Olbermann had a great segment tonight. I’m pulling from Crooks and Liars again, because they have the time to snag the video. And the ability to do so. It’s good stuff.
On tonight’s special 9/11 edition of Countdown Keith Olbermann, who was reporting from Ground Zero in New York City, slams it out of the park. His opening segment covered President Bush and Rudy Giuliani’s actions today and digs deeper into the hapless and transparent testimony of General David Petraeus and Ryan Crocker before the [...]
Tags: Olbermann, 9/11, Giuliami, Patraeus, Crocker
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And, you wonder why I got out of broadcasting. This is heartbreaking. But, typical.
TVNewser has obtained an email sent this afternoon from employees of the ABC News Washington, DC graphics department to executives [...]
Tags: ABC News, Broadcasting
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Again, regular posts begin two down below. But, there’s late stuff that’s worth talking about tonight. Beginning with this..
A visibly emotional Sen. Joe Biden and Chris Matthews discuss the ramifications of Gen. Petraeus’s surprisingly unvarnished answer that he couldn’t say that our presence in Iraq was making us any safer. MATTHEWS: But if the commander over there can’t justify the deaths of these soldiers, because it serves a [...]
Tags: Biden, Matthews, Patraeus
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The other one. Not the DC Madam. This is breaking late tonight. Regular posts begin below..
Seems the Senator from Louisiana had quite the active libido according to a former prostitute. Vitter apparently had to end the "relationship" with the prostitute when she told him her real name was "Wendy." That would also be the name of Mrs. Senator David Vitter. You can’t make this stuff up — and the former prostitute passed a lie detector test yesterday. Also, to clarify, as today’s update points out, this "relationship" lasted from [...]
Tags: Vitter
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It’s Tuesday. 9/11. Year 6. And there will be posts below addressing that anniversary. But, we begin tonight with a note of optimism and a strange interview. First, that note of optimism: it actually felt like fall today! The skies cleared after days of rain and humidity and there was an almost-cool breeze. Walking between buildings at work was enjoyable. I don’t know how long it’s been since we had a day like today, but it’s been TOO long. Now, I’m REALLY ready for some football!
And, the interview. I just find Donald Rumsfeld’s answers…well, strange…
Rumsfeld Unbowed
From Lisa DePaolo’s interview with Rumsfeld in GQ: You still like [Bush]? "I do." You don’t talk, though, right? "Uhhh…I’m trying to think. No." Was the last time you talked to him the day you resigned? He can’t recall. What [...]
Tags: Rumsfeld, GQ, Bush
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Everybody is posting about how they heard the news of the 9/11 attacks, six years ago. I was still in TV news at the time, working an afternoon/evening shift. I had just stepped out of the shower to hear the Today show crew begin to describe what was showing up in the first video from the scene. I threw on my clothes, knowing it would be a long and busy day at work, but not knowing how EXTREMELY bad the situation was going to become. On the drive in, the Pentagon was hit. By the time I arrived at work, it seemed all hell had truly broken open. And the next 24 hours became a fog of video feeds, live shots and the reality of becoming part of one of the most horrifying stories of my lifetime. Now, other thoughts from other writers:
Remembering the Dead
On September 11, 2001, six long years ago, like many people I watched my television with horror and disbelief as first passenger planes flew into the World Trade Center, and then the towers collapsed, like giant Jenga puzzles, one after the other. Before that collapse, I saw the flames and smoke spurting from those damaged skyscrapers and the people clinging to the outside of those wounded buildings like tiny ants. I even watched the long slow fall of those who decided death by falling 90 stories was preferable to being [...]
9/11, grief, and the politics of victimhood
Nestled in the New York Times on Labor Day weekend was an extraordinary article asking, "As 9/11 Nears, a Debate Rises: How Much Tribute Is Enough?": "Again it comes, for the sixth time now — 2,191 days after that awful morning — falling for the first time on a Tuesday, the same day of the week. Again there will be the public tributes, the tightly scripted memorial events, the reflex news coverage, the souvenir peddlers. Is all of it necessary, at the same decibel level — still? [...]
