The last shred of decency in American politics went out the window last night in New York. Karl Rove threw it over board when he insisted that liberal Americans thought Osama should get therapy. Oh my, it is so ridiculous it does not deserve a response. But these bozos remain in power so respond we must. So the truth:
1. The war is very unpopular at home. There is very little W can do about this because his admin was so inept and dishonest about the planning and execution. Americans know the political leaders in this country blew it. Beligerent insistence on a fantasy is the cause for the quaqmire. Rice and Rummy played Risk with real people and now we are all paying. How do we get out of this fix - they asked themselves? distract them.
2. Rove's idiotic remarks come on the heals of Rummy putting Durbin and Jane Fonda in the same sentence. This is not chance. THe word "liberal" and "Fonda" are good old GOP standbys. The conversation - they hope - will now be about who is patriotic and who is not, at least for a while. How the war is going will be the second story - not the first. It isn't much but it is worth it to W and company. At all costs they must make us talk about something else.
3. Moderates and Liberals must keep talking about the war. How we got here and where we are now. We must continue to support the troops by opposing the war. This is how to respond to this disgusting adminstration.
4. Remember this: Rove proved last night that they have lost the PR battle. His remarks were desperate. Calculated and desperate. They know they are in trouble. Big trouble.
Rove can't change what his boss did. Until sanity and reality return to the White House all the verbal bombs they can throw won't change anything. They simply make America an uglier place to live. Not that Rice, Rove, and Rummy care. It is clear that they don't.
Just so we are clear on some talking points so we can keep the media on track.
1. The Downing Street memos ARE NEWS. Here is why it's pretty simple. A. The war is on going. B. The president who lead the country into this on going war is still in office. This is not "history". Michael "look how smug i am" Kinsley be damned.
2. The fact that Saddam is/was a very bad man is NOT NEWS. There is a desire among admin. cheer leaders to make Saddam's bad character the issue again. We all know this. Saddam is a prick. Rummy used to be quite fond of him, though. He worked with Saddam...uh...until he worked against him. Regardless, it is not the point.
3. THe DS Memos are confirmation from a government - government documents - that the reasons for war MAY have been cooked up. This IS the issue. Goverment DOCUMENTS. Not hear say. Not hunches. DOCUMENTS. Very different from the plaintive wail of the Left before the war. THIS IS NEWS.
4. How does what Bush said in the lead up differ from what is implied in these memos? I have not heard a good case for impeachment. However, if someone can prove an admin. official knowingly lied to congress we are on our way. Who was under oath? What did they say? These memos do not yet imply a broken domestic law. They do imply treason, however.
5. I hope everyone who hears this "British version of the word fixed is different" horseshit lets the person or media outlet that airs it know that it is a bald faced common lie. Orwellian nonsense. Those taking this line are liars.
We continue to need to know how this mess happened. The soilders need to know. The families need to know. The honorable thing to do is continue all pressure on congress, the White house, and the media. Support our troops. Find out the truth.
So An interesting piece over at Newsday by Ellis Henican. I wrote him a letter with my usual verve and he had the nerve to call me a bit paranoid. So i wrote him back with this. It really was a perfectly fine article. But there remains a curious desire to remain in denial about the level of denial the major media has been in about the Iraq war.
thank you. I know you must be a busy man but, hey, it's Sunday afternoon - so here goes:
PLEASE keep writing about the Downing Street Memo. If you read no further - that is the most important thing I want to say. I don't mean to accost a good writer at a good paper - but i do wonder why more papers have not pointed out the obvious biases of the major media in America.
i liked your column and i am clear that there is not one monolith called the "media" - I should have said "the televised news media in america is remarkably uniform." It goes from center right to far right. that's about it. Now i don't expect to see Noam Chomsky on Hardball every night - but there are plenty of clear thinking liberals who simply are ignored. a few random examples of this bias:
Pat Buchahan has a job on MSNBC. Al Franken on the Sundance channel.
Ollie North went from criminal to host is a few easy steps.
There is an entire cable network devoted to the concerns of business, not a single show about the concerns of labor.
