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Tucked inside Frank Rich's Sunday column in the New York Times is indication that the newspaper will no longer play ball with the annual White House Correspondents Association dinners in Washington, which he calls "a crystallization of the press's failures in the post-9/11 era." He writes that the event "illustrates how easily a propaganda-driven White House can enlist the Washington news media in its shows....

- bill 4-30-2007 4:47 pm [link] [1 comment]

"Bush is seeking "outputs" as a means of ensuring eventual "outcomes" that will, he hopes, in the end, lead to "signs of success." It's not exactly Churchillian: We will fight for every output and we will never surrender! In the meantime, Bush will be content with any "sign of activity." And as we've seen before from Bush, in the morbid spectacle he made of Terri Schiavo, any sign of activity, no matter how remote, justifies not pulling the plug.

The somber, measured tone of Sanger's piece in the The Times, without a hint of irony in it, conveys that we are all supposed to just play along with what everyone--from congressional Republicans to Petraeus to the poor grunts on the streets of Baghdad--knows to be a huge charade."

- dave 4-29-2007 3:46 pm [link] [add a comment]

fucking enabling eunuchs.

The Senate's No. 2 Democrat says he knew that the American public was being misled into the Iraq war but remained silent because he was sworn to secrecy as a member of the intelligence committee.

"The information we had in the intelligence committee was not the same information being given to the American people. I couldn't believe it," Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat, said Wednesday when talking on the Senate floor about the run-up to the Iraq war in 2002.

"I was angry about it. [But] frankly, I couldn't do much about it because, in the intelligence committee, we are sworn to secrecy.

We can't walk outside the door and say the statement made yesterday by the White House is in direct contradiction to classified information that is being given to this Congress."


- dave 4-29-2007 6:18 am [link] [6 comments]

as the man himself might say, teh stupid, it burns!

If only these two excerpts had been sequential, perhaps the absurdity would have been apparent:


While mainstream reporters must sign their names to news stories and submit to the editors and ethical guidelines of their organizations, the bloggers -- many operating freelance -- often write under anonymous sign-ons and without the bureaucracy or controls of a mainstream media organization.

...

But one key state Democratic strategist, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of concern for riling the netroots crowd, warns that such efforts are potentially positive and negative.

Netroots commentary can frequently be intensely personal, even "totally mean and irrational," the strategist said, with some bloggers finding power in their ability "to assassinate political characters online."

"It's amplified by the anonymity, and it can be scary that it's so irresponsible," the insider said. "And it's pulling the mainstream media in that direction."


-Atrios 15:10


- dave 4-29-2007 12:52 am [link] [add a comment]

juan cole / how to get out of iraq

Bush's ineptitude has made a regional proxy war a real possibility, so the question is how to avoid it. One Saudi official admitted that if the United States withdrew and Iraq's Sunnis seemed in danger, Riyadh would likely intervene. Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul has threatened to invade if Iraq's Kurds declare independence. And Iran would surely try to rescue Iraqi Shiites if they seemed on the verge of being massacred.

But Bush is profoundly in error to think that continued US military occupation can forestall further warfare. Sunni Arabs perceive the Americans to have tortured them, destroyed several of their cities and to be keeping them under siege at the behest of the joint Shiite-Kurdish government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. American missteps have steadily driven more and more Sunnis to violence and the support of violence. The Pentagon's own polling shows that between 2003 and 2006 the percentage of Sunni Arabs who thought attacking US troops was legitimate grew from 14 to more than 70.

The US repression of Sunnis has allowed Shiites and Kurds to avoid compromise. The Sunnis in Parliament have demanded that the excesses of de-Baathification be reversed (thousands of Sunnis have been fired from jobs just because they belonged to the Baath Party). They have been rebuffed. Sunnis rejected the formation of a Shiite super-province in the south. Shiites nevertheless pushed it through Parliament. The Kurdish leadership has also dismissed Sunni objections to their plans to annex the oil-rich province of Kirkuk, which has a significant Arab population.

The key to preventing an intensified civil war is US withdrawal from the equation so as to force the parties to an accommodation. Therefore, the United States should announce its intention to withdraw its military forces from Iraq, which will bring Sunnis to the negotiating table and put pressure on Kurds and Shiites to seek a compromise with them. But a simple US departure would not be enough; the civil war must be negotiated to a settlement, on the model of the conflicts in Northern Ireland and Lebanon.

