LOL Karl Rove is PAGE ONE of the Washington Post tomorrow!

LOL Oh my, that was a short respite from Plamegate!

A classified State Department memorandum central to a federal leak investigation contained information about CIA officer Valerie Plame in a paragraph marked "(S)" for secret, a clear indication that any Bush administration official who read it should have been aware the information was classified, according to current and former government officials.

Plame -- who is referred to by her married name, Valerie Wilson, in the memo -- is mentioned in the second paragraph of the three-page document, which was written on June 10, 2003, by an analyst in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), according to a source who described the memo to The Washington Post.

The paragraph identifying her as the wife of former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV was clearly marked to show that it contained classified material at the "secret" level, two sources said. The CIA classifies as "secret" the names of officers whose identities are covert, according to former senior agency officials.

Anyone reading that paragraph should have been aware that it contained secret information, though that designation was not specifically attached to Plame's name and did not describe her status as covert, the sources said. It is a federal crime, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, for a federal official to knowingly disclose the identity of a covert CIA official if the person knows the government is trying to keep it secret.

Kudos to the Washington Post. A newspaper that can clearly handle two big stories at once! Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

And off to bed Read the rest of this post...

Gay couples can now marry in Canada

What a great country.

Canada became the fourth country in the world to legalize gay marriage nationwide after a landmark bill was signed into law on Wednesday.... The bill grants same-sex couples legal rights equal to those in traditional unions between a man and a woman, something already legal in eight of Canada's 10 provinces and in two of its three territories.

Look mom, no locusts! Read the rest of this post...

Alleged anti-gay discrimination by Brit embassy in Spain

This hasn't been confirmed, but as we're dealing with governments here, I'm not too worried about slandering anyone. This is important and needs to be checked. Any Brits out there want to call their embassy in Madrid and ask if this is true?

Subject: British Embassy prevents Brits from marrying in Spain
Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2005 17:34:33 +0200

My name is Dan Downing, my partner of 13 years is a British Citizen. We are in the process of fulfilling the requirements of the city of Furengirola in Spain to get a marriage permit, one of these requirements is to get a certificate from the British Consulate stating that my partner (a Brit) is Single. The Vice Consule in Malaga has today at 10am refused to issue one, stating that the Embassy in Madrid has told them not to issue this type of certificate to same sex couples. They will however
issue this type of certificate to heterosexuals. We called the Embassy in Madrid and they confirmed that this was the case. We find this type of behavior to be appalling discrimatory, since the UK will recognize marriages performed in Massachusetts or Vermont. We don't understand why it is any business of the British Consulate who we are going to marry, all we need is a certificate stating that my partner is single.

Read the rest of this post...

Why is this White House transcript missing?

UPDATE: Someone noted in the comments that this briefing appears to have never been posted at all. Perhaps it was a mistake, or perhaps they didn't even want to post it. Don't know.

Someone just emailed me about something that was apparently posted in the comments earlier today. Basically, a White House press gaggle on July 9, 2003 seems to be missing from the White House Web site. And they're right. The briefings before and after that briefing are there, but not the July 9, 2003 one.

Now, there isn't necessarily a briefing every day to post on the site, but on July 9, 2003 there was a briefing, or gaggle, and you can find it on OTHER Web sites, including the US embassies in Australia and Israel. But if you check the White House Web site, it's not where it's supposed to be.

Can somebody who's REALLY up on the Amb Wilson stuff read through this and tell me if there's any reason they wouldn't want this up? This could just be a glitch on their site, but nowadays you can never be sure :-) Read the rest of this post...

Iraqi News: Bad To Worse

Now the Sunnis are withdrawing from the panel working on the Constitution; they say they aren't being protected enough. That ain't good.

Without inclusive participation in the entire process, the civil conflict could worsen, with frustrated Sunnis, who make up a fifth of the population, continuing to take up arms against the Shiites, Kurds and Americans. A suicide bomber detonated an explosive belt this morning at an Iraqi army recruiting center in Baghdad, killing at least 6 men and injuring at least 29 other people, hospital officials. During the war, more than 100 men, mostly potential recruits, have been killed in frequent suicide bombings at the center, located at the defunct Muthana military airport.

