But the transcript claims it was a mistake:

You know, the -- what you're beginning to see is a typical response from America. First of all, we provide immediate cash relief, to the tune of about $35 billion [sic].

- George W. Bush, December 29, 2004

Always finding a way to add insult to injury.

link

Steve Doocy on FOX & Friends this morning reported that Bill Clinton "made matters worse" by commenting publicly about the tragedy in Asia.

"Blame Clinton" doesn't work in every situation, Steve.

As if we didn't know...

Earlier yesterday, White House spokesman Trent Duffy said the president was confident he could monitor events effectively without returning to Washington or making public statements in Crawford, where he spent part of the day clearing brush and bicycling. Explaining the about-face, a White House official said: "The president wanted to be fully briefed on our efforts. He didn't want to make a symbolic statement about 'We feel your pain.' "

Many Bush aides believe Clinton was too quick to head for the cameras to hold forth on tragedies with his trademark empathy. "Actions speak louder than words," a top Bush aide said, describing the president's view of his appropriate role.

Some foreign policy specialists said Bush's actions and words both communicated a lack of urgency about an event that will loom as large in the collective memories of several countries as the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks do in the United States.

He's blowing this. It's something I wouldn't have thought possible to react to incorrectly- but Bush has managed to find exactly the wrong note. There he was today clearing brush and riding his bike hoping to not come off as a caring human being, because Clinton sometimes came off that way...

Since this morning the US has more than doubled it's promised aid- obviously Bush was shamed into it- but even at $35 million it's less than what will be spent for Bush's inauguration.

$15 Million? When we're paying billions upon billions to piss off the rest of the world, why are we reluctant to kick in more for a noble cause?

Sickening.

I've been so busy keeping the Christ out of Christmas (just to spite Bill O'Reilly) that I haven't had much time to post lately, but this caught my attention tonight-

In the speech, Rumsfeld made a passing reference to United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers attempted to stop al Qaeda hijackers.

But in his remarks, Rumsfeld referred to the "the people who attacked the United States in New York, shot down the plane over Pennsylvania."

A Pentagon spokesman insisted that Rumsfeld simply misspoke, but Internet conspiracy theorists seized on the reference to the plane having been shot down.

link

I think most Americans have come to terms with the idea that if this plane was headed to a major city and a terrorist was at the stick, shooting it down was the right thing to do. The fact that we weren't able to shoot it down just helps illustrate how truly inept our government's response to the attack was.

So, Rummy's comment is either the truth slipping out or wishful thinking.

The bigger question is why we don't see clarifications and corrections issued by the White House or the Pentagon when they falsely claim Iraq attacked us.

That guy will sell anything:



Just in time for the holiday that probably wouldn't even exist without Bill O'Reilly defending it against those awful secularists!

Kos has a handy history of Bush's war.

The vast majority of our troops serve with honor, even though so many of them have been put in a horrible, impossible situation in Iraq.

Every day we're hearing more about detainee abuse- now to the point of war crime allegations. I'd like to know when the president will step up and take some responsibility-- after all, this is his torture policy in action.

(Is it clear enough that it's a rubber stamp? If not, did the preceding sentence help with any confusion?)

Well... 56% of us, anyway.

The Iraq War was a mistake.

I'd say I told you so, but since this site was started well after Bush invaded I can't really link to a post where I told you so in advance.

I told a lot of people so face to face- but it was mostly family and friends. And Applejack, whatever the hell he is. Most of them agreed with me. So it's not easy coming up with a clear-cut "I told you so" in that case.

Well hell. I told other people who agreed with me so!

So there.

While I'm at it, I'd like to point out I was also right about flash mobs:

The first one was cute, but it should have ended there.

The ACLU reports (as first read on Atrios):

NEW YORK -- A document released for the first time today by the American Civil Liberties Union suggests that President Bush issued an Executive Order authorizing the use of inhumane interrogation methods against detainees in Iraq. Also released by the ACLU today are a slew of other records including a December 2003 FBI e-mail that characterizes methods used by the Defense Department as "torture" and a June 2004 "Urgent Report" to the Director of the FBI that raises concerns that abuse of detainees is being covered up.

...

