Open thread

TiVo awaits me (BSG and Rome). Read the rest of this post...

Jon Stewart on CNN host and ABC commentator Glenn Beck: "Finally, a guy who says what people who aren't thinking are thinking"

More from Howie Klein.

Find out more about Mr. Beck, and his bestest friend at Best Buy, here. Read the rest of this post...

Hillary calls for withdrawal from Iraq by end of Bush's term

Good for her. From AP:

President Bush should withdraw all U.S. troops from Iraq before he leaves office, asserting it would be "the height of irresponsibility" to pass the war along to the next commander in chief.

"This was his decision to go to war with an ill-conceived plan and an incompetently executed strategy," the Democratic senator from New York said her in initial presidential campaign swing through Iowa.

"We expect him to extricate our country from this before he leaves office" in January 2009, the former first lady said.

My initial reaction is: smart move. The overwhelming majority of Americans have had it with this war. They want us out - just not yet. Yes, it's a contradiction, I get it, but they don't, and it's where they are. People want the war over "soon." And Hillary just gave the public a timeline that meets what their gut is telling them.

It also puts Bush on notice that the clock is ticking. He no longer gets to pull the old "this war will have to be settled by the next president." Hillary's message for the next two years is going to be "are we there yet?" And it's a smart message for the Democrats as well. It permits them to keep running against Bush even as the elections approach for the post-Bush.

The only danger with this strategy is were it morphed into a "Bush has two more years to fix things, so let's just escalate and see what happens." No one is for that, and that's not what Hillary is saying, in any case. She's saying that even she, Democrat who has often been a pain in the butt (to us) as it concerns her views on the war, has a limit.

So, Hillary is now in favor of a timetable for withdrawal. It's a timetable the American people will readily accept, in my view. And that's a good thing. Read the rest of this post...

In Newsweek interview, Cheney says Bush has "shored up his position" as Bush hits new low in Newsweek poll

Further proof that the Vice President has no concept of reality evidenced in the Newsweek interview:

[Interviewer]There has been little open support from the Republican Party for the president's plan for extra troops in Iraq. Do you worry that the party has lost the stomach for the fight?

[Cheney] The election results last November obviously represented a blow to our friends on the Hill, Republicans on the Hill—to go from majority to minority status. A lot of members were concerned or felt that their political fortunes were adversely affected by our ongoing operations in Iraq. What's happened here now over the last few weeks is that the president has shored up his position with the speech he made specifically on Iraq.

Shored up his position? We know Cheney is delusional about Iraq. But, obviously, his ability to understand the truth extends beyond Iraq. There's no evidence anywhere that Bush has "shored up his position." Whenever Dick Cheney says something, the opposite is probably true. And, that's the case with Bush's approval. The reality from the Newsweek poll:

The president’s approval ratings are at their lowest point in the poll’s history—30 percent—and more than half the country (58 percent) say they wish the Bush presidency were simply over, a sentiment that is almost unanimous among Democrats (86 percent), and is shared by a clear majority (59 percent) of independents and even one in five (21 percent) Republicans. Half (49 percent) of all registered voters would rather see a Democrat elected president in 2008, compared to just 28 percent who’d prefer the GOP to remain in the White House.

Read the rest of this post...

Pro-"surge" Senator Joe Lieberman says he may back Republican for president

Joe Lieberman is no friend to moderate middle-of-the-road Americans. We've been saying it for a while now, and the rest of the country is finally seeing his true colors. Lieberman supports George Bush, Lieberman thinks the war in Iraq is going well, Lieberman supports the Bush/McCain "surge" plan to escalate the war in Iraq and send 20,000 more troops. Lieberman is the go-to guy who Dick Cheney now uses to defend his and Bush's plans for further escalating the war in Iraq. From Newsweek:

QUESTION: Sen. [Chuck] Hagel said some pretty harsh things about the administration. He said there was no strategy. He said—It's not the first time. He said it was a "Ping-Pong game with human beings." Do you have a reaction to that?

DICK CHENEY: I thought that Joe Lieberman's comments ... were very important. Joe basically said the plan deserved an opportunity to succeed ... that we're sending Gen. [David] Petraeus out with probably a unanimous or near-unanimous [confirmation] vote, and that it didn't make sense for Congress to simultaneously then pass a resolution disapproving of the strategy in Iraq.

Joe Lieberman isn't a moderate Democrat. He isn't even a moderate Republican. On the issues that count, Joe Lieberman is a George Bush Republican, a conservative Republican. A McCain Republican. And while that might have been nice immediately following September 11 when we were all scared to death and didn't know any better, now it just comes across as delusional.

And now he's talking of supporting a Republican for president because - what? - we haven't had enough Republican control of our country the past six years? Delusional. Read the rest of this post...

Wash Post ombudsman slaps reporter John Solomon for John Edwards hit piece

You'll recall that we wrote last week about how embattled former Associated Press reporter, who is now working at the Washington Post, just wrote his first front page story at the Post about Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards.

It was a story about how Edwards sold his house to someone John Solomon and his editors at the Post don't like. That's it. The story implied in its first two paragraphs that Edwards' spokeswoman lied to reporters about the sale - but in the 9th paragraph of the story you find out that Edwards' spokeswoman actually told the truth. As we wrote before, this is a classic Solomon trick - imply something nefarious in the first few paragraphs, then disprove it buried way down in the story where the reader likely won't even see it. And sometimes, he's even less sneaky - he simply reports an outright lie, something the source never even said.

Anyway, in today's Washington Post, the ombudsman weighs in on John Solomon's first big story at the Post, and she isn't pleased.

