...but, then again, Bush says a lot of things.

Josh Marshall wrote this on Wednesday:

"I just saw the AP story reporting the stunning news that Howard Dean has fired Joe Trippi as his campaign manager and replaced him with long
-long-long-time Gore insider Roy Neel.
This has to be one of the most bizarre turns of events I've seen in Dem politics in a very long time. ... Something very weird happened here.
All I can figure is that this all happened with no warning whatsoever. Gore is now in the mix. And in need of someone immediately they went to Neel. "

Maybe ...

But what if Neel is a precursor to a Gore run? The Dean campaign is pretty much is toast, that much is obvious. Still, there is organizational strength there and the greatest knock against the angry one is that he can't beat Bush. Replace Dean with Gore and you've suddenly got an electable name atop a potentially winning platform of being opposed to the war, in favor of health care reform, opposed to the Bush tax cuts and in favor of people from the South. Hasn't Dean seemed like an over-achieving veep candidate from the start?
Everyone's been hinting at Hillary being the darkhorse candidate come convention time. But what about Gore? He's beaten Bush in election, and, by keeping a low profile over the past four years, he's managed to outlive the dumb lies (Internet, Love Story, etc.) he got caught in.
Yeah, yeah, it's a stretch, but maybe ...

p.s. The real fun will come when Gore takes over for Dean and then picks Edwards as his running mate. Gore-Edwards in 2004? It's a Dem dream team ...

It's clear WMD didn't exist in Iraq, as the Bush administration has insisted. Bill O'Reilly, you remember, said that if no WMD were found he would apologize to the American people and never believe another word this administration says. Not only is he not apologizing, he's buying into the White House's new lie- that the CIA misled our dear president.

Framing David Kay's conclusions by saying, "This should put an end to all this 'lie' business," as O'Reilly did on his show last night is laughable, it's clear that from the beginning of his term this president had a goal to invade Iraq and the administration sent the CIA on a mission to create a reason. They came through for the president, we invaded, everybody wins, right? Well... not so fast. Obviously the CIA is now realizing that lying for the president will only leave you hung out to dry.

How can a self-proclaimed "independent thinker" like O'Reilly be so easily mislead? Why is the president beyond question?

Obviously O'Reilly is a right-wing shill, working for Karl Rove to hit all the administration's talking points while simultaneously claiming full independence and balanced reporting. O'Reilly was wrong about Iraq, but he'll never admit it.

That won't stop Overspun from hounding him anyway. This Iraq situation will be around longer than O'Reilly will, no matter who gets elected next November. This will be remembered as a dark time for our country, a time when tens of thousands of people died for absolutely no reason. A time when our president mislead us, then blamed others for his deception. A time when the national media showed how corrupt and ineffective it had become.

Finally, a prediction for the tin foil hat community- Weapons will be found if enough heat is thrown the CIA's way. If the president were taking all the heat the CIA would have no motivation to put themselves on the line. Now that the blame is being shifted there's a whole new set of (clandestine) options.

I just watched Dennis Miller's first show on CNBC, wow did that suck.

The first part of the show Dennis decided that instead of coming up with new comments/jokes he would just repeat everything we'd already heard about the show.

Most of his opening comments were previously seen damn near word-for-word here, specifically:
"Nine-11 changed me, I'm shocked that it didn't change the whole country, frankly."
and
"If two gay guys want to get married, I couldn't care less. It's their business. If some foreigner wants to blow their wedding up, I want my government to eliminate him."

After the most boring interview I've ever witnessed with an international superstar/Governor of California, Dennis went back to what made him famous, Weekend Update- this time rebranded "Daily Rorschach"

This was pure death. At least with a studio audience you get nervous twitters when a joke bombs, here we have an overzealous producer leading the crew in the most forced laughter since reel three of Tim Burton's Batman. "C'mon boys, laugh as if your jobs depend on it, because they do!"

So, at the end of the Weekend Update segment, Dennis says "Guess what folks? That's the news and I am out of here..." Unfortunately for Dennis (and us) this was only at the 31 minute mark.