The two-page e-mail that references an Executive Order states that the President directly authorized interrogation techniques including sleep deprivation, stress positions, the use of military dogs, and "sensory deprivation through the use of hoods, etc." The ACLU is urging the White House to confirm or deny the existence of such an order and immediately to release the order if it exists. The FBI e-mail, which was sent in May 2004 from "On Scene Commander--Baghdad" to a handful of senior FBI officials, notes that the FBI has prohibited its agents from employing the techniques that the President is said to have authorized.

Link


UPDATE: Joe Conason reported a day earlier:

Dec. 17, 2004 | Renewed exposure of prisoner abuse, torture and even murder by American military personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan is widening already deep divisions between the Pentagon and the intelligence community -- and creating an untenable situation for Donald Rumsfeld, the beleaguered secretary of defense. A recently disclosed FBI memo indicates that "marching orders" to abandon traditional interrogation methods came from the defense secretary himself.

In recent days, a coalition of human rights groups led by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights has brought new cases of abuse to public attention. Using the Freedom of Information Act, they have pried thousands of pages of previously secret documents from the Defense Department and other agencies.

Link

Makes me wonder, What does Rumsfeld have on Bush?

via

By the way, Bush was asked his reaction to Rummy's autopen mess, but he was not asked if he did the same.

I know it's a minute point in the scheme of things, but someone really should get him on the record one way or another.

Add "peninsula" to the list of words Bush can't pronounce.

Good thing we're not going to war with any peninsulas any time soon, eh? Eh? Oh... uh oh...

I watched Chuck Hagel this morning rip Rumsfeld a new one about the autopened signatures on the Killed In Action letters- Hagel said,

"My goodness, that is the least we can expect the secretary of Defense ... If the president can find the time to do that why can't the secretary of Defense?"

Well, according to the original article which brought this issue to the public last month, the answer is simple: the President wasn't signing his letters either.

How much you wanna bet Bush is squirming ever lower in his seat right now as Rummy takes more and more heat for this?

Here's David H. Hackworth's original article.

No more autopen signatures from Rumsfeld- he's gonna sign all those letters to dead soldiers' families himself.

It's literally the least he can do.

link

Bush meanwhile continues to utilize the autopen to sign letters to widows and families destroyed by his war.

Artists' (Applejacks') interpretation:

Media Matters nails O'Reilly again- they are on fire.



link

Everyone's probably seen this already, but it's really a heck of a read:

Letter from David Brock to Bill O'Reilly

O'Reilly fits his own description of a coward- if anyone reading this happens to be in the FOX News building right now could you let us know if Billo is literally under his desk right now?

Lovely.

I started a rumor yesterday that Rummy was going to get fired soon. I think it's catching on.

Yes, it was all me.

Last year I bitched in no uncertain terms about the media's love affair with Donald Rumsfeld- I had just read several stories over a couple of days that laughed off Rummy's leaked memo- you remember- the one that conflicted with all of his public statements to the press? Yeah, that one.

So the reporters, after Rumsfeld held another press conference and lied to them all again, reported it as "vintage Rumsfeld." They actually lauded him for bullshitting them. The press laughed it off, apparently forgetting that our troops were dying every day for this lying sack of shit.

Now, with Rummy's inevitable firing well on it's way, (I'm starting that rumor here and now...) the press has finally turned- I just did a search on Google News and there's only one reference to "vintage Rumsfeld" and that's from a retired Pentagon hack, not a reporter.

The days of the press giving Rummy a wink and a nod when he lies to them appear to be at an end.

My question to the press: Where the fuck were you when it mattered?

When Bill O'Reilly gets flustered, which appears to happen regularly on his (non-tape delayed) radio show, his language skills dip to dangerously low Bush-esque levels.

Remember when he challenged Al Franken to a duel?- he boasted that if these were the olden days out west he would have, "shot Franken between the head."

Well put.

I love his response to a caller who urged O'Reilly to apologise for telling a Jewish caller that if he doesn't like Christmas (or Christians attempting to convert him) he should go back to Israel:

"You should be ashamed of yourself. You're not a good American. You're a defamation person who is despicable. Have I made myself clear?"

Well, I think Bill O'Reilly is a defamation person. He's also a lie person. And a screamer person... and a phone sex engager, felafel wielder, boob soaper, producer harassmenter person. Stupid person!

link

...and Bush's missile defense system still failed.

