Olbermann: Our Leader Disses His Troops

Bush owes troops apology, not Kerry
Olbermann: Bush ‘appearing to be stupid’ about Kerry’s joke
SPECIAL COMMENT
By Keith Olbermann
Anchor, 'Countdown'
Countdown
Updated: 4:55 p.m. CT Nov 2, 2006

On the 22nd of May, 1856, as the deteriorating American political system veered toward the edge of the cliff, U.S. Rep. Preston Brooks of South Carolina shuffled into the Senate of this nation, his leg stiff from an old dueling injury, supported by a cane. And he looked for the familiar figure of the prominent senator from Massachusetts, Charles Sumner.

Brooks found Sumner at his desk, mailing out copies of a speech he had delivered three days earlier — a speech against slavery.

The congressman matter-of-factly raised his walking stick in midair and smashed its metal point across the senator’s head.

Congressman Brooks hit his victim repeatedly. Sen. Sumner somehow got to his feet and tried to flee. Brooks chased him and delivered untold blows to Sumner’s head. Even though Sumner lay unconscious and bleeding on the Senate floor, Brooks finally stopped beating him only because his cane finally broke.

Others will cite John Brown’s attack on the arsenal at Harper’s Ferry as the exact point after which the Civil War became inevitable.

In point of fact, it might have been the moment, not when Brooks broke his cane over the prostrate body of Sen. Sumner — but when voters in Brooks’ district started sending him new canes.

Tonight, we almost wonder to whom President Bush will send the next new cane.

There is tonight no political division in this country that he and his party will not exploit, nor have not exploited; no anxiety that he and his party will not inflame.

There is no line this president has not crossed — nor will not cross — to keep one political party in power.

He has spread any and every fear among us in a desperate effort to avoid that which he most fears — some check, some balance against what has become not an imperial, but a unilateral presidency.

And now it is evident that it no longer matters to him whether that effort to avoid the judgment of the people is subtle and nuanced or laughably transparent.

Sen. John Kerry called him out Monday.

He did it two years too late.

He had been too cordial — just as Vice President Gore had been too cordial in 2000, just as millions of us have been too cordial ever since.

Sen. Kerry, as you well know, spoke at a college in Southern California. With bitter humor he told the students that he had been in Texas the day before, that President Bush used to live in that state, but that now he lives in the state of denial.

He said the trip had reminded him about the value of education — that “if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.”

The senator, in essence, called Mr. Bush stupid.

The context was unmistakable: Texas; the state of denial; stuck in Iraq. No interpretation required.

And Mr. Bush and his minions responded by appearing to be too stupid to realize that they had been called stupid.

They demanded Kerry apologize to the troops in Iraq.

And so he now has.

That phrase — “appearing to be too stupid” — is used deliberately, Mr. Bush.

Because there are only three possibilities here.

One, sir, is that you are far more stupid than the worst of your critics have suggested; that you could not follow the construction of a simple sentence; that you could not recognize your own life story when it was deftly summarized; that you could not perceive it was the sad ledger of your presidency that was being recounted.

This, of course, compliments you, Mr. Bush, because even those who do not “make the most of it,” who do not “study hard,” who do not “do their homework,” and who do not “make an effort to be smart” might still just be stupid, but honest.

No, the first option, sir, is, at best, improbable. You are not honest.

The second option is that you and those who work for you deliberately twisted what Sen. Kerry said to fit your political template; that you decided to take advantage of it, to once again pretend that the attacks, solely about your own incompetence, were in fact attacks on the troops or even on the nation itself.

The third possibility is, obviously, the nightmare scenario: that the first two options are in some way conflated.

That it is both politically convenient for you and personally satisfying to you, to confuse yourself with the country for which, sir, you work.

A brief reminder, Mr. Bush: You are not the United States of America.

You are merely a politician whose entire legacy will have been a willingness to make anything political; to have, in this case, refused to acknowledge that the insult wasn’t about the troops, and that the insult was not even truly about you either, that the insult, in fact, is you.

So now John Kerry has apologized to the troops; apologized for the Republicans’ deliberate distortions.

Thus, the president will now begin the apologies he owes our troops, right?

This president must apologize to the troops for having suggested, six weeks ago, that the chaos in Iraq, the death and the carnage, the slaughtered Iraqi civilians and the dead American service personnel, will, to history, “look like just a comma.”

This president must apologize to the troops because the intelligence he claims led us into Iraq proved to be undeniably and irredeemably wrong.

This president must apologize to the troops for having laughed about the failure of that intelligence at a banquet while our troops were in harm’s way.

This president must apologize to the troops because the streets of Iraq were not strewn with flowers and its residents did not greet them as liberators.

This president must apologize to the troops because his administration ran out of “plan” after barely two months.

This president must apologize to the troops for getting 2,815 of them killed.

This president must apologize to the troops for getting this country into a war without a clue.

And Mr. Bush owes us an apology for this destructive and omnivorous presidency.

We will not receive them, of course.

This president never apologizes.

Not to the troops.

Not to the people.

Nor will those henchmen who have echoed him.

In calling him a “stuffed suit,” Sen. Kerry was wrong about the press secretary.

Mr. Snow’s words and conduct, falsely earnest and earnestly false, suggest he is not “stuffed,” he is inflated.

And in leaving him out of the equation, Sen. Kerry gave an unwarranted pass to his old friend Sen. John McCain, who should be ashamed of himself tonight.

He rolled over and pretended Kerry had said what he obviously had not.

Only, the symbolic stick he broke over Kerry’s head came in a context even more disturbing.

Mr. McCain demanded the apology while electioneering for a Republican congressional candidate in Illinois.

He was speaking of how often he had been to Walter Reed Hospital to see the wounded Iraq veterans, of how “many of them have lost limbs.”

He said all this while demanding that the voters of Illinois reject a candidate who is not only a wounded Iraq veteran, but who lost two limbs there, Tammy Duckworth.

Support some of the wounded veterans. But bad-mouth the Democratic one.

And exploit all the veterans and all the still-serving personnel in a cheap and tawdry political trick to try to bury the truth: that John Kerry said the president had been stupid.

And to continue this slander as late as this morning — as biased or gullible or lazy newscasters nodded in sleep-walking assent.

Sen. McCain became a front man in a collective lie to break sticks over the heads of Democrats — one of them his friend, another his fellow veteran, legless, for whom he should weep and applaud or at minimum about whom he should stay quiet.

That was beneath the senator from Arizona.

And it was all because of an imaginary insult to the troops that his party cynically manufactured out of a desperation and a futility as deep as that of Congressman Brooks, when he went hunting for Sen. Sumner.

This is our beloved country now as you have redefined it, Mr. Bush.

Get a tortured Vietnam veteran to attack a decorated Vietnam veteran in defense of military personnel whom that decorated veteran did not insult.

Or, get your henchmen to take advantage of the evil lingering dregs of the fear of miscegenation in Tennessee, in your party’s advertisements against Harold Ford.

Or, get the satellites who orbit around you, like Rush Limbaugh, to exploit the illness — and the bipartisanship — of Michael J. Fox. Yes, get someone to make fun of the cripple.

Oh, and sir, don’t forget to drag your own wife into it.

“It’s always easy,” she said of Mr. Fox’s commercials — and she used this phrase twice — “to manipulate people’s feelings.”

Where on earth might the first lady have gotten that idea, Mr. President?

From your endless manipulation of people’s feelings about terrorism?

“However they put it,” you said Monday of the Democrats, on the subject of Iraq, “their approach comes down to this: The terrorists win, and America loses.”

No manipulation of feelings there.

No manipulation of the charlatans of your administration into the only truth-tellers.

No shocked outrage at the Kerry insult that wasn’t; no subtle smile as the first lady silently sticks the knife in Michael J. Fox’s back; no attempt on the campaign trail to bury the reality that you have already assured that the terrorists are winning.

Winning in Iraq, sir.

Winning in America, sir.

There we have chaos — joint U.S.-Iraqi checkpoints at Sadr City, the base of the radical Shiite militias, and the Americans have been ordered out by the prime minister of Iraq … and our secretary of defense doesn’t even know about it!

And here we have deliberate, systematic, institutionalized lying and smearing and terrorizing — a code of deceit that somehow permits a president to say, “If you listen carefully for a Democrat plan for success, they don’t have one.”

Permits him to say this while his plan in Iraq has amounted to a twisted version of the advice once offered to Lyndon Johnson about his Iraq, called Vietnam.

Instead of “declare victory and get out” we now have “declare victory and stay indefinitely.”

And also here — we have institutionalized the terrorizing of the opposition.

True domestic terror:

Critics of your administration in the media receive letters filled with fake anthrax.

Braying newspapers applaud or laugh or reveal details the FBI wished kept quiet, and thus impede or ruin the investigation.

A series of reactionary columnists encourages treason charges against a newspaper that published “national security information” that was openly available on the Internet.

One radio critic receives a letter threatening the revelation of as much personal information about her as can be obtained and expressing the hope that someone will then shoot her with an AK-47 machine gun.

And finally, a critic of an incumbent Republican senator, a critic armed with nothing but words, is attacked by the senator’s supporters and thrown to the floor in full view of television cameras as if someone really did want to re-enact the intent — and the rage — of the day Preston Brooks found Sen. Charles Sumner.

Of course, Mr. President, you did none of these things.

