Massive privacy violation, this time by AOL

That would be the third privacy violation story this week. I give up. Read More......

Eliot Spitzer has great ads

Check out the Spitzer ads...they're really good, especially "Let it Shine" and "Tribute." They don't feel like the usual, run-of-the-mill campaign ads. Read More......

Coincidence that the RNC seemed ready for the latest terror scare?

Check out the timeline put out by the DCCC. Seems like the political operatives were ready (and excited) for the terror story. Hmmm.

So, will anyone in the media find out if anyone at the White House told anyone at the RNC about the terror threat before the rest of us knew? We already know the White House will give away national security secrets for partisan politics. And, we know that Karl Rove, who outed an undercover CIA agent, still has a top job and top security clearance. The media who cover the White House also know that the White House does this. Many of them have printed the White House leaks. And, they've let the White House get away with talking tough on terror while simultaneously undermining national security for political reasons.

Will anyone call them on it besides AFP? Read More......

Lamont links Lieberman to Cheney

Cheney and Lieberman are using the same talking points. Lamont called him on it:

In a telephone interview from his vacation home in Maine, Mr. Lamont said he was disappointed with the personal tone Mr. Lieberman’s remarks, and questioned the connection between the Iraq war and the new terrorist plot. He also continued his strategy of trying to link Mr. Lieberman’s views with those of the Bush administration, whose approach the senator has tended to support in the fight against terrorism.

“Wow,” Mr. Lamont said, after asking a reporter to read Mr. Lieberman’s remark about him. “That comment sounds an awful lot like Vice President Cheney’s comment on Wednesday. Both of them believe our invasion of Iraq has a lot to do with 9/11. That’s a false premise.”

Lieberman should invite his pal, Dick, to come campaign for him. Read More......

Jim Talent pretends he doesn't love Bush anymore

But Fired Up Missouri reminds us of all the great times Bush and Talent had together:
Read More......

White House official gleeful that terrorists wanted to kill thousands of Americans on ten US airlines over the Atlantic

"Weeks before September 11th, this is going to play big," said another White House official, who also spoke on condition of not being named, adding that some Democratic candidates won't "look as appealing" under the circumstances. - AFP, August 11, 2006

Well that didn't take long. The Republicans never did meet a threat of mortal injury to thousands of American lives that they didn't welcome as a political windfall.

This is a scathing piece from Agence France-Presse, and a brilliant example of what real journalists do. They don't just parrot what the White House tells them, they actually investigate and report the facts. Our American brethren could learn a thing or two:

US President George W. Bush seized on a foiled London airline bomb plot to hammer unnamed critics he accused of having all but forgotten the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Weighed down by the unpopular war in Iraq, Bush and his aides have tried to shift the national political debate from that conflict to the broader and more popular global war on terrorism ahead of November 7 congressional elections....

His remarks came a day after the White House orchestrated an exceptionally aggressive campaign to tar opposition Democrats as weak on terrorism, knowing what Democrats didn't: News of the plot could soon break....

Bush aides on Thursday fought the notion that they had exploited their knowledge of the coming British raid to hit Democrats, saying the trigger had been the defeat of Democratic Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut by an anti-war political novice....

Snow said Bush first learned in detail about the plot on Friday, and received two detailed briefings on it on Saturday and Sunday, as well as had two conversations about it with British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

But a senior White House official said that the British government had not launched its raid until well after Cheney held a highly unusual conference call with reporters to attack the Democrats as weak against terrorism....

On Wednesday, Cheney had suggested that Democrats believe "that somehow we can retreat behind our oceans and not be actively engaged in this conflict and be safe here at home, which clearly we know we won't, we can't, be," he said.

While some Democrats have opposed some steps in the war on terrorism, and more and more are calling for a withdrawal from Iraq, no major figures in the party have called for a wholesale retreat in the broader conflict.

But Bush's Republicans hoped the raid would yield political gains....

"Weeks before September 11th, this is going to play big," said another White House official, who also spoke on condition of not being named, adding that some Democratic candidates won't "look as appealing" under the circumstances.

Read More......

Okay, so going after us on Lieberman IS the Republican strategy to combat the anti-incumbent fervor

We're not finished with Cheney, yet.