Accurate stories can be misleading. Two recent Page 1 stories -- one on the Fairfax County libraries and the other on the sale of Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards's Georgetown house -- brought complaints that there was less there than met the reader's eye.

And then she lets loose the real zinger. Apparently, Solomon's story wasn't just controversial with us, the Washington Post's own reporters weren't very happy with their new facts-challenged colleague:

The Edwards story, by John Solomon and Lois Romano, was controversial even in the Post newsroom and was attacked by Edwards, his staff, liberal-leaning blogs and about 50 readers.

The ombudsman, Deborah Howell, goes on to agree with the main criticism we all had with the story - where's the beef? What exactly did Edwards did wrong? The story never tells you, because he didn't do anything wrong.

I kept waiting to read about the connection between the Klaassens and Edwards that would make this sale unseemly; it wasn't there. Edwards spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri said Edwards "has never met or spoken with them; nor have they contributed to his campaign."

The story was interesting, but it was more of an item for the Reliable Source or In the Loop -- and not worth Page 1. It seemed like a "gotcha" without the gotcha.

There is nothing wrong with the Washington Post getting a tip about Edwards selling his house to someone the unions don't like, someone who created a limited liability company to buy the house. There is nothing wrong with the Post telling a reporter, "hey, check this story out and see if there's anything there." There is something wrong with the Washington Post's reporter and editors not killing this story once it became clear there was no there there. There is something even worse about the Post's editors putting this story on the front page as some kind of act of kindness to a new reporter when they know the story doesn't merit being published at all, let alone appearing in the most prominent spot of the newspaper. This is one of the nation's leading newspapers, not a charity.

John Solomon had a history of writing misleading hit pieces about Democrats when he was at the AP (and of reportedly taking tips from partisan sources and publishing them as-is, unquestioned), and now his first big front page piece with the Washington Post pulls out the same bag of misleading tricks. I hope the Washington Post editors used their American Express Gold Card when buying Solomon, because they just bought a lemon.

PS As an aside, the Post ombudsman, Deborah Howell, did a good job here. The blogs, including us, have criticized Howell before. In this case, she did her job, and did it well. And for that she gets our thanks. If the spirit moves you, send her a note of thanks ombudsman@washpost.com - we've criticized her when we haven't liked the job she's done, in all fairness she deserves to hear some praise when she does her job well. Read the rest of this post...

Bush is looking for a fight with Iran

When you read this quote from a top Bush official, remember what John Murtha always says -- just because they say it, doesn't mean it's true:

“We’re not looking for a fight with Iran,” R. Nicholas Burns, the under secretary of state for policy and the chief negotiator on Iranian issues, said in an interview on Friday evening, just a few hours after Mr. Bush had repeated his warnings to Iran to halt “killing our soldiers” and to stop its drive for nuclear fuel.

Of course, Bush is looking for a fight with Iran. That's becoming increasingly clear -- and frightening:

Mr. Burns, citing the president’s words, insisted that Washington was committed to “a diplomatic path” — even as it executed a far more aggressive strategy, seizing Iranians in Iraq and attempting to starve Iran of the money it needs to revitalize a precious asset, its oil industry.

Mr. Burns argues that those are defensive steps that are not intended to provoke Iran, though there has been a vigorous behind-the-scenes debate in the administration over whether the more aggressive policy could provoke Iran to strike back. The State Department has tended to counsel caution, while some more hawkish aides in the Pentagon and the White House say the increase in American forces in Iraq could be neutered unless the American military forcefully pushes back against the Iranian aid to the militias.

Provoke Iran. That's what George Bush wants. It makes no sense. None. It borders on insanity. And, that is exactly what we're dealing with right now. Read the rest of this post...

Sunday Talk Shows Open Thread

This is the first "Meet the Press" since Cathie Martin testified that the Bush/Cheney team think that Russert is a pushover. No wonder Mike Huckabee wants to start his presidential campaign with Tim -- he can control the message. Otherwise, it's the Iraq war on the Sunday shows -- because, right now, there is no other issue. Our President is delusional and out-of-control. Fortunately, Jim Webb is one of the messengers:

ABC's ''This Week'' -- Sens. Joe Biden, D-Del., and Richard Lugar, R-Ind.; Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif.; actor Kevin Bacon.

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CBS' ''Face the Nation'' -- Sens. Jim Webb, D-Va., Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Arlen Specter, R-Pa.

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NBC's ''Meet the Press'' -- Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee; Sens. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and David Vitter, R-La.; former presidential speechwriter Michael Gerson; Kenneth Pollack, a Brookings Institution analyst.

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CNN's ''Late Edition'' -- Sens. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., Jon Kyl, R-Ariz.; former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele; Democratic strategist Donna Brazile.

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''Fox News Sunday'' -- Sens. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., and Joe Lieberman, I-Conn.; Ellen Miller, executive director of the Sunlight Foundation.

Provide the commentary. Read the rest of this post...

US wildlife policy these days really stinks

Now that the western gray wolves have reached 1000, the feds are taking them off of the endangered species list which will result in hunting. The states claim that the wolves are killing other wildlife that is big money for trophy hunting lodges, but isn't that how nature works? Maybe instead of focusing on the feeble wolf population and taking it back down to 100, shouldn't they be looking at other ways to boost the elk population? If one animal population is too large and another too small, doesn't that suggest other problems beyond just these animals? Clearly there is an imbalance so de-listing wolves and opening up hunting season on them sounds radical, unnecessary and dangerous for the long term survival of the wolves. At a minimum it might make sense to talk with other places around the world - such as southern Africa - who have faced similar issues with animals such as wild dogs who were almost driven into extinction. Read the rest of this post...