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August 27, 2006HUBRIS: The Armitage Leak and What It Means (Plus More Info on the Book)One mystery solved. It was Richard Armitage, when he was deputy secretary of state in July 2003, who first disclosed to conservative columnist Robert Novak that the wife of former ambassador Joseph Wilson was a CIA employee. A Newsweek article--based on the new book I cowrote with Newsweek correspondent Michael Isikoff, Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal and the Selling of the Iraq War--discloses that Armitage passed this classified information to Novak during a July 8, 2003 interview. Though Armitage's role as Novak's primary source has been a subject of speculation, the case is now closed. Our sources for this are three government officials who spoke to us confidentially and who had direct knowledge of Armitage's conversation with Novak. Carl Ford Jr., who was head of the State Department's intelligence branch at the time, told us--on the record--that after Armitage testified before the grand jury investigating the leak case, he told Ford, "I'm afraid I may be the guy that caused the whole thing." Ford recalls Armitage said he had "slipped up" and had told Novak more that he should have. According to Ford, Armitage was upset that "he was the guy that fucked up." The unnamed government sources also told us about what happened three months later when Novak wrote a column noting that his original source was "no partisan gunslinger." After reading that October 1 column, Armitage called his boss and long-time friend, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and acknowledged he was Novak's source. Powell, Armitage and William Taft IV, the State Department's top lawyer, frantically conferred about what to do. As Taft told us (on the record), "We decided we were going to tell [the investigators] what we thought had happened." Taft notified the criminal division of the Justice Department--which was then handling the investigation--and FBI agents interviewed Armitage the next day. In that interview, Armitage admitted he had told Novak about Wilson's wife and her employment at the CIA. The Newsweek piece lays all this out. Colleagues of Armitage told us that Armitage--who is known to be an inveterate gossip--was only conveying a hot tidbit, not aiming to do Joe Wilson harm. Ford says, "My sense from Rich is that it was just chitchat." (When Armitage testified before the Iran-contra grand jury many years earlier, he had described himself as "a terrible gossip." Iran-contra independent counsel Lawrence Walsh subsequently accused him of providing "false testimony" to investigators but said that he could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Armitage's misstatements had been "deliberate.") The Plame leak in Novak's column has long been cited by Bush administration critics as a deliberate act of payback, orchestrated to punish and/or discredit Joe Wilson after he charged that the Bush administration had misled the American public about the prewar intelligence. The Armitage news does not fit neatly into that framework. He and Powell were not the leading advocates of war in the administration (even though Powell became the chief pitchman for the case for war when he delivered a high-profile speech at the UN). They were not the political hitmen of the Bush gang. Armitage might have mentioned Wilson's wife merely as gossip. But--as Hubris notes--he also had a bureaucratic interest in passing this information to Novak. On July 6--two days before Armitage's meeting with Novak--Wilson published an op-ed in The New York Times on July 6, 2003, that revealed that he had been sent by the CIA to Niger to investigate the charge that Iraq had been trying to buy uranium in that impoverished African nation. Wilson wrote that his mission had been triggered by an inquiry to the CIA from Vice President Dick Cheney, who had read an intelligence report about the Niger allegation, and that he (Wilson) had reported back to the CIA that the charge was highly unlikely. Noting that President George W. Bush had referred to this allegation in his 2003 State of the Union speech, Wilson maintained that the administration had used a phoney claim to lead the country to war. His article ignited a firestorm. That meant that the State Department had good reason (political reason, that is) to distance itself from Wilson, a former State Department official. Armitage may well have referred to Wilson's wife and her CIA connection to make the point that State officials--already suspected by the White House of not being team players--had nothing to do with Wilson and his trip. Whether he had purposefully mentioned this information to Novak or had slipped up, Armitage got the ball rolling--and abetted a White House campaign under way to undermine Wilson. At the time, top White House aides--including Karl Rove and Scooter Libby--were trying to do in Wilson. And they saw his wife's position at the CIA as a piece of ammunition. As John Dickerson wrote in Slate, senior White House aides that week were encouraging him to investigate who had sent Joe Wilson on his trip. They did not tell him they believed Wilson's wife had been involved. But they clearly were trying to push him toward that information. Shortly after Novak spoke with Armitage, he told Rove that he had heard that Valerie Wilson had been behind her husband's trip to Niger, and Rove said that he knew that, too. So a leak from Armitage (a war skeptic not bent on revenge against Wilson) was confirmed by Rove (a Bush defender trying to take down Wilson). And days later--before the Novak column came out--Rove told Time magazine's Matt Cooper that Wilson's wife was a CIA employee and involved in his trip. Bush critics have long depicted the Plame leak as a sign of White House thuggery. I happened to be the first journalist to report that the leak in the Novak column might be evidence of a White House crime--a violation of the little-known Intelligence Identities Protection Act, which makes it a crime for a government official to disclose information about an undercover CIA officer (if that government official knew the covert officer was undercover and had obtained information about the officer through official channels). Two days after the leak appeared, I wrote: Did senior Bush officials blow the cover of a US intelligence officer working covertly in a field of vital importance to national security--and break the law--in order to strike at a Bush administration critic and intimidate others? And I stated, Now there is evidence Bushies used classified information and put the nation's counter-proliferation efforts at risk merely to settle a score. The Armitage leak was not directly a part of the White House's fierce anti-Wilson crusade. But as Hubris notes, it was, in a way, linked to the White House effort, for Amitage had been sent a key memo about Wilson's trip that referred to his wife and her CIA connection, and this memo had been written, according to special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, at the request of I. Lewis Scooter Libby, the vice president's chief of staff. Libby had asked for the memo because he was looking to protect his boss from the mounting criticism that Bush and Cheney had misrepresented the WMD intelligence to garner public support for the invasion of Iraq. The memo included information on Valerie Wilson's role in a meeting at the CIA that led to her husband's trip. This critical memo was--as Hubris discloses--based on notes that were not accurate. (You're going to have to read the book for more on this.) But because of Libby's request, a memo did circulate among State Department officials, including Armitage, that briefly mentioned Wilson's wife. Armitage's role aside, the public record is without question: senior White House aides wanted to use Valerie Wilson's CIA employment against her husband. Rove leaked the information to Cooper, and Libby confirmed Rove's leak to Cooper. Libby also disclosed information on Wilson's wife to New York Times reporter Judith Miller. As Hubris also reveals--and is reported in the Newsweek story--Armitage was also the source who told Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward in mid-June 2003 that Joe Wilson's wife worked at the CIA. Woodward did not reveal he had learned about Wilson's wife until last November, when he released a statement recounting a conversation with a source (whom he did not name). Woodward acknowledged at that time that he had not told his editors about this interview--and that he had recently given a deposition to Fitzgerald about this conversation. Speculation regarding Woodward's source quickly focused on Armitage. Last week, the Associated Press disclosed State Department records indicating that Woodward had met with Armitage at the State Department on June 13, 2003. In pegging Armitage as Woodward's source, Hubris cites five confidential sources--including government officials and an Armitage confidant. Woodward came in for some harsh criticism when he and the Post revealed that he had been the first reporter told about Wilson's wife by a Bush administration official. During Fitzgerald's investigation, Woodward had repeatedly appeared on television and radio talk shows and dismissed the CIA leak probe without noting that he had a keen personal interest in the matter: his good source, Richard Armitage, was likely a target of Fitzgerald. Woodward was under no obligation to disclose a confidential source and what that source had told him. But he also was under no obligation to go on television and criticize an investigation while withholding relevant information about his involvement in the affair. Fitzgerald, as Hubris notes, investigated Armitage twice--once for the Novak leak; then again for not initially telling investigators about his conversation with Woodward. Each time, Fitzgerald decided not to prosecute Armitage. Abiding by the rules governing grand jury investigations, Fitzgerald said nothing publicly about Armitage's role in the leak. The outing of Armitage does change the contours of the leak case. The initial leaker was not plotting vengeance. He and Powell had not been gung-ho supporters of the war. Yet Bush backers cannot claim the leak was merely an innocent slip. Rove confirmed the classified information to Novak and then leaked it himself as part of an effort to undermine a White House critic. Afterward, the White House falsely insisted that neither Rove nor Libby had been involved in the leak and vowed that anyone who had participated in it would be bounced from the administration. Yet when Isikoff and Newsweek in July 2005 revealed a Matt Cooper email showing that Rove had leaked to Cooper, the White House refused to acknowledge this damning evidence, declined to comment on the case, and did not dismiss Rove. To date, the president has not addressed Rove's role in the leak. It remains a story of ugly and unethical politics, stonewalling, and lies. A NOTE OF SELF-PROMOTION: Hubris covers much more than the leak case. It reveals behind-the-scene battles at the White House, the CIA, the State Department, and Capitol Hill that occurred in the year before the invasion of Iraq. It discloses secrets about the CIA's prewar plans for Iraq. It chronicles how Bush and Cheney reacted to the failure to find WMDs in Iraq. It details how Bush and other aides neglected serious planning for the post-invasion period. It recounts how the unproven theories of a little-known academic who was convinced Saddam Hussein was behind all acts of terrorism throughout the world influenced Bush administration officials. It reports what went wrong inside The New York Times regarding its prewar coverage of Iraq's WMDs. It shows precisely how the intelligence agencies screwed up and how the Bush administration misused the faulty and flimsy (and fraudulent) intelligence. The book, a narrative of insider intrigue, also relates episodes in which intelligence analysts and experts made the right calls about Iraq's WMDs but lost the turf battles. And there's more, including: * how and why the CIA blew the call on the Niger forgeries * why US intelligence officials suspected Iranian intelligence was trying to influence US decisionmaking through the Iraqi National Congress * why members of Congress on both sides of the aisle who doubted the case for war were afraid to challenge the prewar intelligence * how Cheney and his aides sifted through raw intelligence desperately trying to find evidence to justify the Iraq invasion * how Karl Rove barely managed to escape indictment with a shaky argument. And there's more beyond that. In other words, this is not a book on the leak case. It includes the leak episode because the leak came about partly due to the White House need to keep its disingenuous sales campaign going after the invasion. Feel free to see for yourself. The book goes on sale September 8. Its Amazon.com page can be found here. Posted by David Corn at August 27, 2006 09:46 AM | ||
Comments
David,
May your accountant bless you with good news of good sales.