You instructed no one to mail the fake anthrax, nor undermine the FBI’s case, nor call for the execution of the editors of the New York Times, nor threaten to assassinate Stephanie Miller, nor beat up a man yelling at Sen. George Allen, nor have the first lady knife Michael J. Fox, nor tell John McCain to lie about John Kerry.

No, you did not.

And the genius of the thing is the same as in King Henry’s rhetorical question about Archbishop Thomas Becket: “Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?”

All you have to do, sir, is hand out enough new canes.

Link.

But Kerry's still wrong. All I know, which puts me one up on just about every pol, is what I know: The only Iraqi vet I know is a practicing attorney. Whatever one might want to say about lawyers, you can't drop out of school and become a lawyer.

That said, doesn't mean our leaders aren't a bunch of despicable scumbags, one more disgusting than the next. And each and every one an America-hating traitor.

Thank God We Live in a One Party GOP State; They're Making US More Secure, Like Liberal Democrats Would Not!

A former nuclear weapons lab contract worker took home not only classified information on a portable computer storage drive, but also about 200 pages of printed documents, her lawyer said Thursday.

The confirmation of the papers follows a watchdog group's report that an internal memo from the Los Alamos National Laboratory indicates the amount of classified information found at the woman's home is substantially larger than first thought.

Link.

And then this makes one feel safe and grateful for Our Leaders:

U.S. Web Archive Is Said to Reveal a Nuclear Primer
By WILLIAM J. BROAD
Published: November 3, 2006

Last March, the federal government set up a Web site to make public a vast archive of Iraqi documents captured during the war. The Bush administration did so under pressure from Congressional Republicans who had said they hoped to “leverage the Internet” to find new evidence of the prewar dangers posed by Saddam Hussein.

But in recent weeks, the site has posted some documents that weapons experts say are a danger themselves: detailed accounts of Iraq’s secret nuclear research before the 1991 Persian Gulf war. The documents, the experts say, constitute a basic guide to building an atom bomb.

Link.

Maher

New Rule: Now that we've sent "stay the course" down the memory hole, where Big Brother erases things, we've also got to retire: "The world is safer with Saddam Hussein out of power." "Don't you want America to win?" and "Wouldn't you torture someone if they knew where to find an atomic time bomb?"

One: The world isn't safer with Saddam out of power. The only people who are safer are the dead. A number which has, admittedly, increased. Saddam didn't have weapons, that he wouldn't give to Al-Qaeda, whose guts he hated. He might have changed his mind, built weapons he didn't have, and given them to people he hated, but then, so could Dairy Queen.

Two: Don't I want America to win? Are we talking about a war between Sunnis and Shiites, or the Winter Olympics? I thought we wanted democracy to win. 103 Americans died in Iraq last month. Was that winning? Would 1000 be a blow out? Also, didn't we already win? I remember reading about it on an aircraft carrier.

Three: The atomic time bomb that justifies torture. The Constitution specifically says you can't torture people, and we can assume they meant: Even if you really, really want to. Because you wouldn't make a rule against something people didn't want to do. The Eighth Amendment protects terrorists. The same way the First Amendment protects Dixie Chicks. The Framers thought protecting people from the government was more important than anything - even than protecting them from a mythical bomb. You can disagree, but that's not what our Constitution says.

Beyond the fact that it's, like, "illegal," the next problem with the pro-torture argument is that no one - in human history -- has ever been seconds away from defusing an atomic time bomb. You're not thinking of life on earth. You're thinking of "Goldfinger."

You can't make a reasoned argument against a law based on the most outlandish possible hypothetical counter-example you just pulled out of your ass. This is called the Fallacy of Accident. A twist on the old dicto simpliciter ad dictum secundum quid. Like I have to tell you.

Link.

The Stealing of the Election 2006

Ain't freedom great? Certainly was back when we had it.

But that was then and this is now.

Goodbye, democracy, hello one party rule! All hail Our Leaders!

Debra A. Reed voted with her boss on Wednesday at African-American Research Library and Cultural Center near Fort Lauderdale. Her vote went smoothly, but boss Gary Rudolf called her over to look at what was happening on his machine. He touched the screen for gubernatorial candidate Jim Davis, a Democrat, but the review screen repeatedly registered the Republican, Charlie Crist.

That's exactly the kind of problem that sends conspiracy theorists into high gear -- especially in South Florida, where a history of problems at the polls have made voters particularly skittish.

A poll worker then helped Rudolf, but it took three tries to get it right, Reed said.

''I'm shocked because I really want . . . to trust that the issues with irregularities with voting machines have been resolved,'' said Reed, a paralegal. ``It worries me because the races are so close.''

Broward Supervisor of Elections spokeswoman Mary Cooney said it's not uncommon for screens on heavily used machines to slip out of sync, making votes register incorrectly. Poll workers are trained to recalibrate them on the spot -- essentially, to realign the video screen with the electronics inside. The 15-step process is outlined in the poll-workers manual.

Link.

And:

During the primary, memory cards were misplaced or lost and some poll workers were not adequately trained to operate the machines, the Associated Press reported. Approximately 18,000 absentee ballots had to be counted by hand because the machinery could not scan them, prompting a six-day delay in the final vote tally.

***

In Bexar County, there have been two major recounts since the installation of the ES&S system: the Congressional District 28 race in 2004 and the County Court-at-Law No. 9 race earlier this year.

In both cases, only the paper ballots were recounted. The electronic votes were not. That's problematic for a growing number of people who argue that without a paper record of the electronically cast votes, a meaningful recount is impossible.

Some states now require a VVPAT, or voter-verified paper audit trail. This system essentially takes the electronic ballot cast by a voter and creates a paper version for a voter to verify. The paper version is then held by the state and can be used as a backup in the case of a recount.

Texas has not certified a printer system, said Scott Haywood, spokesman for Secretary of State Williams.

"We have not seen a system yet that we feel comfortable certifying," Haywood said. He noted that some of the printer systems have issues with standards, ballot secrecy and accessibility.

***

In Cuyahoga County, a study done by the Election Science Institute found that problems with the attached printers and poll worker training on how to operate the printers had an impact on election day.
In addition, jurisdictions would have to take up the sticky issue of authenticity. If an electronic vote count and a paper ballot vote count differ, which one is the "real" result?

Link.

Our Leaders: Thank God, George W. Bush is President, He's Making Us Safer!

Screeners at Newark fail to find 'weapons'
Agents got 20 of 22 'devices' past staff

Anyone Interested in a Survey of Our Leader's (More Recent) Lies?

Not me but if the reader is... here.

Simple Solution to a Simple Problem: Pentagon Lies

The US defence department has set up a new unit to better promote its message across 24-hour rolling news outlets, and particularly on the internet.

The Pentagon said the move would boost its ability to counter "inaccurate" news stories and exploit new media.

Link. (The shame! This story comes from the BBC! Where's our American Big Media on this??)

Actual problem: The lies are not coming through to the satisfaction of the delusional wingnuts in charge.

Solution: Every journalist must correctly parrot the Pentagon line, making it clear that what they report are not facts, just what the Pentagon claims. The story is not what the Pentagon claims, the story is the Pentagon's claims.

Scum at the Top -- But What Else is New?

It's Vietnam all over again after all.

At campaign rallies in Georgia and Texas Monday -- hey, what ever happened to swing states like Ohio and Pennsylvania? -- George W. Bush said that the Democrats' plan for Iraq means "the terrorists win and America loses."

Link to this wisdom.

Sorry, George; anything to weaken you and "your" administration can only help America. You lose, we, the people, win.

But wait a minute, here is exactly how voting GOP helps and enables the terrorists! A vote for the GOP is a vote for all enemies of America!

Twelve Years Later, Things are Different, Except They're Not: Pathological Liars Keep Lying

1994: The Contract with (or was that "On"? Turned out that way...) America:

I then pointed out that we're now 12 years past 2004, when the Republicans all signed the Contract with America, whose 10th plank was the Citizen Legislature Act, a proposed Constitutional amendment limiting all Congressional service to, you guessed it, 12 years.

[Link.] (And the Contract is here too.)

So for the record, here's how my Rep, Sue Kelly, stands on the matter:

Limit punitive damages; term limits on Congress.

Kelly signed the Contract with America:

[As part of the Contract with America, within 100 days we pledge to bring to the House Floor the following bills]:

The Common Sense Legal Reforms Act:
“Loser pays” laws, reasonable limits on punitive damages, and reform of product liability laws to stem the endless tide of litigation.

The Citizen Legislature Act:A first-ever vote on term limits to replace career politicians with citizen legislators.

Link.

And here's her stand today -- with no explanation for her change:

Sue Kelly is trying desperately to be viewed as ANYTHING BUT A REPUBLICAN.

She even went so far as to get an endorsement from the "Independence Party of New York." This is not to be confused with "independent" voters, who are unaffiliated with any political party.

But, there is a problem here. Doesn't a candidate of a party run on the platform of that party?

Uh, oh!, one of the planks of the NY State Independence Party's platform is twelve-year term limits for House members. That's right, and Sue Kelly is completing her twelfth year in office! You would think that Kelly devoutly believed in this plank because she also signed Newt Gingrich's so-called "Contract With America", which was gung-ho about twelve-year term limits. That is, until she and her buddies got elected and dropped the idea altogether...

Link. (And see this too.)

