Bush admits to Engel that going to war was a decision based on his personal instinct and not on any long-range strategy for the Mideast:Link.
“I know people are saying we should have left things the way they were, but I changed after 9/11. I had to act. I don’t care if it created more enemies. I had to act.”
***
And he says that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is an obstacle to peace in the region:
“The problem is Olmert. This is a man who came to power on a promise that he was going to unilaterally define a Palestinian state. You can’t pressure democracies.”
***
“We can have meetings. Talking is not the problem. We can talk to Iran. But Iran wants nuclear weapons and I’m not going to let that happen. Not on my watch. We tried to have dialogue with Syria, right after the war, didn’t get much. * * "
Sunday, June 08, 2008
The Genius Of Beloved Leader
Who says he's so stupid?
What This Nation Needs; Another Drop Down The Slippery Slope Towards The Inevitable Christofascist State
First, in answer to the unasked question: Yes, it will be no good and an insult to everything this country's about. Everything.
So. Carolina's House & Senate have unanimously passed a bill allowing the creation of the faith plate. The license will feature a cross against a stained glass window with the words "I Believe" at the bottom. The ACLU, among others, is threatening suit.
A Pol One Can Almost Be Proud Of
And permit me to say, I would honestly be shocked to find this kind of honesty and lucidity amongst the GOP. Link.
Hey, wait a second! Here's the GOP's latest superstar/exemplar.
Hey, wait a second! Here's the GOP's latest superstar/exemplar.
Sad, Sad, Sad; Another Failure Of Big Media
By lying to us or failing to properly address what needs to be addressed, they alienate us and then cry about losing audience to the web, etc. Well, make yourself irrelevant....
This is kind of pathetic.
And, really, inexcusable.
As she points out, the truth was out there to be seen by anybody with open eyes.
Yet the professionals were blind or unwilling to see and acknowledge reality. And of what value are journalists like that?
None.
This is kind of pathetic.
And, really, inexcusable.
As she points out, the truth was out there to be seen by anybody with open eyes.
Yet the professionals were blind or unwilling to see and acknowledge reality. And of what value are journalists like that?
None.
When I first heard about Scott McClellan's charges that the Bush administration had lied and deceived Americans during the months and years leading up to the war, I burst into tears of happiness. No, nothing he wrote was new. And even if he still seems like a sleazy public relations expert in obfuscation, an insider was finally telling the truth, in one book.Link.
My story is different from those who felt seriously constrained about raising questions about the administration's obvious lies. I worked as an editorial writer at The San Francisco Chronicle, where a liberal editorial board raised serious objections to the war. And yet, in the years following 9/11, I felt editorial restraints that never allowed us to tell the whole truth about the lies and deception that led to America's most catastrophic foreign policy disaster.
Others in the mainstream media felt far greater restraints. Jessica Yellin, a CNN journalist, for example, says she felt pressured by corporate executives at her previous network to support the Iraq War. To Anderson Cooper, she described how she and others were "under enormous pressure from corporate executives, frankly, to make sure that this was a war presented in a way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation and the president's high approval ratings." On the Today Show, Katie Couric, Brian Williams, and Charles Gibson also admitted feeling pressure from the Bush administration to support the war, MSNBC reported. Couric even recounted a threat from the White House Press Secretary to "block access to [the network] during the war" if she did not change the tone of her interviewing style."
So what did I experience? An editor and an editorial board who felt that, in the absence of inside sources, we could not counter the administration's lies.
Let me give you some examples. I was raised in a Republican family, but schooled by the great iconoclastic journalist I.F. Stone, who taught me that you can find the truth without inside sources, if only you're willing to see beyond patriotic fervor and examine voices in the public domain that are marginalized, So, I would read national security experts who countered Donald Rumfeld's ridiculous predictions; I would read the British, Canadian, Italian and French press; I would read the writings of experts in resource wars and weapons of mass destruction.
No, I didn't know I was right. But I was sure that the administration was lying. And, I knew that at the very least that our editorials should be asking why Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld et al should be believed when I had found strong evidence that they were cherry picking intelligence, and setting up their own office in the Pentagon, and acting in complete secrecy.
