Pure and simple. Madness. With support for this concept diminishing each day, how can the Administration continue to pound away at this set of talking points.
U.S. in Iraq in 2009? ‘President hopes so,’ advisor says
The United States will be involved in Iraq for a long time, says Stephen Hadley, the president’s national security adviser – certainly beyond his time in office and the president’s term. “Will we be engaged in Iraq after January 2009?’’ Hadley said in an interview with National Public Radio’s All Things Considered this evening . “I think the president hopes so. “And I think if [...]
Tags: Iraq War, Stephen Hadley, NPR, All Things Considered
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To keep our troops fighting, but not okay to try to force the Iraq parliament to stay around and get some work done? Don’t they have air conditioners? Ooops. Forgot. No electricity, probably.
Snow Tries To Justify Iraqi Gov’t Recess: "It’s 130 Degrees There"
The White House on Friday appeared resigned to the fact that the Iraqi parliament is going to take August off, even though it has just eight weeks to show progress on military, political and economic benchmarks prescribed by the United States. "My understanding is at this juncture they’re going to [...]
Tags: Iraqi Parliament, White House, August Recess, Tony Snow
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This is quite forward-thinking on the part of two key Republican Senators. And, their timing simply could not be better. Excellent way to make a point.
Warner And Lugar Aren’t Waiting For September
A day after Bush told Congress to stay out telling him what to do in Iraq, two leading GOP senators rebuffed him and introduced a bill that would require the president to present to Congress a change in mission by October and to begin implementing it by 2008. In essence, John Warner and Richard Lugar are blowing past whatever [...]
Tags: Warner, Lugar, Iraq, Congress
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Don’t you know, if he’s saying this much publically, he must be really angry inside. And, he makes a couple of extremely good points, too. Go. And read.
Libby Judge Speaks on Commutation
In his first public remarks since President Bush commuted Scooter Libby’s prison term, Judge Reggie Walton said he was "perplexed" by the president’s belief that Walton’s sentence was "excessive." [...]
Tags: Libby, Commutation, Judge Walton
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Here’s the situation: America elected Democrats to Congress, based on promises to get us out of Iraq. We’re stilll in Iraq, and most efforts to get us out have been thwarted. What happens then? Your numbers tank. That reaction ain’t brain surgery and should tell Congress a lot!
Congressional Approval in Free Fall
According to the latest AP-Ipsos survey, public satisfaction with Congress has fallen 11 points since May, to just 24% — matching "its previous low, which came in June 2006, five months before Democrats won control of the House and Senate due to public discontent with the job Republicans were doing." Meanwhile, President Bush’s job approval rating [...]
Tags: AP-Ipsos Survey, Congress, President Bush
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Tony Snow didn’t see this one coming…
O’Reilly takes on Tony Snow, ‘You can’t win’ in Iraq’
They’ve lost FOX News. It’s over. "…O’Reilly turned on his special guest during the segment, White House press secretary Tony Snow, saying, "You can’t win … unless the Iraqi people turn on all the terrorists. And they’re not." O’Reilly said he agreed with the president that [...]
O’Reilly wasn’t the only one to change course…
The Jig Is Up
When Peggy Noonan refers to President Bush as “weird,” you know the wheels have come off the wagon. "As I watched the news conference, it occurred to me that one of the things that might leave people feeling somewhat disoriented is the president’s seemingly effortless high spirits. He’s in a good mood. There was the usual [...]
But. Wait. There’s more!
Support for Bush slipping in Kansas.
As the pro-Bush Wichita Eagle on Tuesday called on President Bush to “face reality” and “redeploy” U.S. troops out of Iraq, staunch Bush ally Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS) also qualified his support for the war, stating that his support for Bush’s policy is “not locked into concrete: “We have to make some very tough decisions…We [...]
Tags: Bill O’Reilly, Iraq War, Tony Snow
Tags: Peggy Noonan
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Just a couple of notes about the economy. It IS Friday the 13th, after all…
Confidence drops to nearly 1-year low
Consumer confidence slid to its lowest point in almost a year as worries about job availability, high gasoline prices and the severity of the housing slump weighed on peoples’ minds. The steep drop disappointed economists and raised fresh questions about [...]