The sheik of a mosque in southern Baghdad, Muhammad Ali, was gunned down after morning prayers. Far to the south, in the conservative Shiite city of Basra, the deputy head of the provincial council, Hussein al-Daraji, was shot dead, said Abdul Zahra Sameer, another council member. Mr. Daraji belonged to the Fadilah Party, founded by a radical Shiite cleric.

And as we've mentioned,the Iraqi death toll is conservatively measured at 25,000 and counting. Hmm, Bush hates facts, but let's see. About 1,900 US casualties plus oh 10,000 wounded. (He really doesn't like our mentioning the wounded.) Plus our allies, throw in another 2000 dead and wounded. Plus 25,000 dead Iraqis and presumably many more wounded. At the very least, we're looking at 50,000 to 60,000 dead and wounded people. How many would have died if Hussein had remained in power? My question right now is how many would have died if the post-invasion hadn't been bungled so completely?

Finally, the Pentagon tersely admits that Iraqi units are woefully unprepared to fight the insurgency on their own. In direct response to Congressional demands for some actual FACTS, the Pentagon released a seven sentence statement to Congress that was leaked (did I say "leaked?" Who does that remind me of?) to the NYT.

About half of Iraq's new police units are still in training and cannot conduct operations, while the other half of the police units and two-thirds of the new army battalions are only "partially capable" of carrying out counterinsurgency missions, and only with American help, according to a newly declassified Pentagon assessment.

Only "a small number" of Iraqi security forces are capable of fighting the insurgency without American assistance, while about one-third of the army is capable of "planning, executing and sustaining counterinsurgency operations" with allied support, the analysis said.

In fact, according to the information that Sen. Joe Biden said he got from the military, of the roughly 150,000 Iraqi units, only about 2000 can fight on their own and maybe 10,000 can fight at all -- even with our help. That means more than 90% of the soldiers they claim are in training can't even fight with our help. And even the ones who can fight are poorly equipped thanks to rampant corruption.

Bad news? Quick, someone tell the Pentagon so they can revise their report. Read the rest of this post...

Michelangelo Signorile's new book is out shortly

You can read about it (and order it) on Amazon. Read the rest of this post...

Scottie was beamed up for the last time today

Sad. Read the rest of this post...

Pentagon releases report showing our amazing progress in Iraq (this is not a joke)

LOL I mean who do these idiots even think they're fooling anymore? Good God, it's just downright sad at this point how much of a joke the Pentagon leadership and this entire administration has become. Our men and women, and their men and women, are dying over there for these liars. Read the rest of this post...

ACTION ALERT: Please help gays in Latvia (seriously)

From my friend and colleague, Rex Wockner:

City Bans First Latvian Pride Parade
Organizers Vow Disobedience, Request Help

by Rex Wockner

City officials in the Latvian capital of Riga banned the nation's planned first gay-pride parade July 20 after Prime Minister Aigars Kalvitis denounced it as "a parade of sexual minorities [taking] place in the middle of our capital city next to the Dom [Cathedral]."

"This is not acceptable," he said. "Latvia is a state based on Christian values. We cannot promote things that are unacceptable to a large part of society."

A city spokesman claimed the planned march would harm gays and lesbians by decreasing tolerance for them.

"The majority of society was against it, and it could result in unrest," said Ugis Vidauskis, spokesman for Riga City Executive Director Eriks Skapars.

In this paragraph, replacing "June" with "July":


Parade organizers vowed to hold the July 23 parade anyway and also
immediately filed suit in the Administrative Court, alleging violation
of their constitutional rights.

They urged supporters to e-mail, phone and fax Kalvitis and Skapars promptly. The contact information is:

Aigars Kalvitis, Prime Minister of the Republic of Latvia, 36 Brivibas Boulevard, Riga LV 1520, Latvia. Email: vk@mk.gov.lv. Telephone: 011-371-708-2810. Fax: 011-371-728-5943.

