August 2007 Archives

...so posting is kind of sparse.

Hang in there and try not to shoot anyone in the face while I'm not looking.

Senator Craig's insistence that he is not gay reminded me of that scene in Angels In America when Roy Cohn (Al Pacino) is told by his Doctor (James Cromwell) that he has AIDS and that he got it from having unprotected sex with homosexuals. Roy says he can't have AIDS because he is not a homosexual. It comes in at about 4 minutes in. Watch it.

ROY: You know your problem, Henry, is that you are hung up on words -- on labels that you believe they mean what they seem to mean. AIDS, homosexual, gay, lesbian. You think these are names that tell you who someone sleeps with? They don't tell you that.

HENRY: No?

ROY: No! Like all labels, they tell you one thing and one thing only -- where does an individual, so identified, sit on the food chain. In the pecking order! Not ideology, or sexual taste, but something much simpler. Clout. Not who I fuck or who fucks me but who will pick up the phone when I call; who owes me favors. This is what a label refers to.

Now, to someone who does not understand this, homosexual is what I am because I have sex with men. But really this is wrong. Homosexuals are not men that sleep with other men. Homosexuals are men who, in 15 years of trying, cannot pass a pissant anti-discrimination bill through City Council. Homosexuals are men who know nobody and who nobody knows -- who have zero clout. Does this sound like me, Henry? No! I have clout. I pick up this phone, I punch 15 numbers, do you know who's on the other end? In under five minutes?

HENRY: The President?

ROY: Better, Henry. His wife.

Watch the whole thing. It is an unforgettable portrait of a man in total denial, a spectacle that has as much relevance today as it ever had.

P.S. The comment about Reagan is priceless on soooo many levels.

UPDATE: Apparently, at Tuesday's press conference, and this is true, the first words out of Sen. Craig's mouth were this: "Thank you all very much for coming out today."

UPDATE 2: Is Joe Conason reading my blog or what?

...Only Republicans who are truly in denial can ignore the long parade now led by the reluctant Craig -- a conga line of right-leaning queens that dates all the way back to the late Roy Cohn, Joe McCarthy's infamous henchman and an intimate friend of the Reagans'. Perhaps, like Cohn, today's closeted Republicans believe that they aren't really gay at all, except for a few minutes in bed (or in the men's room).

by Mark Adams

When Congress failed to halt the funding for the "Surge" I was pissed (that's reality-speak for "disappointed").  Outrage sums up my reaction to the FISA capitulation.

But when a leading progressive voice like Glenn Greenwald feeds into a GOP narrative -- when he should know better -- I'm flabbergasted:

This is a real moment of truth for the Democratic Congress. Democrats, who have offered up little other than one failure after the next since taking power in January, can take a big step toward redeeming themselves here. No matter what, they must ensure that Gonzales' replacement is a genuinely trustworthy and independent figure.

I've mentioned before that the accomplishments of this Congress, half-way through their first year is nothing to be dismissed easily.

If you know my writing at all, you know I am pretty skeptical of politicians who try to lead by using facts and logic. Why? Because, if you occupy a highly-public position, people judge you mostly by how you look, how you carry yourself, how you sound and not so much by what you say. This is not to say that ideas and plans are irrelevant. It's just that you need to take special care with the other stuff first, otherwise you are handicapping yourself from the very beginning. Or worse yet, you are letting your opponent do it for you. Just ask Al Gore, John Kerry and (wait for it) John Edwards. Of the top tier candidates, I think only Hillary Clinton understands this at a molecular level.

And as for Barack Obama, Drew Westen has some advice:

I think a good example of this is the attempts by the right to play on Barack Obama's name by calling him things like B. Hussein Obama. If you understand how the brain works, you understand that the more times people hear "B. Hussein Obama," the more they think, "He's foreign, he's Islamic, and he sounds like Osama," and the more they develop emotional associations between Obama and all of those things that they don't like.

And this is before he even says a damn thing! What could be worse? Ignoring that BS or just smiling and shrugging it off as...silly or irrelevant. Bad idea.

So a way that Obama could handle that that would address any masculinity issues that are raised against him, any national security issues that are raised against him as well as the implicit or unconscious, sort of stealth racist appeals that are involved in those comments ... is to say to Ann Coulter, who calls him B. Hussein Obama all the time, "Listen, my name is Barack Obama, and I expect to be called that. I call you Ann Coulter. My name is not B. Hussein Obama, my name is not Osama, it is Barack Obama, and you will address me that way."

Now imagine if Barack Obama spoke like that. Immediately people would say, "Wow, this is one tough son of a bitch. We'd better not mess with him." If you want to talk about winning the center, that's how you win the center if you're Barack Obama. It's not by saying, "Let's get along with Ann Coulter." It's by saying, "Ann Coulter, you will not talk to me that way. You will not talk about me that way. This is my name."

Not to belabor the point about a black man with an Islamic sounding name, but this reminds me of Muhammad Ali's response to Ernie Terrell in their 1967 heavyweight championship fight. Terrell, who insisted on calling Ali "Cassius Clay" long after he had changed his name, was mercilessly whupped -- and taunted -- by the champ. "What's my name, fool? What's my name?" Ali kept yelling, as he pounded him to a bloody pulp in the ring. "What's my name, fool?" Pow! "What's my name?"

That's what I'm talkin bout.

If this is true, how long will it be before he receives his pardon?

P.S. Is Chertoff on deck?

Christopher Hitchens, accustomed to striking out so often with men on base, does sometimes manage to hit one out of the park:

How do I dislike President George Bush? Let me count the ways. Most of them have to do with his contented assumption that 'faith' is, in and of itself, a virtue. This self-satisfied mentality helps explain almost everything, from the smug expression on his face to the way in which, as governor of Texas, he signed all those death warrants without losing a second's composure.

It explains the way in which he embraced ex-KGB goon Vladimir Putin, citing as the basis of a beautiful relationship the fact that Putin was wearing a crucifix. (Has Putin been seen wearing that crucifix before or since? Did his advisers tell him that the President of the United States was that easy a pushover?)

However that may be, I always agreed with him on one secular question, that the regime of Saddam Hussein was long overdue for removal. I know some critics of the Iraq intervention attribute this policy, too, to religious motives (ranging from messianic, born-again Christian piety to the activity of a surreptitious Jewish/Zionist cabal: take your pick).

In this real-world argument, there is a very strong temptation for opponents of the war to invoke the lessons of Vietnam. I must have written thousands of words attempting to show that there is absolutely no analogy between the two conflicts.

Then, addressing the convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars last week, the President came thundering down the pike to announce that a defeat in Iraq would be - guess what? - another Vietnam. As my hand smacks my brow, and as I ask myself not for the first time if Mr Bush suffers from some sort of political death wish, I quickly restate the reasons why he is wrong to join with his most venomous and ignorant critics in making this case.