Surely the highly paid companies working on this project know that hitting a bullet with another bullet isn't something worth pursuing- especially when the easy way around that is for North Korea (or whomever) to send more than one "bullet" at a time and not have the common decency to send us a flight plan with on-board military grade GPS to track it with. I assume everyone is aware that the real threat is someone FedExing a bomb into one of our ports- if we had any sense we'd put the money there. In any case, the companies I speak of are being paid $10 billion a year to shut up and try to make Bush's missile system work.

Seems to me if you're going to throw ridiculous amounts money at this kind of thing high intensity lasers would be the way to go.

Before you say anything, yes, I've seen "Real Genius" and I understand the dangers of a maniacal college professor who hates popcorn forcing his students to build a laser weapon. ("Why'd you build that mirror Kent!?!?")

Pulling out my old physics textbook, it appears that light is quicker than a missile which shuts itself down before even launching for some unknown reason. Barring any interference from Kent, a laser should fire more reliably than a missile... and your only worry (aside from those huge honkin' nuclear missiles headed your way) would be friendly fire- if the laser is space based attempts to shoot down the missile that miss would hit the earth somewhere... and if it's a ground based system you don't want to start blinding alien species or shooting down satellites or space stations...

Uh... okay... maybe this idea still needs some work. As wacked-out as this idea is, it's more reasonable than what they're spending $10 billion a year on right now. It appears to me this is just a huge give-away to missile makers who aren't getting as many orders for ICBMs as they used to.

...they'd be war criminals.

Here they get a medal.



USA! USA! USA!

Wonkette writes that the Bushes will send out 2 million Christmas cards this year at a cost of $600,000. I wonder how much armor that would buy? Any Photoshoppers out there? What will the Bush X-mas card look like? Here's one:

Shame on John McCain for supporting Rummy for four years. Now that he's finally realized what we all knew from the beginning, what happens? Judging by how people who were wrong about invading Iraq were treated, he'll have new found credibility. Those who were right all along about Rummy will be marginalized.

Typical.

So what does being right about this for four years get us? An inept defense secretary and a retarded president who can't see it.

It took McCain four fucking years to realize Rumsfeld is utterly incompetent. How long will it take for that mental midget in the Oval to figure it out? The more important question is how many soldiers will die because of the vast incompetence at the top?

link

Lara Mahaney, spokeswoman for the Parents Television Council, finds the perfect analogy for dictating what other people are allowed to see:

JONATHAN RINTELS, CTR. CREATIVE VOICES IN MEDIA: I think it's important to put the number of comments in perspective, though. For example, the Parents Television Council claims they filed 4,000 complaints against a show called "Married in America" that resulted -- the FCC ultimately find $1.2 million for indecency.

The Parents Television Council claims one million members. So that means less than half of one percent of the members of the Parents Television Council actually complained about this program.

So I'm not sure exactly how widespread the number of complaints from the general public is.

WHITFIELD: And Lara, how large is your group?

MAHANEY: Well, we do have over one million members. But you know what? The thing about it is, is like...

WHITFIELD: And so, are you saying that of the one million that -- of the complaints that were lodged just about every member lodged a complaint with the FCC last year?

MAHANEY: Well, yes. I mean -- but all of them didn't come from the Parent's Television Council. They were from people all across America.

Where I disagree with Jonathan is the fact that we're supposed to represent the population. You know, what he just said would be akin to saying that the holocaust was OK, because a majority or a powerful group in Germany thought it was all right.

link

Ironic that her organization has made airing Steven Spielberg's holocaust drama "Schindler's List" on network TV impossible, so people who depend solely on broadcast TV might not get that reference.

Update: Here's the video- FYI- CNN's transcript is wildly inaccurate, so I corrected the part I quoted. I was going from memory though, and one thing I forgot to change was a little slip Lara had. The actual quote is,

"You know, what he just said would be akin to saying that the holocaust was OK, because a majority or a powerful group in Holly-- you know, in, in Germany thought it was all right."

See for yourself.

A Democratic staffer I know sent along this video. It's pretty funny -- Democrats in the process of mourning. I like the first guy ... "No, really, Democrats won nationwide, all you have to do is look at School Board races ..."

