A History Lesson For Bushco

I sincerely hope that White House flak Dana Perino can take a few minutes from her busy day of misinforming our corporate lap dog media, as well as talking down to Helen Thomas, to learn about the Cuban Missile Crisis (and no, I'm not talking about the mixed alcoholic drink served at Red Square at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas), since she has professed ignorance on that subject.

And as for this clip of President Kennedy addressing the nation on the subject, all we can do is recall a better time and keep working for impeachment of these Republican criminals who, short of that, still have about 400 days to go in office (and the obscenities perpetrated under their watch grow more despicable by the minute).



Joseph A. Palermo of HuffPo has more.

Update 12/12/07: And regarding the "more despicable by the minute" Kos link (h/t Atrios)...

Monday Videos

Band Of Horses ("Is There A Ghost"; first time I ever saw a pillow fight riot in a music video, I must say)...



...and believe it or not, Otis Redding was killed in a plane crash 40 years ago (!) today ("I've Got Dreams To Remember" - another great YouTube fan video).

Monday Political Stuff

And now, Rudy ("I Don't Make Many Mistakes, But When I Do, They're Big Ones") Giuliani in action (God, I will never watch the Sunday morning gab fests again; Russert is almost APOLOGIZING as he fawns over this cretin - hat tips to Atrios and TPM)...



...and I just came across this from Brave New Films ("The Art Of Mental Warfare"), with Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails (I don't quite agree with all of these juxtapositions, but understand that Rudy "Giggliani" is very much a part of the mix here, though he just has a lower profile relative to Dubya, Deadeye Dick, Rummy, Turd Blossom, etc. - this has very graphic war footage).

All The News That Stinks

Staying with the New York Times, I should note that, of all of the ridiculous media spectacles we’ve seen recently, I think the faux outrage by Peter Osnos over the furor caused by the snippet of Scott McClellan’s book is right up there among journamalism most stupid moments of the year.

(Note: This will be recalled when the time comes for “Doomsy’s Do-Gooders and Dregs,” and I’m going to start really early with that – next week, probably – instead of waiting until New Years’ Eve as I have in the past. I’ve got a ton of stuff, and it’s not going to be possible to produce it at once.)

This prior post tells us that the following excerpt was published:

“The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So I stood at the White House briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.

“There was one problem. It was not true.

“I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest-ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice president, the president’s chief of staff and the president himself.”

Well, given this, along comes Clark Hoyt yesterday to sit around opining about whether or not this should have appeared in the print edition of the Times versus the Times’ news blog “The Lede,” where it did appear.

I think we should apply “the Clinton test” here to try and ascertain the answer. And doing so, I think we can be sure that the following would have occurred:

Screaming right-wing talk radio would have gone predictably batshit insane (probably with Drudge leading the way…sorry, but that’s the only way to describe it).

As a result, “legitimate” corporate news would have picked up the “story.”

The resulting furor would have led to a deluge of phone calls, Emails and snail mails to politicians, to say nothing of Internet postings by Reynolds, Malkin and that ilk (with NRO, The Weekly Standard, and other sympathetic outlets following – I’ll acknowledge a likely amount of overlap between the top three bullets here, by the way).

Formal statements would have been issued by elected representatives and inquiries begun as a result.

So the answer then, Clark, is yes - it would have been printed.

So, while Hoyt and Osnos would have been augustly opining from “on high” about whether or not this was news, forces completely out of their control would have turned it into “news” for them. And all of their harrumphing to the contrary would have made no difference whatsoever.

And on a lesser scale, that’s what happened with the excerpt from the McClellan book (I’ll admit that the big-hit lefty blogs can help initiate a corporate media reaction at times leading to some kind of political activity, but we can’t match what the freepers can do in the way I described…yet).

And the real kicker to me, by the way, is noted as follows; I profess that I was angry at the reporters noted in Hoyt’s piece for not following up on what McClellan said, until I read this…

…The Associated Press and the Web site Politico were reporting that McClellan would not comment. “In retrospect, we should have made an effort to reach him,” (Douglas) Jehl (of the Times) said.