Robert Novak, the one person who could tell us who outed Valerie Plane, a major crime - is gainfully employed by CNN without a care in the world.
In the entire run up to the war the people who got the mike on TV news were war hawks and military analysts. Those against the war were marginalized or ignored. And, the event that crystalized my thoughts on this:
What in the world was a male prostitute doing with a press pass to the White house? The belligerent refusal of the TV news networks to investigate how this could have happened was haunting and bizarre. To be crass about it- this story had it all - sex, deceit, politics and pictures. Perfect television. The Bush White House got a pass. I can only imagine what would have happened if Gannon was in the Clinton White House, working for a Left wing blog. In the end that story may have lead to nothing - but we shall never know.
And what the Left had to say about the war 2 years ago was pretty much what the Downing Street Memo confirms. If the television media had been doing its job at the time - i wonder how many lives would have been saved. And I am not a no war ever peace nic. I supported the war against the Taliban. String them all up and throw them off Empire State Building. I would have also supported a covert, muscular, war against Saddam - funded by us - fought by them. The guy is a son of a bitch. But not one American should have died, and to find out that we were lied to about it - then to have it take the hammering of millions of bloggers, to get major media to mention the memo after weeks of silence is shocking. We are talking about war in a democracy. Not price fixing or adultery. There does seem to be an ingrained fear of confronting Bush on the most important of issues, that actually is paranoia on the part of the press. They can't send everyone to the back of the room to sit with Helen Thomas. When did access become more important than truth?
I feel so strongly because I support our troops. What are we doing there? We need to know how this could have happened. After reading Michael Kinsley's last piece of idiocy any wise person should ask - what is going on here? Where is the other side of the issue? Aruba, I guess.
Of course, I do not represent all of California - nor do i think your column represents the "media" - I wish it did - but my views are in line with a hell of a lot of people that are routinely dismissed. It does freak me out a bit to remember how ruthless the press was with Clinton over nonsense and then watch reputable newscasts lead with Michael Jackson and 5.4 earthquakes (that NO ONE cares about out here) while a war is on. Ted Turner rightfully called it the "pervert of the day" news. Distraction television.
As for paranoid. well, paranoia with evidence to back it up - is actually wisdom. Until David Corn types get the same amount of air time as robert novak types I'd say I am right to be paranoid. And to repeat the mantra - every day those who were against the Iraq war and ignored are proven more and more correct. and those neo cons are proven to be short sighted fools. Since Americans are giving their lives and their treasure as I write I pray that you and others get to the bottom of the Downing Street Memos. I am very paranoid that W has created a generation of terrorists determined to attack my beloved, but now bankrupt, country. Oh well, it is a generation before the bills come in and Haliburton IS employing more Americans.
yours in paranoia,
Bill Frist is a Liar
Excerpts from his Senate floor speech March 17:
"A lot of people have severe disabilities, such as cerebral palsy and receptive aphasia, but [Terri Schiavo's] brother said that she responds to her parents and to him. That is not somebody in persistent vegetative state…."
"Persistent vegetative state, which is what the court has ruled, I say that I question it, and I question it based on a review of the video footage which I spent an hour or so looking at last night in my office here in the Capitol. And that footage, to me, depicted something very different than persistent vegetative state…."
"Once again, in the video footage — which you can actually see on the website today — she certainly seems to respond to visual stimuli that the neurologist puts forth."
Now - Frist this week on The Today Show:
Frist: "No, I never said she responded. I said in our review, the court videotapes … the same ones the other doctors reviewed, and I questioned, 'Is their diagnosis correct?' …. We had a presumptive diagnosis. I simply said, 'Before withdrawing food — killing her, in effect — let's make sure we have the right diagnosis.' I never, never on the floor of the Senate made a diagnosis, nor would I ever do that."
Quick update on Phillip Cooney, the White House shill who watered down the reports on global warming.
You'll be pleased to know that he has landed on his feet. He left the White House for a job with Exxon Mobil.
Isn't that just super?
