Ann Coulter on O'Reilly last week:

O'REILLY: The weapons of mass destruction fiasco when they couldn't find them.

COULTER: Wait. We have found weapons of mass destruction...

O'REILLY: No we didn't, not to any great extent.

COULTER: That is an important point. We have found weapons of mass destruction. That is something the media is repeatedly lying about. We have not found stockpiles. [Rolls her eyes] We found the plants for manufacturing, we found the experiments, we found the room for human experimentation labs. We found lots of weapons of mass destruction.

O'REILLY: But not enough to justify what Powell said at the U.N.

COULTER: He's the only one, by the way, it's enough to justify what Cheney, Rumsfeld, and President Bush said. [Editor's Note: No it's not.] The one guy in this administration who made the case that turns out to have been not completely correct, I don't think it was a lie, lie, Bush lied...

O'REILLY: No, but he took what the CIA gave him and he took it to the U.N. and it didn't work out.

COULTER: It's one guy and I note the one that the liberals like the most.

O'REILLY: Well, whatever.

She is in absolute meltdown mode- total denial- the war is going "magnificently well" in Coulter land. In Coulter land the reasons for not going to war consisted of "we would never get Saddam, it was going to be harder, bloodier than catching Osama bin Laden. The people would not rise up, they would be fighting in the streets, urban warfare." In Coulter land, "none of that has happened."

In Coulter land "it's pretty darn safe over there" even though reporters can't go outside the hotel. Ann says she won't go out of the hotel in Washington D.C.! Well gosh, I guess she's got a point there. Oh, wait, no... no she fucking doesn't.

I can't imagine what rationale Ann is using to say that Iraq was easier than Afghanistan- the body count surely doesn't fit Ann's moronic view of the world.

One thing is clear- the Republican attack machine is turning on their own- looking for a scapegoat, and Colin Powell will do just as well as anyone. Can't wait for his book.

link to the O'Reilly interview. (O'Reilly's a right-wing hack in the interview too, it's just that he's outshined by this raving jackass.)

New York Times public editor Daniel Okrent bashed his mates on Sunday with a viscious column that implies that the newspaper had joined the war march by overplaying flawed stories and burying any of its own reporting that suggested there were no WMDs in Iraq.

He wrote:

"Some of The Times's coverage in the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq was credulous; much of it was inappropriately italicized by lavish front-page display and heavy-breathing headlines; and several fine articles by David Johnston, James Risen and others that provided perspective or challenged information in the faulty stories were played as quietly as a lullaby. Especially notable among these was Risen's "C.I.A. Aides Feel Pressure in Preparing Iraqi Reports," which was completed several days before the invasion and unaccountably held for a week. It didn't appear until three days after the war's start, and even then was interred on Page B10."

Judith Miller gets a shakedown:

The apparent flimsiness of "Illicit Arms Kept Till Eve of War, an Iraqi Scientist Is Said to Assert," by Judith Miller (April 21, 2003), was no less noticeable than its prominent front-page display; the ensuing sequence of articles on the same subject, when Miller was embedded with a military unit searching for W.M.D., constituted an ongoing minuet of startling assertion followed by understated contradiction. But pinning this on Miller alone is both inaccurate and unfair: in one story on May 4, editors placed the headline "U.S. Experts Find Radioactive Material in Iraq" over a Miller piece even though she wrote, right at the top, that the discovery was very unlikely to be related to weaponry.

The failure was not individual, but institutional.

This is revealing ...

THE HUNGER FOR SCOOPS Even in the quietest of times, newspaper people live to be first. When a story as momentous as this one comes into view, when caution and doubt could not be more necessary, they can instead be drowned in a flood of adrenalin. One old Times hand recently told me there was a period in the not-too-distant past when editors stressed the maxim "Don't get it first, get it right." That soon mutated into "Get it first and get it right." The next devolution was an obvious one.

And this may get him fired ...

Other stories pushed Pentagon assertions so aggressively you could almost sense epaulets sprouting on the shoulders of editors.

Remember when Jayson Blair was the problem? At least he didn't contribute to the deaths of thousands, the waste of billions and the support of a maniac administration that knowingly deceived the public.

From yesterday's Crossfire:

BEGALA: Well, today, nearing the end of this week, we learn that the Bush administration is in fact undermining Mr. Brahimi. According to today's "Financial Times," Bush administration officials leaked the name of a leading candidate to become prime minister of Iraq, nuclear scientist Hussain al-Shahristani.

