Bush said that Saddam was "dealing" with al Qaeda.

i'm sure that if al qaeda had set one foot in saddam's iraq they would have been dealt with most severely.

James, I left a message for you and Robert at the end of the last thread.

David, I think I mentioned that today!

David Corn -- Kool-Aid? Isn't that dangerous?

Gunmen Kill 20 in Breakout at Iraqi Jail
By Sinan Salaheddin
The Associated Press

Tuesday 21 March 2006

Baghdad - About 100 masked gunmen stormed a prison near the Iranian border Tuesday, cutting phone wires, freeing all the inmates and leaving behind a scene of devastation and carnage - 20 dead policemen, burned-out cars and a smoldering jailhouse.

At least 10 attackers were killed in the dawn assault on the Muqdadiyah lockup on the eastern fringe of the Sunni Triangle, police said. The raid showed the mostly Sunni militants can still assemble a large force, capable of operating in the region virtually at will - even though U.S. and Iraqi military officials said last year that the area was no longer an insurgent stronghold.

The insurgency's strength, spiraling sectarian violence and the stalemate over forming a government in Iraq have led politicians and foreign policy experts to say Iraq is on the brink or perhaps in the midst of civil war.

In all, 33 prisoners were freed, including 18 insurgents who were detained Sunday during raids by security forces in the nearby villages of Sansal and Arab, police said. It was the capture of those insurgents that apparently prompted Tuesday's attack. The 15 other inmates were a mix of suspected insurgents and common criminals.
-----------
Insurgents = Iraqi citizens. I think they're pissed!

David,

Most of the posters on this blog know better than to respond to the trolls and troglodytes who make idiotic arguments that have been refuted thousands of times. O'Reilly is just king of the trolls. It's your blog, you want to blow off steam go ahead, but B.O. is not really worth the effort.

Sewer Dwellers, all of ya!!!

7 Pivel proffer

I feel bad for LBH. David Corn is verbally assaulting his hero Bill O'Reilly. There, there. LBH

Davids just jealous because he dosen't have his own number one rated TV show or radio show. Poor David only has his 10 to 12 Cornnut groupies to listen to him. I would be jealous too if I were him, which is why he throws out the name droppings. When's the last time Johnny Depp or Will Smith threw out David's name? Hmmmm!!!

We
"...Given the depth and breadth of this political collapse, it’s hard to envision how Bush can rebuild his standing between now and November, short of some major external event, such as the death or capture of Osama bin-Laden, or a breakthrough in the Iraq War, or the nation rallying around him because of some new military or terrorist crisis...."

State after State Repudiates bush

Incompetency and dishonesty adjectives sticking to bush and cheney.

ll, I haven't read David's latest yet...but I just read Parry's latest on bush:

oops

Yea, David's jealous of Bill O'Reilly but truth be told he's far more jealous of you. Try more gum. Is "throwing out the name droppings" anything like cleaning the bird cage?

David:

I can't say I blame you for the enemity and sniping you have ongoing w/O'Reilly. He has been wrong, you have been wrong, and everybody has been wrong about some aspect of Iraq, even Saddam! Of course, you also well know that O'Reilly don't actually expect any apologies. It was just rhetoric.

I will opine that, at this point in time, most people are tired of hearing about pre-war WMD intelligence and how it was cherry-picked to suit both Bush and its critics.

You post:

* Bush said that Iraq had stockpiled large amounts of biological weapons. The best intelligence at the time--and it was wrong--concluded that Saddam had an active biological weapons R&D program, which is not the same thing as a massive stockpile.
=================================================
Take the "best intelligence", what was deemed the "best" (then) is very different viewed today. It's like a "best" strategy, pre-ball game, that didn't work. With historical perspective, all pre-war intel were just equal pieces of a puzzle that didn't quite fit.

