What the Hell?

Do the folks at Campaign Desk really think that this is the first time the Washington Times has crossed whatever arbitrary line they've drawn?
God, sometimes I think I'm the only person who lived through the 90s.

Sorry, Al

Sorry buddy. You got screwed in a bunch of ways, but a lot of it was our fault. Can it possibly be true that only about 150K people donated to your campaign 4 years ago?

Shame on us.

John Ashcroft Hates America

No, you dickhead, the SC maybe recognized that under our constitution THE ACCUSED HAVE RIGHTS. The accused who, not being charged with any crimes, are INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY.

Why does John Ashcroft hate America?

"The Supreme Court accorded to terrorists, in a variety of cases this week, a number of additional rights," he said. "We're digesting those opinions in terms of making sure that we adjust or modify what we do, so that we accommodate the requirements as expressed by the Supreme Court."

If all the people in Gitmo are terrorists, why have you let hundreds of them go?

Big Scratch for Big John

Almost $12k raised today, another couple hours left...

Kerry and Religion

Kerry's a regular mass-attending Catholic despite all the crap the media heaps on him for it because some asshole Bishop somewhere hinted that maybe he shouldn't be allowed to eat the wafer. But, hey, that's not good enough for some reason. Kerry might be secretly "secular." Holy crap! Secular! And, you know what "secular" means? Secular is ABNORMAL! That's right, folks.
From Slate:

If Kerry's really secular, he's abnormal.

And what's all this crap about Bush talking about his faith? Bush talks about faith the way he talks about freedom and the way he talks about terrorism. You know, "faith faith faith. faith's important to me. faith faith faith." "terror terror terror. terrorists bad. terror terror." "freedom freedom freedom. freedom good. freedom freedom freedom."

Let's see how these sound:

If Kerry's really Muslim, he's abnormal.

If Kerry's really Jewish, he's abnormal.

Yah, those sound great, and they're just the same.


Fucking hell.

Kerry's Worse Than Hitler

Fafblog explains why.

Outfoxed

Watch the trailer.

All Our Jobs Are Belong to Bush - June Edition

Jobs report comes out Friday. Current buzz is that they'll be a decent 250K, which is good but not nearly as good as the spin and, as I keep having to remind people, subsantially lower than the average monthly figures used to justify the last tax cut.

Veepstakes

I've been avoiding this mostly, but it's fast becoming a real issue. Who should it be? Who will it be? And, ignore drudgey rumors unless you think they could be true.

Nattering Nabobs

When the GAO tells us that things suck in Iraq, they neglect to tell us about all of the schools!

At it Again

Yes, human scum Kristof is at it again. Poor Man dispatches with ease.

...alicublog has a complementary post filled with warm fuzzies from those polite Republicans.

Day of the Revealing of the Kingdom of God

This should be a great National Press Club event.


...mw writes in to remind us that Sheila Cherry, the president of the NPC, used to work for Moon's magazine, Insight.

JK Day Continues

Don't forget...

Deserter

Paul Lukasiak takes a long hard look at Bush's military records.

Shorter Fun

From busybusybusy.

Lyons

Everyone should go read his latest column.

Convention Coverage

It'll be interesting to see if the networks have a double standard for their convention coverage - finding some excuse to broadcast more of the RNC one. It wouldn't surprise me if after giving short shrift to the Dems, the RNC manages to find some creative justifications for why more of their convention is "news."

Purveyor of Fear

I've never really understood why anyone takes Eugene Volokh seriously -- just another oxymoronic libertarian authoritarian. Jim Henley nicely explains it.

I hope Volokh enjoys his federal judgeship. I hope we don't mind it so much.

Indeed.

Common Good

It's your fucking war we're paying for, Sullivan.

Dum diddi dum diddi diddi dum dum

Here we go:

WASHINGTON -- The government needs to establish guidelines for canceling or rescheduling elections if terrorists strike the United States again, says the chairman of a new federal voting commission.

Such guidelines do not currently exist, said DeForest B. Soaries, head of the voting panel.

Soaries was appointed to the federal Election Assistance Commission last year by President Bush. Soaries said he wrote to National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge in April to raise the concerns

Sleazy Reed

Oh My God! Another Republican hypocrite exposed.

What will we tell the children?

Mars, Bitches!

Final day of the quarter, so we'll have John Kerry Wednesday! As of this moment, you've all donated $228,784 to the Kerry campaign. Let's pump that number up! Remember, after the convention, which is in less than a month (wow!), no more donating to Big John.

mebbe we can get to $250K today...

Cheney Booed at Yankees Game

Story here and here.


...never mind the 2nd link. Minitru on the Hudson removed that bit of history.


...Minitru put the info into this story instead. (it was originally in the one I had linked to.)

The Hawk Sneer

The only way to be right is to have been wrong.

27075

Link:

Iyad Akmush Kanum, 23, learnt the limits of sovereignty on Monday when US prosecutors refused to uphold an Iraqi judges' order acquitting him of attempted murder of coalition troops.

US prosecutors said that he was being returned to the controversial Abu Ghraib prison because under the Geneva Conventions they were not bound by Iraqi law.

Bashing Snitchens

Because it's just so fun.

Dionne

This Dionne column is quite good, and not just because it raises the possibility of big Dem takeover. There are a lot of good nuggets in there, but I wanted to highlight this one:

But there is one last bit of evidence suggesting that Inslee and Baird are on to something. In late August 2002, at the beginning of the buildup to the Iraq war, a Pew Research Center poll found that only 37 percent of Americans felt Bush had laid out a case for military action; 52 percent felt he had not.

In other words, millions of middle-of-the-road Americans had doubts about the war before it started. Many of those doubters eventually went along with the president but now question the war and the way the administration handled it. If Inslee is right about his tidal wave, the doubters will give it its power.

One of the reasons that the media behavior in the run-up to the war was so atrocious was that its coverage really did go against overall public opinion in the country. Polls tended to show a slim majority in support for the war, and when people were given an 'option B' (increase UN involvement, let inspections take longer, whatever...) then a pretty solid majority went for it. It was clear that a pretty big chunk of war support was given very reluctantly, and right before the bombs dropped a clear majority were indeed against "this war."

As Big Media Matt has pointed out a couple of times, post 9/11 the Bushies could have gotten 98% of what they wanted (including the war) and headed into this election being unbeatable if only they'd played a more subtle game. Instead, they went the brute force route, which wouldn't have even worked without a compliant media.

But, anyway, the reason Michael Moore's movie is so popular is mostly because he's presenting a certain point of view which is almost entirely missing from mainstream media. Basically, it's 3 things - 1) Bush isn't such a great leader, 2) It's fair to question Bush's motives, and 3) The Iraq war was a really bad idea. Now, whatever the rightness or wrongness of those perspectives, they aren't being articulated in the mainstream.

End of Quarter

Don't forget to donate to your favorite candidates before tomorrow night.


I'll suggest Joe Hoeffel, but feel free to send the scratch anywhere you want...

The Recent Jurispudence of Clarence Thomas

From Jack Balkin.

Losing Jesse

Link:

"I would not have voted for [President Bush's] tax cut, based on what I know. . . . There is no doubt that the people at the top who need a tax break the least will get the most benefit. . . . Too often presidents do things that don't end up helping the people they should be helping, and their staffs won't tell them their actions stink on ice."

-- Former senator Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), in a recent interview with Business North Carolina magazine.

And, I have to say I'm really a bit puzzled by this Bruce Bartlett article in NRO. Bartlett may or may not be right that an economic meltdown is in the cards, but he is correct that a tax increase of some sort, and a fairly large one, is inevitable. He concludes the article with:

The package will have to reduce the deficit by at least two percentage points of GDP annually to meaningfully affect financial markets and restore confidence, and it is unrealistic to think that this can all be done on the spending side. Therefore, taxes will be on the table. Voters need to ask themselves which party they prefer to manage this process when the time comes.

Now, Bartlett is a conservative so one imagines he has to mean that we'd better have the Republicans in charge when the time comes. Or, maybe not. Bartlett's not a complete idiot, and he has to be aware of the fact that it's the Republicans who have gotten us into this mess. They could have had a nice big tax cut and not brought us to what he thinks is the brink of a financial disaster. And, he has to be smart enough to realize that the vast majority of voters are going to be screwed by any Republican plan for "revenue enhancement."

(via ragout)

Green Party "Strange"

Says Nader.

A day after not getting the Green Party's endorsement for president, Ralph Nader brushed off the rejection as an inconvenience, described the party as "strange," called the party's national nominating convention "a cabal" and predicted who the big loser in its decision not to endorse him would be.

I have nothing against 3rd parties organizing and running candidates in places they could conceivably win. I have nothing against them finding ways to use national elections in productive ways to garner attention, either, as long as they're sensible about it. I was even sympathetic to the election '00 goal of getting enough votes to qualify for federal funds, which probably could have been achieved fairly easily had Nader campaigned sensibly. My problem with Nader and gang was that they helped further the press-pushed idea that it didn't really matter if we elected Bush or Al "Earth in the Balance" Gore, because, well, they weren't all that different really, along with the fact that Nader wasn't campaigning in a way which would end up furthering the goals of the Green party.