The U.N. enjoy reportedly reacted with fury at the Bushies' leak and shortly thereafter, Dr. Shahristani withdrew his name from consideration. Nice work, Mr. President. Look, looking at the president's crew in Iraq, I can of feel like Casey Stengel when he was the manager of the 1962 Mets. He looked down at the bench and he said, Tucker, can't anybody here play this game?

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

CARLSON: It's interesting, though, Paul. I think you're neglecting to ask -- you're neglecting to ask the key question. And that is, is Mr. Brahimi, as you put it, pro-American? Are his interests the same as ourselves? That's the only question that matters, as far as I'm concerned and I think probably as far as you're concerned.

And I'm not sure I know the answer to that, actually.

(CROSSTALK)

BEGALA: He is the person who the president has entrusted to do this work. And I have to agree with the president on this point.

(CROSSTALK)

CARLSON: Sometimes his interests intersect with ours and sometimes they very, very much don't. Some of his criticisms of the way we've waged the war in Iraq have been completely outrageous and anti-American.

(BELL RINGING)

(CROSSTALK)

CARLSON: Maybe he's worth being undermined.

Is it any wonder why the UN and other countries aren't terribly interested in helping us out of this quagmire?

Atrios:

[Kelli] ARENA: Neither John Kerry nor the president has said troops pulled out of Iraq any time soon. But there is some speculation that al Qaeda believes it has a better chance of winning in Iraq if John Kerry is in the White House.

BEN VENZKE, INTELCENTER: Al Qaeda feels that Bush is, even despite casualties, right or wrong for staying there is going to stay much longer than possibly what they might hope a Democratic administration would.

There you go. We're fighting al Qaeda in Iraq and they think John Kerry is a wimp.

Atlanta:
404-827-1500

Washington:
202-898-7900


You can communicate your thoughts to Ms. Arena personally at:
kelli.arena@turner.com

It's a little dispiriting that we keep having to name a new top bad guy because we can't catch the old top bad guy.

It went like this: Osama is the top bad guy- no, wait, Saddam! Saddam is the top bad guy! Okay, we captured Saddam, now Osama is the top bad guy again! Let's get him. .... .... uh... al Sadr! He's a bad, bad guy- can't catch up with him? Let's negotiate with him. Al-Zarqawi! He's the top bad guy! And he's in Iraq! Let's pull our guys off Osama and get this al-Zarqawi character!

It appears "a president" has a secret blog.

Just posting this because Fox and Friends covered Viacom's new channel with an underlying tone of hostility toward the gay community which seemed a little weird for a fluff morning show. I shouldn't even explain it- the picture is better without explanation.

...we stopped calling them terrorists.
link

Whatever.

Tomorrow's NYT:

People who get their news by skimming the front page, or by watching TV, must be feeling confused by the sudden change in Mr. Bush's character. For more than two years after 9/11, he was a straight shooter, all moral clarity and righteousness.

But now those people hear about a president who won't tell a straight story about why he took us to war in Iraq or how that war is going, who can't admit to and learn from mistakes, and who won't hold himself or anyone else accountable. What happened?

The answer, of course, is that the straight shooter never existed. He was a fictitious character that the press, for various reasons, presented as reality.

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"I'm honored to shake the hand of a brave Iraqi citizen who had his hand cut off by Saddam Hussein."—George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., May 25, 2004
...

I was just looking back at Howard Kurtz's column from last year which had an internal NYT email from Judith Miller admitting that Chalabi, "has provided most of the front page exclusives on WMD to our paper." Here's another quote from the article worth looking at:

"Of course we talk to Chalabi," [Andrew Rosenthal, assistant managing editor for foreign news] said. "If you were in Iraq and weren't talking to Chalabi, I'd wonder if you were doing your job."
...
Whether or not the unit's initial findings pan out, [they didn't] Rosenthal says, he is "extremely comfortable" with Miller's reporting because "all the information was attributed to MET Alpha, not 'senior U.S. officials' or some other vague formulation."

Uh huh. Took a year for the half-hearted correction to be printed- and they are concocting a "vague formulation" of blame targeted at U.S. officials. How stupid do they think we are? (Hint: Pretty goddamn stupid.)

James C. Moore at Salon.com examines Judith Miller and The New York Times's reliance on Chalabi for front page stories which helped convince the American public to go along with the fake Iraq war.

"The White House had a perfect deal with Miller," [a former CIA analyst] said. "Chalabi is providing the Bush people with the information they need to support their political objectives with Iraq, and he is supplying the same material to Judy Miller. Chalabi tips her on something and then she goes to the White House, which has already heard the same thing from Chalabi, and she gets it corroborated by some insider she always describes as a 'senior administration official.' She also got the Pentagon to confirm things for her, which made sense, since they were working so closely with Chalabi. Too bad Judy didn't spend a little more time talking to those of us in the intelligence community who had information that contradicted almost everything Chalabi said."