The rush to war drove me crazy. In the days that led up to the war, I went to my editor and told him I needed a few days unpaid leave to accept the fact that we were, in fact, going to war. In my mind's eye, I saw a baby tied to the railroad tracks and saw the train rapidly moving toward the helpless child. I saw years of quagmire, bloodshed, and tens of thousands of deaths. I needed a few days to accept that reality before I could return to writing. He understood and allowed me to regain my professional composure.
To its credit, the editorial board raised some of the toughest questions in the mainstream media. And yet....I was the only one who didn't believe Colin Powell's shameful presentation at the United Nations. Why? Not because I had special insider knowledge, but like I.F. Stone, I had found credible people who could dissect his speech and found it unconvincing and unpersuasive.
When I heard Bush's inaugural address, I heard two major lies embedded within his speech. But somehow that still wasn't enough to accuse him of plagiarism and deception.
The truth is, even a liberal newspaper, blessed with a liberal editorial board, did not engage in truth telling. We raised some good questions, wrote about supporting the troops, but failed to describe the deception that led to the catastrophe that was unfolding right before our eyes.
While I was writing editorials, I was also publishing two weekly political columns on the op-ed page. I also felt constrained as a columnist. If I wanted to discuss this country's desire to gain control and access over oil, I had to bump up against the accusation that I was a vulgar Marxist, rather than conversant with the reality of resource wars.
Finally, I am an historian, and I knew Iraq's history. I also knew that the war would end in a disastrous occupation, not a liberation, and that no country, including our own, will ever tolerate occupation by a foreign nation.
This week, I sat with a former colleague from the editorial board in a café, rather than in the room where we used to make our editorial decisions. He admitted that I had been right, but even more, that even in a liberal paper, the editor and most of the board, had felt restrained, afraid of seeming unpatriotic, afraid of saying the emperor wore no clothes, afraid of not giving the President the benefit of the doubt, afraid of truth telling without access to inside sources.
You may say, "Ho Hum, even the Senate has now, after five years, come out with a report that describes (oh, so tepidly) the years of deception.
But for me, the tears flowed because I remembered all those years when I felt passionate about telling the public the truth, but was unable to do so in a mainstream, liberal, newspaper.
The Moral Corruption Of Our Leaders And Their Enablers
Maybe it has to do with amoral greed or something... the mise en scene seems to be the loss of a moral balance or something.
Anyway.
A practically current case study, as it were.
Apologies: a major moral failing that Joe Lieberman has failed to bring to light. So if Joe hasn'r ragged on it, I guess I must be wrong.
Anyway.
A practically current case study, as it were.
Apologies: a major moral failing that Joe Lieberman has failed to bring to light. So if Joe hasn'r ragged on it, I guess I must be wrong.
The World's Greatest Leaders
Chapter MDCXLIII of "Our Leaders' Belief In Government As A Source Of Funds To Re-Distribute For Their Benefit And The Benefit Of Their Big Wealth Supporters":
Federal prosecutors are aiming to block the sale of the home of Christopher J. Ward, former treasurer of the National Republican Congressional Committee, over allegations that he shifted over $500,000 from Senate Republicans into his personal accounts over a four-year period to make mortgage payments and fund remodeling jobs.Link.
According to the Department of Justice and an internal NRCC audit stemming from its accusations against Ward in March, he began embezzling in 2003. $198,841 in particular has been isolated by investigators, $95,000 of which is said to be from the 2006 President's Dinner, to pay for work done on Ward's house. Also diverted, say court documents, was $72,000 to make mortgage payments.
Ward, under investigation by the FBI, has been relieved of his duties with the NRCC but has yet to be charged criminally. Five GOP-connected organizations so far have implicated Ward in the misappropriation of at least $47,000, a far cry from what could have gone missing from the NRCC; an internal audit there suggests a figure of up to $600,000, but that audit is still in progress, said Karen Hanretty, NRCC's communications director.