Read the whole thing.

by Mark Adams

Could it really be that Shrubby finally jumped the shark, even in the eyes of the 28%ers; and that he went one metaphor too many? Did he state something so backward, so profound in it's ignorance than not even the most adroit culture warrior can spin it back on itself?

There is an amazing amount of real and digital ink that instantly hurled it's outrage at the cockamaymee idea the Draft Dodger in Chief had any handle whatsoever on the real lesson of our Indo-China excursion. The one he managed to drink and snort his way through in the late 60's and early 70's.

Even Academia as well as the Punditocracy (with one or two notable exceptions), could not stomach the sheer wrongheadedness of the idea that pulling out of South East Asia a mere ten years and 58,000 dead soldiers later was evidence of American's capricious approach to causes requiring a more committed dedication than we are willing to pay -- especially us dirty hippies on the left.

Yes Virginia, some lies cannot stand up to the truth, no matter how strongly stated nor oft repeated.

I was first confused when Powerline only managed to pick the slightest nit with the critics and then entered the quagmire of analogies that Bush missed -- which highlight all the mistakes he repeated but should have learned from Vietnam.

Then I noticed that Sadly No! did not entertain us with the usual litany of nutjobbyness on "how we so so so so SO woulda won in Vietnam if only we’d stayed another 20 years," from the usual Kool-Aide drinking suspects. Now the Pajama Hadeen and LGF are linking up with Chris Hitch's 13 reasons Bush's analogy is moronic.

Hitchenson has indeed penned a piece of prose that will warm your heart:

How do I dislike President George Bush? Let me count the ways.

***

As my hand smacks my brow, and as I ask myself not for the first time if Mr Bush suffers from some sort of political death wish, ...

***

If one question is rightly settled in the American and, indeed, the international memory, it is that the Vietnam War was at best a titanic blunder and at worst a campaign of atrocity and aggression.

***

The logic of history is pitiless and Bush is not the only one who will find this out.

Could it be now that Rove is busy plotting the removal of some other politician's brain, Bush is left on his own and no talking points are being faxed to the rest of the Right Wing Noise Machine? Are the GOP too, simply marking time until they can get rid of Boy Wonder, the Super Chimpleton? Or is this the way they pave the road for their next rabbit out of the hat -- the improbable election of another Republican goof-ball to the Oval Office?

As the Rude One opines, when it comes to the continued glory that is the conservative movement, the GOP frontrunner, Mayor Rudy is "George W. Bush without the nuance." Scary thought, but sure to be born out as the talking heads convene this morning, having come to the stark realization that all could be (deservedly) lost, 30 years of bamboozlement flushed down the drain. Unlike the post Vietnam era, the conservatives don't want to lose the argument that now will prevail until the next war -- Who Lost Iraq?

Seeing that of all the administration officials who talked the nation into this mess are now in the private sector save Bush, Cheney and Condi Rice, yet the stupidity grows ever deeper; I've got a pretty good hunch exactly who should be singled out for special consideration when the blame gets handed out.

(cross posted at Daily Kos)

I'm not the first one to point out that there are only two things that can rehabilitate George W. Bush's reputation and legacy:

• Total victory in Iraq
  
• Another massive terror attack on the US.

Problem is, Bush no longer knows the difference between the two.

Now, Hillary Clinton is addressing this chilling reality:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton yesterday raised the prospect of a terror attack before next year's election, warning that it could boost the GOP's efforts to hold on to the White House.

Discussing the possibility of a new nightmare assault while campaigning in New Hampshire, Clinton also insisted she is the Democratic candidate best equipped to deal with it.

"It's a horrible prospect to ask yourself, 'What if? What if?' But if certain things happen between now and the election, particularly with respect to terrorism, that will automatically give the Republicans an advantage again, no matter how badly they have mishandled it, no matter how much more dangerous they have made the world," Clinton told supporters in Concord.

"So I think I'm the best of the Democrats to deal with that," she added.

I think she's right to bring it up and I think she's right to grab that niche.

What do you think?

Bill Maher is back from hiatus:

The reason I came back is because I felt a little bit guilty. You know, me not working while the surge IS working. That's right, apparently the surge IS working. Not the actual surge -- but the phrase, "The surge is working."

That seems to be working, proving once again that Americans will believe anything if you repeat it enough.

Recently we also learn that the US command in Iraq has lost track of about 110 thousand AK-47 rifles and 80 thousand pistols that we provided to the Iraqi forces, who you may know by their real name, "sectarian militias."

Now that's a lot of firepower that just happened to fall off a truck. It kind of makes you nostalgic for the good old days when the only weapons missing in Iraq were the imaginary ones.

This week, Time Magazine delivers a profile of Rudy Giuliani that couldn't have been better had it been written by Judi Nathan herself.

Yep: 18% approve of the job Congress is doing. That's as low as it's been for a generation -- and much lower than the approval ratings for the president. Does this mean that the people are somehow siding with the president? Or, more to the point, does it mean that the Republicans will have an advantage in the next election because people think the Democrats are jerks? The answer, below.

Glenn Greenwald, as usual, gets to the heart of it:

Congress is so unpopular, particularly among Democrats, because of their ongoing capitulations to the Bush administration, their failure to place any limits on his Iraq policy, and their general inability/refusal to serve as a meaningful check on the administration. Democrats and independents overwhelmingly dislike the President. Thus, the weaker Congress is in defying the President, the more unpopular Congress becomes.

Contrary to the general impression created by the media when discussing this polling data, Congress' extremely low standing does not undermine or dilute the intense unpopularity of Bush and his party among Americans. To the contrary, it bolsters it and arises from it.

This is both good news and bad news for the Democrats. The good news is that the country wants more from them. The bad news is that they're afraid to provide it.

So as long as the likes of Senator Leahy talk tough but fail to follow through, the Dems will continue to disappoint and anger the electorate.

P.S. As long as we're on the subject of polls, here's a figure for you: 64% of Republicans approve of the job Bush is doing. Remember that the next time you watch any part of a Republican debate. All of those guys are ready and willing to bring us Bush's Third Term.

Whatever happened to 7th grade civics class? Don't they teach that anymore?

Here's something written by Phillip Atkinson for an organization called Family Security Matters. Atkinson might be a nobody, but the board of FSM is not: it includes noted leaders like Barbara Comstock, Monica Crowley, Frank Gaffney, Laura Ingraham and James Woolsey.

Here's Atkinson, writing for FSM's website:

The inadequacy of Democracy, rule by the majority, is undeniable – for it demands adopting ideas because they are popular, rather than because they are wise. This means that any man chosen to act as an agent of the people is placed in an invidious position: if he commits folly because it is popular, then he will be held responsible for the inevitable result. If he refuses to commit folly, then he will be detested by most citizens because he is frustrating their demands.

