San Jose Mercury
Iraq Intelligence-Public vs. Private
Viva la difference?
In this artice are excerpts from the public and classified versions of the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's weapons capabilities. The first set of quotes under each topic is from the public version, "Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs," which was released by the CIA in October 2002. The second set is from the classified version of the NIE, portions of which were declassified and released by the White House in July 2003.

~~~~

Companion article/San Jose Mercury
Doubts, dissent stripped from public Iraq assessment

The public version of the U.S. intelligence community's key prewar assessment of Iraq's illicit arms programs was stripped of dissenting opinions, warnings of insufficient information and doubts about deposed dictator Saddam Hussein's intentions, a review of the document and its once-classified version shows.
As a result, the public was given a far more definitive assessment of Iraq's plans and capabilities than President Bush and other U.S. decision-makers received from their intelligence agencies...
.....The public version contained the alarming warning that Iraq was capable of quickly developing biological warfare agents that could be delivered by "bombs, missiles, aerial sprayers, and covert operatives, including potentially against the US Homeland." No such warning that Iraq's biological weapons could be delivered to United States appeared in the classified version....
...In a section on chemical weapons, the top-secret findings said the intelligence community had "little specific information on Iraq's CW (chemical weapons) stockpile." That caveat was deleted from the public version....
....Deleted from the public version was a line in the classified report that cast doubt on whether Saddam was prepared to support terrorist attacks on the United States, a danger that Bush and his top aides raised repeatedly in making their case for war...

The Jamaican Observer/Wayne Brown
Government by lying

...In an editorial on Thursday entitled 'Baghdad Is Bush's Blue Dress'*, the Los Angeles Times accused the Bush administration of complicity in 'arguably the greatest scandal in US history' and raised the spectre of impeachment....

*Robert Scheer was the author of the LA Times column..I've used the link from "Working for Change" so you won't have to register/sign in.

Home News Tribune/ 2/05/04
A sorrowful father writes to the president

Dear President Bush,

With heavy heart, tears in my eyes and a home full of sorrow, I pick up my pen to write you about a brave soldier, 2nd Lt. Seth J. Dvorin, U.S. Army. My son was killed in Iraq on Feb. 3, 2004 fighting in a war.
Seth was a good boy, well-mannered, smart, kind and understanding.
He joined the Army in an effort to serve his country. And serve his country he did. Seth made the ultimate sacrifice.

Burying a child will no doubt be the hardest task that his mother and I shall ever have to do. The one question I have, and the one question I would like you to answer, is, "Why did my son and every other soldier that was killed, maimed and wounded have to suffer settling your vendetta?"
My son is gone just when he was laying a strong foundation to build upon for the rest of his life.

Now, President Bush, his life has been snuffed out in a meaningless war.
Where are all the weapons of mass destruction, where are the stock piles of chemical and biological weapons?

Please President, pray for all our fallen heroes and as a tribute to these heroes get our boys and girls out of Iraq now, before too much more blood is shed.
Since you waged this unnecessary war on Saddam Hussein the world has become a horrible place to live in.

I know my boy is safe now, in a new world free of hate and prejudices where GOD is his president, but you tell me President Bush why he had to go so soon and in such a violent way.

Respectfully yours,
Richard M. Dvorin

I hope Mr. Dvorin and his family do not mind me reprinting his heartfelt letter here on the blog. I would like to think he'd like as many to read it as possible. I feel it is the least we can do for him, other than to pray and offer sincere condolences. The same questions have haunted me, but I know I do not suffer as he now suffers. My heart is with him and all the troops and their families who loyally serve this country.

MSNBC: Russert interviews Bush
TRANSCRIPT HERE

"I don't think America can stand by and hope for the best from a madman."



"In other words, you can't rely upon a madman, and he was a madman. You can't rely upon him making rational decisions when it comes to war and peace.."

"I’m not gonna leave him in power and trust a madman. He's a dangerous man.."

*I know what he means. He's gotta go in November 2004.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One of the most shaky/flimsy answers by Bush could be found here:

Russert: In light of not finding the weapons of mass destruction, do you believe the war in Iraq is a war of choice or a war of necessity?

President Bush: I think that's an interesting question. Please elaborate on that a little bit. A war of choice or a war of necessity? It's a war of necessity. We-- in my judgment, we had no choice when we look at the intelligence I looked at.. that says the man was a threat. And you know, we will find out about the weapons of mass destruction that we all thought were there. That's part of the Iraqi survey group and the group I put together to look at.
But again, I repeat to you, I don't want to sound like a broken record, but David Kay, who is the man who led the Iraqi survey group, who has now returned with an interim report, clearly said that the place was a dangerous place. When asked if President Bush had done had made the right decision, he said yes. In other words, the evidence we have uncovered thus far says we had no choice.

To which I could only think to say:
Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa?????!??

* Bush is doing his simpleton-best to screw with American minds by using these stupid semantic tricks. U.S. soldiers continue to die each day. These idiotic word games can't hide the truth anymore. I think most people in this nation are finally "on" to this incredibly ignorant leader. The Iraq war was unnecessary, unjust, and costly. It's not too late to turn it around..to "hold Bush to his lie"... and make this a worldwide effort to bring true justice and humane, non-market-concern-based support to the people of Iraq. It's not too late to find a way to win hearts and minds. Bush cannot do it, though..and in this very interview he promised he would not change for anyone..for any poll..for anything. Along with his tax cuts, he has nearly bankrupted the nation and stripped us of our jobs....blaming Clinton, bin Laden, and Hussein instead of taking personal responsibility. We are left with no choice..he must go in 2004. *

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ATRIOS noticed some interesting reviews from NRO. *c/o Calpundit.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

BushWatch
How Russert Gave Bush A Pass On The AWOL Question

Looking For Your Own Face


Your face is neither infinite nor ephemeral.
You can never see your own face,
only a reflection, not the face itself.

So you sigh in front of mirrors
and cloud the surface.



It's better to keep your breath cold.
Hold it, like a diver does in the ocean.
One slight movement, the mirror-image goes.

Don't be dead or asleep or awake.
Don't be anything.

What you most want,
what you travel around wishing to find,
lose yourself as lovers lose themselves,
and you'll be that.

--Attar
Persian Sufi poet, 12th Century
as translated by Coleman Barks

Village Voice/Suitcases from an insane asylum tell of lives long lost
What They Left Behind

Craig Williams, a curator at the New York State Museum, drove four hours to visit Willard Psychiatric Center in the spring of 1995. The complex, located 65 miles southwest of Syracuse, was about to shut down after more than 100 years. Williams figured he would be able to pick up some artifacts—maybe some antique furniture or a few nurses' uniforms. A staffer suggested he check out the attic of an abandoned building, and that's when he found 400 suitcases covered by decades of dust and pigeon droppings.

These suitcases bore the names of former patients. Inside were their long-forgotten possessions: snapshots, diaries, postcards, books, letters, news clippings. For Williams, finding these suitcases was the equivalent of stumbling upon a buried chest of gold. "You'd open these suitcases, and you could so clearly sense and feel a personality and a humanity," he recalls. He didn't know it at the time, but these dusty trunks would change the course of his life, sparking a mission that would stretch on for the next nine years—first to uncover the stories of the suitcases' owners, and then to present them to the public....

See the article for the biographies of some of the former Willard patients. They are adapted from materials featured in an exhibit titled "Lost Cases, Recovered Lives: Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic". It will be on display at the New York State Museum in Albany, N.Y. until September 19.

ABC News Online
Michigan and Washington Democratic Primary Results
Maine Caucus Results

Michigan:
1.Kerry
2. Dean
With 88 per cent of precincts reporting in Michigan tonight, Senator Kerry had a commanding 50 per cent of the vote.
Former Vermont governor Howard Dean was next with 17 per cent.

Washington:
1. Kerry
2. Dean
In the north-western state of Washington, with 76 per cent of precincts reporting, Senator Kerry was on top with 48.5 per cent of the vote, followed by Mr Dean with 30.5 per cent.

Maine Caucus
1.Kerry
2.Dean
John Kerry won 25 of 56 state convention delegate slots in Augusta, besting Dean, who captured 18.

Next stops: Tuesday's primaries in Virginia and Tennessee.

Observer/Peter Beaumont
How spies chose the intelligence that justified war
A little-known book by an-ex CIA officer gives an extraordinary insight into the way politicians are fed data they want to hear.