Ward worked for the NRCC starting in November of 1995, taking on the role of treasurer in 2003. He stepped down in July of 2007 but stayed on as a consultant until January 28, 2008, when it was discovered that he was not auditing NRCC's 2006 finances as previously believed. An internal investigation by Chairman Tom Cole revealed that the last calendar year successfully audited was 2001, with Ward fabricating reports for 2002 through 2006.
How President McCain Will Get Elected: Lies, Lies, Lies
If truth be told, however, Obama earned his Ivy League degrees the hard way, while the child of privilege in this year’s presidential contest is John McCain. McCain obtained his appointment to the U.S. Navy Academy because his father and grandfather had been there, and McCain’s path to the Senate was made easy because his predecessor, Barry Goldwater, liked his father, Admiral Jack McCain.Link.
Yet McCain always passes over his privileged history, while making much of the fact that he finished at the bottom of his class at Annapolis to establish his bona fides as a regular guy. In addition, McCain invokes his laudable Vietnam POW experience as evidence of his physical toughness and stamina, qualities to which regular guys can easily aspire.
***
Overall, the Times’ report suggests that to get elected president today the candidate must “make an emotional connection [with average American voters]” which helps to win their “trust and confidence” – which are essential. Trust and confidence are not won by academic pedigree or prestigious educational success. To the contrary, for (too) many voters, it is necessary to shed such accomplishments to win this kind of loyalty. Ivy League degrees are considered by many as indicia of arrogance and privilege (whether such qualities belong to the degreeholder or not).
***
Dr. Westen also addressed the emotionally-loaded question of race in passing in The Political Brain. He explains that Obama, like every African-American candidate for Senate or President in the near future, needs to study the effectively-orchestrated Republican campaign run against Congressman Harold Ford (also an African-American), when he sought to win a Senate seat in Tennessee in 2006. It was a “psychologically sophisticated” undertaking built on racism. It worked. And Republicans got away with it, paying no price for their underhanded tactics, but rather winning a Senate seat.
The Democrats were fearful of talking about race in the Ford campaign, Westen observes. This was a mistake. They failed to call attention to the racist campaign being waged against them, and they did not call the GOP on its morally reprehensive decision to play to people’s prejudice. The same kid of racist campaign has already started with Obama, and if the Obama campaign and his supporters do not call attention to it, John McCain will gain an easy victory, only to bring us the third term of the Bush/Cheney Administration.
Saturday, June 07, 2008
Scientific Breakthrough Of The Day; New Over-The-Counter Drug To Abuse
I was going to be coy about it but I can't: Preparation H. More here.
Friday, June 06, 2008
What Else Is New? Beloved Leader Gives Money To Corrupt Saudi BFF
The US military has awarded an $80 million contract to a prominent Saudi financier who has been indicted by the US Justice Department. The contract to supply jet fuel to American bases in Afghanistan was awarded to the Attock Refinery Ltd, a Pakistani-based refinery owned by Gaith Pharaon. Pharaon is wanted in connection with his alleged role at the failed Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), and the CenTrust savings and loan scandal, which cost US tax payers $1.7 billion.Link.
The Saudi businessman was also named in a 2002 French parliamentary report as having links to informal money transfer networks called hawala, known to be used by traders and terrorists, including Al Qaeda.
Interestingly, Pharaon was also an investor in President George W. Bush's first business venture, Arbusto Energy.
A spokesman for the FBI said Pharaon was not wanted in connection with the French report, but confirmed he was still sought by the US Justice Department.
"Ghaith Pharaon is an FBI fugitive indicted in both the BCCI and CENTRUST case," said Richard Kolko, a spokesman for the FBI. "If anyone has information on his location, they are requested to contact the FBI or the US Embassy."
The US military purchases jet fuel from Attock through the contractor Supreme Fuels, according to a US government website. The $80 million contract for 2008 was posted this week on a US government website . Attock supplied the US military more than $40 million in jet fuel in 2007, according to another spreadsheet posted on the site.
An official at Attock, who did not wish to be named, confirmed the refinery was supplying thousands of tons of jet fuel to the US base at Bagram Air Base every month.
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