Wrong. We don't have "rule by the majority." We have a Constitution that protects the rights of the individual by limiting the power that can be wielded by its elected leaders. Clearly, the leaders are elected by the majority -- or rather the majority of those eligible adults that bother to come out to vote. Regardless, our system guarantees that even if you are a minority of one, your rights, as defined in the Constitution, are protected, OK? OK.

But wait there's more. Atkinson looks back at the Iraq war and occupation and tells us what went wrong, in his humble opinion:

The wisest course would have been for President Bush to use his nuclear weapons to slaughter Iraqis until they complied with his demands, or until they were all dead. Then there would be little risk or expense and no American army would be left exposed. But if he did this, his cowardly electorate would have instantly ended his term of office, if not his freedom or his life.

Here's the thing: I personally know a lot of people who talk this way. And, truth be told, these people, insofar as they have a political opinion, love Rudy Giuliani. Rudy might not hold the kind of family values these people hold dear, but he is a Christian Soldier.

There's more:

The simple truth that modern weapons now mean a nation must practice genocide or commit suicide. Israel provides the perfect example. If the Israelis do not raze Iran, the Iranians will fulfill their boast and wipe Israel off the face of the earth. Yet Israel is not popular, and so is denied permission to defend itself. In the same vein, President Bush cannot do what is necessary for the survival of Americans. He cannot use the nation's powerful weapons. All he can do is try and discover a result that will be popular with Americans.

Forget the Cold War. Let's cut to the chase, let's have the Hot War. Bring it on. It's all or nothing now, baby. Murder or suicide, preferably both. After all...

Crowns and thrones may perish, kingdoms rise and wane,
But the church of Jesus constant will remain.
Gates of hell can never gainst that church prevail;
We have Christ’s own promise, and that cannot fail.

By elevating popular fancy over truth, Democracy is clearly an enemy of not just truth, but duty and justice, which makes it the worst form of government. President Bush must overcome not just the situation in Iraq, but democratic government.

Holy crap. Did I say Atkinson wrote this? It sounds like it was written by dick Cheney.

When the ancient Roman general Julius Caesar was struggling to conquer ancient Gaul, he not only had to defeat the Gauls, but he also had to defeat his political enemies in Rome who would destroy him the moment his tenure as consul (president) ended.

Caesar pacified Gaul by mass slaughter; he then used his successful army to crush all political opposition at home and establish himself as permanent ruler of ancient Rome. This brilliant action not only ended the personal threat to Caesar, but ended the civil chaos that was threatening anarchy in ancient Rome – thus marking the start of the ancient Roman Empire that gave peace and prosperity to the known world.

Yeah, I know what you're thinking: this is really something lifted from The Onion. Sadly, no.

If President Bush copied Julius Caesar by ordering his army to empty Iraq of Arabs and repopulate the country with Americans, he would achieve immediate results: popularity with his military; enrichment of America by converting an Arabian Iraq into an American Iraq (therefore turning it from a liability to an asset); and boost American prestige while terrifying American enemies.

...and if he can't do it, Rudy can!

He could then follow Caesar's example and use his newfound popularity with the military to wield military power to become the first permanent president of America, and end the civil chaos caused by the continually squabbling Congress and the out-of-control Supreme Court.

President Bush can fail in his duty to himself, his country, and his God, by becoming “ex-president” Bush or he can become “President-for-Life” Bush: the conqueror of Iraq, who brings sense to the Congress and sanity to the Supreme Court. Then who would be able to stop Bush from emulating Augustus Caesar and becoming ruler of the world? For only an America united under one ruler has the power to save humanity from the threat of a new Dark Age wrought by terrorists armed with nuclear weapons.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is what we're up against.

And if you think these people are nuts, and the American people would never allow this to happen, well, that's beside the point. They already hold power -- and there are more where they came from, waiting to take over after the next election.

Sid Blumenthal watched Rove on Meet The Press and then cuts to the chase:

Rove thrashed around in search of an appropriate character from fiction to describe his ineffable and immortal being. "I'm Moby Dick," he began, but, dissatisfied with identifying himself as the great white whale, drew upon his wellspring of literature for yet other self-projections. "Let's face it. I mean, I'm a myth, and they're -- you know, I'm Beowulf. You know, I'm Grendel. I don't know who I am. But they're after me."

Hunted and hunter, beast and warrior, author of his own tale nonetheless suffering an identity crisis, a figure transcendent beyond history still pursued down dark alleys, Rove finally rested on a note of paranoia. If the demons were after him, what would he not do to punish them?

Oddly enough, I had just read a short post on Karl Rove's father last night. The guy was a real freakazoid -- so much so, that Miss Julie even had a brief pang of compassion for the young KR.

Moving on, Joan Walsh and Salon dig deep and find that Giuliani's claim that he spent more time at Ground Zero than some of the rescue workers has an interesting postscript:

By our count, Giuliani spent about 58 hours at Yankees games or flying to them in the 40 days between Sept. 25 and Nov. 4, roughly twice as long as he spent at ground zero in the 90 days between Sept. 17 and Dec. 16. By his own standard, Giuliani was one of the Yankees more than he was one of the rescue workers.

Jonah Goldberg and the rest of the NRO crybabies complain that Walsh got it wrong, but she got it right.

Sorry, Jonah, your boy is a serial bragger and exaggerator, and his mouth is going to be the undoing of his campaign, no matter how much you NRO guys try to defend him.

Bottom line: these guys are dangerous. Let's not make the mistake that, because they appear absurd, they can be easily defeated. We made that mistake once already in this young century. Let's not do it again.

They're dangerous and it'll take everything we have to make sure they are driven from public life once and for all.

by Mark Adams

The heck with who I'd rather do beers with, I'm pretty sure I already did a lot of beers with this guy.

Lots of Beers

Mike (inset) and David Huckabee, doing "one of those stupid things," that endears him to Daddy.

(HT David Dayen)

[File under memories of college, nine of the best years of my life.]

by Mark Adams

We won't have to do too much to thwart the GOP juggernaught as the gloves come off the former fake New York prosecutor and the former real U.S. Attorney and later real Mayor of New York.
Time's Swampland pits Fred Thompson against Rudy.  First up, the Law And Order guy:

"Anybody who knows me knows I’ve always cared deeply about the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. So I’ve always felt sort of relieved when I flew back home to where that particular civil liberty gets as much respect as the rest of the Bill of Rights."

and Giuliani's response:

"Those who live in New York in the real world - not on TV - know that Rudy Giuliani's record of making the city safe for families speaks for itself. No amount of political theater will change that."

Shorter GOP primary ... "Shaadup!"  "No.  You Shaadup!"

Honestly, just how stupid would it be if New York City was reincarnated as Dodge City?  Can you imagine the clusterf#%&k at the subway in Fred's world?  Everybody packing heat.  And everybody strip searched at the turnstiles.  Metal detectors at every taxi stand, but you're free to let a few rounds go into the air instead of whistling to hail a cab.