- bill 4-28-2007 6:46 pm [link] [1 comment]

i always wondered why banfield was sent to the gulag of court tv. now i know.

- dave 4-27-2007 11:23 pm [link] [add a comment]

general dismay.

- dave 4-27-2007 10:39 pm [link] [1 comment]

netroots have gravel fever. catch it!

Who won the debate, if anyone?

Biden 379 votes - 3 %
Clinton 1287 votes - 12 %
Dodd 201 votes - 1 %
Edwards 1954 votes - 19 %
Gravel 1072 votes - 10 %
Kucinich 516 votes - 5 %
Obama 1861 votes - 18 %
Richardson 597 votes - 5 %
More than one of the above 1159 votes - 11 %
None of the above 1247 votes - 12 %


- dave 4-27-2007 4:15 pm [link] [4 comments]

sort of what im often thinking to myself. once the original bogus wmd justification fell by the wayside, the other excuses, primarily democracy promotion, have been ad-hoc rationalizations to obfuscate the original lies and motivations.

- dave 4-27-2007 4:09 pm [link] [4 comments]

George J. Tenet, the former director of central intelligence, has lashed out against Vice President Dick Cheney and other Bush administration officials in a new book, saying they pushed the country to war in Iraq without ever conducting a “serious debate” about whether Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat to the United States.

The 549-page book, “At the Center of the Storm,” is to be published by HarperCollins on Monday. By turns accusatory, defensive, and modestly self-critical, it is the first detailed account by a member of the president’s inner circle of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the decision to invade Iraq and the failure to find the unconventional weapons that were a major justification for the war.

[...]

Mr. Tenet admits that he made his famous “slam dunk” remark about the evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. But he argues that the quote was taken out of context and that it had little impact on President Bush’s decision to go to war. He also makes clear his bitter view that the administration made him a scapegoat for the Iraq war

- bill 4-27-2007 2:16 pm [link] [11 comments]

one pair of eyebrows raised. thats some quality sleuthing!

- dave 4-27-2007 1:47 am [link] [2 comments]

Shorter McCain:

Republicans are incompetent.

- mark 4-26-2007 1:38 am [link] [add a comment]

jon stewart kicked it up a notch tonight with john mccain. sure to be heralded in 3...2...1...

- dave 4-25-2007 7:30 am [link] [3 comments]

george mcgovern shoots cheney in the face.

- dave 4-25-2007 6:13 am [link] [1 comment]

robert wright op-ed on neocon paradox.

- dave 4-24-2007 6:17 pm [link] [3 comments]

Torboto

- steve 4-23-2007 10:18 am [link] [1 comment]

Bolton encounters an actual interviewer. Hilarious.

- jim 4-17-2007 6:43 pm [link] [add a comment]

NYTimes subhead today: "Don Imus never caught a breath because he was in the gunsights of a 24-hour news cycle."

Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.
- tom moody 4-13-2007 9:32 pm [link] [4 comments]

"Gun control? Welcoming immigrants? A woman's right to choose? Never mind his past positions. The only -ism that Rudy Giuliani believes in is sadism."

- dave 4-12-2007 11:24 pm [link] [1 comment]

News organizations filed documents in federal court Monday opposing a government request to close portions of an upcoming trial of two former pro-Israel lobbyists accused of violating the Espionage Act.

Media organizations, including The Associated Press, are concerned the government wants to keep large portions of evidence in the case out of public view when former American Israel Public Affairs Committee lobbyists Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman go to trial.

Defense attorneys have expressed a similar concern, filing a motion to ''Strike the Government's Request to Close the Trial.''

U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III rejected a similar motion filed last month and said at the time that he thought defense lawyers were being overdramatic in portraying the government as seeking to ''close the trial.''

In rare cases, courts have allowed the government to use what is called ''the silent witness rule,'' in which a jury sees certain evidence against the defendants that is never made available publicly.

Rosen and Weissman are accused of violating a rarely prosecuted World War I-era law that bars the receipt and disclosure of national defense information.

- bill 4-11-2007 8:42 pm [link] [19 comments]

The Italian Connection

Carlo Bonini, journalist for La Repubblica in Italy and author of Collusion: International Espionage and the War on Terror, describes Italy's role in the flawed intelligence that helped justify the war in Iraq.