Posted by: TRH at August 27, 2006 10:07 AM
Now I have a quesion. Why would any congressperson be afraid to challenge anything? They are supposed to represent the people in their district/state. Could it be they care more for their political lives than the people? That is why, in my estimation, they are all slime. At least as a conservaive, I will admit that. But a liberal will never do the same.
Posted by: TRH at August 27, 2006 10:10 AM
Cornball,
Does not fit neatly into that framework?? Yeah, that's because that's NOT what happened. Wilson is a liar, and you're a moron. I can't believe you're not too embarassed to write about this like it's an actual story that needs your butter-knife sharp analysis. This column is one really big stinkin' piece of Undigested Corn.
Posted by: SAM NY at August 27, 2006 10:16 AM
CORNDOG WORLD: "Rove confirmed the classified information to Novak and then leaked it himself as part of an effort to undermine a White House critic. "
ACTUAL, REAL EARTH: ...as part of an effort to expose Wilson's lies in his NY Times column about his trip to Niger, such lies going to the material facts in the case for war against Iraq, to wit: that Iraqi officals HAD BEEN TO NIGERIA ATTEMPTING TO PURCHASE OF URANIUM."
Posted by: SAM NY at August 27, 2006 10:22 AM
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Posted by: Gallup poll at August 27, 2006 10:26 AM
TRH 2 that's a pretty broad brush you're using. Seems to me I've seen plenty of "liberals" on this blog, and others as well, who have expressed those exact same sentiments.
Posted by: Saladin at August 27, 2006 10:28 AM
conservative. And yes, I challenge any liberal to call them like the slime they are.
Posted by: TRH at August 27, 2006 10:28 AM
Mr. David Corn,
Excellent!
Some people HATE facts.
Thanks for all of your work
Kirk
Posted by: capt at August 27, 2006 10:31 AM
Come on TRH, what is a liberal? I've been called everything from a liberal to an anarchist! And I have slammed just about all the politicians in power today. There are only a handful I even remotely trust and those are the ones who maintain a consistant antiwar stance.
Posted by: Saladin at August 27, 2006 10:33 AM
Misquoting Lincoln
Bush supporters falsely quote Lincoln as advocating arresting, exiling or hanging members of Congress who damage military morale in wartime.
Summary
Supporters of President Bush and the war in Iraq often quote Abraham Lincoln as saying members of Congress who act to damage military morale in wartime "are saboteurs, and should be arrested, exiled or hanged."
Republican candidate Diana Irey used the "quote" recently in her campaign against Democratic Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, and it has appeared thousands of times on the Internet, in newspaper articles and letters to the editor, and in Republican speeches.
But Lincoln never said that. The conservative author who touched off the misquotation frenzy, J. Michael Waller, concedes that the words are his, not Lincoln's. Waller says he never meant to put quote marks around them, and blames an editor for the mistake and the failure to correct it. We also note other serious historical errors in the Waller article containing the bogus quote.
Update Aug. 26: Candidate Irey retracted the quote and apologized hours after this article appeared.
More HERE
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If there were no challenge the lies would endure. That is a shame.
"I must stand up in search of the truth, if I don't I only roll with the flow of the lie and make it stronger." ~ Sovereign
capt
Posted by: capt at August 27, 2006 10:33 AM
Saladin,
There are liberals and conservatives who will admit some are slime, and usually point fingers at the other party. When everybody will admit that the politician is out for one thing and one thing only, their own political interests, maybe an honest debate could occur. But you must admit, there are a lot of folks on this site with the mentality that "It's not my rep that is the problem, it is all the others." If you have that perspective, then you cannot engage in honest debate about the issues since you see no fault with your representative, when in fact, there could be and likely are, many. Politics literally turn me off. I still am passionae enough about certain issues to keep up with site and many others, but as far as I am concerned, no politician is worth my time, effort, or money.
Posted by: TRH at August 27, 2006 10:35 AM
Saladin,
I do not consider you to be a liberal. I consider you to be more Libertarian. Instead of labels I should have just said, there are many voters who will never question the motives or votes of their own representaives. It is always the fault of someone elses rep.
Posted by: TRH at August 27, 2006 10:39 AM
Well, TRH and Saladin, my rep used to "represent" me adequately in Congress -- when he first won office. Now, he is near the top of my S**T list and I routinely let him know that. He used to be a Dem, now he is a DINO, IMO.
So, you're wrong. My rep is an A-hole and I am willing to call it like I see it.
Posted by: Micki at August 27, 2006 10:48 AM
Israeli rocket hits Reuters car
The Reuters armoured car was clearly labelled as a media vehicle, with signs on all sides, including the roof.
According to the Associated Press, the white sports utility vehicle was emblazoned with the Reuters logo and had "TV" and "Press" written on it in English, Arabic and Hebrew.
The front seats of the car were covered in blood, much of the inside of the vehicle was torn by shrapnel and one of the bullet-proof windows was completely destroyed, the agency says.
Mohammed Dawdi, head of the local journalists' union, described the attack as a "cold-blooded crime".
More HERE
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The journalists have to be brave. Whether this incident was an accident or not the long list of attacks must have a chilling effect.
capt
Posted by: capt at August 27, 2006 10:52 AM
Compliant and subservient: Jimmy Carter's explosive critique of Tony Blair
Tony Blair's lack of leadership and timid subservience to George W Bush lie behind the ongoing crisis in Iraq and the worldwide threat of terrorism, according to the former American president Jimmy Carter.
"I have been surprised and extremely disappointed by Tony Blair's behaviour," he told The Sunday Telegraph.
"I think that more than any other person in the world the Prime Minister could have had a moderating influence on Washington - and he has not. I really thought that Tony Blair, who I know personally to some degree, would be a constraint on President Bush's policies towards Iraq."
More HERE
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Mr. Carter the best ex-president ever!
capt
Posted by: capt at August 27, 2006 10:55 AM
TRH, I think more and more people are waking up to the fact that our reps have sold us and our country down the river. The immense, rotting mountain of lies they have buried us under has begun to reek and cannot be covered up much longer. When the middle class finally gets fed up there will either be a revolution or this country will die, I see no other choice. We can't go on like this for much longer, it isn't economically possible to support these parasites forever.
Posted by: Saladin at August 27, 2006 10:56 AM
Posted by: SAM NY at August 27, 2006 10:16 AM
I love GWB too.
Posted by: Happy at August 27, 2006 11:00 AM
Bush's Disdainful Presidency
"I am the commander, see," Bush told Woodward. "I do not need to explain why I say things. Thatճ the interesting thing about being the President. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they need to say something, but I donմ feel like I owe anybody an explanation."
So, Bush had come to see himself as beyond accountability, much as ancient royalty viewed their own powers as unlimited under the divine right of kings. In the traditional droit du seigneur, a nobleman had the right to deflower the bride of a male subject on their first night of marriage.
Now weղe told that George W. Bush has another way of demonstrating his supremacy over subordinates: when new White House aides are brought in to be introduced to the President of the United States, the President farts.
More HERE
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A very interesting piece.
capt
Posted by: capt at August 27, 2006 11:01 AM
"Some people have so much respect for their superiors they have none left for themselves." ~ Peter McArthur
Posted by: capt at August 27, 2006 11:03 AM
Posted by: Saladin at August 27, 2006 10:56 AM
He WILL admit something LIBERALS never will. Engage in that dialogue.
Posted by: Happy at August 27, 2006 11:03 AM
Politics literally turn me off.
Posted by: TRH at August 27, 2006 10:35 AM
One would only hope.
Posted by: Happy at August 27, 2006 11:05 AM
Saladin, yes, we as individuals can make a difference by more carefully considering our choices and lifestyles, but it will take a collective effort, including cooperation of governments around the world, to implement any measurable impact on global warming. (Maybe it's too late.)