You really can tell Fred's version of the Big Apple existed exclusively on a studio back lot, and Rudy, as does the entire GOP field, loves to invoke Ronald Reagan's name over and over and over again, takes a pot shot at Thompson for being an actor.

These guys are a joke -- especially since Reagan's 11th Commandment was thou shall't not speak ill of another Republican.

by Mark Adams

Sometimes I sit in awe of the breathtaking turns our theoretical republic has taken under the Bush regime. I recognize that conditioned responses may contribute to the perception that a sinister oligarchy is promoting a fascist ideology through Stalinistic tactics aimed at domination of the world for a commercial imperium secured through the U.S. military in coordination with the Republican Party Apparachik. They've screwed with us from the day FloriDUH went from red to blue and consistently ever since. It is indeed possible that we look for the evidence that confirms our preconceived notions.

Nyahhh. I'm not paranoid. This is the most outrageous U.S. Presidency of all time.

It's almost too much. I'm just a guy writing into the ether. One person can't make all that much of a difference, can he? The power at the disposal of the Federal Government cannot be thwarted simply by standing up to it, can it?

...and this time he really, really, really means it.

Seriously, this is a joke already. Declare them in inherent contempt of Congress, arrest them and throw them into the basement jail at the US Capitol building. I don't care if dick Cheney will preside over their trial in the Senate.

Just. Do. Something. Anything.

Otherwise you're just a laughingstock, Senator Leahy.

by Mark Adams

From his lust for Kralizec to his desire to privatize Social Security, Rudy unites left and right, by his stupidity.  Seriously, the guy is absofreakinglutely bat-shit crazy.

Obama figures out he's just not that good at the 30 second sound-byte debate format -- cuts and runs from attending any more debates than those already scheduled.  I assume that means there will be a hard limit of no more than 47 more until we begin voting -- probably right after Thanksgiving.  Hopefully, there will be lots of arugula.

After watching some TPMtv, spotlighting Mitt Romney's profound ignorance of anything east of Boston Harbor, Raising Kaine concludes "Multiple-Choice Mitt" is a "Giant Foreign Policy Goofball."  News Hounds gets the hypocrisy of Romney's schpeel, but you really need to watch Josh Marshall put it all together to understand how profoundly delusional Romney is. 

Meanwhile, Eleanor Clift has a question for Mitt & Co. that might stop some of the GOP hopefuls in their tracks -- since of course, they'd have to think instead of regurgitating their 30 year-old talking points or trying to remember whether they we talking to an audience that preferred the flip to the flop.

Stop asking Romney and the other Republican front runners about abortion and start asking them where they stand on family planning.

Shorter Elly C.:  "Please stop talking about this wedge issue that is destined to lose the election for us.  Our candidates suck eggs on this."

Fred Thompson, who turns 65 today (thus eligible for all the entitlements he vows to abolish), is the only candidate who needed to have his fat, lazy ass trucked around the Iowa State Fair in a golf cart. 

Actually he looked kinda gaunt.  He'll need to scarf down a few more elephant ears to be the right's answer to Michael Moore. 

She really ought to take it easy on the old guy.  How many little blue pills can one man take?

I noted before that Mike Huckabee was kind spoken towards the Clintons, to the point where he would sound almost gushing if he weren't a Republican.  Rights Field's David Dayen thinks these remarks point to where Huckabee first got the idea that cars and buses were lame, that his super-coolness would be enshrined forever once his Harley cleared the shark tank.

This kid came from a dysfunctional family — alcoholic abusive father. And yet he didn't just aspire, he was elected president of the United States not once, but twice. That is an affirmation of the system. And it's a wonderful testament to give to every kid in America that no matter where you've come from, you've got an opportunity to do something extraordinary.

John Edwards gets ahead of the "gotcha" game and David Sirota approves, he rejects right wing framing of the "war on terra" in the same way that former Joint Chiefs Chairman Richard Meyers approved, connects with ordinary folks and David Brooks approves, talks the talk and walks the walk in a way RFK and MLK would approve, calls Coultergeist a "She-Devil," and I approve.  Atrios insults Instalinker and FU by comparing them to Annie Sunshine -- Digby approves.

Wingnuttystan still says, "Gotcha," cuz that's all they got.  I mean, what are they gonna do?  Buy into McCain trying to be the anti-war candidate?  Puh-Leeze.

More Wingnut News...

Vice President Cheney is a dildo, what else to you call a dick substitute? (Do not Click if you are under age ... 40.)  Doctor BooMan advises us to use a condom anyway.

Speaking of nuts and other guilty pleasures of the alternate universe ... you know you just gotta click on a link that says Ron Paul teams up with Dennis Kucinich.

by Mark Adams

I'm a big fan of "putting the science" into political science. Mostly this consists of polling and sophisticated statistical analysis, demographic and census tracking, case studies, or historical comparisons of current events. Of course, there never will be anything like a mathematical precision that's applicable to politics -- even in science fiction.

Bob Altemeyer's work studying "authoritarian personalities", famously brought to everyone's attention by John Dean’s Conservatives Without Conscience, goes beyond mere analysis and adds some experimentation -- essence of the scientific method -- which is highlighted by "Moonbat" at The Mahablog. Get it all in handy E-Book (pdf) form, free, from Altemeyer himself.

Frighteningly predictable results were documented when experimenters secretly divided over 130 or so volunteers into two groups -- by whether they exhibited authoritarian personality types or a more benign psychological profile -- and then unleashed them upon a virtual world.

by Mark Adams

General Petraeus not only won't be writing "his" report on Iraq, he won't be talking about it either -- Condi and SecDef Gates have the honor of live bamboozlement come September.

Hilzoy has more.  Clearly, the Administration insists that Congress and the public be more open-minded to their single-mindedness.

It's no way to run a country, and it's certainly no way to run a war.

You of course are free to blame the traitors who leaked this shell game to the librule media whose only goal is to undermine Bush's dedication to his delusions.

CUT AND RUN I say!  Cut the damn country into iddy, biddy pieces; and then Run it right.

(HT: MoJo)

Yep. It's a hurricane with winds at 80 mph as of 8am CDT. Those who know think it may end up being a Category 4. But a lot depends on whether it hits the Yucatan peninsula or veers and hits the Keys. Too early to tell.

I'll try to keep you posted.

(Click to see larger image)

It should come as no surprise that the partisan Republican hacks at Fox News want us to believe they are impartial -- "We report, you decide." What. Ever.

What's interesting is how much time and effort they spend scrubbing negative references to themselves out of Wikipedia AND inserting all sorts of negative references to their political enemies into the open-source encyclopedia.

The most interesting thing of all? With newly-available tools, you can actually see what Fox News has done, line-by-line, paragraph-by-paragraph.