I agree, not that it would have done any good. Osnos told me that he and McClellan had decided that McClellan would focus on finishing his manuscript and would not talk to reporters.

So all of this, in the end, was just a ploy to hype McClellan’s book (and I guess the “outrage” by Osnos was part of that also?). So McClellan thinks it’s more important to leave this charge just sort of hanging out there to juice the “buzz” for his book as opposed to beginning an official inquiry (I know, I can feel another “strongly worded letter” coming on that this regime of outlaws will disregard – again – but that’s still better than nothing).

Well, I don’t know about you, but I don’t like to by played, by McClellan, Osnos or anyone else (I think Hoyt, who is otherwise a pro about this stuff despite my occasional disagreements, looks like a “babe in the woods” here).

So I would strongly suggest that we tell everyone involved what we think of this whole scam by refusing to buy McClellan’s book. Loathsome toadies like Our Boy Scottie don’t deserve any of our hard-earned money anyway.

Mike "Ooga Booga" McConnell is BAACK!

I’ve just finished digesting this Op-Ed written in today’s New York Times by Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, and I have to admit that I’m a bit stunned.

I also believe this column should be read by every voter in this country, because doing so will confirm once and for all and for all time that the Bushco regime will NEVER capitulate on any matter with the “Democrat” congress.

McConnell’s column is shameless fear mongering and propagandizing from the nearly first word to the very last. At best, it is merely an idiotic rehash of familiar, erroneous GOP talking points. At worst, it is absolutely dreadful in its utter denial of reality.

It is utterly uncompromising in its goal of making sure that FISA remains a dead, rotting carcass of a law intended to maintain governmental checks and balances on our domestic and international spying.

Basically, it is Bushco in a nutshell.

So, where to begin?

Before the Protect America Act was enacted, to monitor the communications of foreign intelligence targets outside the United States, in some cases we had to operate under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA, a law that had not kept pace with changes in technology.

That argument is a “red herring.” The changes sought considering evolution in electronic communication since 1978 could have been accomplished without destroying the law’s provisions, which was the true intent all along (David Addington’s remark about “bombing the FISA court” (three-quarters of the way down in this post) captured what this administration had always sought).

And what does “in some cases” mean anyway? As this Wikipedia article states, FISA was a law “prescribing procedures for the physical and electronic surveillance and collection of ‘foreign intelligence information’ between or among ‘foreign powers’.”

Since McConnell doesn’t bother to specify what “cases” he’s talking about, I don’t know why I should have to hazard a guess on that.

In a significant number of these cases, FISA required us to obtain a court order. This requirement slowed — and sometimes prevented — our ability to collect timely foreign intelligence.

This is one of the evergreen Repug lies about FISA; again, the Wikipedia article tells us…

The act created a court which meets in secret, and approves or denies requests for search warrants. Only the number of warrants applied for, issued and denied, is reported. In 1980 (the first full year after its inception), it approved 322 warrants.[2] This number has steadily grown to 2224 warrants[3] in 2006. Only 5 warrants have been rejected since the court first met in 1979. [4]

The issue, as always, isn’t this administration’s “ability to collect timely foreign intelligence.” It is their desire to comply with a law requiring oversight.

Also…

The judicial process intended to protect the privacy and civil liberties of Americans was applied instead to foreign intelligence targets in foreign countries. This made little sense, and the Protect America Act eliminated this problem.

Why did it make “little sense” (assuming you can accept this claim at face value anyway)? Is the blanket assumption such that any “targets in foreign countries” were automatically deemed guilty without benefit of trial or any judicial review whatsoever?

(Oh right, what a dumb question for an administration that has waged war on habeas corpus rights for almost its entirety…)

To continue…

The intelligence community should spend its time protecting our nation, not providing privacy protections to foreign terrorists and other diffuse international threats.

The illogic of this sentence is astounding (not the politics, however), given the fact that, as the FISA Wikipedia article notes (under surveillance provisions without a court order), our services could already conduct surveillance without a court order under FISA…

The President may authorize, through the Attorney General, electronic surveillance without a court order for the period of one year provided it is only for foreign intelligence information [11]; targeting foreign powers as defined by 50 U.S.C. §1801(a)(1),(2),(3) [12] or their agents; and there is no substantial likelihood that the surveillance will acquire the contents of any communication to which a United States person is a party.

