I just watched Murtha on Meet the Press

UPDATE: C&L; has the video of Murth up, watch it.

Wow. I think it airs again later this evening on MSNBC. Watch it. He's the first guest. The man is amazing. I kept thinking during the broadcast that someone should buy this man a half hour of prime-time TV time. Wow. Read the rest of this post...

Bush went to Asia and all he got was a collapsing agenda

Welcome Home, W:

Caught off guard when South Korea announced plans to pull one-third of its troops from Iraq, the president also could look back on the home front and find things have not exactly been quiet.

Bush returns late Monday to even more political acrimony than when he left eight days ago. The corrosive debate over Iraq is eroding his second term-agenda and challenging the ability of Republican leaders in Congress to maintain discipline.

Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

Chat away. Read the rest of this post...

Is Woodward going to lie again on Larry King, Monday at 9pm Eastern?

You know Woodward is in trouble if he's going on Larry King to do his mea culpa (he'll be on tomorrow, Monday, at 9pm Eastern on CNN). Larry King is where you go if you've really screwed up and don't have the balls to go do a real interview with a real journalist who might ask you difficult questions.

So, let's have a little contest. I want folks to count how many times Woodward either lies, or refuses to tell the whole truth, Monday night. Among the key Woodard lies to look out for:

• Woodward says he didn't tell his editor that he was one of the reporters who had been leaked Valerie Plames name and CIA status because he was afraid of Patrick Fitzgerald, afraid of being jailed, afraid of being subpoenaed. Woodward was leaked the Plame info in June 2003. Fitzgerald wasn't hired until December 2003. So his fear of Fitzgerald doesn't explain why he didn't tell his editor about the leak from June to December when Fitzgerald didn't even exist.
  
  
• Woodward says journalists were getting subpoenaed and that scared him. Well, journalists weren't getting subpoenaed until May of 2004. So what's Woodward's excuse for not coming clean to his editors from June 2003 until May 2004?
  
  
• Woodward claims he told Post colleague Walter Pincus about the leak. But why would Woodward tell Pincus if he was afraid of being subpoenaed, and thus wouldn't even tell his own editor? Not to mention, Pincus says this is absolutely untrue, Woodward never told him anything. So which Washington Post journalist is lying, Pincus or Woodward?
  
  
• If Woodward was so afraid of Fitzgerald, then why did Woodward publicly take Fitzgerald on for two years? Hardly the moves of someone who's mortally afraid of catching Fitzgerald's interest.
  
  
• If Woodward was afraid of being jailed, then why did he offer, this past July on Larry King, to be jailed instead of Judith Miller? And if he no longer was afraid to be jailed or targeted by Fitzgerald at that point, then why didn't he come clean to his editor then?
  
  
• Woodward would like us to believe that he, the guy who kept Deep Throat's identity secret for over three decades, the guy who took down Richard Nixon of all people, was now mortally afraid of some government bureaucrat trying to force him to divulge a source?

If the Washington Post thinks we're going to give up on this story, they have another thing coming. Remember gang, we're live blogging the Larry King show tomorrow at 9pm. We're going to count every single lie, half-truth, and sin of ommission that Woodward commits. Read the rest of this post...

Hilarity from Atrios

Or pure terror - decide for yourself. Read the rest of this post...

Leader of largest branch of American Judaism says "bigoted" religious right promotes anti-gay policies akin to Hitler's

Bra-vo!

Well, it seems some Jewish leaders aren't afraid of reminding the American public that the crimes of Hitler actually DO have lessons for present day America. America's Taliban is going to flip over these comments.

Get ready for the war of words - this Jewish leader is going to need our support, because he's right, Hitler DID start with the gays, and the religious right and conservatives in America seem to have taken a page out of the playbook of every effective dictator in the past - slowly use the law to legislate your political opponents, especially minorities, out of existence. You start with their basic human rights, then end up getting rid of them.

And anyone who doesn't think it could happen in America, have a talk with a Japanese-American who spent time in a US internment camp, or a black-American who got to drink out of a separate drinking fountain, or an Arab/Mulsim-American who got thrown in jail without access to an attorney or a court of law or any due process at all because we were "convinced" he was a terrorist so there was no need for a trial, or a gay-American who has had their child taken away from them simply because they're gay.

The leader of the largest branch of American Judaism blasted conservative religious activists in a speech Saturday, calling them "zealots" who claim a "monopoly on God" while promoting anti-gay policies akin to Adolf Hitler's.

Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the liberal Union for Reform Judaism, said "religious right" leaders believe "unless you attend my church, accept my God and study my sacred text you cannot be a moral person."

"What could be more bigoted than to claim that you have a monopoly on God?" he said during the movement's national assembly in Houston, which runs through Sunday....

He used particularly strong language to condemn conservative attitudes toward homosexuals. He said he understood that traditionalists have concluded gay marriage violates Scripture, but he said that did not justify denying legal protections to same-sex partners and their children.