Link

Money quote from Miller:

"You know what," she offered angrily. "I was proved fucking right. That's what happened. People who disagreed with me were saying, 'There she goes again.' But I was proved fucking right."

Al Franken announced on Monday that his show, "The O'Franken Factor" beat Rush Limbaugh in NYC.

The Chicago Tribune has an article on how well "The Factor" was doing in Chicago before they were pulled. (Hint: Far beyond expectations)

Caught this on Drudge-


Matt only had it up a few minutes- obviously realized shortly after posting it that Kerry is indeed running for president.

"I will hate Americans and British people for the rest of my life. You are democrats. You said you were coming to bring democracy to Iraq, and yet you killed my father", Rana said.

"You offer no proof that he did something wrong, you refuse him a lawyer, and then you kill him. Why?"

Her father was killed while in US custody. The official cause of death was "brainstem compression."

Uglier and uglier...

Bush's comments on Ricardo Sanchez:
"Rick Sanchez's done a fabulous job. He's been there for uh... a long time... His service has been, uh... exemplerary."
link

I wonder if, after all the lies, death, and destruction, Republicans will one day realize they've got a moron on their hands.

I touched on this in an earlier post, but here's a Newsday article on our practice of kidnapping family members of people wanted for questioning in Iraq.

Of course this violates the Geneva convention, but when has that stopped us before?

Previous articles have quoted enthusiastic soldiers describing what a useful tool hostage taking has become in Iraq. The previous article I read (which I'm still hunting for) (found it) seemed oblivious to the war crimes being committed. It was literally a puff piece on hostage taking. Who would have thought such a thing was possible?

Update: Relevant quote from the July 28, 2003 Washington Post piece-

Col. David Hogg, commander of the 2nd Brigade of the 4th Infantry Division, said tougher methods are being used to gather the intelligence. On Wednesday night, he said, his troops picked up the wife and daughter of an Iraqi lieutenant general. They left a note: "If you want your family released, turn yourself in." Such tactics are justified, he said, because, "It's an intelligence operation with detainees, and these people have info." They would have been released in due course, he added later.

There is no mention of the Geneva convention in the article.

via

Judith Miller should be fired, and after this pathetic message from the editors, which doesn't even bother to mention Miller, so should everyone else involved.

The New York Times, Judith Miller, and her editors did nothing less than sell America on an unjust war. I don't think a 1000 word "our bad" from the editors is going fix this.

My newspapers lied to me and all I got was this lousy war.

Slate:

[I]n the 18-month run-up to the war, Miller led the press pack in advancing the WMD case. And she did it in the most influential newspaper in America, which has failed to walk the dog back to reveal how she got it so wrong for so long.

via

Took 'em long enough. I mean, damn.

Alanis Morissette was on the Howard Stern show last week to sing her new single, the first line of which contains the word "asshole." Since Stern is under the FCC microscope a spirited discussion took place over how she should sing the lyric- I highly recommend giving it a listen.

It still amazes me that in the year 2004 we have to pretend that children's heads will explode if they hear someone say the word "asshole."

Report: Soldier claims he was beaten as part of training

Associated Press

LEXINGTON, Ky. - A former military police officer claimed in a television interview broadcast Monday that he was severely beaten while posing as a detainee during a January 2003 training exercise at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Sean Baker, a former member of the 438th Military Police Company, said he played the role of a detainee and was beaten harshly enough at the hands of four U.S. soldiers to suffer a traumatic brain injury and seizures.

snip...

In the television interview, Baker said that as part of the training drill, he was given an orange detainee jumpsuit to wear and turned over to four soldiers.

Baker said the soldiers then beat and choked him, stopping when they saw he was wearing parts of an Army uniform.

Baker said he has undergone numerous treatments, but still has medical problems.

Attempts by the AP to reach Baker by telephone Monday were not successful.

Read the article.

Seriously, WTF?

Reuters:

But the Republican president, long known for verbal and grammatical lapses, stumbled on the first try, calling it "abugah-rayp". The second version came out "abu-garon", the third attempt sounded like "abu-garah".

I don't understand why Al Gore is so into this movie. Sure, global warming is an important issue, but this is a brainless summer movie that, mark my words, WILL SUCK.

From the man who brought you Matthew Broderick vs. Godzilla- need I say more?