Flip, flop, flip, flop, flip, flop, flip, flop, flip, flop, flip, flop, flip, flop, flip, flop, flip, flop, flip, flop, flip, flop, flip, flop, flip, flop, flip, flop, flip, flop, flip, flop, flip, flop, flip, flop, flip, flop, flip, flop, flip, flop, flip, flop,.....

And as a bonus, her goose-stepping, enabling record on important issues is here.

Just Another Big Media Dishonest, Dissembling, Crock-a-Crap

Republicans See Edge
From Early Voting

By JOHN D. MCKINNON and ERIKA LOVLEY
October 31, 2006; Page A4

WASHINGTON -- Down in the polls and with their majorities in Congress at risk, Republicans say they have some good news in early-voting statistics that suggest their voter-turnout machine is providing an edge in some tight races.

What's missing from this prominently placed article in the Wall Street Journal ($ sub. reqd.) is this: All the edge is is that apparently most or at least many of those to whom the GOP ops send absentee ballots have allegedly submitted them, in a greater percentage than the Dems. From this, one hopes, the assumption is that these were votes for the enablers of the destruction of our American democracy (that, as opposed to actually counting te votes).

In other words, there is nor clue whatsoever how any of these people voted.

In even fewer words: a prominently played non-story. Til the votes are counted.

Portraits of Our Leader

Our Leader loves dressing in uniform. Helps his supporters forget he was a draft-dodging chickenhawk and is still a draft-dodger at heart. Besides, unwarranted and inappropriate wearing of uniforms is a fascist thing....



Our Leader deep in presidential leadership thought. "What piece of the Constitution can we trash now? What more can I do to trash the great nation I twice swore to lead?"

Meet the Idiots who Lead Us

Meet one of Our Leader's Brains, the genius that is Karen Hughes, without whom W would be... well, not Our Leader.

A Thought for the Day, a Reminder

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
-- Edmund Burke

Cleanliness and Godliness

Remember, President Cheney, cleanliness is only next to Godliness; it is not Godliness itself.

Like so many other people involved in politics these days, Mrs. Ryun has become obsessive about using hand sanitizer and ensuring that others do, too. She squirted Purell, the antiseptic goop of choice on the stump and self-proclaimed killer of “99.99 percent of most common germs that may cause illness,” on people lined up to meet Vice President Dick Cheney this month at a fund-raiser in Topeka.

When Mr. Cheney was done meeting and greeting, he, too, rubbed his hands vigorously with the stuff, dispensed in dollops by an aide when the vice president was out of public view.

From http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/28/us/politics/28dirty.html?ex=1162699200&en=882219dc897c078b&ei=5070&emc=eta1

Today's Arts and Crafts Project

Print out two-sided. Read and memorize. Carry with you. Remember: Worse president (and administration) ever.

(From http://www.hightowerlowdown.org/sites/hightowerlowdown.civicactions.net/files/2006_AugustPoster_letter.pdf)

Another Great Enabler of the Disaster that is Current American Leadership

[W]hile Shays may want his constituents to know about his first--and most daring--trip to Iraq, he apparently doesn't want them to know how he got there. Shays's moment of triumph in Iraq came about because he happened to already be in the Middle East--attending the third Qatar-American Conference on Free Markets and Democracy in the tiny oil-rich nation of Qatar. Shays's visit was paid for by The Islamic Free Market Institute, a nonprofit group founded by GOP ally Grover Norquist and run by a protégé of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff to help bring Muslims into the Republican fold. Days before he snuck across the border to cheer on Operation Iraqi Freedom, Shays was at the Doha Ritz Carlton, comparing Connecticut, a centuries-old, economically diverse democracy, to Qatar, a monarchy ruled by a single family since its independence in 1971. "This nation, like my small state, has always played a large role in advancing participatory democracy, civil discourse, and stable commerce," Shays told a well-heeled audience of Qatari politicians and businessmen over lunch.

Shays has been a strong advocate for public-disclosure rules over the years. "As public servants, we have a responsibility to uphold the ethics process, not weaken it," he told The Houston Chronicle in 2005, objecting to an effort to defang House ethics rules in the wake of revelations about Tom DeLay's overseas travels and ties to Abramoff. Those travel rules require members of Congress to file forms revealing all travel expenses paid by outside sources. But, despite his record of pushing for meticulous record-keeping, Shays's privately sponsored trip to Qatar was notably absent from his own annual federal financial disclosure form, filed in May 2004, in violation of House rules. Nor did he submit an amendment disclosing the sponsor of his Qatar trip until confronted in mid-October 2006 by The New Republic with internal Islamic Institute receipts for his plane tickets, which were provided by an Arab American source upset with Shays's foreign policy positions. Given his reputation and perennially contested district, it was a particularly foolhardy move.

From http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20061106&s=franke-ruta110606

Supporters of Values UPDATED

It turns out that the Republican National Committee is a regular recipient of political contributions from Nicholas T. Boyias, the owner and CEO of Marina Pacific Distributors, one of the largest producers and distributors of gay porn in the United States.

***

FEC.gov lists Boyias as contributing to the RNC three times in 2004 and two times in 2005. The NRCC got a little too. But only $250.

From http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/010647.php

Update:

There's a moment in the Republican National Committee's Harold Ford Jr. attack ad -- it comes smack-dab in the middle of the two bimbo eruptions -- when a sleazy-looking fellow eyes the camera from behind his sunglasses and says, "So he took money from porn movie producers. I mean, who hasn't?"

Who hasn't? Well, it turns out that the RNC has. As Josh Marshall reports, the RNC has accepted a number of campaign contributions from Nicholas T. Boyias, whom Marshall describes as the owner and CEO of one of the largest producers and distributors of gay porn in the United States.

Now, surely there must be a difference between the porn money Ford took and the porn money the RNC is taking, right? There is: Ford gave his back.

Link.

Such beautiful minds....

Gore Speaks

In describing the state of the union, Gore quoted German philosopher Theodor Adorno on the rise of the Nazis.

Adorno conducted a kind of autopsy on the Third Reich and he said the first sign of this descent to hell was when this happened, and these are his words: All questions of fact became questions of power.
...

And I'm not drawing an analogy to what happened there. I'm not. But it's dangerous when we allow questions of fact to become questions of power.

Gore said questions of fact become questions of power, though, when Republicans "censor the scientific reports and when they ... allow themselves to believe that they can create their own reality.

Aldous Huxley once said, "All governments lie. But when they start smoking the same hashish that they're giving out to others, disaster lies.
This crowd has apparently begun to believe its own lies.

From http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/davidpostman/index.html#012742

Of course, he couldn't talk like this if he was actually running....

A Tribute

Link.

Not Staying the Course is Per Se Cutting and Running; If You're not Staying, You're Going

Bush: U.S. Will Not Cut and Run in Iraq

The headline isn't funny but the link (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,103216,00.html -- Blogger's bouncing embedded links these days) is. Have a laff!

GOP Love that Doesn't Speaks it Name -- Only Shows it

Her daddy is happy to run really slimy ads against Harold Ford. So if the ads weren't sufficient proof of his unfitness maybe issues regarding child-rearing (Mark Foley's specialty apparently) might do the trick.

But let me elaborate: If the daughter's actually gay, not an issue. Issue is allowing a young child at a party with free drinking.

But the photo isn't even as slimy as the ads run on behalf of daddy.

Link (yes, there's a real story to this.)

Down the Slippery Slope: Now Easier for Our Leader to Declare Martial Law

This whole piece is essential reading. And tell me again why we shouldn't punish the guys who passed the bill in the first place. Here's the opening, read the rest:

Bush Moves Toward Martial Law
Written by Frank Morales
Thursday, 26 October 2006

In a stealth maneuver, President Bush has signed into law a provision which, according to Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), will actually encourage the President to declare federal martial law (1). It does so by revising the Insurrection Act, a set of laws that limits the President's ability to deploy troops within the United States. The Insurrection Act (10 U.S.C.331 -335) has historically, along with the Posse Comitatus Act (18 U.S.C.1385), helped to enforce strict prohibitions on military involvement in domestic law enforcement. With one cloaked swipe of his pen, Bush is seeking to undo those prohibitions.

Public Law 109-364, or the "John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007" (H.R.5122) (2), which was signed by the commander in chief on October 17th, 2006, in a private Oval Office ceremony, allows the President to declare a "public emergency" and station troops anywhere in America and take control of state-based National Guard units without the consent of the governor or local authorities, in order to "suppress public disorder."

President Bush seized this unprecedented power on the very same day that he signed the equally odious Military Commissions Act of 2006. In a sense, the two laws complement one another. One allows for torture and detention abroad, while the other seeks to enforce acquiescence at home, preparing to order the military onto the streets of America. Remember, the term for putting an area under military law enforcement control is precise; the term is "martial law."

A Rhetorical Question

If Our Leader will never say "Stay the course" again, does it change policy? Are we staying the course or not? And if we are, how is one to say it without saying "Saty the course"?

Leadership that Deserves Support; Or: Absolute Cluelessness in Charge

The White House on Iraq: Anyone have any ideas?