Eriks Skapars, Riga City Executive Director, Ratslaukums 1, Riga LV 1539, Latvia. E-mail: ivars.maurins@rcc.lv. Telephone: 011-371-702-6130.

I wonder how the Latvian government feels about decreased tolerance for our tourism, business and government dollars being given to a country run by bigots? Read the rest of this post...

NYT Science Section: Another Botched Story

Recently, the New York Times Science section -- which I read religiously -- trumpeted a study claiming bisexuality in men really doesn't exist. All those guys who say they're bi? Liars. What the story didn't tell you was that the study's senior author had lost his prestigious university position as head of department on ethics charges, been investigated for a year and a half and was identified by the esteemed Southern Poverty Law Center as being linked to hate groups. He also saw no ethical dilemma if parents aborted babies they believed were going to be gay. In other words, eugenics. Gee, think that might have colored our opinion of his study? No letters objecting to this article on that basis were run and no clarification about his suspect past ever appeared, to my knowledge.

Now they've done it again.

I was reading a fine article about the search for planets that could support life as we know it -- some say the conditions for earth are rare, but not that rare; others say it might be exceptionally unique and so on. Then I read this:

This would merely be an interesting academic argument except for a film that is going around, and which I recently viewed, called "The Privileged Planet," which suggests that the Earth's nice qualities are no accident.

The film, produced by Illustra Media in California, is based on a book of the same name by Guillermo Gonzalez, an astronomer at Iowa State, and Jay W. Richards, a philosopher and vice president of the Discovery Institute in Seattle.

It argues that Earth is so special and unlikely that it must be the work of an intelligent designer. "What if it's not a cosmic lottery?" Dr. Richards asks in the film.

The Discovery Institute advocates "intelligent design," a notion that posits the intervention by a designer, whether divine or not, in the origin and history of life, as an alternative to standard evolutionary biology. Illustra Media has produced a series of videos in support of this idea.

The showing of the film at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History last month exacerbated the worries of many astronomers that the Big Bang would be next on the hit list of creationists.

I was astonished. Why would the Smithsonian show such a film? Why would they give a platform to anti-science nuts like that? Were they debunking it? Were they duped and didn't realize the nature of the film or the creationists who backed it? What was going on?

Two seconds of googling and I had my answer: the creationists reportedly had simply tried to rent out an auditorium for $16,000 and shown their film to themselves. In fact, when the Smithsonian found out they were pretending it had been shown by them, it was deeply concerned by this misleading claim. Apparently, the Smithsonian has a policy of not showing religious or political films, turned down the fee but felt obligated to let them use the auditorium anyway -- hardly an endorsement of them by any standard. It was a major controversy, covered at length and a google or -- god forbid -- quick phone call to the Smithsonian would have prevented a bad error.

And now the New York Times has blithely presented this lie as a fact. Even if it's clarified, the creationists will use this article and the lie that the Smithsonian somehow endorsed their pseudo-science. Am I making too much of one sentence that is technically accurate but deeply misleading? I don't think so.

Please write to the New York Times, ask them why they never did a follow-up article on that shady past of the researcher involved in the bisexuality study and why they got this fact so wrong as well. letters@nytimes.com Read the rest of this post...

Kodak cutting another 10,000 jobs

This is in addition to the previously announced 15,000. At least HP's announcement came in at the low end of pre-announcement rumors and hopefully they will not have a second round like Kodak. With the real estate bubble showing signs of a slow down, somebody better start hiring in a big way or the economy is going to be in trouble. Read the rest of this post...

Let's bet on how many Al Qaeda recruits THIS story will earn Osama

Yeah, let's phaser all those damn A-rabs, that'll learn 'em. Can you imagine the first time they'd use this little toy? I can see using it against people about to take over your embassy, Tehran style, MAYBE, but geez, using as general riot control? We're going to phaser entire crowds of people, while Al Jazeera gets it all on camera?

Which leads me to ask the question: Is our military learning?From Reuters:

Scientists are questioning the safety of a "Star Wars"-style ray gun due to be deployed in Iraq for riot control next year.