But, now that the Greens and Nader have gotten a divorce, what will the self-righteous greenshirts who post obsessively in the comments tell us to do? So confusing...

Iraqi Flag on Mars

A few of you emailed me about this. Remember the new Iraqi flag unveiled with such fanfare awhile back? It appears that it's been forgotten...

NK

It's probably the case that North Korea is near the top of the list of Worst Places on the Planet. And, I'm all for regime change there. However, there's a wee little problem. The first is that North Korea is indeed a threat to its neighbors, with conventional and we believe nuclear weapons. The second is that our conventional military is pretty tied up at the moment. The third is that even if we did go all nuclear on NK (and don't think there aren't people in the administration who think we must nuke the village in order to save it) that probably wouldn't make Japan, China, or South Korea particularly happy or healthy. The fourth is that Dear Leader is nuts and in a game of chicken he isn't going to blink.

But, all that isn't going to stop all the nutcases in power from pushing us to war...

Shrill

Krugman.

Let's say the obvious. By making Iraq a playground for right-wing economic theorists, an employment agency for friends and family, and a source of lucrative contracts for corporate donors, the administration did terrorist recruiters a very big favor.

IRR

Bummer.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Army is planning an involuntary mobilization of thousands of reserve troops to maintain adequate force levels in Iraq and Afghanistan, defense officials said on Monday.

The move -- involving the seldom-tapped Individual Ready Reserve -- represents the latest evidence of the strain being placed on the U.S. military, particularly the Army, by operations in those two countries.

Roughly 5,600 soldiers from the ready reserve will be notified of possible deployment this year, including some soldiers who will be notified within a month, said an Army official speaking on condition of anonymity.

Fashion

Fashion! turn to the left
Fashion! turn to the right
Fashion!
We are the goon squad and we’re coming to town
Beep-beep
Beep-beep

Contributing to the Deliquency of a Minor?

Serving an underaged kid alcohol? Sounds like the police should be paying a visit to La Nooners...

Lovable Bill Buckley

What a sweet sweet profile of the retiring Buckley. For another view, we have the lovable folks at American Renaissance (warning, serious cooties) to remind us of the glory days of the National Review. From "Why the South Must Prevail," August 24, 1957.

"The central question that emerges . . . is whether the White community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas in which it does not prevail numerically? The sobering answer is Yes – the White community is so entitled because, for the time being, it is the advanced race. It is not easy, and it is unpleasant, to adduce statistics evidencing the cultural superiority of White over Negro: but it is a fact that obtrudes, one that cannot be hidden by ever-so-busy egalitarians and anthropologists."
"National Review believes that the South's premises are correct. . . . It is more important for the community, anywhere in the world, to affirm and live by civilized standards, than to bow to the demands of the numerical majority."

"The South confronts one grave moral challenge. It must not exploit the fact of Negro backwardness to preserve the Negro as a servile class. . . . Let the South never permit itself to do this. So long as it is merely asserting the right to impose superior mores for whatever period it takes to effect a genuine cultural equality between the races, and so long as it does so by humane and charitable means, the South is in step with civilization, as is the Congress that permits it to function."

From June 2, 1964:

"But whatever the exact net result in the restricted field of school desegregation, what a price we are paying for Brown! It would be ridiculous to hold the Supreme Court solely to blame for the ludicrously named 'civil rights movement' – that is, the Negro revolt . . . . But the Court carries its share of the blame. Its decrees, beginning with Brown, have on the one hand encouraged the least responsible of the Negro leaders in the course of extra-legal and illegal struggle that we now witness around us. . . .
"Brown, as National Review declared many years ago, was bad law and bad sociology. We are now tasting its bitter fruits. Race relations in the country are ten times worse than in 1954."

Canadian Elections

Meaningless to me, but live results here. Chat away.

Limbo

Limbo sez:

RUSH: Yeah, I did play up -- not the fact that Foster was murdered -- I played up what was being said by others and what was going around and I played up the climate because it all fit in. This was '93. This was Clinton's first year. Vince Foster died in July. As I say, I won't forget it because I was in Israel at the time when we got the news. So, couldn't let that stand from last week, with all this attention to the Clinton book.

Limbo then:

SHOW: RUSH LIMBAUGH (9:00 PM ET)

February 3, 1994, Thursday 11:15 AM

LENGTH: 3803 words

HEADLINE: CHRISTOPHER RUDDY, NEW YORK POST, INVESTIGATES VINCE FOSTER DEATH, FINDS EVIDENCE SUPPORTS MURDER RATHER THAN SUICIDE

ANCHORS: Rush Limbaugh

BODY:
HOST: Rush Limbaugh

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Roger Ailes

(Footage of mock President Clinton writing on a chalkboard)

President BILL CLINTON': I will ask Hillary first.' Darn, I hate it when she makes me do something like this.

(Laughter)

Pres. CLINTON': Come on, Hillary. Can I stop now?

Ms. HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON': Fifty more to go, Bill.

(Laughter)

(Graphic shown)

America Held Hostage

380-Middle Class 399-Rich and Dead 1,080-Days Remaining I Will Ask Hillary First

ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Rush Limbaugh.

(Applause)

RUSH LIMBAUGH: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you ever so much. Thank you. Thank you. I'm--thank you, thank you very much for coming, ladies and gentlemen. And welcome to another exciting installment of RUSH LIMBAUGH, the television show.

Here we are called the epitome of positive. I am full of love for America. It is a tough love. We tell the hard truth here, and sometimes you're going to have to have the courage to face and believe the truth, especially tonight. The--or today, whenever you see the program. As we tape, it's dark, which is why I say--not in here, of course, because you can see me. But it's dark outside and so...

(Laughter)

LIMBAUGH: ...we're going to--we're going to get into the death of Vince Foster tonight. And note that I did not say the suicide of Vince Foster.


LIMBAUGH: I never did believe that Vince Foster's suicide was as clean, as simple as it was reported last July. Just as I never believed that Ross Perot spontaneously decided one night in February to run for president without telling anybody or even thinking of it himself first. Christopher Ruddy of the New York Post, a courageous investigative reporter, has single-handedly been looking into the death of Vince Foster and has uncovered some of the most amazing information that's being ignored by everybody else in the mainstream media.

But we're going to talk to him after this break, and find out exactly what he's discovered. And when you hear this, you're going to be as curious as anybody else should be about Vince Foster and his death and what really may be behind it.

So don't go away because Chris Ruddy coming up on the phone right after this.

(Theme music and applause)

(Announcements)

(Theme music and applause)

LIMBAUGH: There we go. Welcome back. OK, let's--let's just get straight into this, ladies and gentlemen. Vince Foster was a reputed--not reputed, was thought to have committed suicide on the 20th of July last year. What we were told at the moment and in the days that immediately followed the--the death; the president said, This is a mystery. Nobody knows what possibly could have been wrong here. He was the--full of vitality, full of life.' Then a couple days later, people said, No, he wasn't. He was all screwed up. He was seeing a psychiatrist, he was going out and getting medication.'

We may never know more than what we do now. The president said he didn't talk to him. He didn't have any idea what was going on. Then it was learned that the president did talk to him. Somebody remembered that, yeah, the president talked to him. They remem--you will remember next that the--the blame began to go around, and the Wall Street Journal editorial page was what most people blamed for Foster's suicide. They were so mean there at that paper. How dare they criticize this great man from Little Rock.

And then the press in Washington said, You know, maybe we are getting too mean. Maybe we are being a little bit too hard-hitting on these people. Maybe we should back off a little bit.' We were also told that there was no note. We were told that the park police were given access to his office. No mention that documents referring to the Whitewater Development Corporation were removed and we were not told the role of Bernard Nussbaum in all of this.

As time went on, we later learned that Nussbarm--Nussbaum did go into Foster's office, and within two hours after the discovery of his body, had cleared out some files that nobody knew existed until five months later. During the period of time from July to December, basically it was assumed that Foster committed suicide and nobody could figure out why and, oh, wasn't it a terrible thing?

Last week Christopher Ruddy, on the 27th of January, began what has become a series of reports on the Vince Foster suicide.

(Visual; New York Post headline reads, "Doubts Raised Over Foster's Suicide'")

LIMBAUGH: (Voiceover) There you see that first story. Doubts raised over Foster's suicide.'

And a number of discoveries were unearthed by Mr. Ruddy that nobody had reported previous to his story. For example, the--the position of his body. It was--it was as though he was laid out perfectly in a coffin with his hands at his side. The gun--and this is an exact replica of the gun--was found in his hand just like this at this side, laying down just like this. This after he shot himself in the mouth.

(Visual; New York Post sketch describes position of Foster's body)

LIMBAUGH: (Voiceover) And there was barely a trickle of blood coming from his mouth. There were no forensics tests done on the gun, the bullet wasn't found. None of this.

All of it unearthed by Chris Ruddy who we have on the phone. Chris, welcome to the program. What got you started with all this? How--how did it come to be that you decided to investigate this?