Under pressure from the politicians who would shift blame on to the spooks, the spooks themselves are looking for someone else to blame.
In Tenet's Georgetown speech he revealed for the first time that two crucial pieces of intelligence, which heavily influenced his thinking in assembling the National Intelligence Estimate in 2002 that made the case for war against Iraq, were generated not by the CIA but by friendly foreign intelligence services, almost certainly based on information from defectors.

Daily News Gossip: More lying liars
Al Franken accuses NYPost writer of lying about heckler at Dean rally

Franken has launched a full-scale war against the New York Post, accusing the money-losing tabloid - and Post political reporter Vincent Morris - of lying about his role in subduing a heckler at a Howard Dean rally in Manchester, N.H., two weeks ago...
...."I didn't body-slam anyone to the floor. The Post's story makes me look like a nut, and it has been circulated all over the world by the right-wing echo chamber."Franken said that Dean aides and security staffers accepted his offer to help subdue the screaming protester after nearly 10 minutes of disruption.
"Three of us grabbed the man's shoulders to restrain him," Franken said. "We tried to pull him back, but he grabbed onto a railing. I then drew on my experience as a mediocre high-school wrestler to suggest we lift the man's legs off the floor [so that he] could be safely taken away. ... There was no danger that he would fall to the floor."
Palace Theater manager Peter Ramsey supported Franken's account. "He's my hero," Ramsey told me.

The Sun
Six British troops killed, 'lacked ammo' in Iraq;
families call on Hoon to Resign

Six British military police officers killed by a mob in Iraq has as few as 20 bullets each to defend themselves with, according to a leaked report.
The Royal Military Police men should each have been issued with 600 rounds, investigators have found.
Days before they died last June, the Red Caps were told to return vital ammunition and medical supplies.
They were supplied with faulty radios and also lacked heavy machine guns, The Sun's sister paper The News of the World reported.
The families of the six men who died have called on Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon to resign.

Globe and Mail/Rick Salutin
The Media hustles Howard Dean outside the building

Why did they have to get him out of there? Because he was being disruptive. Not wrong exactly, but too loud, spoke out of turn, the sorts of things one doesn't say in mainstream politics. The equivalent of belching or farting in public. The media are the ushers and security guards of politics. They maintain decorum.

Here's the problem with this big-media "decorum".
'Decorum' is only as good as its accordance with its absolute etymology. At its most basic robotic state, decorum is merely an outward act. The truly important underlying component which makes 'decorum' mean anything at all is the inward elevation of the souls of those who employ the 'decorum'. The big-media doesn't think "elevation" or "wide-scope"..they think "make-money by entertaining". Period. Let's not pretend it gets any loftier than that these days in America.
In 2004, we don't simply need to beat Bush. We need to beat Bushism and Democratic 'Republican-lite'. Howard Dean came through with this message..loud and clear. Anyone who thinks centrist Democrats (which are right of center today) will do anything drastically differently than Bush is living in a bit of a fantasy world. I used to think I was in a minority in thinking this way. Howard Dean showed me and many other Americans that we were thinking alike...that it's perfectly alright to question the status quo. The big-media in this nation was not receptive or prepared to take a serious part to display Howard Dean as a representative of many serious lovers of democracy in this Democratic primary election. Their 'decorum' has shaken out to be sheer circus-quality market-based cheap entertainment. Howard Dean has shown us that, if we don't speak for ourselves, we will simply disappear....no one will speak for us BUT us. We certainly cannot rely upon the big-media for any semblance of truth. They are little more than well-paid fancily-coifed sheep-herders.

Slate/William Saletan
Bush's difficult relationship with reality
Excerpts:

....the Bush syllogism: The evidence says one thing; the conclusion says another; therefore, the evidence is false.

Why did Americans elect a president who thinks this way? Because they wanted a leader different from Bill Clinton...

On Iraq, Bush fulfilled both promises. "What I do want to share with you is my sentiment at the time," he told Russert. "There was no doubt in my mind that Saddam Hussein was a danger to America." Note Bush's emphasis on his subjective reality: "my sentiment," "no doubt in my mind." When Russert asked Bush about his unpopularity abroad, Bush answered, "I'm not going to change, see? I'm not trying to accommodate. I won't change my philosophy or my point of view. I believe I owe it to the American people to say what I'm going to do and do it, and to speak as clearly as I can, try to articulate as best I can why I make decisions I make. But I'm not going to change because of polls. That's just not my nature."

No, it isn't. Bush isn't Clinton. He doesn't change his mind for anything, whether it's polls or facts. And he always tells the truth about what's in his mind, whether or not what's in his mind corresponds to what's in the visible world.

What are the consequences of such a Platonic presidency? The immediate risk is the replacement of Saddam with a more dangerous fundamentalist regime.....Bush told Russert, "I said [to Mr. al-Hakim], 'You know, I'm a Methodist. What are my chances of success in your country and your vision?' And he said, 'It's going to be a free society where you can worship freely.' "....
The regime will be pluralistic, because Bush believes it, because nice men came to the Oval Office and told him so.....?

The punch line is that Bush accomplished exactly what he set out to do in this interview: He showed you how his mind works. Republicans used to observe derisively that Clinton had a difficult relationship with the truth. Bush has a difficult relationship with the truth, too. It's just a different—and perhaps more grave—kind of difficulty."

LA Times editorial
Pakistan Owes U.S. Answers

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf loaded his country's nuclear proliferation sins onto the shoulders of the nation's premier nuclear scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan, last week and then pardoned Khan, who is revered as a national hero. That was a sharp contrast with Musharraf's promise in December to punish "enemies of the state" who passed on nuclear secrets...Musharraf's pardon of Khan may short-circuit complaints from hard-line Muslims and other Musharraf opponents that he has torn down a man whose scientific exploits made Pakistan secure against India and gave an Islamic nation the bomb. Islamic radicals are the prime suspects in two attempts to assassinate Musharraf in December....."

In the case of Pakistan, I don't trust that our national security interests are properly being tended to. There's too much hypocrisy in our having to support Musharraf as he's stalked by his own people as a target for asassination. Too many eggshells. Too many eggshells....

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Real reasons for fear:
Will our leaders send us to unnecessary war again?

A crazy, uncertain, dangerous world lurks out there.
Pakistan's nuclear chief sells secrets to North Korea, Iran and Libya, only to receive a pardon from Pakistan's dictator-cum-president, thereby furthering Pakistan's growing reputation as the world's most dangerous country...

You should be scared either because the Western world's two largest intelligence agencies are incompetent, or their leaders are liars or zealots. You should also be profoundly skeptical the next time, if you weren't the last time, if these leaders ever claim that war is needed because the intelligence requires it.

The Observer
Britain spied on UN allies over war vote
Security Council members 'illegally targeted' by GCHQ after plea from US security agency

Britain helped America to conduct a secret and potentially illegal spying operation at the United Nations in the run-up to the Iraq war, The Observer can reveal.
The operation, which targeted at least one permanent member of the UN Security Council, was almost certainly in breach of the Vienna conventions on diplomatic relations, which strictly outlaw espionage at the UN missions in New York.

Translators and analysts at the Government's top-secret surveillance centre GCHQ were ordered to co-operate with an American espionage 'surge' on Security Council delegations after a request from the US National Security Agency at the end of January 2003. This was designed to help smooth the way for a second UN resolution authorising war in Iraq.

The information was intended for US Secretary of State Colin Powell before his presentation on weapons of mass destruction to the Security Council on 5 February.

Sources close to the intelligence services have now confirmed that the request from the security agency was 'acted on' by the British authorities. It is also known that the operation caused significant disquiet in the intelligence community on both sides of the Atlantic.

Guardian/UK
Hans Blix accused Tony Blair and George Bush of behaving like insincere salesmen who "exaggerated" intelligence in an attempt to win support for war

Referring to the government's controversial dossier - with its suggestion that WMDs could be deployed within 45 minutes - [Hans Blix] insisted: "The intention was to dramatise it, just as the vendors of some merchandise are trying to exaggerate the importance of what they have....But from politicians or our leaders in the western word, I think we expect more than that. A bit more sincerity........"They say some WMDs can be ready to be used within 45 minutes. Well, which ones? It certainly wasn't nuclear because the report says that they were not developing nuclear, so they didn't have them. And what is meant by being ready? Is it a phial of anthrax that can be tossed at somebody? I mean one can interpret it in different ways."

