy Charles Krauthammer had the funniest responses:

Conservative commentators Bill Kristol and Charles Krauthammer appeared on the program Fox News Sunday this morning and were eager to rain on the environmental activist and, now, Nobel laureate's parade.

"Friday, I felt a warm glow thinking this man had won the Nobel Peace Prize for bloviating about global warming," Kristol said through a snarky grin. "It's a prize given by bloviators to bloviators."

Krauthammer perhaps felt Kristol was letting the prize committee and prize winners off easy.

"Look, let's not forget what the prize is about," he admonished. "Al Gore joins the ranks of Yasser Arafat, the father of modern terrorism, Le Duc Tho, who sign a treaty on behalf of a government that two years later invaded and extinguished the country it signed that treaty with, and the most disgraceful ex-president of the United States Jimmy Carter," another undeserving winner in Krauthammer's view.

How do we know for sure that giving Al Gore the Nobel Peace Prize was the right thing to do? Because Bill Kristol and Charles Krauthammer thought it was the wrong thing to do. And that's enough confirmation for me, given the track record of these idiots. Indeed, Kristol has made a career out of being wrong.

Last Wilderness Trip Of The Season

Central Oregon's weather from mid-September to mid-October is usually the nicest of the year. Sure, the nights can get pretty cold, but the days are usually sunny and comfortable. That's why I like to do a lot of backpacking right about now (the lack of mosquitoes is also a big plus).

Unfortunately, the weather for the last month or so hasn't been the greatest. Just check out my posts from a couple weeks ago to see what kind of conditions we've been having in the high country lately.

But this last weekend's weather was great, so Danimal and I decided to take one final overnight trip into the the Central Oregon wilderness before the snows really start to fly. We ended up backpacking into an area full of smaller-sized lakes to see if we could catch a few trout while enjoying what will probably be one of the last decent weekends of the year.

Backpacking is so much easier when it isn't snowing or raining on you. I'm not saying that backpacking in bad weather is always unenjoyable -- it isn't -- but things like setting up camp or packing up to leave are much simpler when the skies are clear and sunny. It's also a lot easier to see the stars at night when it isn't snowing.

Fishing was a bit on the slow side, but we did tangle with a few cutthroat as well as one particularly tenacious brook trout that followed Dan's bait right up to shore and then leapt in an attempt to eat Dan's weight and swivel as Dan was pulling his rigging out of the water. I then flipped my spinner into the shallows a few feet from this fish, and he did a beeline right to my lure, hit it hard, and then put up a really aggressive close-to-shore fight. We released that fish, but kept two others for dinner and breakfast.

We did quite a bit of "off trail" backpacking this time, guided only by compass and our map (no GPS this trip). Some of the lakes we visited have no trails going into them, which can make them a bit difficult to find sometimes, but we managed. We saw a couple of deer hunters up there about five miles in, but nobody else.

Anyway, it is a great time of year to be roaming around in the high country, but also a sad time because the area wll be snow covered in a few weeks and inaccessible until the late Spring or early Summer. Oh well.

Now What? (with update)

Al Gore has won the Nobel Peace Prize. He's sharing it with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. I'm sure the Extreme Right will attack the award on the basis that climate change -- whether it exists or not -- has nothing to do with peace. The problem with that argument is that even Bush's Defense Department believes that climate change is one of the greatest -- if not the greatest -- security threats our country currently faces. No matter -- the Extreme Right doesn't much care about the facts anyway.

The issue now is whether Gore will try to take advantage of all this positive press and run for president. For a long time, I thought that Gore would run, but only if no clear front-runner emerges early from the current Democratic field.

Well, Hillary has emerged as the clear front-runner. Yes, it is still early and anything can happen, but there it is. One year ago, I thought it would have been a mistake for the Democrats to nominate Hillary -- and thus essentially neutralize Iraq as a campaign issue for the 2008 General Election -- but one of the underpinnings to my thinking in that regard was that the GOP would run a candidate who could actually win the presidency.

Fortunately for the Democrats, that is not happening. Giuliani, the current GOP front-runner by some accounts, is a cross-dresser who is so hated by the Radical Religious Right that they are threatening to run a third-party candidate if Rudy gets the GOP nomination. Giuliani is even hated by his own children, for God's Sake.

Romney is not only hampered by being a practicing member of a religion that some folks think is akin to a cult, but is also the biggest flip-flopper in American political history. He'd get crucified in the General Election.