(Photo of Christopher Ruddy)

Mr. CHRISTOPHER RUDDY (Investigative Reporter, The New York Post): Well, about a month ago a friend of mine down in Washington said, You know, you should take a look at the--at the Vince Foster case, because he--this person in Washington was concerned that he was still holding the gun.' And there were some small press reports that mentioned he still had the gun in hand--in his hand which is unusual. It's rare that a suicide victim would have the gun.

LIMBAUGH: Unusual. Isn't it impossible? I mean, I've got the gun--I mean, I--I don't want to actually act out what happened here but if I were to take this gun and put it in my mouth and pull the trigger, I doubt that it would stay in my hand and that I would still be conscious enough to lay down perfectly and put the gun at my side and then lay down and die so that I could be discovered having committed suicide. That's--that seems impossible.

Mr. RUDDY: Well, no, there is rare instances where it would occur. But it's highly unusual and would lead one to believe that foul play did take place. The--the way the park police described it happening, it would be--it would have been impossible. So you're correct in--in stating that, if you were to put it in that way--that--the way the park police said the suicide took place.

(Footage of the road leading to Fort Marcy; site of Foster death)

Mr. RUDDY: (Voiceover) And the way they claim is that Vince Foster was standing on a hillside--a steep incline. So he's standing on it and he took a revolver and he put it in his mouth--a .38-caliber revolver--and he put his thumb in the trigger, they claimed, and he fired the gun; that he fell back in a perfectly repose. The gun then came out of his mouth, with no blood on it, by the way. Usually the barrel of the gun is loaded with blood and you would have seen evidence of it across the shirt. Everyone noted--noticed how clean his shirt was.

That he then was able to turn the gun around in his hands so that it fit correctly so that his fingers went around the hand grip because remember they claim that he shot himself with his thumb and that he then put it at his side in a natural repose as one would be ready to fire a gun. And that could not be--could not happen. Pathologist I spoke to--the leading pathologist in the country...

(Limbaugh mimics events as described by Ruddy)

(Laughter)

Mr. RUDDY: ...said it is impossible to have taken place.

LIMBAUGH: Now what about the investigation, Chris. The park police-- everybody--a lot of people have been making fun of them and a lot of people have been suggesting that the park police are basically just a bunch of rangers and--and--and guides that--that are really not equipped to conduct a--or trained to conduct a murder investigation. Is that true?

Mr. RUDDY: Oh, absolutely. They're known as being the lowest of--or how they say, the lowest on the food chain in Washington in terms of law enforcement.

(Laughter)

Mr. RUDDY: And they were put in, I believe, for political reasons because they could be controlled. Today I had a report on how they fumbled and bungled the whole investigation.

(Visual; New York Post headline reads, "Cops: Foster Gun Was Never Tested")

Mr. RUDDY: (Voiceover) You know, when you approach a suicide, police practice is you treat it as a homicide because you're not going to know until autopsy and forensic reports, which could take weeks to come through, will prove either way; so you have to collect as much evidence as possible, gather all the witnesses.

(Visual; New York Post headline reads, "More Questions About Foster's Suicide'")

Mr. RUDDY: (Voiceover) And let's face it, this is not the first time somebody's stuck a gun in someone's hand and said it was a suicide when in fact the person had been murdered.

LIMBAUGH: What about the gun? There--there are conflicting reports. The White House says that the gun was tested. You had--had a story, which we just put on the screen during your last comments, the gun was not. Was the gun ever tested and checked for ballistics? Did they ever find the bullet?

Mr. RUDDY: Since Foster's death, the park police, have claimed that the gun underwent ballistics tests by the DC metropolitan police, who usually handle ballistics. So I called up the ballistics unit at the DC police and the head of it said, I know the gun you're talking about. We never conducted a test on it. We never conducted ballistics.' So I called back park police. They admitted that they lied and they said, We don't--we--we probably didn't conduct ballistics.'

LIMBAUGH: Why--now, are you--tough question. Are they lying to protect their incompetence or are they lying because they're afraid of something?

Mr. RUDDY: Well, I think they're afraid. I think they're afraid, at the very least, that they totally bungled this case and it's going to be evident when the reports come out that the ballistics test is just one of many things. I mean, any cop would have told you that when you have a scene like this, and you can't find the pullets--the bullet, which they claim they couldn't find, it should have been within feet of Foster.

Because they claimed it went out of the back of his head; and the bullet usually slows and falls. They should have used metal detectors. Didn't bother doing that. They should have fingerprinted Foster's car. That's part of the crime scene. They didn't bother doing that. They didn't secure Foster's office. He left in the middle of the work day. There may have been important evidence there. They didn't secure it until 10:00 AM the next morning. We know that at least three White House aides were in there before the park police showed up. And they never found his appointment book for that day.

LIMBAUGH: What about suicide note?

Mr. RUDDY: Well, they claim that a note found a couple of days afterwards torn into 27 pieces was a suicide note. But it makes no mention of suicide.

LIMBAUGH: Was it--was it--was it--in his--ye--no mention--it was in his own handwriting?

Mr. RUDDY: Well, this is what they claim. But they haven't released it publicly.

LIMBAUGH: There's 28 pages--pieces, right? They've only found 27?

Mr. RUDDY: Yes, and they claim...

LIMBAUGH: And the 28th page--or the 28th piece is his signature. Is that right?

Mr. RUDDY: Well, there--they were trying to claim it was his signature but I think it's obvious--you know, his wife had told him to write down things that were bothering him about 10 days before the suicide--or the alleged suicide.

LIMBAUGH: Yeah. Chris, hold your thought right there. We have to take a quick break. When we come back, the latest is that the former FBI director, William Sessions, has sent Chris a written statement which explains some of the trouble the FBI had in gaining access to the investigation.

We'll have that and more when we come back. Don't go away.

(Applause)

(Announcements)

(Theme music and applause)

LIMBAUGH: And we're back. Thank you all very much. Chris Ruddy of the New York Post, the only investigative journalist in America to look into the death of Vince Foster, is on the phone with us.

The park police inept, unqualified. Why wasn't the FBI brought in to investigate this?

Mr. RUDDY: Well, everybody agrees that--top law enforcement officials agree that they should have been, they have the best forensics unit. They have experience in homicide; the park police does not. I asked the former director of the FBI, William Sessions, and he responded with a two-page handwritten statement to me.

(Photo of William Sessions)

LIMBAUGH: (Voiceover) Yeah. Let's keep in mind, he was fired the day before Foster was killed.

Mr. RUDDY: Well, that's very significant you say that, Rush, because he makes great significance of that in his two-page memo. He even reminds me of that in the question, that he was fired the day before.

(Visual; letter from William Sessions to Chris Ruddy)

Mr. RUDDY: (Voiceover) And on the day that Foster committed suicide, there was no real director. There was an acting director who had been Sessions' deputy, and who had worked with the White House and the Justice Department to undermine Sessions and to fire him.

(Visual; New York Post headline reads, "Ex-Chief: Politics Kept FBI Off Foster Case")

Mr. RUDDY: (Voiceover) And so Sessions concludes by saying, quote, "The decision about the investigative role of the FBI in the Foster death was, therefore, compromised from the beginning."

LIMBAUGH: Mmm. All right. We have to take another quick break. I wish we had more time to explore that, but I think it speaks for itself. I have some questions that are going to call for your opinion, Chris, when we come back.

Don't go away, folks. There's one more segment of this. We'll be right back.

(Applause)

(Announcements)

LIMBAUGH: Welcome back. Christopher Ruddy, New York Post, do you think this was suicide?

Mr. RUDDY: Well, when I started this, I didn't believe that it was murder...

(Visual; New York Post headline reads, "Doubts Raised Over Foster's Suicide'")

Mr. RUDDY: (Voiceover) ...I was leaning toward suicide. After investigating it, speaking to so many experts, there's so many inconsistencies with this suicide, it would lead one to believe it was not suicide; but indeed foul play was involved and a homicide likely took place.

That's my opinion.

LIMBAUGH: OK.

Mr. RUDDY: But we should know when the reports come out--the autopsy reports.

LIMBAUGH: Will we be treated to that information?

Mr. RUDDY: Well, the Justice Department came out today and said they're going to try to expedite this now that it has raised interest in the public arena.

LIMBAUGH: That's it. How come you're the only guy--where is the mainstream, inside-the-beltway, Washington press corps on this story?

Mr. RUDDY: At--asleep at the switch, probably.

(Visual; New York Post headline reads, "More Questions About Foster's Suicide'")

LIMBAUGH: (Voiceover) Why are they asleep at the switch? Do they just--I mean, if this were a Republican president and this had happened, can you imagine, Chris, the re--feeding frenzy that would be going on here?

Mr. RUDDY: I couldn't believe that no one had asked very simple questions. What did the crime scene look like? Ask the people that arrived first on the scene. No one had ever done that until I came along seven months--seven months after the death of Vince Foster. I think that's the shocking story. I think you have criticized the establishment media and I think this may be an example of them at work on...

LIMBAUGH: What about--it seems to me, as I read your stuff, that this is unraveling real fast. Am I correct in assuming that?