***

In an appearance on the NewsHour last night, National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley was asked what the American people should have "taken away" from the press conference. His answer: "I think the president gave a very balanced and sober assessment of the situation that we're in, made it clear that there are real challenges, made it clear that, while our basic objective remains the same, we have adapted and made changes in how to pursue that objectives, would be making more changes in the future, that he was open to any constructive ideas, because obviously one thing we can all agree on – I think Senator Biden would agree – we need to succeed in Iraq. It's too important for the country. So I think you saw an openness to be receptive to ideas, but also a steadfastness that we cannot afford to lose in Iraq."

Got that? On the war in Iraq -- the centerpiece of his administration, the central front in "the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century" -- the president is . . . well, he's open to ideas, if anyone's got them.

We're not sure what's more troubling here: That this is all that the president has to offer, that the national security advisor can't do a better job of spinning it, or that the White House Communications Office thought so much of Hadley's comments that it just e-mailed them to reporters under the headline, "In Case You Missed It."

Link. (Emphasis added.)

Pathetic... Our Leader's pathetic, "his" administration is pathetic, and most pathetic of all is that our nation is lead by the, well, the leaders that we have....

More Lies; Today's Literary Analysis: How Political Context Changes the Quality of a Literary Work

Allen, Webb, truth, fiction

The Traditional Values Coalition is calling on Jim Webb to withdraw from the Senate race in Virginia because of what it calls "XXX-rated writing" in some of his novels.

Never mind that Webb's novels are fiction -- or, as TVC's executive director puts it in the group's press release, "fiction." Never mind that the book singled out in TVC's press release -- Webb's "Lost Soldiers" -- was praised at the time of its publication by Republican Sen. John McCain, who said it "captures well the lingering scars of the war" in Vietnam.

***

And never mind that leading lights on the right have written a fair amount of smut for smut's sake. There's a "pouting sex kitten," an "exotic mistress" and "after-bout inhalation" in Newt Gingrich's "1945. " In Lynne Cheney's 1981 novel "Sisters," the female heroine sees two women in a lesbian embrace and feels "curiously moved, curiously envious of them." And in Scooter Libby's 1998 book, "The Apprentice," a 10-year-old girl is placed in a cage with a bear that has been "trained to couple with young girls."

Link.

Conclusion: The quality of an unaltered literary work changes when the author changes his party affiliation! Amazing!

How Low They Go!

Fear and hate, laid on a foundation of absolute lies: Is there anything else for Our Leaders' enablers to run on?

Short answer: No. That's the entire 2006 platform.

Rush Limbaugh, Michael J. Fox and the cruelty within

***

[I]t's really pretty impossible to watch Limbaugh mock Fox for his stem-cell TV spot without thinking that Rush is pretty rotten at the core. Limbaugh didn't just suggest that Fox was faking the symptoms of Parkinson's disease in his advertisement for Claire McCaskill; he took things a step further by acting out the shaking himself -- all while saying that Fox was the one behaving in a "shameless" way.

Limbaugh says that Democrats always do this: They trot out someone who's a victim of something or other and thereby make it impossible to engage in reasoned debate. He's not the first one to make that claim; it's the same argument Ann Coulter makes about family members who lost loved ones on 9/11 and have the audacity to say that they wish the Bush administration were doing more to stop the next terrorist attack.

Is there anything to this argument? Maybe, but what's the alternative? Are Limbaugh and Coulter suggesting that we deny those most directly affected by government policies any role in debating them? Should wealthy executives be silenced during discussions of tax cuts? Should the automakers be denied a say in any debate over fuel economy standards? Did Limbaugh complain this week when George W. Bush said that the United States has to stay the course in Iraq -- well, not "stay the course, " but you know what we mean -- out of allegiance to "the husbands who have lost their partners in life ... children who won't ever see their mom and dad again ... and to the families who still have loved ones in harm's way"?

It's OK for Dick Cheney and the Republican National Committee to suggest that we'll all die at the hands of terrorists if Democrats are elected in November, but it's somehow unfair for a guy suffering from Parkinson's disease to say that he hopes Missourians elect a senator who supports stem-cell research?

Link.

And Speaking of Stealing Elections....

Here's how. Great school project....

A Great, Great Piece on the Fear and Risks of E-Voting

Ronnie Dugger nailed it -- in 1988. Here's the piece -- and it's essential, scary reading: that it was warned about and it's happening and getting worse and worse. It's twilight in America....

Iraq: The Real Problem

It's all the Iraqis' fault.

Our Leaders, Always Taking the High Road

Here.

For the Pro-Democracy Geeks Out There; How to Hack the Election (No News to Our Leaders)

Here's how.

Meanwhile, Ronnie Dugger wrote the definitive article (well, the Ur article) years before the technology -- and wingnuttery -- even existed.

It's essential reading and it's here.

Thank God We're Lead by Pro-Security Republicans, not Wishy-Washy Liberal Democrats (Cont'd)

....Rick Santorum is trying to save his Senate seat by getting voters focused on the threat of terrorism. The big finish? Santorum quotes Osama bin Laden as saying that "dealing with the pampered and effeminate Americans will be easy," then says: "Let me tell you. With the right leadership, he's got a surprise ahead. It won't be easy at all."

Link.

Now I feel secure, knowing that the terrorists will have a tough time defeating us....

Enron

Back from the dead.... Explore the entire email database here. (Link found at Boing Boing.)

A Very Short Story

Bush told the truth. Hell froze.
- William Gibson

Link.

Everything that's Wrong with the Iraqi Debacle

Interesting: I felt that, really, having done so much damage to Iraq, we had no option but to stay the course til we made good. But, really, do Our Leaders have any intention -- let alone, like, an actual plan -- to make good for the gratuitous, pointless, unreasonable horror we brought? Well, if not, then made there is no reason to stay the course.

Meanwhile, our puppet doesn't seem very grateful; but then again, exacly why and for what should he be grateful?

An angry Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki disavowed a joint U.S.-Iraqi raid in the capital's Sadr City slum Wednesday, and criticized the top U.S. military and diplomatic representatives in Iraq for saying his government needs to set a timetable to curb violence in the country.

Al-Maliki spoke at a news conference a day after U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said Iraqi leaders had agreed to set deadlines by year's end for achieving specific political and security goals laid out by the United States, including reining in militia groups.

"I affirm that this government represents the will of the people and no one has the right to impose a timetable on it," the prime minister said.

The prime minister dismissed U.S. talk of timelines as driven by the coming midterm elections in the United States. "I am positive that this is not the official policy of the American government but rather a result of the ongoing election campaign. And that does not concern us much," he said.

Link.

The Budget

In a Flash image.

Staying the Course

If we're not staying the course, are cuttin' + runnin'? Obviously we're staying so what's the point? Just more election-time B.S. for the weak-minded voters? Do Our Leaders actually have a plan yet? Obviously, we have to stay; we brought so much horror to Iraq; we have a disaster we created to fix....

Our Leaders are Concerned About Us

Query why, if the 9/11 attacks were so bad, why do they hide the continuing harm from the attacks, to wit, the toxic crap to which people are still exposed around Ground Zero? Or is it that the local real estate interests are snuffing the debate for their own interests? [Link.]

Morning in America

I do not need to make dire predictions about the future, the ugly truth is told by the shame of the present.

When your Leader said he could take away your Bill of Rights on his own personal whim, you did nothing.

When your Leader said he could violate law based on some claimed power he has, you stayed silent.

When your Leader claimed he could inflict horrid acts of torture that break international laws honored by every democracy on earth, you surrendered.

When your Leader claimed the power to jail people without hearings and imprison people without justice, you gave in.

When your Leader claimed the power to detain people without charges, and inflict punishment and pain on unknown people without lawyers or law, you submitted.

When your Leader seized the power to invade your home without a warrant and take your body without a writ, you did nothing.

When your Leader claimed the power to take your privacy without a court and take your rights without a hearing, you gave in.

When your Leader said the Congress has no right to be involved in the policy of making war, you gave up.

When your Leader said your Courts have no responsiblity for upholding your Constitution without his permission, you stood down.

More here.

Freedom Spreads to America

The press here gets less and less free. Well, sure, if you count Big Media -- they're in thrall to Our Leaders and the GOP corrupters.

But okay, here's the ten worse, and, wow! look at all our allies on the list! And as for those who aren't our allies, when are Our Leaders going to liberate them? (Although I disagree with North Korea being #1. Dunno... think they're too poor to have any press at all....)

My Next Congressperson???

Backs up Bonnie Raitt and is not Sue Kelly and was interviewed by Steven Colbert. Just three major pluses....

An Endorsement for Congress

An unusually lively Democratic primary race in the 19th Congressional District last month ended with a resounding victory for John Hall, a singer-activist-politician who has spent a long time on the outskirts of renown and is now poised to move into the thick of it. Mr. Hall has been politically engaged for decades, having helped to organize the No Nukes concerts of the late 1970’s with friends like Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt and Graham Nash. But he has always been better known as a founding member of the 1970’s band Orleans, whose Lite-FM hits “Still the One” and “Dance With Me” can still worm into your brain and stay all day, if you let them.

Mr. Hall is still a musician, but he is not a political posturer or dabbler. As a member of the Ulster County Legislature, he helped to write the first zoning law in Saugerties, served two terms on the Saugerties Board of Education and was elected its president. He joined citizens’ groups to protect the Hudson River and to oppose plans for a nuclear plant in the Hudson Valley and then decided — spurred by disillusionment over the war in Iraq, among other things — to run for Congress.