Why should you care? Because Fox News is the official house organ of the modern Republican party. Tony Snow is the White House press secretary, Bush and Cheney only do interviews with the likes of Bill O'Reilly and Neal Cavuto, and Rudy Giuliani and Roger Ailes are BFFs.

Fair and balanced? Pravda never had it so good. You remember Pravda, right?

Pravda (Russian: Правда, "The Truth") was a leading newspaper of the Soviet Union and an official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party between 1912 and 1991...The offices of the newspaper were transferred to Moscow on March 3, 1918 when the Soviet capital was moved there. Pravda became an official publication, or "organ", of the Soviet Communist Party. Pravda became the conduit for announcing official policy and policy changes and would remain so until 1991. Subscription to Pravda was mandatory for state run companies, the armed services and other organizations until 1989.

This is dick Cheney, circa 1994, justifying why the first President Bush did not occupy Iraq after the Gulf War.

The question for the president in terms of whether or not we went on to Baghdad and took additional casualties in an effort to get Saddam was how many additional dead Americans was Saddam worth, and our judgment was not very many. And I think we got it right.

It reminds of the guy who says, "I may not always be right, but I'm never wrong."

(Cross posted at Daily Kos)

I have no idea why Rove is leaving. But here are some guesses:

1. His work is finished
   Bush is a lame duck with no credibility with the American public. No one believes him (and by extension, Rove) anymore. Why fight to the finish, especially when more lucrative pursuits beckon?

2. He's following the money
   If Keith Richards can get $7 million for his memoirs, so can Rove. And down the road he can make $250 thou per speech. He's set for life. Why not get going while the going is good?

3. He's avoiding the frog-march
   It's only a matter of time before the authorities close in. Cut a deal now and quietly slip away into the witness protection program.

4. He's joining another campaign
   I hear John McCain has some openings. OK, maybe not. And no matter who he'd join, it would be hard for the campaign story not to be about The Boy Genius.

5. Leave now or get shot in the face.
   It was only a matter of time before dick Cheney got his revenge for Rove ratting out Libby.
   

That's all I got. Y'all got any insights?

UPDATE: I'm generally not a big fan of instant analysis, but I think Rove has been around long enough that we can draw some conclusions about his performance as Bush's Brain. First up, Simon Rosenberg:

Karl Rove was the 'architect' of one of the worst governments in American history, and the one who engineered the end of modern conservatism, one of the most successful ideological movements in modern world history.

Next, Kevin Drum:

History will judge Rove a colossal failure, a man who never understood how to govern and, for all his immense knowledge of polls and politics, never really understood the times he lived in. It was 9/11 that both made and broke the Bush presidency, not some kind of mystical McKinley-esque realignment. Rove was blind to that, and blind to the way Bush should have governed after 9/11. His one-track mind, in which every problem is solved by wielding the biggest, nastiest partisan club you can lift, just couldn't adapt. It's fitting that he insisted on making even his final act as calculatedly partisan as he could, announcing his resignation not through the White House press office, but in an interview with the editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page. Sic transit, Karl.

“Freedom is not a concept in which people can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do.”

----- Rudy Giuliani, potential dictator

OK, maybe a credit squeeze, not "a panic," at least not in the historical sense. One hundred years ago, a panic in the markets could happen if some event triggered a loss of confidence to the point where investors would pull their money out of banks and all financial activity would grind to a halt. Businesses, unable to get credit, would fail and people would be thrown out of their jobs. Usually some individual would step in and inject enough capital (i.e., "liquidity") into the market to jump start it again. I'm simplifying, but not by much.

In 1913, after one too many panics, the US created the Federal Reserve to serve, in part, as that entity that would inject capital into the market. Yesterday, the Feds injected $24 billion into the markets; the European banks injected another $130 billion. That is a lot of liquidity. Is it enough to calm the markets? You're asking the wrong guy. I do know that before the markets open on Friday morning, investors will have to digest the meaning of the overnight plummet of the markets in Asia.

None of this addresses why the markets are so shaken; nor does it address specifically what they're doing about it. Chief among the strategies is the desire to dump dollar-based investments like loans to the US government. If that happens on a large scale, we could be in for a rough time indeed because the dollar could rapidly become worthless. In a global economy that's really bad news -- and not just for the US.

What can you do about it? Don't borrow money -- and keep some cash stuffed under your mattress. Oh, I guess you could buy gold coins or something, but I'm not sure we've gone that far over the cliff just yet.

UPDATE: The Fed pushed another $35 billion in liquidity into the system Friday morning, on top of the $24 billion from Thursday. And it said that it would provide "reserves as necessary" to calm the markets.

UPDATE: Oh, and Krugman weighs in. He's pretty queasy.

If you ask Michael Bérubé, this is what he would have had Dems say after they voted against the FISA bill:

To put this FISA bill in perspective, one would have to imagine Richard Nixon in 1974, with his 27 percent approval rating in the depths of the Watergate scandal, demanding from Congress the right to spy on his enemies– including his enemies in Congress. It would have been unthinkable for that Congress to give in to President Nixon’s demands, in order to help the President further undermine the Constitution and the rule of law; and it would be just as unthinkable today for this Congress to give in to President Bush’s demands, in order to help the President further undermine the Constitution and the rule of law. I will not be party to anything so foolish or destructive. I voted against this bill because I am loyal to this country and I do not trust this President– and I am proud of my vote.

Cross Posted by Not Ara

dick Cheney vs. The Sopranos

The following is reprinted without permission, but with a LINK to the original, and a nudge to check out more of McSweeney's Internet Tendency where you can find more silly lists.

BY BENJAMIN FREED

- - - -

1. "Except for the occasional heart attack, I never felt better."

2. "You sound like a damn politician with all these excuses."

3. "What can you do—throw money at the problem?"

4. "He's never won anything, as best I can tell."

5. "Next time, there won't be a next time."

6. "You couldn't fuckin' retire?"

7. "Principle is OK up to a certain point, but principle doesn't do any good if you lose."

8. "First off, it wasn't an offer. It's my position."

9. "Everyone knows that you're not really a man unless you own a gun."

10. "I'll take that Discman and I'll ram it up your box."

11. "You want compromise?"

12. "Go fuck yourself."

Answers under the fold:

And after you're done scoring yourself, read this first class rant. Read it out loud, with passion! Great therapy.

Count me among those who feel the number of debates is just fine. Granted, I don't watch every one of them (I got blindsided a couple of times because I flat-out didn't know they were happening) but they serve an important function in a year when there is no sitting president or vice-president running for the nomination. Scarecrow elaborates on this:

The debates they’re having now over foreign policy, or health care details and trade provisions are helping all of them refine the larger Democratic message. They are collectively writing the Democratic platform, instead of leaving that to the front runner a year before the conventions. They are all getting better, and Kucinich, who helps keep them all honest, reminds people that short men are not stupid or weak, and can rally the country. And it just makes me smile to wonder what Chris Matthews must think when his post-debate “experts” all agree that Kucinich did great.