Mr. RUDDY: Well, I think that they know they're going to have to come up with the documents...

(Visual; New York Post headline reads, "Cops: Foster Gun Was Never Tested")

Mr. RUDDY: (Voiceover) ...the police report and the autopsy. And that's going to either feed more interest, because it will show that what they claimed was not true or didn't happen...

documents out. So if they want this to stop, they have to get it out as soon as possible. There's every indication that they're going to move to--to fulfill that promise.

LIMBAUGH: Christopher Ruddy of the New York Post, thank you very much for taking time to join us. I've always said, folks, that if you want to get to the bottom of whatever went on in Fornigate, Whitewatergate, you've got to find out what happened to Vince Foster. And thanks to Christopher Ruddy, we're a lot closer to knowing than we would have been otherwise.

We'll see you on our next show. Hope you've enjoyed this one. Adios.

Awful Ifill

With her inane babbling about Moore's movie (see today's howler), I missed Ifill's fascinating comments on the fake handover, which Juan Cole noticed.

MS. GWEN IFILL: Of course it's a dominant issue. But I'm struck, even with the anonymous book and with all the other conversations which we just had here today, how much we're talking about the past, how much we're still having this debate about whether we should have gone, what we should have done, instead of this turning point. What the Bush administration obviously wants to do--I talked to Condoleezza Rice this week, and one of the things--you can hear their line where they're talking about what's happening in the future. They're spinning everything forward, past this turning point on Wednesday with the hand-over, when at the very least they're hoping people won't be asking them the

Amnesia

This exchange on Ho Howie's show is incredible:

CLINTON: Some of the right-wing Republicans -- Rush Limbaugh, a lot of the other talk show people -- immediately said he was murdered. It was -- it was a mad time where you could say anything you wanted about the president or anybody that had the misfortune to know me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: True?

INGRAHAM: I never heard Rush Limbaugh say anything of the like. And I'm certain he didn't say that.

There are extremes on both sides of the political aisle. Right now we have a movie maker...

KURTZ: There are people...

INGRAHAM: Michael Moore, who's alleging that George Bush knows where bin Laden is and isn't getting him because of his connections to the House of Saud. We have that being said, and no one in the media is calling Michael Moore on his nonsense.

There are people on the right who were saying those things. Those things were reprehensible. I don't know anyone responsible who was saying that.

WOLCOTT: It was the "Wall Street Journal." It wasn't just the fringes. The "Wall Street Journal" beat on the Vince Foster case day after day. Day after day.

INGRAHAM: Well, because a lot of the questions -- answers coming out of the White House at the time weren't all that clear, James. That's why they were leaning on it.

WOLCOTT: Look, there were a lot of people who wanted to believe Vince Foster was murdered. And they kept up with that no matter...

INGRAHAM: It wasn't Rush Limbaugh.

WOLCOTT: Well, Limbaugh did play it up on his radio show.

INGRAHAM: No, he didn't say anyone -- that the Clintons murdered anyone.

WOLCOTT: He said...

KURTZ: Well...

WOLCOTT: He played it up. They first (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Vince Foster, he played it up.

KURTZ: We'll have to revisit that another time.

What's incredible isn't Ingraham's denial about Limbaugh, even though she's full of it, it's the fact that Howie can just sit there and pretend that the 'Vince Foster was murdered' notion was just some fringe thing. It was pumped up on the WSJ editorial page. It was pumped up by Rush Limbaugh on his radio AND his television show. It was pushed by the New York Post. It was the subject of congressional, OIC, and other investigations. Howie's own goddamn network, CNN, along with Time, had Gallup run a fucking poll asking people if they thought Vince Foster was murdered.

I'm almost used to the fact that the press pretends that they weren't responsible for all the Clinton hooey - that it was fringe right wing media outlets. But, now they're going a step further and pretending that nice fair and balanced Limbaugh wasn't pushing it.

God I hate these people.

From Rush's TV show:

By the way, do you know--do you know what the theme of the president's State of the Union address is? The age of possibilities or era of possibility or something like that, like, (imitating Clinton's voice) Well, I guess it's possible Vince Foster was murdered,' or--actually, what you're going to do--y--you know, you can imagine other sorts of possibilities, but he's going to try to sound like Reagan. I just want you to be on guard for this. He's going to--he's going to try to sound like he's full of optimism and that there are all sorts of growth opportunities and they've--they've admitted this.

Another:

Now here's some evidence. I always try to bring evidence if I can. CNN and Time magazine did a poll. They had the Gallup organization go out and do a poll about people's attitudes on the whole thing with Vince Foster. Now look at this: Nearly 50 percent say that the Clinton administration is covering something up in Vince Foster's death; 20 percent say that Vince Foster was murdered; and 45 percent say they're not sure if Foster's death was a suicide or a homicide.

You add the 20 and 45 you get 65 percent of the first line we gave you. Half of the people say the administration's trying to cover something up. And yet he says that no serious person ever contemplates this as anything other than a suicide.

Mr. President, half the country's not serious? Is that what you mean? Still a lot of unopened questions--or open questions and unanswered questions, and the reason why is because this administration is doing its best to act like there's something they desperately don't want us to discover. And until they stop that, open up and come forward with whatever it is, this scrutiny, this inquiry is going to continue.

FAIR has more.

"Let Freedom Reign"

Now we know what Bush means when he says "freedom":

ISTANBUL, June 28 — President Bush said today that coalition forces in Iraq would support a possible decision by the new Iraqi leadership to declare martial law to deal with escalating violence and terror attacks.

"Iraqis know what we know, that the best way to defend yourself is to go on the offensive," he said, speaking at a news conference with Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain.

More on Decisions

Scotusblog seems to have the definitive take.


Contrary to the press spin, it's a pretty solid defeat for the Bushies. Not a complete one, but still a good smack in the face.

Pretty Big Loss

It looks like Miranda is "no longer operative."

Can Isikoff Be Believed

Unger tells us "no." How can reporters continue to get away with this crap? An excerpt from Unger's unedited letter to Newsweek:

It would be one thing if Isikoff had simply made an honest error; but clearly that is not the case. When Isikoff called me for his article, I specifically told him that the evacuation process involved brief interviews of the bin Ladens which fell far short of the kind of intense criminal investigation that should have gotten underway after the murder of nearly 3,000 people. The worst crime in American history had just taken place two days earlier, and the FBI did not even bother to check the terror watch lists! Isikoff omitted all that. Instead, he attributes claims to me that are simply not in the movie.

Isikoff also wrongly asserts that the Saudi "flights didn't begin until September 14--after airspace reopened." In fact, as I report in House of Bush, House of Saud, the first flight took place on September 13, when restrictions on private planes were still in place. I even gave Isikoff the names of two men who were on that flight-- Dan Grossi and Manuel Perez-- and told him how to get in touch with them. According to the St. Petersburg Times(see below), the September 13 flight from Tampa, Florida to Lexington, Kentucky, has finally been corroborated by authorities at Tampa International Airport--even though the White House, the FBI and the FBI repeatedly denied that any such flights took place. Commercial planes began flying again that day, but private aviation was still prohibited-- and three planes that violated it were forced down by American military aircraft. I explained this to Isikoff, and wrote about it in my book. But Newsweek's response below ignores the fact that these restrictions were still operative. If the evacuation of the Saudis was entirely legitimate, as Newsweek contends, why would the Saudis bother to seek special authorization for it from a crisis-stricken White House-- an undisputed fact that has been corroborated by the Saudis and Richard Clarke? The central undeniable fact is that in the aftermath of this great crime, material witnesses were authorized by the White House to leave the country. But Isikoff left that out--and much more. In dismissing the Bush-Saudi ties, he even omits the fact that more than $1.4 billion in investments and contracts went from the House of Saud to companies in which the Bushes and Cheney have been key figures-- all of which is itemized in my book.

Pretty Big Victory

Court mostly rules against the Bush administration. While Bush can declare people "enemy combatants," and lock them away without charges, at least they can go to court over it, including everyone at Gitmo. Rehnquist joined with the 4 "liberals" and O'Connor.


...and, yes, as attaturk says in comments it's likely that Rehnquist signed on so that he could choose who wrote the opinion. Which means in this, as with many things, we're one Supreme Court justice away from... (I swear this fit with the initial reporting I read earlier, but it doesn't appear to be true...)


...yes, these are two different decisions. Stevens wrote one of the opinions.

Plunder

Link:

Billions of dollars belonging to Iraq is not accounted for by the Coalition Provisional Authority, which was given responsibility by the United Nations for the country's finances, British lawmakers and aid activists said Monday.

There are glaring gaps in the handling of $20 billion generated by Iraq's oil and other sources since the U.S.-led war to oust Saddam Hussein ended last year, according to reports from the Liberal Democrats, Britain's third-largest political party, and Christian Aid.


The Christian Aid report also said the majority of Iraq's reconstruction projects have been awarded to U.S. companies, which charge up to 10 times more than Iraqi firms.

There was no immediate reaction from coalition officials to the reports.

...and, Bremer skipped out early.

