Rice Says Iran Must Not Be Allowed to Develop Nuclear Arms

New York Times::

"President Bush's national security adviser said Sunday that the United States and its allies 'cannot allow the Iranians to develop a nuclear weapon' and warned that President Bush would 'look at all the tools that are available to him' to stop Iran's program."

A little late for threats, don't you think? Now that we're ridiculously over-extended, and don't even know if we have enough troops for Iraq, you're NOW making threats to Iran? What "tools" do you propose we use, since we don't have any troops left (let alone fresh troops), send a few cruise missiles down some camel's ass? Or are you Bushies now converts to using the UN, which will only further highlight the hypocrisy of your refusal to internatoinalize the Iraq conflict.

The problem is Bush declared the Axis of Evil two years ago and then decided to take on the least evil of the axis, for false reasons, no less. Now that the real bad guys in Iran and N. Korea are acting up, there isn't a God damn thing we can do for YEARS to come. We do NOT have the troops, nor frankly do we have the money - our increasing costs in Iraq aren't going away any time soon.

This is what is called "imperial overstretch." It's what happens when your empire's hubris kicks into overdrive and you start trying to be den mother to the entire world all at once. Eventually you're stretched so thin that you can't do any one thing well, and your empire collapses in on you. Bush's empire is collapsing big-time. It's time the press starting hitting Condi hard on whether our armed forces can take on a 3-front war, because I don't think any reasonable military person will tell you that they can. Read the rest of this post...

Quote of the Day

"I deeply resent the destruction of federalism represented by Hillary Clinton's willingness to go into a state she doesn't even live in and pretend to represent the people there," Keyes said. "So I certainly wouldn't imitate it." - Alan Keyes, FOX News, March 2000.

Read the rest of this post...

Capet-bagger Keyes Will Run for Senate in Illinois

This is gonna be fun. Read the rest of this post...

Tom Ridge, at $175,600 a year, is quitting because he can't afford tuition for his kids?

Now who's the party of the rich and clueless? Read the rest of this post...

Justice Dept. intentionally hindered terrorism prosecution

And, of course, the news that Bush & Company totally undercut the war on terror by revealing the name of our Al Qaeda mole is nowhere to be seen in today's Washington Post. Anyway, this story is yet another shocker of how incompetent, and frankly uncaring about the war on terror, Mr. Ashcroft's Justice Dept. really is.

The guy who was playing basketball rather than helping the terror trial (read the end of the story) should be fired.

Prosecutors in the first major terror trial after Sept. 11 were hindered by superiors from presenting some of their most powerful evidence, including testimony from an al-Qaida leader and video footage showing Osama bin Laden's European operatives casing American landmarks, Justice Department memos show.

The department's terrorism unit "provided no help of any kind in this prosecution," the U.S. Attorney's office in Detroit wrote in one of the memos, which detail bitter divisions between front-line prosecutors and their superiors in Washington....

Whatever the outcome, internal documents obtained by The Associated Press and more than three dozen interviews with current and former officials detail how the differences between Washington and the field office kept important evidence from being shown to jurors.

"We were butting heads vigorously with narrow-shouldered bureaucrats in Washington," Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Convertino told AP in an interview. He is the lead Detroit prosecutor who is now under investigation in Washington.

"There was a series of evidence, pieces of evidence, that we wanted to get into our trial that we were unable to do. Things that would have strengthened the case immeasurably, and made the case much stronger, exponentially," Convertino said....

The lone Justice lawyer sent from Washington to help told his Detroit colleagues "he had no intention of participating in the trial" and refused to assist when an urgent issue arose involving a witness and the State Department, the Detroit office wrote.

The Washington lawyer "spent the same 10 (trial) weeks in a hotel at taxpayers' expense when he was not playing basketball in the evenings," the memo stated.

Read the rest of this post...

General Tommy Franks (ret.): Kerry is absolutely qualified to be commander in chief

Franks is reportedly speaking the opening night of the Republican convention. I think we got some TV ads out of these statements by him today on Stephanopolous' show (no link, I was watchying the show and have it TIVO'd):

Stephanopoulos: Do you think Senator Kerry is qualified to be commander in chief?

Franks: Absolutely.

Stephanopoulos: A group of Vietnam veterans called 'Swift Boat Veterans for Truth' came out this week and they're putting out advertising saying essentially that Senator Kerry is lying about his war record and doesn't deserve the medals that he got. Do you think that kind of dialogue is appropriate in this campaign?

Franks: I really work hard to stay away from hyperbole...

Stephanopoulos: ...That sounds like hyperbole to you?

Franks: Uh, yeah, it is. I think it is hyperbole. I think for some reason we've fallen prey to the notion that says there has to be vitriol.

Read the rest of this post...

Powell story gets more interesting - other cabinet secretaries ARE speaking at GOP convention, while Powell won't even be attending

It seems the Washington Post screwed up again. I'd noted earlier that the Washington Post said Colin Powell wouldn't be speaking or attending the upcoming GOP Convention in NYC. The Post tried to downplay Powell's non-attendance by claiming - we now find out falsely - that Cabinet secretaries don't attend political conventions. Wrong.

Kos points out that Lamar Alexander attended the 92 GOP Convention, and that Education Secretary Paige is speaking at the upcoming NYC convention.

That means that not only is the Washington Post AGAIN NOT CHECKING THEIR FACTS IN A WAY THAT ALWAYS HELPS BUSH, but also that Powell's non-appearance at the convention is VERY MUCH a slight against the president. It's clear that Powell's people let slip to the Post that Powell wasn't going, and it's also clear that Powell is trying to clean up his now-sullied legacy in the waning months of this administration. Read the rest of this post...