Link

WASHINGTON (AP) The White House says former New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik has withdrawn his nomination as homeland security secretary.

link

I wouldn't want that job either. Set aside working for the criminals occupying the White House right now- beyond that it's just a no-win job.

Nothing happens? You weren't really needed. Something happens? You didn't do enough.

Bernie was like Colin Powell before he lied to the UN and got us into the Iraq war- after being associated with Bush's White House he'd be forever tarnished, just as Powell is.

Update 12/13/04: Well, I'm sure everyone's been following the developments over the weekend- seems like a torrent of bad/illegal acts doomed this guy's nomination. He would have fit right in to this administration.

Watch Jon Stewart decimate Rummy on last night's Daily Show.

link

Wow. Our enemies only need wait for an overcast day to thwart Bush's prized missile defense system.

Then there's this:

"The target launch time and location, the flight trajectory, the point of impact, what the target looks like, and the make-up of other objects in the target cluster have all been known in advance to plot the intercept," he said. "No enemy would cooperate by providing all that information in advance."

We are so fucked.

link

I haven't watched a lot of Bill O'Reilly lately since Media Matters has done a better job policing this jackass than I could ever hope to, but one thing I know from watching as much as I did is that Bill O'Reilly hates judges. When he disagrees with a judge, he all but demands his followers hunt them down.

It's nice to see one of them fight back:

Rapkin, reached a few hours before the show at a private retirement party at a Main Street bar and restaurant, said O'Reilly has "got a lot of nerve" to attack him.

"Somebody who sexually harasses women and then pays millions of dollars in a settlement to get out of it has no place criticizing me," said Rapkin.

Indeed.

link

Here's The Daily Show's coverage of Bush's attempt to fuck-up buck-up the troops and a look at some of the recent intelligence reform maneuvering.

link

I was reading through the today's press briefing from the White House and I couldn't help but notice how many times Scott McClellan vowed not to do things "from this podium."

Twelve times. Twelve.

• I don't want to, from this podium...
• I don't think it behooves us from this podium...
• I'm not here to try to negotiate with members of Congress from this podium.
• I'm not trying to get into all the different specific legislative proposals that are out there from this podium...
• I know you all want to pull me further into this discussion with members of Congress from this podium.
• I think we're trying to resolve this from this podium...
• And what I'm saying is I'm trying to avoid that from this podium...
• I don't think that's helping to move the process forward from this podium...
• do you understand that I try not to negotiate solutions from this podium...
• See, here we go again trying to get me to negotiate solutions from this podium.
• And you don't necessarily do that by getting into negotiations or discussions from this podium.
• as I've said from this podium..

Here's a graph of Scott's invocation of "the podium" since the beginning of November:



Will the podium get a cabinet position? Only time will tell, but what's clear now is that the power of the podium can no longer be denied.

Digby provides context for Bush's cult leader jacket from the other day.

The Daily Show had a good take on it too- I should have that capped and uploaded later today...

Here's Monday's Daily Show coverage of Mess O' Potamia- Jon covers the military callup of soldiers who haven't served since the '60s, Wolfowitz's bad predictions, and Musharraf goes off script.

Catching up on my Daily Show clips- here's one from last week covering Bush's trip to Canada.

More soon...

On June 15, 2002, Sgt. Frank "Greg" Ford, a counterintelligence agent in the California National Guard's 223rd Military Intelligence (M.I.) Battalion stationed in Samarra, Iraq, told his commanding officer, Capt. Victor Artiga, that he had witnessed five incidents of torture and abuse of Iraqi detainees at his base, and requested a formal investigation. Thirty-six hours later, Ford, a 49-year-old with over 30 years of military service in the Coast Guard, Army and Navy, was ordered by U.S. Army medical personnel to lie down on a gurney, was then strapped down, loaded onto a military plane and medevac'd to a military medical center outside the country.

link

I didn't realize they still made them.

Does he know he's the last member?