I bet there's a character with leg braces and a little blind kid.

And a dog that survives at the last second.

Ugh.

Stay the course. We're building you a new prison. Happy happy!

Bush is going to propose tearing down "Camp Redemption" AKA Abu Ghraib... this reminds me of the WWII Japanese sub commander that bombed the section of California coastline where he had years earlier lost his footing and fallen into a cactus. (Yes, it happened...)

If we were going to destroy it shouldn't it have been after Saddam had committed atrocities and before we did?

I hope Bush whips out a chart. This strikes me as something that might just require a handy chart. Just strikes me as chartable. I'm just saying... Chart! Chart! Chart!

Or a PowerPoint presentation. "The PowerPoint presentation that changed the world's mind." Yeah. Keep in mind clarity isn't exactly one of Bush's strong points. I think PowerPoint has, like, a clarity wizard that helps you with that.

Those of us who can resist the urge to watch contestants eat animal testicles on Fear Factor are in for an interesting night.

The Washington Times had this priceless paragraph in there coverage of "Joke-gate":

Mr. Bush, who is widely ridiculed by liberals and Democrats as dumb and incompetent, suffered "minor abrasions and scratches" in the accident, which came near the end of a 17-mile mountain bike ride on his Texas ranch Saturday.

After hearing of the accident, Kerry was heard to remark, "Did the training wheels fall off?" Variations of this joke, referencing last Thursday's cheerleading session with Republicans in Congress where Bush was quoted saying it was time for Iraqis to, "take the training wheels off" appeared everywhere within minutes of the news hitting the web.

This bit of humor was obviously lost on the Washington Times and Matt Drudge, who both look like idiots and both admit to being right about 80% of the time.*

*Okay, the Times doesn't admit it, but they should. Drudge meanwhile wishes he could approach 80%.

41% overall job approval. 51% disapprove.

Bush fell off his bike while vacationing in Texas today. Not the first time he's fallen flat on his face this week. According to Bob Novak the meeting with Republican lawmakers on the Hill was a total bust- Congressmen expected to be able to question the president but it turned out to be a rambling, repetitious monologue the main point of which seemed to be to eat clock and allow a quick exit.


Mr. Bush after the fall. (Artists rendering)

Newsday:

WASHINGTON -- The Defense Intelligence Agency has concluded that a U.S.-funded arm of Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress has been used for years by Iranian intelligence to pass disinformation to the United States and to collect highly sensitive American secrets, according to intelligence sources.

"Iranian intelligence has been manipulating the United States through Chalabi by furnishing through his Information Collection Program information to provoke the United States into getting rid of Saddam Hussein," said an intelligence source Friday who was briefed on the Defense Intelligence Agency's conclusions, which were based on a review of thousands of internal documents.

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Well, there you have it ladies and gentlemen. Our leaders are morons.

The American media is ignoring former CENTCOM chief General Joseph Hoar's testimony yesterday in front of the Senate foreign relations committee.

I'm facinated by this blackout in coverage- are these comments being ignored because there isn't a touching "school-opening in Iraq" story to counter-balance it?

"I believe we are absolutely on the brink of failure. We are looking into the abyss," General Joseph Hoar, a former commander in chief of US central command, told the Senate foreign relations committee.

If you search on that quote in Google News this is what you get:

NEW PHOTOS ADD TO US SHAME
The Mirror, UK - 3 hours ago
... The former head of the US Central Command, General Joseph Hoare was reported as saying: "I believe we are absolutely on the brink of failure. ...


Fresh Iraq prison photos emerge
BBC News, UK - 9 hours ago
... General Joseph Hoare. "I believe we are absolutely on the brink of failure", he said. "We are looking into the abyss.". Later on ...


Hostilities force Bush into deep hole
Guardian, UK - 13 hours ago
... that America was facing a strategic disaster. "I believe we are absolutely on the brink of failure. We are looking into the abyss ...

Maybe weblogs reprinting these quotes will make it hard for the media to ignore them for another cycle.

We were throwing millions of dollars at him after he provided fake intelligence which let Mr. Bush justify his fake war. We just stopped paying him this week.

Chalabi claimed he had literally tons of valuable documents from the former regime- he was holding them for ransom. Now the once presumed president of Iraq (can you imagine???) is held with a gun to his head while we take the documents.

Chief Wiggum said it best as the paper shredder ate his tie- "This is gonna get worse before it gets better..."

Update: Atrios makes a good point- what if this is an attempt to distance Chalabi so he'll be the leader Iraqis choose? Could this be part of an orchestrated defeat designed to give our puppet Iraqi leaders legitimacy?