Yellowcake

Josh Marshall has some things to say.

Heads Explode in Freeperville

Dale Earnhardt., Jr. tells his pit crew to go see Michael Moore's movie. From the freepi:

Verbatim from Chris Myers (Fox Sports announcer) on today's race at Pomona pre-race program..

"You think you know Dale Earnhardt Jr.? He advised his crew to go see the Michael Moore movie Farenheit 911. He said hey, it'll be a good bonding experience no matter what your political belief. It's a good thing as an American to go see... and it just shows you that Dale Earnhardt Jr. can reach far beyond the steering wheel."

(thanks to chris/tx in comments)

Protect the Beer

If the preznit can't even protect our beer on a holiday weekend, then what good is he?

Underoos

(thanks to snabby)

Gee, You Think?

What fun.

July 5 issue - A captured Qaeda commander who was a principal source for Bush administration claims that Osama bin Laden collaborated with Saddam Hussein's regime has changed his story, setting back White House efforts to shore up the credibility of its original case for the invasion of Iraq. The apparent recantation of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, a onetime member of bin Laden's inner circle, has never been publicly acknowledged. But U.S. intelligence officials tell NEWSWEEK that al-Libi was a crucial source for one of the more dramatic assertions made by President George W. Bush and his top aides: that Iraq had provided training in "poisons and deadly gases" for Al Qaeda. Al-Libi, who once ran one of bin Laden's biggest training camps, was captured in Pakistan in November 2001 and soon began talking to CIA interrogators. Although he never mentioned his name, Secretary of State Colin Powell prominently referred to al-Libi's claims in his February 2003 speech to the United Nations; he recounted how a "senior terrorist operative" said Qaeda leaders were frustrated by their inability to make chemical or biological agents in Afghanistan and turned for help to Iraq. Continuing to rely on al-Libi's version, Powell then told how a bin Laden operative seeking help in acquiring poisons and gases had forged a "successful" relationship with Iraqi officials in the late 1990s and that, as recently as December 2000, Iraq had offered "chemical or biological weapons training for two Al Qaeda associates."

But more recently, sources said, U.S. interrogators went back to al-Libi with new evidence from other detainees that cast doubt on his claims. Al-Libi "subsequently recounted a different story," said one U.S. official. "It's not clear which version is correct. We are still sorting this out." Some officials now suspect that al-Libi, facing aggressive interrogation techniques, had previously said what U.S. officials wanted to hear.[my emphasis]

Fair and Balanced

One of the criticisms of Moore's movie is that it lacks balance. The more amusing version of this is that it isn't really a documentary because documentaries are "objective," presumably in the way the press imagines that it is objective. See Myers, Lisa for this one. But, ignoring that rather hilarious ignorance of the history of documentary cinema, let's take on the basic idea that Moore should be more balanced like the media is. How balanced are they? From FAIR:

Seventy-six percent of all sources were current or former officials, leaving little room for independent and grassroots views. Similarly, 75 percent of U.S. sources (199/267) were current or former officials.

At a time when 61 percent of U.S. respondents were telling pollsters that more time was needed for diplomacy and inspections (2/6/03), only 6 percent of U.S. sources on the four networks were skeptics regarding the need for war.

Sources affiliated with anti-war activism were nearly non-existent. On the four networks combined, just three of 393 sources were identified as being affiliated with anti-war activism-- less than 1 percent. Just one of 267 U.S. sources was affiliated with anti-war activism-- less than half a percent.

...

Overall, 68 sources, or 17 percent of the total on-camera sources, represented skeptical or critical positions on the U.S.'s war policy-- ranging from Baghdad officials to people who had concerns about the timing of the Bush administration's war plans. The percentage of skeptical sources ranged from 21 percent at PBS (22 of 106) to 14 percent at NBC (18 of 125). ABC (16 of 92) and CBS (12 of 70) each had 17 percent skeptics.

Shorter Gwen Ifill

On MTP:

It is not factual to present facts.

Moon

Truly excellent Moon column in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

(via Gorenfeld)

Bush on 9/11

It's sad that it's taken this long for people to start pointing out what many of us have known for a long time:

Leaders show what they are made of in a crisis. Bush hid in plain sight with those kids. Later, hiding twice over, he used them as an excuse, saying he did not want to frighten them by ending the reading before finishing the book. Later still, and repeatedly, he said he saw the first plane strike the tower that morning (in fact, no one saw that live; the film was not available until the evening) and that he remarked, "That's some bad pilot"—pure strut. As the Wall Street Journal reported, he also magnified his role in managing the crisis, claiming he gave orders others gave. Conflicting accounts of Bush's communications documented by the 9/11 Commission now raise doubts whether, as he and Cheney told the commissioners, he ordered Cheney to shoot down any hijacked planes still in the air, or whether Cheney, in the White House bunker, acted on his own. Maybe Cheney persuaded Bush to stay away from Washington that day less for Bush's safety than for the country's.

...Sullywatch reminds us of what must have been the most shameful actions by a politician related to that day -- Cheney's nonsensical lie that they had information that AF1 may have been a target as a justification for Bush's behavior.

Arrest them All

Froomkin has the latest on the torture issue. It really isn't just about torture, of course, it's about the executive branch declaring themsevles above the law, constitution, and treaties. Well, at least it isn't a 30 year old failed land deal, now that would get the press excited!

Concerts For Kerry

Have a fun night out, and 100% of your ticket price goes to the "Big John Saves the World" fund.

Good show tomorrow (Sun., 6-27) here in Philly. And, hey, if you see some guy...that could be me!

Open Thread

Chat away.

Questions Submitted Beforehand

"The policy of the White House is that you submit your questions in advance, so they had my questions for about three days."
-Carol Coleman, RTE. Watch it here.

Skippy the 3rd

Part 3 of skippy watching Lisa Myers so you don't have to. They re-ran it on Scarborough Dead Intern last night, so hopefully the transcript will arrive shortly.

lisa.myers@nbc.com

Waaaahhh

What a total loser. No class.

THE White House has lodged a complaint with the Irish Embassy in Washington over RTE journalist Carole Coleman's interview with US President George Bush.

And it is believed the President's staff have now withdrawn from an exclusive interview which was to have been given to RTE this morning by First Lady Laura Bush.

It is understood that both RTE and the Department of Foreign Affairs were aware of the exclusive arrangement, scheduled for 11am today. However, when RTE put Ms Coleman's name forward as interviewer, they were told Mrs Bush would no longer be available.

The Irish Independent learned last night that the White House told Ms Coleman that she interrupted the president unnecessarily and was disrespectful.

She also received a call from the White House in which she was admonished for her tone.

And it emerged last night that presidential staff suggested to Ms Coleman as she went into the interview that she ask him a question on the outfit that Taoiseach Bertie Ahern wore to the G8 summit.

Myth Busting

Damn, even I thought the "Robert Casey wasn't allowed to speak at the '92 convention becaue he's pro-life" thing was true.

Greenfield Trashed Moore

Will pull transcript when it's up, but for now we can settle for a Jeff Greenfield flashback!

Even more damning was a "Nightline" report broadcast that same evening. The segment came very close to branding Hillary Clinton a perjurer. In his introduction, host Ted Koppel spoke pointedly about "the reluctance of the Clinton White House to be as forthcoming with documents as it promised to be." He then turned to correspondent Jeff Greenfield, who posed a rhetorical question: "Hillary Clinton did some legal work for Madison Guaranty at the Rose Law Firm, at a time when her husband was governor of Arkansas. How much work? Not much at all, she has said."

Up came a video clip from Hillary's April 22, 1994, Whitewater press conference. "The young attorney, the young bank officer, did all the work," she said. "It was not an area that I practiced in. It was not an area that I know anything, to speak of, about." Next the screen filled with handwritten notes taken by White House aide Susan Thomases during the 1992 campaign. "She [Hillary] did all the billing," the notes said. Greenfield quipped that it was no wonder "the White House was so worried about what was in Vince Foster's office when he killed himself."

What the audience didn't know was that the ABC videotape had been edited so as to create an inaccurate impression. At that press conference, Mrs. Clinton had been asked not how much work she had done for Madison Guaranty, but how her signature came to be on a letter dealing with Madison Guaranty's 1985 proposal to issue preferred stock. ABC News had seamlessly omitted thirty-nine words from her actual answer, as well as the cut, by interposing a cutaway shot of reporters taking notes. The press conference transcript shows that she actually answered as follows: "The young attorney [and] the young bank officer did all the work and the letter was sent. But because I was what we called the billing attorney -- in other words, I had to send the bill to get the payment sent -- my name was put on the bottom of the letter. It was not an area that I practiced in. It was not an area that I know anything, to speak of, about."

ABC News had taken a video clip out of context, and then accused the first lady of prevaricating about the very material it had removed. Within days, the doctored quotation popped up elsewhere. ABC used the identical clip on its evening news broadcast; so did CNN. The New York Times editorial page used it to scold Mrs. Clinton, as did columnist Maureen Dowd. Her colleague William Safire weighed in with an accusatory column of his own: "When you're a lawyer who needs a cover story to conceal close connections to a crooked client," he began, "you find some kid in your office willing to say he brought in the business and handled the client all by himself." Safire predicted the first lady's imminent indictment.

