The questions Cheney has yet to answer regarding the shooting incident and the cover-up

It matters because this is our government. And when our government starts acting all Soviet, pretending like they're untouchable gods and we're just small children who wouldn't understand, that's a problem. When the vice president almost kills a man - and the verdict is still out on whether this will turn into a negligent homicide case - the public has a right to know what happened. Was Cheney drunk? Is he ill? Are his cognitive abilities slipping?

With all due respect, it was cute that the Republicans kept Strom Thurmond propped up, Evita style, for years after he was no longer a functioning Senator, but with our vice president we have the right to know if he's still got his wits about him or not - especially when our vice president is really our president. Read the rest of this post...

Bush spent big bucks on spin -- and they don't have to pay for Fox News

Talking Points Memo has a link to an AdWeek article about how the Bush Administration spent $1.4 billion to major ad agencies for spin -- over just the past two and a half years. That's a lot of money for a 39% approval/56% disapproval rating.

And, the total doesn't include the free full-time GOP network known as FOX. Not that we had any doubt about FOX being a subsidiary of the White House, but the Cheney interview confirmed it. (And, there actually seemed to be grumblings from the rest of the media about that, not just Cafferty.) Read the rest of this post...

Open Thread

Cafferty calls the Cheney interview for what it is. Crooks and Liars has the video.

What else? Read the rest of this post...

Australian Network releases more Abu Gharib pictures

Yep, it was an Australian t.v. show that got the pictures. CNN is at least reporting on that broadcast:

More grisly photographs and videos have emerged that appear to show U.S. soldiers abusing prisoners at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.

The Australian television network SBS program "Dateline" broadcast the pictures and videos Wednesday night. They reportedly date from 2003 -- the same time that previously released photographs of prisoner abuse were taken.

The pictures are available at at waitingtoderail's Dailykos diary. They're graphic -- even for Australian tv:

The program did not show all of the pictures. It deemed some of them too graphic for air, Carey said.

Among the images broadcast were pictures of naked men who appeared to have suffered physical trauma, one of whom the report said had 11 nonlethal bullet wounds in his buttocks.

Other pictures show dead bodies, one of which the program said a U.S. Army report identified as one of three men killed during a riot over living conditions at the prison.

Makes you proud. Read the rest of this post...

Uh, Cheney just lied to Britt Hume on FOX

If Cheney shot his friend in the face and chest because the friend was hiding behind some bushes, as Cheney alleges (remember, all this time the Cheney people said it was the other guy's fault for hiding and not announcing himself), then how did Cheney watch his friend fall to the ground?

From E&P;:

"The image of him falling is something I will never be able to get out my mind," Cheney said, somberly. "It was one of the worst days of my life."

If you could see him the split second AFTER you shot him, then you could see him the split second BEFORE you shot him. So either Cheney could see the guy, and shot him anyway (which completely contradicts what Cheney's people have been saying for 5 days now), or Cheney couldn't see the guy and he's now lying to the nation in order to incur our sympathy.

Nice. Read the rest of this post...

E&P;: Cheney was drinking before the accident

Well, that only took 5 days to find out. Read the rest of this post...

No apologies from Cheney over release of shooting story

Okay, Dick's sorry about shooting the 78-year old guy. But, in typical Cheney fashion, he's not apologizing for how he handled releasing the news that the Vice President of the United States shot someone. He's got his story and he's sticking to it:

Cheney has been roundly criticized for failing to tell the public about the accident until the next day. He said he thought it made sense to let the owner of the ranch where it happened reveal the accident on the local newspaper's Web site Sunday morning.

"I thought that was the right call," Cheney said. "I still do."

Cheney said he agreed that ranch owner Katharine Armstrong should make the story public, because she was an eyewitness, because she grew up on the ranch and because she is "an acknowledged expert in all of this" as a past head of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. He also agreed with her decision to choose the local newspaper as the way to get the news out.

"I thought that made good sense because you can get as accurate a story as possible from somebody who knew and understood hunting and then it would immediately go up to the wires and be posted on the Web site, which is the way it went out and I thought that was the right call," Cheney said.

"What do you think now?" he was asked.

"I still do," Cheney responded. "The accuracy was enormously important. I had no press person with me."

Sure, And Saddam Hussein had nuclear weapons.

Seriously, does the way they released the information make sense to anyone besides Dick Cheney? Because someone should tell him, that actually, it doesn't make any sense. None. It's fishy. Really fishy.

We think you're hiding something, Dick. Read the rest of this post...

Wednesday Afternoon Open Thread

How long before we get "leaks" of the Cheney interview? And, can we finally get the rest of the media to stop pretending that Fox is a real news channel?

Anything else going on?

3:08 PM UPDATE: Fox News has been excerpting the interview on their news channel and web site. I really hate linking to Fox, but this is the article. Oh, Dick's sorry. Really sorry. Read the rest of this post...

Brew(ing) scandal in Cheney case: "A beer or two"? Why did MSNBC try to hide that?

Were they boozing it up on the Armstrong ranch when Cheney shot the 78 year old guy? Hat tip to Thought Crimes, which we found via Atrios:

When first posted, NBC news quoted Katharine Armstrong as saying:

"There may be a beer or two in there," she said, "but remember not everyone in the party was shooting.".

About an hour later, the quote was deleted from the story.

The original text was captured by Google and you can see it here.

The MSNBC web site scrubbed the quote. Why? Who is hiding what here? This sure raises more questions.

MSNBC has a history of "editing" stories. They deleted Andrea Mitchell's question asking if Christiane Amanpour had been caught up in the domestic spying sweep. Funny how those deletions always seem to benefit the Bush crowd.