The Active Denial System weapon, classified as “less lethal” by the Pentagon, fires a 95-gigahertz microwave beam at rioters to cause heating and intolerable pain in less than five seconds....

But New Scientist magazine reported Wednesday that during tests carried out at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico, participants playing the part of rioters were told to remove glasses and contact lenses to protect their eyes.

In another test, they were also told to remove metal objects like coins from their clothing to avoid local hot spots developing on their skin.

Read the rest of this post...

David Corn on Roe v. Rove

David Corn does an analysis of the White House's attempt to deflect attention away from Rove by rushing the Supreme Court nomination. I think David's right that Bush has successfully deflected attention FOR NOW, meaning FOR TODAY, and I agree that Roberts is a nominee who isn't as clear cut a lunatic at first blush as, say, Bork. But I disagree with David about how the next couple of weeks will trend.

David suggests, I think, that the Sup Ct nomination will drown out Rove over the near-term. Here's my take:

1. The nomination drowned out Rove last night, and it should have. The president just announced a pick for the Supreme Court. That's a major deal. It deserves non-stop coverage for a few hours at least.

2. But that doesn't mean coverage will be about the Sup Ct for the next 6 weeks. I don't buy that at all (I'm not saying David is saying that, just giving my take). I think the Sup Ct will get massive coverage in the MSM over the next few days, but then it will die down in, say, three to four days because there will be nothing left to write. The liberal groups and politicians will need to spend the month of August coming up with their positions on the candidate, the approach they want to take to this nomination, etc. That will take time. In the meantime, I just don't see what news the media can cover about the nomination that it won't have covered in the first 48 hours. Short of him being outed in a video with a goat (I owe that line to another blogger).

3. That's where Rove comes in. Rove is the only story this summer that promises to keep giving and giving over the next six weeks, at least until the Sup Ct nomination hearings. I can tell you right now the blogs will be covering Rove like a cheap blanket (or something like that). And we already have gotten back to our regular coverage already. The MSM is another question. They may need some cajoling to get back to Rove, and cajole we will. But if another shoe drops in the investigation, I suspect the MSM will be all to eager to jump on it because they won't have anything else to write about - there just won't be much Supreme Court news during the August break.

Anyway, that's my take. Bush breaks the cycle of nasty Rove stories by announcing his nominee. But I don't see how that helps him once the media gets the Sup Ct out of its system in the next few days. That's when Rove gets interesting again because he's the only game in town.

Unless of course, Rove decides to save his ass and leak the video of Roberts with the goat, to make sure some OTHER scandal keeps the attention off of him. While I'm joking about Roberts, don't put it past Rove for a minute to try to manufacture some other story, outrage, or scandal to keep the attention off of him. Fellow Republicans beware (Colin Powell, that would be you). Read the rest of this post...

CIA agents explain why Rove leak matters

And why Republicans who defend outing CIA agents aren't acting in the best interests of our country.

You can find a pdf of the letter here:

We, the undersigned former U.S. intelligence officers are concerned with the tone and substance of the public debate over the ongoing Department of Justice investigation into who leaked the name of Valerie Plame, wife of former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson IV, to syndicated columnist Robert Novak and other members of the media, which exposed her status as an undercover CIA officer. The disclosure of Ms. Plame’s name me was a shameful event in American history and, in our professional judgment, may have damaged U.S. national security and poses a threat to the ability of U.S. intelligence gathering using human sources. Any breach of the code of confidentiality and cover weakens the overall fabric of intelligence, and, directly or indirectly, jeopardizes the work and safety of intelligence workers and their sources. The Republican National Committee has circulated talking points to supporters to use as part of a coordinated strategy to discredit Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife. As part of this campaign a common theme is the idea that Ambassador Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame was not undercover and deserved no protection. The following are four recent examples of this "talking point":

* Michael Medved stated on Larry King Live on July 12, 2005, "And let's be honest about this. Mrs. Plame, Mrs. Wilson, had a desk job at Langley. She went back and forth every single day."


* Victoria Toensing stated on a Fox News program with John Gibson on July 12, 2005 that, "Well, they weren't taking affirmative measures to protect that identity. They gave her a desk job in Langley. You don't really have somebody deep undercover going back and forth to Langley, where people can see them."