Mr. Hall gave an impressive performance in winning over Democrats in the diverse 19th District, which covers all of Putnam County, most of Orange and parts of Dutchess, Westchester and Rockland, from West Point to Peekskill to Katonah. His platform is ambitious and coherent, with calls for universal health coverage, a return to fiscal discipline and a full-bore national effort to achieve energy independence. He blends a deep-blue idealism with a crisp command of details; it’s best not to get him started on “low-head” hydroelectric power, for instance, if your time is pressing.

The incumbent, Sue Kelly, entered Congress in the “Contract With America” class of 1994. She has nurtured a reputation as a moderate, occasionally annoying conservatives and straying from the party line on environmental votes. But she has mostly been a go-along-to-get-along party member, supporting the Bush administration’s tax cuts, stoutly defending its handling of the Iraq war and voting this month for President Bush’s dangerous bill on military commissions, a measure that affirms the administration’s ad-hoc subversion of cherished principles of justice and decency.

She is a rank-and-file loyalist in a party that is tired and fiscally reckless. On issues that Congress has bungled, and where independence would have been welcome — immigration, or homeland security, a particularly pressing topic in a district with a nuclear plant in its backyard — Ms. Kelly has not strayed far from the pack.

For voters in the 19th District who want a lawmaker of energy, steady conviction and clear principles, John Hall is the obvious choice. We enthusiastically endorse him for Congress.

Link.

Woodward: Despite "State of Denial", Still a Wanker

Decide for yourself;Woodward speaks:

I don't think Bush ever took directions from Cheney.

I'm in shock. But then again, Woodward's a serial dissembler or at least a fabulist....

Leadership We Need; Thank God We're not Lead by Liberal Democrats!

Baghdad still, three and one half years later, needs to be secured while W meets the generals and decides to... stay the course.

Heckuva job, Our Leaders!

'Nuff Said: What this Country is Coming to Thanks to Our Leaders' Genius and Love of America, Freedom and Democracy

The Cases of Lynne Stewart, Clive Stafford Smith, and Navy JAG Lawyer Charles Swift: Government Retaliation Against Attorneys for Terrorism Suspects

This is exactly what our country is now about and exactly what it is not supposed to be about.

Flip, Flop, Flip, Flop, Flip, Flop, Flip, Flop, Flip, Flop, Flop, Flop, Flop, Flop, Flop, Flop, Flop

Can't be talking about Our Leader -- Republicans never flip flop. That's why he -- and we -- will stay the course without any end in sight.

Of course, the fact that Osama supports and wants "Stay the Course" may -- or may not -- need a change in... I was going to say plans but no one who knows if there really are any plans other than staying the course aren't talking so I guess I want to say "a change in talking points."

And here's Time's alternative plan. Warning: may be a humor piece. I mean, bring the Sunnis back in... that's certainly ludicrous if not flat-out impossible.

Wait a minute, what's this...?

Bush to consult on changing Iraq tactics
By KEVIN FREKING, Associated Press WriterFri Oct 20, 5:36 PM ET

President Bush acknowledged Friday that "it's tough" in Iraq and said he would consult with American generals to see if a change in tactics is necessary to combat the escalating violence.

Link. You start with this and you might not end up staying the course....

Flash! WaPo and the Times Have Dropped the Ball on Their Coverage of Our Leaders

Who'd'a thunk it??

The latest critique is here. See how the Grand Ole Media are failing us, let alone at a pivotal point in history.

Joke of the Day -- or Not

Barron's doesn't have a D.C. correspondent so much as water-carrying stooge for the current leadership. Here's his prediction for the coming elections.

Survivor!

The GOP Victory

By JIM MCTAGUE

Our analysis -- based on a race-by-race examination of campaign-finance data -- suggests that the GOP will hang on to both chambers, at least nominally. We expect the Republican majority in the House to fall by eight seats, to 224 of the chamber's 435. At the very worst, our analysis suggests, the party's loss could be as large as 14 seats, leaving a one-seat majority. But that is still a far cry from the 20-seat loss some are predicting. In the Senate, with 100 seats, we see the GOP winding up with 52, down three

JUBILANT DEMOCRATS SHOULD RECONSIDER their order for confetti and noisemakers. The Democrats, as widely reported, are expecting GOP-weary voters to flock to the polls in two weeks and hand them control of the House for the first time in 12 years -- and perhaps the Senate, as well. Even some Republicans privately confess that they are anticipating the election-day equivalent of Little Big Horn. Pardon our hubris, but we just don't see it.

We studied every single race -- all 435 House seats and 33 in the Senate -- and based our predictions about the outcome in almost every race on which candidate had the largest campaign war chest, a sign of superior grass-roots support. We ignore the polls.

Link (emphasis added).

I supposed this a faith-based analysis for a faith-based administration that has no use for, you know, reality.

My Wanker

My piece of crap Congress-person who cannot be voted out of office no matter how odious she is (hint: plenty), Sue Kelly (Crypto-fascist, N.Y. 19), finally shows at a debate.

The Hero: Killed an Innocent Man

Guy's only "crime" was being a square peg in a round hole world, of being something of a failure.

Cops: Victim did not assault girl
ANDREW BROPHY

FAIRFIELD — Police on Thursday confirmed what State's Attorney Jonathan Benedict told the media three days ago: No evidence exists to support the claim that murder victim Barry C. James had molested his accused killer's 2-year-old daughter.

"There's no evidence of any molestation occurring," police Capt. Gary MacNamara said. "We're confident that the evidence does not support any molestation." [Link.]

And then there still this part of the mystery: How does a two year old get -- or is elicited -- to say stuff like this?

According to a police report describing the mother's account, the girl told her mother about the alleged molestation while the family was visiting relatives in Rhode Island.

The girl "explained that she did not want to go home because of Barry," police said in the report. When her mother asked her to explain, the girl said "that Barry puts it on her belly and her nose," the report said. When her mother asked her when James does this, she replied, "He comes to me in the starry nights." [Link.]

I mean, really, WTF "comes to me in the starry nights" mean? Anything at all literal... well, it's either really, really bizarre or the parents kind of, um, well, neglected the baby, huh?

This whole things stink, in that the key stuff still isn't known. Still believe in my first theory: Dad was a time bomb ready to go off, and did. Or was triggered? Don't trust the mama at all....

Well the Edingtons really have done fine by the child and obviously did and has done a fine job by her....

Terry Jones Writes Our Leader

Dear President Bush,

I write to you in my capacity as secretary of the World League of Despots.

It is with great pleasure that I am finally able to extend an official invitation to you to join our ranks. For many years, we have watched your efforts to fulfil the requirements necessary to join our number. From the start, we were greatly impressed by your disdain for democratic principles - the way you wrested power from the democratically elected candidate in the 2000 election, and again in 2005 when you managed to swing what was clearly going to be a victory for your opponent.

Contempt for human life has always been a priority requirement for membership of the league, and I and my fellow adjudicators were well aware of your record as governor of Texas when you quadrupled the number of state executions. But your record since seizing power has surpassed even our expectations. The thousands of innocent people in Iraq, who have died so that you could fulfil your declared political objective of establishing "an American force presence in the Middle East", attest to your eligibility to join our ranks.

I cannot, however, disguise the fact that we adjudicators were extremely anxious when you announced your intention to remove from office one of our most stalwart members, Mr Saddam Hussein. However, we need not have worried. According to a recent UN report, you have ensured that there are now even more human rights abuses in Iraq than there were under Saddam. No less than 10% of those in custody are being physically or psychologically abused. Well done!

Of course, your unstinting efforts to make torture an internationally accepted aspect of human life have surpassed everything we could have ever hoped for. I don't think there is a single member of the league who could have imagined, six short years ago, that our activities in tormenting our fellow creatures would once again be recognised as acceptable, civilised behaviour, as it once was in the middle ages.

Despite these achievements, we had, until now, felt unable to extend our invitation to you because you had been unable to fulfil one of our basic requirements: the ability to carry out arbitrary arrests, imprisonment without trial, secret torture and executions at will.

We approved of your attempts to establish the principles of arbitrary arrest under the Homeland Security Act of 2002, but unfortunately it was still restricted to terror suspects. We appreciate that you were hampered by the US constitution, but the restrictions this imposed on your arbitrary powers kept you below the threshold requirements for qualification as a despot.

Now, however, all that has changed. At the end of last month you persuaded the Senate to pass a bill regarding the treatment of detainees. Illegally obtained evidence can now be used against suspects, even if it has been gathered abroad under torture. Anyone you care to accuse can be thrown into prison without the right to a trial or the right to represent themselves.

Officially the legislation is restricted to "enemy combatants", but you have skilfully adapted this definition to include anyone who has "purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the US". This presumably means that anyone who publicly criticises your conduct can be defined as supporting hostilities to the US. You are now free to arrest and imprison anyone you don't like. You've got it in the bag!

It is with great pleasure that we in the World League of Despots note that you have now appropriated to yourself all the powers of arbitrary arrest and torture that Saddam once enjoyed. You are now one of us. Congratulations!

Link.

Olbermann: Bye Bye Freedom, Civil Rights and Habeas Corpus

One of the guys who puts it better than me:

And lastly, as promised, a Special Comment tonight on the signing of the Military Commissions Act and the loss of Habeas Corpus.

We have lived as if in a trance. We have lived… as people in fear.

And now -- our rights and our freedoms in peril -- we slowly awake to learn that we have been afraid… of the wrong thing.

