Massive Dust Cloud Heading Toward U.S.

Apparently it's a different one than Mr. Bush uses to hide the truth.

London Police Act Like Bush, Pump Five Bullets into Head of Innocent Man

True to form, Faux News whooed and congratulated London police for uncharacteristically pumping five bullets into the head of a man that was thought to have something to do with the latest attempted bombings. Only it turns out the man not only had no connection to terrorists, he's apparently completely innocent... and quite dead.

Enough is fucking enough.

Political Switchboard

Stop by and visit the Political Switchboard.

Raging Grannies at Recruitment Center: "Deploy Us So the Boys Can Come Home!"

God love 'em.

And thanks to Innovative News for posting the link.

Americans Expect World War III?

Eeek.

But then, a good percentage of Americans expect the Rapture will occur before we're all killed off by Global Warming and Bush's stupidity. Go figure.

Slate: Studies Show Terrorists Don't Hate Us for Our "Freedom" But For Our Incursions into Arab Land

Excellent piece, makes me want to read the studies themselves.

But Bush just keeps saying, and it's pure stupidity, "they hate us for the freedoms (I'm trying to take away from all of you!").

Secret White House Plan Had Bush Promoting John Roberts for More than a Year Before His "Surprise" Nomination

I am furious crimson (not to be confused with curious, yellow).

Drug Abuse Way Up Among Soldiers

Story from the London Telegraph.

I worry that with the military giving these soldiers so many goodies to keep fighting, feel pumped, etc. that we're going to see astronomical drug abuse as more and more soldiers return from war so that it makes the post Vietnam addiction rates pale in comparison.

Green Light for Bomb Builders

Another "read it and weep" scenario brought to you by the military industrial complex's bestest friend ever, George W. Bush.

DSM Anniversary

Did anyone attend, participate in, hear about any special actions or events regarding today's observance of the third anniversary of the Downing Street Memo?

Only in Bush's America Would Our Commander in Soiled Briefs

object to any attempt to curtail torture at Gitmo. Story here.

And while we're at it, Buzzflash points us to this really God awful Rush Limbaugh page from people who love their Club Gitmo "torture's great, wish you were here" t-shirts.

For Those Looking for a Transcript of Yesterday's Dem Hearings on Rove and Libby the Leaky

Here.

I'd copy some salient passages but:

1) it's in PDF format so it doesn't let you copy
2) I've got 8 chapters due by Monday morning along with 300 photographs so I don't really have time to transcribe
3) have I mentioned I can be very lazy at times? No? Consider yourself warned.

Condi's Wild About Ari and Ari's Crazy 'Bout Her

Wow, I am just so touched over the amazingly close relationship between our Secretary of Snit Condi Rice and Israeli PM Ariel Sharon.

Touched, I tell you. Sort of like I get touched by a porcupine's quills or a bush of thorns.

The Spies Who Came Into the Gold

aka Profiteers Gone Wild.

Here, in the LA Times. You can find a longer, more detailed version at TomDispatch.

Is Roberts Nomination a Florida Election Theft Payoff

Story here:

Why is John Roberts being nominated by George Bush to the U.S. Supreme Court? Could it possibly have anything to do with the fact that this Republican lawyer was tapped to advise Florida Gov. Jeb Bush on how to steal the 2004 presidential election for his grateful brother?

The Miami Herald reported on July 21st that: "U.S. Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts provided legal advice to Gov. Jeb Bush in the weeks following the November 2000 election as part of the effort to make sure the governor's brother won the disputed presidential vote. Roberts, at the time a private attorney in Washington, D.C., came to Tallahassee to advise the state's Republican administration as it was trying to prevent a Democratic end-run that the GOP feared might give the election to Al Gore."

And if that isn't clear enough for you, consider the words of U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, D-FL.: "Judge Roberts worked to ensure that George Bush would become president -- regardless of what the courts might decide. And now he is being rewarded for that partisan service by being appointed to the nation's highest court."

So much for President Bush tapping the best man (or woman) for the job!

Kerry Seeks Release of "Secret" Paperwork on Nominee Roberts

Sometimes, even Kerry can be useful.

Polls show the American people favor tough questioning of this nominee while Bushies demand a cake walk.

Tough Brit Guardian Profile of Karl Rove

Here:

When Karl Rove is in trouble - and he has been in a lot of it lately - George Bush has a simple way of showing his support. When he walks across the lawn out of the White House he has Rove walk with him, so the next day's photographs will show that familiar pink, bespectacled face at the presidential shoulder.