Until we frame the issue in constructive, civil debate nothing is going to change. There is little leadership on the issue of climate change in the United States, at this time. Most people are followers, not leaders, therefore with no leaders, ain't much gonna change, sorry to say.
Posted by: Micki at August 27, 2006 11:11 AM
Don't be scared
Why would anyone support the American president at this point? The answer is simple: Cowardice.
Republicans are sissies. They talk tough and drive trucks, but in truth are very afraid that a scary Arabic Islamo-Fascist? is going to come to hurt them for no reason except perhaps jealousy and because they are so frightened, they need a massive police state to fight their battles (all the while pretending it could never be used against them).
It's a good thing for these Republicans congressmen that the passengers on Flight 93 the fourth plane on 9/11, and the only plane whose passengers had heard that others had been crashed rather than flown to Cuba weren't Republicans. They probably would have hid like children in the back of the plane waiting for the cops to come instead of trying to take it back, leading to a suicidal dive into the U.S. Capital building rather than a field in Pennsylvania.
Every "terror threat" in this country since 9/11 (that's 2001, dummy) has been a joke. A joke that, as the great James Bovard points out, results in a ratings boost for the president every time.
(This entry on the topic was written before, and so omits, the latest hoaxes in Miami, New York and the U.K. See also, Keith Olberman, "The Nexus of Politics and Terror")
More HERE
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"No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear." ~ Edmund Burke (1729 - 1797), "A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful", 1756
capt
Posted by: capt at August 27, 2006 11:12 AM
Don't count on the govt. They won't even tell the truth about the most basic problems. A collective effort is what I have been talking about all along. What you or I do to lessen our impact makes no difference if the majority refuse to educate themselves and start applying sound principles to their purchasing decisions. I have noticed a rise in the availability of sustainably produced food from local farmers co-ops and a growth in the health food market chains, this reflects the peoples changing attitudes and demands for responsible options. The book "The Omnivores Dilemma" pointed out that around 20% of fossil fuel consumption is for food production, a lot of that food going to feed cows. I think that is slowly but surely changing, whether it will change soon enough is uncertain. It is up to the consumers to put their money towards environmentally sound companies. When the industrial food producers start to lose enough money to these competitors, they will change or go out of business.
Posted by: Saladin at August 27, 2006 11:25 AM
Dozens killed in Kentucky plane crash
LOUISVILLE, Kentucky (Reuters) - A Comair jet carrying about 50 people crashed on Sunday shortly after takeoff in Lexington, Kentucky, killing dozens of people, a U.S. aviation official said. Media reports said one person survived.
"Local authorities have advised FAA there are significant fatalities," Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen said.
"There is a report of a fire on impact. It went down in an area of rugged terrain," she said.
The plane normally carries 47 passengers and a three-person crew but may also have been carrying an off-duty crew member.
Local media reported one person, believed to be a crew member, survived the 7 a.m. EDT (1100 GMT) crash and was rushed to a hospital in critical condition.
Flight 5191, a 52-seat Bombardier Canadair CRJ-100 jet operated by Delta Air Lines Inc.'s regional carrier, Comair, had taken off from Blue Grass Airport, bound for Atlanta.
A local television station reported the plane may have taken off from the wrong runway, without citing a source.
It was not raining at the time of the crash and visibility was 8 miles, Bergen said, adding it was premature to speculate about what caused the crash. A National Transportation Safety Board team was en route to the crash site, she said.
More HERE
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A very sad day for too many.
capt
Posted by: capt at August 27, 2006 11:25 AM
Meat Is a Global Warming Issue
Put that hamburger down! Our carnivorous habits are partially responsible for the dire threat of global warming.
[..]
According to the United Nations Environment Program's Unit on Climate Change, "There is a strong link between human diet and methane emissions from livestock." The 2004 State of the World is more specific regarding the link between animals raised for meat and global warming: "Belching, flatulent livestock emit 16 percent of the world's annual production of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas."
The July 2005 issue of Physics World states: "The animals we eat emit 21 percent of all the CO2 that can be attributed to human activity." Eating meat directly contributes to this environmentally irresponsible industry and the dire threat of global warming.
Additionally, rainforests are being cut down at an extremely rapid rate to both pasture cows and grow soybeans to feed cows. The clear-cutting of trees in the rainforest -- an incredibly bio-diverse area with 90 percent of all species on Earth -- not only creates more greenhouse gases through the process of destruction, but also reduces the amazing benefits that those trees provide. Rainforests have been called the "lungs of the Earth," because they filter our air by absorbing CO2, while emitting life-supporting oxygen.
"In a nutshell," according to the Center for International Forestry Research, "cattle ranchers are making mincemeat out of Brazil's Amazon rainforests."
More HERE
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I guess that includes milk, cheese and butter? (darn)
capt
Posted by: capt at August 27, 2006 11:31 AM
ICE CREAM? Ugh!
Posted by: capt at August 27, 2006 11:37 AM
Saddam's mass graves and oppressive police state were far worse.
- wildmonk (prior thread)
is that the mass graves filled with the incubator babies?
so saddam's oppressive police state is far worse than the DU seeding that american forces have been doing over there? why are they doing that? to ensure that all terrorist babies are born with deformity? or to ensure that babies born to U.S. servicemen are born with deformity?
there sure is a lot of outrage toward evil saddam (if saddam is gone why is U.S. still there?) but there's never any outrage towards the evil depleted uranium seeders. why is that?
---------
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Posted by: spy on this! at August 27, 2006 11:41 AM
One-Third of China Hurt by Acid Rain
BEIJING (AP) -- One-third of China's vast landmass is suffering from acid rain caused by its rapid industrial growth, while local leaders are failing to enforce environmental standards for fear of hurting business, said officials quoted Sunday by state media.
China's factories spewed out 25.5 million tons of sulphur dioxide - the chemical that causes acid rain - last year, up 27 percent from 2000, said Sheng Huaren, deputy chairman of the Standing Committee of parliament.
Sheng released a report Saturday that found pollution from factories and power plants was rising by 9 percent a year - an embarrassment for a government that promised this year to clean up China's air. The report said sulphur dioxide emissions were double safe levels.
"Increased sulphur dioxide emissions meant that one-third of China's territory was affected by acid rain, posing a major threat to soil and food safety," Sheng said, according to the Xinhua News Agency and newspapers.
More HERE
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I imagine such bodes badly for the planet. Air pollution is very bad in some areas in China. The sun does not break through the gray sooty air except on the most infrequent and rare occasions.
capt
Posted by: capt at August 27, 2006 11:44 AM
People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election.
Otto von Bismarck
How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four; calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.
Abraham Lincoln
The beginning of wisdom is found in doubting; by doubting we come to the question, and by seeking we may come upon the truth.
Pierre Abelard
Posted by: Erling Krange at August 27, 2006 11:47 AM
"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity."
~ Albert Einstein
Posted by: capt at August 27, 2006 11:54 AM
capt. organic butter, milk, cheese and ice cream are widely available thanks to consumer demand. Local farmers are starting to see the big picture. Our local grocer, a Safeway company called Vons, has recently introduced their own line of organic products that are very competively priced and of high quality. They also see the writing on the wall.
Posted by: Saladin at August 27, 2006 12:00 PM
I'm realy sory, but i need your help!
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Posted by: Gallup poll at August 27, 2006 12:09 PM
Food & Environment Electronic Digest (FEED)
Each month, subscribers receive an email that contains news snippets and related links about what's happening "from farm to fork" on topics including biotechnology, antibiotic resistance, and sustainable agriculture. Our goal is to increase consumers' awareness about what goes on in Congress, regulatory agencies, and corporate boards to affect the very personal choices we make regarding the food we eat and serve our families. We'll tell you how to weigh in with government and corporate decision-makers to influence food policy.
We'd like to bring FEED to as wide an audience as possible, so after you sign up, please recommend FEED to a friend.
Click here to sign up for FEED.
Questions? Please contact us at feed@ucsusa.org.
More HERE
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I recommend FEED to all that are interested in the issue. The news is not always good but they (UCS) will keep people informed.
capt
Posted by: capt at August 27, 2006 12:14 PM
Timehh on Meet The Press had a segment on Isakoff's article in Newsweek today, and a mention of HUBRIS.
Congrats on more national exposure.
Posted by: O'Reilly at August 27, 2006 12:15 PM
#24 Saladin, on this one, perhaps I am more cynical than you are.
When the industrial food producers start to lose enough money to these competitors, they will change or go out of business.
I fear that the standards for organic, sustainable, earth-friendly agriculture in the hands of BIG AG will be so watered-down (no pun intended), that we will be seeing backward movement on this very important issue. A giant leap into the past....
Buy local.
Posted by: Micki at August 27, 2006 12:23 PM
David: "The Plame leak in Novak's column has long been cited by Bush administration critics as a deliberate act of payback, orchestrated to punish and/or discredit Joe Wilson....The Armitage news does not fit neatly into that framework. He and Powell were not the leading advocates of war in the administration....They were not the political hitmen of the Bush gang."