The president of Gold Star Families for Peace, a mother who lost a son in Iraq, criticized the United States' "illegal and unjust war" yesterday during an interfaith rally in Lexington.
Cindy Sheehan of Vacaville, Calif., accused President Bush of lying to the nation about a war which has consumed tens of billions of dollars and claimed more than 1,700 American lives -- including the life of Army Specialist Casey Austin Sheehan.
Sheehan was one of more than a dozen activists who were scheduled to speak at yesterday's anti-war rally at the Red Mile, which was organized by the Clergy and Laity Network and co-sponsored by dozens of liberal religious organizations.
Sheehan ridiculed Bush for saying that it's "hard work" comforting the widow of a soldier who's been killed in Iraq.
"Hard work is seeing your son's murder on CNN one Sunday evening while you're enjoying the last supper you'll ever truly enjoy again. Hard work is having three military officers come to your house a few hours later to confirm the aforementioned murder of your son, your first-born, your kind and gentle sweet baby. Hard work is burying your child 46 days before his 25th birthday. Hard work is holding your other three children as they lower the body of their big (brother) into the ground. Hard
work is not jumping in the grave with him and having the earth cover you both,"
she said.
Since her son's death, Sheehan has made opposition to the Bush administration a full-time job.
Wow.
I have been thinking about family values and morality. How it doesn't seem to bother most republicans that we were told we went to war with Iraq for WMD and because Saddam was a threat. Neither was true. Nor does it bother them that there is an outbreak of cholera in Afghanistan. Darfur? No, they concern themselves with judicial appointments. Do they care that their president hasn't attended one funeral? No, what if gay people get married?
My morality means that you don't lie and get people killed in an unjustified war.
My morality means that you actually try to something about the genocide in Darfur.
My morality means that everyone is created equal, black, white, brown, gay, straight...everyone.
I really don't understand why "Christians" are more concerned about judicial appointments and gay marriage then they are about genocide. I can't get my head around that.
If their president really believed that abortion was murder wouldn't he stop it? Wouldn't he attend their rally and not phone it in? If their president really wants us to believe that we only went to Iraq to free the people then why isn't he doing anything about Darfur or Uzbekistan?
OK, so to keep you updated, I thought I'd let you know that the Editor of my paper, Manning Pynn, wrote an editorial today on the Downing Street Memo and quoted me. Here it was I thought he was ignoring me because we could never marry since my name would be Lynne Pynn.
A missing story?
Manning Pynn
Public Editor
June 12, 2005
A secret document about the Iraq war released four days before Prime Minister Tony Blair's recent re-election has prompted a wave of press coverage in Britain but barely a ripple in the United States.
The document, marked "Secret and Strictly Personal -- UK Eyes Only," summarizes a July 2002 meeting in which Richard Dearlove, the head of Britain's MI-6 intelligence service, reported to the prime minister about a meeting he had with President George W. Bush's administration.
Known as the Downing Street Memo, it states, "Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. . . . There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action."
The memo continues, "It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran."
At the time, Bush was insisting that he had made no such decision and was pursuing a diplomatic course with Iraq. He repeated that last week in a joint appearance with Blair in Washington in which, referring to the memo, he said, "There's nothing farther from the truth."
Whether or not the memo accurately reflects the president's intentions, presumably it accurately reflects what Blair was told about Bush's intentions. It was, after all, the prime minister -- facing a tough re-election -- who released the document.
Still, although the issue has been all over the British press since the Sunday Times reported about, and published, the memo May 1, it has received comparatively little attention on this side of the Atlantic.
Sentinel reader Jack Wajda learned about the memo last month and complained, "the U.S. media has ignored it up to now. Why?"
That wasn't quite the case.
Nearly two weeks passed, though, before Walter Pincus of the Washington Post wrote about it -- and 10 more days before the first article on the subject showed up in the Sentinel.
Stephen J. Hedges and Mark Silva of the Chicago Tribune noted in mid-May, "the potentially explosive revelation has proven to be something of a dud in the United States."
Advancing that theme, the Minneapolis Star Tribune wrote in an editorial Thursday, "Americans have shown much less interest than the British in a bombshell of a memo leaked last month in London."