You also state:

* Bush said in December 2002 that it was possible that Iraq already had nuclear weapons. No intelligence indicated that was a possibility, and no intelligence analyst or expert in the matter believed this. The CIA had concluded that Iraq was years away from developing a nuclear weapon.
=================================================
You should say no "since-revealed" intelligence indicated that was apossibility. I would not assume that all pre-war intel had been outed. Also, by citing the CIA, we are kinda going in circles since the CIA has been panned for numerous intel failures/mistakes.

A concession on this part of your post:

* Bush said there was "no doubt" about the WMD intelligence possessed by his administration.
=================================================
"No doubt" is pretty definite and a good politician or debater should never use such strong wordings without irrefutable proof. Probably a slip of the tongue as we are all prone to do.

It is time to move past the "pre-war intelligence" quagmire; uless you are directly attacked on this `front'. But you should not initiate this tiresome subject. Just my thought, do as you see fit to advance your name & reputation.

geofo1...welcome back
David I hope you take it as a compliment when O'Reilly is personally attacking you. You must really be hitting home runs or he would not spend the time.

I really think the comments about the way Helen Thomas looks are especially telling about our culture. AGEISM, SEXISM, ETHNIC ELITISM, NATIONALISM....All dangerous territory.

Helen's questions are so direct, simple and on target. Yet the criticism of her is often about her appearance. I love her wisdom, and historic view about our nation, past presidents, and the state of journalism.

FEAR FACTOR

Bill O’Reilly’s baroque period.

Class—that is, class resentment—is where, for O’Reilly, politics, and everything else, begins. His first best-seller, "The O’Reilly Factor," published in 2000, asserts, "Whatever I have done or will do in this life, I’m working-class Irish American Bill O’Reilly." (Another of O’Reilly’s feuds is with the columnist Michael Kinsley, who several years ago suggested that O’Reilly is actually from a middle-class background; last year, on the radio, O’Reilly objected to a call by the Los Angeles Times editorial page, then edited by Kinsley, for legal representation of detainees at Guantánamo Bay. "They’ll never get it," O’Reilly said, "until they grab Michael Kinsley out of his little house and they cut his head off. And maybe when the blade sinks in, he’ll go, ‘Perhaps O’Reilly was right.’ ") In the book, O’Reilly goes on, "No one ever told me or my sister that we were pretty far down the social totem pole while we were growing up in 1960s America. We took for granted that it was normal to buy cars only when they were secondhand, that every family clipped coupons to save money, and that luncheon meats were the special of the day." And so on: "When our family went out to eat, a rare treat, we didn’t waste money on appetizers, if only because we didn’t go to the kind of restaurants that offered appetizers. Typically the pasta dish was spaghetti, and that was it. No linguine, fettuccine, rigatoni, etceterini, etceterini, to confuse the issue."

*****end of clip*****

Worth a read if you have not already.

capt

Former FBI whistleblower files against judge in Libby trial over secrecy issues

Ron Brynaert
Published: Wednesday March 22, 2006
Former FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds filed a motion asking for the recusal of the judge assigned to her case because of his alleged "bias to secrecy," RAW STORY has learned.

Edmonds, who was hired as an FBI language specialist shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, translated tapes which allegedly shed light on shoddy work done by the bureau, then was subsequently gagged from telling her story by federal courts. A 2004 Justice Department review found that many of her claims about her treatment by the bureau were supported.

The motion, filed in federal court on Tuesday, requests the recusal of Judge Reggie Walton from her pending case filed under the Federal Tort Claim Act. Walton is also currently hearing the perjury case involving I. Lewis ғcooterӠLibby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, who is suspected of leaking the name of former CIA undercover operative Valerie Plame Wilson to the media.