"We cannot forget that when Hitler came to power in 1933, one of the first things that he did was ban gay organizations," Yoffie said. "Yes, we can disagree about gay marriage. But there is no excuse for hateful rhetoric that fuels the hellfires of anti-gay bigotry."

Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

Any other great outrages from the morning show? Read the rest of this post...

Rummy says Bush never asked his opinion on invading Iraq

"I didn't advocate invasion, I wasn't asked." - Rumsfeld on THIS WEEK, this morning.

Now keep in mind, Colin Powell, the former Secretary of State, says he wasn't asked either.

If true, that means George Bush went to war in Iraq without asking the opinion of the Secretary of Defense of the Secretary of State. Who did he get his advice from, anyone? Are they telling us the president of the United States, who had no foreign policy experience whatsoever, had never visited another country in his life (give or take one or two I believe), made a decision to go to war in Iraq without asking the advice of his top advisers on the issue?

That's insane. Read the rest of this post...

Murtha: This is not a war of words

Congressman Murtha, on Meet the Press, responded to Russert's question about attacks on him by Cheney and others. Murtha answered that this is not a war of words. This is a real war where people are being killed. He also said Bush and Cheney can't hide behind rhetoric.

Murtha wouldn't say he had confidence in Rumsfeld. Meanwhile, Rumsfeld was on other shows trashing Murtha according to Think Progress.

Murtha also said his vote for the war was a mistake. And he reminded Russert that we've increased terrorism in the Middle East. He also predicted we would withdraw American troops before the 2006 elections.

When Tim asked him how his life has changed in the past 72 hours, Murtha chuckled and basically said it's not about me. The public is thirsting for answers.

For Bush/Rove/Cheney, it is a war of words. Hence, the Iraq "war room" to smear and attack in the post below which was reported by Howard Fineman in Newsweek. Read the rest of this post...

White House does have a War Room

Yep, the White House has a war room to deal with Iraq. Not to figure out how to succeed and prevent further death and carnage. No, of course not. They set up a public relations war room to fight the spin war, to smear their opponents and control the media. Imagine, just imagine, if they put as much time in to trying to figure out how to solve the quagmire in Iraq:

As Congress fled the capital for Thanksgiving, and Bush made his way back from a trip to Asia, White House aides were studying the political videotapes to see where they had lost control of events. Among those at fault, they decided, was GOP Sen. Bill Frist, outmaneuvered early this month by the Democrats' Harry Reid, who used a parliamentary trick to force the Senate into a secret session and demand answers on WMD issues. But White House aides concede that they, too, were at fault for having assumed that Bush was personally unassailable and that events—and explanations of them—would take care of themselves. A war-room defense was "something we did well during the campaign," said Nicolle Wallace, Bush's communications director. "Maybe incorrectly, we had hoped or presumed that wouldn't be necessary after the election."

It is. The war room now is back, staffed with many of the same people who ran it in 2004, led by the Boy Genius himself, Karl Rove. To answer the charges that Bush "deliberately misled" the country on WMD, the White House is arguing that most Democrats—and most U.N. officials and European intelligence agencies—thought Saddam had WMD, too. Bush aides argue that Democrats saw the same intel and came to the same conclusions Bush did (an assertion Democrats hotly dispute). "We recognized that we can't communicate our message effectively until we deal with this," said a top White House aide.

They don't have a message to convey because they don't have a policy. And, they have a traitor running their spin control -- challenging the patriotism of anyone who speaks out against them. Any president who actually cared about national security would have thrown Rove in jail for outing a spy during wartime.

Murtha said repeatedly that the American people are way ahead of the politicians when it comes to Iraq. He's right about that. But the Bush team believes they can spin themselves out of anything. No policy needed, just smear politics. Even some of the MSM seem to be on to their game this time. Read the rest of this post...

Sunday Morning Open Thread

Iraq is now the political debate thanks to John Murtha and the insane GOP reaction to his speech last week. He's on Meet the Press. Rumsfeld is on every other major talk show.

CNN reported that 2,090 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq as of this morning. Read the rest of this post...

And for those college football fans...

Another fantastic episode of The Game. Down 21-12 with 7:49 left, the Buckeyes take over and beat Michigan for the fourth time in five years. Better yet, this crushing blow occured in Ann Arbor in front of another 100K+ crowd. If there is a god, Lloyd Cooper Carr will coach for many more years. Read the rest of this post...

Bush duped by China, again

Eager to deliver news about something other than the unpopular war in Iraq or yet another administration scandal, Bush is now trying to claim that somehow he has something to show for his efforts to have the Chinese yuan devalued again. China has played this situation brilliantly, dragging their feet on letting their currency float on the world market like other countries and making adjustments, very minimal adjustments at that, only when political pressure forces them to do so. Then at public meetings like Bush's visit China will offer more lip service to currency valuation without saying much more than that, thus going to back to foot dragging.