Therefore, tonight, have we truly become, the inheritors of our American legacy. For, on this first full day that the Military Commissions Act is in force, we now face what our ancestors faced, at other times of exaggerated crisis and melodramatic fear-mongering:

And lastly, as promised, a Special Comment tonight on the signing of the Military Commissions Act and the loss of Habeas Corpus.

We have lived as if in a trance.

We have lived… as people in fear.

And now -- our rights and our freedoms in peril -- we slowly awake to learn that we have been afraid… of the wrong thing.

Therefore, tonight, have we truly become, the inheritors of our American legacy.

For, on this first full day that the Military Commissions Act is in force, we now face what our ancestors faced, at other times of exaggerated crisis and melodramatic fear-mongering:

A government more dangerous to our liberty, than is the enemy it claims to protect us from.

We have been here before -- and we have been here before led here -- by men better and wiser and nobler than George W. Bush.

We have been here when President John Adams insisted that the Alien and Sedition Acts were necessary to save American lives -- only to watch him use those Acts to jail newspaper editors.

American newspaper editors, in American jails, for things they wrote, about America.

We have been here, when President Woodrow Wilson insisted that the Espionage Act was necessary to save American lives -- only to watch him use that Act to prosecute 2,000 Americans, especially those he disparaged as "Hyphenated Americans," most of whom were guilty only of advocating peace in a time of war.

American public speakers, in American jails, for things they said, about America.

And we have been here when President Franklin D. Roosevelt insisted that Executive Order 9-0-6-6 was necessary to save American lives -- only to watch him use that Order to imprison and pauperize 110-thousand Americans…

While his man-in-charge…

General DeWitt, told Congress: "It makes no difference whether he is an American citizen -- he is still a Japanese."

American citizens, in American camps, for something they neither wrote nor said nor did -- but for the choices they or their ancestors had made, about coming to America.

Each of these actions was undertaken for the most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.

And each, was a betrayal of that for which the President who advocated them, claimed to be fighting.

Adams and his party were swept from office, and the Alien and Sedition Acts erased.

Many of the very people Wilson silenced, survived him, and…

…one of them even ran to succeed him, and got 900-thousand votes… though his Presidential campaign was conducted entirely… from his jail cell.

And Roosevelt's internment of the Japanese was not merely the worst blight on his record, but it would necessitate a formal apology from the government of the United States, to the citizens of the United States, whose lives it ruined.

The most vital… the most urgent… the most inescapable of reasons.

In times of fright, we have been, only human.

We have let Roosevelt's "fear of fear itself" overtake us.

We have listened to the little voice inside that has said "the wolf is at the door; this will be temporary; this will be precise; this too shall pass."

We have accepted, that the only way to stop the terrorists, is to let the government become just a little bit like the terrorists.

Just the way we once accepted that the only way to stop the Soviets, was to let the government become just a little bit like the Soviets.

Or substitute… the Japanese.

Or the Germans.

Or the Socialists.

Or the Anarchists.

Or the Immigrants.

Or the British.

Or the Aliens.

The most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.

And, always, always… wrong.

"With the distance of history, the questions will be narrowed and few: Did this generation of Americans take the threat seriously, and did we do what it takes to defeat that threat?"

Wise words.

And ironic ones, Mr. Bush.

Your own, of course, yesterday, in signing the Military Commissions Act.

You spoke so much more than you know, Sir.

Sadly -- of course -- the distance of history will recognize that the threat this generation of Americans needed to take seriously… was you.

We have a long and painful history of ignoring the prophecy attributed to Benjamin Franklin that "those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

But even within this history, we have not before codified, the poisoning of Habeas Corpus, that wellspring of protection from which all essential liberties flow.

You, sir, have now befouled that spring.

You, sir, have now given us chaos and called it order.

You, sir, have now imposed subjugation and called it freedom.

For the most vital… the most urgent… the most inescapable of reasons.

And -- again, Mr. Bush -- all of them, wrong.

We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who has said it is unacceptable to compare anything this country has ever done, to anything the terrorists have ever done.

We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who has insisted again that "the United States does not torture. It's against our laws and it's against our values" and who has said it with a straight face while the pictures from Abu Ghraib Prison and the stories of Waterboarding figuratively fade in and out, around him.

We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who may now, if he so decides, declare not merely any non-American citizens "Unlawful Enemy Combatants" and ship them somewhere -- anywhere -- but may now, if he so decides, declare you an "Unlawful Enemy Combatant" and ship you somewhere - anywhere.

And if you think this, hyperbole or hysteria… ask the newspaper editors when John Adams was President, or the pacifists when Woodrow Wilson was President, or the Japanese at Manzanar when Franklin Roosevelt was President.

And if you somehow think Habeas Corpus has not been suspended for American citizens but only for everybody else, ask yourself this: If you are pulled off the street tomorrow, and they call you an alien or an undocumented immigrant or an "unlawful enemy combatant" -- exactly how are you going to convince them to give you a court hearing to prove you are not? Do you think this Attorney General is going to help you?

This President now has his blank check.

He lied to get it.

He lied as he received it.

Is there any reason to even hope, he has not lied about how he intends to use it, nor who he intends to use it against?

"These military commissions will provide a fair trial," you told us yesterday, Mr. Bush. "In which the accused are presumed innocent, have access to an attorney, and can hear all the evidence against them."

'Presumed innocent,' Mr. Bush?

The very piece of paper you signed as you said that, allows for the detainees to be abused up to the point just before they sustain "serious mental and physical trauma" in the hope of getting them to incriminate themselves, and may no longer even invoke The Geneva Conventions in their own defense.

'Access to an attorney,' Mr. Bush?

Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift said on this program, Sir, and to the Supreme Court, that he was only granted access to his detainee defendant, on the promise that the detainee would plead guilty.

'Hearing all the evidence,' Mr. Bush?

The Military Commissions act specifically permits the introduction of classified evidence not made available to the defense.

Your words are lies, Sir.

They are lies, that imperil us all.

"One of the terrorists believed to have planned the 9/11 attacks," …you told us yesterday… "said he hoped the attacks would be the beginning of the end of America."

That terrorist, sir, could only hope.

Not his actions, nor the actions of a ceaseless line of terrorists (real or imagined), could measure up to what you have wrought.

Habeas Corpus? Gone.

The Geneva Conventions? Optional.

The Moral Force we shined outwards to the world as an eternal beacon, and inwards at ourselves as an eternal protection? Snuffed out.

These things you have done, Mr. Bush… they would be "the beginning of the end of America."

And did it even occur to you once sir -- somewhere in amidst those eight separate, gruesome, intentional, terroristic invocations of the horrors of 9/11 -- that with only a little further shift in this world we now know -- just a touch more repudiation of all of that for which our patriots died --

Did it ever occur to you once, that in just 27 months and two days from now when you leave office, some irresponsible future President and a "competent tribunal" of lackeys would be entitled, by the actions of your own hand, to declare the status of "Unlawful Enemy Combatant" for… and convene a Military Commission to try… not John Walker Lindh, but George Walker Bush?

For the most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.

And doubtless, sir, all of them -- as always -- wrong.

Link.

Nothing to Fear but Our Leaders; And Something Else the Times Gets Wrong

The New York Times lead editorial gives false comfort to American citizens by assuring them that they will not be victims of George W. Bush’s new draconian system for prosecuting enemies of the U.S. government in military tribunals outside constitutional protections.

“This law does not apply to American citizens,” the Times editorial stated, “but it does apply to other legal United States residents. And it chips away at the foundations of the judicial system in ways that all Americans should find threatening.” [NYT, Oct. 19, 2006]

However, the Times analysis appears to be far too gentle. While it’s true that some parts of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 target non-citizens, other sections clearly apply to U.S. citizens as well, putting citizens inside the same tribunal system with resident aliens and foreigners.

“Any person is punishable as a principal under this chapter who commits an offense punishable by this chapter, or aids, abets, counsels, commands, or procures its commission,” according to the law, passed by the Republican-controlled Congress in September and signed by Bush on Oct. 17.

Another provision of the law states that “any person subject to this chapter who, in breach of an allegiance or duty to the United States, knowingly and intentionally aids an enemy of the United States, or one of the co-belligerents of the enemy [presumably U.S. military allies, such as Great Britain and Israel], shall be punished as a military commission … may direct.” [Emphases added]

If the Times is correct that “this law does not apply to American citizens,” why does it contain language referring to “any person” and then adding in an adjacent context a reference to people acting “in breach of an allegiance or duty to the United States”?

Who has “an allegiance or duty to the United States” if not an American citizen? That provision would not presumably apply to Osama bin Laden or al-Qaeda, nor would it apply generally to foreign citizens. This section of the law appears to be singling out American citizens.

Court-Stripping

Though the new law specifically strips non-U.S. citizens of habeas corpus – the right to a fair trial – American citizens caught up in Bush’s legal system also would be denied the right to challenge their incarceration.

Besides allowing for “any person” to go into Bush’s system, the law prohibits detainees once inside the system from appealing to the traditional American courts until a defendant is fully prosecuted and sentenced, which could translate into an indefinite imprisonment since there are no timetables for Bush’s tribunal process to play out.

The law states that once a person is detained, “no court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider any claim or cause of action whatsoever … relating to the prosecution, trial, or judgment of a military commission under this chapter, including challenges to the lawfulness of procedures of military commissions.”