America Gathers To Remember 9/11
Relatives of World Trade Center victims bowed their heads in silence at a small park Tuesday to mark the moment exactly six years earlier when the first hijacked plane struck the towers. The dreary, gray skies created a grim backdrop, and a sharp contrast to the clear blue of that morning in 2001. "That day we felt isolated, but not for long and not from each other," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said as [...]
A day robbed of its rightful meaning
It’s impossible to appropriately comment on a day like today. One wants to think about this day differently, somehow, despite the fact that its impact and effects confront us endlessly. One wants to be able to think about this date, this anniversary, without partisan overtones and instead [...]
Tags: 9/11, World Trade Center, Pentagon
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I’m swearing off even an occasional few minutes viewing Fox News. Not going there. Anymore. Not after the unconscionable segment with General Patraeus and Ambassador Crocker. 16 minutes! This wasn’t an interview. It wasn’t news. It was a commercial for the White House.
Even worse than expected
I feel like I need to write “I will not be so naive” on a blackboard 100 times to teach myself a lesson. At first, I thought there was no way Gen. David Petraeus would limit himself to just one media interview with Fox News, television’s most partisan news outlet. Why would a respected military [...]
Tags: Fox News, Patraeus, Crocker, Iraq War
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That’s really all we got from Patraeus and Crocker yesterday. Smoke and mirrors with cherry-picked numbers. The McClatchy papers did the heavy lifting to sort through the real numbers to tell us:
What Crocker and Petraeus didn’t say
Slate’s Fred Kaplan wasn’t impressed with what Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker had to say yesterday. Just as importantly, McClatchy reports on what Petraeus and Crocker didn’t say yesterday. A chart displayed by Army Gen. David Petraeus that purported to show the decline in sectarian violence in Baghdad between December and August made no [...]
And, the always-excellent Juan Cole makes some supurb points in a post today:
Can Gen. Petraeus and Ryan Crocker Save the Next Democratic President?
Despite what the pundits will say, I fear the testimony of Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker on the Hill Monday and Tuesday is not a turning point, does not give Bush breathing room, and is largely irrelevant. To any extent that what they do in Iraq ends up making a real positive difference, Petraeus and Crocker will likely be doing the Democrats a big favor, not Bush, who won’t be in office much longer. The central question is whether [...]
Tags: Patraeus, Crocker, Iraq Report
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Not by my definition. Not according to a new poll.
The battle for hearts and minds
How’s the “battle for hearts and minds” going? The BBC has a new poll out: About 70% of Iraqis believe security has deteriorated in the area covered by the US military “surge” of the past six months, an opinion poll suggests. The survey by the BBC, ABC News and NHK of more than 2,000 people across Iraq [...]
Tags: Surge, Battle for Hearts and Minds, Iraq War
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Another Republican crosses over to the anti-war side of the room. Big, BIG news, explained via Daily Kos…
Republican Walsh (NY-25) Breaks With GOP on Iraq: "We Have Given Enough"
Republican Jim Walsh, who won re-election in 2006 by less than 3,000 votes, is making headlines today. He has decided to break with the President and his party on Iraq. Today, we learn that he will be supporting a bill calling for withdrawal from Iraq and will apparently be opposing a blank check as well. This is huge news, not just for the fact that we have another Republican defection on Iraq, but because Walsh is [...]
Tags: Jim Walsh, Withdrawal From Iraq, Republican Party
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Kevin Drum explains the arguments in a few carefully-chosen sentences…
Double, Double, Toil and Trouble
….This is an obvious point to make, but I want to make it anyway. Just in case there’s anyone who doesn’t know this. Surge discussions often go something like this: At the beginning of the year [...]
Tags: Troop Surge, Iraq War
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Patraeus and Crocker. More questions. Tough questions, this time.