It seems lately that every time I think I'm being too cynical I end up not being cynical enough.

Washington Post tomorrow:

The Bush administration violated two federal laws through part of its publicity campaign to promote changes in Medicare intended to help older Americans afford prescription drugs, the investigative arm of Congress said yesterday.

The General Accounting Office concluded that the Department of Health and Human Services illegally spent federal money on what amounted to covert propaganda by producing videos about the Medicare changes that were made to look like news reports. Portions of the videos, which have been aired by 40 television stations around the country, do not make it clear that the announcers were paid by HHS and were not real reporters.

link

Previously dismissed as a loony conspiracy theory, it turns out that George W. Bush's administration is consulting with fundie Christian groups to make sure that US policy towards Israel meshes with the various doomsday/rapture scenerios fortold in Christian lore.

Rick Perlstein of The Village Voice has the story:

The e-mailed meeting summary reveals NSC Near East and North African Affairs director Elliott Abrams sitting down with the Apostolic Congress and massaging their theological concerns. Claiming to be "the Christian Voice in the Nation's Capital," the members vociferously oppose the idea of a Palestinian state. They fear an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza might enable just that, and they object on the grounds that all of Old Testament Israel belongs to the Jews. Until Israel is intact and David's temple rebuilt, they believe, Christ won't come back to earth.

Abrams attempted to assuage their concerns by stating that "the Gaza Strip had no significant Biblical influence such as Joseph's tomb or Rachel's tomb and therefore is a piece of land that can be sacrificed for the cause of peace."

Three weeks after the confab, President George W. Bush reversed long-standing U.S. policy, endorsing Israeli sovereignty over parts of the West Bank in exchange for Israel's disengagement from the Gaza Strip.

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James R. Bath's name was redacted from Bush's National Guard record.
James R. Bath is a friend and business partner of George W. Bush's and worked for the bin Laden family.

We've covered this before, now it's finally made the paper.

Kos, Atrios, and Calpundit were all talking about this in February when the records came out. Why does it take a movie to get this stuff in the print media?

The Times of London is reporting that the US and UK are drawing up plans to get out of Iraq as soon as possible.

Stating the obvious now, we should have never gone in. Bush invaded against the advice and wishes of most of the world- Bush, in turn, ridiculed those opposed to his brilliant plan. Bush was wrong, the rest of the world was right, and we'll be paying for it in countless ways as long as we live.

George W. Bush has never had the burden of taking responsibility for his mistakes. When his businesses failed his father's rich friends bailed him out. Bush's bailout mechanism unfortunately (for us) doesn't scale.

If the Times story turns out to be true, it's at long last an admission from this administration that the brilliant plan has failed. As the justifications and goals of the invasion morphed and mutated throughout the last year, never was running away considered a reasonable outcome. It's a profound failure for this president personally and those who supported this plan. The level of ignorance and political blindness it took to actually gloat about our easy victory over Iraq one year ago should disqualify anyone who engaged in it from further service.

Now it will be up to the next several presidents to deal with the fallout of this maniacal miscalculation by George W. Bush.

Colin Powell's press aide attempted to cut off an interview he was giving on Meet The Press this morning- here's the video.

Seymour Hersh continues to break ground on the prisoner abuse scandal.
Link

At one point, Representative Gary Ackerman, a New York Democrat, repeatedly asked what would happen if the new government became so incensed by American conduct in Iraq, such as in the scandal over treatment of prisoners, that it asked American forces to withdraw. Would American forces have to comply?

Mr. Grossman at first said that this could not happen because any government would recognize the importance of keeping American forces on hand — the line taken repeatedly by American officials for months. Finally, when pressed, he answered "yes" — American forces would have to leave.

He was then contradicted by Lt. Gen. Walter Sharp, director of strategic plans and policy for the military's joint staff, who said that such a request would only be valid if made by an elected government — something that would not exist until next year. ...

"If the provisional government asks us to leave we will leave," Bremer said, referring to an Iraqi administration due to take power June 30. ''I don't think that will happen, but obviously we don't stay in countries where we're not welcome.'' ...

If only these guys were as concise about everything... oh, wait... they are.

From the transcript of Rumsfeld's "Town Hall" meeting with the troops in Iraq. Just after Rummy called himself "a survivor":

I've stopped reading the newspapers.
(Laughter, cheers, applause.)

Chilling. Is there anyone left in the Bush administration that cares what's going on in the world?