This whole Plame `leak' has been the subject of a large number of David's comments and Cornuts' posts and it turns our to be exactly what I had thought, AN ANTHILL of an event that biased liberals can turn into a MOUNTAIN of.......and wasted an enormous amount of time and money!
............................................
Attention, Sunday morning announcement to all Happy progenies....
My wayward `seeds' spawned overnight, make sure you stick to the principle of civilized speech, as you have, so far!
Posted by: Happy on his `Leaks' at August 27, 2006 12:23 PM
With due respect to poster `Hankmeister' at previous thread #22, his comments are even more appropriate after the current thread's revelations by David:
So, what are your conspiracy theories now about how Bu$Hitler leaned on Dick Armitage to "out" Valerie Plame. Buwahahahaha. All you people have been spewing was it was KKKarl Rove, DicKKK Cheney and Scooter Libby (belatedly). Interesting fact, however, that you Bush-haters overlook is that Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald probably knew it was Armitage yet he didn't thing Armitage, Libby, Rove, Cheney or fill-in-the-blanks ever "outted" Valerie Plame or if she was "outted" that she was a deep cover, super-duper secret CIA agent and they certainly didn't break any laws ... otherwise he would have explicitly indicted them. Oh, I forget, that's a coverup conspiracy, too.
The fact of the matter is is Joe Wilson is a serial liar himself. He lied about the nature of his findings in Niger, overstated the facts that he gave to the CIA and the Select Senate Committee on intelligence documented those mendacious lies. The White House was trying to defend itself against the media hysteria that was being generated by Joe Wilson's lies about the Niger yellowcake episode, which the British Intelligence agency still stands by to this day.
BTW, David, DKosopedia has you falsely informing Joe Wilson that the "leak" was a crime:
July 17 - David Corn publishes "A White House Smear" in the Nation. Corn telephones Wilson personally to inform him that this leak was a crime.
I see you're part of the problem given your own profound ignorance of the laws pertaining to this issue of "outting" a CIA agent. Apparently an official investigation has determined that the "leak" WAS NOT A CRIME. So much for your destructive speculation.
Also, are you going to admit that you were the first to go public with the idea that Valerie Plame was an "US intelligence officer working covertly" (another partisan distortion on your part)? Your original article here. Until then the only people who thought they knew she was some kind of "secret agent" for the CIA were the Wilson's neighbors and friends who were getting hit with a big clue bat by Joe Wilson himself as he boasted in his wife's CIA status at private parties and such.
You wrote: Did senior Bush officials blow the cover of a US intelligence officer working covertly in a field of vital importance to national security--and break the law Until then Robert Novak and a very few American purveyors of this cloak-and-dagger stuff only knew that she "worked at the CIA" - as it turned out later, as an office analyst.
I think its pretty clear who is stirring the pot here. No cigar for you, sir. BTW, you can accuse me of misrepresenting the facts (and maybe I've made honest mistakes), but in this case you being the kettle would simply be calling me a pot.
Posted by: Hankmeister at August 27, 2006 08:37 AM
================================================
Thank you, Hankmeister! I hope you will visit David/us here more often!
Posted by: Happy brings Hank over at August 27, 2006 12:49 PM
Fitzy white-washed the whole leak case and managed to prevent damaging leaks out of the GJ. Fitzy also managed to suppress the case before the election. A beautiful job by Fitzy.
Posted by: dan at August 27, 2006 01:07 PM
The Man Who Said Too Much
By Michael Isikoff
Newsweek
Updated: 2 hours, 3 minutes ago
...According to a new book, the State Department has known for years that Armitage (left) outed Plame...
.....A barrel-chested Vietnam vet who had volunteered for combat, Armitage at times expressed disdain for Dick Cheney and other administration war hawks who had never served in the military. Armitage routinely returned from White House meetings shaking his head at the armchair warriors. "One day," says Powell's former chief of staff Larry Wilkerson, "we were walking into his office and Rich turned to me and said, 'Larry, these guys never heard a bullet go by their ears in anger ... None of them ever served. They're a bunch of jerks'."....
===========================================
I am really, really sick of this `Holier-than-Thou' mentality that pervades the uber Left and some others opposed to Wars!
By this Elitist rationale, if you hadn't personally suffered genocide, in Cambodia, Darfur, Iraq, Kosovo, etc..., you have NO moral right to SUPPORT a war to END such killings.
Similarly, if you
- had NOT been an astronaut, you have no moral right to support the space program for which dozens have died in training and during missions!
- had NOT suffered AIDS, you have no moral right to prevent is spreading or finding of cure!
- had NOT been in college, you have no moral right to say how colleges are to be funded or its mission!
Get real, moonbats, Americans at large see through your BS `Chickenhawk'-type of Elitism'! Look into the mirror and ask yourselves, on how many of the issues you chose to take the dark side on, you are in fact, `qualified' to comment on through personal service!
Posted by: Happy,ex-Navy, Fires broad Volley at August 27, 2006 01:14 PM
Hunting monsters in Jerusalem
In the wake of the most recent conflict with Hezbollah, Israel is abuzz with criticism of the government and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for having led the nation to war without achieving any of its objectives. Many Israelis, including IDF officers, are also charging that the Bush administration and US neo-conservatives have been encouraging Israel to act as the US government's stalking horse in its grand strategy to create a "new Middle East" by striking out first against Hezbollah - and then Syria and Iran.
In marked contrast, there is little public debate in the United States about the Bush administration's role in supporting Israel's failed and criminal war in Lebanon. As recent press reports reveal, President George W Bush and his foreign-policy team had given Israel a green light to take out Hezbollah at least two months before Hezbollah guerrillas kidnapped two Israeli soldiers.
As was the case in US policy toward Iraq, the neo-conservative camp - led by such institutes as the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Center for Security Policy and the now-defunct Project for the New American Century (PNAC), and by such neo-con pundits and strategists as Max Boot, Charles Krauthammer, Michael Ledeen and Elliott Abrams - has long promoted that the US and Israel implement regime change and preemptive strategies against Hezbollah, Syria and Iran.
More HERE
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A good piece on Abrams et al.
capt
Posted by: capt at August 27, 2006 01:19 PM
Fox reporters freed in Gaza
GAZA (Reuters) - Militants in the Gaza Strip released two kidnapped journalists from the American Fox News Channel on Sunday after forcing them at gunpoint to say in a videotape they had converted to Islam.
Correspondent Steve Centanni, a 60-year-old American, and New Zealand-born cameraman Olaf Wiig, 36, were in a hotel in the Palestinian coastal strip after two weeks of captivity.
A previously unknown group called the Holy Jihad Brigades had made a sweeping demand for the United States to free Muslim prisoners in exchange for the release of the men. The United States had rejected the demand.
More HERE
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Seems like sandbox mentality to me. Convert to this or convert to that - what makes anybody think the "converts" would not just convert back to whatever they choose to?
Point a weapon at my head and I will likely say anything to keep from being killed. I am glad the hostages have been released, who would not be?
capt
Posted by: capt at August 27, 2006 01:26 PM
Micki,
Good for you. Politicians want one thing, a vote. Once they get it, they could care less of where it came from.
Happy,
Politics does turn me off. It is a game played by fools. Were it a profession, I may have more respect for it. Until then, I have none.
Posted by: TRH at August 27, 2006 01:30 PM
Hate has no place on the airwaves
Recently, the major television networks have given a platform to conservative hate merchants like Ann Coulter, Glenn Beck, and Melanie Morgan.
Coulter's column is distributed by Universal Press Syndicate, one of the country's largest syndicates. Beck was recently hired by CNN Headline News. Morgan broadcasts from a radio station owned by Disney. And all three -- and countless others like them -- are regularly given guest spots on cable-news networks.
The fact that these right-wing pundits -- who have called for the execution of public officials and others -- are given a platform in the major media is unprecedented.
We, the undersigned, urge the media to stop allowing these hate merchants to spread their venom and abuse. America deserves to hear honest, reasoned debate, not rants from professional hatemongers.
Add your name!
*****end of clip*****
Here is a cause we can all get behind. Tell some friends.
capt
Posted by: capt at August 27, 2006 01:32 PM
State Department reportedly knew for years ex-Powell aide Armitage 'outed' CIA's Plame
According to a soon-to-be-released book, the State Department has known for years that former deputy secretary of state Richard L. Armitage "outed" ex-CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson to syndicated columnist Robert Novak and Bob Woodward of The Washington Post.
"Armitage's central role as the primary source on Plame is detailed for the first time in 'Hubris,' which recounts the leak case and the inside battles at the CIA and White House in the run-up to the war," reports Newsweek's Michael Isikoff, who also co-authored the book.
"The disclosures about Armitage, gleaned from interviews with colleagues, friends and lawyers directly involved in the case, underscore one of the ironies of the Plame investigation: that the initial leak, seized on by administration critics as evidence of how far the White House was willing to go to smear an opponent, came from a man who had no apparent intention of harming anyone," the article continues.
More HERE
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Rawstory on Hubris. Seems like a reach to me that Dick was just a gossip? His Pal Powell sold out as a true believer, why not Dick?