Asked about claims in the Observer that Britain had spied on UN allies in the run-up to Iraq, he said: "I wouldn't be at all surprised if that was the case ... I assumed when I was in New York that I might well have been bugged in my office."

Charlotte Observer-"Bush tries to limit scope on intelligence inquiry"
"This is the most ill-prepared snow job I've seen in a long time. Does he (Bush) really think anybody is really going to fall for this? The commissioners he has named know absolutely nothing about the subject matter."

--Ivo Daalder, Brookings Institution fellow

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here is the New York Times editorial on the same topic.

The new rationale for war--"intent" and "the very minimum"

The "new minimum" is a woeful lowering of the bar....and would be laughable if we weren't losing our troops in a war of choice...political, poor choice.
It's getting worse by the moment.
Dana Milbank quotes Bush:

"He's a dangerous man. He had the ability to make weapons at the very minimum." (Meet the Press Feb 8)

....and VP Dick Cheney:

"We know that Saddam Hussein had the intent to arm his regime with weapons of mass destruction."
(in his message this week to a group of Republican donors in Chicago).

Mr Bush suggested he would not testify before the commission he named last week to investigate the Iraq intelligence.

Even though the president is not on trial, doesn't this seem reminiscent of past defendants we've seen invoking their 5th amendment privelege?

At Informed Comment, Professor Cole has astute commentary about the Cheney comments. LINK HERE.

I am so naive that I still read items like this with my jaw on my keyboard:

AP reported that US Vice President Dick 'Cheney, the keynote speaker at the Republicans' annual Lincoln Days, said the evidence indicates that Saddam Hussein had the intent to use weapons of mass destruction, even though inspectors have not found any massive stockpiles....

Saddam did not have the capacity to produce weapons of mass destruction, because he did not have active laboratories doing so. He had no "capacity" whatsoever to produce nukes. His country may have had a capacity to produce some chemical weapons, but then so could a twelve year old little boy in Iowa with a bottle of chlorine and a lab set. The point is that they did not have any active production facilities at the time the war was launched. As for "intent," well, Saddam's WMD was destroyed under UN pressure by the mid-1990s, and he never reconstituted the programs or the facilities, so his "intent" was not exactly urgent or being implemented on a relevant timescale. Besides, in military strategy you do not worry about vague abstracts such as the over-all "intent" of your enemy. You worry about his actual, existing, concrete capabilities.
--Professor Juan Cole

How well will the GOP be able to market their new rationale? Will the public accept it?

Slate/Timothy Noah
Get your Bush documents here

Ron Suskind posts the evidence online. It's a trove of 19,000 documents that former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill gave him. It's all going to be here.

From Buzzflash:
BushFlash Predicted Bush/Cheney Appointing A Key Member of Extremist Republican Shadow Govt to Investigate the Lying, Inept GOP Exec Branch:
Laurence Silberman, Co-Chair, Like Scalia and David Sentelle is Part of the Federal Bench GOP Fifth Column Govt.

Dean supporters: Please sign this letter to the DNC's Terry McAuliffe
It may be well past the time to tell him how we feel...but he should know.

"I look forward to that debate when John Kerry, a war hero with a chest full of medals, is standing next to George Bush, a man who was AWOL in the Alabama National Guard. He didn't show up when he should have showed up."
--Terry McAuliffe (last week)

*This is one of the many reasons I am contemplating leaving the Democratic party.
It's all about the diminishment of the idea of "small-d" democracy. I'd though it was a hallmark of the Democratic party.
Was I wrong?

NY Times/Thomas Friedman
Thomas Friedman paints a rosy picture of our reason for being in Iraq
It almost seems that he'd like us to forget what brought us there
Hypocritically, he blames the Super Bowl halftime show for erasing memories
Who's doing the erasing?

All I have to do is see what happened to the Kurds the other day ? this proud mountain people who have built a nice little democracy and free market in northern Iraq, only to have it suicide-bombed by Islamists - to be reminded that this is a just war. It is a war of the forces of tolerance, pluralism and decency against the forces of intolerance, bigotry and religious fascism.

And this had what to do with an imminent threat from Saddam Hussein to America?
Hello, Mr. Friedman?
I don't argue Mr. Friedman's point regarding the focus the Bush administration seems to be determined to take OFF of our fighting men and women. They deserve our undying respect and unending thanks for all they do in the service of our nation. I recall my mouth dropping in disbelief when the President failed to pay them homage in his State of the Union speech. Unbelieveable.
It seems, however, that Mr. Friedman is settled with the fact that Americans were all misled..not by available intelligence..but by Bush and his administration's telling us what they wanted us to hear about the known available intelligence.*I'm glad HE is...I'm certainly not..and I know many Americans agree with me on this.)
(Here's a related op-ed in today's NY Times).
I'd ask Mr. Friedman if it skipped his mind that Saddam was the alleged threat and reason for the preventive attack on Iraq....not Islamic terrorists. There was no 9-11 connection to Saddam. In his sentimental, democracy-loving way, Mr Friedman seems to want to get us to forget about all the lies we've been fed by our leadership. Mr Friedman, rather unpatriotically, seems to have abandoned his caring about the integrity of American democracy and thrown his support to this "war of big ideas" which has nothing to do with Hussein or our alleged reasons for having gone to war. Hussein was just the sideshow in our rush to "bring the terrorists on" into the land of Iraq..a most immoral thought if you meditate upon it for a while.
Imagine this:
Let's say China decided to fight a war of its own "big ideas" and wrap it in a ruse about overthrowing a foreign nation's president who allegedly has WMDs (but doesn't, in reality). What if China "brought it on" to that nation, raining bombs over innocent heads while down below, certain ethnic (weak or unpopular) citizens in that nation's northern region are attacked by their organized fundamentalist enemies (unrelated to China) who were just waiting for the overthrow of the nation's president in order to get their civil war on amidst the chaos? You'd say to yourself...dear God, what a travesty of justice...what a damned mess. Could you imagine our news headlines...what the talking heads would be saying???

To Mr. Friedman, who obviously believes with all his heart that we're doing mankind a service with the promotion of our big ideas, I say: What a travesty of justice...what a damned mess.

I'd say listen to Jimmy Breslin..he can teach you a thing or two about truth, honor, and justice.

Bloomberg is supposed to fight for this city and instead he acts like he is afraid of Bush and these other Republicans. Simultaneously, and worse, he acts like he wants to be one of them. He crowed over bringing the Republican convention to New York. It will put people in hotel rooms, he says. Beautiful! We count money while some young guy from the Bronx gets his head blown off.
What do Bush and his people do for Bloomberg? They tell him they are going to bring him into the parlor. Then they put him outside in a crowded room and have him raise money.
And he not only brings nothing for his city, but he is afraid to complain. George Bush has a program called "Leave No Child Behind" and it stands for all of the Republicans: The program is utterly fraudulent. And of all the mayors of cities in the country complaining about schools being slashed and ruined, only Michael Bloomberg remains silent. How marvelous! He is afraid of insulting his great new friends. And what do these people in Washington and Albany give him? They bring back the great News newspaper headline, "Ford to N.Y.: Drop Dead."
It helped make Jimmy Carter the president. This time, it is George Bush telling us to drop dead, and in this case young people actually die.
on the eve of invading Iraq, Bush made a speech that was a copy of the one made by Adolph Hitler in the hours before his army invaded Poland in September of 1939.
In a State of the Union speech, Bush said that Saddam tried to get uranium from the country of Niger and blow us away with a nuclear bomb. Afterward, the Bush people said the speech was essentially right although it had some wrong. It did. This could be put in three letters: Lie.
After that, from Washington there was one long, whining lie about weapons of mass destruction. If this Saddam had them, he would have used them in the first 20 minutes of the fighting. He had none. A man called Blix from the United Nations inspected Iraqi arms, including trucks found one week apart and empty. Nothing. Colin Powell got up at the UN and, reading whatever it was that Bush and his people gave him, he said the trucks were there on one day to carry away biological weapons before the inspectors arrived and that is why we have to bomb Baghdad.
The news reporters of the nation, the Pekingese of the Press, never questioned a single, solitary sentence of his presentation. All agreed it was a great moment for America. In doing so they stained themselves forever as cowards...

I'd ask Mr. Friedman to ask one of the religious moral leaders of the world, Pope John Paul, what he thought about this preventive war. "...unjust and illegal.."

Mr. Friedman says:

The antiwar left is wrong: however mangled was the Bush road to war, it is a war for the values of our civilization.