Democrats and Religion

I'm not a big fan of mixing politics and religion. I don't think there are good ways to do it without either being so inclusive as to be meaningless and to actually trivialize religion, or to be insulting to non- or other-believers. But, that's my personal opinion and others are welcome to disagree. And, from a pure vote-getting perspective there are obviously some potential benefits of doing so. Still, when religious people on the Left complain that Democrats are hostile to religion or shy away from it too much, I really get a bit confused.

Myers on Moore

I didn't see it, but a couple have emailed/commented about Lisa Myers report on MSNBC complaining about Moore's movie, without really having any factual complaints. I'll try to TIVO it or track down a transcript (if anyone else finds a transcript let me know).

Of course, as a "journalist" Myers had committed worse sins than anyone sane has ever accused Moore of doing. Since David Bossie has been making the rounds whining about Moore's movie, too, this little Myers/Bossie flashback is a twofer.

You may remember that Bossie was fired from his job on Dan Burton's committee after he leaked doctored transcripts of recordings of Webster Hubbell's conversations in prison. The doctored transcripts implied serious wrongdoing by Hillary Clinton, while the actual recordings didn't. At the time most of our stenographers dutifully wrote the stories up into print. On Nightline, strangely, they played the actual recordings while they put the doctored transcript on screen, apparently without noticing the differences.

Lisa Myers, however, beat them all - including Bossie. She had the tapes, and made some creative edits of her own!

...holden has a full description. Jeebus this is so weird. These people can't distnguish opinion from fact.


...skippy has more - part 1, part 2.

Popsicles in Hell

WaPo has a positive review of the Hunting movie.

Meltdown

Digby has a good post up about Cheney's apparent meltdown-in-process.

You've Got to be Kidding

The EPA produces and runs ads which mocks people who want to drive cars with better gas mileage? Jeebus.

Ryan's Out

Obama would've crushed him anyway, but still it's rather nice to see the political career of someone who had this up on their campaign website in ruins.

Mike's Movie

So, I went to the first showing of Farenheit 9/11 here in town so I could actually know what I'm talking about when it comes up for discussion.

There are basically two movies here. The first is what I imagine Moore started working on sometime between Afghanistan and Iraq, on the Bush administration's use of the war on terror for political purposes, their attacks on civil liberties, etc... And, then, the second is what he did in the aftermath of the Iraq war.

As other critics have pointed out, it's really only the first half that feels like a Michael Moore movie. Even in this part, the nitpicker brigade is really grasping at straws to try and catch Moore in "lies." There's nothing in Moore's movie which is even as close to dishonest as Isikoff's article about the movie's "dishonesty" is.

The second part is really unassailable - there's very little Moore. It's mostly footage from Iraq, and of wounded soldiers, intercut with discussions with a woman who lost her son. I also agree with the many critics who have said that this is the more effective part of the movie - it is. There's little spin here to criticize, the footage stands on its own.

It's good. Go see it.


...and this review, by someone on "our side," has it totally wrong. Consider this pargraph:

But then the film begins to, well, spread out a bit, like a fat man in a big chair. And here Moore gets into trouble. Contradictions run rampant: The war on Afghanistan was a deliberate distraction, but we didn’t send enough troops there; homeland-security policy tramples on our civil liberties but is then too lax; Bush is both a cowboy dummy and a master puppeteer of diversionary wars and a media-fueled culture of fear. Where there isn’t a contradiction, there’s a gaping hole: What, pray tell, are we to do about our very real problems? What should we do instead, in this infernal struggle against fundamentalism, in the mess of Iraq?

Moore's point about both the war in Afghanistan and the civil liberties issues, which can be agreed or disagreed with, was that the Bush administration wasn't particularly serious about combatting terrorism. There was no contradiction in pointing out Big Things the Bushies have done in the name of "fighting terrorism," and then pointing out rather obvious cheap and easy things which they've failed to do. Moore wasn't simultaneously arguing that they're "too tough" or "too weak" - that's the way conservatives frame the issue - it's that they've both been bad at it and done bad things in the name of it.

Live by the Skank, Die by the Skank

World O' Crap on Coulter and Hannity.

Right Thing

A source lies to you, and you find it out, you burn him. Period.

Changing the Tone

Big Time Dick.


...the General has the other side of the story.

Fuck the AMA

Bob Herbert tells us why.

get up get up get get get down, AMA's a joke in your town...


...yes, people, I know 911 is a Joke is by Public Enemy and Fuck the Police is by NWA...

Strange Mix

Smarter Supremo Watchers than me may know better, but this 5-4 split sure is a weird one to me.

I have no knowledge about this area, but at a first pass I agree with Scalia. Scary.

Solitary, Poor, Brutish, Nasty, and Short

Ted Olson resigns. Probably back to the dirty tricks business where he excels.

"Go Fuck Yourself"

Our Vice President is all class.

...as Dennis Prager says:

As for the liberals who think that using the f-word in public is no big deal, it is good to have them say so. Anything that clarifies the massive values-differences between the Left and the Right is helpful. We who are not on the Left think public cursing is a big deal, because we believe that people can pollute their soul, their character, and, yes, their society, just as they can pollute their rivers and their air and their lungs.

Indeed.

War Mistake - Made us Less Safe.

Say a majority. All the efforts of the 101st Fighting Keyboards have been wasted...

Journamalism

On Scarborough Country:

SCARBOROUGH: Make sure I get a ticket the next time. But I hear that it‘s very provocative and I also hear that it‘s great entertainment. Now, that doesn‘t necessarily make it a documentary.

But, Michael Isikoff, you actually wrote an article in “Newsweek” and you reported the following claims were made in “Fahrenheit 9/11.” Take a look at this, first, that when airspace was shut down after 9/11, the White House approved special charter flights to let Saudi citizens, including some bin Laden‘s, to get out of the country before being interrogated.

Moore claims that that‘s wrong. He says the movie acknowledges that most of the bin Laden‘s were interrogated and the flights happened after airspace reopened. Second, you reported that Moore accuses the Carlisle Group, a firm that had ties to the Bushes and the bin Laden‘s, of having gained financially from 9/11. Moore still stands by that claim. And also he accused you—quote—“of making completely false and misleading statements about facts and issues contained in ‘Fahrenheit 9/11.‘” Michael Isikoff, have you made false and misleading claims about Mr. Moore‘s movie?

MICHAEL ISIKOFF, “NEWSWEEK”: No, I don‘t think so.

I actually think he did make a—it is a very provocative movie. It is worth seeing, regardless of where you come down on a lot of these issues. And some of the footage in the movie—and I wrote about this in the piece—is pretty gripping.

I think in particular, I don‘t think anybody has seen the footage of President Bush when he first learns about the second attack on the Trade Center, on the World Trade Center, and is told America is under attack and how he reacts. And, of course, as—the original White House accounts, Andy Card, who had whispered in his ear, had said President Bush had gotten up not that many seconds later.

In fact, as the footage in the movie shows, he sat there for seven minutes, was reading “My Pet Goat” to the second graders in the classroom in Florida. I think people are going to come out sort of debating a lot and talking a lot about the president and how he reacted and whether that was the right reaction or the appropriate reaction.

But, that said, I do think some aspects of the movie are a bit over the top. The movie clearly leaves the impression that these flights of the Saudis took place during a time when airspace was shut down. It shows Ricky Martin unable to get to the Latin Grammy Awards, unable to fly, and it says, some people didn‘t want to fly and then did fly, the bin Laden family, for instance. In fact, the report from the 9/11 Commission shows -states that the Saudi flights didn‘t begin until after federal airspace was reopened.

That‘s not made clear in the movie. There is an exchange which clearly leaves the impression that these people were not interviewed. Craig Unger, the author of the book called “The House of Saud,” says all that happened at the airport is that they were identified and that their passports were checked. Well, the report from the 9/11 Commission says that, on the bin Laden flight in particular, which seems to be the one that is the most focused on in the movie, I think 22 of the 26 people were interviewed.

And it says, many were asked detailed questions. And, thirdly, the whole sort of crux of that passage is that the White House approved these flights. And we do know who at the White House approved those flights, because there was testimony before the 9/11 hearings on this, and it was Richard Clarke, who actually was a holdover from the Clinton administration who was serving as counterterrorism czar. The thrust of the movie is that the flights were approved because of some special access that the Saudis had to President Bush and his family.

SCARBOROUGH: And, of course, Richard Clarke did testify that he was the one that approved it. And he said, you know what? I would make the same decision again if faced with that same decision.

(CROSSTALK)

LEHANE: Can I just jump in here?

(CROSSTALK)

SCARBOROUGH: I‘m sorry, Chris. We‘ve got another guest. We want to go to him first.

...


David SCARBOROUGH: Chris Lehane, you wanted to respond to some of the things that Michael Isikoff said?

LEHANE: Yes. And I have great respect for Michael. He is a wonderful reporter.