The one Republican I thought might have a chance -- Fred Thompson -- is reportedly the laziest campaigner in the world, and he also thinks the Soviet Union is still a real country. Plus, he's probably the most right wing of the GOP field, and that alone might sink his chances in the General Election because Bush is the most right-winged president in American history and I think that folks are a bit tired of having an extremist in the White House.

Anyway, my current thinking is that Gore will probably not run for the 2008 nomination. But I hope he proves me wrong because I believe he would make a great president.

Gore/Obama 2008.

UPDATE: For what it's worth:

A source involved in Gore's past political runs told CNN that he definitely has the ambition to use the peace prize as a springboard to run for president.

But he will not run, because he won't take on the political machine assembled by Sen. Hillary Clinton, said the source. If the senator from New York had faltered at all, Gore would take a serious look at entering the race, the source said. But Gore has calculated that Clinton is unstoppable, according to the source.

More Treason From The Bush Regime

Isn't it funny how Bush apologists never hesitate to accuse anti-war folks of being traitors when the Bush Regime itself has committed several acts of outright treason in the past seven years? Here is the latest one (from the Washington Post via AmericaBlog):

A small private intelligence company that monitors Islamic terrorist groups obtained a new Osama bin Laden video ahead of its official release last month, and around 10 a.m. on Sept. 7, it notified the Bush administration of its secret acquisition. It gave two senior officials access on the condition that the officials not reveal they had it until the al-Qaeda release.

Within 20 minutes, a range of intelligence agencies had begun downloading it from the company's Web site. By midafternoon that day, the video and a transcript of its audio track had been leaked from within the Bush administration to cable television news and broadcast worldwide.

The founder of the company, the SITE Intelligence Group, says this premature disclosure tipped al-Qaeda to a security breach and destroyed a years-long surveillance operation that the company has used to intercept and pass along secret messages, videos and advance warnings of suicide bombings from the terrorist group's communications network. * * *

This latest act of treason, however, is different from all the other traitorous acts of the Bush Regime because this time the Democrats control Congress and I have no doubt that they'll get right on it and expose the wrongdoers.

I'm kidding, of course.

And on a somewhat unrelated topic, I found this interesting:

Two months before the 2004 election, when she was still at NBC's "Today" show, [Katie] Couric had asked Condoleezza Rice whether she agreed with Vice President Cheney's declaration that the country would be at greater risk for terrorist attacks if John Kerry won the White House. Rice sidestepped the question, saying that any president had to fight aggressively against terrorism.

Couric interrupted and asked the question again. Would a Kerry victory put America at greater risk? Rice ducked again, saying that the issue should not be personalized.

Soon afterward, Couric got an e-mail from Robert Wright, the NBC president. He was forwarding a note from an Atlanta woman who complained that Couric had been too confrontational with Rice.

What was the message here? Couric felt that Wright must be telling her to back off. She wrote him a note, saying that she tried to be persistent and elicit good answers in all her interviews, regardless of the political views of her guests. If Wright had a problem with that, she would like to discuss it with him personally. Wright wrote back that such protest letters usually came in batches, but that he had passed along this one because it seemed different.

Couric felt there was a subtle, insidious pressure to toe the party line, and you bucked that at your peril. She wanted to believe that her NBC colleagues were partners in the search for truth, and no longer felt that was the case. She knew that the corporate management viewed her as an out-and-out liberal. When she ran into Jack Welch, the General Electric chairman, he would sometimes say that they had never seen eye to eye politically. If you weren't rah rah rah for the Bush administration, and the war, you were considered unpatriotic, even treasonous.

The reason this stuff still angers me really has nothing to do with the fact that BushCo lied this country into a war -- and then repeatedly committed acts of outright treason -- and neither he nor anyone else in his corrupt administration has really been called on any of it.

What troubles me is how much the Corporate Media assisted the Bush Regime in launching the illegal invasion, and then continued to help our Deserter-In-Chief "propel the propaganda" with regard to Iraq and the "War on Terror" long after the stated reason for the invasion (i.e., Iraqi WMD) turned out to be complete bullshit. The question Katie Couric was asking Condi Rice was a legitimate one that should have been answered.

And since when does a single Bush-supporting, e-mail-sending moron from Georgia get to dictate what kind of questions a network news interviewer can ask Condi Rice?

And speaking of extremists, I find this to be hysterically funny (from the Oregonian):

Opponents of a new domestic partnership law for same-sex couples failed to gather enough signatures to put a referendum on the November 2008 ballot.

The secretary of state's office said Monday that volunteers who spent the summer collecting signatures to allow voters to weigh in on domestic partnerships fell 116 signatures short of the 55,179 needed to qualify for the ballot. * * *

Am I understanding this right? These right wing religious extremists worked all through the summer getting signatures and actually got over 55,000 legitimate ones, but fell short of their goal by a mere 116 signatures?