Hmm... Scott McClellen won't tell. From yesterday's press briefing:

Q Scott, on the Middle East, many evangelical Christians are supporting right-wing Jews in Israel who want to rebuild the temple on Temple Mount in Jerusalem. They believe this is a prerequisite for Christ's return to Earth. They believe when Christ returns to Earth -- they call this "the Rapture" -- he will take back with Him the true believers, and the rest, the non--believers, Jews and Muslims, will be left behind to face a violent death here on Earth. My question is, as a born-again Christian, does the President support efforts to rebuild a temple on the Temple Mount?

MR. McCLELLAN: Russ, we can sit here and talk about religious issues, but I'm not -- I will be glad to take your question and if there's more, I will get back to you on it.

Q Is he a born-again Christian?

MR. McCLELLAN: Thank you.

END 1:36 P.M. EST

If there's more on the rapture, Scott will get back to us. That's comforting.

Somebody call Buffy...

Yeah... well, I coulda told you that...

link

Everyone lived. Weird how this parallels GWB's presidency- what with all the crashing and sinking into the abyss...

Do you think they just lost the "R" on "REELECT" when it went down? The article doesn't bother looking into it... I mean, we can make some assumptions based on their support of GWB, but I don't think not knowing how to spell "ELECT" would fall in that category.

Al Kamen, WAPO:

Failing upward? President Bush announced yesterday he'll be awarding the presidential Medal of Freedom to the Tres Amigos of Iraq: former CIA chief George J. "Slam Dunk" Tenet, who gave him bad information; retired Army Gen. Tommy R. Franks, who didn't have enough troops for the postwar occupation; and former Iraq viceroy L. Paul Bremer, who complained about the troop levels too late.

What Al doesn't point out (or, maybe I should say, doesn't need to point out) is that this is the least of the riches that will be heaped upon those who deflected blame for the Iraq mess away from the President.

Here's The Daily Show's coverage of Tom Ridge's resignation.

You get what you vote for America- your kids are being lied to in their sex-ed classes.

We're going to have a generation of really confused kids.

Remember what happened during the Clinton years? Teen pregnancy plunged. Now that we've been lying to them for the past three years... just you watch.

link

Sounds like our soldiers still get to enjoy the smell of napalm in the morning, despite Pentagon denials:

During the war, Pentagon spokesmen disputed reports that napalm was being used, saying the Pentagon's stockpile had been destroyed two years ago.

Apparently the spokesmen were drawing a distinction between the terms "firebomb" and "napalm." If reporters had asked about firebombs, officials said yesterday they would have confirmed their use.

What the Marines dropped, the spokesmen said yesterday, were "Mark 77 firebombs." They acknowledged those are incendiary devices with a function "remarkably similar" to napalm weapons.

Rather than using gasoline and benzene as the fuel, the firebombs use kerosene-based jet fuel, which has a smaller concentration of benzene.

Hundreds of partially loaded Mark 77 firebombs were stored on pre-positioned ammunition ships overseas, Marine Corps officials said. Those ships were unloaded in Kuwait during the weeks preceding the war.

"You can call it something other than napalm, but it's napalm," said John Pike, defense analyst with GlobalSecurity.org, a nonpartisan research group in Alexandria, Va.

Smells like victory.

link

Receding...

A slow news week at the White House ("Why did we go to Canada? What the fuck was that?") causes the White House press corps to ponder itself.

Bush scolds the press and keeps them as lapdogs and they lovingly play along lest they lose access.

The saving grace of the piece is CBS's John Roberts:

One correspondent who does not buy the widespread theory that deference is key is John Roberts of CBS News. He once was so persistent in asking Bush why he took the nation to war in Iraq based upon what Roberts called "sometimes flimsy or, some people have complained, nonexistent evidence" that Bush scolded sharply, "Hold on for a second. You're through, John."

Roberts said in a BlackBerry message yesterday from Andrews Air Force Base, where he was waiting to board the press plane to Canada, that Bush "has worked very hard to create an atmosphere of 'protocol' around all of his events" and uses stern looks to shoot down any question he doesn't want to take. "It's all part of the message-control regime at the White House, but it's not something the White House press corps should roll over and play dead for."

Indeed. We need more questions like John's which prompt the most powerful man in the world to tell you "you're through." and less questions like, "Turning away from international affairs for a moment, Mr. President, do you think puppies are cute or fun?"*

link

* Yeah, I made up that question, but it's not too different from the groaner of a question quoted in the article.