Retail sales take sharpest plunge in nearly 2 years
Consumers put away their wallets in June, sending retail sales crashing by the sharpest amount in nearly two years. The Commerce Department reported Friday that retail sales fell by 0.9 percent last month, the biggest drop since [...]
Tags: Economy, Consumer Confidence, Retail Sales
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I was. Honestly, I was.
Two-Thirds of Iraq Suspects Let Go; Only 600 Sent to Gov’t
U.S. and Iraqi government officials have released approximately 44,000 of 65,000 suspected Iraqi insurgents or sectarian killers detained at the theater level since March 2003, Inside the Pentagon is reporting. Over the same time period, fewer than 600 captives have [...]
On the other hand, THIS doesn’t surprise me. Not one little bit.
Report: Government secrecy on the rise.
In a new report released today, OpenTheGovernment.org concludes that the increase in government secrecy during the Bush administration has been “unprecedented”: In the past six years, the basic principle of openness as the underpinning of democracy has been serious undermined. The Administration has taken an extreme view of the power of the presidency. In its view, [...]
Tags: Iraqi Insurgents
Tags: Government Secrecy, Open Government
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Really good point!
That Al Qaeda in Iraq that Bush keeps talking about "did not exist before the Sept. 11 attacks"
Bush loves to talk about Al Qaeda. But, no surprise, he doesn’t get his facts right. Because, basically, he fostered the creation of the Al Qaeda that exists in Iraq. The amazing thing is that the NY Times is actually calling him on it: "…But his references to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, and his assertions that it is the same group that attacked the United States in 2001, have greatly oversimplified the nature of the insurgency in Iraq and its relationship with the Qaeda leadership. There is no question that the group is [...]
One of the bloggers over at Daily Kos has some thoughts on this matter, too:
It’s al-Qaeda, All the Way Down
I went to the dry cleaners this week, and some al-Qaeda laundry worker lost a button off my shirt. Then the al-Qaeda gas station had the prices back up to $3, and my al-Qaeda molar started to hurt, and I had to visit the al-Qaeda dentist. So I really just had an al-Qaeda of a day. You think I’m overusing that term? Obviously, Bush [...]
UPDATE: It’s not just Bush. McCain’s spewing al Qaeda references, too.
McCain’s Iraq Speech Today Mentions Al Qaeda 15 Times
John McCain is giving a speech on Iraq right now that his campaign is billing as the start of a forceful comeback bid. The McCain camp has just sent out a copy of his prepared remarks, and it’s clear [...]
Tags: al Qaeda, Bush, Iraq War
Tags: McCain
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The list gets longer. More GOP’ers are being busted on nasty sex allegations. We’ll build on the list right here, if it grows any further. For now, we’ll defer to the folks at FireDogLake for a succinct summary. I’m guessing there might be one on the list you haven’t heard of!
Late Nite FDL: Grand Old Perverts
There must be something in the air. Either that or we have arrived at the Republican mating season, for we are catching more and more of them participating in their bizarre courtship rituals. Most of us are at least passingly familiar at this point with the tale of Senator Dave Vitter of Louisiana, a very [...]
And, then, there is THIS tidbit. Multitasking, I see.
Vitter Received Calls From DC Madam During House Roll Call Votes
A woman accused of running a Washington prostitution ring placed five phone calls to David Vitter while he was a House member, including two while roll call votes were under way, according to telephone and congressional records. Vitter, a Louisiana Republican now in the Senate, acknowledged Monday that [...]
UPDATE: Oh, by the way, Allen in Florida says we’ve got it all wrong!
All This Sex Talk
Florida State Rep. Bob Allen proclaims his innocence: Rep. Bob Allen, a Merritt Island Republican who was first elected to the state House in 2000, told a Central Florida television station that it was “a very big misunderstanding” and a “gross mistake.” “I’m not in anyway associated with that they are saying, this is disgusting,” said Allen [...]