That may be the funniest thing I've ever heard.

I've Got Some Good News And Some Bad News (With Update)

First the bad news:

A Minnesota judge has denied Sen. Larry Craig's request to withdraw his guilty plea to a misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge stemming from his arrest in a sex sting at an airport men's room.

Hennepin County District Judge Charles Porter found Craig had entered the guilty plea "accurately, voluntarily and intelligently" and it was too late to withdraw his admission.

In a sharply worded, 27-page order, the judge found the Idaho Republican had freely given his plea after extensive discussions with prosecutors and after waiving his right to an attorney.

"The defendant, a career politician with a college education, is of at least above-average intelligence," Porter wrote. "He knew what he was saying, reading and signing."

Well, that's a shame, because now it looks like Senator Craig will have to follow through with his promise to resign, thus ending a scandal that really had the potential to replace PenisGate as my all-time favorite.

But wait! All is not lost! Here is the good news:

Idaho Sen. Larry Craig defiantly vowed to serve out his term in office on Thursday despite losing a court attempt to rescind his guilty plea in a men’s room sex sting.

“I have seen that it is possible for me to work here effectively,” Craig said in a written statement certain to disappoint fellow Republicans who have long urged him to step down.

Excellent.

UPDATE: Robert Novak said this on Saturday:

I have talked to several of my sources in the Senate, and this came as a surprise to me. . . . They knew about it. They knew that he had this problem, and it was in the closet. And it was not just a homosexual relationship. It was this weird conduct. They didn’t do anything about it.

More Bad News For GOP

This is brutal:

When it comes to looking for a presidential nominee, Republican voters may not want a full divorce, but they certainly want at least a trial separation from President Bush.

In the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll out Wednesday night, about half of all Republicans (48 percent) want a candidate who takes a “different approach” from that of the president, while just 38 percent want a “similar approach.” This is a reversal from April, the last time the question was asked, when 50 percent wanted a candidate who took a similar approach as opposed to 41 percent who wanted a different one.

It'll be interesting to see how the GOP presidential candidates deal with this particular problem, given that every one of them (except for Ron Paul) supports Bush with regard to the Iraq Catastrophe.

But then again, maybe Iraq isn't that big of an issue for the Republicans. After all, the top Democratic contenders for the presidency won't even commit to having all our troops out of Iraq by the end of their first term. I can't believe that the Democrats are basically neutralizing their best campaign issue in years by going GOP-lite on us with regard to Iraq, but there it is.

More Backpacking Photos

As promised, here are a few more pictures from last weekend's backpacking trip.

This Is A Great Idea

A war tax:

President Bush will not get an Iraq war supplemental spending bill until he changes course on the war, House Appropriations Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.) said Tuesday. The powerful lawmaker also voiced his support for a “war tax.”

“As chairman of the Appropriations Committee I have absolutely no intention of reporting out of committee anytime in this session of Congress any such request that simply serves to continue the status quo,” Obey told reporters.

He wants a war spending bill to end U.S. involvement in combat operations by January 2009, allow more rest time for troops between deployments and start a “diplomatic surge.”

Obey also came out in favor of Rep. James McGovern’s (D-Mass.) war tax proposal.

“If you don’t like the cost, then shut down the war,” Obey said in a news conference.

The tax would be intended to raise roughly $150 billion for the war. It would be a surtax of 2 to 15 percent of income tax. A 2 percent surtax means that a person who would otherwise pay $100 in taxes would pay $102.

Let's hope Obey has the guts to see this through.

Thank You, Franklin Roosevelt (And Jayson)

I love the first big snowfall of the season. After looking at the snowless Mt. Bachelor and the Three Sisters for a good part of the summer, it's great to gaze west this time of year -- after a big storm goes through -- and see those peaks covered in newly-fallen snow.

In fact, the only time I really don't like the first big snowfall of the season is when I am on a backpacking trip and am camping at a lake with an elevation of over 5000 feet when the storm hits.

That's what I was doing this last weekend with six friends. Our destination was a lake in the heart of the Three Sisters Wilderness. The weather was great on Thursday afternoon when we set out from the trailhead on our nine-mile hike. After about four hours of hiking, we reached our destination and set up camp near a leaky old shelter which was built during the Franklin Roosevelt administration by FDR's Civilian Conservation Corps. And thank God that shelter was there.