I'd ask Mr. Friedman: What kind of idiots do you take the American public for? I'd tell him that he obviously has chosen to rationalize away a travesty of justice and a breaking of faith from the American president to the American people. The "mangling", I'd tell Mr. Friedman, was EVERYTHING. I am not a anti-war left-wing extremist..I consider myself to be quite the rational liberal. I am insulted to see comments such as these from a corporate journalist who is doing his best to make something positive out of a travesty brought on by the worst President in American history. I am not impugning him for being an optimist...but I sense a decided intellectual dishonesty in Mr. Friedman's column today. If we forget what brought us to this point in the sordid history of these past few years, we will never understand what it will take to make our nation a more accountable, trustworthy, dignified nation of intelligent patriots.
I feel dumbed down, thus insulted, by the rosy picture Mr. Friedman attempts to paint while calling rational people like me nothing more than "anti-war". I'm more of the "anti-mangling" type.

AMERICAN BURKA

Would John Kerry tap Howard Dean as VP?
From the article:

In remarks that would have seemed almost incredible a month ago, the former front-runner indicated in Milwaukee that he would be willing to accept the vice presidential slot on the fall ticket if he did not win his bid to lead it.
"I would . . . do anything I could to get rid of President Bush," Dean told a Milwaukee radio station when asked if he would be interested in the No. 2 spot on the ticket. "I'll do whatever is best for the party," he said on "Morning Magazine" on WMCS-AM, a station with a predominately African-American audience.

I think John Kerry owes Howard Dean a lot. After all, Kerry had worked in quite a negative fashion to destroy Dean's lead in Iowa while, at the same time, co-opting Dean's campaign message and attitude.. trying to claim it as his own. If Dean fails in Wisconsin, and if this VP offer was to happen...and Howard Dean should indeed be gifted with the thanks for all he's done for this party in the 2004 campaign.. if this was to happen, I wouldn't feel so creepy about how the "new, improved, changed" John Kerry got to this point.

Dr. Gerry Lower/Keystone, South Dakota
Jesus, Jefferson, and Bush

Jesus, like Hippocrates before Him and Jefferson after Him, was a dialectition who based His further thought and action on the dialectic human values residing at the core of science, democracy and nascent Christianity. All three men saw the causes of human problems to be entirely earthbound. For Jesus, the causes of political violence and human misery were not supernatural in origin but the result of competing despotic political philosophies with God-awful values and priorities.
Accordingly, Jesus confronted both Judaism and Romanism, out loud and in public, pointing out the despotic nature of absolutism, the unjust nature of legalism and harsh penalism, the counter-productive nature of vengeance-based moralities, and the greed-driven, life-cheapening nature of marketplace values. These diagnostic efforts were entirely empirical and in full recognition of the spiraling nature of vengeance-based "moralities." Jesus offered instead a political philosophy born of human knowledge, honesty and compassion. For that contribution to a saneand honest political philosophy, He was silenced by those prefering to honor religious despotism and rule by the rich and powerful.
...Jesus lived in a world having no relationship whatsoever to the supernatural constructs which the JudeoRoman church employed to justify empire in His name. Implicit in that Romanized view, Jesus was second to god's law, the implication being that Jesus was a devout legalist/penalist who would never break God's laws and who enjoyed a good execution or a good war to spread the word. In other words, Jesus was characterized most of all by blind obedience to the Pope. In Roman eyes, Jesus was unattainable. Christian values were not to live by, they were to justify self-righteous conquest and control, in the name of Jesus, but in the interest of the rich and powerful. Is this not the same approach used by the Bush administration in promoting capitalistic right wing dominion on a global basis?
-Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin and their enlightened Christian friends brought Jesus down to earth two centuries ago. In order to make Jesus real on earth, we must do likewise. We must accept the humanness of Jesus and the fact of His death. We must accept that He can only live now through the people, and know that He is uniformly attainable because of His humanness.
... We must abandon supernaturalism, vengeance, self-righteousness and choseness and we must become citizens of Jefferson's Democracy, steeped in the values of Science and nascent Christianity, steeped in human knowledge. We must take our place, for the first time, as a Democracy among Democracies, in the interest of human maturation and world peace.

Yahoo News: Girl Dies After Second Head Is Removed
I'm very sorry when noble and loving attempts fail

I wish they could have saved Rebeca Martinez.

What country did you say we're living in?
American peace acitivists are terrorists now??!??
Des Moines peace activists ordered to testify in U.S. court-
Possibly part of an investigation conducted by the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force
Dissent now equates to terrorism??

Give us a break, already!!
Colin Powell disagrees questions about U.S. intelligence on Iraq will make people "very suspicious" about future claims
In my opinion, Colin Powell's decision on February 5th, 2003 to choose loyalty to a politics-first administration with highly questionable ethical integrity while selling his WMD spiel (and his political soul) was the day he lost the U.N.'s trust in him. Because of his loyalty (at any cost), General Powell looks very foolish in this article when you compare what he says now to what he warned us all about on February 5, 2003.

Here is the main point.. the point that will NOT apparently even be addressed by this "independent" (not) commission:

Annan cautioned, nonetheless, that people who use intelligence must be "very, very careful as to the quality of the intelligence and perhaps be extra careful to check with other sources to make sure that it is solid."

That would be people who USE it...not people who produce it.

From the pages of: Anonymoses
Rate Russert
MSNBC - Sunday, February 8th - Sir Tim Russert interviews George W. Bush

Here is the challenge:
-Make a copy of the show.
-Jot down every question Tim asks.
-Rate each question.

George's answers are, as usual, irrelevant and untrustworthy.
Will Tim's questions be equally irrelevant and untrustworthy?

David Corn Gives Tim Russert "8 Questions for George W. Bush"

Anonymoses has broken some of the questions out for us:

Some of the questions:


-Did he decide to use military force against Iraq before 9/11?
-Where are the WMDs he insisted were there?
-Why is he using phony budget numbers?
-Did he engage in less-than-proper business dealings before he entered politics?
-Why he has misled the public while promoting his policies on stem cells research, global warming, and missile defense?
-Why has he opposed certain homeland security measures and not adequately funded others?
-...if the CIA did not say there was a "massive stockpile" of biological weapons in Iraq, what was your basis for asserting a stockpile existed?
-Did you know something the CIA did not? Did you overstate the intelligence?
-Was it not misleading to tell the public that "we don't know" whether Iraq had a nuclear weapon, when, in fact, we did know?
-Can you tell us what evidence you had for saying that Hussein was an "ally" of al Qaeda?
-Can you now give us names of men or women with whom you served in Alabama?
-Why did you not take a flight physical?
-Why did your campaign put out an explanation that was wrong?

Pssst-some of that Paul O'Neill tattle-fodder might have been classified--make like you never heard any of it, America! *pleeeease?*

Well-done, John!
John Edwards found creative use for Bush supporters who
showed up at his "party"!

Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards used a couple of Bush-Cheney sign-waving college students to his advantage Friday.

"Guys, hold those signs up in the back if you don't mind,'' Edwards said after snaking his way through the packed ballroom at Virginia Tech University.
The crowd booed as the students obliged, but then broke out in cheers when Edwards claimed:
"That's who's leaving the White House come November!''

Reuters: Sen. John McCain on the Intelligence Commission:
Sen. John McCain is bringing a willingly-admitted prejudice to the table...
when facts are surely pre-decided, how is this supposed to instill public trust in a fair investigation?
Being given the benefit of innocence before being proven guilty is fine for a defendant charged with a crime in a court of law, but a public investigation of an elected official and his administration requires a mind perfectly open to any possibility. To be perfectly honest, based on his statement, I already doubt that I'll trust John McCain to give this a fair hearing.
This whole deal smells pretty rotten to me. No one in their right mind can tell me that a commission can be independent if its nine members are hand-picked by Bush and his team. The White House has ignored their appeals that Congress authorize the commission. This is going to be destructive to the public's trust. If the Democrats don't raise a holy fit over this, they have my undying disrespect. DLC/third-way centrist stalwart-Charles Robb (son-in-law of Lyndon B. Johnson; the same Robb who was considered possible presidential material before a wicked sex scandal damaged him) has been hand-picked to lead the Democratic side of the
"independent" (sooo not) commission.

Washington Post
Tenet: Analysts Never Claimed Imminent Threat Before War
Why did Bush and the Neocons on whom he relied upon claim or even allude to imminent threat before war?