I have to hand it to China and Hu Jintao because this is a team that really knows how to play the game of international politics, making our own Dear Leader look like an absolute fool and completely duped but without kicking him publicly as they do with Japan. Bush is going to leave China with nothing more than words and no action. Who's side is he on anyway? Maybe he's busy lining up multi-million dollar speaches in China for 2009, much like Reagan did with Japan after he wrapped up his two terms. Read the rest of this post...

Coalition of the Going to expand again

Just because Bush and the GOP want to keep their heads in the sand doesn't mean that every other country is going to do the same. South Korea welcomed Bush with the news that they too will start trimming their troops next year. The Pentagon is trying hard to put a smiley face on the news but with the largest non-US country talking about cutbacks (the UK) and now the second largest (South Korea) Bush has a growing problem on his hands. Other countries have less at stake compared to the US not to mention substantial anti-war support at home and Americans are sick and tired of this mess that was billed as a walk in the park with flowers welcoming US troops.

It always comes back to Bush telling lies when he made his sales pitch to the US public and now it's impossible to escape the truth.

• WMD - nothing
  
• pre-war al Qaeda - not then, but now it's a breeding ground
• chemical weapons against civilians - with the Willy Pete story, this one is out also
• extensive use of torture - hello Mr Pot, meet Mr Kettle
  

Read the rest of this post...

Washington Post ombudsman lets Woodward off the hook

I hate to even use the word "ombudsman" to describe the person who wrote this article in Sunday's Washington Post. An ombudsman is someone who writes as a kind of independent watch dog on what the newspaper is doing, then gives their opinion of whether the paper was right or wrong.

In this case, we got a whopping 20 paragraphs of background on the story. And a big 2 paragraphs at the end with the "non-budsman's" milquetoast opinion on the entire fiasco.

And what is her opinion?

Woodward really ought to have an editor.

Yes, that's it. She repeats Woodward's outright lies about why he didn't come clean earlier. She doesn't even do the analysis a child could do as to why Woodward's excuse doesn't hold water. She simply, once again, repeats Woodward's absurd excuse that he didn't come clean with his editor because he was afraid Patrick Fitzgerald would subpoena him. Which is fascinating, since Patrick Fitzgerald wasn't even appointed Special Prosecutor until a good six to seven months AFTER Woodward was leaked the info about Valerie Plame.

Let me repeat that, just in case any real journalists are still left at the Washington Post: Bob Woodard's excuse is a lie that a child could unravel.

Woodward says he didn't come clean to his editor in June of 2003 because he was afraid Patrick Fitzgerald would subpoena him.

But Patrick Fitzgerald wasn't even appointed special prosecutor until December of 2003, and Fitzgerald didn't start subpoenaing journalists until May of 2004.

And once Fitzgerald was on the job, Woodward was hardly afraid of going to jail: He OFFERED to go to jail in Judith Miller's place this past July, 2005. Clearly Woodward was no longer afraid of going to jail, so why didn't he tell his editor then? He waited three more months.

So what the fuck is going on at the Washington Post that they expect us to just sit back and listen to this crap over and over again when it's an utter lie?

I started off unsure about how to interpret the Woodward news. He has an amazing past, Watergate and all. But I was admittedly ticked he went public, over and over and over again, knocking Fitzgerald and claiming the crime was much ado about nothing, only to find out he was a party to the entire scandal.

And make no mistake - the non-budsman and the executive editor of the Post would like you to believe Woodward made only two TV appearances or so where he talked about the Plame case. In fact, Atrios came up with at least seven. This was no errant off-comment by Woodward, or a slip of the lip. The man went on a TV feeding frenzy and mouthed off about a scandal he was a party to. Bob Woodard isn't some freshman journalism student. He knew exactly what he was doing. And just because the man broke Watergate hardly excuses his horrendous behavior thirty-five years later.

But I wanted to give Woodward and the Post the benefit of the doubt. I hoped both would come clean with the truth, and something would be done in a grand way to show that both Woodward and the Post truly understood how seriously they violated our trust.

I was wrong.

Now we have Woodward outright lying about the entire fiasco, the Washington Post's executive editor saying that it's "ridiculous" that the readers should expect Woodward to even be "disciplined," and the Post's non-budsman writing some freshman-in-college essay that suggests Woodward get an editor, when he already has one - it's the guy he didn't tell the truth to, his executive editor, who now isn't that concerned anyway about what Woodward did, let alone the lies he's still giving us. And you wonder why Woodward felt no compunction to tell this man the truth? He's daddy's little girl and he knows it.

At least the New York Times came clean about Judy Miller and did the right thing by calling her on her treachery and firing her ass. The Washington Post finds our outrage "ridiculous," and thinks that if it repeats Woodward's insane story about Fitzgerald enough we'll just accept it as truth.

But we fell for that trick once - the old "tell us a lie enough times and we end up buying it" scam - we're not going to fall for it again.

The Washington Post makes me sick. Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

Waiting for the Wash Post to publish their Sunday edition online. Very curious to see whether their ombudsman takes them to task for Woodward, or drinks the Kool-aid. Read the rest of this post...