* Ed Rodgers, Washington Lobbyist and former Republican official, said on July 13, 2005 on the Newshour with Jim Lehrer, "And also I think it is now a matter of established fact that Mrs. Plame was not a protected covert agent, and I don't think there's any meaningful investigation about that."

* House majority whip Roy Blunt (R, Mo), on Face the Nation, July 17, 2005, "It certainly wouldn't be the first time that the CIA might have been overzealous in sort of maintaining the kind of top-secret definition on things longer than they needed to. You know, this was a job that the ambassador's wife had that she went to every day. It was a desk job. I think many people in Washington understood that her employment was at the CIA, and she went to that office every day."

These comments reveal an astonishing ignorance of the intelligence community and the role of cover. The fact is that there are thousands of U.S. intelligence officers who "work at a desk" in the Washington, D.C. area every day who are undercover. Some have official cover, and some have non-official cover. Both classes of cover must and should be protected.

While we are pleased that the U.S. Department of Justice is conducting an investigation and that the U.S. Attorney General has recused himself, we believe that the partisan attacks against Valerie Plame are sending a deeply discouraging message to the men and women who have agreed to work undercover for their nation's security.

We are not lawyers and are not qualified to determine whether the leakers technically violated the 1982 Intelligence Identities Protection Act. However, we are confident that Valerie Plame was working in a cover status and that our nation's leaders, regardless of political party, have a duty to protect all intelligence officers. We believe it is appropriate for the President to move proactively to dismiss from office or administratively punish any official who participated in any way in revealing Valerie Plame's status. Such an act by the President would send an unambiguous message that leaks of this nature will not be tolerated and would be consistent with his duties as the Commander-in-Chief.

We also believe it is important that Congress speak with one non-partisan voice on this issue. Intelligence officers should not be used as political footballs. In the case of Valerie Plame, she still works for the CIA and is not in a position to publicly defend her reputation and honor. We stand in her stead and ask that Republicans and Democrats honor her service to her country and stop the campaign of disparagement and innuendo aimed at discrediting Mrs. Wilson and her husband.

Our friends and colleagues have difficult jobs gathering the intelligence, which helps, for example, to prevent terrorist attacks against Americans at home and abroad. They sometimes face great personal risk and must spend long hours away from family and friends. They serve because they love this country and are committed to protecting it from threats from abroad and to defending the principles of liberty and freedom. They do not expect public acknowledgement for their work, but they do expect and deserve their government's protection of their covert status.

For the good of our country, we ask you to please stand up for every man and woman who works for the U.S. intelligence community and help protect their ability to live their cover.

Sincerely yours,
Larry C. Johnson, former Analyst, CIA

JOINED BY: Mr. Brent Cavan, former Analyst, CIA
Mr. Vince Cannistraro, former Case Officer, CIA
Mr. Michael Grimaldi, former Analyst, CIA
Mr. Mel Goodman, former senior Analyst, CIA
Col. W. Patrick Lang (US Army retired), former Director, Defense Humint Services, DIA
Mr. David MacMichael, former senior estimates officer, National Intelligence Council, CIA
Mr. James Marcinkowski, former Case Officer, CIA
Mr. Ray McGovern, former senior Analyst and PDB Briefer, CIA
Mr. Jim Smith, former Case Officer, CIA
Mr. William C. Wagner, former Case Officer, CIA

Read the rest of this post...

Open Thread

What's the latest? Read the rest of this post...

Hotline: MSM can only handle one issue

From Hotline's intro today (no link available):

As for Rove, the DC press corps proved once again incapable of handling more than one feeding frenzy at a time. When the Roberts news dies down, will the same venom exist among the press? Or will nothing move on this front until Fitzgerald officially finishes his probe?

No wonder Rove thinks they are a bunch of patsies. Read the rest of this post...

Women's Rights In Iraq: Going, Going...

Every day in Iraq, the civil war seems to loom larger, with two Sunnis working on the new constitution gunned down.