"The 45-minute window under which Iraq is prepared to use biological and chemical weapons is one further sign of worries we have about Iraq and their militaristic intentions."
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer
09/24/2002

"The president of the United States and the secretary of defense would not assert as plainly and bluntly as they have that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction if it was not true, and if they did not have a solid basis for saying it."
Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary
Response to Question From Press
12/04/2002

"...we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons..."
Dick Cheney, Vice President
Meet The Press
03/16/2003

"Well, there is no question that we have evidence and information that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical particularly . . . all this will be made clear in the course of the operation, for whatever duration it takes."
Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary
Press Briefing
3/21/2003

"We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat."
Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
ABC Interview
3/30/2003

"Obviously the administration intends to publicize all the weapons of mass destruction U.S. forces find -- and there will be plenty.."
Robert Kagan, Neocon scholar
Washington Post op-ed
4/9/2003

NY Times/Paul Krugman
Get Me Rewrite!

In his column today, Paul Krugman rightly exposes disinformation from NeoCon princess Laurie Mylroie. I recall reading and commenting about such disinformation from Mylroie last July..along with the incredible disinformation supplied by Judith Miller and used by the New York Times.
Mr. Krugman says:

A tip from Joshua Marshall, of www.talkingpointsmemo.com, led me to a stark reminder of how different the story line used to be. Last year Laurie Mylroie published a book titled "Bush vs. the Beltway: How the C.I.A. and the State Department Tried to Stop the War on Terror." Ms. Mylroie's book came with an encomium from Richard Perle; she's known to be close to Paul Wolfowitz and to Dick Cheney's chief of staff. According to the jacket copy, "Mylroie describes how the C.I.A. and the State Department have systematically discredited critical intelligence about Saddam's regime, including indisputable evidence of its possession of weapons of mass destruction."

In his column, Krugman warns that people such as James Woolsey (who wrote one of the blurbs for Ms. Mylroie's book) has ben mentioned as a possible member of the commission to investigate and examine "intelligence". His fear, like mine, is that the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans will get off the investigation-hook...and that is precisely where the shady cherry-picking of intelligence to promote this war would have taken place.

From the pages of Daily Kos:
We Must Never Forget: February 5, 2003
by Al Rodgers

Colin Powell went to the UN and engaged in one the most infamous acts of Propaganda in World history.
We must never forget.

From the pages of: Mahablog
The news We've Been Waiting For??

--Federal law-enforcement officials said that they have developed hard evidence of possible criminal misconduct by two employees of Vice President Dick Cheney's office related to the unlawful exposure of a CIA officer's identity last year. The investigation, which is continuing, could lead to indictments, a Justice Department official said.
--According to these sources, John Hannah and Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, were the two Cheney employees. "We believe that Hannah was the major player in this," one federal law-enforcement officer said. Calls to the vice president's office were not returned, nor did Hannah and Libby return calls. [Richard Sale, UPI, February 5, 2004]

**Per Kos: "Hannah, by the way, is a "senior national security aide" for Cheney, and was, in fact, the administration's main point of contact with Chalabi's INC."**



Also on today's Mahablog...

"Check out Dan Froomkin's "White House Briefing" in today's Washington Post, expecially the part about "The AWOL Story That Won't Die." This paragraph popped out:

NBC Nightly News devoted a two and a half minute "In-Depth" segment to the issue, in which David Gregory said that while Bush was "never formally accused" of anything, "there is no record that proves Bush showed up to fulfill his obligations" from May 1972 to May 1973. The report includes video from 2000 of Bush saying "I fulfilled my obligation."

That old "liberal media" strikes again, huh? But here's a "clip & save" link to use next time you run into a Bush supporter who insists the AWOL charge can't be substantiated, because records are missing -- this blogger says records exist that should clear up the truth about Bush's National Guard duty.

Village Voice-A Disturbing Tidbit about Al Sharpton
Sleeping With the GOP
A Bush Covert Operative Takes Over Al Sharpton's Campaign

While Bush forces like the Club for Growth were buying ads in Iowa assailing then front-runner Howard Dean, Sharpton took center stage at a debate confronting Dean about the absence of blacks in his Vermont cabinet. Stone told the Times that he "helped set the tone and direction" of the Dean attacks, while Charles Halloran, the Sharpton campaign manager installed by Stone, supplied the research. While other Democratic opponents were also attacking Dean, none did it on the advice of a consultant who's worked in every GOP presidential campaign since his involvement in the Watergate scandals of 1972, including all of the Bush family campaigns.

From the pages of The Gotham City 13-
Bush and the Press-
A symbolic relationship

Monsignor Joseph Champlin/American Catholic.org
We Can Move Toward Harmony
Truths Jews, Christians and Muslims Hold in Common


These points are important for us, as a nation, to remember as we move into an uncertain future with those whom we wish to retain as our allies. It's also personally imperative for the sake of harmony that we focus our understanding on what we share as human beings vs. what drives us apart. I hope my secular-minded readers will indulge me.

Excerpts from the section entitled "We Can Move Toward Harmony":

The 10 spiritual commonalities shared by Christians, Jews and Muslims are indeed remarkable. But it would be inaccurate and naïve not to recognize that real differences do exist. Moreover, years of conflict have generated, among some, intense bitterness, hatred and mistrust.

Despite those divisions, if we know and understand each other better, then it should be easier for us to love one another more. Religion, instead of being a source of division, could become a basis for unity.

For such a positive global development to take place, we need to take some practical domestic steps. Individuals can educate themselves through print publications or Web sites such as the Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs , Jewish-Christian Relations and the Middle East Policy Council.

Families might discuss these 10 spiritual commonalities to deepen their own awareness and appreciation. Parishes could arrange for visits to both synagogues and mosques. Dioceses might facilitate public dialogue among Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders.

Each of us needs to take the important step of praying individually and with others "that we all may be one" (see John 17:21), just as our loving God has envisioned us from the beginning.

Msgr. Joseph M. Champlin, a widely published author, exchanged pulpits with a local rabbi two years ago, preaching in the synagogue, while the rabbi spoke at a Sunday Mass. This was a first for both their 150-year-old congregations. Last year, Msgr. Champlin invited Dr. Anis Obeid, raised as a Druze Muslim, to describe the basic articles of that religion at a Sunday Mass at Immaculate Conception Cathedral in Syracuse, New York, where the author is rector. Those exchanges and the tragedy of September 11 led to this article.

U.S. Newswire
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington
Files FEC Compliant Against Grover Norquist, Ken Mehlman;
Alleges Violation of Federal Campaign Laws Over 'Master Contact List'

-[The group is] alleging that Grover Norquist, Americans for Tax Reform and Bush-Cheney '04 violated federal campaign laws. According to The Washington Post, Norquist gave Ken Mehlman, the campaign manager for Bush- Cheney '04 a "master contact list," including the names and information of conservative activists in 37 states compiled by Norquist over a period of 5 years.
-CREW's complaint alleges that both parties, Norquist and Mehlman are in violation of the law regardless of whether Americans for Tax Reform or Norquist personally contributed the list. Americans for Tax Reform is a corporation and campaigns are prohibited from accepting contributions from corporations. According to FEC regulations, Bush-Cheney could not accept the list if it came directly from Americans for Tax Reform.
-"The public needs to know that no one, including the President of the United States, is above the law. FEC laws are clear and must be followed,"

See Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington website.

See Forbes.com: "Did Bush-Cheney '04 Break Campaign Law?"

Grover Norquist is one of the "Think-Tank Bottom Feeders" (as described in this tongue-in-cheek Austin, Texas-based column).

Among the brightest lights was anti-tax absolutist Grover Norquist, who called his co-panelist Dick Lavine a "Bolshevik," defined taxation as "taking money from people who have earned it and giving it to those who haven't earned it" (presumably the latter would include guests of the tax-exempt, "nonpartisan" TPPF), denounced graduated tax rates as "the [mass murderer] Richard Speck approach," and advocated abolishing public schools altogether: "Don't raise taxes, and don't fund monopolies!" The assembled elected officials – when not attacking "politicians" – generally took a more moderate line. Rather than abolish public education outright, they simply intend to starve it to death.

Salon.com (subsc. or free one-day pass req.)
Hitting the mainstream media:
Bush's Missing Year
In 1972, George W. Bush dropped out of his National Guard service and later lied about it. With the media finally paying attention, will he now come clean?

JWR/Omer Bartov
Did Hitlerism Die with Hitler?