This is the currency in which President Bush repays loyalty, and no one is as loyal as Karl Rove. Before they met, George junior was just a genial fellow from a famous family with very good connections. Rove, the hard-nosed political geek who can reel off 20-year-old election results from obscure congressional districts, turned the callow pretender into a candidate, then a governor, then a president.

John Bolton Regularly Divulged "Secret Information" to Judith Miller

I'd like to think this absolutely kills an chance he had for a late summer recess appointment but Bush to force Bolton down our throats. Yet, sadder still, I know better.

Supreme Court Nominee Roberts' Role in the Florida 2000 Vote Debacle

Pretty convenient case of amnesia at 1600 Pennylvania...

Whether due to fading memories or a White House-imposed silence, few of those involved recall details about Supreme Court nominee John Roberts' advice to Gov. Bush during the 2000 recount.

. Right. No one remembers. Uh huh.

Former Intelligence Folks Critical of Bushies' Outing of Valerie Plame Wilson

Fro Ed and Publisher:

WASHINGTON Former U.S. intelligence officers criticized President Bush on Friday for not disciplining Karl Rove in connection with the leak of the name of a CIA officer, saying Bush's lack of action has jeopardized national security.

In a hearing held by Senate and House Democrats examining the implications of exposing Valerie Plame's identity, the former intelligence officers said Bush's silence has hampered efforts to recruit informants to help the United States fight the war on terror. Federal law forbids government officials from revealing the identity of an undercover intelligence officer.

"I wouldn't be here this morning if President Bush had done the one thing required of him as commander in chief-- protect and defend the Constitution," said Larry Johnson, a former CIA analyst, who calls himself a Republican. "The minute that Valerie Plame's identity was outed, he should have delivered a strict and strong message to his employees."

Rove, Bush's deputy chief of staff, told Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper in a 2003 phone call that former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife worked for the CIA on weapons of mass destruction issues, according to an account by Cooper in the magazine. Rove has not disputed that he told Cooper that Wilson's wife worked for the agency, but has said through his lawyer that he did not mention her by name.<font>

Nearly 50 Dead So Far in Egypt Blast, Hundreds More Hurt

This, from the Guardian (UK).

Juan Cole: Women, SC Nominee Roberts, and the Regression of Women in Iraq

Juan Cole has an excellent piece up on all of the above here.

Juan is very accurate when he puts it as "Bush's war on women". Time and time again, he shows that while he may depend on a Karen Hughes and a Condi Rice, he has no respect for the gender.

But let's face it: Bush shows monumental disrespect for almost everything, from the truth to the sacrifice of soldiers, to the Iraqi and Afghan people as a whole, to the quality of life (where frozen"snowflake babies" matter more than living human beings), to education, the environment....Man, the list is exhausting. Would be easier to note the few things he does indicate some modicum of respect for, like Karl Rove. ::cough::

Howie Kurtz: How the Bushies Spun Us Silly on Roberts Nomination

It's bad when even GOP shill Howie Kurtz notes how Bush's White House controls every message.

Faith in Value of American Dollar Continues in Dramatic Free Fall

Now China has announced it will no longer tie its own currency to the US dollar. This is big and this is bad.

White House Web Site Still Shows Bogus Uranium Claim

As Buzzflash points out, the White House site still shows this. And considering how often they doctor the taxpayer-funded site for their own purposes, trust me, it would have changed by now unless they chose to keep it in place.

Distrust Goes Both Ways

Strong - but apt - words from the Progressive Daily Beacon:

George "W"idow-maker Bush claims he "trusts" the American people's judgment, but it is crystal clear he doesn't. That is okay however, because according to the latest polls, Pew being the most recent, the public doesn't trust Bush either.

Let's face it, if Bush really trusted the American people's judgment he wouldn't have told them so many lies, and he wouldn't have so suddenly decided upon a Supreme Court nominee, as part of a concerted effort to knock Rove and probably his entire administrations treasonous act of outing a CIA agent to the press, out of the headlines. Let's face it -- and perhaps, it is time Bush and Rove do too -- the American people, it seems, are on to Rove's pre-school bait and switch magical tricks. This latest slight of political hand, i.e., moving up Roberts' nomination to the Supreme Court in an effort to cover the Bush-Rove act of treason isn't working.

Well, okay, it is working on CNN, MSNBC and FOX (truth be told, the people at FOX probably helped Rove plan the distraction) because they all seem able to find time to continue the coverage of the so-called "flip-flop-flap" scandal, but no time for continuing the Rove-Bush Plamegate treasonous act. Still, many in the mainstream print-press aren't simply allowing the Bush-Rove "duck-n-cover" behind the Supreme Court game, to go unchallenged. It is the print media's continued willingness to analyze the latest game of school-yard political magic, which indicates the American people aren't buying into the charade either.