I like to think the best of people but these slugs are not people, they are slugs through and through. I am not willing to give any neocon the "benefit of doubt" however innocent they may claim to be.
When speaking to a persons intentions, pretense and assumption are king and facts are only known by the one who actually owns the intent, or am I missing something?
capt
Posted by: capt at August 27, 2006 01:42 PM
"The outing of Armitage does change the contours of the leak case."
What's remarkable, however, is how little effect it's had on the contours of the Plamegate spin. You just have to work a bit harder to keep it going, as your column neatly demonstrates. The book I'd pay to read on this subject is "What Reporters Knew, and When They Knew It."
Posted by: JM Hanes at August 27, 2006 01:44 PM
A message from Joe, for Americans:
A Team Player
August 27, 2006
By JOE LIEBERMAN
Washington is broken.
For too long the capital has been a place of partisan sniping and political finger-pointing, where games of "gotcha" are played as blood sport. Today, working across party lines to get things done for our constituents is actually looked down upon inside the Beltway.
Like many of you, I am fed up with the partisanship and polarization that is blocking us from addressing the issues that matter most to Connecticut families. And that is precisely why I am continuing my campaign for re-election to the U.S. Senate as an independent Democrat.
I went into public service to improve people's lives, not to play partisan political games. That was my motivation 30 years ago, and it still is today.
.....In the years ahead, Connecticut and America will face a number of other critical challenges......None of these problems can or will be solved by one party in Washington. And no party has a copyright on good ideas. Progress will only happen if we take the best ideas from across the ideological spectrum....
I believe there is a clear choice in the race for Senate this year. My opponent Ned Lamont, represents the old politics of partisanship, polarization and negativism.
I offer a different way forward - a new politics of unity, purpose and hope, in which our top priority is not to win the election by tearing down our opponents but to help the people we serve build a better future.
....We need to....recognize that no person or party is in sole possession of the truth, and no person or party can make progress for America alone. We must pursue practical solutions to our most vexing problems and not be blinded by partisanship.
That does not mean we have to give up on our principles to get things done. It means sticking to principles and reaching across party lines to build bridges with likeminded people on the other side.
.....Much has been made of the difference between Ned Lamont and me on the war in Iraq. The most important difference, and the most relevant right now, is how we end the war.
(more)
Posted by: Happy posts Joe's Message at August 27, 2006 01:44 PM
VIDEO: Jon Stewart dissects Bush's latest 'desperate soundbites'
President Bush's press conferences are the subject of a humorous segment from Comedy Central's Daily video clip, below.
Jon Stewart, the show's host, noted that there was something "peculiar" about President Bush's August 21st White House press conference. Bush was in Washington, DC, explained Stewart. President Bush is known for spending the month of August vacationing at his ranch in Crawford, Texas. "What could be so important as to lure our president from the spa like oasis that is Crawford, Texas?," asked Stewart.
The Daily Show takes the occasion to analyze Mr. Bush's press conference into a string of humorous clips and commentary. And having one of his favorite subjects as fodder, Jon Stewart enjoys delivering performance well-received by his audience. From Bush's foreign policy to the emotions reflected in speech to his tendency to restate obvious, the clip doesn't seem to miss an opportunity to lampoon the president.
Video HERE
More HERE
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In case anybody missed it: A very entertaining video. Mentions the US sending 25k tons of wheat? I wonder how much wheat was in the grain siloճ that Israel blew up?
capt
Posted by: capt at August 27, 2006 01:51 PM
Off With Their Heads
[..]
The surge in support for Lamont initially came from people motivated by two simple things -- a desire to protest the war in Iraq, and physical revulsion before the wrinkled, vengeful persona of Joe Lieberman. But the party, in fighting back, attacked not on the issues but on the means of protest -- blogs, grassroots activism, Lamont's independent wealth. In doing so, it threw into relief the essential parameters of the problem, which is this: The Democratic Party has been operating for two decades without the active participation of its voters.
It raised money by appealing directly to companies in private fundraisers, and it used the commercial media to enforce its policy positions, in particular its desire to "clearly reject our antiwar wing," as Al From put it a few years back. It's a simple formula for running one-half of American politics; you decide on John Kerry two years before the presidential vote, raise him $200 million bucks, and let CNN and The New York Times take care of any Howard Deans who might happen to pop up in the meantime. The same greased track is being prepared for Hillary Clinton right now, and we can be quite sure that guns are already being aimed at Russell Feingold.
It's been an essentially oligarchic system of government, where all the important decision-makers have been institutions, with any attempts by ordinary people to circumvent the system coldly repressed. Remember 2000, when Ralph Nader was not only not allowed to debate with Al Gore and George Bush, but wasn't allowed in the building -- not even allowed in a second, adjoining hall in the building, not even when he had a ticket? Well, we have a replay of that proud moment in our history going on now, with Hillary's Senate primary opponent Tasini being shut out of debates by New York's NY1 TV channel (owned by TimeWarner) which is insisting that qualified candidates not only reach 5 percent support in the polls (Tasini is at 13 percent and rising) but raise or spend $500,000. Said NY1 Vice President Steve Paulus: "All Tasini would need is for each [New York state registered voter] to send him a dollar. Right now, with the money he's raised, he does not represent the party he claims to represent."
So a war chest is now the standard for representation? In order to get on television, you need a dollar from every voter? (Are we electing a Senator or holding a Girl Scout raffle? What the fuck?) And this is decided by . . . an executive for a corporate television station? One that recently sent a reporter [Adam Balkin] to Japan to do features on high-tech toilets? In other words, NY1 will pay to put an exotic Japanese toilet on a few million or so New York television screens -- but insists on seeing a half-million dollar deposit before it will put a Democratic candidate with 13 percent support in a televised debate? Am I missing something?
This schism within the Democratic Party is the most interesting thing to happen in American politics in decades, because due to a system error, people have temporarily been allowed back into what had been a totally closed process. They're working round the clock to fix the loophole, though, because the Emanuels of the world know what's coming if they don't. The firing squad. And this time it won't be in a circle.
More HERE
*****end of clip*****
The DLC should be relieved of their concerns by being voted out of power. Post haste.
capt
Posted by: capt at August 27, 2006 01:56 PM
43
Happy,
Politics does turn me off. It is a game played by fools. Were it a profession, I may have more respect for it. Until then, I have none.
Posted by: TRH at August 27, 2006 01:30 PM
===============================================
TRH:
We share a lot of disdain for politicians, that is certainly unmistakable! The 25% or so difference we have, lies in my acceptance of their necessary `evil' roles! Back sometime ago, somebody (David?) quoted an ex-President to the effect of "If men were angels, won't need government...." Well, that `spoke' to me!
You said: "It is a game played by fools." is generally true....BUT the fools are the Gullible; NOT always the politicians themselves. Just look at this whole `Plame' leak as a prime example....Certain loonies wanted to believe it and presto, off to the races it went.....It's like Madison Ave./advertising, carefully `polling' as to what they think will or does sell! David certainly gained quite a bit of mileage out of this `Plame' bruhaha!
Modern politics, the subject of most of our comments, are quite sophisticated....far more so than the Machine Politics of old where one can almost imagine people as closer to being `sheeples' that the Left insist the average voter still is!
Posted by: Happy to TRH at August 27, 2006 02:03 PM
The tidbits of tasty morsels that David Corn is feeding us about the book, "Hubris", sounds like the book will be a good sell.
It is sad to say but the Valerie Plame case will now be put to rest and Scooter Libby will avoid trial through a presidential pardon. It is also sad to say that the precedent has been set and CIA operatives will slowly be held out to dry and possibly assassinated in the years to come. Today, our Constitution and laws are meaningless under our New America.
Posted by: Gerald at August 27, 2006 02:05 PM
Boston Globe
By Zeina Karam, Associated Press Writer | August 27, 2006
BEIRUT, Lebanon --Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said Sunday that if he had known the capture of two Israeli soldiers would lead to such a war, he wouldn't have ordered it.
Hezbollah guerrillas killed three Israeli soldiers and seized two more in a cross-border raid July 12, which sparked 34 days of fighting that ended Aug. 14. "We did not think, even one percent, that the capture would lead to a war at this time and of this magnitude. You ask me, if I had known on July 11 ... that the operation would lead to such a war, would I do it? I say no, absolutely not," he said in an interview with Lebanon's New TV station. Excerpts were shown ahead of the full interview, which was scheduled to be broadcast later Sunday.
Nasrallah also said "contacts" for negotiations on a prisoner swap between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas had already begun. "The Israelis have acknowledged that this (issue) is headed for negotiations and a (prisoners) exchange," he said. "Contacts recently began for negotiations," he said, adding that Italy and the United Nations had expressed interest in helping to mediate. He did not specify in which capacity Italy had expressed interest -- on its own or as a mediator for Israel. Nasrallah said Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri was in charge of the negotiations.