After the commercial Dennis gave a monologue about Fox News owing him money. Commercial. Next was a segment called "The Varsity" basically three right-wingers against a lefty. Basic point of the Right wingers? The CIA misled our fearless president about WMD. Lefty response: eye-roll

Commercial.

Closing arguments, good night. stage goes dark... "And another thing" rant about killing the space program. Good night again.

This show is going to be on every week night? How is that possible when you're already recycling jokes from last week?

CNBC better start looking for a replacement.

Latest tracking polls show:

Clark is leading in Oklahoma.
Kerry leads in Arizona.
Edwards lives in South Carolina.
Dean is getting wacked by everyone, including Sharpton in S.C.

What happens if Edwards takes the South, Kerry takes Gore's states from 2000 and Clark picks up the rest of Bush country? Two's a ticket, three's ore than a crowd ... it's a bloody mess.
Link

1. Kerry
2. Dean
3. Edwards
4. Clark
5. Lieberman drops out.

Typos suck.

In a ruling handed down late Friday and made available Monday, U.S. District Judge Audrey Collins said the ban on providing "expert advice or assistance" is impermissibly vague, in violation of the First and Fifth Amendments.

Al who?



Oh. Matt, you're an idiot.

This cartoon was drawn by Charles Stouff. You can see more inept cartoons right here. I encourage you to read them- they're funny, though I'm sure not in the way Charles intended them to be.

The gist of this panel is that Hans Blix was working with Saddam Hussein to help hide all those nasty weapons of mass destruction from our fearless leader, President Bush.

President Bush forced the UN inspectors out after realizing they were covering up for Saddam (bastards!) only to find that the inspections were working and that Saddam not only didn't have any WMD, he didn't have the ability, supplies, or knowledge to make them! He did, however, have a "hankerin'" as Mr. Bush put it in so many words.

Charles, lost in all this war business are the lies and the slander that Hans Blix had to endure for months from right-wing wackos like yourself, how about an apology?

Here's the latest O'Reilly snippet I put together- Click Here.
O'Reilly still owes us an apology- I suppose since David Kay has quit looking and has announced that the WMD didn't exist we should be hearing that apology on Bill's next show.

Watch this space for a full report.

Genius. Pure genius.

Peter Jennings quizzing Wes Clark about Michael Moore:

At one point Mr. Moore, said in front of you that President Bush, he was saying he'd like to see a debate between you the General and President Bush who he called a deserter. Now that's a reckless charge not supported by the facts so I was curious to know why you didn't contradict him and whether or not you think it would have been a better example of ethical behavior to have done so.

Clark did a good job of answering the question, admitting he didn't know the specifics but that the charge was irrelevant to his campaign. I imagine he's read the articles about Bush not showing up for a year of national guard duty, but it was obvious from the question that whatever Clark said would be dismissed as rantings from the tin-foil hat community.

It's a documented fact that Bush was AWOL. The term "deserter" was used by Moore as a term of art, AWOL is probably more applicable. Why is this claim suddenly a surprise? Will reporters finally be taking another look at it? (I noticed Drudge has a quote from Kerry during the last campaign bringing it up, since Drudge isn't a reporter so much as an aggregator that doesn't count.)



Michael Moore has a great collection of evidence on this page at his site.

Also the Straight Dope has an article summing it all up.

Richard Belzer had a great line on Real Time with Bill Maher the other night- someone had mentioned that Dean was skiing while Vietnam was going on and Bush was in the National Guard. After pointing out that Bush was AWOL from the guard, the Belz also pointed out that Bush was, "dealing with a different type of snow."

Limbaugh didn't mention it on his show.

The prosecution laughed Limbaugh's lawyers out of the room- they say they have enough evidence for ten felonies.

Are they still gonna call the report on WMDs in Iraq the Kay report? I guess I wouldn't want my name associated with the biggest mistake in this country's history either.

Remember when the hawks were calling Hans Blix blind for not finding all those huge stockpiles of weapons? Now Kay goes out with a wimper after finding nothing. "Hans Blix was right." That should be Kay's last official statement from his post, followed swiftly by another apology from the President.

Note that this news was released on a Friday night after the national news. This is an attempt to bury the story.