Rummy goes on to point out in the same speech that during the Civil War two or three thousand soldiers died in numerous battles. I'm not sure what his point was, but it sounded like he was telling the troops they shouldn't start worrying until they're being killed by the thousands. That's what we call the old Rummy morale booster.

From Salon.com:

The first time I noticed an indication of a radio frequency bouncing between the brains of Bush and Hughes was during Gov. Bush's initial State of the State speech in Texas. Still a simple press hack, Hughes did not take to the riser in the Texas House of Representatives, instead standing off to the side, behind the shiny brass railing rimming the chamber's floor.

"Look at Karen," I said, nudging a colleague.

"Oh, my God. You've got to be kidding me."

As Gov. Bush read the text of his speech from a teleprompter, his communications director was silently mouthing the words along with him. The synchronized delivery suggested a parent sitting in the audience of an elementary school pageant while mouthing forgotten lines as her child stood dumbstruck onstage.

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Wolfowitz in 2003:
Iraq will pay for it's own reconstruction.

Wolfowitz in 2004:
We need a $50 Billion blank check. Gimmie Gimmie.

Dan Froomkin at the Washington Post has picked up a story from the LA Times that was reported weeks ago on blogs around the world- The President's "Compassion" photo gallery on the Bush/Cheney web site consists almost entirely of photos of Bush with black people.

The two photos I found that don't feature a black person as a prop feature the words "Urban" and "Africa."

It's like this, but for real.

The president made it nice and legal.

Here's Stephen Colbert's report from last night's Daily Show which focuses on the press's role in the torture scandal.

Link

Tucker Carlson, May 1, 2003:

"On the very day Baghdad was liberated, April 8, the leader of your party in the House, Nancy Pelosi, gave a press conference in which she said essentially it was not worth it, it was too expensive. Probably one of the most cynical things I've ever heard. I'm wondering when the left stopped caring about human rights."

So, um, does this mean Tucker has stopped caring about human rights?

Inhofe on Crossfire, March 10, 2003:

CARVILLE: OK, Senator Inhofe, if in fact we go with the U.S. resolution, we don't get it, we go to war anyway, would you be in favor of the United States withdrawing from the United Nations?

INHOFE: No, I don't think so. I think that they know we're going to do what we have to do what we have to do. And, you know, a lot of these countries that are sitting around right now saying they may not be supporting us, it'll be almost like Afghanistan when the dancing in the streets start, these people are going to know that they're a lot safer today or after this than before.

The latest Rush Limbaugh post from MediaMatters.org is priceless- the whole, "I've been misquoted! Context! Context! Context!" line is hilarious coming from Limbaugh who's life's work is out of context audio snippets of his political enemies.

From Boingboing.net:

It was the lead item on the government's daily threat matrix one day last April. Don Emilio Fulci described by an FBI tipster as a reclusive but evil millionaire, had formed a terrorist group that was planning chemical attacks against London and Washington, D.C. That day even FBI director Robert Mueller was briefed on the Fulci matter. But as the day went on without incident, a White House staffer had a brainstorm: He Googled Fulci. His findings: Fulci is the crime boss in the popular video game Headhunter. "Stand down," came the order from embarrassed national security types.

Sigh. Other bad guys the Feds may want to look out for: Tommy Vercetti, Bowser, Koopa, Bob-omb, Donkey Kong (the original), Blinky, Ganon, Guile, Destro ...

I watched part of the Armed Services hearings this morning and caught Sen. Inhofe's tirade about being outraged at the outrage at the torture going on in Abu Ghraib. The hypocrisy of the statement was best summed up by Kicking Ass, so I won't try to do better.

As Inhofe's wheels started coming off, talking about how those tortured and murdered prisoners probably had American blood on their hands, Fox News took a wide shot and caught Sen. McCain bolting from the room.

There's an incredibly ill-informed editorial running today in the Washington Times written by John Lott Jr. which is attempting to mislead the public about the current debate on electronic voting.

Mr. Lott attempts to make the point that e-voting machines can't be hacked because they aren't connected to the internet. The funny thing about the world we live in is that a forty year old might buy that argument, but an eight year old would know this guy doesn't have a clue what he's talking about.

Here's the paragraph in question:

Yet, these horror stories have one major problem: None of the electronic voting machines is hooked up to the Internet. The machines are stand-alone units. It would be like someone trying to hack into your computer while it wasn't hooked up to the Internet. Impossible.

There it is- hacking is impossible if the computer is not connected to the internet. Tell that to all the hackers in the eighties.

I guess Mr. Lott's reasoning is that there's no other way for "hackers" (he's probably actually referring to crackers) to interact with the voting machines. I guess he forgot that people use the machines to vote.