Bushco would love to have you believe that existing FISA law created a logjam for approval of warrants within the FISA court that tied the hands of our intelligence agencies and rendered them incapable of doing their jobs. This, quite simply, is a lie, and it is typically reprehensible of this regime to resurrect it in this column or anywhere else.

Also…

Finally, it is critical for the intelligence community to have liability protection for private parties that are sued only because they are believed to have assisted us after Sept. 11, 2001. Although the Protect America Act provided such necessary protection for those complying with requests made after its enactment, it did not include protection for those that reportedly complied earlier.

I think Spencer Ackerman of TPM Muckracker makes a good point here; McConnell has stated that AT&T and Verizon are already complying with the government on warrantless surveillance (the courageous exception of Joe Nacchio and Qwest notwithstanding)…so, if they’re already doing that, why do they need immunity unless they have something to hide (and given this administration’s track record, why would you not ask that question?).

(And by the way, regarding the El Paso interview mentioned by Ackerman, who can forget the following illustrious quote from McConnell noted here?)

Also…

I share the view of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which, after a year of study, concluded that “without retroactive immunity, the private sector might be unwilling to cooperate with lawful government requests in the future,” and warned that “the possible reduction in intelligence that might result from this delay is simply unacceptable for the safety of our nation.”

McConnell doesn’t state if he’s referring to the 110th or 109th Congress here, by the way; I would be mildly shocked if that quote came from Jay Rockefeller – if I had to bet on this, I’d attribute this to Kit Bond if it came from anyone (and “unwilling to cooperate with lawful government requests,” huh? You mean, like Bushco itself?)

Also, to me the most laughable part of McConnell’s column is that he doesn’t even acknowledge the existence of the RESTORE Act, which of course was so thoroughly misrepresented by Joke Line a week or so ago, playing Charlie McCarthy to Pete Hoekstra’s Edgar Bergen here.

I think part of the reason why McConnell neglected to mention it, in addition to the fact that it showed the Democrats crafting legislation that properly struck the balance between the legitimate needs of our intelligence services and privacy protections, was because the RESTORE Act doesn’t provide for telco immunity – so…it…must…be…destroyed.

One day when the book is written and the last chapter finally closed on our currently troubled life and times, it will read that individuals such as McConnell were more concerned with consolidating political power for the favored few than acting in accord with internationally accepted conventions of law enforcement and intelligence gathering. That is sad enough.

I only hope that we aren’t all reading this “book” amidst the rubble of an attack that could have been prevented by our government had it acted with courage and common sense instead.

Update 12/11/07: More from Chris Dodd here...

A John Edwards Campaign Update

Just a bit of information here – nothing in depth…

This Yahoo News story tells us that actors Tim Robbins and Kevin Bacon are going to campaign with Edwards in Iowa, with actresses Jean Smart and Madeleine Stowe having already done so (Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Browne appeared for Edwards also).

Yeah, yeah, “who cares about celebrity endorsements,” I hear you ask. And that’s a good question for anyone, but also for the people of Iowa who probably don’t care about anyone not from their area coming from out of town and trying to persuade them (and I don’t blame them either).

And it’s a particularly good question given that Valley News Today of Des Moines has come out for Edwards here (I’ll be honest and admit that Edwards reached a bit too far in saying he’d deny health care to members of Congress if they opposed him; I’d like to see that, but even his campaign admits they can’t do that – sorry for this link to Howie Kurtz of WaPo, but I have to do it).

But what good does it do to show up for a street fight and leave some of your weapons in your pocket?

And by the way, I hope Bacon stays on the trail with Edwards when the candidate appears in Philadelphia; the actor is the son of the late, renowned architect Edmund Bacon and has some clout in this area. And Edwards will need that going up against a primarily hostile corporate media landscape around here, including this Inquirer column with a headline wondering why he’s even still in the race.

(Oh, and by the way Inky, Jimmy Rollins is great, but popups with audio are seriously uncool at the workplace - try something else!).