Ah, Chris Matthews. He's like your beefy first baseman who hits about .240 but can power the ball over 500 feet on occasion. The rest of the time he strikes out and you tear your hair wondering if the infrequent home runs are worth carrying him on the roster.

Anyway, speaking of Kucinich, is it me or do you also believe that if he and Edwards were to switch bodies, he'd be doing better in the polls than Edwards is? In other words, is Kucinich a more authentic Edwards...than Edwards himself?

P.S. And -- dang! -- every time there's a Dem debate, traffic on this blog spikes...for the short post I wrote about Kucinich's wife. In fact, as of this morning, E Pluribus Unum is ranked #3 in Google for the keyword phrase "Kucinich's wife."

P.P.S. Come to think of it, we're ranked #1and #2 in Google for the keyword phrase "Gonzalez liar."

FactCheck.org calls BS on Republican talking points at last Sunday's debate:

• Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney falsely claimed U.S. job growth had been nearly 17 times faster than Europe's. Actually, European Union employment grew faster than that of the U.S. last year. Romney's source for the information told FactCheck.org that he himself would no longer use the figures.
  
• Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani accused Democratic candidates of "appeasement" toward Islamic terrorists. In fact, leading Democratic candidates have spoken out strongly against terrorism.
  
• Sen. John McCain claimed American families spend $140 billion of their income preparing federal income tax returns. We find no support for that figure, which the Internal Revenue Service puts at $19 billion.
  
• Rep. Tom Tancredo claimed illegal immigrants "are taking a large part of our health care dollars." But the independent Rand Corp. estimates that undocumented immigrants account for 1.5 percent of health care spending or less.

This kind of stuff should come as no surprise: it is well-known that viewers of Republican-friendly Fox News rank nearly dead-last for knowledge of national and international affairs of any newscast on broadcast or cable TV. Best informed are the viewers of the fake-news Daily Show and Colbert Report.

• OK, to be perfectly accurate, Constitution Day is September 17. But don't let that stop you from emailing a copy of the Constitution to yourself today; that way someone in the Bush Administration might actually read it. (HT to Bill Maher)

• What’s Your Constitution IQ? Take the 50 Question Expert Quiz and find out.

• Don't know about you, but I'd rather pledge allegiance to the US Constitution than to the flag. Hey, wait a minute! Aren't the President and members of Congress required to do the same thing? WTF?

• Forget about wearing a flag lapel pin; carry your own copy of the US Constitution.

• Well, if you insist: here's a gold-plated US Constitution lapel pin.

by Mark Adams

(Sorry, but I'll explode if I don't get this song out of my system.)

...And he take you away.

Very little information on the NSA Program's successes, failures, and abuses has come out thusfar; and indeed it may be less likely that more comes out in the future: Newsweek's Michael Isikoff reports tonight that the administration has raided the home of a former DOJ lawyer, Thomas Tamm, seizing his and his kids' computers, on suspicion that he was involved in leaking the program's existence to the media. Now that Congress is out of the oversight picture, I suppose it's time to kill the messengers and thereby get the media out of it too.

What, you may ask led to Tamm being led off the the most convenient gulag? Fresh off their latest finger-pointing circle-jerk and pointless demagoguery, Wingnuttystan speculates that crazed lefty blogging is to blame:

What this Newsweek story by Michael Isikoff doesn't mention is what might have caused the FBI to be suspicious of the alleged leaker---BDS blog postings by Thomas Tamm. One such BDS posting was made by a reader identifying himself as Thomas Mann in the New York Times The Caucus political blog.

Shocking, just shocking that an American might want to express his outrage against something that until yesterday was indefensibly illegal action by the government. Even more frightening is that Bill O'Reilly isn't the only one scouring the comment sections on liberal blogs to find anti-American subversives.

Hopefully, Mr. Tamm can expect better treatment than some others who undoubtedly entertain the Malkinites on the right nearly as much as they would have enjoyed lions shredding Christians and Jews in the Arena in another era:

"The Red Cross went in and got to interview these people for the first time," said Mayer on the CBS Evening News. "What these people described was hanging from the ceilings by their arms and being water-boarded, partially drowned, put on leashes and knocked into walls and basically deprived of all kinds of sensory imagery for years." [my emphasis]

They don't "hate us for our freedoms." They hate us because barbarisms have been undertaken in our names. As the conclusion of Mayer's extraordinary New Yorker article points out, my earlier lament that a government that acts outside of the law, cannot legally put the bad guys away. What made these neocons believe that they were smarter than over 200 years of constitutional tradition and centuries of democratic jurisprudence is beyond me.

NOT being an arbitrary and capricious despotic tyrany was supposedly what separated us from the likes of the Taliban and Hussein in the first place.

by Mark Adams

Show of hands.

After the last election, after the celebrations was over and you were smelling the Thanksgiving turkey, who really thought that with the Democrats taking over Congress the war would be over by now?

Anyone ... anybody ... Beuler...?

How about a rollback of Bush's NSA wiretapping program? Closing Gitmo? Seriously, weren't you pleasantly surprised that Rumsfeld was actually fired, finally, especially since the timing was backwards and could have helped the GOP more if it came before the election?

The absolute best we could have hoped for is that there would now be an honest check on the White House, that things wouldn't get worse...

...that the war wouldn't escalate...

...that the Administration wouldn't be able to finagle a way to get even more power to abuse our civil liberties because any new expansion of Patriot Act and NSA wiretapping would be DOA with the new Congress...

...that hard won seats in red districts that now have a Democratic representative could no longer be counted on to rubber-stamp George Bush's misguided policies.

Zack Space, Charlie Wilson, thank you so much for living up to expectations ... the expectations of all the people in your respective districts who don't think there's a hair's difference between a donkey and a 'phant, that all politicians are pathetic stooges who put their own self-interest above all else and worship at the alter of the highest bidder.

Space, Wilson of Ohio Vote for Bush Eavesdropping Amendment: "Two of Ohio's 18 Congressmen, Zachary Space and Charlie Wilson, both new and both Democrats, were sent to Washington last year as Ohioans turned out one political party for another. The duo, Space from Dover and Wilson from St. Clairesville, both representing fiscally and socially conservative rural districts, cast their votes for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which critics opposed to President Bush's anti-terrorism tactics said should be defeated because it would give much-needed legality to his administration's unrivaled and unchecked power to perform surveillance on persons overseas and within the United States."

This is the third strike for Space, and I'm done with Charlie too. If even Hillary Clinton knew it was not in her self-interest to support this measure, the same Hillary who has spoken about having wanted her husband to have had more power similar to that confiscated by the current administration, wimps like Space and Wilson are irredeemable.

