Petraeus and Crocker will be on FOX for an hour "interview" tomorrow night

Everything, well almost everything, you need to know about the report this week from General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker is summed up in this one factoid: The duo will be doing spin for an hour on Fox News tomorrow night. Yep, somehow Brit Hume got an "exclusive." Huh. Besides all the lies and cherry-picking that's already been exposed, nothing should diminish the cred of Petraeus and Crocker to the real world more than knowing they need a full hour on GOP-TV to tell their "story."

It's all about "selling the surge" for the Bush team. They sold Americans a war based on lies. Now, they're selling an endless war. Read More......

Time mag: 'The 50 Worst Cars of All Time'

A weekender fun thread...

Was something you drove on Time's list? The 1971 incendiary Ford Pinto made the list, as did the POS 1985 Yugo and the classic '78 AMC Pacer. It should surprise no one that the timeframe with the most "winners" was 1975-1989, the height of crap quality.

We had a non-explosive 1973 Ford Pinto station wagon. Oh so sh*tty - it shook uncontrollably when you "floored it" up to 55 mph. Bucket vinyl seats that scorched your *ss in the summer. No A/C. Not that the engine could have handled A/C; it probably would have required you to put your feet down like Fred Flintstone and pedi-power it up a hill.


Quality Is Job One.

This car was such a beater that one day (we were living in Brooklyn at the time - late 70s), I came out to go to the store, got in the car and turned the key...nothing. I tried again...nothing. I got out of the car and popped the hood. Someone had stolen the battery. Not the car, the battery. Read More......

U.S. official calls bin Laden 'virtually impotent.' I'd call him scot free after killing 3,000 people.

Kill one person, you get the death penalty. Kill 3,000 and you get off scot free and the Republicans don't even care about catching you. Fred Thompson said as much this past week, George Bush has said as much, John McCain has said as much. We can now add "soft on mass murder" to the ever-growing list of corrupt Republican party values. Read More......

Another GOP gay scandal brews in murder-suicide case?

There is a bizarre story swarming blogtopia, laced with unconfirmed (and confirmed) sources that could lead to another Republican Sexual Hypocrite "outing" and scandal. First, some facts about the weird murder suicide in Orlando in late August that kicked off the whole matter:

A Republican political consultant killed in an apparent double murder-suicide in Florida had worked extensively in Alabama politics including a controversial "Adam and Steve" campaign leaflet that parodied gay marriage.

Ralph Gonzalez, 39, president of The Strategum Group, was found dead Thursday along with his roommate, David Abrami, 36, and a friend, Robert Drake, 30, according to The Associated Press. A motive has not been determined. Weapons and signs of a struggle were found in the house.

... The Alabama Republican Legislative Committee in 2005 paid Strategum $3,144.06 to print a flier that accused a Democratic candidate for the House of Representatives of supporting gay marriage.

The flier depicted two smiling men on a porch holding hands with the caption: "Let Gloria Dolbare know God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve!"

The Orlando Sheriff's deputies have not released a timeline or official motive -- the bodies that were discovered had been dead for several days. Some articles at the time mentioned a gay love triangle, which caught the eye of several blogs. As Andy at Towleroad noted, Florida Today originally ran the story with the "Lovers' fight may have sparked three deaths." He did a screen cap of it:



The newspaper later scrubbed all references to the "lovers' quarrel" from the report without comment.

The fact that it gets even more GOP-scandalous - it also ties into a male escort service/prostitution ring - shows it is begging for additional investigation by the MSM, but no one seems to want to touch it. Drama Queen notes:

In both Monday and Tuesday's posts, my point was that it's highly suspicious that the traditional media has basically ignored the Florida murder suicide: a sensational story that juicily combines fundamentalist Christian politicians and homosexual consultants, election software tampering and this potential tie to a gay porn-related murder in Pennsylvania.

This story is potentially wilder than anything Larry Craig's toe-tapping in an airport restroom. I have no idea what it all means since there are many still off-the-record sources. I'll let Scrutiny Hooligans, Down With Tyranny and Pat Go Bye Bye tell the potentially sordid tale. BlueNC has been on the case for some time now as well. However, you might want to start here for an overview.