Announcing the first ever Overspun.com caption contest! What was really going on Thursday night following the Dem debate? Submit captions through the reply button or by bribing one of the site's administrators for access through Blogger. The winner will receive the knowledge of knowing they have won. Here's the photo:

From TPM:

"When you hear his talk about ‘the two Americas’ (with one living in perpetual insecurity and another ‘having whatever they need whenever they need it’) you think: Yes, he explains it all exactly right, in a way that would cut right into the president’s deepest political vulnerabilities."


This is a great comment. I had a very similar reaction to Edwards' "Two Americas" speech, and love the message of the Bushies forming a divide within society. This is something I could see all Democrats rallying around in the upcoming elections and recapturing their rightful image as budget and socially conscious leaders who care about people rather than causes or corporations. With the recent shakeup, it wouldn't surprise me to see Edwards emerge as the nominee. For now, I could live with that, even though Presidentmatch.com tells me I'm more in line with Kucinich and Sharpton.

I put this together to demonstrate on a base level what Bill O'Reilly does every night.

Enjoy-
Link

WASHINGTON -- Republican staff members of the US Senate Judiciary Commitee infiltrated opposition computer files for a year, monitoring secret strategy memos and periodically passing on copies to the media, Senate officials told The Globe.

From the spring of 2002 until at least April 2003, members of the GOP committee staff exploited a computer glitch that allowed them to access restricted Democratic communications without a password. Trolling through hundreds of memos, they were able to read talking points and accounts of private meetings discussing which judicial nominees Democrats would fight -- and with what tactics.

Darth Frist is involved- you know, the guy who rigged that poll.

This is so unfortunate. The moment one of these candidates shows a little emotion, little fucking passion the media calls it a meltdown, a freak-out, and an angry tirade.

It wasn't any of those things. Iowa was a disappointment, what should he do, cry?

Thanks to the media smackdown we can look forward to a bunch of Vulcans running for president from here on out- show even a little emotion or passion and you will be destroyed.

This is going to be really fucking boring.

They initially denied they shared data. They's in trouble now...

Here's a quick rundown of the deadlines Bill O'Reilly has set for his apology about there not being any WMD in Iraq (pretty much stolen from rotten.com):

June 5, 2003- "Talking Points just asks one thing from President Bush: an update on the situation in the next few weeks. "
DEADLINE: July 1, 2003

June 11, 2003- "We the people deserve an extensive update from the President before he goes on summer vacation."
DEADLINE: August 1, 2003

July 31, 2003- "We're confused about the WMDs. And Mr. Bush has an obligation to clear this up by the end of the year."
DEADLINE: December 31, 2003

October 8, 2003- "All Americans should demand within the next nine months -- before the Presidential candidate, uh candidates, really swing in -- for an explanation of what exactly happened."
DEADLINE: July 1, 2004

"Can you imagine what the Republicans would be doing to a Democratic president who was a CEO of a company that now has gotten billions of dollars worth of contracts -- no-bid contracts -- without competition?" Costello, D-Belleville, was quoted as saying.

"There would be hearings day after day. And my prediction to you is that you will see in this session of Congress ..., there will not only be hearings, but I think there ought to be impeachment hearings."

So far, Haliburton has earned more than $2 billion from the war contracts.

Cheney headed Haliburton from 1995 to 2000, when he quit to become George W. Bush's running mate.

Because I'm sure he'll delete this embarrassing rambling as soon as he re-reads it, here, for your amusement and for posterity is Matt Drudge's idiotic assessment of Howard Dean's speech to his troops after placing third in Iowa:

DEAN GOES NUTS
Stinging from his third place finish in Iowa, which robbed him of his frontrunner status, Governor Howard Dean tonight gave a red faced concession speech in which he vowed to go all over the country fighting to defeat George Bush. He named the states in which he said his campaign would fight, and as he rolled out the names of the states his face became red, his gestures sharp and angry. For a few moments, it appeared Dean had slipped into an unnatural state... Developing...

Sharp and angry gestures? Slipping into an unnatural state? What exactly does that mean?