- bill 4-11-2007 7:28 pm [link] [2 comments]

"Now, bear with me a moment here. Back in 2002-2003, officials in the Bush administration and their neocon supporters, retro-think-tank admirers, and allied media pundits, basking in all their Global War on Terror glory, were eager to talk about the region extending from North Africa through the Middle East, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the former SSRs of Central Asia right up to the Chinese border as an "arc of instability." That arc coincided with the energy heartlands of the planet and what was needed to "stabilize" it, to keep those energy supplies flowing freely (and in the right directions), was clear enough to them. The "last superpower," the greatest military force in history, would simply have to put its foot down and so bring to heel the "rogue" powers of the region. The geopolitical nerve would have to be mustered to stamp a massive "footprint" -- to use a Pentagon term of the time -- in the middle of that vast, valuable region. (Such a print was to be measured by military bases established.) Also needed was the nerve not just to lob a few cruise missiles in the direction of Baghdad, but to offer such an imposing demonstration of American shock-and-awe power that those "rogues" -- Iraq, Syria, Iran (Hezbollah, Hamas) -- would be cowed into submission, along with uppity U.S. allies like oil-rich Saudi Arabia."

- dave 4-11-2007 4:06 pm [link] [3 comments]

"What can be done to fix the situation?

[Long pause] You'd have to fire or execute ninety percent of the editors and executives. You'd actually have to start promoting people from the newsrooms to be editors who you didn't think you could control. And they're not going to do that."

- dave 4-10-2007 4:37 am [link] [1 comment]

"when has Krauthammer ever not cried “Munich!” in response to an act of diplomacy?"

- dave 4-10-2007 1:45 am [link] [add a comment]

"I presented my credentials from the Marine Corps to a very polite clerk for American Airlines. One of the two people to whom I talked asked a question and offered a frightening comment: "Have you been in any peace marches? We ban a lot of people from flying because of that." I explained that I had not so marched but had, in September, 2006, given a lecture at Princeton, televised and put on the Web, highly critical of George Bush for his many violations of the Constitution. "That'll do it," the man said."

- dave 4-09-2007 4:23 pm [link] [1 comment]

"No one has been more critical of sunny progress reports that defied realities in Iraq."

- dave 4-08-2007 10:31 am [link] [1 comment]

umm, moron or complete moron?

- dave 4-08-2007 10:01 am [link] [1 comment]

"BAGHDAD - Iraq's top corruption fighter said Wednesday that $8 billion in government money was wasted or stolen over the past three years and claimed he was threatened with death after opening an investigation into scores of Oil Ministry employees."

- dave 4-06-2007 4:25 am [link] [add a comment]

bushies continue to give scum a bad name.

It's almost too perfect.

When Justice Department official William Moschella was asked why the Department had fired U.S. Attorney David Iglesias, he told Congress that “Iglesias had delegated to his first assistant the overall running of the office. And, quite frankly, U.S. attorneys are hired to run the office.” Internal documents from the time show officials planning to accuse Iglesias of being an "absentee landlord" to justify his firing.

Iglesias did, in fact, leave the office for 45 days each year. But that's because he's a a captain in the Navy Reserve -- something that was no secret to his superiors.

So now the Office of Special Counsel is investigating whether Iglesias was wrongfully terminated due to his reserve duty, Newsweek reports. It is against the law for employers to discriminate against members of the U.S. military.

- dave 4-05-2007 7:12 am [link] [1 comment]

friend of mine just mentioned today that his cab driver in bermuda has built a $500,000 a year business shuttling corporate clients around the island. perhaps he should open a baghdad branch as fearless hacks charge upwards to $3500 for a seven mile jaunt to the airport. all that and more at playboy steve clemons after dark.

- dave 4-04-2007 3:38 am [link] [add a comment]

i havent watched it but here is a lengthy alexander cockburn interview on book tv available for your online delectation.

- dave 4-04-2007 2:47 am [link] [add a comment]

“Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam; spam bacon sausage and spam; spam egg spam spam bacon and spam; spam sausage spam spam bacon spam tomato and spam.”

- dave 4-02-2007 5:06 am [link] [1 comment]

they link to greenwald so i dont have to. i cant imagine a worse president than rudy (other than the one we have). and despite the national polls which having him beating the three top dems head to head (but not state to state although that may be true as well), the rethugs are still pushing fred thompson hard in the media (or the media is pushing him hard on the wingnuts) which leads one to believe they dont really have much confidence in rudy long-term.

- dave 4-01-2007 7:56 pm [link] [4 comments]

ge, we bring good things to light!

- dave 4-01-2007 6:25 am [link] [add a comment]






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