That court-stripping provision – barring “any claim or cause of action whatsoever” – would seem to deny American citizens habeas corpus rights just as it does for non-citizens. If a person can’t file a motion with a court, he can’t assert any constitutional rights, including habeas corpus.

Other constitutional protections in the Bill of Rights – such as a speedy trial, the right to reasonable bail and the ban on “cruel and unusual punishment” – would seem to be beyond an American detainee’s reach as well.

Though the New York Times suggests that the new law “chips away at the foundations of the judicial system,” the law actually seems to obliterate the old judicial system.

Secret Trials

By putting detainees, apparently including American citizens outside the U.S. constitutional process, Bush’s system makes a mockery of the Sixth Amendment in particular. It reads:

“In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed … and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; [and] to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses.”

By contrast, in Bush’s system, there are no guarantees of either a speedy or a public trial. Secrecy dominates in a process run by U.S. military officers whose careers depend on the favor of the Commander in Chief.

Under the new law, the military judge “may close to the public all or a portion of the proceedings” if he deems that the evidence must be kept secret for national security reasons. Those concerns can be conveyed to the judge through ex parte – or one-sided – communications from the prosecutor or a government representative.

The judge also can exclude the accused from the trial if there are safety concerns or if the defendant is disruptive. Plus, the judge can admit evidence obtained through coercion if he determines it “possesses sufficient probative value” and “the interests of justice would best be served by admission of the statement into evidence.”

The law permits, too, the introduction of secret evidence “while protecting from disclosure the sources, methods, or activities by which the United States acquired the evidence if the military judge finds that ... the evidence is reliable.”

During trial, the prosecutor would have the additional right to assert a “national security privilege” that could stop “the examination of any witness,” presumably by the defense if the questioning touched on any sensitive matter.

In effect, what the new law appears to do is to create a parallel “star chamber” system for the prosecution, imprisonment and elimination of enemies of the state, whether those enemies are foreign or domestic.

Terror Fears

The Times editorial writers might also take into account the circumstances under which Bush is likely to execute his new powers. Imagine, for example, a terrorist incident or a threat of one somewhere in the United States. Amid public anger and fear, Bush or some future President could begin rounding up citizens and non-citizens alike.

Once these detainees are locked up at Guantanamo Bay or some other prison facility, they could be held incommunicado and denied access to civilian courts under the law’s court-stripping provision.

It could take years before the U.S. Supreme Court even addresses these detentions and – given the increasingly right-wing make-up of the Court – there would be no assurance that the justices wouldn’t endorse the President’s extraordinary powers.

The Times also might want to take note of the curious provision in the law that would jail “any person” who “collects or attempts to collect information by clandestine means or while acting under false pretenses, for the purpose of conveying such information to an enemy of the United States.”

Since the Bush administration and its political allies often have accused the New York Times of collecting and publishing information, from confidential sources, that is helpful to U.S. enemies – for instance, the stories about Bush’s secret wiretapping program – this provision arguably could apply to Times reporters and editors.

This “spying” provision not only puts alleged offenders into Bush’s special legal system but it could result in the offenders being sentenced to death.

Link.

Here's Your Terror!

No need to suspend habeas corpus, terror is right here!



Link.

But the People Want Rightwing Lies Instead of News

NBC finally looked at the ratings of CNBC and MSNBC and realized that two evening slates of rightist idiocy (Olbermann excepted, of course) don't attract anywhere enough viewers to support two. (Link.)

Utter Crap

One of Our Leader's numerous derange-o enablers spews patent bullshit:

During the bitter controversy over the military commission bill, which President Bush signed into law on Tuesday, most of the press and the professional punditry missed the big story. In the struggle for power between the three branches of government, it is not the presidency that "won." Instead, it is the judiciary that lost.

The new law is, above all, a stinging rebuke to the Supreme Court. It strips the courts of jurisdiction to hear any habeas corpus claim filed by any alien enemy combatant anywhere in the world. It was passed in response to the effort by a five-justice majority in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld to take control over terrorism policy. That majority extended judicial review to Guantanamo Bay, threw the Bush military commissions into doubt, and tried to extend the protections of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions to al Qaeda and Taliban detainees, overturning the traditional understanding that Geneva does not cover terrorists, who are not signatories nor "combatants" in an internal civil war under Article 3.

Hamdan was an unprecedented attempt by the court to rewrite the law of war and intrude into war policy. The court must have thought its stunning power grab would go unchallenged. After all, it has gotten away with many broad assertions of judicial authority before. This has been because Congress is unwilling to take a clear position on controversial issues (like abortion, religion or race) and instead passes ambiguous laws which breed litigation and leave the power to decide to the federal courts.

(More here.)

Of course, they have no shame.

Of course, this comes from the Wall Street Journal's famously deranged editorial page....

Fascism in Action: The Wingnuts System of Law

Of course, a corporation is above the law, allowed to spy on people with no fear of any repercussion. (Link.)

Therefore, it's perfectly fair and proper for the California Attorney General to go after the then-chair of the board and the others. Simple: laws get broken, someone, not something, held responsible. Which is of course the flaw in the bedrock of our modern proto-fascist state: a "thing" like a corporation cannot per se have rights superior to a person.

Steve Keller Brings You this Very Important Scoop

For those who might have been unaware of this....

'Media let country down'
New York Times editor says news outlets should have dug into Iraq weapons reports

But has the Times run this yet?

Link.

Yet More Proof that the Clintonites Failed with North Korea

North Korea’s nuclear test has been linked to a plutonium process that was unfrozen after George W. Bush started talking tough about regime change in Pyongyang and reversed a Clinton administration policy against aiming nuclear weapons at non-nuclear states.

The New York Times reported that U.S. officials have identified the source of the North Korean nuclear blast as plutonium harvested from a small nuclear reactor whose nuclear fuel was put under seal in 1994 through a deal reached with the Clinton administration.

But in 2003, after two years of mounting threats from George W. Bush – including listing North Korea as part of the “axis of evil” – the government of Kim Jong Il threw out international inspectors, unsealed the plutonium and began processing it.

Link.

Missed This? Nuclear Weapons are Spreading like Wildfire

We're going to have a whole bunch of North Koreas within the next couple of years, per Hans Blix. Link (in German; one translation site is here).

Poor Jeanine

Her deepest darkest secrets are here.... Well, there's still the issue of how she could be so clueless about her husband and anyone, herself include, believes her fit for any elected office... or any public office....

Crap from the Famously Vile New York Post

(Link -- as if it matters.) Why brainless hysteria -- the Lynn Stewart thing. If it's such a black day in American history, why is that vile, vile narcissist Madonna on top, so to speak? Isn't clear what the the Post's priorities are? Black a day as it may be, Madonna's BS is still of greater importance -- or the Post's editors contemptuously believes those are its readers' priorities.

P.S. Dunno what kind of "pass" a disbarred attorney is getting. "Disbarred" means unable to work as an attorney, maybe not work at all to speak of. Of course, Stewart might be getting $$ from supporters -- just like a wingnut....

And for utter, vile crap, there's this brain-dead hysteria:

October 17, 2006 -- IT WAS all just an act. Lynne Stewart, a former lawyer who specialized in spreading terror and hate around the world, lumbered into a courtroom looking sick, crestfallen and oh, so sorry.

She bounced out of the bleak room hours later like she'd just won the lottery. And, well, she had.

"People are clamoring for a party!" Stewart announced when it was over. And she put her arm around me as she walked.

Stewart had faced 30 years in prison for smuggling out messages of death from her client, imprisoned terrorist Omar Abdel-Rahman. The blind sheik, who has followers throughout the Middle East, called for the slayings of infidels - nonbelievers in his violent brand of Islam.

Stewart knew damn well that her efforts on behalf of the cleric could result in the deaths of innocents. Even the judge had to admit it.

Link to more crap.

Essential Reading from HuffPo

Everything's our fault, the fault of anyone who's not a wingnut....

And my Goddess, Jane Smiley, posts:

Last week (an eventful week, to be sure), two sentences became juxtaposed in my consciousness. From Newsweek, concerning Bob Woodward's "State of Denial", we have, "The president is folksy and jocular, but incurious to the point of cluelessness." And from the Associated Press, concerning the new detainees bill, "Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who is defending President Bush's anti-terrorism tactics in multiple court battles, said Friday that federal judges should not substitute their personal views for the president's judgments in wartime."

So, as the world becomes more and more dangerous, as we come to know with more and more clarity and certainty that the president has never either known what he was doing with regard to Al Queda or the war in Iraq nor cared to find out, we are told that, nevertheless, that trained judges with education and experience, who know the law and the Constitution, and who, indeed, may be widely traveled, cosmopolitan, and sophisticated in their thinking, are to watch their step because Bush is in charge, and what he says goes.

Oodles more at the link, of course.

Mel Clarifies His Drunken Statements for Us

On the night of July 28, Gibson said he knew what might have been in his mind as he drunkenly said, "Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world."

"That's fear related, OK? So, you know, you have your own fears about these things," he said on "Good Morning America."

"Now, maybe it was just that very day that Lebanon and Israel were at it, you know," Gibson said of that night.

It was the 17th day of the raging war in Lebanon. A lot of people were worrying that the crisis was escalating out of control.