....those who foolishly think that doing away with Israel, not least in a "one-state solution," would remove anti-Semitism had better look more closely at the language of these enemies....
Hitler taught humanity an important lesson. It is that when you see a Nazi, a fascist, a bigot, or an anti-Semite, say what you see. If you want to justify it or excuse it away, describe accurately what it is that you are trying to excuse away. If a British newspaper publishes an anti-Semitic cartoon, call it anti-Semitic. If the attacks on the Twin Towers were animated by anti-Semitic arguments, say so. If a Malaysian prime minister expresses anti-Semitic views, do not try to excuse the inexcusable. If a self-proclaimed liberation organization calls for the extermination of the Jewish state, do not pretend that it is calling for anything else. The absence of clarity is the beginning of complicity.

Washington Post
Auschwitz Under Our Noses

Come Fly With Me!

"Come fly with me,
let’s float down on Air Force Two
In Cheney land, there’s a huntin' strand
And you’ll shoot a duck or two
Come fly with me, Antonin,
just me and you..."

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia traveled as an official guest of Vice President Dick Cheney on a small government jet that served as Air Force Two when the pair came here last month to hunt ducks. The revelation cast further doubts about whether Scalia can be an impartial judge in Cheney's upcoming case before the Supreme Court, legal ethics experts said. The hunting trip took place just weeks after the high court agreed to take up Cheney's bid to keep secret the details of his energy policy task force.

Bohemian Mama Blog
I might like John Kerry as Nominee More If.........
Bohemian Mama originally posted this on her diary over at Kos and there are some spirited comments. She says she's "glad people are at least talking about things", and she's "always wanting to learn more."

I understand exactly how she feels.

My question is--what lesson didn't he learn from Viet Nam that would have lead him to miss the important fact that Bush was surely going to take pre-emptive action against Iraq? Kerry must have known the UN would just be, for Bush, a polite stop-over visit with a step-over attitude. We all knew it...why didn't he?

Related article: Salon.com (subsc. or free one-day pass req.)
Will Deaniacs pull a Nader on the Democratic Party?
Some of the insurgent's supporters say they're going to take their idealism and go home --- but most of them will probably get over their bitterness and support the nominee.

Jake Tapper/ABC news
Stealth Negativity?
Recording Reveals Kerry Operative Dissing Dean in Campaign Call

Caught on Tape

But two nights ago, Cornell College psychology professor Suzette Astley, a Dean volunteer in Lisbon, Iowa, received a phone call from a Kerry's Cedar Rapids headquarters — in which, she says, a Kerry volunteer had some less than kind things to say about Dean regarding his foreign policy experience, being from a largely white state, and so-called "environmental racism."

Since a documentary filmmaker was staying with Astley, the exchange, which has been confirmed by the Kerry campaign, was caught on videotape.

"Does your candidate know that you're saying these kinds of things, unsubstantiated claims on the phone representing Sen. Kerry?" Astley asked 19-year-old volunteer, Jacob Thomas, on the tape, a copy of which was obtained by ABCNEWS.

Soon, she asked to speak with Kerry's regional field supervisor, with whom she launched a complaint.

"I am just really offended by the call I got tonight," she said. "The person who was talking to me was taking things out of context, repeating unsubstantiated reports to me, and I find that really offensive."

Democrats: This is the time to look at yourselves most honestly

A righty-writer at World Net Daily hopes that "the RNC provides a 24x7 cable show for McAuliffe and, in the interim, invites all those outraged with yet another clownish moment from the Alfred E. Neuman of American politics to skip the getting mad and go straight to the getting even via a donation" to the Bush campaign."
While the AWOL situation deserves mainstream media treatment (see the actual/true story here), you cannot treat it lightly and clumsily. Talk about gaffes from Howard Dean....Terry McAuliffe tends to act like a verbal bull in a China-shop while a more detached demeanor would suffice. I am more than a bit angry with McAuliffe myself for what I watched him fully allow to happen with the Howard Dean candidacy. His actions (or failure to act when Dean rightly appealed to him about professionaly interfering in all the unfair media treatment) led me to suspect that he was a biased party chairman. Comments I have heard from him and Carville and Begala since that incident have further fed that suspicion.
Although it is a harsh statement by WorldNet Daily columnist and I'm not inclined to drink the koolaid of Bush-defenders, when I read this following statement, some of it "hit home".

"McAuliffe's decision to deny that service in the national guard is service in the military – even as thousands of national guard have served in Iraq – is a blunder larger than any of his others, and trafficking in discredited urban myths gives you a glimpse of McAuliffe's desperation to turn the conversation to anything except Kerry's way-left voting record, or his role in the Dean meltdown, or the failure of Wes Clark to capture any significant support outside the loon caucus."

I hope Democrats will take a good, hard, honest look at themselves and understand that the Peter Jennings of the so-called "liberal" media will not let sleeping dogs lie. Jennings was the one who started this Michael Moore-deserter baiting. The Democrats had best find just the right way to get the truth out there and shut up the mealy-mouthed media-baiters while they can. Situations like this could easily spin out of control. Judging from McAuliffe's treatment of Howard Dean in his own party's primary, I can't say I have faith he'll understand what he needs to do.

New Yorker Magazine/Comment
BLAME GAME
What Hutton and Kay reveal

....as Seymour M. Hersh has reported in this magazine, senior members of the Bush Administration did press the intelligence agencies to provide evidence supporting the President’s claim that Iraq represented a grave danger. Other journalists have made similar charges.
We know that Vice-President Dick Cheney, who continues to insist that some W.M.D.s might be found, visited the C.I.A. several times before the war for face-to-face meetings with Iraq analysts, and that senior Pentagon officials were running their own intelligence operation, the Office of Special Plans. Until a full account is provided, the suspicion will remain that in Washington, as in London, the handling of intelligence had more to do with persuading the public to support a war that had already been decided on than with calmly assessing threats. Whatever finally emerges, the C.I.A. should not be used as a scapegoat. Intelligence, by its very nature, is usually uncertain and often wrong. It should always be treated with skepticism and caution, two attributes that were, and are, conspicuously missing from the Bush White House.

Top four reasons Bush and media can't claim they were 'misled'

And Cheney appoints his own interrogator! ;)
Hey! Some fair investigation that'll be!

Madison Capital Times
Dean treated badly by most media

What if we lived in a parallel universe where Howard Dean was actually treated fairly by the media?... a place where Dean would be treated like the other candidates - criticized for his mistakes, complimented for his accomplishments and, above all, treated seriously when he discusses issues.....How would a Dean candidacy be faring today if the press gushed over him as it does John Edwards, or forgave him his trespasses as quickly as it does John Kerry, or overlooked the disorder in his organization as casually as it does the daily disaster that is Joe Lieberman's so-called campaign?
Dean has made mistakes, to be sure. But those mistakes have been amplified by a 24-hour-a-day news cycle, by late-night comics, by an Anybody-But-Dean army of cable television and talk-radio talking heads, and by Washington-centric newspaper columnists who never understood or particularly approved of Dean's decision to show up uninvited at the top of Democratic polls in late 2003.

....Democrats quietly admitted they would probably vote for Kerry or Edwards - candidates who just weeks ago were dismissed as losers but are now regularly referred to as "electable" by the media pack....
It is true that every disintegrating presidential candidacy since that of John Adams in 1800 has blamed the media for its decline. But in this case, Dean's complaints appear to be more credible than those of most damaged contenders.
How do we know? (SEE ARTICLE!)

NY Times
U.S. Comptroller General Warns About Magnitude of Deficits and Fiscal Risks
This is not a particularly sexy issue, so you won't see a lot about it on CNN. I suppose the likes of Grover Norquist and George W. Bush are just as glad it's not a hot, juicy story like Kobe, Condit, sharks, or mountain lions. They can quietly destroy our Social Security, Medicare, and other socially beneficial programs much easier this way. US Comptroller General David Walker realizes this is not an easy topic for the typical American to want to wrap their minds around. He warns that, if Americans are not educated and accurately informed, they may find themselves in fiscal peril before too long.

Long-term simulations from the legislative agency I head, the General Accounting Office, paint a chilling picture. Even before the new drug benefit was enacted, these simulations showed that by 2040 current policy could require a 50 percent reduction in federal spending or a doubling of taxes to balance the budget.

As Jefferson pointed out, truth and transparency are even more essential in the public sector. Government services -mail delivery, food inspection, Social Security and defense, to name a few - directly affect the well-being of every American. But sound decisions on federal programs and policies are nearly impossible without timely, accurate and useful information.