Edmonds' motion for recusal is partially based on Judge Walton’≥ financial disclosure statement for 2003, which is almost completely redacted save for the date of the filing and the judge's name (pdf link). According to Edmonds, this redacted statement "appears to be in violation of the Ethics in Government Act." The Act requires judges and other high-level judicial branch officials to file annual financial disclosure reports as a check on potential conflicts of interest.

at Raw story

Bush Administration Officials’†Lies about Iraq’≥ Supposed Weapons of Mass Destruction in Their Own Words

Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.
- Dick Cheney, speech to VFW National Convention, Aug. 26, 2002

Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons.
- George W. Bush, speech to UN General Assembly, Sept. 12, 2002

No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
- Donald Rumsfeld, testimony to Congress, Sept. 19, 2002

The world is also uniting to answer the unique and urgent threat posed by Iraq.
- George W. Bush, Nov. 23, 2002

If he declares he has none, then we will know that Saddam Hussein is once again misleading the world.
- White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, press briefing, Dec. 2, 2002

We know for a fact that there are weapons there.
- White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, press briefing, Jan. 9, 2003

*****end of clip*****

Many more where the above is linked.

capt

this is all good talk but the reality is that 9-11 got us here. and the reality is that 9-11 was an inside job. the towers and #7 were brought down by controlled demolition. period. its provable scientifically through basic physics. check it out at st911.org. and then lets all get david corn to talk about that. because then we would have a truly informative conversation.

People have not been horrified by war to a sufficient extent ... War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige as the warrior does today: John Fitzgerald Kennedy

===
The pioneers of a warless world are the youth that refuse military service: Albert Einstein

=
I have seen men march to the wars, and then I have watched their homeward tread, And they brought back bodies of living men, But their eyes were cold and dead: Edmund Vance Cooke

=
When a whole nation is roaring patriotism at the top of its voice, I am fain to explore the cleanness of its hands and purity of its heart." : Ralph Waldo Emerson

=
Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism: Martin Luther King, Jr.

===

Thanks ICH Newsletter!

16 Could it be that O'Reilly's vitriol springs from childhood resentment towards others with access to appetizers and fettuccine?

To call O'reilly an ass would be to flatter him beyond measure.

I predict that George Bush will leave office with 7,000 dead American soldiers to account for.

America's willful ignorance is a cancer on Democrary.

19~
ha - good luck on that! if we ignore it then it never happened!

14

David will get right back to you. In the meantime...

"No doubt" is pretty definite and a good politician or debater should never use such strong wordings without irrefutable proof. Probably a slip of the tongue as we are all prone to do.

A slip of the tongue that cost $310 billion, 2500 american soldier's lives and 100,000 innocent Iraqi men, women and children. Whoops.

I don't think you've figured it out yet. We didn't go to Iraq becuase of WMD. If Iraq was a card game, then WMD was "Aces to open."

THIS IS AT THE TERRIPAC WEBSITE (Micheal Schaivo)

Vote for the WORST politician when it came to playing with our freedom.

We’≤e announcing today our 30 Challenge! to raise $30,000 for TerriPAC and rank the top 3 politicians who did the most (or the worst) to play politics with personal privacy and individual freedom. Below is a poll where you can vote on your top choices.

Top 3 Poll
Vote for the politicians who did the worst to play politics with personal privacy & freedom.
Sen. Bill Frist
Sen. Rick Santorum
Sen. Mel Martinez
Rep. Tom DeLay
Rep. Dave Weldon
Gov. Jeb Bush
President George Bush
Rep. Dennis Hastert
Sen. Mike DeWine
Rep. Marilyn Musgrave

The O'Reillys/Limbaugh's are the poster boys for bad taste and worse politics. Their talking points are dead in the water. Wasn't it nice to see Helen Thomas give Blitzer the "Thomas touch". She is one smart gal and not much gets beyond her. It is time to leave Iraq. Murtha was right. Bush's failed policies have put this nation at risk in all ways. Don't believe Bush wants more oil, he wants less, thereby driving up the price. See, the bastards do everything for money, not lives and certainly not the environment. It is about stem-cell research and entitlement programs. We have a duty an obligation to take care of our less fortunate. I feel the Bush "administration" would rather dispose of them. Where are all the "Democrats" who didn't stand with Russ Feingold? Democrats have imploded and become silent. They have no equivelent and not much of a voice. I'm thinking libertarian?