Cheney had this to say yesterday - read it, then let's discuss:

The thing that's partly disturbing about it is the fact that, the standpoint of our adversaries, if you will, in this conflict, and the al Qaeda types, they clearly are betting on the proposition that ultimately they can break the will of the American people in terms of our ability to stay in the fight and complete the task. And when we see the Democratic Party reject one of its own, a man they selected to be their vice presidential nominee just a few short years ago, it would seem to say a lot about the state the party is in today if that's becoming the dominant view of the Democratic Party, the basic, fundamental notion that somehow we can retreat behind our oceans and not be actively engaged in this conflict [who said that?] and be safe here at home, which clearly we know we won't -- we can't be. So we have to be actively engaged not only in Afghanistan and Iraq, but on a global basis [again, who said we shouldn't be engaged?] if we're going to succeed in prevailing in this long-term conflict.

So it's an unfortunate development, I think, from the standpoint of the Democratic Party to see a man like Lieberman pushed aside because of his willingness to support an aggressive posture in terms of our national security strategy [again, who said that?].

First off, Cheney is simply repeating the same GOP talking points, packaged with a few transitional words.

1. Democrats enable Osama, and/or Osama likes Democrats.

2. Democrats oppose any war on terror, and/or Democrats want America to hide and never fight back.

More proof? Cheney even brings up the "pre-Sept. 11 mindset" canard/talking point.

But clearly within the Democratic Party, it would appear to be that there are deep divisions. I think there's a significant body of opinion that wants to go back -- I guess the way I would describe it is sort of the pre-9/11 mind set, in terms of how we deal with the world we live in.

Note how Cheney is saying absolutely nothing, giving no proof whatsoever for any of his assertions, but still doing a damn good job of just making stuff up and hoping it sticks to the Dems (and with the help of an uncritical media, it may). Who said Lieberman lost simply because he thought we needed to fight the war on terror? That's simply untrue. (Then again, Cheney is the guy who says Mohammad Atta met with the Iraqis at their embassy in the Czech Republica, even though he knew it wasn't true - then he denied having said it, even though he said it on live TV.) And who said that those of us who opposed Lieberman want to retreat within our national borders? Uh, pretty much no one. But again, we're not dealing with facts here. The GOP never deals with facts. They simply make enemies, and facts, up out of thin air. And they've been so succesful to date, it's no wonder they keep going.

Note what's really going on here. Cheney talks about how it somehow enables Al Qaeda to see the Democratic party "reject ones of its own." Uh, Mr. Vice President, those are called elections. We hold them every two years, four years and six years with the express purpose of deciding whether to accept or reject "our own."

But Cheney knows that, and this is his and the Republicans' greatest fear. That Lieberman's loss is a sign that the electorate is getting ready to "reject its own" - i.e., the Republicans currently in power and those who enable them. Cheney isn't sending a message to the Democrats, he's sending it to his own Republican voters. He's telling them that they enable Osama if they dare vote against a Republican. One simply doesn't voice disapproval of Republicans in power, no matter how incompetent, and remain a patriotic American in Bushcheneyland. Read More......

In Iraq, terror reigns

Bush has stated repeatedly that Iraq is the central front in the war on terror -- and the Iraqis are being terrorized:

Associated Press:

A suicide bomber blew himself up Thursday among pilgrims outside Iraq's holiest Shiite shrine, killing 35 people and wounding 122. A radical Sunni group claimed it carried out the attack in the southern city of Najaf, warning Shiites they are not safe even "deep in your regions."

At least 37 other people were killed or found dead Thursday elsewhere in Iraq, police said. They included five civilians who died when a mortar shell struck a cafe in a Shiite Muslim area of north Baghdad.

Washington Post:

Figures compiled by the city morgue indicated Wednesday that the number of killings in the Iraqi capital reached a new high last month, and the U.S. military said a new effort to bring security to Baghdad will succeed only if Iraqis "want it to work."

The Baghdad morgue took in 1,815 bodies during July, news services quoted the facility's assistant manager, Abdul Razzaq al-Obeidi, as saying. The previous month's tally was 1,595. Obeidi estimated that as many as 90 percent of the total died violent deaths.

It is almost unfathomable how much Bush has screwed up the war on terror. Read More......

Open Thread

Lot's to discuss.