On Iraq questions, Senate learns from House mistakes
Despite all of the anticipation, yesterday’s joint House hearing with Gen. David Petraeus and Amb. Ryan Crocker was a bit of a dud. Everyone seemed to be going through the motions, and all we heard were predictable answers to predictable questions. When colorful charts are the highlight of the afternoon, you know it was a [...]
Petraeus gets "bipartisan grilling" in the Senate
Some Republicans in the Senate were actually challenging Petraeus today, according to Reuters: "The top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, faced a tough challenge on Tuesday from both Republicans skeptical about war strategy and Democrats who want a [...]
Tags: Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Patraeus, Crocker
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The questions are getting tougher and the answers are getting weaker.
Petraeus doesn’t know if his strategy is making America safer
This is HUGE. HUGE. Petraeus just completely undermined Bush’s rationale for the escalation of the Iraq war. Senator John Warner asked a simple question — and got a very telling answer: [...]
CNN’s been reporting that Bush will announce plans, later this week, to bring 30,000 troops home by next summer. Isn’t that kind of like setting a deadline? Isn’t that what we’ve always been told we can’t do? Just asking?
Tags: Iraq War, Surge, Troop Withdrawal
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An interesting trend seems to be developing. Wonder how far it will spread…
Dems Surge in Outer South
One of the harbingers of political realignment is party-switching by politicians. I’ve been waiting to see this, because all the other signs are already there. From Bluegrass Report, we now have the an example: Sources tell WHAS 11 News that they expect two republican state house members to officially switch parties and register as democrats this week. Sources tell me Rep. Melvin Henley (R) Murray and Rep. Milward Dedman, Jr. (R) Harrodsburg will change their party registrations this week. That would extend the democrats advantage in the state House of [...]
Tags: Southern Politics, Southern Democrats
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This strange, frightening, story just got a bit stranger. Time to don the traditional tinfoil hats, my friends. Git yer conspiracy theories right here..’cept they kinda sorta make sense….
One Of Our H-bombs Is Missing: “Bluntly, the mistake of loading nuclear …
“Bluntly, the mistake of loading nuclear weapons on a combat aircraft in combat-ready position is simply not possible to make. Safeguards are far too stringent and far too many people would be involved. Particularly given that the mounting was in violation of policy that’s been in place without exception for [...]
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Doesn’t take much reading between the lines to realize that this situation is pretty darn ugly.
Peak Oil Watch
OPEC agreed today to increase oil production by 500,000 barrels per day. But check out this sentence in the New York Times coverage:Consuming nations, including the United States, have been urging OPEC producers to put more oil on [...]
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Indeed.
An area of Arctic sea ice the size of Florida has melted away in just the last six days as melting at the top of the planet continues at a record rate. 2007 has already broken the record for the lowest amount of [...]
Tags: Global Warming, Arctic Ice
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And, it’s a big one. Maybe all of us football junkies ain’t so dumb, after all!
Maybe, just maybe the idea of adding Keith Olbermann to the NFL on NBC roster is paying off for his [...]
Tags: Olbermann, Countdown, NFL on NBC
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The official "Report" is certainly important, but I find some of the ancillary information available tonight even more interersting. Read on..
Iraqi public opinion decidedly negative
There are a handful of interesting new polls out this morning, most of which show Americans’ thoroughly unsatisfied with the status quo when it comes to Iraq. Perhaps the most interesting new survey isn’t the one that gauges public opinion in the U.S., but rather, in Iraq. Barely a quarter of Iraqis say their security has [...]
Tags: Iraqi Opinion, Iraq War, Iraq Report
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Biding his time. That’s at the core of everything about Iraq. Biding his time..
Playing for more time
In talking to Robert Draper for his book “Dead Certain,” the president conceded that his goal was not to end the war or to bring U.S. troops home, but rather, to bide his time. “I’m playing for October-November,” Bush said. For nearly five years, every defense of the administration’s war policy has been just that, “playing” [...]
Tags: Robert Draper, Dead Certain, Iraq War
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