Thursday evening (pictured at right) was great. Dan caught a fat, 15-inch rainbow trout just as the sun was going down and then caught a smaller rainbow that he released. Nick and Jayson also hooked into fish that evening. Then the moon came out, and we had a nice campfire. We were expecting some snow or rain to come in about midnight, but when we went to bed the sky was clear and we were hoping the weatherman was wrong.

He wasn't. His timing was just a bit off. The snow started falling around 5:30 am on Friday morning and it pretty much snowed all day long. Thankfully, Jayson had brought several tarps with him. He positioned them inside the leakiest parts of the shelter and then moved the fire pit closer to the shelter's entrance, so our group had a dry, warm place to congregate. If it wasn't for that shelter and Jayson's tarps, we would have been pretty miserable.

We fished hard on Friday, but the snowy weather apparently kept the bite down. I caught a 16-inch cutthroat trout early on Friday morning right in front of our camp -- that's me at right holding the fish -- and Dan caught a nice fish later in the evening, but those were the only two we landed that day (we did, however, miss many bites on Friday). Both those fish made excellent hors d’œuvres to go along with lunch and dinner that day. We briefly discussed whether we should hike out on Friday due to all the snow, but we eventually decided to stick it out.

The weather cleared on Saturday. At left is a picture of Dan, Liz, and Chris enjoying the improved conditions. We experienced a brief snow shower on Saturday morning, but then it warmed up and we even had some sun breaks as the day wore on.

And the trout bite improved with the weather. Dan caught an 18-inch cutthroat off of a peninsula about a third of a mile from our camp -- at right is a photo of one of Dan's fishes cooking -- and Carl followed Dan's fish by landing a 17-inch cutthroat (pictured below) about an hour later.

We then moved over to a cliff area on the other side of the lake and tangled with some nice trout there. I briefly hooked a fish that nearly pulled my rod into the water, then Dan lost one that he got right up to the bank before it broke off.

Up to this point, we were mostly fishing bait off of the bottom, so I decided to mix it up a bit and do a little bobber fishing. I casted out a worm/powerbait combo beneath the bobber, and within 30 seconds after my bobber hit the water, a nice cutthroat hit me hard then proceeded to jump a couple of times. The cool part about this fish was that I got to fight him from an elevated level about 10 feet above the lake's surface, which meant I would have more control over the fish in that I could keep him out of the submerged logs.

After a spirited battle, Nick landed the 17-inch cutthroat for me then gently released it back into the lake to be caught another day. That's me on the right relaxing by the lake while enjoying a delicious cigar after battling that fish.

The bite shut down after that. We landed one more cutthroat trout later in the evening, but that was it. We fished for several hours on Sunday morning while we were packing up, but we didn't get a single bite.

Despite the weather and the slower-than-expected fishing, we had a great time. In fact, the only time I didn't enjoy myself was on the hike back out (pictured below). The trail on the nine-mile hike out was a slushy, slippery, snowy mess, and it was pretty miserable. But we reached the trailhead in about three-and-a-half hours, and the trip was over.


I am looking forward to next year's trip and hopefully some better weather. I'll post some more pictures later.

Stubborn Sodomite 3: The Chickens Come Home To Roost (With Update)

No decision yet on the Senator Larry Craig Gay Sex Scandal case:

U.S. Sen. Larry Craig said this week he won't resign until "legal determinations" are made, CNN reported Wednesday.

If his hearing Wednesday in Minnesota doesn't result in a fast and determinant action, that could mean Craig won't resign by his self-imposed deadline of this Sunday.

CNN further quotes a "political source involved in discussions about the case," who said "Craig has made it clear he wants to find a way to stay in office."

Craig said Wednesday morning in Washington that he didn't expect a ruling today, CNN reported, but he said he would have a statement later in the day.

A friend sent me an e-mail yesterday commenting on how much I must be enjoying this scandal, and he's right. I really am enjoying it. In fact, I hope the judge throws out Craig's guilty plea. If that happens, I'd probably never stop laughing.

You see, many years ago, the GOP made a decision. It decided that government was a bad thing, so it set out on a mission to destroy it (or, as Grover Norquist once said, to shrink it down to a size where it can be drown in a bathtub). And the consequence of such a strategy is that the GOP really has nothing to offer.

After all, if you truly want to help people in this country and you are in government, the bottom line is that it costs money to do that and it's pretty hard to find the necessary funds when you are cutting taxes for the very rich while trying to pay for an illegal war.