The cracking of a voting machine wouldn't likely be a remote attack. Someone with ill-intent can carry in a specially coded card which could add or subtract votes from either side. The scary part? Imagine a world where the maker of the machines has a specific political affiliation. Oh, wait... that's Diebold, isn't it? So, if a company were interested in influencing the outcome of elections and delivering electoral votes to the president, one could simply create E-Voting machines without an audit trail. Oh, wait- that's also happening with Diebold, isn't it? So if a company were... ambitious enough, they might be able to add a few votes here, subtract a few there and never be detected. That would be incredibly easy for a trusted Diebold employee to do.

Call it a conspiracy theory- that's fine, but rigging an election shouldn't be as easy as I just laid out above.

It's sad that counting all the votes is becoming a political issue, with the right wing against protections and backup systems like audit trails and paper receipts. At this point can we really call it a coincidence that previous E-Voting problems have ended up favoring Republican candidates?

Ask yourself, why would these companies make voting machines less secure with your vote than an ATM is with your money?

link to John Lott Jr.'s editorial.

Fox News today brings us news of an oral for food scandal at the UN.

link

Paul Krugman nails it in the New York Times:

Didn't you know, in your gut, that something like Abu Ghraib would eventually come to light?

When the world first learned about the abuse of prisoners, President Bush said that it "does not reflect the nature of the American people." He's right, of course: a great majority of Americans are decent and good. But so are a great majority of people everywhere. If America's record is better than that of most countries — and it is — it's because of our system: our tradition of openness, and checks and balances.

Yet Mr. Bush, despite all his talk of good and evil, doesn't believe in that system. From the day his administration took office, its slogan has been "just trust us." No administration since Nixon has been so insistent that it has the right to operate without oversight or accountability, and no administration since Nixon has shown itself to be so little deserving of that trust. Out of a misplaced sense of patriotism, Congress has deferred to the administration's demands. Sooner or later, a moral catastrophe was inevitable.

more...

That's Bush's approval rating.

Good thing Bush doesn't govern based on polls, if he did he'd have to be considered a miserable failure.

In a new CNN/USA Today Gallup poll 58% of Americans disagree with the way Bush is handling the Iraq war.

62% of Americans are dissatisfied with the direction of the country.

Welcome to the party, majority of Americans...

During Rumsfeld's testimony Friday there was a moment where the microphone picked up an advisor's whisper- Atrios posted on this on Friday, but I didn't realize I had the video until today.

Here's the Rumsfeld whisper video.
I bumped up the background noise when no one was directly on mic, hoping to make it clearer- that's the only audio change I made.

Here's the original audio.

So the first part of the whisper is pretty clear, "He thinks you saw the photographs."
The second part is harder to discern- "Don't tell 'em you s..."

Any sound engineers out there that feel like taking a crack at isolating this? Saying, "Enhance" over and over at my computer screen did precious little in clearing up the audio.

Despite repeated requests, Amnesty International has been denied access to all US detention facilities.

"If the administration has nothing to hide, it should immediately end incommunicado detention and grant access to independent human rights monitors, including Amnesty International and the United Nations, to all detention facilities," said Irene Khan, Secretary General of Amnesty International.

"The US administration has shown a consistent disregard for the Geneva Conventions and basic principles of law, human rights and decency. This has created a climate in which US soldiers feel they can dehumanize and degrade prisoners with impunity.

"What we now see in Iraq is the logical consequence of the relentless pursuit of the 'war on terror' regardless of the costs to human rights and the rules of war."

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"I think the reaction to the stupid torture is an example of the feminization of this country." -Rush Limbaugh, May 6, 2004


Indeed...
Link

Isn't that like apologizing to the cable company for not paying your phone bill?

He had an opportunity to apologize directly to Iraqis and he didn't- what the hell?

Well, at least now we have some idea what Rummy and Saddam were talking about during this meeting-


The best way to break a man.

Funny, never noticed Bush with that turkey in the background before...

Marshall quoting O'Reilly who had on the New Yorker's Sy Hersh:


Sy Hersh from last night on O'Reilly ...

First of all, it's going to get much worse. This kind of stuff was much more widespread. I can tell you just from the phone calls I've had in the last 24 hours, even more, there are other photos out there. There are many more photos even inside that unit. There are videotapes of stuff that you wouldn't want to mention on national television that was done. There was a lot of problems.

There was a special women's section. There were young boys in there. There were things done to young boys that were videotaped. It's much worse. And the Maj. Gen. Taguba was very tough about it. He said this place was riddled with violent, awful actions against prisoners.