So, let me get this straight. One of Saddam's generals is supposed to be a reliable source on the allegation that WMD were transferred from Iraq to Syria before bush commenced his War of Choice on Iraq?

Would that be Georges Sada, the fundamentalist Christian who is associated with "Dr." Terry Law of WORLD COMPASSION in Oklahoma? Law, at one time, was started his godly career with the Christian *contemporary music* group known as "Living Sound" which he founded while at Oral ROberts University.

Sada did (still does?) direct the Iraq operations for WORLD COMPASSION.

I smell a rat. The "revelation" about the WMD being transferred to Syria is not a new story -- Georges Sada was quoted on this months ago and he mentions the alleged transfer it in his book, "Saddam's Secrets."

The timing of this becoming a BIG STORY is suspicious to me. Add the FUNDIE connection and it stinks to high heaven. It's all smoke and mirrors to try to resurrect bush's poll numbers and to give credence for a new war of choice.

Then, of course, there's that other reliable source Ali Ibrahim al-Tikritti. Not.

The love song of Francis Fukuyama

Fukuyama's effort to rescue the reputation of neoconservatism echoes the dissidents' attempts to distance communism from Stalin.

Francis Fukuyama was one of the 25 original neoconservative signatories of the Ur-document of the modern movement, the Project for a New American Century's 1997 statement of principles calling for a return to "Reaganite military strength and moral clarity". As a historical footnote, not one of the signers supported President Reagan in his detente with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that helped end the cold war; many of them were fierce critics of Reagan's rejection of then neoconservative dogma. Indeed, one of the signers, Frank Gaffney, was dismissed from his position as deputy assistant secretary of defence as a prelude to Reagan's embrace of Gorbachev.

In September 2000, PNAC issued a statement (pdf) calling for a "process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change" in US foreign policy, but fretted that domestic political conditions would not permit such a convulsion "absent some catastrophic and catalysing event - like a new Pearl Harbour". One year later, the "new Pearl Harbour" - the September 11 terrorist attacks - provided the casus belli for the "revolutionary" upheaval of US policy under Bush.

More HERE

*****end of clip*****

A good read.

capt

geoff1 - backatcha! Welcome back!

Bush lied.

In fact I think he lied to Helen Thomas' face.
He's a condesending ... And I think he lied the day before when he said he never said that. Never. Ever.

David,
Pay Bill no mind. (I know you don't) When he goes on his rants he's pure entertainment and nothing else. I think the vet could shoot him with an elephant tranquilizer and he'd still keep spewing. Some day he's going to self combust. His core must be at 3000 degrees.

President implements social agenda with federal grants

For years, conservatives have complained about what they saw as the liberal tilt of federal grant money. Taxpayer funds went to abortion rights groups such as Planned Parenthood to promote birth control, and groups closely aligned with the AFL-CIO got Labor Department grants to run worker training programs.

In the Bush administration, millions of dollars in taxpayer funds have flowed to groups that support President Bush's agenda on abortion and other controversial social issues.

Under the auspices of its faith-based initiatives and other federal programs, the administration has funneled at least $157 million in grants to organizations run by political and ideological allies, according to federal grant documents and interviews.

....Among other new beneficiaries of federal funding during the Bush years are groups run by Christian conservatives, including those in the black and Hispanic communities. Many of the leaders have been active Republicans and influential supporters of Bush's campaigns.

Programs such as the Compassion Capital Fund, under the Department of Health and Human Services, are designed to support religiously based social services, a goal that inevitably funnels some of its money to organizations run by people who share Bush's conservative cultural agenda.

``If what you are asking is, has George Bush as president of the United States established priorities in spending for his administration? The answer is yes,'' said Wade Horn, who as assistant secretary for children and families at HHS oversees much of the spending going to conservative groups. ``That is a prerogative that presidents have.''

``These are just slush funds for conservative interest groups,'' countered Bill Smith, vice president of the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States, one of the most outspoken critics of abstinence-only sex education programs. ``These organizations would not be in existence if not for the federal dollars coming through.''
--------------------
What really bothers me about this spending is the loss to the educational funding. Why are they spending taxpayer dollars this way? Taxpayer dollars should go to the greatest good. This certainly isn't helping the greatest number of people.