One important thing: Show Sam Seder at Air America some love. Sam needs some help staying on the air. AMERICAblog loves the guy. Crooks and Liars has the details. Read More......

Cheney gave his Lieberman/Al Qaeda diatribe knowing this terror warning was coming out

In today's NY Times, Dick Cheney warned that the Lieberman loss would embolden "Al Qaeda types." It is reasonable to assume that Cheney, like Bush, knew about the unfolding scandal in Great Britain.

Think about this for a minute. It shows how evil the Bush/Cheney team really is. Knowing that this story was about to break, Cheney invoked Al Qaeda in purely political terms. Once again, Cheney is using terrorism for political purposes. The media should have laughed at him when he made his outrageous claim yesterday. Now, the media should be outraged. They were duped.

So Bush stays on vacation, Cheney goes on a political attack. Sums them up. Clearly, Cheney's motives were pure partisan politics. He choreographed his statements to be out there when this story broke. It's sick.

Instead of fighting terror, the Bush team is continually playing politics -- even with top secret info. That's one reason why Cheney's former chief of staff, Scooter Libby, is on trial. Bush and Cheney breach security -- and use classified info. for political reasons.

Ken Mehlman's been on a terror tirade lately. Did Ken Mehlman know about the alleged terror plot, too? Read More......

Bush stayed on vacation, knowing full well about the terrorist plot to bomb US airlines

We're upending civil aviation in the US today, freaking the hell out of the entire country, and what is our president doing? Giving speeches about... the economy!

Because what other topic would be more appropriate for a day when we learn that terrorists want to kill thousands of Americans on US airlines.

And even more interesting, according to press reports, Bush was briefed about the attack days ago while he was on vacation. And guess what? He stayed on vacation. Sound familiar?

And even better, they didn't even wake Bush up last night to let him know that the Brits had gone public and that, basically, everyone was freaking over the report:

Because Bush had been getting regular briefings on the developments, Snow said the president was not awakened overnight as action by British authorities was made public.

Then again, they thought someone was trying to kill Laura Bush and Nancy Reagan with an airplane headed to the White House a few years back, and no one told Bush because he was busy riding his bike in Maryland. So, what's a terrorist plot to destroy scores of American airplanes to the president who must never be disturbed.

Oh yeah, and now Bush is off to a Republican fundraiser. After all, if Bush doesn't ignore the current crisis, the terrorists win.

So the big question now, is whether Bush is still on vacation today or whether he called it off? Read More......

Joe's Hometown Paper: "Lieberman should drop independent candidacy"

The New Haven Register ran a strong editorial today telling Joe to get out of the race. A friend in CT, who told me about this editorial, also said that the print edition has a banner headline over the editorial in very large print... something he'd never seen before. The New Haven Register endorsed Lieberman in the primary -- they're over him now (registration required, by the way):

Lieberman says he is still a Democrat, but his campaign will divide the party that rejected him.

As an independent candidate, he can only hope to win if he holds onto a significant percentage of those Democrats who voted for him in the primary, and picks up sizeable votes from both independents and Republicans.

Somehow, the irony of a general election strategy that relies on Republican votes to win seems to have eluded a politician who touted his Democratic credentials during the campaign. It merely supports Lamont supporters' charge that Lieberman is a closet Republican.

By running as a third-party candidate, Lieberman has left himself open to the charge that he is not only a spoiler but that he cares more about himself than the party to which he still claims allegiance.

The primary vote should have told Lieberman that he was out of touch with the state that he had taken too much for granted. Until almost the closing days of the election, he seemed unable to gauge the deep anger of Democrats over the war in Iraq and his support for it.

The editorial goes on to adopt some of the Republican talking points about Lamont (only the Osama-loving liberals voted for him, apparently). But, that's even worse for Lieberman. Even a newspaper that apparently loathes Lamont is telling Lieberman to get out of dodge. Read More......

Political experts say Lamont victory is bad news for the GOP come this November

A friend sends the following interesting snippets:

Ned Lamont’s victory in the Connecticut Primary is being described as “an ominous signal to other incumbents supportive of President Bush.” With the new CNN poll showing Democrats leading Republicans on the Congressional ballot by 13 percentage points and less than three months to go until Election Day, Republicans are finding themselves in increasing electoral jeopardy. Here’s what the political experts are saying:

Analyst Stuart Rothenberg: “[Democrats] are generally more energized than the Republicans about the war, but not just about the war… They'll want to send a message about the war, about George W. Bush. And it's not a friendly message.”