We are in serious, serious trouble folks. What outrage can we have when American soldiers are tortured and raped? The man who escaped Iraqi custody had been given surgery on his arm to repair a gunshot wound. I'm sure that sort of thing is pretty much over. Many, many more people will die because of this. Rumsfeld needs to go. More important, Bush needs to go. It's just not working.

Slate has a cronology of Saddam's "rape rooms" turning into Bush's (America's?) "rape rooms."

Thanks d.

Dan Froomkin passes along an unfortunate metaphor employed by President Bush yesterday:

"I appreciate the grassroots people who are here. Listen, you've got to work hard to turn out the vote, and that's what we call grassroots. I want to thank you. I'm here to fertilize the grassroots today. I'm here to ask you to grow. (Applause.)"

"Now... I wanna say this right to the brown people watching me on Arab TV: Some people say that you brown people can't govern like us white people in America. Well, I disagree with that view. You brown people are as capable of governing as the yellows, the reds, and the really browns."

/fakequote

With a guy so prone to misspeak, I'm worried. This guy can't put a sentence together without embarrassing himself. He really has to stop calling his war a crusade. I have no doubt that's what he thinks it is- a bold crusade as we approach end-of-days, I mean, the guy is a moron, he just shouldn't make it so glaringly obvious to the entire world.

This will quadruple the box office.

Gaps Remain in Bush's service record.

Picking up where we left off on Bush's service record I have to reiterate- it's not what Bush did 30 years ago that's at issue, it's lying about it today that's the problem.

One of the most infamous documents discovered early this year indicates Bush was transferred to the Air Reserve Force, a unit where guardsmen are often sent for disciplinary reasons.

Many asked this question back in February, but I still haven't heard an answer... Why was the President transferred to the Air Reserve Force? Was it a disciplinary measure?

I'd even be okay with the press submitting the question in advance. Mr. Bush appears to have grown accustomed to that format.

... The Smoking Gun is there!

Howard Stern has been encouraging his listeners to file complaints about Oprah's recent broadcast discussing teen sex. The broadcast used much more descriptive language and was far more graphic than anything Howard has been fined for.

The Smoking Gun has posted just a few of the 1600 letters the FCC has recieved on this matter.

My favorite bits:

You have set the precedent for fines in these instances, and I expect nothing less than proportionate action in this case. In fact, considering the audience size of the despicable OPRAH show, I would expect you to set a stern example.

I and my colleagues in the Citizens against Unclean Network Trash eagerly await, and demand, your censure against Ms. Winfrey.

and

The Oprah show described with graphic detail a sexual term known as "tossing salad." It was so offensive that my child's head literally exploded. Please ban free speech so this never happens again.

Link...

Money Quote: "From the names of our fallen soldiers, to the gradual withdrawal of our allies, to the growing insurgency, it's become all too clear that facts in Iraq have an anti-Bush agenda."



Click here to see Rob Corddry's "The Fallout" (RealVideo)

When David Brock's "Blinded By The Right" came out I read it right away. While I found the book fascinating, by the end of it I hated the author. He did these awful things, destroying Anita Hill, accusing Clinton of everything from cheating on his wife to murder, then admitted he had nothing real to back up these charges. It was literally a vast right-wing conspiracy. He said he felt bad about it... but is that really enough?

So Brock had completely lied about liberals and their thieving, murderous ways... then he sold out all his conservative friends and was playing the other side... I just rolled my eyes. After all that, how can you trust a word he says?

Now he's running a web site- Media Matters for America which documents right-wing misinformation in the media.

We need sites like Media Matters. I don't know if he'll be able to make up for all the awful things he's done, but this is a start. This is a topic that hasn't been covered sufficiently- This morning I watched the Fox morning show crew talk at length about how unlikable Kerry is and how he's ugly, and he has an odd shaped head. This is neither news nor entertainment, this is just hate. Someone needs to point this stuff out.

I mean, even the closeted weatherman is a right-wing hack. Since when is the weatherman a partisan position?!?! Just tell me if it's raining, jackass!

The beauty of Media Matters is that if they ever run low on material they can turn on Fox News for five minutes.

Joe Wilson interview at Salon.com:

What is appalling to me in all of this is that the president said early on that he wanted to get to the bottom of this -- and yet the people who work for the president did not heed his call and step forward. Instead they're stonewalling, and appear ready to stonewall against his instructions indefinitely. Either he didn't mean what he said, or else he doesn't have authority over his senior staff, or they're simply insubordinate.

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