The press will only report something bad about Bush, if it is too obvious not to. So, when the press claims Bush is trying to hide his criminal activity behind Roberts' nomination, you know full well the people can see through it too.

We've had several gleanings from conversations Bush has had with others that he does not trust the American people or understand how they think. And yet, for far too long, Americans rated him as "basically honest" and a "good guy".

Yeah, a good guy who let 9/11 happen, asked no tough questions afterward, and then lied us into Iraq. Stinks.

Rove: This White House Will Lie About Anything

Keith Olbermann tonight had some details about the Rove case that I haven't heard before. First, there's been talk about a State Department memo that talked about Wilson's conclusion that the Niger yellow cake story was bogus. At some point, Colin Powell and Ari Fleisher were believed to have been seen aboard Air Force I reading this.

But notably, the document clearly states the material is top secret. If true, this ends ANY speculation that Rove, Libby, etc. had no knowledge Valerie Plame Wilson's covert CIA spy status was "secret" (common sense might tell you that).

Secondly, it turns out that when Fleisher was seen reading it was the day AFTER Wilson's op/ed piece in the Times appeared, which suggests there was an operation afoot then to burn the Wilsons in retaliation by sending this document around and making certain word got out.

And on a side note, here's John Dean's piece saying that the situations does NOT look good for Rove.

When it Stops Being a Difference in Idealogy and Simply Is Sick

I've written here before that - while I am generally very opposed to the death penalty because a civilized society should not practice state-sponsored murder - I was appalled that Eric Rudolph was allowed to plea bargain his way out of the death penalty. Appalled specifically because this Justice Department, ready to execute someone for jay walking, suddenly becomes compassionate over a bomber responsible for several deadly explosions and the deaths and terrible injuries of many.

But here's a situation where this case has become more appalling to me. The nurse who was so terribly hurt in the women's clinic bombing said she had learned that when the prosecution in the Birmingham case ran the facts through four different mock juries, three of those juries voted to acquit Rudolph. They voted this way, they reported, NOT because the prosecution had failed to prove its case and NOT because they felt Rudolph was innocent.

Instead, 3 of these 4 mock juries voted to acquit because their overwhelming feeling was that anyone who works in a women's clinic which performs abortions "gets what is coming to them".

I can appreciate that life is precious. As I've said too many times, almost no one is pro abortion. Instead, they believe in the right for a woman to make her own choices about her own bodies. Such people want women to have the ability to abstain from pregnancy when they do not choose to become pregnant, but always favor prevention of conception rather than termination of a fetus.

Set aside for a moment that most "women's clinics" do relatively few - if any - abortions. They're there for pap smears, STD detection, and overall GYN health as well as education of women - and men - about choosing when to become pregnant and the options available to conceive only when they choose.

But the question to me then comes down to how fucking mentally ill do you have to be to feel that it's better to let a multiple bomber go free than it is to prosecute said bomber because they believe that every life is precious UNLESS that life happens to work in a women's clinic?

Speaking of the Toxic Toothpick, Ann-Thrax

Raw Story talks about Ann Coulter plaguarizing material from a conservative magazine.

You mean her hate-filled diatribe isn't even her own work? Tsk tsk tsk. I always thought she was sooo credible, too.

Ann Coulter: Mission Implausible

I like this post at Buffalo Beast, with the snippet here (go read the whole thing):

Ann Coulter is not an intelligent person. She is not the right-wing equivalent of Michael Moore. She is just a worthless, hateful moron who deserves to die in the most painful way imaginable. It is unbelievable that this moronic cokehead is considered legitimate by our media, while a guy like Howard Zinn is "fringe."

Basically last week's rhetorical defecation from Coulter is a good symbol for the entire right wing last week, when the Rove-Plame-Wilson leak scandal was the top story and not going away. Coulter is flailing here, simply incapable of admitting that her guys might have commited treason--incidentally, the title of one of her inaccuracy-riddled, liberal-bashing, best-selling books. She has nothing, so she goes straight for the name-calling (Wilson is referred to throughout the column as "Clown Wilson"-- how clever and mature, not obnoxious at all), and, of course, the regurgitation of lies which have already been clearly disproved.

John McCain: Apparently Off His Lithium Again

On Hardball, McCain is now saying Rove HAD to speak to the reporters to correct all the misinformation Joe Wilson put out there. And when asked if it's proven Rove did something wrong, he laughed and stuttered and indicated truth is a relative term.

This man should not get anywhere near the presidency. He does NOT operate in reality. I don't understand (any longer) how anyone can think he's particularly honorable or no-nonsense.