A top-to-bottom review of government activities to ensure their relevance for the 21st century is long overdue. From a practical standpoint, our elected representatives are not likely to get too far out in front of the American people when addressing complex and controversial issues. These fiscal risks, however, are a long-term problem whose impact will not be felt for some time. The understanding and support of the American people will be critical in providing a foundation for action.
A national education campaign to help the public understand the nature and magnitude of the long-term financial challenge facing this nation is essential. After all, an informed electorate is indispensable for a sound democracy. Young Americans especially need to become active in this discussion - because they and their children will bear the heaviest burden if today's leaders fail to act.

Washington Post Blasts Bush Budget

The Bush administration's 2005 budget is a masterpiece of disingenuous blame-shifting, dishonest budgeting and irresponsible governing...To keep running up these deficits is to stick future generations with a tab they won't be able to afford. The administration presents itself as blameless victim.. it doesn't take into account continuing costs in Iraq and Afghanistan...The biggest distortion is to present a snapshot of 2009 and stop there. Making the tax cuts permanent would cost $132 billion in the coming five years, but $936 billion through 2014. How Mr. Bush can adhere to this reckless course is the true "subject of concern."

The Hill
Grassley oddly confident about catching bin Laden "before November 2nd election"
I find all this certainty to be very, very strange. I have the distinct impression, from this and other stories I've read recently, that the Bushies have known where bin Laden is for a long time and have purposely held off capture until it can fit their political agenda.

“Obviously, he’ll be caught between now and the election,” Grassley said Monday when asked if he’s disappointed that Osama bin Laden hasn’t been killed or captured.
“I think they’re on his trail now in a way they haven’t been all year,” Grassley said.

SEE: "Hmmmmmm....they are apparently"sure"of where Osama is now...why not go and grab him?"

Washington Post
George McGovern Speaks About 1972 and 2004

Isn't the big lesson of 1972 this: Beware a president whose campaign dishonesty got him expelled from office shortly after his landslide win? Is winning an election worth dishonoring the nation? Am I the one who should be ashamed about 1972?

It has always seemed to me that the leaders who are the quickest to send our boys and our young to war are those who have never known war themselves.

I'm proud of my war service, but today I'm more interested in peace. I certainly don't want any more wars like the one in Iraq -- a country that posed no threat to us and had nothing to do with Sept. 11, 2001. There seem to be no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

CONGRATULATIONS, JOHN EDWARDS!!!!!!
Senator Edwards is the projected winner in the South Carolina primary.

CONGRATULATIONS, WESLEY CLARK!!!!!!
General Clark is the projected winner of Oklahoma.

Well, well..Look what's hit the mainstream
For the Record
Bush's Guard Service In Question
Democrats Say President Shirked His Duty in 1972
It only took them four years.
Wonder if they'll ever mention this?
Or this?
There's always this...and this.
That he received an honorable discharge is not a testament to his honorable service, but rather one that indicates that he received preferential treatment not available to those being charged with AWOL and desertion today.

Woman gives up her career to be
First lady
Geez-
Why couldn't Judy Dean have been so lame?

on the trail
From the Mouths of Babes
General Clark's son speaks out about the corrupt political press
By Chris Suellentrop

"Of politics, he says, "It's a dirty business, filled with a lot of people who are pretending to be a lot of things they're not."
"It's not the media's job to get his message out. The media's job is to sell advertising."
The media's horse-race coverage is all that matters, and by skipping Iowa, Clark got left out of the horse race. "It's all horse-race questions," he says. "My favorite was Dad wearing a sweater in New Hampshire one day. Maybe he was wearing a sweater because he was cold."
But why has the president gotten positive coverage while the Democrats have gotten negative coverage, in his opinion? "It's about access. You know that you'll be denied access if you actually cover things honestly."
"I'd like him to win today. If he doesn't win, I don't want him to stay out there," and "What did we get on the news for this weekend? A speeding ticket in Oklahoma. You gotta be f*cking kidding me."

JWR/Jeff Dunetz
ON GROUNDHOG DAY-
Groundhogs and human rodents

Why should Punxsutawney Phil get all of the attention?


These are strong words. I think we owe them a good listening and we should heed the pain that lies behind the cutting wit. How can we, as American citizens, become healers in our own right?

..Phil is just one example. All across the world there are ceremonies just like the one in Punxsutawney — ceremonies, where people trust animal behavior to indicate the future....There is the one that takes place in Ramallah on the West Bank. The Ramallah rodent is named Palestinian Yassir.....Yassir the Moneyhog is worshiped in Europe, because his primary role is killing Jews...Another ceremony that uses a rodent as a seer is the one in France .The animal in this one has had many names. The latest is Judenphobe Jacques. If Jacques poke his head out of his hole and sees Jewish people living in peace, we will have six more years of horrible anti-Semitism....
During the UN Party, all the delegates gather around a small hole and out pops Kantseenuthing Koffi. If Koffi sees Jews dying he goes back into his hole and closes his eyes.....There are so many other events that people don't know about, there is Mousears Michael who is so afraid of being recognized as Jewish, he pokes his head up from a tree atop of a castle and if he sees a Jewish shadow he runs from his background and we have 6 more months of ABC News' anti-Israel Bias...... One of the newest prognosticators is known as Passiveagressive Powell. Passiveagressive he helps predict US Foreign policy. Passiveagressive Powell has been known to trade Israeli lives for Arab oil. Every time Israel ties to defend herself he pokes his head up from the fence between US and Mexico (that's a good wall) and if he needs something from the Arab world we get six days of condemnation.....

I have one comment---remember who Powell works for. I recall his performance at the U.N. to make the (suspected false) case for the attack upon Iraq, which not only set back the peace process, but endangered the people of Israel. At the time, I thought to myself: a very un-Powell performance. It was then I realized he had become the loyal and willing puppet of the Bush administration.
May I suggest BlastIraqatAnyCost Bush?

Pressure, pressure!!
James Carville said two
(of the "Big Five") should have gone after last week's primary....

It didn't happen, though. And I'm glad.
My state (New York-the one hit on 9-11) won't even have a chance to speak until March.
Our hero-attorney-general Eliot Spitzer's endorsement of Kerry (announced yesterday in New Mexico) is going to be one of Kerry's greatest endorsements.
Should Kerry succeed, I recommend Spitzer for the AG spot. Kerry will owe him big-time.

About the other candidates dropping out after two states....
Give us a chance to speak, Carville and McAuliffe!
Give us a choice.
There were 48 other states in America last time I checked.
You are for a healthy (small 'd') democratic race...aren't you, now!?

CARVILLE: I think of the big five, two will be gone tomorrow. Whether they drop out -- whether you drop out or not doesn't matter -- but if two people finish far behind here, it's going to be pretty hard for them to raise money; it's going to be hard for their supporters to stay with them.

And there's a great sense among everyday rank-and-file Democrats, "Hey, if somebody does really well here, let's get, all get behind them and make this person nominee." And by the same token, these guys have been working hard -- Sen. Edwards and Dean -- you can't force people out of this thing too early, but somebody has to show ability to get votes in order to stay in this thing. You can't just stay in this thing forever.

Thomas Friedman says....
"Personally, I don't believe the Bush team will pay a long-term political price for its faith-based intelligence about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Too many Americans, including me, believe in their guts that removing Saddam was the right thing to do, even if the W.M.D. intel was wrong."

I wonder how we might reconcile that opinion with the President's approval rating, which has dropped from the 60s to the 40s since capturing Hussein? How does that jibe with the fact that, on the most recent poll taken of the president's performance on Iraq, the disapproval rate rose from 36 to 53?

Making a case for Bush/Justifying War:
Who Said This?
"You're talking about delivering the arsenal he has...he might still have all of those barrels of evil stuff, the biochemical weapons...chances are he has those weapons but he doesn't have the power to deliver them...It is particularly in light of what happened on September 11, 2001 and the fear that there are evil people out there, some of whom may have consorted with Saddam Hussein in the past, that would get together and use some of these chemical weapons -- if they're in Iraq -- on U.S. citizens....
September 11, 2001 was not hypothetical, nothing hypothetical at all...We know there are people out there willing to do the dirty deed and we also know Saddam Hussein has had contacts with these people in the past. ...
We know from Czech intelligence. Czech intelligence says that an Iraqi met with Mohammed Atta twice. ...