"Since I was a kid in the '60s, '70s, '80s, '90s and now in the new millennium, you can read of an ever-escalating kind of conflagration over there in the Middle East that … I remember thinking when I was 20, man, that place is going to drag us all into the black hole, you know, just the … the difficulty over there," he said. "You start thinking will I ever see my grandchildren grow up? … What's going to become of the world? What's going to press the button?"

"But there's a difference between saying that place is a tinderbox and the constellation of things happening there could take us all down, and saying the Jews are responsible for all the wars," Sawyer said.

"Well, I did," he said of his comment to the officer that night.

"The Jews are responsible?" Sawyer said.

"Well. … Strictly speaking, that's … that's not true because it takes two to tango," he said. "What are they responsible for? I think that they're not blameless in the conflict. There's been aggression, and retaliation and aggression. It's just part of being in conflict, and being at war. So, they're not blameless."

Gibson said that when people are drunk, they express what they think incorrectly.

"Now when you're loaded, you know, the balance of how you see things -- it comes out the wrong way. I know that it's not as black and white as that. I know that you just can't, you know, roar about things like that. That it's wrong," he said.

When Sawyer countered that a lot of people would say he was still blaming the Jews, Gibson said he wasn't blaming them.

"No, no. Did … did I say that?" he asked.

After several rounds on the Middle East, he said this was his statement of his true feelings.

"Let me be real clear, here. In sobriety, sitting here, in front of you, national television. … That I don't believe that Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world. I mean that's an outrageous, drunken statement," he said.

But he said something else was eating at him that night. He said he had realized he had been harboring an old resentment.

"The other place it may have come from is, you know, as you know, a couple of years ago I released the film 'Passion.' … Even before anyone saw a frame of the film, for an entire year, I was subjected to a pretty brutal sort of public beating," he said.

"During the course of that, I think I probably had my rights violated in many different ways as an American. You know. As an artist. As a Christian. Just as a human being, you know."

Link.

Here! A Plan for Iraq for Our Leaders!

Link.

Pirro: Liar

Lying politicians is a redundancy but some lies are worse than others, simply inexcuseable.

Here's our girl Jeanine:

Ms. Pirro said, “There was no new evidence during the time I was the D.A.”

Then here's the reality-based factual truth of the matter:

Jeffrey Deskovic's attorney filed the paperwork in 2000, asking for more improved DNA testing to see whether Deskovic was wrongly convicted of raping and killing a high school classmate when he was 16. A copy of the filing was sent to Pirro's office. She was district attorney at the time.

Deskovic has also said that he wrote to Pirro in 1997 after reading that she supports overturning wrongful convictions with DNA evidence.

One only hopes the truth will hurt....

Public Service Announcement from this Blog: Beat Diebold 7 November

Good old fashioned paper absentee ballots. Beat the machines, have your vote count -- and be correctly counted.

It Can and is Happening Here... the Slide to an American Fascism

Gore Vidal was pretty much right, albeit awfully premature, when he called Billy Buckley a crypto-fascist. If Buckley wasn't (although he's always been damn close), he certainly was and is an enabler so no signifcant difference.

Anyway, today's review of America's descent towards fascism is here.

Checking in with Jeanine Pirro

The story thus far: Westchester County's ex-D.A... signed off on joint tax returns that took a deduction for the family car J used for work -- except it was the thieving, lying husband's company's car, that is, the D.A. not only took a benefit or perk from a private company, but she signed off on the tax return claiming a deduction. Very astute. Managed to find the time to get into "People" as one of the 50 most beautiful people.... Just about the only lawyer in Westchester who didn't know what an absolute total lying sack of crap scumbag her husband was... (well we've already seen how much attention she paid to his business).

Big claim to fame was a focus on trying to jail every sexual pervert, or at least predator, in the county and

Holy crap, will you look at this???

In Sex Arrests Hailed by Pirro, Little Jail Time

Looks like Jeanine didn't do quite as wonderful job as she'd want us to believe.

Personally, I have an issue that a sex crime can result in a de facto lifetime sentence but on the other hand, if a predator is convicted, jailtime is, well, a good thing, the more the better. In Republican pol fashion, Jeanine found and finds it easier to talk a policy than to, you know, actually do something to, like, implement a policy.

And let us not forget the brilliance of consulting Giuliani buttboy and all around inexperienced "investigator", corrupt petty thief Ray Kerik, for bugging hubby's boat.

Speaking of the scumbag sack of crap, even husband Al Pirro is against Jeanine!

Anyone Really Need Proof that the GOP is Lying about the Foley Affair and the Role of their Leadership?

Well, just in case proof is needed....

Proof that Our Leaders Believe in an Honest Legal System

Restoring pride in being an American:

The Navy lawyer whose successful defense of Osama bin Laden's driver led to the Supreme Court's landmark Hamdan decision has been passed over for promotion.

Under the Navy's "up or out" promotion system, the decision forces Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift into early retirement. He learned of the decision about two weeks after this summer's ruling in Hamdan, which was a historic rebuke to the Bush Administration, and not long after the National Law Journal named Swift one of the top 100 lawyers in America.

Link.

Stare at This and You Can Almost See Our Leader's Face

Link.

W's Genius

Karl Rove, I mean; Our Leader has no genius of his own, always relying on others.

Rove has gotten great hagiography as, like, the world's greatest political op ever.

But really, there's no genius; just ruthlessness for the low blow and a complete lack of any decency, a reliance on fear and lies.

Yesterday, a source close to Foley explained to THE NEW REPUBLIC that in early 2006 the congressman had all but decided to retire from the House and set up shop on K Street. "Mark's a friend of mine," says this source. "He told me, 'I'm thinking about getting out of it and becoming a lobbyist.'"

But when Foley's friend saw the congressman again this spring, something had changed. To the source's surprise, Foley told him he would indeed be standing for re-election. What happened? Karl Rove intervened.

According to the source, Foley said he was being pressured by "the White House and Rove gang," who insisted that Foley run. If he didn't, Foley was told, it might impact his lobbying career.

"He said, 'The White House made it very clear I have to run,'" explains Foley's friend, adding that Foley told him that the White House promised that if Foley served for two more years it would "enhance his success" as a lobbyist. "I said, 'I thought you wanted out of this?' And he said, 'I do, but they're scared of losing the House and the thought of two years of congressional hearings, so I have two more years of duty.'"

Link.

GOP Morality: An Endless Series of Profiles

Link.

A GOP Rep is really, really happy meeting a few constituents (and maybe future pages?).

And here, he really looks really, really happy:



Link.

Our Leaders' Success in North Korea; Clinton's Failures

Our Leaders enable -- finance -- a member of the Axis of Evil post-9/11. Obviously, there is a brilliant strategy at work beyond our feeble pinko minds because, you know, these guys are superior people and all.

Again: Clinton=failure, Our Leader=brilliant success:

"Failure" =1994-2002 -- Era of Clinton 'Agreed Framework': No plutonium production. All existing plutonium under international inspection. No bomb.

"Success" = 2002-2006 -- Bush Policy Era: Active plutonium production. No international inspections of plutonium stocks. Nuclear warhead detonated.

Face it. They ditched an imperfect but working policy. They replaced it with nothing. Now North Korea is a nuclear state.

Facts hurt. So do nukes.

Link.

As [Clinton Secretary of Defense William] Perry says, harsh rhetoric and inaction.

(And here's where he says it.)

And the next President of the United States, John McLain, says Clinton failed:

John McCain seems to have some difficulties with physics and the historical record in his attempt to blame Bill Clinton for the latest crisis on the Korean Peninsula.

Said the Arizona Senator: "I would remind Senator (Hillary) Clinton and other critics of the Bush administration policies that the framework agreement of the Clinton administration was a failure."

Some basic facts.

The 1994 crisis came about because the North Koreans were producing weapons-grade plutonium. Under the Agreed Framework, they agreed to shutter the plutonium production facility and put the already produced plutonium under international oversight.

In return, the US promised aide, help building lightwater reactors (which don't help with bombs) and diplomatic normalization.

That agreement kept the plutonium operation on ice until the end of 2002.

President Bush came to office wanting to pull out of the agreement and did so when evidence surfaced suggesting that the North Koreans were secretly trying to enrich uranium (a separate path to the bomb).

The bomb that went off yesterday was made with plutonium, the same stuff that was off-limits from 1994-2002. In all likelihood some of the same stuff that was on ice from 1994-2002.

To the best of my knowledge, no one thinks the North Koreans are close to having enough uranium to make a nuclear weapon that way. And it's not even completely clear they were ever trying to enrich uranium.

So Clinton strikes a deal to keep plutonium out of the North Koreans' hands. The deal keeps the plutonium out of reach for the last six years of Clinton's term and the first two of Bush's. Bush pulls out of the deal. Four years later a plutonium bomb explodes.

Clinton's fault, right?

There's certainly an argument to be made that you don't make agreements with parties you don't trust, like the North Koreans. And perhaps President Bush would have had some leg to stand on if he'd pulled out of the Agreed Framework and replaced it with something better -- either force or a better agreement. But he didn't. He just did nothing for four years. Now we have plutonium, probably uranium and actual bombs. And according to McCain, it's all Bill Clinton's fault.

And here is the video of the next Prez saying it.

Inexplicably, amazingly, George Herbert Walker Bush's National Security Adviser says Our Leader erred in North Korea.