Fried Rice: The One Who Never Says She's Sorry or Wrong Demands an Apology

Yes, I would say the treatment by the Sudanese today sounds fairly rough.

But I was floored when I heard how Condoleeza Rice demanded an apology today considering this is a woman who has never admitted she was wrong, made a mistake, failed to do her best. And her screw-ups are monumental. Dear Condi treats this country and the rest of the world with utter contempt. Only her husband... er... president is perfect, noble, wise, and ever so truthful.

Thankfully for her, in the Bush White House, the greater your transgressions, the more lucrative the rewards. Only the truthtellers get slammed, drawn and quartered, and barbecued.

"Whoops, PlameGate Story is Back on Page One"

If only Mr. Bush could either a) read or b) use the Web, he's be really pissed at this headline in Editor and Publisher.

Before the Rove issue got so hot, Bush said he might take until the end of his little summer (month long) vacation to name a Supreme Court candidate. Too bad he wasn't able to distract everyone as effectively as he once seemed to do.

Abuses of the Patri-Idiot Act

From Brad Blog:

Conyers Says PATRIOT Act Provisions 'Subject to Wide Spread Abuse'

Cites Several Hundred Instances in Floor Debate Today over Act's Renewal

Supports Most Provisions, But Concerned about 'Protecting Civil Liberties While Fighting Terrorism'

Earlier today, Larisa Alexandrovna of RAW STORY reported on the 70-page position paper released by House Judiciary Democrats outlining their disenting view on the renewal of the PATRIOT Act as now being debated on the House floor.

In a statement obtained by The BRAD BLOG for today's debate, Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), the ranking member of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, calls several of the PATRIOT Act provisions -- 16 of which are now up for renewal -- into question, cited hundreds of instances of "abuse" and outlined those provisions which he viewed as the most significant threat to our civil liberties.

Citing evidence of "a few provisions that are subject to abuse, and need greater checks and balances," Conyers outlined three of the provisions specifically of concern during debate today of "HR 3199 USA Patriot and Terrorism Prevention Reauthorization Act of 2005"

Amongst those which Conyers' expressed concerned about is Section 215 which allows for the FBI to obtain any record "relevant" to an investigation, including library books and medical records. Conyers' said that targets are not allowed to tell anyone -- even their own attorneys -- about such records requests. The provision has been "abused," said Conyers', citing reports from the American Library Association alone of some 200 such requests since September 11.

The Panel on the PlameGate Travesty

Smart words from Skippy (who needs just 4,000 more hits to make his million mark - help the 'roo who informs all of you)!

davidcnyc of dkos tells us to call or email cspan to tell them to cover tomorrow's democratic hearing into the plame leak. see congressman henry waxman's diary for details.

Gee, Why Wouldn't You Trust the World's Security and Future to This Man?

The only one who should have been insulted by Hillary Clinton's comparison of our president to Alfred E. Newman is the fictional Newman himself. Urp.

Bush's Trustworthiness Rating in Polls Continues Free Fall

So what are people drinking now that they've started reducing their Kool-aid consumption?

Cheney's Involvement in lPlameGate Deepens (Like the Stench)

From the Boston Globe's Derrick Jackson:

THE NEWS that Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff was the second possible source in the leaking of the identity of a CIA agent to Time magazine elevates the scandal to a whole new level. It is bad enough for Karl Rove to be accused of being a leaker, since he is President Bush’s chief political strategist.

But if Time’s story holds, I. Lewis Libby’s involvement represents an even more insidious abuse of power. The Bush administration is being accused of leaking the name of Valerie Plame in retribution for a New York Times op-ed article written by her husband, diplomat Joseph Wilson. Wilson wrote that he never found any evidence in a 2002 trip to Africa, contrary to claims made by President Bush in his 2003 State of the Union address, that Saddam Hussein was procuring uranium from Niger for nuclear weapons.

Bush would invade Iraq over weapons of mass destruction that were never found. But Libby, Cheney, and the other influential right-wing hard-liners, such as Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Armitage, Richard Perle, and Douglas Feith, saw their dreams come true. Back in the administration of the senior President Bush, Cheney was defense secretary and Libby and Wolfowitz were two of his aides who, after the first Gulf War left Saddam in power, drafted a document advocating ‘‘preemptive’’ war against possible threats.

Bloggers: Meet the Rove-Bot

RJ Eskow has decided to make our lives much, much easier - almost as easy as if Bush and Cheney get frog-marched out of the White House and into Guantanamo Bay for crimes against not just this country but humanity (ah, a girl can dream, can't she?).

Meet the Rove-bot!

Thanks to Skippy for the heads-up, where RJ also posts.