24 - More Nonsense - the true cost will be between 1-2 TRILLION, when you take in the costs relating to caring for our veterans with disabilities for 30 to 40 years.

More artifacts returned to Iraq Museum

Azzaman, March 19, 2006

The Antiquities Inspectorate in the southern city of Najaf has retrieved more than 200 archaeological pieces that were stolen mainly from the Iraq Museum in Baghdad.

The inspectorate's head, Mohammed Hadi, attributed the success in finding the missing artifacts to a ruling by city's high-ranking clerics banning trade in antiquities and demanding the return of the stolen items.

"Many residents have responded to the call by these holy men," Hadi said, adding that he expected more items to be handed in to antiquities offices across the country following the edict.

The ruling says antiquities are part "Of the national wealth and belong to the public" therefore collecting them for personal or commercial reason is illegal.

Hadi said the pieces were brought to his office voluntarily and included some of the finest Mesopotamian treasures.

"There are jars of different shapes and sizes, gold and silver ornaments, statues, coins, cylinder seals, among others," he said.

34. You're right Robin. Nobel prize winner Stiegltiz calculated the total cost, including the future costs of caring for injured soldiers.

Because some cornbloggers consistently bash MSM (sometimes on a factual basis, sometimes not), I would suggest you get your hands/eyes/mind on ABC News' story tonight on bush's photo-op with the "Plan for Victory" banner in the background. He was in West Virginia in front of a hand-picked military audience. The subject on bush's staged snake-oil tour, of course, turned to all the "bad news" in Iraq that the media reports and none of the "good news" and everyone cheered and stomped for the president -- oh, the media never reports the good news!

Well, ABC pointed out they do report good news, when there is some. But, they put it into context of the reality that there's a lot of bad news in Iraq..

To hell with it. I can't continue. It makes me sad -- and angry -- that it's so easy for thinking people to revile what is left of responsible media. Look at the story. The visuals help.

Micki,
I saw Dick Gregory interviewing Richard Engel. That was pretty interesting. His piece made the public see how very dangerous Iraq is.

There is one thing I wish the MSM would do more and that is interview the ordinary citizen. That means in Iraq. That means in New Orleans. That means peace protesters. I'd also like to see the news organizations here interview the Iraqi journalists.

#4 Dr. David Benson -- I see you are still with us cornbloggers.

This is off-topic (so what else is new?). I do not know anything about you, other than the fact that you are a college professor (at Edward R. Murrow's alma mater) which I learned by following the give-and-take on Corn's blog. I just wanted to share this, from a transcript provided by People for the American Way from Pat Robertson's 700 Club:

ROBERTSON: "Ladies and gentleman this is a fascinating book. If you want to, you'd better take your blood pressure medicine before you read it, but it's "The Professors: The 101 most dangerous academics in America" and that's just a short list of the 30-40,000 of them, they're like termites that have worked into the woodwork of our academic society and it's appalling. This is available at CBN.com and book stores everywhere, and you really ought to read it and be informed.

TERRI: It’s interesting that so many conservatives haven't seen this because decades ago we were told that infiltrating education was the way to take over the country, we should have been on alert.

ROBERTSON: They gamed it, these guys are out and out communists, they are radicals, you know some of them killers, and they are propagandists of the first order and they don't want anybody else except them. That's why Regent University for example is so terrifically important and why we're setting up an undergraduate program that hopefully will see shortly 10,000 students, and then from there 250,000 because you don't want your child to be brainwashed by these radicals, you just don't want it to happen. Not only brainwashed but beat up, they beat these people up, cower them into submission. Ahhh! "The Professors", read it.

They beat them up!"
++++++
Comment, if any?