But I think, if you carefully look at the words that were employed and the facts that are employed in this movie on that particular portion that he is talking about, you will find that it‘s very, very hard to question it. First of all, we do not say that flights took off when federal airspace was closed.

(CROSSTALK)

SCARBOROUGH: Viewers don‘t look at a transcript, though, Chris. You know that. They are left with an impression by looking at images.

LEHANE: Yes, but we are very, very careful. We make very clear that the flights didn‘t take off until after September 13, which is when federal airspace was opened.

And the Saudis that Michael is talking about, there were 140 Saudis on those flights, 142. Only 30 of them were interviewed in a way that was completely inconsistent with usual FBI and Justice Department protocol. In fact, even in the 9/11 Commission report that Michael is referring to, it raises some issues about the length of those interviews and the fact that the vast majority of folks who left the country after this terrible tragedy were not interviewed.

There‘s an FBI agent in the movie who personally talks about the fact that this was not consistent with the practices that should have been employed.

(CROSSTALK)

SCARBOROUGH: OK, Chris.

Michael, respond.

ISIKOFF: Well, Joe, I think the point you were saying, that the clear impression of the movie is a little different than some of the particular words that sort of slip by very quickly.

For instance, an example, Chris says that they never say that it was when federal airspace was shut down. They say it happened after September 13. But it doesn‘t say in the movie, at least not in any transcript I have seen or what I heard when I saw the movie, that that‘s when federal airspace was reopened.

LEHANE: But that‘s not what you wrote in your piece, Michael.

(CROSSTALK)

LEHANE: In the piece that you wrote in “Newsweek,” you specifically said that Michael Moore‘s movie stated that flights left while federal airspace was closed. The movie does not state that. Your piece was wrong on that.

(CROSSTALK)

ISIKOFF: Does the movie say that it—explicitly say that when federal airspace was reopened? Does it say that?

LEHANE: Did your story specifically state that the movie did state that? Is that what your story said?

(CROSSTALK)

LEHANE: This is important, because you wrote this specifically in your piece. And, as I said, you‘re an awesome reporter, but you had that one wrong.

SCARBOROUGH: Michael, did you have that one wrong?

ISIKOFF: No.

One thing, I actually have asked Chris for over a week now for a full transcript of the movie, and I haven‘t seen one.

LEHANE: And, Michael, did I provide you a transcript of this portion of the movie?

ISIKOFF: A full transcript of the movie would be helpful on this issue.

LEHANE: But did I provide you a transcript of the portion of the movie that you are writing about?

ISIKOFF: You provided me some—a partial transcript of the movie.

(CROSSTALK)

LEHANE: And did you write in your story that Michael Moore stated in his movie that flights left while federal airspace was closed, yes or no?

(CROSSTALK)

LEHANE: Simple question.

(CROSSTALK)

ISIKOFF: As I told you, when we see the full transcript, we will

respond as to whether or not

(CROSSTALK)

SCARBOROUGH: Hold on, Chris. Let me ask the questions.

Will you provide Michael Isikoff and will you provide us a full transcript of this movie?

LEHANE: You can come to us whenever you want about any single fact that you want.

(CROSSTALK)

SCARBOROUGH: No, no. Answer the question.

ISIKOFF: He‘s not answering the question.

(CROSSTALK)

SCARBOROUGH: Will you provide a transcript?

ISIKOFF: Full transcript, full transcript.

LEHANE: You come to me with any issue that you have and I‘ll go over it with you.

(CROSSTALK)

SCARBOROUGH: Chris Lehane, will you provide us a full transcript, yes or no?

LEHANE: As I provided Michael Isikoff when he asked, I provided the transcript of the issue that he was looking at.

From Spikey Mikey's article:

The movie claims that in the days after 9/11, when airspace was shut down, the White House approved special charter flights so that prominent Saudis—including members of the bin Laden family—could leave the country. Author Craig Unger appears, claiming that bin Laden family members were never interviewed by the FBI. Not true, according to a recent report from the 9/11 panel. The report confirms that six chartered airplanes flew 142 mostly Saudi nationals out of the country, including one carrying members of the bin Laden family. But the flights didn't begin until Sept. 14—after airspace reopened. Moreover, the report states the Saudi flights were screened by the FBI, and 22 of the 26 people on the bin Laden flight were interviewed. None had any links to terrorism.

Note that Mikey manages to contradict himself. Unger never claimed that none of those on board the flights were interviewd, just that some weren't and those who were interviewed weren't exactly given sufficient attention following proper procedure. Mikey's own reporting tells us that 4 on board the "bin Laden flight" weren't interviewed.

Nice Polite Republicans

From FAIR:

Despite the commonness of such claims, little evidence has ever been presented for a left bias at NPR, and FAIR’s latest study gives it no support. Looking at partisan sources—including government officials, party officials, campaign workers and consultants—Republicans outnumbered Democrats by more than 3 to 2 (61 percent to 38 percent). A majority of Republican sources when the GOP controls the White House and Congress may not be surprising, but Republicans held a similar though slightly smaller edge (57 percent to 42 percent) in 1993, when Clinton was president and Democrats controlled both houses of Congress. And a lively race for the Democratic presidential nomination was beginning to heat up at the time of the 2003 study.

End of Quarter Coming

Won't make any specific plea (other than JK day of course), but I do want to remind people that the end of the quarter is fast arriving. If you've been thinkning of giving to a particular candidate, your personal favorite for whatever reason, now is the time. As Kos keeps telling us, money early translates into more money later - from the DCCC/DSCC, various PACs, etc. So, best to hand some money to your favorite candidates earlier rather than later, whoever they are.

IOKIYAR

Supremos today:

The president is not above the law, Kennedy wrote, but there is a "paramount necessity of protecting the executive branch from vexatious litigation that might distract it from the energetic performance of its constitutional duties."

(thanks to tc mits)

JK DAY!

Almost forgot. You know what to do!

Odd

It's not uncommon for the NYT to publish multiple reviews of books, but I did find it rather odd that that one of their PR people found it necessary to send out the following message:

E-mail from Kathy Park of New York Times Public Relations

Folks,

I wanted to let you know that Larry McMurtry reviewed Bill Clinton's book "My Life." The review is available on NYTimes.com now, two weeks before it is to appear in The New York Times Book Review on July 4. (Will be linked from the homepage of NYTimes.com tomorrow)

In the review, Larry McMurtry describes "My Life" as..."the richest American presidential autobiography - no other book tells us as vividly or fully what it is like to be president of the United States for eight years."

Exactly

Over at Bad Attitudes, Tom Street says it perfectly:

After Reagan’s death, the cable channels insisted on reliving the right wing’s fantasy version of the 80s. Now that Clinton’s book has been released, we are now forced to relive the right wing’s fantasy version of the 90s.

Damn

Link:

BAQOUBA, Iraq - Insurgents launched coordinated attacks against police and government buildings across Iraq Thursday, less than a week before the handover of sovereignty. Sixty-nine people including three American soldiers were killed, and more than 270 people were wounded, Iraqi and U.S. officials said.

The large number of attacks, mostly directed at Iraqi security services, was a clear sign of just how powerful the insurgency in Iraq remains - and could be the start of a new push to torpedo the June 30 transfer of sovereignty to an interim transitional government.

In Baghdad, the Health Ministry said at least 66 people were killed and 268 injured nationwide. However, the figures did not include U.S. dead and injured.

Some of the heaviest fighting was reported in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, where two American soldiers were killed and seven wounded, the U.S. 1st Infantry Division said. Attackers also targeted police stations in Ramadi, Mahaweel, and the northern city of Mosul, where car bombs rocked the Iraqi Police Academy, two police stations and the al-Jumhuri hospital.

Khalid Mohammed, an official at the hospital, said dozens of injured were brought there. At least 50 people died and 170 were wounded there, he said. A U.S. soldier was also killed and three were wounded in Mosul.

In other attacks, four Iraqi soldiers were killed in an explosion near a checkpoint manned by Iraqi and American soldiers in the southern Baghdad district of Dora. Three U.S. soldiers tended to what appeared to be a wounded American soldier on the road. The soldier's helmet lay nearby. Black smoke and flames shot up from a burning pickup truck.

And, breaking news -- explosion in Istanbul.

Lies and the Lying Liars

Limbaugh's a liar? Shocking!

Limbaugh has attacked Harkin's amendment, saying that it's akin to censorship. But in a peculiar twist, Limbaugh told listeners on his June 18 show a self-aggrandizing tale about how a senior Republican senator had stepped in on his behalf and helped scuttle Harkin's proposal -- an account the senator's office flatly denies.

...

More puzzling, though, was Limbaugh's apparent decision to fabricate a story involving Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, the powerful chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. Discussing American Forces Radio during his June 18 program, Limbaugh told listeners, "He [Stevens] sent me a fax today with a revised [Harkin] amendment. They've gone in and they fixed the amendment. They -- they've watered this thing down. Whatever the Harkin amendment was, it now doesn't mention my name."