Another Open Thread: How Do You Feel about Bush's Supreme Court Choice

Right now, the best I can say about nominee John Roberts is that he's not the absolute worst Bush could have tossed out there. But I'm concerned. It also irritated how fast people came down on Sandra Day O'Connor for voicing disappointment that another woman was not nominated when I feel she had the right to say what she did (she lauded Roberts' background at the same time).

How do you feel about it?

So-called Moderate Dems are already saying they won't filibuster. Even Joementum Lieberman, sporting a beard for some strange reason (he does look a little less like a doof with it but he's still Joe Lieberman).

Open Thread: Post Your Thoughts on London, Western Policy, Terrorism, Whatever

I've got an insane writing schedule today but I'll be popping in as I can.

Please feel free to share your thoughts, anger, fear, sadness, or links to interesting articles regarding the above.

"Harry Potter and the Decline of the West"

Reader CK points us to this interesting article in the Asia Times Online. And yes, it's about more than Harry Potter.

London Again

So there were attempts to set off devices in London in the same configuration as before: three underground stations and one bus, all happening again on a Thursday morning.

People were so angry when Livingtone, the mayor of London, said the other day that one must look at Western policies to see where this hatred comes from. But I have to say that I must agree with him. Our policies - US policies that Blair has gone along with - are indeed fueling this.

As the Christian Science Monitor pointed out so intelligently in the wake of 9/11, there is a very fine line between the terms terrorist and freedom fighters.

Compare the deaths two weeks ago and what damage we know already from today and you simply do not see the kind of mass casualties and destruction you see in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq every single day. Yet Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney keep smiling and smirking and saying "all is well" and that the insurgency is on its last legs. We have plenty of evidence what they say is a lie, so where is the proof that they are instead telling the truth?

In this country, except to incite more fear here, Mr. Bush and company largely ignored the first bombings in London. There was outrage in Britain and the rest of Europe because of it. While Blair raced here after 9/11 to stand in solidarity with the US, Bush didn't even so much as mention the moment of silence held last week for the Brit bombings. Haven't heard from Bush today either.

When will we learn? Clearly, not while Mr. Bush or Mr. Cheney is in office.

Boston Globe: Hard-Hitting Speculation on Why Bush Has Not Acted on Karl Rove

Note: Here's the correct link. Thanks to Reader MissM for catching it.

First, let me encourage you to read the entire editorial letter, it's short but packs quite a punch. Just as they state, absolutely nothing happens in the Bush Administration by accident (part of why 9/11 is so disturbing).

Here's the killer wrapup, however, and bless them for saying what too many fear to state:

So why has Bush not acted? It seems there are two possibilities. The first is that he is a man of his word only when it suits his interests. Rove has been instrumental in Bush's political success. Perhaps Bush meant to say that he has one set of rules for his advisers and another for everyone else. The second, more disturbing, possibility is that Bush authorized, either explicitly or implicitly, the leak to retaliate against Joseph C. Wilson IV, who publicly presented evidence that the administration was distorting facts to sell the American people on going to war. Either way, the president has painted himself into a corner.

Poor Judith Miller

Bill Keller apparently wants us to queue up the sad violin music when thinking about poor (lying) Miller sitting in a jail cell.

"Republicans Must Choose: Bush or America"

Posted at Yahoo tonight:

NEW YORK--"Karl Rove is loyal to President Bush," a correspondent wrote as Treasongate broke. "Isn't that a form of patriotism?" Not in a representative democracy, I replied. Only in a dictatorship is fealty to the Leader equal to loyalty to the nation. We're Bush's boss. He works for us. Unless that changed on 9/11 (or 12/20/00). Rove had no right to give away state secrets, even to protect Bush.

Newly loquacious Time reporter Matt Cooper has deflated half a dozen Rove-defending talking points since we last visited. Republicans, for instance, have argued that Rove had merely confirmed what Cooper already knew: that Valerie Plame was a
CIA agent. That claim evaporated in Cooper's piece in the magazine's July 25 issue: "This was the first time I had heard anything about Wilson's wife."

Intel Officers Protest the Treatment of Valerie Plame by GOP Talking heads

Josh Marshall points us to this letter, signed by seveal current and former intel officers, who resent the way the GOP talking heads are discrediting Valerie Plame and the way she was outed.

AP Says John Roberts is Bush's Pick for Supreme Court

Roberts signed onto a brief that said Roe vs Wade was wrongly decided and has written various so-called "anti-abortion" briefs. He's also got a bad track record on the environment. He's on been on the federal bench (DC Circuit) for a couple of years, and seated by this president. Was formerly Rehnquist's law clerk.