That prompted Sentinel reader Lynne Reed of Orlando to comment, "It's not that Americans don't care; you can't care when you don't know."
She has a point.
The American press has failed to call adequate attention to the document, which, although British in origin, describes the United States government's plans for a war that continues to cost dollars and lives.
The Sentinel actually has carried three references to the memo since it surfaced 43 days ago. Two of those, though, appeared in articles that focused on other issues, and -- as has been the case in most American newspapers -- none was on the front page.
The issue is not whose version of events anyone believes.
It is whether the press is doing its job in keeping Americans informed so they can decide for themselves what to believe.
I love that I have a point. Who knew?
I do know this, persistence pays off. We need to hold the press as accountable as we hold our elected officials.
I was watching Lou Dobbs last night and I found this interesting:
In one count, of the 154 suicide bomber death notices posted on Islamic Web sites since August, 61 percent were Saudi and just 25 percent were Kuwaiti, Syrian and Iraqi, many believe connected to the terror network of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born leader of al Qaeda in Iraq. But pinpointing a precise number of foreign jihadists is an ongoing challenge to U.S. and Iraqi officials.
The military's rough estimate is anywhere from five to 10 percent of the insurgency. One senior American military official provided CNN with a nationality snapshot of fighters captured during Baghdad anti- insurgency push Operation Lightning. Of the 1,000 people netted, 50 were non-Iraqis, most from Sudan, Syria and Saudi Arabia.
OK, couple of interesting things here. 61% of the suicide bombers are Saudis. But they're our friends, right? I mean not all of the men who highjacked the planes that flew into the World Trade Center were Saudis. Clearly, Saudi Arabia is not our problem. No, the president likes to hold hands with his chums from Saudi.
Five percent of the 1000 people captured were foreigners. The rest were Iraqis. Now that we know we didn't go to Iraq for the WMD but to free the people I would really appreciate an explanation how we're fighting Iraqis to free Iraqis. We have "freed" the people of Iraq from running water and electricity, that's true. I suppose the argument could be made that by killing Iraqis you're freeing them from life but that seems a bit, well, STUPID.
Do we all remember during the 2000 campaign when this president said he would have a humble foreign policy? That he didn't believe in nation building. I know I'm being rude to bring up the president's own words to contradict him but what can you do?
By the way - the Taliban is re-forming (and I don't mean changing their ways) and another American was killed in Afghanistan yesterday, bringing the total killed to five in the past week.
So, we never finished the first war, we dashed into the second which President Bush said that major combat operations were over two years ago. At least two Americans are dying every day in Iraq and Rumsfeld says the Iraqi Insurgency is in its last throes.
Here's what I don't get. Why doesn't it bother anyone who voted for President Bush that he lied? Why don't they care that he said we were going to Iraq because they were a threat to us and they had WMD's. No one ever said in the build up to the war that we were going to create a democracy in the Middle East. No one said that we were going to free the people from the atrocities that we provided the weapons for Saddam to carry out. How can they just accept that we have revised history to fit the situation? Are we doing to rename Washington D.C. Bushingrad?
There's an editorial in the Minneapolis Star Tribune today about the Downing Street Memo. The Star Tribune was the first paper in the US to print the memo.
On the subject of when, why and how the United States decided to attack Iraq, American citizens' recent seeming lack of interest has been a puzzle to many in the rest of the world. As the Bush administration's stated reasons for war shifted, ebbed and flowed, many simply went with the flow, finding each succeeding reason -- well, reason enough. Some became more and more skeptical, even cynical; others just didn't know what to believe. But whatever their reasons, Americans have shown much less interest than the British in a bombshell of a memo leaked last month in London.
OK - So I do take issue with this - how can anyone be interested in something they don't know about? How much coverage has there been. In my paper, The Orlando Sentinel, NOTHING. I've written the editor, who is very nice, to ask for coverage. I sent him this editorial today so I'll let you know what he says.