I saw the speech, but I must have missed part with the unnatural state. Dean was excited, energetic, optimistic, but not angry, as Drudge wants you to believe. Drudge's take on the event shows us why he can't be an actual reporter- it's plainly obvious he can't write.

Drudge will of course be busy scouring the wires tomorrow night looking for another picture of Bush with a halo over his head whilst giving the State of the Union.

George W. Bush has killed thousands of people... somehow Dean's the crazy one.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - David Kay, the chief U.S. weapons hunter in Iraq, has told the CIA he will not return to his post, a U.S. government source has said, a move that critics could seize upon as a sign that he has given up hope of finding banned arms.

"He has told the DCI (Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet) that he doesn't want to go back, they have been trying to get him to stay," the source told Reuters on Thursday on condition of anonymity.

Well, he was set up to fail, wasn't he? Given an impossible mission, I can't say I blame him for wanting to quit.

A shocking combination of words were found this afternoon on Matt Drudge's web site, www.drudgereport.com, this space can reveal!

DEVELOPING HARD!!!

Dennis Miller's HBO show was canceled when it became clear that he was reading his rants for the first time live on the air, as appeared to be the case for at least the last two seasons.

I've never heard anybody talk about the moon's "abundant resources."

To ensure the mission's success the president has ordered the landing to take place on a full moon.

In other news, more and more troops are killing themselves while serving in Iraq according to the Pentagon.

I'm all for space travel, but billions of dollars on programs other than fixing the horrendous mistake in Iraq is just a waste at the moment.

We're twice removed from a WMD here...

Asked Monday about former Treasury secretary Paul H. O'Neill's allegation that the administration was preparing to attack Iraq from its first days in office, President Bush told reporters that "we were dealing with Desert Badger or flyovers and fly-betweens and looks, and we were fashioning policy along those lines."

Huh?

Desert Badger? This led to some head scratching around town. A Nexis search reveals no public mention of a recent operation called Desert Badger, although there are references to the University of Wisconsin Badgers.

Could this have been a code name for badgering Saddam to surrender? Not that we gave him the opportunity...

Imagine that President Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell had made a case for the invasion of Iraq along the following lines: "Saddam Hussein is an evil dictator who has long oppressed the Iraqi people and threatened Iraq's neighbors. It is U.S. policy to seek regime change in Iraq, and we propose to do that now, by military force. Saddam does not pose a risk to the United States now, and any threat he eventually may pose is years or decades away. His programs for developing weapons of mass destruction have been dormant since the end of the Gulf War. We have no evidence of links between Saddam and the terrorists of Al-Qaida or other groups capable of attacking the United States. Any invasion of Iraq is not related to the war on terrorism.

"Nevertheless, removing Saddam and creating a free, democratic Iraq is a worthy goal, though it will not come cheap. It will cost tens upon tens of billions of dollars raised from American taxpayers. International assistance will be minimal. Hundreds of fine young Americans will be killed in the process, and thousands will suffer debilitating wounds that will alter their lives forever. We call upon the American people to willingly shoulder those costs in the name of a free Iraq."

That, of course, isn't the case Bush and Powell made. The American people would have rejected it, and properly so.

I'm glad the "who's wearing sweaters" story hasn't overwhelmed the "who's eating junk food" story.

The thing that struck me about O'Neill in his interview was how seemingly unaware he was that he was saying things that could be considered critical of the president. He's telling the truth and can't imagine that he would be punished for that. He obviously doesn't know the Bush administration as well as the rest of us do.

While in the book O'Neill comes off as constantly appalled at Mr. Bush, he was surprised when Stahl told him she found his portrait of the president unflattering.

“Hmmm, you really think so,” asks O’Neill, who says he isn’t joking. “Well, I’ll be darned.”

“You're giving me the impression that you're just going to be stunned if they attack you for this book,” says Stahl to O’Neill. “And they're going to say, I predict, you know, it's sour grapes. He's getting back because he was fired.”
“I will be really disappointed if they react that way because I think they'll be hard put to,” says O’Neill.

Is he prepared for it?

“Well, I don't think I need to be because I can't imagine that I'm going to be attacked for telling the truth,” says O’Neill. “Why would I be attacked for telling the truth?”