He is not considered one of the more progressive minded conservatives by any stretch of the imagination.

Ugh.

Clement Out as Supreme Court Pick; Antonin Scalia Prodigy In

That's the word coming around since 6 PM.

Clement, I suspect, was stuck out there as a floater.

Bush to Announce Supreme Court Nominee at 9 Tonight

I hope to God it's not Judge Roy Moore, but speculation is swirling around a woman, Edith Clement, a member of the Federalist Society (ugh) and appointed to the federal bench in Louisiana by Poppy Bush.

Speculation also says he's eager to announce a candidate to take discussion off the Rove affair.

Terri Schiavo

The General offers up a MUST READ review of Mark Furman's ::cough:: book detailing the untold secrets of what he calls Mrs. Schiavo's "murder".

Priceless.

Remember: This Saturday is the Downing Street Memo's 3rd Anniversary

Events are planned all over. There's probably one near you.

Buzzflash offers a round-up.

Three Days of Iraqi Bombing - 110 Dead, More than 300 Injured

Last throes of the "dead end" insurgency, indeed.

If You're Wondering How the Rove Story is Playing with the Masses

... as I have, apparently, it is getting attention.

Polls, overwhelmingly, show that Americans do understand the situation and believe the White House is behaving inappropriately.

Here, for example, are the results reported by ABC news where 75% believe that Bush and the White House is deliberately NOT cooperating with the investigation. This compares to about 50% believing the WH was cooperating back not long after the story first broke in July 2003.

Of particular interest, Republicans are almost as likely as Dems to believe that if Rove is likely guilty of this crime, he should be fired.

Hmmm... Kool-aid may not be the refreshing summer drink it once was.

Bush Will Get Osama Dead or Alive...

...if Osama walks into the White House and steals the TV remote while Bush is trying to watch Saturday morning cartoons.

Sound ludicrous?

No more so than yesterday's statement that only if someone is convicted of a crime, he would consider removing them from his administration. As Keith Olbermann pointed out on last night's Countdown, Bush didn't move the goal post, he moved the entire stadium.

It's not partisan bickering to want to remove Rove's - and now Libby's - security clearance. Both men, according to sworn grand jury testimony, have revealed national security secrets for no other reason than political retribution.

Also, people's security clearance is removed everyday with just the hint of impropriety because the prevailing wisdom is that if scandal touches someone with such clearance, "evil forces" can use it to blackmail the person.

So why is there any reticence whatsoever to remove the security clearance of "Bush's Brain" and Scooter Libby, who just happens to be Dick Cheney's senior man?

Booking Turd Blossom

As recommended by the delightful MissM, offered for your enjoyment:


Bravo to Mike Tidmus, who produced this better version of a Time cover.

The Bushies: Not Just Insulting But Flat Out Assaulting Our Intelligence

Shakespeare's Sister has some strong - and to my view - highly appropriate words for the Bushies in the way they are spinning the Iraq cooked war/PlameGate affair. The lies being told now are actually more out of touch with reality than the ones leading up to war. Just the Sunday pol talk shows yesterday were a good example of how the Bushies just expect us to believe anything, regardless of how silly or erroneous or divorced from documented evidence their spin is.

Someone needs to tell them enough is enough. That someone should be ALL Americans.

When it's Clean the Bathroom, Do Quarterly Taxes, or Take a Quiz

::cough:: I brush! Usually five times a day. Usually.

From the "How Will You Die?" quiz.

You scored as Disease. Your death will be by disease. Maybe a foreign bug or you don't brush your teeth. Ew. BRUSH! Disease 87% Suicide 87% Bomb 73% Stabbed 60% Posion 60% Gunshot 47% Eaten 47% Accident 47% Suffocated 40% Disappear 33% Natural Causes 33% Cut Throat 20% Drowning 0% How Will You Die?? created with QuizFarm.com

Bush Had a Hand in Cooking Iraqi Elections?

From Sunday's Times:

WASHINGTON, July 16 - In the months before the Iraqi elections in January, President Bush approved a plan to provide covert support to certain Iraqi candidates and political parties, but rescinded the proposal because of Congressional opposition, current and former government officials said Saturday.

[snip]

The statement appeared to leave open the question of whether any covert help was provided to parties favored by Washington, an issue about which the White House declined to elaborate.

The article, by Seymour M. Hersh, reports that the administration proceeded with the covert plan over the Congressional objections. Several senior Bush administration officials disputed that, although they recalled renewed discussions within the administration last fall about how the United States might counter what was seen as extensive Iranian support to pro-Iranian Shiite parties.

Well, we've certainly witnessed the contempt with which Mr. Bush holds a democratically elected candidate right here at home.