Yesterday it came out that the Bush administration had a man who was not a scientist and used to lobby for petroleum changing the reports on Global warming. Yesterday the Bush Administration told the tobacco industry they only wanted $10 billion instead of the original $137 billion for anti smoking education. The judge in the case wants to know why.
But these stories don't make the headlines or the television news. Now, I feel sorry for the family of the cute, blond girl from Alabama. But isn't the fact that 1685 of our soldiers are now dead in a war that we lied to get into is a bit more important? I'm really sorry, but it should get so much more coverage. The fact that we haven't finished in Afghanistan where two soldiers were killed yesterday and the Taliban is gaining strength should get more coverage.
We didn't finish one war. We jumped into another. It was supposed to be over in 90 days. 30 Days to prepare, 30 days to win and then 30 days and we were out. We didn't catch Bin Laden. We are torturing prisoners. This is not who we are supposed to be.
We care, we really do. But we need the press to do their jobs.
Now, in my paper this was a blurb buried on the bottom of page four. In the New York Times this is the second story on their web page:
A White House official who once led the oil industry's fight against limits on greenhouse gases has repeatedly edited government climate reports in ways that play down links between such emissions and global warming, according to internal documents.
In handwritten notes on drafts of several reports issued in 2002 and 2003, the official, Philip A. Cooney, removed or adjusted descriptions of climate research that government scientists and their supervisors, including some senior Bush administration officials, had already approved. In many cases, the changes appeared in the final reports.
The dozens of changes, while sometimes as subtle as the insertion of the phrase "significant and fundamental" before the word "uncertainties," tend to produce an air of doubt about findings that most climate experts say are robust.
Mr. Cooney is chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the office that helps devise and promote administration policies on environmental issues.
Before going to the White House in 2001, he was the "climate team leader" and a lobbyist at the American Petroleum Institute, the largest trade group representing the interests of the oil industry. A lawyer with a bachelor's degree in economics, he has no scientific training.
Isn't that just super? How many lies and obfuscations are we going to allow this White House to get away with before we all storm the Bastille?
Let's see if this gets any more coverage than the Downing Street Memo.
Sure there's no Global Warming, especially when you, ONCE AGAIN, fix the intelligence to match your foregone conclusions.
Hey kids, let's put on a musical.
Kidding, kidding.
But, we have a project.
Common Cause and Move On are on this so let's jump on the bandwagon.
The Downing Street Memo needs to be investigated. It needs coverage.
Common Cause wants you to call/email all four major networks. I say we concentrate on one and send them a barrage of emails and a hail storm of calls.
I think throwing in something shameful wouldn't hurt either, like where are OUR Woodward and Bersteins? You get the picture.
This is what the right does all the time. We need to learn from them and use what works.
I thought we'd start with NBC. I like that David Gregory, and I don't want to bother Peter Jennings while he's sick.
NBC Nightly News
Phone: 212-664-4971
nightly@nbc.com
If you're feeling like calling everyone else here's their info:
ABC World News Tonight
Phone: 212-456-4040
PeterJennings@abcnews.com
CBS Evening News
Phone: 212-975-3691
evening@cbsnews.com
PBS NewsHour with Jim Lehrer
Phone: 703-739-5000
newshour@pbs.org
I would really appreciate it if you could pass this on to your chums and cohorts. Let's get out of the echo chamber on on to the streets!
Thanks so much!
The Genocide in Darfur is going to the International Criminal Court.
Senator Biden said on This Week that we would send troops to Darfur
There is a GREAT piece of legislation in Connecticut to take money out of politics.
The Ohio Coin-gate is heating up.
Kerry is going to propose an investigation into the Downing Street Memo today.
Ben Bradley SPANKED Pat Buchanon on This Week (check out the video on Crooks and Liars).
Crooks and Liars has another great video of G. Gordon Liddy getting spanked, too. (I do have to admit that we belonged to the same country club as the Liddy's when I was growing up. His son was on the swim team and he was hoooottttt.)
I happen to think it's good news that Deep Throat has come out because maybe, just maybe, people will make the connection between the Nixon White House and the Bush White House.
Now, if only we could find out who leaked Valarie Plame....
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