Now the treasury department is investigating and the White House Spokesman is accusing O'Neill of breaking federal law.

Let the smearing begin.

Oh, and buy the book O'Neill didn't get a dime for.

"It may seem odd that the ACLU has come to the defense of Rush Limbaugh," the state chapter's executive director, Howard Simon, said in a statement. "But we have always said that the ACLU's real client is the Bill of Rights and we will continue to safeguard the values of equality, fairness and privacy for everyone, regardless of race, economic status or political point of view."

Limbaugh's had no comment on the ACLU's involvement so far.

This is great- of paramount concern is the defense of the bill of rights. Until recently, Limbaugh has denied the existance of a right to privacy. All it takes is the threat of federal "pound me in the ass" prison to turn a guy's political views 180 degrees. It's clear how much of what Limbaugh says is an act and nothing more.

"No President has ever done more for human rights than I have."
-George W. Bush

Later:

Political guru Karl Rove claims that the job of journalists is "not necessarily to report the news. It's to get a headline or get a story that will make people pay attention to their magazine, newspaper or television more."

And Chief of Staff Andy Card scoffs: "[The media] don't represent the public any more than other people do. In our democracy, the people who represent the public stood for election."

Card argues that it's not the responsibility of top White House policymakers to provide reporters with facts.

"It's not our job to be sources. The taxpayers don't pay us to leak!" Card tells Auletta. "Our job is not to make your job easy."

The president's advisors apparently missed that day in Junior High Civics class. Our loss...

The quote you see above is the president having an ever so brief moment of clarity during a Economic Team meeting where advisors were pushing for a second round of tax cuts for the wealthy.

The President was overruled. This president is a joke/puppet/moron/liar. Pick one, they all apply.

The quote appears in Ron Suskind's new book which has all those O'Neill quotes we've been hearing lately.

I'm sure the dead soldiers and their families are thrilled to hear that.

Ladies and gentlemen, for your pleasure, a smoking gun.

Decide on a goal, make up evidence to justify illegal actions used to achieve that goal. Lie.
Repeat as necessary.



Bush should be impeached for this, if not for the thousands of innocent people he killed in his grab for oil.

O'Neill was also quoted in the book as saying that the administration's decision-making process was so flawed that often top officials had no real sense of what the president wanted them to do, forcing them to act on "little more than hunches about what the president might think."

O'Neill said in his CBS interview that the atmosphere was similar during the one-on-one meetings he held with Bush.

Speaking of his first meeting with the president, O'Neill said, "I went in with a long list of things to talk about and, I thought, to engage (Bush) on. ... I was surprised it turned out me talking and the president just listening. It was mostly a monologue."

[O]nly 1,000 jobs were added to non-farm payrolls in the last month of 2003, when economists were expecting employers to create 148,000 new jobs.

In response to the news the markets fainted away in what a spokesman termed, "a case of the vapors."

Update: Atrios points out that if the numbers from previous months hadn't also been adjusted today the report would have read 50,000 jobs lost last month.

Huh.

The 400 member team that was hunting for Weapons of Mass Destruction has left Iraq.

Bill O'Reilly owes the American people an apology.

Lying, Blotchy Whore

"[I]f weapons of mass destruction aren't found...I will have to apologize because I bought into it."
- Bill O'Reilly, April 22, 2003

No comment from O'Reilly.

Josh Marshall consistently posts stuff that blows my mind, but this one is special. He points out that the word "neoconservative" is being redefined by neoconservatives as a code word for "Jew."

Why would they do that? Well, if you criticize Neocon policies you're not only wrong (in their view) but as a bonus you're also Anti-Semitic. The Hitler comparisons write themselves.

I have to admit, this is something that never even occurred to me. Maybe it's because I'm not particularly religious, therefore conspiracies against my faith aren't the first thing on my mind when I'm reading the news. I don't hate groups of people, I hate everyone equally.

In the end, stating that Neocon=Jew is just plain laughable. There's big differences in there, chief among them the fact that Jews aren't evil and Neocons are.