Also on the subject of Philly media blowhards, I present this item from Herb Denenberg, who made his name around here as former PA insurance commissioner (here) and TV consumer affairs reporter before his pro-Israel bias overtook his senses for good after September 11th and he went certifiably nuts (here). So given that, Denenberg has to use whatever threads of credibility he still has to do his demagogue thing against all things and people Democratic.

(And by the way, I can remember a day when The Philadelphia Bulletin was known and respected by all as a newspaper of integrity that never would have lent its name to the type of garbage foisted by Denenberg here.)

Sunday Videos

Interpol ("No I In Threesome"; kind of atmospheric for a breakup song)...



...Happy Birthday to Gregg Allman ("Melissa," performed by YouTuber GilsMusic - I thought this was nice)...



...jazz keyboard legend Jimmy Smith would have been 82 yesterday ("Watermelon Man," aided by guitarist Mark Whitfield, live in Germany in 2004)...



...James Douglas Morrison of The Doors would have been 64 yesterday ("You Make Me Real," recorded live back in the day - don't have any other info on this)...



...and now, Christmas music: "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" recorded at St. Paul's Cathedral (I thought I saw Ron and Hermione along with Neville Longbottom - snark)...



...and "The Wet Spots" are in the holiday mood, probably with the aid of an alcoholic beverage or two ("Fist Me This Christmas").

Oh, And About The War...

I want to puke...again.

And I know I don't need to remind you about this, Patrick, but I'll be watching, along with many others.

(By the way, the Kos link to the WaPo story takes you to Page 2 - here's the link to Page 1.)


Update: And Dubya is going to veto it anyway without even having seen it, so they sold out for nothing...

Say It Over And Over

Hat tip to Avedon Carol at Eschaton for this (and calling our politicians to keep trying to make this happen is an even better idea)...

JWL - RIP

Two from John Lennon, who left us 27 years ago today; the first is a protest song (as they used to be called) for John Sinclair (he was interviewed recently and the video provides more information)...



...and "Power To The People" (Lennon put his money where his mouth was, as they say, having learned how to play the media from his moptop days to generate publicity for his causes, which were well deserving more often than not.)



Update 1: I thought local Philadelphia journalist Larry Kane (and author of "Ticket To Ride") made some good points here (don't know if registration is required or not).

Update 2: Good stuff from Martin Lewis here...

Friday Videos

Sheryl Crow ("Shine Over Babylon")...



...Happy Birthday to Tom Waits, bringing us some seasonal fare ("Silent Night" opening and closing "A Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis")...



...Harry Chapin would have been 65 (a live demo of "Cat's In The Cradle")...



...and Band-Aid ("Do They Know It's Christmas").

Friday Political Stuff

As far as I'm concerned, John Edwards talks like a president is supposed to on world poverty here (from Brave New Films)...



...but of course, as K.O. so forcefully and accurately reminds us here, we're stuck with what we've got (h/t Prof. Marcus).

Friday Cleanup Stuff (12/07)

Based on this post, is it really any surprise that two Dem lawmakers on the House Energy and Commerce Committee (which oversees the FCC) want to investigate that agency’s chairman Kevin Martin (here)?

Also, the question of whether or not Iran had nukes was huge this week as we know, but I wonder how many of us know how progressive they actually are concerning AIDS (here)?

I’ve been meaning to spend some time looking at Lt. Gen. James Peake, who has been nominated to take over the Veterans Administration with the departure of Jim Nicholson, but happily, Paul Rieckhoff beat me to it a bit here, putting together some questions Peake should be asked before he is confirmed (cross-posted at HuffPo, but again, I’m having technical issues with their site at the moment...ugh, and military.com has ads for that cretin Glenn Beck??).

(God, how on earth can any human being with Dubya’s record of failure find a way to smirk about anything?)

And finally, I absolutely could not let this week go by without giving Our Man Arlen Specter a great big boot into a personal area (if it’s possible to do it this way, in a manner of speaking) for blocking a Senate Judiciary Committee vote on contempt resolutions against Karl Rove and White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten for refusing their congressional subpoenas (here, though, of course, Rove wasn’t too busy to write his fictional Newsweek column or appear on Fox “News” Sunday with House Dem Chris Van Hollen).