The Cook Report’s Jennifer Duffy: “I think if you are a candidate who has taken a fairly hard-line on Iraq - you know, that things are going fine and, you know, stay the course - I think that you probably are a little bit more vulnerable.” [NPR, “Talk of the Nation,” 8/8/06]

The Washington Times’ Donald Lambro: “Murphy's Law says that if things can get worse, they probably will and that seems to be the case for President Bush and the Republicans…There is no doubt that Republicans face heavy, maybe hurricane-force winds in the coming weeks. The political climate is hostile to them, there is more intensity among Democratic voters and more pessimism among all voters.”

Pew Research Center Director Andrew Kohut: “…there are an awful lot of independents out there who want something more than Republicans not just being in lockstep with the president.” [NPR, “Talk of the Nation,” 8/8/06]

Marist Institute Polling Director Lee Miringoff: “To the degree that [the Connecticut primary] is seen as a referendum on Iraq, and it does have an impact on turnout, that can make Republican congressional candidates worried.”

ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos: “The fact that a political unknown like Ned Lamont unseated an established Senator like Joe Lieberman shows there’s real anger out in the electorate…that’s bad news for Republicans.” Read More......

The Terri Schiavo Republicans are back

Never underestimate a Republican's ability to divert attention away from the most pressing issues facing our country, and the media's ability to swallow the Republican spin hook, line and sinker

Who can forget a little over a year ago that the Republicans spent more time trying to find this woman...



...than this man.



And do you remember how the polls at the time showed around 80% of the country (I believe it was 82% in one poll) thought the Repblicans should leave Schiavo alone, yet the media kept saying the country was "deeply divided" over the issue?

Which takes us to Mike Allen's new article in TIME that Joe talks about below. First off, while Allen is correct in reporting that the Republicans have jumped all over the Lieberman loss in an effort to portray Democrats as soft on terror, I think Allen's article goes too far in buying the GOP spin. It's one thing to report, correctly, that Republicans are trying to use the Lieberman loss to their advantage. It's another thing entirely to buy into the Republican spin that the Lieberman loss is a disaster for Democrats (which the article implicitly does, the tone of the article is 100% that the Dems are on the defensive) and a boon for Republicans, and to say that the Republicans are right - namely, that Lieberman is, according to TIME, a "sensible centrist" (where did TIME pull that one from, unsourced of course so we KNOW it must be true), so Lieberman's detractors must not like sense or moderation, crazy leftists that we are.

Especially absurd is this paragraph in Allen's piece. The GOP really thinks that the local voters in Missouri are even going to know who Joe Lieberman is, let alone care what their Democratic state auditor thinks of some guy named Ned?

One of the nip-and-tuck Senate races this year is in Missouri, and backers of Sen. Jim Talent are preparing an attack on his opponent, State Auditor Claire McCaskill, that is emblematic of the sort that will be seen all over the country within 24 hours. "Does Claire McCaskill support the wishes of the angry left by endorsing Ned Lamont's candidacy or will she support the man who was chosen by Al Gore as the Democrat's 2000 nominee for Vice President?" the National Republican Senatorial Committee asks in a statement that will force McCaskill to talk about messy party business instead of her favored issues of government accountability and affordable health care.

It's not going to force McCaskill to do anything. Rather than report this as some big bad "I gotcha" the Republicans just descended on the Dems, Allen and TIME could have followed that paragraph with the following:

Democrats say McCaskill won't be forced to do any such thing. Most Missourians have never heard of, and couldn't care less about, some guy named "Ned" from the northeast. What Missourians do care about are high gas prices, affordable health care, a faltering economy, and a seemingly unstoppable quagmire in Iraq. Invoking vintage Ronald Reagan, McCaskill will give her best "there they go again," and note that the "Terri Schiavo Republicans" running the Republican party and Washington, DC are obsessed with issues that have nothing to do with the major problems facing America today.

Oh, but that would have made the article balanced. Silly me. Read More......

So who's going to be the first Republican to link Joe Lieberman's defeat and today's Red Alert?