Tags: Vitter, Canal Street Madam, Bob Allen, David Almond
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Keith Olbermann sprung a bit of a surprise last night on those of us who regularly watch "Countdown". A "Special Comment" that wasn’t widely touted in advance. Still, it was written and delivered as only Olbermann can do…
Special Comment: On Michael Chertoff’s Gut
Keith Olbermann lets the Secretary of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, know how insecure the homeland must be if we are to rely on his “gut.”…"So there are your choices: bureaucratic self-protection, political manipulation of the worst kind, the dropping of opaque hints, a gaffe [...]
Tags: Olbermann, Special Comment, Chertoff
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Novel idea. Somebody took the time to actually read the report, rather than rely on the White House’s assessment of how the Iraq War is going.
About those areas of ‘progress’…
I finally got around to reading the White House’s Initial Benchmark Assessment Report (.pdf) last night, so I could learn all about the “progress” that the president is so encouraged by. It’s worth checking out, if for no other reason, than to see just how desperate the situation really is and to see just how [...]
Tags: Initial Benchmark Assessment Report, White House, Iraq War
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Really strange. About the way the Iraq War is being waged. And what it’s doing to those who are fighting it. I recall similar stories out of Vietnam, but not to the degree we’re hearing today.
Even if these guys make it home, what kind of people will they be?
How can you expect your soldiers to come home and be husbands, fathers, sons, workers — human beings — when this is what you turn them into in Iraq? "Through a combination of gung-ho recklessness and criminal behaviour born of panic, a narrative emerges of an army that frequently commits acts of cold-blooded violence. A number of interviewees revealed that the military will attempt to [...]
Tags: Iraq War
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In case you missed it last weekend (and I’ve been terrible remiss at not noting it before now), Robert Kennedy, Jr. delivered one heck of a speech during the Live Earth event. And he kept the push going Thursday night on TV…
VIDEO: RFK Jr. Shreds Corporate Toady & Flat-Earther Glenn Beck
This past weekend, in one of the great speeches in recent American history, RFK Jr (and here and here) called Glenn Beck and other right wing pundits, "flat-earthers" and "corporate toadies" for continuously lying to the American people about global warming. Tonight, RFK Jr. appeared [...]
Tags: Global Warming, Climate Change, Robert Kennedy Jr.
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There are days that I think the folks over at AmericaBlog go just a bit overboard, becoming somewhat hysterical about issues and events. Today, though, John has an excellent post that makes some solid points about the future of Iraq. Read on…
Because things are getting worse in Iraq, we get to stay longer
…Now the Republicans are saying that if the surge doesn’t work, we’ll just need to stay in Iraq longer to make it work. But of course, if the surge does work, then we’ll just have to stay in Iraq longer because now we have a real chance of winning. There’s no way out. Bush and the Republicans… [...]
Tags: Iraq War, AmericaBlog, John Aravosis
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Honestly, this man should understand Iraq. My money’s on HIS analysis.
Military spokesman absolutely wrong about al Qaeda in Iraq
[NOTE FROM JOHN: AJ is a former Department of Defense civilian Intelligence Officer who was decorated for his recent civilian service in Iraq.] The Post reports that the chief spokesman for the U.S. military yesterday called al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) "the principal threat" to Iraqis. This is, quite simply, completely and totally false. Anyone who claims that the [...]
Tags: Iraq War, al-Qaeda in Iraq, Bergner
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It’s not yet Friday the 13th (at least it wasn’t as I posted this Thursday evening), but this post at Shakesville has already ruined the evening for me.
The Things They Witnessed
Chris Hedges and Laila Al-Arian interviewed 50 Iraq combat veterans to learn, through the troops’ perceptions and experiences, how the military occupation has affected ordinary Iraqis. The results are very disturbing: … These combat veterans, some of whom bear deep emotional and physical scars, and many of whom have come to oppose the occupation, gave vivid, [...]
Tags: Iraq War, Veterans Interviewed
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