According to Stevens' spokeswoman, Courtney Schikora, the senator did call Limbaugh and fax him a copy of the Harkin amendment. But neither Stevens nor anybody in his office sent the host a "revised" amendment, "watered" it down or removed Limbaugh's name. The last part would have been impossible, in any case, because Harkin's proposal never mentioned Limbaugh. Schikora adds that Stevens does not oppose or want to alter Harkin's amendment, since it simply reaffirms the network's existing mission, specifically regarding fairness and balance.

Nonetheless, on June 18 Limbaugh seemed to relish recounting the now-disputed encounter with Stevens: "I called him and because Ted Stevens is the senator from Alaska. Stevens did something yesterday to revise this and he sent me the -- well, the -- the -- the -- the new amendment. And he said, 'Is this OK?' He said, 'Do you have any objections to this?' [laughter] And I -- I looked at it and said, 'Am I allowed?' [laughter] 'Am I allowed to object to an amendment to the defense appropriations bill when I'm not a senator?' I mean, I can as a -- as a citizen, obviously, but, I mean, any citizen could object. Doesn't matter."

Must be all that hillbilly heroin.

Brave Brave Sir Robin

Newsweek:

America was under attack, and somebody had to make a decision. Dick Cheney, huddled in the Presidential Emergency Operations Center under the White House, had just urged the traveling George W. Bush not to return to Washington. The president had left Florida aboard Air Force One at 9:55 a.m. on 9/11 "with no destination at take-off," as last week's 9-11 Commission report noted. Nor had Bush given any known instructions on how to respond to the attacks. [emphasis mine]

Declare Victory!

I guess that's one way of winning.

North Korea

What the Poor Man says.

Poor Bill

He even lies to make an irrelevant point. O'Reilly asked Podesta to give him one example of O'Reilly smearing anyone. Podesta brings up the example of O'Reilly comparing Franken to Goebbels. O'Reilly responds by saying it was Michael Moore he compared to Goebbels. The truth is, he compared both of them...

Isikoff

What a hack.


(link thanks to Attaturk)

Santorum Raising Money for Jack Ryan

First Santorum risks not being given communion for supporting pro-Choice Arlen Specter, and now he's supporting a divorced man who by accounts tried to coerce his wife into having public sex in sex clubs.

Ryan spent part of Monday in Pennsylvania attending fund-raisers in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh hosted by Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.).

Shocked.

Pariah

I haven't read it (not online), but a reader brings to my attention an article in the May '04 edition of the Believer about Elizabeth McCaughey.

McCaughey, you may remember, wrote an article for even the crappy New Republic about Clinton's health care plan called "No Exit." It was, to put it bluntly, completely full of shit and probably was quite instrumental in killing the plan. The online teaser for the article says:

Elizabeth McCaughey destroyed Clinton’s Health Care Reform Bill. Why is she a celebrity rather than a journalistic pariah?

The more important question, of course, is why is her editor from that time a celebrity rather than a journalistic pariah? Her editor was Andy Sullivan. Andy's quite proud of his little accomplishment, in fact. From his bio blurb on his website:

Sullivan's tenure at TNR was often turbulent, controversial and pioneering. The magazine expanded its remit beyond politics to cover such topics as the future of hip-hop, same-sex marriage, and affirmative action in the newsroom. Writers such as Douglas Coupland and Camille Paglia supplemented more traditional political writing by authors such as Michael Kinsley, Mickey Kaus and John Judis. Under Sullivan, the magazine campaigned for early intervention in Bosnia, for homosexual equality, and against affirmative action. TNR also published the first airing of 'The Bell Curve,' the explosive 1995 book on IQ, and 'No Exit,' an equally controversial essay that was widely credited with helping to torpedo the Clinton administration's plans for universal health coverage. In 1996, Sullivan was named Editor of the Year by Adweek magazine.

Notice what else Andy is proud of -- the fact that "TNR also published the first airing of 'The Bell Curve,' the explosive 1995 book on IQ." Explosive. Yes. In his previous incarnation, he was proud of being the distributor of "Birth of a Nation."

Smug

As talking heads go, Aaron Brown is one of the better ones. His biggest problem, however, is the fact that he's overly enamored with himself and the "craft" of journalism. His smugness makes him utterly blind to the reality of the business he's in. Consider this, from last night's show:

It seems the administration has decided that among the enemies in Iraq are the media. Complaining about what he believes is a lack of balance in the coverage, the number two man at the Pentagon, Paul Wolfowitz said this before Congress:

"Part of our problem is that a lot of the press are afraid to travel very much, so they sit in Baghdad and publish rumors and rumors are plentiful." He then said too much attention is paid to violence because the violence is sensational.

First of all, we don't publish rumors. Second, reporters ours and others, travel a good deal. They went to Fallujah during the nastiness there. They were in Najaf. They're in Basra tonight.

They have also gone to schools and hospitals and a lot of other places to present the most balanced picture they can of what life is like but the fact is that life in Iraq today is dangerous.

Listen to what the Iraqis say. Listen to their fears about leaving their homes in Baghdad, for example. Listen to their new government talk about the possible need to impose martial law.

Iraq isn't black or white. It's neither all good, nor all bad, but to argue, as Mr. Wolfowitz implicitly does that security and violence are not the major story, is about as correct as his argument to Congress that the reconstruction would be self financing and that Iraqis would welcome us with flowers.

Now, it's nice that Brown gives Wolfowitz a bit of a smackdown. But, it's rather undercut by Brown's assertion that "we don't publish rumors." The "we" here is media, and not just Brown who probably is less likely than some to report "rumors." But, of course, the media report on rumors all the time. In fact, here's Brown awhile back on the Kerry rumor.

AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again, everyone.

Here is the question of the night. At what point, if at any point, does rumor become news? There are three ways to answer this I've learned in the last day. If the rumor is about your guy it never becomes news. If the rumor is about the other guy it's news right away. If you're a reporter or an editor the answer is when you feel like it.

Yesterday, the net was abuzz about a rumor involving John Kerry, a nasty rumor at that. We didn't get near it. It wasn't news. It lacked facts but it was all over the net. Millions of people read it and hear it. Conservative talk radio ate it up all day and today the story moved. Mr. Kerry denied it on a national radio program.

So, does that denial make it news? Is it fair to take the denial and use it to spread the rumor because that's what's happening? And, while I feel comfortable about how we're going to deal with this all tonight, I also know that we are pushing up against an uncomfortable line in day when facts and fiction can spread far too fast. That's later in the program.

Clinton on the Press

From his book:

I was genuinely confused by the mainstream press coverage of Whitewater...One day, after one of our budget meetings in October, I asked Senator Alan Simpson of Wyoming to stay a moment to talk. Simpson was a conservative Republican, but we had a pretty good relationship because of the friendship we had in common with his governor, Mike Sullivan. I asked Alan if he thought Hillary and I had done anything wrong in Whitewater. 'Of course not,' he said. 'That's not what this is about. This is about making the public think you did something wrong. Anybody who looked at the evidence would see that you didn't.' Simpson laughed at how willing the 'elitist' press was to swallow anything negative about small, rural places like Wyoming or Arkansas and made an interesting observation: 'You know, before you were elected, we Republicans believed the press was liberal. Now we have a more sophisticated view. They are liberal in a way. Most of them voted for you, but they think more like your right-wing critics do, and that's much more important.' When I asked him to explain, he said, 'Democrats like you and Sullivan get into government to help people. The right-wing extremists don't think government can do much to improve on human nature, but they like power. So does the press. And since you're President, they both get power the same way, by hurting you.' I appreciated Simpson's candor and I thought about what he said for months. For a long time, whenever I was angry about the Whitewater press coverage I would tell people about Simpson's analysis. When I finally just accepted his insight as accurate, it was liberating, and it cleared my head for the fight.

Mystery Bracelet

Drudge took it down, but last night he had a photo of Clinton wearing some sort of bracelet, above the headline "Mystery Bracelet." Well, here's what the mystery bracelet is:

We ask him about the red and blue crocheted band around his right wrist -- an incongruous clash with the statesman attire. For the first time in the interview he becomes emotional, the voice catching and his eyes redening. "I've worn it for two years. I went there [to Colombia] and met these unbelievable kids from a village on the edge of the rainforest where the narco-traffickers are dominant," he says. "They sang and danced for peace and I fell in love with these kids. I asked them to perform at the White House one Christmas. They came with the culture minister, a magnificently attractive woman called Consuelo. The bad guys hated these kids because they made them look like what they are. The guerillas couldn't kill these children, so they murdered her ... I can still hardly talk about this.

"Two years ago they asked me back and I said, 'I'll come, but you've got to bring those kids to see me.' So I turn up -- and the children greeted me at the airport, along with the new culture minister -- the niece of the murdered woman. And they gave me this bracelet, which I've never taken off."

Moon over Washington

Moon story finally hits the front page of the WaPo.

They raise the key question:

Use of the Dirksen building requires a senator's approval. Dayton said he gave no such permission, and Stallings said the question of who did so is "shrouded in mystery."

there aren't records of such things?

Froomkin Speak

You listen.

The latest Bush document dump has more than a whiff of bullshit about it. Froomkin provides a starting place for what the latest revelations do and don't tell us.