By the way, the latest draft of the Iraqi constitution apparently puts more emphasis on Islamic law, treats ethnic groups differently and sets BACK women's rights.

One of the critical passages is in Article 14 of the chapter, a sweeping measure that would require court cases dealing with matters like marriage, divorce and inheritance to be judged according to the law practiced by the family's sect or religion.

Under that measure, Shiite women in Iraq, no matter what their age, generally could not marry without their families' permission. Under some interpretations of Shariah, men could attain a divorce simply by stating their intention three times in their wives' presence.

Article 14 would replace a body of Iraqi law that has for decades been considered one of the most progressive in the Middle East in protecting the rights of women, giving them the freedom to choose a husband and requiring divorce cases to be decided by a judge.

Great. So now women can look back at the murderous regime of Hussein with a certain longing. Thanks, Bush! Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

Off to a conference. Read the rest of this post...

It's confirmed, Bush rushed Supreme Court pick to get attention off of Rove

Isn't that nice?

One of the most important decisions of a presidency has been rushed in order to get attention away from the burgeoning Karl Rove scandal. So what if it jeopardizes getting the best pick for the court, so long as it's politically expedient, that trumps all else with this administration.

Supreme Court Pick Shifts Attention From Rove, Agent Disclosure
By Kristin Jensen and Richard Keil

July 20 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush's nomination of a new Supreme Court justice may give White House adviser Karl Rove a temporary reprieve from public scrutiny of his role in the disclosure of an intelligence operative's identity...

Bush accelerated his search for a Supreme Court nominee in part because of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation into the leak of a CIA agent's name, according to Republicans familiar with administration strategy.

Bush originally had planned to announce a replacement for retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on July 26 or 27, just before his planned July 28 departure for a month-long vacation at his Crawford, Texas, ranch, said two administration officials, who spoke on the condition they not be named.

The officials said those plans changed because Rove has become a focus of Fitzgerald's interest and of news accounts about the matter.

Good God.

So, a decision about a critically important decision of the president (Sup Ct nomination) was co-opted for political expediency in order to draw attention away from another critically important decision of the president that was co-opted for political expediency (the decision to invade Iraq). Read the rest of this post...

NYT: Going To War On A Hunch Okay By Them

I can't let Tuesday's New York Times editorial pass without comment. (I was travelling and couldn't post earlier.) Titled "A Jar of Red Herring," it tried to clarify the issues surrounding Rovegate. The NYT defended its reporter Judith Miller, made clear the "waivers" were worthless and stated unequivocally that Joseph Wilson had been honest and straightforward in his July 2003 op-ed column and been vindicated. As they reiterated, Wilson investigated a report that Iraq had tried to buy uranium in Niger, found no evidence and went public when Bush made that claim anyway in his State of the Union address in the weeks leading up to the war. Ultimately, those 16 words were repudiated, people offered to resign and Wilson was proven 100% right. All fine.

Then the NYT loses its mind. It writes:

What really bothered Mr. Rove was Mr. Wilson's view that the administration had deliberately twisted the intelligence on Iraq and that Mr. Bush had misled Americans about the need for war. We don't know whether top officials heard about Mr. Wilson's findings and ignored them, or whether the findings never reached the upper levels - at the time, dissenting views on Iraq were not getting much of an airing in the administration. There's a lot we don't know about this case.

That's absurd on numerous levels. First, we know that when officials were unhappy with Wilson's report (they were desperate for some evidence to justify invading Iraq), they launched another investigation into the claim about Hussein buying uranium in Niger. That too came back with a flat "No go." So they launched a THIRD investigation. Again, the report said the rumour simply didn't hold water. Then Bush tried to include the inflammatory charge in a speech anyway and the CIA strenuously objected. The charge was removed. Finally, after three investigations and a tug of war between the White House and the CIA over an earlier speech, the fateful 16 words making a claim they couldn't back up was put in the State of the Union. Bush lied to the American people and soon we were invading Iraq. It wasn't until months later when Wilson bravely came forward that we discovered that claim wasn't true.