Drudge has been pushing this story for two days and now the rest of the right-wing media is picking it up- these commercials haven't aired, these were two of over a thousand entries in a contest to pick the best ad. These two didn't win. What's the controversy?

That being said, MoveOn.org is wussing out- if they had any balls they'd say, "We'll stop comparing you to Hitler when you stop acting like Nazis."

Update 1/7/04: Okay, I admit, if they had said that, MoveOn.Org would be over. But I think it was the movie Blade 2 which said it best- "It's better to burn out than to fade away."

Pat Fitzgerald is looking into this leak as well.

Something to think about- the thousands of pills prescribed to Limbaugh that we've heard about so far were from just one pharmacy. The medical records that Rush is fighting to keep sealed contain the full list of prescriptions. So, obviously barring malpractice or more doctors standing in the shadows, there's a strong likelyhood that the drugs that are accounted for are the tip of the iceberg.

Also don't forget, these were only supplementing the thousands of pills he was illegally buying from his housekeeper. That's a whole different case with even bigger consequences.

On to privacy of his medical records- in a perfect world, the records would stay sealed and Rush would be "sent up" for his independently established crimes, which include laundering money, illegally purchasing narcotics, and distribution of a controlled substance. I can see why the prosecution is going the direction it is - once the medical records can be reviewed it's solid, black and white evidence. That's much better than a maid who cashed in her story with a tabloid.

Privacy- it's one of those things where you don't miss it until it's gone, and by that time it's too late. Limbaugh is on the air every day talking about how his constitutional right to privacy has been grievously violated. How he justifies the complete reversal of his statements from just a couple of months ago is unclear.

Limbaugh is a sad, desperate, despicable little man, but he has bags and bags of money. Up until now, those who believed their constitutional rights were violated haven't had the means to fight back and challenge the constitutionality of the laws that are putting them away. Limbaugh, on the other hand, can (and will) fight going to jail with every dollar he has.

Already we've seen laws that he's applauded in the past used against him- he says unfairly. Now that Rush has seen what he deems abuse of the system will it change his mind about the treatment of others who are accused of committing crimes? Not likely... But one possible outcome could be good for the US Constitution. Rush could challenge the constitutionality of the Patriot Act. After all, who better to take on John Ashcroft than Rush Limbaugh?

At this point, prosecutors have seized Limbaugh's medical records from four doctors to try to determine whether he illegally went from doctor to doctor to get enough drugs to satisfy his habit. On his radio show and in court, Limbaugh has complained bitterly that the seizure violates his right to privacy, in particular regarding medical matters. But Limbaugh seeks a protection that he would deny to others.

On April 4, for example, Limbaugh noted that American doctors had performed spinal surgery on Pfc. Jessica Lynch, who had just been rescued. According to a transcript of his broadcast (rushtranscript.blogspot.com), Limbaugh offered conjectures as to why the surgery was necessary:

"One of the things that we do know about, from anecdotal evidence from previous captures of female POWs, is that the Iraqis hang them naked by their feet," Limbaugh said. "Now, you take it from there -- but she did suffer from some lumbar spinal injuries that required surgery."

He also noted that Lynch had suffered two broken ankles. "Yeah, two broken ankles, which might have come from the being hung naked upside down by the ankles."

To Limbaugh's frustration, the military had refused to release further medical information, citing respect for Lynch's privacy. He wanted to know if Lynch had been raped, he said, not out of voyeurism but because it might shut up those feminists who are always griping about letting women serve alongside men in the military.

Medical records should be private. Rush suddenly believes this too. Well, how fucking convenient.

I wonder if Rush is still so vigorously defending the USA Patriot Act now that he realizes the great power that the government has over his life. Well, Rush, this is what we've been saying- Big Brother is here, and it's your fault.

You say the investigators are demmycrats looking to take you down... let's assume for a moment that all the investigators are on the DNC payroll (yeah, I know it sounds stupid, but we're dealing with Rush Limbaugh...) Who gave these "evil" investigators all these powers to invade your privacy to investigate your illegal drug purchases? While it's questionable if this is actual abuse, what's clear is that it's easier to invade privacy of ordinary citizens than it has been since this country was founded.

Thanks for that, Rush.