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.