Think Brit Hume will be asking Dick about this on Fox today? I know, I know, I'm kidding. Read the rest of this post...

E&P;: Bush may have been out of the loop about Cheney being the shooter for as long as the American people were

Editor & Publisher does an excellent analysis of the growing dilemma Bush faces regarding the Cheney shooting story. Was Bush so out of the loop that he simply was not informed until the next day, or was he informed immediately and part of a cover-up? E&P; sheds new light on evidence suggesting that Bush had NO IDEA that Cheney was the shooter UNTIL THE NEXT DAY, just the like the rest of us. Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman even refused to answer the question, repeatedly, as to WHEN Bush was informed that Cheney was the shooter.

Other facts keep changing as well, including a new little factoid suggesting that Cheney may have been hunting at dusk, which is potentially another big no no in this very weird and very telling scandal.

Read E&P;'s entire analysis, it's that good.

E&P; is also reporting that Cheney will be interviewed today on...you guessed it...Fox News:

Cheney will be interviewed by Fox News's Brit Hume at 2 p.m., White House press secretary Scott McClellan told reporters. The interview will not be aired live, but appears at 6 p.m. ET.

Read the rest of this post...

More Americans now think Bush broke the law by spying on us

Hotline's Wake-up Call had a little blurb today that told us more Americans think Bush broke the law with his domestic spying program:

A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll shows 49% of adults think Pres. Bush definitely/probably broke the law wiretapping without a court order and 47% think he did not.

Hotline is a pay service so no link. However, did find the link to the poll itself with the actual question:

Based on what you have heard or read, do you think George W. Bush – definitely broke the law, probably broke the law, probably did not break the law or definitely did not break the law?

Definitely Broke the Law 23

Probably Broke the Law 26

Probably Did Not Break the Law 24

Definitely Did Not Break the Law 23

No opinion 3

Not good numbers for the Commander-in-Chief -especially since the GOP is going to make the domestic spying scandal one of their top political issues this year.

Amazing that, despite these numbers, Congress is letting the White House shut down any investigations. The White House staffers know Bush broke the law, that's why they don't want Congress to look in to the issue. Seems like the American people get that too. Read the rest of this post...

Bush has 325,000 names on US terrorist list

And you thought Richard Nixon had a bit of an issue with his "enemies." Read the rest of this post...

"Intelligent design" loses another vote

This time it was in Ohio. The American Taliban loses again.

The Ohio Board of Education voted 11 to 4 Tuesday to toss out a mandate that 10th-grade biology classes include critical analysis of evolution and an accompanying model lesson plan, dealing the intelligent design movement its second serious defeat in two months.

"This language from Ohio, the critically-analyze-evolution type language, is sprouting up all over, in both the local level, as well as with other state standards," Ms. Scott said. "The Ohio board has recognized its error, and other school districts should not make that same error."

Read the rest of this post...

Wednesday Morning Open Thread

Wow. What a week. And it's only half over. What's next? Read the rest of this post...

White House to stop Congress from investigating domestic dpying issue

The White House may be on the verge of preventing any investigation by Congress in to the domestic spying scandal:

Congress appeared ready to launch an investigation into the Bush administration's warrantless domestic surveillance program last week, but an all-out White House lobbying campaign has dramatically slowed the effort and may kill it, key Republican and Democratic sources said yesterday.

The Senate intelligence committee is scheduled to vote tomorrow on a Democratic-sponsored motion to start an inquiry into the recently revealed program in which the National Security Agency eavesdrops on an undisclosed number of phone calls and e-mails involving U.S. residents without obtaining warrants from a secret court. Two committee Democrats said the panel -- made up of eight Republicans and seven Democrats -- was clearly leaning in favor of the motion last week but now is closely divided and possibly inclined against it.

The GOP has completely diminished the power of Congress. They are making Bush a dictator. It's pathetic. Read the rest of this post...

Cheney's gunshot victim still in the hospital

So tell me again why the White House finds this story so funny? The incident that was so minor and worth cracking jokes about, not to mention hiding it for a day, but they clearly knew the seriousness of this from the beginning. For people that talk about valuing life, they sure respond in strange ways. When are we going to hear Cheney tell the nation how he shot a hunting partner? How does such an experienced hunter make such a basic mistake and why can he not be a stand up guy and acknowledge his mistake? How many people do you know who stay in the hospital for so long for something the White House considers minor? Read the rest of this post...

Blair and the politics of fear

For any of those remaining Blair supporters, this new report makes it very clear that Blair repeated the same atmosphere of fear that Bush and the GOP used so effectively in the US and it shows just how obsessed with power he truly is. Blair may sound better than Bush, but they are two sides of the same coin. Blair took full advantage of the domestic attack to control the agenda under his single rule instead of joining together in unity across party lines. High profile attack warning that never had any substance? Yep, that too. The report also includes the story of arrests and hype about chemical (ricin) manufacturing in preparation for an attack on the UK, even though no ricin was ever found, but the story fit so well with Blair's efforts to drag the UK into war.

The report on Blair's reign (and his amazing similarities to Bush) is well worth a read if your stomach can take it. Blair, like Bush, has no idea what democracy is. He is only interested in absolute power for himself. Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

I've been out all day bopping around NYC with Jordi, the visiting Frenchman. I didn't realize Politics TV (which I host, often) had our very special GOP Valentine's day edition up. Check it out. Read the rest of this post...

Cheney Apology Watch: Day 5

Will today be the day that Dick Cheney finally apologizes for nearly killing a 78 year old man? Read the rest of this post...