So what do you do? You push an agenda that doesn't cost very much. For example, you attack people who want to pull the plug on Terri Schiavo's body, and even have your Idiot President fly in during the middle of the night to sign "emergency" legislation to save poor Terri. Or you attack a liberal group for having the nerve to go after a general who got caught shilling for the Bush Regime. Or you propose an anti-flag burning amendment. Or you attack gay marriage specifically and gay people generally.

And in order to do those things, you have to make a deal with the devil. Indeed, the G.O.P. has made a deal with a whole shitload of devils, namely, the radical religious right as well as the religious right's Coulter-Limbaugh-Hannity-O'Reilly mouthpieces.

Laura Bush recently described Karl Rove as a "necessary evil." Well, the religious right and Limbaughs of the world that spread the religious right's message of hate were clearly necessary evils for the Republicans. And when you make a deal with devils such as these, eventually the time comes when you have to pay up.

Recent payments have come in the forms of the Foley Scandal and the Ted Haggard Scandal and the Larry Craig Scandal. But something tells me all these "gay Republican" scandals will merely be the first in a long line of payments that the GOP will have to make before November 2008.

UPDATE: And speaking of hate groups from the Extreme Christian Right, Focus on the Family is laying off 30 employees and reassigning 15 others:

Most of the layoffs are in the organization's Constituent Response Services department that answers mail and telephone requests.

A drop in projected revenue played a part in the layoffs, and the growth of e-mail and Internet-based communications is behind the reassignments, said Gary Schneeberger, vice president of communications.

A "drop in projected revenue." I like the sound of that.

This Is An Outrage!

I demand a full Congressional investigation NOW!

A newspaper is apologizing for an ad-rate error in the MoveOn "Betray Us" controversy — and it isn't The New York Times.

The Minnespolis Star Tribune has now admitted that they charged Republican Senator Norm Coleman too little when he took out a full-page ad bashing the MoveOn piece and attacking Al Franken for not distancing himself from it. The paper charged Coleman only $23,000, when the rate should have been $37,000.

"A new sales rep made a mistake and gave the Coleman campaign a rate from the local retail rate card, rather than the national rate card," said Benjamin Taylor, the paper's senior vice president for communications and marketing. "We only discovered the mistake when the Franken campaign complained."

In order to correct the situation, the paper is refunding Franken's campaign $12,165 from a full-page ad they took out two months ago — less than the rate error in Coleman's case, but adjusted for the different days when their respective spots were printed.

Clearly, Norm Coleman and the Star Tribune's editor-in-chief hate our troops, and both should be jailed -- and, of course, tortured -- pending the Congressional hearings. I'm so angry right now I can barely type.

Quote Of The Day

I'm a little worried about upcoming fights over funding for Iraq, inasmuch as they might distract us from discussing the Moveon ad.

From Matt Stoller at Open Left (via TPM).

Great Blumenthal Piece On Bush

Sidney Blumenthal's recent Salon piece is definitely worth reading. He starts out by giving us this dead-on summary of the whole General Petraeus deal:

After Bush pretended to deliberate over whether he would agree to his own policy as presented by his general in well-rehearsed performances before Congress -- "President Bush Accepts Recommendations" read a headline on the White House Web site -- he established an ideal division of responsibility. Bush could claim credit for the "Return on Success," whenever that might be, while Petraeus would be charged with whatever might go wrong.

Arguing that Bush has entered "a phase of decadent perversity," Blumenthal summarizes the president's current state of mind this way:

In his unstoppable commentary about himself, Bush has become as certain of his exalted place in history as he is of his policy's rightness. He projects his image into the future, willing his enshrinement as a great president. History has become a magical incantation for him, a kind of prayerful refuge where he is safe from having to think in the present. For Bush, history is supernatural, a deus ex machina, nothing less than a kind of divine intervention enabling him to enter presidential Valhalla. Through his fantasy about history as afterlife -- the stairway to paradise -- he rationalizes his current course.

I almost felt sorry for Bush as I was reading Blumenthal's article. But that feeling faded away as Blumenthal revealed just how much of a jerk Bush really is, doing so simply by using statements that Bush himself made to Robert Draper, his authorized biographer:

Draper's unusual access enabled him to collect valuable anecdotes as well as to put a microphone in front of a president who, when interrupted by an aide, told him not to worry because the interview was "worthless."

Bush's idiocy was in full view during Draper's interview. I laughed out loud when I read that Bush actually said this about his dad: "He knows as an ex-president, he doesn't have nearly the amount of knowledge I've got on current things." That's hysterical, particularly when you consider that this is the same guy whose eyes glazed over when Paul O'Neill, Bush's former Treasury Secretary, tried to explain some important treasury-connected matters to the president.