This broad statement by Meteor Blades applies directly to you Messieurs Space and Wilson:

Because, frankly, you epitomize weak. Your every pore exudes feebleness. You are surrender monkeys. And you’ve just casually tossed away a basic protection as if it were a banana peel.

When it comes to votes that mattered, votes that highlighted a respect for principle instead of continuation of power, high profile votes that would have exemplified the courage of your convictions -- you both have proved you have none.

The Big Tent Democrat formerly known as Armando sums it up nicely:

The entire purpose of this provisions is to enhance the power of the executive and to free it from any checks and balances. It is clear that the Bush Administration, an Administration that has no basis for asking for any trust, has played the fear card to attack our Constitutional balance and overset the vision of the Framers of our Constitution.

For what it's worth, while I noted that as long as there are safeguards mindful of basic privacy expectations of ordinary citizens, I had no real problem with amending the FISA legislation per se. However, because of the very nature of this sensitive law, we really don't know all the nuts and bolts that went into it. (Unless, you know ... you actually read it (pdf) -- unlike most of our Congress Critters).

What we do know is that the circumstances surrounding its approval are highly suspects and ring of the same old notions that if you stand in the way of the President's demand for more power, you will be branded as a coward to your electorate come next fall. What we do know is that the deal Congress worked out with the National Intelligence Director was overruled by Bush himself (or more likely his alter ego in the Vice-President's office). That alone tells me that the current law goes beyond that which was necessary and proper. Any Democrat who voted for this ought to be ashamed.

Whereas the law previous insisted that the administration get FISA Court-approved search warrants to eavesdrop on communications involving Americans citizens on U.S. soil, this new law changes the landscape. If the federal government wants to spy on someone, and the target is "reasonably believed" to be overseas, a warrant is no longer necessary. [And the belief is not "clearly erroneous" - Mark]

This is just another bill, like the Military Commissions Act, the Patriot Act, and the "emergency" supplemental authorization for funding the "surge," this law was yet another example of something pushed down our throats with no real time to deliberate or consider the full ramifications. Enough Democratic Congressmen and women capitulated to the White House scare tactics to give the Administration exactly what it wanted -- and unbelievably expanded the prerogatives of Alberto Gonzales -- one of the most (if not the most) reprehensible political tools ever to run the Justice Department.

Consider this statement by Fred Hiatt of the Washington Post (via Glen Greenwald):

To call this legislation ill-considered is to give it too much credit: It was scarcely considered at all. Instead, it was strong-armed through both chambers by an administration that seized the opportunity to write its warrantless wiretapping program into law -- or, more precisely, to write it out from under any real legal restrictions.

***

The government will now be free to intercept any communications believed to be from outside the United States (including from Americans overseas) that involve "foreign intelligence" -- not just terrorism. It will be able to monitor phone calls and e-mails of U.S. citizens or residents without warrants -- unless the subject is the "primary target" of the surveillance.

Instead of having the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court ensure that surveillance is being done properly, with monitoring of Americans minimized, that job would be up to the attorney general and the director of national intelligence. The court's role is reduced to that of rubber stamp. . . .

Not convinced that this "fix" went far beyond what was necessary to simply allow us to intercept communications that were between terrorists whose network happened to cross through the United States. Not convinced that the rights of US citizens are going to be abused by design?

Maybe this report by James Risen of the NY Times, who's been on the NSA wiretapping story from the beginning (again, HT Glenn):

President Bush signed into law on Sunday legislation that broadly expanded the government’s authority to eavesdrop on the international telephone calls and e-mail messages of American citizens without warrants.

Congressional aides and others familiar with the details of the law said that its impact went far beyond the small fixes that administration officials had said were needed to gather information about foreign terrorists. They said seemingly subtle changes in legislative language would sharply alter the legal limits on the government’s ability to monitor millions of phone calls and e-mail messages going in and out of the United States.

They also said that the new law for the first time provided a legal framework for much of the surveillance without warrants that was being conducted in secret by the National Security Agency and outside the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the 1978 law that is supposed to regulate the way the government can listen to the private communications of American citizens.

“This more or less legalizes the N.S.A. program,” said Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies in Washington, who has studied the new legislation.

I don't for one minute believe that Congressmen like Space and Wilson were elected with the expectation that they would support expansion of the Unitary Executive with full Congressional approval.

And if you think that this really doesn't have any consequences to you or me, put yourself in the place of a father whose home was raided, and the computers of his children as well as his own were confiscated, merely for letting the world know that the administration was violating the law all this time. Illegal acts that now are legal.

Six month's sunset provision? Kabuki ass covering, nothing more. If you really though it mattered which party was in charge of our National Security State, you're living in a dream world where memories of a representative republic protected basic liberty are simply quaint.

Mellisa has more reactions. Does it really need to be said that if Powerline thinks Congress did the right thing, it's ghastly wrong.

Mitt Romney in Iowa this past weekend:

"I mean, in one week [Obama] went from saying he's going to sit down, you know, for tea, with our enemies, but then he's going to bomb our allies," Romney said. "He's gone from Jane Fonda to Dr. Strangelove in one week."

While I didn't watch that debate, I'd bet that his little zinger got a foot-stompin' good reception from the Republican base.

But who remembers Dr. Strangelove anymore? If anything, the name and character are more closely linked with Henry Kissinger than with Stanley Kubrick or Peter Sellars. And Jane Fonda? Have the Republicans become so ... idea-bankrupt that they're reaching back to the 1970s for iconic imagery? What's next -- calling John Edwards "Meathead?"

What that whole episode emphasizes is how old the Republican base has become. They're living in the past. The future belongs to today's young people and they aren't energized by imagery -- and issues -- from the 60s and 70s.
The last time they saw Jane Fonda was on The Colbert Report and she handled Stephen pretty well. And, more seriously, we now have full trade relations with Vietnam, right?

Lastly, how many people really believe that Pakistan and Musharref are really acting in our best interest anyway? If they're sheltering Osama bin Laden (for whatever reason), wouldn't you want to do whatever it took to catch the bastard -- whether or not that offended our "ally?"

by shep

“The fixation that Democrats, far more than Republicans, have on heresy is one of the weirder, crippling aspects of the party.”

Dear Joe,

The important difference you missed (one more thing you just don’t get) is not that Democrats are more fixated on party orthodoxy than Republicans, it is that to have heresy you must have religion. Or, in the case of Democrats vs. Republicans, you have to believe in something.

One thing that the Bush presidency should have taught you is that Republicans can’t have heresy because they don’t hold any beliefs sacred enough to rebel against - as long as they’re beating Democrats. They didn’t care about trampling on constitutional rights of American citizens, monarchical power, war profiteering, fear-mongering, the health of the military or our troops, fiscal irresponsibility, religion in public policy or corrupt government from the Abramoff congress to the Gonzales Justice Department to the Pat Tillman/Abu Ghraib/Haditha wing of the Pentagon to outright treason in the Vice President’s Office.