O'Reilly is just trying to shore up the leakage in the republican levees. He is on the republican payroll more than two ways from one. He is attempting to salvage Bunnypants's poll numbers the same time Bunnypants is with a two pronged offensive all this week. This is known as preemptive political warfare, you go on the offensive just before you think you might lose an election.This war has just begun but luckily the American public will only have to endure it up to November unlike the Iraqi war.

Damn_Em,
It must be hard for O'Reilly. He shores up the leakage in the republican levees with a putty knife while Bush and Cheney are driving bulldozers into them on the other side. It's pretty ugly. No wonder he's going off the deep end.

As if Robertson and the like aren't up to a bit of brainwashing themselves. Asshole, hipocrites every one of them.

oops, hypocrites.

new thread

Jeanne,

What you say is compelling, but I'll have to sleep on your suggestion.  I admit that I watch very little television -- the top of the book of ABC News; Jon Stewart when my husband calls me in (he tapes it) and says, "you've got to see THIS!;" some of Northwest Cable News (which encompasses WA, OR, ID local stations, and that's about it for TV).  Occasionally, I look at CBC televison (we get the Vancouver signal where we live).  I get most of my news/information from reading various newspapers (domestic and international) on the Internet, radio, and weekly/monthly news and opinion publications.

I have seen any number of interviews featuring the voices and opinions of ordinary citizens -- sometimes they are superficial, sometimes poignant, sometimes heart-breaking, sometimes informative -- but, one thing I would not like to see happen is that we end up with endless stories of pathos to the point that they evoke journalists' sympathetic pity. I don't want to "Oprahize" the news. Maybe I'm not saying that quite right, but too many first-person, ordinary citizen stories are not always conducive to "getting the real story." Those stories are not always objective -- I'm not suggesting that they are not important stories, but they are often not "news" and sometimes they actually keep us in the fog.

Namaste.

I think Bunnypants and Pat look alot like they are related. Must have been some banjo music in the background somewhere that caused the similarities.

American people who let comments on my blog told me to not listen O'Reilly, because YOU, american, don't. And they also say that he is... well... I don't know if I can... an "asshole"... Is it true? Can we say it with these words.

This report from AP News on March 21 is just more evidence that Saddam did not have WMD:

Saddam's regime extensively videotaped and audiotaped meetings and other events, both public and confidential. The dozen transcribed discussions about weapons inspections largely dealt with Iraq's diplomatic strategies for getting the Security Council to confirm it had disarmed. Scores of Iraqi documents, seized after the 2003 invasion, are being released at the request of the U.S. House Intelligence Committee chairman, Rep. Peter Hoekstra, who has suggested that evidence might turn up that the Iraqis hid their weapons or sent them to neighboring Syria. No such evidence has emerged. Repeatedly in the transcripts, Saddam and his lieutenants remind each other that Iraq destroyed its chemical and biological weapons in the early 1990s, and shut down those programs and the nuclear-bomb program, which had never produced a weapon. "We played by the rules of the game," Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz said at a session in the mid-1990s. "In 1991, our weapons were destroyed." Amer Mohammed Rashid, a top weapons program official, told a 1996 presidential meeting he laid out the facts to the U.N. chief inspector. "We don't have anything to hide, so we're giving you all the details," he said he told Rolf Ekeus. In his final report in October 2004, Charles Duelfer, head of a post-invasion U.S. team of weapons hunters, concluded Iraq and the U.N. inspectors had, indeed, dismantled the nuclear program and destroyed the chemical and biological weapons stockpiles by 1992, and the Iraqis never resumed production. Saddam's goal in the 1990s was to have the Security Council lift the economic sanctions strangling the Iraqi economy, by convincing council members Iraq had eliminated its WMD. But he was thwarted at every turn by what he and aides viewed as U.S. hard-liners blocking council action.

We all know where Waldo is, but where is Bill?

Could he be promoting this?

Bill's Book

I'm very impressed with your ability to fire ad hominems and specious allegations. I'm surprised the lot of you haven't joined Mr. Corn at the NYT.

First he said last summer he would not book me on his radio show because I'm a "sewer dweller."

So, by his own definition, doesn't that make O'Reilly a "coward"?