Now the NYT wants to try and give Bush the benefit of the doubt and say, 'Okay, his administration tried three different times to prove this rumour was true and couldn't. Then it tried to make the claim anyway and the CIA objected heatedly. Then Bush put the charge into his State of the Union address, so maybe he had NO IDEA that three different investigations concluded the rumour wasn't true and that the CIA had strenuously objected to its inclusion in an earlier speech."

This would be gross incompetence on a massive scale and boggles the mind -- any reasonable person would say giving so much benefit of the doubt was absurd. But who wants to underestimate the incompetence of the Bush administration?

But the New York Times is forgetting one simple, obvious fact. The President of the United States --in the weeks leading up to war -- told the American people that Hussein was trying to buy uranium in Niger and HE DIDN'T KNOW IF IT WAS TRUE. We have every reason to believe Bush knew what he said was a lie, but it was impossible for him to KNOW it was true because there wasn't enough evidence. Is the New York Times really trying to lower the standard for Presidents who want to go to war? Is the NYT really trying to suggest that it was okay for Bush to flatly make the claim Hussein was trying to buy uranium when he couldn't possibly know for certain that it was true?

This was a key element in Bush's justification for war. It was bandied about by his lackeys on talk shows and press conferences. Condi Rice said on TV that if we waited for a smoking gun it might very well be a mushroom cloud -- a direct reference to this incredibly serious claim. I, for one, believed them, never imagining they would make such statements without hard and fast evidence. The NYT can bend over backwards to avoid calling Bush a liar. It can assume Bush was clueless about three seperate investigations and the heated objections of the CIA that kept this loaded charge from being included in an earlier speech.

But one simple fact is clear: Bush made an incendiary claim to drum up support for a war and he did it during the State of the Union and he COULDN'T know with confidence that what he said was true because there was no evidence from his own government to back up that rumour.

Should a President take this country to war on a rumour that he kind of, sort of, really really hopes is true? Is that the new low standard the New York Times wants to set? Read the rest of this post...

Beheading Children or Being Gay: Guess Which Is Worse

Yep, gays. The Iraqi people have been watching nightly confessions on TV for a while now. But the latest criminal has truly shocked the nation...not just by the beheading of children but by the even worse crime of kissing other men.

Nadia Mohamad, 49, a government employee who was watching the program with her husband and children while having dinner at the Sky Cafe in downtown Erbil on Thursday night, said the beheading of a terrified youth on the first program - shown before the sex scenes began appearing - had literally sickened her.

"The first time I saw it, I vomited, because I couldn't control myself," Mrs. Mohamad said.

But then, she said, she was almost equally shocked when the men started stripping and fondling each other before the scene cut away to Sheik Zana and about half a dozen of his underlings giving confessions against blank backdrops. "Sex is something sacred for us," Mrs. Mohamad said. "But when we saw them doing that, it becomes humiliating."

It was hard to find anyone who did not express outrage at the sex scenes when asked about the programs this week. "The homosexual part - that's the worst thing," said Arkan Hamza, 27, who was having lunch with a friend at the Abu Shahab Restaurant on Wednesday.

Some people are so upset, they want to believe the videos are doctored rather than that a Kurd could do such a thing (the kissing, mind you -- no one finds the beheading hard to accept). Nice to know that even when you're being terrorized by suicide bombings that everyone can agree on one thing: gays are worse. Read the rest of this post...

"Well within the boundaries that define legal and ethical conduct"

Hmm. Dan Froomkin pulled up the text of Bush's remarks at the swearing-in ceremony back in 2001 and surprisingly enough, Team Bush seems to be coming up short. Even beyond the "restore honor and dignity" comments that now seem like such a joke, Bush promised so much and is now delivering so little.

"[W]e must remember the high standards that come with high office. This begins with careful adherence to the rules. I expect every member of this administration to stay well within the boundaries that define legal and ethical conduct. This means avoiding even the appearance of problems. This means checking and, if need be, doublechecking that the rules have been obeyed. This means never compromising those rules."