Bush Took the Brits on a Wild, Joy Ride

That's what foreign affair experts are saying in Sunday's WaPo.

"Scooter" Libby Spoke with Reporters about Plame, Too

From the Financial Times:

US Vice-President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis I. "Scooter" Libby, spoke to a Time magazine reporter prior to the leaking of the name of a covert CIA agent, the reporter has told a grand jury investigating the issue.

Matt Cooper, who escaped a jail sentence when he agreed to testify in the case, told the jury that he spoke to Mr Libby as well as to Karl Rove, the deputy White House chief of staff and the top political adviser to US President George W. Bush.

The testimony places a second top Bush official at the centre of a politically charged investigation into whether anyone in the administration broke US laws in an effort to undermine a high-profile critic of the Iraq war.

In an account of his testimony published yesterday, Mr Cooper said that neither Mr Libby nor Mr Rove revealed the name of the agent, nor did they mention her covert status. But the White House had previously denied that either man spoke to reporters about the issue. Mr Cooper also told NBC News yesterday that there might have been other sources as well for the stories.

No big surprise. Scooter, Dick Cheney's senior dick, is said to have been "completely and utterly obsessed with Joe Wilson" after Wilson came back to report the yellow cake documents were a lie.

Like Rove, Scooter is purportedly one of the three men Scott McClellan personally asked back in 2003 if they had had this "outing" conversation with the press and, also like Rove, Scooter claimed he had not. And then Scott - who won't of course pre-judge or comment on an ongoing investigation - assured the American public through the WH press corps that these men do not lie.

::cough::

Don't Let the Title Throw You

Say hello to Recovering Liberal.

Christian Science Monitor: Bush's "Honest and Straightforward" Rep is Definitely Gone

From today's Christian Science Monitor:

WASHINGTON – When George W. Bush ran for president in 2000, he sought to contrast himself implicitly with President Clinton, promising to restore "honor and integrity" to the White House. The argument seemed to work.

Now, in the public's view, President Bush is sliding into negative territory on that score. For the first time in his presidency, more Americans give Bush a low rating (45 percent) on being "honest and straightforward" than give him a high rating (41 percent), according to a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.

It's not just the recent revelations about top aide Karl Rove - now known to be involved in the imbroglio over the outing of a CIA operative - that have hurt Bush. A range of issues are dampening the president's numbers, from his as-yet-unsuccessful attempt to sell partial privatization of Social Security to increasing public doubts over the decision to go to war in Iraq, says one of the pollsters who conducted the survey.

"We really didn't ask about Rove," says Peter Hart, a Democratic pollster who ran the survey with Republican pollster Bill McInturff. "It's sort of a sense that nothing's going right, and that a lot of his basic tenets that he put out for the second term are coming up a cropper."

Iraq: More Than 150 Dead in Little More than 48 Hours

Jesus.

The Times of London joins some of the more progressive newspaper reporters in saying Iraq has crossed over into outright civil war.

Rutland Herald: The President's Politics of Dishonesty

The Rutland Herald and its sister paper in my area, The Times Argus, would hardly be considered left-wing publications. Yet, a few times in recent weeks, they have had some very strong words for the ineptitude and outright lies of this president.

This is as strong as I have ever seen from them, from yesterday's paper:

e Bush administration. The furor surrounding Karl Rove and the vindictive unmasking of a CIA agent is the latest case in point.

But there are reasons other than moral offensiveness to avoid politics of dishonesty. There is a good practical case to be made that honesty, while sometimes inconvenient, is more effective in achieving long-term gains in public policy and that dishonesty, while sometimes providing advantages, is self-defeating.

The selling of the Iraq war is exhibit A in the perils of dishonesty. It is widely understood that President Bush and his administration were determined to go to war in Iraq and that they made up reasons why war was necessary. There were no weapons of mass destruction, but they manipulated intelligence to make it seem there were. Bush argued that war would only be a last resort, but now we know it was a first resort.

Now that we are in Iraq we may be inclined to write off Bush's rationale for war as irrelevant. But the pattern was established, and we have begun to witness how dishonest practices do long-term damage.

When Bush began his second term, he let it be known that major reforms in Social Security were his top priority. He got into trouble when he fell into the old habit, resorting to scare tactics to sell his program. He traveled the country warning that Social Security was going bankrupt and that we needed private accounts.

After the dishonest manner of selling the Iraq war, people did not trust what he had to say about Social Security, and the falsehood of his claims quickly became evident. Social Security needed some adjustments, we learned, but it was not going bankrupt. And private accounts had no connection to the system's solvency. In fact, they would make it worse.