They. Just. Don’t. Care. As long as the miscreant with the R next to his name defeats the guy with the D next to his and the brown people and the homosexuals are kept in their places.

On the other hand, real liberals actually believe in some things. Perhaps first among equals, liberals believe in the truth (you can probably already sense why this isn’t going to turn out well for you). They believe that politicians and media stars should be scrupulously careful with it (in particular, they should never, never, never reproduce falsehood without serious criticism or, at least, disclaimer).

And that brings us to what you believe in Joe. Sadly, by all appearance, the truth doesn’t even enter into it.

The importance of the source, relationship or event, yes that matters. The cleverness of the politics, yes that matters. Even the political effectiveness of the lie, that actually matters more than the truth and the motives behind lie, doesn’t it Joe?

You see, you and your DLC pals have telegraphed, promulgated, catapulted and been had by right-wing anti-liberal, anti-Democratic lies over the last twenty years and this past six years is what it got us.

So it isn’t about heresy at all, it’s about basic morality and the evil that happens when people with power fail to act honorably. Still think it’s “weird” that liberals feel perfectly OK telling you and your ilk to go Cheney yourselves?

Well, don’t fret, Joe. The Democratic Party will have healed itself once it has redeemed or purged Blue Dog Democrats, DLC consultants and faux MSM liberals like you. Good luck in your next vocation.

[Cross-posted at Dispassionate Liberal]

by Mark Adams

Steve Benen reports at Carpetbagger there's another reason to strip Junket John Boehner's of his Ohio citizenship and deport him as far as possible from the Buckeye State he so regularly embarrasses -- preferably somewhere that has no decent golf courses.

If you've been paying attention through these lazy summer daze, you caught wind of a flurry of activity to (once again) change the FISA law (the one that's got Gonzo in so much hot water) so the President's spying program can be expanded. Something the White House has blocked for the last two years.

Bush talked about it last week, and much laughter ensued over the very idea that we could give give the Bush-Bots even more lighter fluid to douse the Constitution with. Laura Rosen posted the plea from Mike McConnell, the Director of National Intelligence, to Congress for a bill to "modernize" FISA. On it's face, the request seemed reasonable if not a bit vague. He spoke strictly about surveillance of foreign operatives on foreign soil -- something that shouldn't need court review whatsoever.

But now, thanks to House Minority Leader Boehner, and Fixed Noise, we learn that the classified FISA Court issued a secret ruling that we couldn't listen in on foreign operatives' conversations (where both subjects were overseas) when it was relayed through part of the network within the U.S. Just so we're clear, that fact was classified. Undoubtedly, there's more we don't and shouldn't know.

IF that's all there is to it, then by all means Congress should fix this problem. As far as I'm concerned, it shouldn't even be a problem. Boehner's revelations fit within both Bush and McConnell's requests. What is sad is that I would not be supportive of removing any checks on this particular administration's use of surveillance whatsoever without the disclosure of this classified information because of their unreasonable secrecy, previous power grabs, contempt of civil liberties and consistent stonewalling. And now it turns out, that the way the Administration was using (or abusing) FISA was indeed unconstitutional right along.

Neither I, nor any foreign operatives should have reason to suspect that the U.S. has the ability to easily monitor communications between two points in other countries, even if a terrorist from Canada is speaking on the phone to another conspirator in Mexico and we tap the line as it runs through Michigan. Of course we can, and should. But Boehner spelled it out in such plain language that even one of the 25 per-centers who just get their news from Fox, and still believe that Saddam Hussein ordered 9/11 can understand it. They were all to eager to smear the judge than question the integrity of Dear Leader, they didn't need to hear this tidbit.

Did they really need a skeptic like me to be okay with this? Or was Boehner really trying to get the support of the islamophobes who already are willing to bomb Mecca, as if ...

All I require is that any new changes to FISA be very carefully weighed consistent with the principles that the privacy of U.S. citizens be protected, always, and that before my communications are tapped, there be some reasonable suspicion that I may be involved in criminal activity -- that's the probable cause determination that I am entitled to based upon my inalienable rights to due process. That's what it means to live in a free society.

by Mark Adams

I'm sensitive to the fact that it may be far, far too soon to begin to point fingers regarding the Minneapolis bridge tragedy. But my memory keeps going back to the embarrassingly pork laden $286 Billion highway bill, the one that brought us the Bridge to Nowhere, the one signed into law about the same time the I-35W was determined to be a 50 on a scale of 120 for structural stability.

More people fell off the I-35W bridge than live in the Knik Arm region the Bridge to Nowhere joins to the mainland, including Senator Steven's Chief of Staff and two former aides.

Hell, there were more kids on the bus that (thank god) escaped the catastrophe than live in the Knik Arm region. Fifty people are going to be served by Steven's disgraceful $200 Million pet project -- there were more than that number injured by the bridge collapse in Minneapolis. Is there any doubt that our priorities are completely out of whack?

The bridge-collapse tragedy is a teachable moment: This is your government on conservatism.

This year two Democratic Minnesotan legislatures passed a $4.18 billion transportation package. Minnesota's Republican governor vetoed it because he had taken a no-new-taxes pledge, Grover Norquist-style. That's just what conservative politicians do.

The original bill would have put over $8 billion toward highways, city, and county roads, and transit over the next decade. The bill he let passed spent much less.

Now four people are dead, and counting.

Weirdly enough, the "Knik Arm" of the Cook Peninsula area that is now home to Anchorage Alaska was first explored by Captain Bligh of the Bounty fame. (I live for such trivia.)

Typically, wingnuttystan doesn't want anyone jumping to conclusions, mainly because this looks like yet another reason to denounce conservatism in its current incarnation as an utterly failed philosophy, and is already blaming the media which hasn't even made up its mind where their group-think will take them, and laughing at KOS for pointing out the obvious, that reporting the facts is equivalent to blame -- because the facts have a liberal bias.

Senator Al Franken does indeed have a good ring to it. Mysteriously absent from Senator Coleman's (R-MN) braggadocio about bringing home the pork, is no mention whatsoever about doing anything about this span which apparently had already been labeled structurally suspect.

Since the blog wars over this issue have already started, I guess it's not too early to point fingers, just tasteless. But my god folks, we've spent so much money blowing up and incompetently rebuilding bridges in Iraq, and we've let our own house go to hell. It's got to stop.

This is a tragic reminder that America must be vigilant to ensure the safety of our nation's infrastructure." -- John Edwards.

It's questions like this one that probably are the reason Giuliani chickened out of the CNN/YouTube Republican debate.

P.S. Remember the little kerfuffle that happened when Moore and GOP savior Fred Thompson traded videos a while back? Whatever happened to Fred Thompson after that? Anyone heard anything?