And I found this part of Blumenthal's article very interesting:

Those around him have learned how to manipulate him through the art of flattery. Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld played Bush like a Stradivarius, exploiting his grandiosity. "Rumsfeld would later tell his lieutenants that if you wanted the president's support for an initiative, it was always best to frame it as a 'Big New Thing.'" Other aides played on Bush's self-conception as "the Decider." "To sell him on an idea," writes Draper, "aides were now learning, the best approach was to tell the president, This is going to be a really tough decision." But flattery always requires deference. Every morning, Josh Bolten, the chief of staff, greets Bush with the same words: "Thank you for the privilege of serving today."

Something tells me that the next 16 months just might be the longest 16 months in American history. God help us all.

The "Petraeus/BetrayUs" Scandal: It Could Have Been A Lot Worse

Just in case you haven't heard, the Senate yesterday passed a measure condemning MoveOn.org for an ad it ran in the New York Times last week attacking Gen. David Petraeus. The General's last name just happens to rhyme with "Betray Us," and MoveOn took full advantage of this remarkable coincidence by running an ad which suggested (gasp!) that Petraeus' report on the Iraq War might not have exactly reflected the reality on the ground over there.

What MoveOn did was awful -- it had to have been, given that 23 brave Democratic Senators voted "yes" on yesterday's measure. I mean, all the General did was act as a shill for the Bush Regime by going before Congress and essentially lying about how well the Iraq War was going, using statistics that could best be described as dubious and at worst be described as outright fabrications.

And what's so bad about that? All the General did was pretty much act like just about every other BushCo political operative who has appeared before Congress during the last six years. Yet MoveOn viciously attacked him for it.

Now the entire country is in an uproar over what MoveOn did -- and by "entire country," I mean a few Republican Senators and some people over at FoxNews.

But I'm thinking that this scandal could have been a lot worse. Let's face it: having the last name of "Petraeus" is really pretty innocuous in the grand scheme of things because the only good rhyme that can be made from such a name is "Betray Us."

Indeed, I think we lucked out big time on that score because the General, after all, could have had a name like Prothermucker, or BumSchlitt, or Crasshole, or Tritt Sorbains, or Pumbfruck, or Benedict Arnold, or Shinseki-Naught, or Ausekrisser. I mean, the list of possible -- and far worse -- names he could have had is virtually endless.

I think the country really dodged a bullet here.

Corruption Upon Corruption (With Update)

This article about bank robberies in Iraq is very interesting, particularly this part:

Firas Ali Suleiman, a driver for the Bank of Baghdad described how a van carrying $1.6m from its Hilla branch to Baghdad was ambushed. "It was a Kia van and it was not armoured, but we had four guards with the money inside," he said.

"We were stopped at a checkpoint in Audiya run by the Ministry of Interior commandos. They ordered the back door to be opened and saw the money. The guards were called out and then put in handcuffs and hooded. I could hear them talking about the money and then they took the money out. I was told to drive away and I called the manager on my mobile and told him what happened.

"The next roadblock was by the Mehdi Army (Shia militia). I think they, too, were expecting to get some money but, by then, of course, it was gone. The police were called later but they did nothing."

Khalid Mohammed, the manager called by Mr Suleiman, is convinced most of the robberies take place with inside help.

You think?

Geesus, if this stuff wasn't so depressing, it would be funny as hell. I love it how the dudes at the Mehdi Army roadblock were also expecting a big payoff, only to find out that the commandos for the Ministry of Interior got to the money first.

And who can forget this oldie but goodie:

Nearly $9 billion of money spent on Iraqi reconstruction is unaccounted for because of inefficiencies and bad management, according to a watchdog report published Sunday.

An inspector general's report said the U.S.-led administration that ran Iraq until June 2004 is unable to account for the funds.

"Severe inefficiencies and poor management" by the Coalition Provisional Authority has left auditors with no guarantee the money was properly used," the report said.

I just love how our president objects "on philosophical grounds" to a bipartisan Senate proposal to boost the State Children's Health Insurance Program by $35 billion over a five-year period, but has no problem dumping hundreds of billions of our tax dollars into the bottomless pit known as the Iraq Debacle.

The phrase "Worst President Ever" doesn't begin to address the level of corruption and incompetence of the Bush Regime.

UPDATE: I was listening to Bush's press conference this morning, and he was asked whether he was worried about a recession. He responded that the questioner should ask an economist about that, because he (Bush) only got a "B" in economics. Then Bush said something to the effect that he gets an "A" for keeping taxes low and being fiscally responsible with taxpayers' money.

Is he f*&king kidding me?