Posted by: Erling Krange at August 27, 2006 02:08 PM
Still more unchecked powers for the Bush administration
This article from the San Francisco Chronicle details the truly amazing story of two U.S. citizens -- a 45-year old resident of the San Francisco area and his 18-year old son -- who, after travelling to Pakistan, have been barred by the Bush administration from re-entering the country. They have not been charged with any crime, and no court has ordered or even authorized this denial of entry. The administration is just unilaterally prohibiting these two Americans from re-entering their country.
A relative of the two men (the older man's nephew) was convicted in April by a California federal jury on charges of supporting terrorism as a result of his attending a Pakistani training camp (and just incidentally, the conviction was obtained under some controversial circumstances). And the Federal Government is now demanding that his two relatives submit to FBI interrogation in Pakistan as a condition for being allowed to return home to the U.S.
More HERE
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No true patriot or real American supports the unchecked power this mal-administration is asserting. We have courts for a reason even if Bush hates courts. His power is limited as a co-equal part of the government not as a king among men. Not in America.
capt
Posted by: capt at August 27, 2006 02:17 PM
Late stages of a "hit"
After listening to John Perkins and his take on American foreign policy through his book, "Economics of a Hit Man", I have followed our foreign policies more closely and I no longer believe "America, right or wrong."
Posted by: Gerald at August 27, 2006 02:19 PM
"My country, right or wrong," is a thing that no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying, "My mother, drunk or sober." ~ G. K. Chesterton (1874 - 1936)
Posted by: capt at August 27, 2006 02:25 PM
"The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one." ~ George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)
Posted by: capt at August 27, 2006 02:27 PM
David,
The book looks very interesting. It sounds like it makes clear who we have for leadership in the white house. Who can support this president? And what do we do with the administration for the next two years? The administration is clearly not working in the best interest of the country they represent.
Posted by: Jeanne at August 27, 2006 02:27 PM
Our Next President Will Still Be a Repugnant
Democrats are making a serious mistake Рagain. They are making two assumptions. First, that enough people now hate George W. Bush & Co. that the GOP will lose big this November and. Second, that the GOP will lose even bigger in November 2008's presidential race.
Posted by: Gerald at August 27, 2006 02:35 PM
#26
Capt,
The beef industry is one of the biggest problems in the global warming threat as far as I'm concerned. Another big industry that with no ethics. There are however meat producers in this country, especially the organic people, who think of the enviroment and the customer first. I met a dairy farming family at the state fair. I also met a owner of an apple orchard (this guy has the best cider ever). Both are doing everything they can to make the product as simple and free of pesticides and chemicals as they can.
Posted by: Jeanne at August 27, 2006 02:37 PM
In early March 2002 I can remember so clearly hearing Iaea's El Baradei's statements that the Niger documents were false, and poorly done forgeries. My youngest daughter was in the thick of another soccer season and I was in the thick of following the lies being repeated by the Bush administration in the run-up to the insane invasion. I kept asking my reps, and radio quest why are El Baradei's warnings being almost completely ignored in the msm?
Tens of thousands of lives killed/lost brutal and life changing injuries later, the same madmen and woman that fed us the lies are running free. Many of them pushing for a military strike in Iran.
Congress please do not drink the nuclear kool-aid that Congressman Hoaxtra ,Cheney, Fleitz and others are serving about Iran's "alleged" plan.
In the Report of the Select Committee on Intelligence on the U.s. intelligence Community's Pre-war Intelligence Assessment on Iraq, Senator Diane Feinstein shares some additional views and suggesstions. ]
One of those suggestions should be immediately applied to the push for a pre-emptive military strike in Iran and the intelligence that is coming out from the Professional intelligence community and the "Faux" intelligence community led by Frederick Fleitz and Congressman Hoaxtra.
Senator Feinstein recommends that
"Restoring the analytic process to ensure effective peer review and analytic integrity to prevent the use of false intelligence in policy making" is critical.
To Senator Feinstein and the rest of congress there is no time like the present.
Posted by: kathleen at August 27, 2006 02:38 PM
capt @#48 -- on that video: Did you know that CBS and NBC edited out Bush's words, "Sometimes I'm happy..."?!?
Disgusting. Guess they tried to make him look less like the soulless creature he is.
Posted by: Micki at August 27, 2006 02:39 PM
One of my daughters met Al Franken a couple of nights ago. She asked him who he thought would be electable on the Dem ticket in '08. He said Al Gore and Barack Obama.
Posted by: Micki at August 27, 2006 02:42 PM
David thanks for all of your hard work. I know you will continue to ask the hard questions!
Will you be asking where is the evidence to back up the right wings claims about Iran?
Will you be asking Bush just what does he mean when he says we will be in Iraq "until the job is done". Could you ask him just how he defines "done?"
Posted by: kathleen at August 27, 2006 02:45 PM
Our reckless employee
But of all the terms left without meaning, there is one which most strongly deserves revival. It sounds positively quaint in the age of Bush propaganda. George Bush, whether he knows it or not, is a "public servant." He is subservient to you. To me. And most of all, to the Constitution. His oath of office, after all, calls for him to protect that venerable document, that enshrining of all the rights that he and his see as mere impediments to their "unitary executive" and wartime powers theory.
A majority of the nation seems to have repeatedly been hoodwinked into a very different view of Bush's job. The term "public servant" has disappeared from public discourse, and perception managers like Karl Rove would just as soon usher it quietly into the graveyard where its cousins "liberal democracy" and "greater good" now wander, diaphanous specters.
Posted by: Gerald at August 27, 2006 02:46 PM
#62 Micki Yes Yes Yes..that has been my sense for several years. Every time Gore has come out and shared his opinions, before the invasion, at a Moveon conference he shared his "constitutional crisis" thoughts, the polls show him way out in front of Hillary or Kerry.
I think that this will be the ticket.
Posted by: kathleen at August 27, 2006 02:49 PM
Gore was not in the position to have to vote one way or the other for the invasion came out clearly against it, won the popular vote in 2000, is focused on the enviroment and has a remarkable family.
Obama is brilliant and is a fresh face.
This is the ticket!
Posted by: kathleen at August 27, 2006 02:54 PM
The reptilian brain of W
A good, wide ranging read!!!
No, this is not about "Snakes on a Plane".
According to neurologist Dr. Paul MacLean, researcher at the National Institutes of Health, you have three brains, not just one. (the primitive, the limbic and the neocortex or rational) The brain stem, the primitive, is the oldest. It evolved hundreds of millions of years ago and is more like the entire brain of present-day reptiles. It controls automatic brain functions and such things as fight or flight mechanisms. When stimulated, rational thinking stops; action becomes instinctive and ritualistic. This may account for a lot of what's going on today.
President George W. Bush may well be a victim of his reptilian brain. With his polls hitting historic lows, he is caught in the ambivalence of fight or flight. After three and a half years, his war in Iraq has gotten nowhere. All he can say is "we must stay the course until the job is done". He hasn't said what the job is that has to be done, and no one in the mainstream media has really pushed him for an answer. (Maybe they, too, are suffering from reptilian brain stimulus)
Bush has despoiled a very special region of the world-Mesopotamia, universally revered as the cradle of civilization. The effect of the war on the Sunni and Shia population of Iraq has been so traumatic it has driven them back into a distant and primitive period of their history-back to the year 632 AD and the death of the Prophet Muhammad. Mihammad's son-in-law, Ali, was the central figure in the Shia/Sunni split and a dispute raged over whom was the "rightly guided Caliph". So in the year 2006, the Sunnis and the Shiites are killing each other, again, in a burgeoning civil war while an occupation by a foreign power and an insurgency are going on at the same time. Family feuds and wars, civil and otherwise, are usually caused by over-stimulation of reptilian brains.
Posted by: Gerald at August 27, 2006 03:07 PM
Re-post,
172
Media continue to excise Bush assertion that "sometimes I'm happy" over news from Iraq
As Media Matters for America has noted, during the press conference, Bush faced a question regarding whether he is -- as The New York Times recently reported -- "frustrated" by news from Iraq and the lack of gratitude among the Iraqi people. Bush responded:
BUSH: Frustrated? Sometimes I'm frustrated. Rarely surprised. Sometimes I'm happy. You know, this is -- but war is not a time of joy. These aren't joyous times. These are challenging times. And they're difficult times. And they're straining the psyche of our country, I understand that.
But multiple press accounts of the press conference either excised, cropped out or didn't mention the president's admission that "[s]ometimes I'm happy" -- even when they reported or quoted most of Bush's response. Several accounts -- including that of The Washington Post on August 21, as Media Matters noted -- simply removed Bush's admission that he is "sometimes ... happy" from their airing of the statement.
More HERE
*****end of clip*****
The SCLM sure does like to be helpful when the CIC sticks his foot in his mouth. Good to know Bunnypants can be "happy" while our troops are dying. What a guy, eh?
capt
Posted by: capt at August 24, 2006 11:54 AM
Posted by: capt at August 27, 2006 03:20 PM
I think Corn loses a lot of credibility by not forthrightly acknowledging that he was wrong on he Plame matter. I guess he is trying to save his book, but he ultimately is hard to believe on anything, because on the issue that he devoted so much attention to, he is unwilling to come clean. But I guess he writes for partisans, not from someone wanting an objective truth.