Meaning, who is going to be the first Republican to say something like: "Today's Red Alert shows the danger America faces if the Democratic party wins in November, just look what happened to Joe Lieberman when he tried to warn Democrats that the war on terror is real." Something like that.

My bet is on Ken Mehlman, he has such a flair. Though the White House might choose FOX News to kick it off instead. Read More......

Daily Show on Lieberman

It's really good. Actually, the last part is best, so watch the whole thing. Read More......

Lieberman loses, CODE RED, CODE RED, CODE RED

UPDATE: I'm reading Ron Suskin's book, the "One Percent Doctrine," and highly recommend it. It's a look at the inside workings of the Bush administration and how they turned the war on terror into such a botched mess. Particularly interesting, and relevant to this post, is how at nearly every step Bush, not fully informed as to what's going on, and Cheney, fully informed but not caring about the truth, speak out publicly about some aspect of the war on terror and simply get the facts the horribly wrong. Typically, they overstate the case, and then the entire administration is forced to run around and scrounge up any evidence, no matter how slim or non-credible, to ex post facto "prove" that what Bush or Cheney just incorrectly sad is in fact true. Suskin does a great job of noting the various terror "threats" and/or "successes" that Bush and company lauded publicly, and which were simply nothing as serious as portrayed.

-----------

No, really.

Bush just invoked a Code Red terrorist emergency, our first ever.

And isn't it queer that the emergency is declared within a day of Republican party leader Ken Mehlman launching an all-out offensive against Democrats following Joe Lieberman's loss in Connecticut, an offensive in which Mehlman, the White House and Republican operatives are claiming that Democrats no longer care about national security or the war on terror.

And just at that moment we get our FIRST ever red alert. Beam me up, Scotty.



Do I sound as if I don't believe this alert? Why, yes, that would be correct. I just don't believe it. Read the article. They say the plot had an "Al Qaeda footprint." Ooh, are you scared yet? What that really means is that they found NO evidence whatsoever that the plot had anything to do at all with Al Qaeda, but the plot simply made them think "gosh, this is something Al Qaeda would do." That's what a footprint means. Nice, but no cigar.

Were these guys totally innocent? Probably not. But there's no reason to believe they were any more Osama's right-hand than Jose Padilla, the famed dirty-bomber who I think is now only being charged with jay-walking or something. Then there were the famous six Muslim-American guys in New York state, supposedly operating their own al Qaeda cell. Not so much. Or how about the Al Qaeda cell in Florida trying to blow up the Sears Tower? Oh that's right, they were just some demented friends squatting in a warehouse and "thinking" about it. And then there's the famous plot to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge - with a single blow torch.

Bottom line: Joe Lieberbush lost. The message is spreading across the land that incumbents who embrace the president are in serious trouble. And the Republicans needed to divert attention, to stop this meme in its tracks, and lo' and behold we have our first terror alert that I can recall since the last election, and it's our first ever Red Alert! What a coincidence! Read More......

Open thread

Another cold day in Paris ;-) Read More......

Josh Marshall debunks the GOP deification of Lieberman

Josh Marshall had a great analysis of the Lieberman race on Time.com titled "Joe Lieberman Lost the Old-fashioned Way." He nailed it like he usually does.

Unfortunately, Mike Allen also had a piece in Time, "Why the Republicans are loving the Lieberman loss" that basically bought the GOP talking points hook, line and sinker. The traditional media does have a propensity to buy Republican spin -- no matter how far-fetched it is.

On his blog, Josh Marshall dissects that Mike Allen article in a very good post and tries to bring some sanity to the GOP histrionics. It's definitely worth a read. My favorite excerpt:

What's really sad is that the nexus of national press and political operative bigwigs really needs to get over itself a bit here. Because once they do, they may actually be able to get over Joe Lieberman.

Joe Lieberman is not a world-historical figure.

He's not fighting some long twilight struggle.

He thinks he's both. But he's not....

The heart of the matter here is that everyone knows Joe in DC. They like him. They think he's a nice guy, which he is. His staff likes him, which also makes him seem like a nice guy. He's schmoozed the city for two decades.

But really he's just a pol who ignored his constituents, went into serious denial about a major foreign policy disaster, was more lockstep with the president's non-policy than many Republicans, and got bounced by his constituents.

That's politics. And that's accountability. And, really? It's not that big a deal.

Read More......