Quote Of The Week

"No, Larry Craig walked over to me and was talking to me about some procedural issues. He is a member of the Senate. So am I."

Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), snapping back at a reporter after he was asked whether he approached Sen. Larry Craig (R-Gomorrah) on the Senate floor yesterday.

And speaking of unpopular politicians, this is interesting:

President George W. Bush and the U.S. Congress registered record-low approval ratings in a Reuters/Zogby poll released on Wednesday, and a new monthly index measuring the mood of Americans dipped slightly on deepening worries about the economy.

Only 29 percent of Americans gave Bush a positive grade for his job performance, below his worst Zogby poll mark of 30 percent in March. A paltry 11 percent rated Congress positively, beating the previous low of 14 percent in July.

Do you think these low poll numbers -- both for Bush and for Congress -- might have something to do with the Iraq Debacle?

Crater Lake Trip

Linda and I spent two nights at Crater Lake Lodge last weekend. Even though it is only a two-hour drive from Bend, I hadn't been to the Park in 13 years and it is very easy to forget just how spectacular the lake is.

We had a corner room in the lodge with a great view of the lake from both windows. At left is a photo of the view from the front window of our room.

The last time I stayed there -- back in 1973 -- the lodge was in pretty bad shape, but the building was completely renovated in the early 90s and it is now a comfortable place to stay.

The photo at right was taken from the overlook located near the lodge. It is a 900-foot drop to the lake from there. No photo can really do justice to how blue the water is, but you kind of get the idea.

At left is a photo of Linda on the top of Watchman Overlook. It took a short hike to get up there, but the view was great (Watchman is about 2000 feet above the lake's surface).


Watchman, which is an historic fire lookout station, provides the Park's best view of Wizard Island (right).


If you live in the Northwest and have never visited Crater Lake, then do yourself a favor and go there. It is definitely worth seeing. I'll try to post more photos later.

Pelosi Nails It

OK, I know what Nancy Pelosi said was obvious, but at least a prominent Democrat is saying it:

When top Democratic leaders visited him at the White House this week, President Bush told them he wanted to “find common ground” on Iraq. But when the president said he planned to “start doing some redeployment,” the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, cut him off.

“No you’re not, Mr. President,” Ms. Pelosi interjected. “You’re just going back to the presurge level.”

What I like about this whole redeployment deal is that the "Surge" troops would have to be out by April 2008 anyway:

[S]enior military leaders -- including Adm. Michael Mullen, incoming chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff -- have acknowledged that the "surge" effectively will end in April because there are no fresh replacements.

Interestingly enough, I've noticed that a lot of folks in the Corporate Media aren't buying into BushCo's "redeployment" bullshit either, which is good.

This Really Sucks

From Daily Kos:

Two of the seven soldiers who wrote the New York Times op-ed piece criticizing U.S. counterinsurgency strategy 3 ½ weeks ago have been killed in Iraq. Yance T. Gray and Omar Mora died Monday in a vehicle accident in Baghdad. The AP has reported on Yance Gray here, and KHOU, a Houston-area TV station has reported on Omar Mora here. Their families have been notified.

The Old Bait and Switch

I've managed to listen to a little bit of General Petraeus' bullshit with regard to "The Surge." Just a few moments ago, the proceedings were interrupted by some protesters in the audience who were promptly arrested. Good for them, because this whole thing really is just a load of crap.

As you may remember, "The Surge" was sold to the American people as a short-term increase in troops, and if it didn't work, then a change of strategy with regard to Iraq would be in order. But Petraeus said today that it is his hope the United States can get our military presence in Iraq down to pre-surge levels (i.e, 130,000 troops or thereabouts) by next summer.

Based on what I've seen in some polls, the majority of Americans simply aren't buying into all this BushCo horseshit. But for some reason, the Democrats are running scared and are probably going to give Bush everything he wants (which of course means that we will be in Iraq long after Bush leaves the White House).

I've never been more proud of my decision to leave the Democrat Party than I am right now.

Great Chip Bok Cartoon

From the Akron Beacon Journal (hat tip to Todd):

Did BushCo Create Fake Photos Of Iraqi Drones?

This is interesting:

Add faked photos to the list of lies told by the Bush–Cheney Administration before its invasion of Iraq.

In a town hall meeting in Bloomsburg, Pa., this week, Rep. Paul Kanjorski, a 12-term congressman, said that shortly before Congress was scheduled to vote on authorizing military force against Iraq, top officials of the CIA showed select members of Congress three photographs it alleged were Iraqi Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), better known as drones. Kanjorski said he was told that the drones were capable of carrying nuclear, biological, or chemical agents, and could strike 1,000 miles inland of east coast or west coast cities.