The events on the record are noteworthy enough for the MSM to investigate at this point, because the office of right-wing Congressman Patrick McHenry (R-NC) has gone on the record tying the pol to the shooting. Howie Klein, making a serious charge:

As we mentioned yesterday, Drake, a former marine, also is alleged to have a strong relationship-- both intimate and business/political-- with right-wing Congressman Patrick McHenry (R-NC). When I spoke to McHenry's office about this they at first insisted they never heard of Drake then, confronted with specifics, admitted they know him. They refused to put Congressman McHenry on the phone. There is every indication that McHenry may have been one of the Republican elected officials who was using the services of the gay prostitution agency connected to Drake. Our pals over at the BradBlog points out the connections between Florida's ultra-corrupt, vote-tampering congressman, Tom Feeney, and Gonzalez and reports the threat to expose the list of Republican elected officials who were using the gay escort service.

Where will it go? Who knows, but with a story of this potential magnitude, the mainstream news media, which has the resources to investigate and uncover whether the thick smoke does or doesn't lead to fire, isn't biting.

***

Meanwhile, drop by The Pensito Review for a post on the next GOP closet doors that could be kicked open.



While we're on GOP topic, look at the yeoman work of this Blender, Tommy Korioth. He said he expected to spend a couple of hours working on a list of the Republican Culture of Corruption, but it took him 3 days. We've got to get this stuff into a searchable Conservative Values Monitor database again. Read More......

53% of Americans think Petraeus will paint rosy picture on Iraq

People simply do not believe any of these clowns any more so no matter how many times they change stories, jump and yell the American public just doesn't care. The public knows that they are a bunch of snake oil salesmen who will say anything so they are just tuning them out. It's over and the public is ready to move on.

Fifty-eight percent, a new high, said they want to decrease the number of U.S. troops in Iraq. And most of those who advocated a troop reduction said they want the drawdown to begin either right away or by the end of the year. A majority, 55 percent, supported legislation that would set a deadline of next spring for the withdrawal of American combat forces. That figure is unchanged from July.

The question now is whether or not the Democrats in Congress are listing to the US public. Read More......

Bush team focused on "selling the surge"

"Selling" -- that's what they do in the Bush White House. Whatever it takes, whatever needs to be said, whatever statistics need to be manipulated, whatever facts need to be cherry-picked:

Another new arrival in the West Wing set up a rapid-response PR unit hard-wired into Petraeus's shop. Ed Gillespie, the new presidential counselor, organized daily conference calls at 7:45 a.m. and again late in the afternoon between the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, and the U.S. Embassy and military in Baghdad to map out ways of selling the surge.

From the start of the Bush plan, the White House communications office had been blitzing an e-mail list of as many as 5,000 journalists, lawmakers, lobbyists, conservative bloggers, military groups and others with talking points or rebuttals of criticism. Between Jan. 10 and last week, the office put out 94 such documents in various categories -- "Myths/Facts" or "Setting the Record Straight" to take issue with negative news articles, and "In Case You Missed It" to distribute positive articles or speeches.

Gillespie arranged several presidential speeches to make strategic arguments, such as comparing Iraq to Vietnam or warning of Iranian interference. When critics assailed Bush for overstating ties between al-Qaeda and the group called al-Qaeda in Iraq, Gillespie organized a Bush speech to make his case.

"The whole idea is to take these things on before they become conventional wisdom," said White House communications director Kevin Sullivan. "We have a very short window."

Isn't this how we got into the Iraq quagmire in the first place?

This is just another campaign for Bush. Reality doesn't matter.

Some members of Congress may be buying the Bush spin, but based on this just-released New York Times poll, the American people aren't sold:

A majority of Americans say the United States made a mistake getting involved in the war in Iraq, and the increased numbers of troops in recent months has either made things worse or had no impact at all, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

This is going to be an intense week. Read More......

Fred Thompson on womb control, gay rights

Let's get this first bit of lunacy out of the way -- Fred Thompson on who should face criminal sanction for an abortion:

"Don't punish women who have abortions," presidential hopeful Fred Thompson says. Punish the doctors who perform them...Authorities "can do whatever they want to with abortion doctors, as far as I'm concerned," the former Tennessee senator said while campaigning in Western Iowa according to the Los Angeles Times. But "if it comes down to giving criminal sanctions to a 19-year-old girl and her mama, I'm against that."