Posted by: brian at August 27, 2006 03:23 PM
Another re-post;
185
After USA Today Issues Correction, Fox Host Repeats Smears Against Gore
Earlier this month, Peter Schweizer published a hit piece on Al Gore's environmental habits. (Schweizer works at the Hoover Institute which has received nearly $300,000 from Exxon Mobile since 1998.) It was an obvious attempt to discredit Gore's efforts to combat the threat of global warming.
The problem was the piece was inaccurate and USA today was forced to print a correction. That didn't stop Rich Lowry, filling in for Sean Hannity, to repeat Schweizer's false claims on Fox after the correction was printed. Lowry also took the liberty to add some new smears. Watch it: (at the linked piece)
Here are the facts:
1. Gore does not receive royalties from a zinc mine. From the USA today correction: "In a column that appeared Aug. 10 on the Forum Page, writer Peter Schweizer inaccurately stated that former vice president Al Gore receives royalties from a zinc mine on his property in Tennessee despite his environmental advocacy the mine was closed in 2003."
2. Gore has never owned any Occidental Petroleum stock. His father worked for the company for several years and his parents used to own some stock. All of it was sold years ago.
3. Gore pays for his own carbon off-sets. Parmount is also purchasing off-sets above and beyond what Gore is doing individually.
The critics have no answers for Gore's scientific arguments so they've decided to smear him personally.
Desmog blog has more.
More HERE
*****end of clip*****
Who cares about facts when a smear is better for ratings?
capt
Posted by: capt at August 22, 2006 12:39 PM
Posted by: capt at August 27, 2006 03:27 PM
#62, micki's ticket has merit. I posted #58 and I will ride with that post. I may disagree with the two tickets as to who should be on the tickets but the repugnants will remain in the WH in 2009, if we have an election and not martial law.
Rigged elections and martial law has made it impossible for the Democrats to win anything!!!
Before Colin Powell turned traitor on our military in his dispicable display at the UN prior to our shock and awe bombings in Iraq, I thought that Powell would turn Democrat and be on the Democratic ticket as a P or a VP. A more formidable ticket would have been Gore-Powell. Colin Powell, let me shout it out that you are a loser and will always be a loser.
Posted by: Gerald at August 27, 2006 03:28 PM
Happy,
I agree it is frustrating and hopeless to believe that politicians will always do the right thing. What really gets me is that both parties may agree on what needs to be done, but will get it done because one side or the other will get the credit. Personally, I would vote for any politician with common sense and the sense to do what is right, regardless of politics. That is what is wrong with democracy today. Not enough of a "get it done it if makes sense" attitude. It shouldn't be a "lesser choice of evils" if the policians would do what is right regardless of who gets the credit. Credit for me is a nonstarter. If it gets done, that is all I need to know.
Posted by: TRH at August 27, 2006 03:29 PM
Should read "will not get it done"
Posted by: TRH at August 27, 2006 03:35 PM
Smearing of Gore tells me that the repugnants are fearful of Gore and that he will head the ticket in 2008.
Anyone, but not a repugnant has my vote in 2008!
Posted by: Gerald at August 27, 2006 03:38 PM
*joke time
On his trip to Great Britain, George Bush had a meeting with Queen
Elizabeth. He asked her, "How does one manage to run a country so smoothly?"
"That's easy," she replied, "You surround yourself with intelligent ministers and advisors."
"But how can I tell whether they are intelligent or not?" he inquired.
"You ask them a riddle," she replied, and with that she pressed a button
and said, "Would you please send Tony Blair in."
When Blair arrived, the Queen said, "I have a riddle for you to answer for me. Your parents had a child and it was not your sister and it was not your brother. Who was this child ?"
Blair replied, "That's easy. The child was me."
"Very good," said the Queen, "You may go, now."
So President Bush went back to Washington and called in his chief of
staff, Karl Rove. He said to him, "I have a riddle for you, and the
answer is very important. Your parents had! a child and it was not your
sister and it was not your brother. Who was this child?"
Rove replied, "Yes, it is clearly very important that
we determine the answer, as no child must be left behind. Can I
deliberate on this for a while?"
"Yes," said Bush, "I'll give you four hours to come up
with the answer."
So Rove went and called a meeting of the White House Staff, and asked
them the riddle. But after much discussion and many suggestions, none of
them had a satisfactory answer. So he was quite upset, not knowing what
he would tell the President.
As Rove was walking back to the Oval Office, he saw
former Secretary of State Colin Powell approaching him. So he said, "Mr.
Secretary, can you answer this riddle for me. Your parents had a child
and it was not your sister and it was not your brother. Who was the
child?"
"That's easy," said Powell, "The child was me."
"Oh thank you," said Rove, "You may just have saved me my job!"
So Rove went in to the Oval Office and said to President Bush, "I think
I know the answer to your riddle. The child was Colin Powell!"
"No, you idiot!" shouted Bush, "The child was Tony Blair!"
Posted by: Alan at August 27, 2006 03:40 PM
White House Blood Libel
[..]
So here is where we are. The president's chief adviser is deliberately telling lies about the Administration's clearly criminal peeping-tom program, lies deliberately constructed to sow fear among the American people Рand murderous hatred for those who oppose presidential dictatorship.
This isn't politics. This isn't partisanship. This is blood libel, and it will end in blood Рsooner, not later.
More HERE
*****end of clip*****
Anybody not blinded by pure partisanship knows well enough that Bush and his crew are not able to tell the truth. The fifth amendment protects them from self-incrimination and even a minute truth exposes the most monstrous of lies.
"It is better to be defeated on principle than to win on lies." ~ Arthur Calwell
capt
Posted by: capt at August 27, 2006 03:45 PM
Alan,
Good one.
Posted by: TRH at August 27, 2006 03:50 PM
The Bush doctrine of ignorance
By Leonard Pitts Jr.
The Seattle Times
Sunday 27 August 2006
The conventional wisdom has it that John F. Kennedy was the first television president.
Meaning not that he was president when the medium began to impact the nation - that distinction goes to Dwight Eisenhower - but that he was the first to understand its potential and exploit its power. The signature illustration is the famous debate with Richard Nixon. People who watched it on television felt the handsome, vigorous Democrat trounced the ailing, haggard Republican. Curiously enough, many of those who only heard the debate on radio gave the edge to Nixon.
Forty-six years later, I submit to you that we are undergoing a similarly seismic moment in presidential communication: George W. Bush is the first Information Age president.
Like Kennedy, he arrived a little late; he was not in office when information access became the currency of daily life. Yet, he was the first president to understand the potential and exploit the power of that development. Unfortunately, he does so to our detriment. While Kennedy used television to expand presidential influence, Bush has controlled information toward a more dubious end: the curtailment of that great threat to imperial power, the informed electorate.
Last week, The Washington Post ran a fascinating story based on a report from the National Security Archive, a research library at George Washington University. According to the report, the Bush administration has been blacking out previously public documents on the nation's strategic military capabilities. They are doing this, they say, in the name of national security. Got a question on the Minuteman missile? Tough. Curious about the Titan II? Too bad.
Now maybe you wonder what the problem is. This is sensitive information we're talking about, right? Can't have that falling into just anybody's hands, right?
The thing is, it's already in "anybody's" hands: it dates back half a century to the Cold War. We're talking about memos, charts and papers that have over the years been cited in open congressional hearings, reported in newspapers, used in history books. We're talking about information our government long ago deemed innocuous enough to provide even to its former enemy, the Soviet Union.
And now - "now!" - we're supposed to believe it's suddenly so sensitive it has to be classified Top Secret? Please.
This is a classic case of locking the barn after the horse has escaped - and died of old age. More to the point, it is a classic and absurd example of the present regime's mania for secrecy, its obsessive need to control what, when, how and why you and I learn about its activities.
Anyone who doesn't see a pattern here has not been paying attention. From its 18-hour blackout of news that the vice president had shot a man, to its paying a newspaper columnist to write favorable pieces, to its habit of putting out video press releases disguised as TV news, to its penchant for stamping top secret on anything that doesn't move fast enough, this administration has repeatedly shown contempt for the right of the people to know what's going on. At a time when information is more readily available than ever, this government is working like 1952 to enforce ignorance.
And the people, too many of them, shrug and say okey-dokey. As if we learned nothing from Abscam, Iran-contra, Vietnam and Watergate. As if it's OK for an arrogant and paternalistic government to decide for us what we get to know.
Well, it's not. An informed electorate is the lifeblood of democracy, the ultimate check on despotic ambitions.
One wonders if most people get this. One suspects that most people do not. How can you get it and not be outraged? How can you get it and not feel fear? Apparently, some of us don't understand the stakes here.
It's not just information they're trying to control.
Posted by: Gerald at August 27, 2006 04:00 PM
What Might Tom Paine Have Said About George Bush?
By Sherwood Ross
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Saturday 26 August 2006
Peculiarly, a lot of what American patriot Tom Paine wrote in 1775 about the British Crown seems to apply to President Bush today.