The FBI and CIA say the situation is not clear but Czech intelligence says it is. And why it is that the only person, only Arab leader that Usama bin Laden likes and approves of and speaks highly of is Saddam Hussein, why?
We talked to representatives of Al Qaeda here in 1998 shortly after the bombings of those embassies in Africa. The only Arab leader -- I spoke to them personally, the only Arab leader they were willing to praise, not to condemn, was Saddam Hussein. Why?
[The case has] been made not only by Usama bin Laden himself but by representatives of Al Qaeda to me personally on air. We've got the tape. I can show it to you...
They both want the destruction of the United States. You don't think they do? You don't think Usama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein want the destruction of the United States?
That's the point, the fact that Usama bin Laden has had, or is suspected to have had contacts, well, just a suspicion when thousands of American lives are at risk. Isn't a suspicion alone enough to really act upon?
You don't have to be told who lost the war in 1991. Who lost? It was Saddam Hussein. He signed these agreements as a result of his loss so that he could keep his nation in power. The conditions laid out by the U.N. were agreed to by the Iraqis. 95 percent was destroyed but five percent could not be accounted for.. That's a lot of potential biochemical weapons...for a madman like Saddam Hussein, to have 5 percent of that arsenal is still a dangerous thing...
...it would take six months to rebuild those facilities. So they could have built that. They could have built that four, six times over... isn't that a risk that we have to be particularly cognizant of, and if the Iraqis won't allow our inspectors unfettered access, isn't our only option to go in there and take out Saddam? Richard Butler was a spy for the United States, not an independent U.N. weapons inspector? The United States has admitted that they used Richard Butler as a pawn in an intelligence operation thwarting the neutral interests of the United Nations? Knowingly allowing them neutral reputation of the United States -- United Nations to fall by the wayside in order to work with United States intelligence is nothing that he's ever admitted to...
They say they want death and destruction for the United States. The vice president of Iraq said it is the duty of Arabs anywhere in the world, anywhere in the world, to attack U.S. interests and U.S. individuals. This is the vice president of Iraq. You just admitted it is a dictatorship. We have clear rhetoric coming from Iraq. Arabs have the duty to attack and kill Americans even on U.S. soil. They are saying that. It is conceivable, is it not, that they have created in the four years since we have been there quite a stockpile of chemical [and] biological weapons. Why do you think it is that they did that?
Who do you trust more, President Bush and the case he is making against Saddam Hussein, or the rhetoric coming out of Iraq? Coming out of Iraq or that coming out of President Bush?
Why it is that we should not believe Richard Butler who was chief weapons inspector, or believe people like the former nuclear scientist who worked on Saddam Hussein's campaign who says he still has an active policy to get a nuclear weapon and has other capabilities -- why should we not believe all of these other people and believe you?"

*answer below..in comments section*

Another Halliburton overcharge!
OOPS-They did it again!
Halliburton Co. allegedly overcharged more than $16 million for meals at a U.S. military base in Kuwait
This occurred during the first seven months of last year, according to a published report Monday, citing Pentagon investigators auditing the company's work.

What Do You Think?
"In general, I think the FCC does have a role in promoting some reasonable standard of decency. However, considering what's on television these days, I think the FCC is being pretty silly about investigating this."
--Howard Dean, about the Janet Jackson/Justin Timerlake/Superbowl FCC probe

N.Y.Times editorial
Come back, little Deaniacs

....Many of the young people who heeded Senator McCarthy's antiwar message in 1968 spiraled away from politics forever when Hubert Humphrey won the Democratic nomination. The young Deaniacs could easily add to the near majority of eligible voters in America who find politics a waste of effort. One of the most important missions of the Democratic nominee this year is to help keep young people interested when the campaign boils down to the deeply pragmatic politics of the summer and fall...

I wonder why the New York Times editorial staff believes 2004 will be any different than 1968. I think the words "pragmatic politics" are just code-words for something far more insidious than simply pragmatic.
You see, the primary season is far from over, and the New York Times is already counting Dean out of the race.
Obviously, the NY Times has their crystal ball poised and ready.. and they're already planning on how the leftover Dean supporters will fit into the 2004 election. I'll bet they even have them slated for their own favorite establishment candidate, which has never been Governor Dean. For them, the writing's on the wall.

If the writing's on the wall, I ask you:
Who's doing the writing?

On some far-off day when the writing is done by the people and the pragmatic result equates to the writing of the people, I will understand the new York Times' hope for keeping these young kids in the system. Consider, however, what these kids see happening before their very eyes. They see an alleged front-running candidate who is paying for his commercial time with his filthy-rich wife's money and contributions from specal interests. They see Terry McAuliffe trying to cut their candidate off at the pass...issuing the date in which Governor Dean will be officially the "undead" candidate, as CNN's political mouthpiece Bill Schneider has been touting all this past weekend. These kids see their hard-earned small contributions wasted because of a media who would choose to mock their candidate by spurting nonsense about him repeatedly on the news networks and who chastise his wife for being her own person.
I'm a Dean supporter and I'm no innocent kid..I've been around this block before. Frankly, I believe we're going to see a replay of 1968...in spades. This is far more than "disillusionment". It's an established political system that does not appreciate being challenged. I'm thinking seriously of parting from the Democrats myself. Any candidate in November will be better than Bush, but at the same time, this was the supreme chance to show America that we people are ready for a change.
The powers-that-be have stopped us at nearly every turn. The media and the Democratic powers virtually ignored Dennis Kucinich's candidacy. There will be a political price for them to pay, I'm afraid.

N.Y. Times/Bob Herbert
Keeping It Real-
Getting Out the Low-Income Vote

One of the biggest reasons politicians continue to trample on issues of crucial importance to low-income Americans -issues like jobs, education and access to health care - is the traditionally poor voting habits of that segment of the population. The percentage of people who vote (and the level of attention they get from politicians) rises steadily as you scale the income ladder.

Most Americans are unaware of the extent of the suffering that has fallen on the bottom 20 percent or so of the population. Many low-income Americans are leading lives of grim and sometimes painful determination, struggling to survive from one day to the next. The contrast between the real lives of families sinking beneath the weight of economic distress and the headlines that continue to insist that the economy is doing famously is extraordinary.

The idea is to make low-income voters a force too strong to be ignored. A recent study commissioned by the center showed that small increases in voting by low-income people could be decisive in several strategically important states.

Media's Greatest Sin:
The Dean Scream:
The Version of Reality You Didn't See on TV

SEE THE VIDEO HERE

.....we collected some other tapes from Dean's speech including one from a documentary filmmaker, tapes that do carry the sound of the crowd, not just the microphone he held on stage. We also asked the reporters who were there to help us replicate what they experienced in the room.
Reena Singh, ABC News Dean campaign reporter: "What the cameras didn't capture was the crowd."
Garance Franke-Ruta, Senior Editor, American Prospect: "As he spoke, the audience got louder and louder and I found it somewhat difficult to hear him."
Dean's boisterous countdown of the upcoming primaries as we all heard it on TV was isolated, when in fact he was shouting over the roaring crowd.
And what about the scream as we all heard it? In the room, the so-called scream couldn't really be heard at all. Again, he was yelling along with the crowd.

I condemn the television networks for this overplaying of a specially-selected video. I found the tone of ABC and FOX to be particularly unapologetic in this article. CBS is the most anti-1st amendment network I've seen (besides FOX the right-propagandists). CBS has censored a Moveon.org commercial this week and has refused to show programs such as a movie about the Reagans. In this instance, they have apologized after they did their damage to Governor Dean.
As long as the media acts as a gaggle of clowns, the American public will be little more than clowns discussing what they've seen the night before at water coolers across America.

Bush Wants a Cover-up, Not an Investigation

"Bush, under mounting political pressure, will sign an executive order to establish a full-blown (RIGHT!) investigation of U.S. intelligence failures in Iraq... By setting up the investigation himself, Bush will have greater control over its membership and mandate. (and ability to cover his great sin!) The senior White House official said it would be patterned after the Warren Commission (whose report on JFK's assassination is believed by no one)... David Albright, a former weapons inspector, said the administration could use the commission as a way to delay judgments about the intelligence community and the administration's use of the intelligence information. 'The bottom line for them [the Bush administration] is to delay the day of reckoning about their use of the weapons of mass destruction information,' Albright said. 'David Kay can blame the CIA and say 'Oh, I made all these comments based on what I heard from the intelligence community.' Bush can't do that. He's the boss.'"