What if Bush's Social Security program had been a good one? He would still have suffered the credibility problem created by the war, and even achieving worthwhile ends would have been made more difficult.

There is something to be said for a politics of bipartisanship, which enlists people of both parties to craft a program that will enjoy wide support. Neither side will get everything it wants. But experienced public servants say that the process drives the policy. In other words, a policy hatched by a narrow coterie of ideologues will suffer from narrowness. Policy hatched out of a process where people work together will bring people in, and people will be more invested in the outcome. They will want to make it work.

For people to work together they need to trust one another, and trust is destroyed by lies. Lyndon Johnson was no paragon of honesty, but he helped craft some of the important legislation of the last century by working with politicians from both parties. Medicare was one of the results. Bush's Medicare reform was shoved through Congress on the basis of dishonest claims and without bipartisan support, and the product was as flawed as the process.

Dishonesty won Bush two elections — there were those smears against John McCain in 2000 and against John Kerry in 2004. It is beginning to seem dishonesty may be his undoing as president.

Rude Pundit: Essays on Why Karl Rove Must Be Destroyed

Uh... I'd be happy with frog marching and having all his power taken away from him.

But visit Rude Pundit to learn his reasoning.

Two Good AmericaBlog Pieces

First, Michael notes that NY Post readers - and the Post is another Murky Murdoch paper - are ripping the paper a new one for supporting Rove and Company:

It happened on Friday, when a story about Rove prompted a Letters page filled with people blasting Rove and only one in support. It happened again today. The NY Post ran an editorial praising Rove and calling Wilson a low-down, dirty dog. I didn't even bother linking to it. Today's Sunday letter section is FILLED with letters from readers -- all of them criticizing the paper and condemning Rove and not getting sidetracked into a he said-he said debate. Two corkers:

If Rove was doing a public service — one that was not a crime — then why didn't he make his statements on the record?

But, when accusing and smearing the veracity and patriotism of Wilson, [at least Wilson] had the guts to make his statement for all to know.

Snipped there.

Plus, they note that Bob Schieffer on CBS FINALLY said what should be said: if Bush wanted to know the truth about PlameGate, he should have demanded it two years ago. Instead, Bush and the GOP are whining about a situation they caused: an investigation that was purposely strung out for two years, well after the presidential election in 2004, hoping the public would forget.

Finally, John in DC notes that even Howie Kurtz notices that Ken Mehlman, head of the GOP, cannot open his mouth without lying through his ugly little teeth:

See Ken lie. Lie, Ken, lie.

Media, do not let Mehlman and other Republicans run off at the mouth lying to you, then simply regurgitate what he tells you - or on TV, just let him tell his lies unchallenged. It's happening far too often - Mehlman says "Rove never leaked" and you guys just sit there and take it, when you know damn well that Rove's own lawyer said that Rove leaked. Don't let Mehlman just lie.

Mehlman's other lie was caught today by Howard Kurtz in the Wash Post, to Howie's credit.

Part of the Republican defense, as expressed by Mehlman on NBC, is that Rove didn't know Plame's name or that she was a covert operative. Mehlman cited a New York Times report that, in his words, "says Karl Rove was not Bob Novak's source, that Novak told Rove, not the other way around . . . This information at least came to Mr. Rove from journalists, not from a classified source."

But the article said that when syndicated columnist Robert Novak, who was the first to report Plame's name and CIA job in July 2003, mentioned her, Rove replied he had "heard that too," indicating Rove had already obtained the information elsewhere.

Nice job, fellows.

Finally! Someone at The Times Gets It: Frank Rich

Frank Rich is absolutely right in today's article: PlameGate is ALL about Iraq. To understand PlameGate, you literally need to follow both the uranium AND the lies.

Make time to read it. This is an article The Times - so caught in trying to bleed for Judith Miller who dug enough graves for others in her time hunting bogus WMDs - should have published a long, long while ago.

A snippet:

These attacks, too, are red herrings. Let me reiterate: This case is not about Joseph Wilson. He is, in Alfred Hitchcock's parlance, a MacGuffin, which, to quote the Oxford English Dictionary, is "a particular event, object, factor, etc., initially presented as being of great significance to the story, but often having little actual importance for the plot as it develops." Mr. Wilson, his mission to Niger to check out Saddam's supposed attempts to secure uranium that might be used in nuclear weapons and even his wife's outing have as much to do with the real story here as Janet Leigh's theft of office cash has to do with the mayhem that ensues at the Bates Motel in "Psycho."

Join the Pool

The good folks at Rising Hegemon are starting a pool: the winner will the one whose entry most closely matches the time and date of Karl Rove's indictment.

Well, we can hope!