For example, Paine believed that "any excuse can be made to serve the purpose of malignity when it is in power." And when ever was there a more deceitful example of this than Bush's lie that Iraq had WMD?
As historian John Keane wrote in his excellent Tom Paine: A Political Life (Little, Brown and Co.), despots - as Paine saw them - plunder "the pockets and lives of their subjects, since that is the most effective way of raising and feeding armies and making their subjects afraid, obedient, and willing to pay taxes. Wars between despotic states thereby tend to increase rulers' lust for power over their own populations. War, wrote Paine, is 'the art of conquering at home' [original italics]."
And so we are, indeed, conquered at home. We live under a regime that can arrest and imprison any of us for as long as it likes, one that denies our privacy, scraps our international treaties, and shreds our Bill of Rights.
We been given no honest reason for launching the war on Iraq. The real reason most probably is oil, just as Paine wrote that the reason King George III made war on America was because "her crime is property."
As President Bush confiscates our taxes for Iraq, and squanders the lives of our troops, let's recall Paine's words about the crimes of the Crown: "Hath your property been destroyed before your face? Are your wife and children destitute of a bed to lie on, or bread to live on? Have you lost a parent or a child by their hands, and yourself the ruined and wretched survivor?"
These words ring true in thousands of American homes tonight, where loved ones have been killed or maimed in Iraq; where millions of people are sliding into poverty as a result of Bush's anti-compassionate policies; and where 40 million people have no health coverage. The bell tolls even louder for millions of Iraqi families whose nation Bush has turned into a veritable charnel house.
And what would Tom Paine have made of the wanton cruelty that George Washington forbade his soldiers to engage in but that can now be described as "routine" under Commander in Chief George Bush's military?
"It is time to have done with tarring, feathering, carting and taking securities for their future good behaviour," Paine wrote charitably of British sympathizers. "Every sensible man must feel conscious shame at seeing a poor fellow hawked for a show about the streets." What Paine might have said of men stacked in human pyramids or hung from chains until dead!
Paine inveighed against the death penalty. Condemning the excesses of the French Revolution, he said, "as France has been the first of European nations to abolish royalty, let her also be the first to abolish the punishment of death, and to find out a milder and more effective substitute." What would he have said about the ever-sizzling Texas electric chair under Governor Bush?
As for all citizens bearing government's burden equally, Paine's view was very different from President Bush's call to ditch the "death tax." According to Keane: Believing as Paine did that the earth is "the common property of the human race," it followed that "the propertied have an obligation to help the poor, not by charity alone, but by accepting a government-administered inheritance tax system designed to redistribute and equalize income."
As for Bush's boasting about "freedom," let us recall these words by Paine: "When it shall be said in any country in the world, 'My poor are happy; neither ignorance nor distress is to be found among them; my jails are empty of prisoners, my streets of beggars; the aged are not in want, the taxes are not oppressive' - when these things can be said then may that country boast of its constitution and its government."
With two million men in jail, and the poor growing by the millions, Bush has precious little to boast about. Speaking of jails, when do you suppose Bush might pardon the hundreds of thousands of Americans imprisoned on flimsy marijuana convictions while he, who tramples the law of nations, whose tongue spills lies, and whose hands drip with the blood of hundreds of thousands, enjoys the run of the White House?
Posted by: Gerald at August 27, 2006 04:12 PM
As usual paying attention to the minicule points you miss the bigger one. Politicians are all liars and do so to get elected, nothing else, their personality dictates that they act this way. No matter and voting either for or against any particular politician or group isnt going to solve this worlds problems. Nope just sit around and call names and accuse one side of something, then that side returns and accuses the other side of some other thing. Does this make progress. Nope, and it isn't designed to just designed to take your attention away from the giant problem See your lifestyle is tettering on the brink of a non recoverable slide into the abyss. Don't think so just look at the signs that are everywhere. I don't see anyone on the board that seems to have much of a clue about the bigger picture, maybe Sal, and a couple of others. But the majority or just drones for the power in charge and would gladly lick the boot of gw and his crappy minions. Hell gw talks about his gut feelings. The man is gutless so what kind of feelings do you think he has. He would be in prison if not for the connections of his family. But keep on supporting them it won't make any different there isn't anything that can or will be done to forestall the demise of this country and all the others that are in the same boat as the US, it is just going to be much tougher in the US in the coming six years. Wait and see you cannot prepare for it, and nothing that the government does will forestall it. The corporations won't stop it and actually are causing a large majority of the pain and problems in the world. But hey don't read any history either, most of the posters here don't seem to have the basic education, much less a higher education. Please sound off some more, it shows how low brow the communication can become. I like the links that some post, they at least show that they have done some research, the majority of the bushbots haven't a clue about anything other than all bush all the time. Well one day you might look back and see where the boat went aground and you all got shipwrecked. But I doubt it. Geez, get a clue, they are cheap and available at most places.
Posted by: What the F**k at August 27, 2006 04:15 PM
US set to bypass UN over Iran
[..]
Mr Blair's failure to have a moderating influence on Washington came under attack at the weekend from a former US president. Jimmy Carter said Mr Blair's lack of leadership and timid subservience to President George Bush lay behind the continuing crisis in Iraq and the worldwide threat of terrorism.
"We now have a situation where America is so unpopular overseas that even in countries like Egypt and Jordan our approval ratings are less than 5 per cent. It's a shameful and pitiful state of affairs and I hold your British Prime Minister to be substantially responsible for being so compliant and subservient," he told The Sunday Telegraph in London.
The outspoken attack by the former Democratic president shows the extent of the alienation between the Labour Party and its traditional Democrat allies in America.
More HERE
Posted by: capt at August 27, 2006 04:17 PM
I question this passage: The Armitage leak was not directly a part of the White House's fierce anti-Wilson crusade. But as Hubris notes, it was, in a way, linked to the White House effort, for Amitage had been sent a key memo about Wilson's trip that referred to his wife and her CIA connection, and this memo had been written, according to special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, at the request of I. Lewis Scooter Libby, the vice president's chief of staff. Libby had asked for the memo because he was looking to protect his boss from the mounting criticism that Bush and Cheney had misrepresented the WMD intelligence to garner public support for the invasion of Iraq. Are you saying that there is a second memo floating around drafted "at the request" of Libby and, presumably, addressed to him? Or are you simply saying that, in response to Libby's questions, folks at State drafted the famous INR memo? Per the indictment, Libby was briefed *orally* on that memo, but there is no mention if his having received it. And Libby's later court filings (p. 5 of 29) indicate that, per his grand jury testimony, Libby disputes even the oral briefing (on the particular point of Ms. Plame's role presumably - I don't think he disputes that a meeting ocurred.) If the point is that Armitage would not have been in a position to leak this if the White House didn't have so many questions - golly, why not blame the media, or even Joe Wilson, for raising all these questions in the first place?
(NOTE: "PREVIEW" has made me nervous about the formatting and HTML link, but nothing ventured...
Posted by: Tom Maguire at August 27, 2006 04:19 PM
U.S. is coming apart
I am becoming very nervous of seldom being wrong.
None of these recent events resulted from a natural disaster or terrorist attack, but they may as well have, some homeland security experts say. They worry that too little attention is paid to how fast the country's basic operating systems are deteriorating.
Posted by: Gerald at August 27, 2006 04:25 PM
I really thought the original leaker was Ari Fleisher. On July 18, 2005, Bloomberg reported that in his sworn testimony before the grand jury investigating the leak, Fleischer denied having seen a memo circulating on Air Force One on July 7, 2003 which named Plame in connection to Wilson's mission and which identified her as a CIA covert agent. However, a former Bush Administration official also on the plane testified to having seen Fleischer perusing the document.[1] [2] Columnist Robert Novak, who published Plame's name on July 14, 2003, made a call to Fleischer on July 7, 2003 before Fleischer's trip to Africa with the President. It is unclear whether Fleischer returned Novak's call.[3] However, Fleischer is mentioned in Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's indictment of Cheney aide Scooter Libby: The indictment states that Libby told Fleischer (referred to as the White House press secretary in the indictment) that Plame worked for the CIA and that this fact was not well-known. No charges have been brought against Fleischer.
Posted by: kathleen at August 27, 2006 04:32 PM
"Infrastructure deficiencies will further erode our global competitiveness, but with the federal budget so committed to mandatory spending, it's unclear how we are going to deal with this challenge as we fall further and further behind in addressing these problems," Hagel said in a speech last year. "We need to think creatively."
WHY NOT TAX THE RICH MORE, DO AWAY WITH TAX LOOPHOLES, ELIMINATE OFFSHORE TAX HAVENS FOR THE RICH AND FOR AMERICAN CORPORATIONS!!!!! LET US BECOME MORE MATURE AND COME REALIZE AND UNDERSTAND THAT NO MATURE AND SANE PERSON WOULD CHOOSE WAR OVER PEACE!!!!!!!!!!
I am becoming very nervous of usually being right.
Posted by: Gerald at August 27, 2006 04:33 PM
The