NOTE FROM JOHN: God bless, Froomkin, I was thinking of this very quote on the way home yesterday and made a mental note to look it up. That "even the appearance" crap is where Bush has totally failed in this regard. He's now become Clinton at his worst. Haggle over words, debate the definition of "treason." Amazing. The Bush administration has become what is was elected to replace. Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

Gday Read the rest of this post...

Did Rove lie to the FBI?

No wonder the White House wanted to change the subject. Josh Marshall has a link to a piece by Murray Waas in The American Prospect. Mr. Waas has been providing great investigative reporting on this scandal. Seems from his report that Karl was not quite honest with the FBI:

White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove did not disclose that he had ever discussed CIA officer Valerie Plame with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper during Rove’s first interview with the FBI, according to legal sources with firsthand knowledge of the matter.

The omission by Rove created doubt for federal investigators, almost from the inception of their criminal probe into who leaked Plame's name to columnist Robert Novak, as to whether Rove was withholding crucial information from them, and perhaps even misleading or lying to them, the sources said.

Also leading to the early skepticism of Rove's accounts was the claim that although he first heard that Plame worked for the CIA from a journalist, he said could not recall the name of the journalist. Later, the sources said, Rove wavered even further, saying he was not sure at all where he first heard the information.

Karl Rove has been parsing and playing semantics games with everyone -- especially the press. The press fell for it. However, the FBI doesn't appreciate those word games. In fact, lying to them is a crime. They take that very, very seriously. Read the rest of this post...

Question for the MSM Today

Can the MSM walk and chew gum at the same time? Can they do something as complicated as cover two, yes two, stories at once? Or will they let Roberts completely overtake the Rove scandal?

Doesn't look good so far. Pete Williams from NBC led his piece on the Today Show telling us Roberts loves golf and is ambidextrous when he plays squash. Wow, Pete. Great reporting. Read the rest of this post...

At least 10 killed in Baghdad

This is the second suicide attack at this army recruiting center in ten days. The previous attack on July 10 killled 25. Read the rest of this post...

Condi is clueless about trade

And this is who some in the GOP want to see run for president in 2008? Besides being a liar, she has absolutely no idea what she's talking about when she repeats her little canned messages about African trade. The bottom line is that oil dominates African trade (85% of all exports) and agricultural products will stumble along with limited success overseas until the rich nations decide that free trade actually means free trade and not just free trade when they can crush poor farmers or poor countries.

Thankfully she was smart enough to deliver her bullshit to reporters en route to Africa because her flowery talk about trade would have been a real dud in front of Africans who have been pleading with the rich nations to end farm subsidies. Surprisingly, the massive farmer welfare program was not raised by Condi. Read the rest of this post...

Governors Worried About Bush's Abuse of National Guard

The annual National Governors Association met in Des Moines and one big issue on their plate? Bush's abuse of the National Guard. We're only beginning to understand how Bush's backdoor draft and abuse of the Guard is damaging our national security here at home and our ability to respond to natural disasters.

The nation's governors are expressing growing concern that the extended deployment of National Guard soldiers in Iraq is depleting troop resources at home, threatening to leave states unable to respond to the natural disasters, civil unrest and other domestic emergencies that traditionally lead governors to call out the Guard.

The state's leaders, meeting here at the summer gathering of the National Governors Association, said they were worried that the extended overseas deployments, combined with declining enlistments as National Guard stints have become lengthy postings in war zones, would strip them of what has for years been a bulwark against domestic emergencies.

THis is going to be a problem for many, many years to come. Thanks, Bush! Read the rest of this post...

Who trained the Iraqi military?

Today Baghdad hospital doctors went on strike to protest threats and abuse by Iraqi soldiers who recently ran through a hospital and held a loaded weapon to a doctor. After families of patients pulled him away, others entered and pointed their guys to the head of the doctor. After hearing about all of the human rights abuses under Saddam, is the new army just like the old army?

Is this the kind of military that the US is training and promoting in Iraq? Is this what US taxpayer money is being used for? Is there anyone in the US military who is responsible for anything and if so, perhaps they could tell us just what kind of an army they are training. If this is the team that is going to carry the burden for Iraq, we are in some serious trouble. Read the rest of this post...