Wait a minute. If it's going to be a crime, why not punish the mother? If we're going to do the whole law and order thing (har-dee-har-har), when it comes to state womb control, doesn't the woman represent the one contracting the hit on the fetus?

As even one Freeper sanely noted, the inconsistency makes no sense:

Under Thompson's logic here, it's perfectly legal for a woman to use a coat hanger to perform an abortion on herself but illegal for her to receive medical assistance in doing it. In other words, it's not illegal to kill a child. But it's illegal to help a woman do such. That doesn’t make much sense to me at all. I'm not sure how that’s even a pro-life argument.

And what about the male partner in this equation? What if he agrees with the woman in question that she should have an abortion, perhaps even drives her to the clinic in support of her decision -- is he then an accessory to the crime? Shouldn't he be prosecuted, Fred? Maybe the fantasy candidate of the freeper set agrees with Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. He recently said that women who seek out the abortion are too "impaired" to be responsible for their actions.

The newest occupant of the GOP clown car also made it plainly clear where his thinking lies regarding marriage equality:

Thompson chastised those judges in Iowa, Massachusetts and other states for rulings that opened the way to same-sex marriage, calling for constitutional amendments to curb judges' power to do so.

"What we're seeing here is a totally judicially created problem," he told a crowd in Sioux City, Iowa according to the Times. "You know how many states have affirmatively approved gay marriage? State legislatures? Zero."

He also would like a constitutional amendment called for an amendment to bar judges from allowing marriage equality unless it is approved by a state legislature.

Fred's setting himself up to have egg on his face fairly soon, because California's legislature again approved a marriage equality bill, which first passed in 2005 and was vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger. This year the Governator has until October 14th to sign or veto the bill. He has cited in the past that the courts (I guess those "activist judges") should decide what to do about marriage, not the legislature. Read More......

Sunday Talk Shows Open Thread

This week marks the sixth anniversary of Al Qaeda's attack on the U.S. Osama Bin Laden is still on the loose -- and no one in the Bush administration can or will explain why. This is also a big week on Capitol Hill. Petraeus delivers the report on the "surge" for his boss, George Bush. There will be lots of discussion and spin on the shows. And, one of the biggest spinners, Lindsey "Kicking their ass" Graham, is making another appearance. Can someone ask Graham if he is violating "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"?

Here's the lineup:

ABC's "This Week" — Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and John Kerry, D-Mass.

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CBS' "Face the Nation" — Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., and former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft.

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NBC's "Meet the Press" — Retired Marine Corps Gen. James Jones; Charles Ramsey, former Washington, D.C., police chief; Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del.

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CNN's "Late Edition" — White House homeland security adviser Frances Frago Townsend; presidential candidate and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee; Sens. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., and Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.; Iraqi national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie; retired Army Gen. George Joulwan.

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"Fox News Sunday" - Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; Townsend; Michael DuHaime, Rudy Giuliani's campaign manager.

Read More......

How to win friends and influence people

The leader of the free world speaks, winning new friends by the minute.

"Thank you for being such a fine host for the OPEC summit," Bush said to Australian Prime Minister John Howard.

Oops. That would be APEC, the annual meeting of leaders from 21 Pacific Rim nations, not OPEC, the cartel of 12 major oil producers.

Bush quickly corrected himself. "APEC summit," he said forcefully, joking that Howard had invited him to the OPEC summit next year (for the record, an impossibility, since neither Australia nor the U.S. are OPEC members).

The president's next goof went uncorrected — by him anyway. Talking about Howard's visit to Iraq last year to thank his country's soldiers serving there, Bush called them "Austrian troops."

Yale and Harvard must be so proud. Read More......

What a headline: Bush advisers favor current war strategy

You don't say? You mean the remaining yes-men that are there think the plan is great? Noooooo. Other similar headlines could be, the sky is blue, the grass is green, Paulson thinks the economy is fine and Michigan football loses. Read More......

Wakey, wakey

Sunrise from the beach of Rock Sea, a laid back camp along the Gulf of Aqaba in South Sinai, Egypt. After diving down in Dahab (cheap but missing fish and very overrated) and getting sick from just about every restaurant in town, Nuweiba was the perfect place to chill out without spending much money since rooms were about 5 euro to 10 euro, which is my kind of budget. It was so nice I even managed to wake with the sun instead of my usual 9AM. Read More......