Kanjorski said he and four or five other congressmen in the room were told there may be drones on freighters headed to the U.S. Both secretary of state Condoleezza Rice and President Bush wandered into and out of the briefing room, Kanjorski said.

Kanjorski said it was the second time he was called to the White House for a briefing. He had opposed giving the President the powers to go to war, and said that he hadn’t changed his mind after a first meeting. Until he saw the pictures, Kanjorski said, “I hadn’t thought that Iraq was a threat.” That second meeting changed everything. After he left that meeting, said Kanjorski, he was willing to give the President the authorization he wanted since the drones “represented an imminent danger.”

Kanjorski said he went to see Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), a retired Marine colonel. Murtha, said Kanjorski, “turned white” when told about the drones; Murtha, a former intelligence officer, believed that such information was classified.

Several years later, Kanjorski said he learned that the pictures were “a god-damned lie,” apparently taken by CIA photographers in the desert in the southwest of the U.S. The drone story itself had already been disproved, although not many major media carried that story. * * *

Needless to say, if photos were indeed fabricated, then this is a big story. Everybody knows that the Bush Regime cherry-picked intelligence to support the 2003 Iraq invasion. Bush had made up his mind in early 2002 to invade Iraq , and the Downing Street Memos revealed that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." What this meant in real terms was that solid evidence showing that Iraq did not possess WMD was ignored while flimsy evidence that Iraq had WMD -- including "evidence" provided by a drunken, crazy person -- was hyped aggressively.

But this is the first report -- as far as I know -- of U.S. operatives actually fabricating evidence during the run-up to the Iraq invasion. It will be interesting to see how this story plays out.

The Stubborn Sodomite, Part II (With Updates)

Yes!! (from the AP):

Sen. Larry Craig is reconsidering his decision to resign after his arrest in a Minnesota airport sex sting and may still fight for his Senate seat, his spokesman said Tuesday evening.

"It's not such a foregone conclusion anymore, that the only thing he could do was resign," said Sidney Smith, Craig's spokesman in Idaho's capital. * * *

I love it. All the Democrats need to do on this one is simply sit back and enjoy the show.

UPDATE: This is from a TPM reader:

If Sen. Larry Craig reconsiders and steps all over Gen. Petraeus' week of surge, Bill Kristol's head will explode. That Pentagon media war room they set up will be useless in the face of this cable TV zoo.

Exactly right. BushCo, its apologists, and the Pentagon are wildly spinning their "The Surge Is A Success!!" fabrication as best they can right now, only to have Senator Craig step up and cause yet another big distraction.

But perhaps this distraction is for the best. After all, BushCo's lying with regard to the "success" of The Surge is so transparent that even Wolf Blitzer is calling them on it.

UPDATE II: Although I think the Democrats should pretty much remain silent on this whole Craig deal, I would love to see gay rights groups come out solidly in favor of Senator Craig remaining in the Senate.

Don't get me wrong -- this is already a great "scandal." Indeed, it definitely has the potential of replacing PenisGate as my all-time favorite. But I would never stop laughing if gay rights groups came out in favor of Craig.

Bush's Life As An Ex-President

From the New York Times:

When President Bush is asked what he plans to do when he leaves office, he often replies curtly: “I don’t have that much time to think beyond my presidency” or “I’m going to sprint to the finish.”

But in an interview with a book author in the Oval Office one day last December, he daydreamed about the next phase of his life, when his time will be his own.

First, Mr. Bush said, “I’ll give some speeches, just to replenish the ol’ coffers.” With assets that have been estimated as high as nearly $21 million, Mr. Bush added, “I don’t know what my dad gets — it’s more than 50-75” thousand dollars a speech, and “Clinton’s making a lot of money.”

Then he said, “We’ll have a nice place in Dallas,” where he will be running what he called “a fantastic Freedom Institute” promoting democracy around the world. But he added, “I can just envision getting in the car, getting bored, going down to the ranch.”

This article got me thinking about just what kind of life Bush will have as a former president. Will there be any interest in hearing him speak after January 2009, given that by then he will undoubtedly be viewed as the worst president in American history? Will he be able to demand more money per speech because he was the worst? Will people still protest him after he leaves office?

And what about world travel for Bush? He is so thoroughly hated around the world now that foreign cities basically have to be locked down when he visits them. Will such measures still be necessary after he leaves office?

I can't wait to get answers to these questions. Unfortunately, January 2009 is still a long ways off.