And by the way, I’m still waiting for Arlen to get called out over this little episode from last summer.

Also, in memoriam...

"The Press Has Learned..."

Don’t you just love it when Bushco subverts our government to decide whether or not we need to know something they think is important?

As noted here…

Angry Democratic lawmakers called for investigations Friday into the Central Intelligence Agency's destruction in 2005 of at least two videotapes documenting the interrogation of two al-Qaeda operatives in the agency’s custody.

Good. It’s long past time to stop treating this cabal of crooks with kid gloves (and I took a shot at Jay Rockefeller a couple of days ago, but based on this, he seems to be “getting his back up also”; we’ll see what kind of a “follow-through” there is, though).

As the FIP story also tells us…

In a statement to employees on Thursday, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the C.I.A. director, said that the decision to destroy the tapes was made “within the C.I.A.” and that they were destroyed to protect the safety of undercover officers and because they no longer had intelligence value.

Says you (and once again, Bushco just refuses to get “advise and consent, separation of powers, congressional oversight”…you know, how our democracy is supposed to work!).

But gosh, didn’t Joe Biden vote to confirm Hayden as the CIA director here? And I seem to recall that Biden thought Hayden was "a nice guy."

Glub, glub, Joe – watch that presidential run sink into the Delaware Bay…

(By the way, this is a great Kos post on this...and Porter Goss continues to remain missing and utterly unaccountable.)

Update 12/8/07: More fool me for thinking Jay Rockefeller actually had a spine (and Prof. Marcus nailed Jane Harman yesterday over this).

Friday Freeper Double Feature, Part Two

I truly hope Kevin Ferris of The Philadelphia Inquirer has hit bottom with this column today; I don’t want to imagine how he could possibly sink any lower.

I was tempted to do a paragraph-by-paragraph refutation of what he says here, but I won’t primarily because I and many others have done so many times before. So I’ll just post it here with some thoughts afterwards.

(Oh, and I have a message for those in charge of approving philly.com’s content; try putting a little more work into making sure what you post has some relationship with reality next time instead of trying to determine which “cheesecake” photo of accused “Bonnie and Clyde” identity theft “queen” Jocelyn Kirsch you’re going to feature for that day, OK?)

Back Channels An Iraq campaign for hope

Upbeat Bush knows his change in strategy changed the war's dynamic.

By Kevin Ferris
Inquirer Commentary Page Editor

There's a photo of Lyndon Johnson, alone at a conference table. The president's chair is pushed back, and he leans forward, hunched over. His left hand holds his glasses and the arm of a chair next to him for support. His right elbow is on the table, with his forehead resting on his right fist.

Behind him is a bust of his assassinated predecessor. Kennedy's youth and vigor seem to mock the anguish of Johnson, a president who looks worn-down, bereft of hope.

Contrast that image with the current war president, who met with about a dozen journalists in the Oval Office last week. He's seated in front of the fireplace decorated for Christmas with artificial greenery and sugared pine cones. A bust of a resolved Churchill is just behind Bush's left shoulder, another of a reflective Lincoln to his right.

"I'm feeling pretty upbeat about life these days," George W. Bush says as he opens the floor to questions.

And why shouldn't he? Last year at this time, the Democrats had just won majorities in Congress. They and the Iraq Study Group wanted to call it quits in a violence-plagued Iraq. If Bush had followed the Vietnam script, he, too, would have despaired and accepted defeat.

Instead, he ordered the surge. The change in strategy and troop levels changed the war's dynamic.

"I . . . believe in the power of leadership to affect the course of history," Bush tells the journalists.

He's talking about the just-completed Annapolis summit - Mideast envoy and former Prime Minister Tony Blair was leaving the West Wing as the journalists were gathering - but that belief applies to this president and Iraq as well.

Bush will be judged by historians for errors made on his watch, perhaps as harshly as his critics slam him today. But if the positive trends in Iraq continue, he, along with the U.S. military, will also receive - and richly deserve - credit for the turnaround.

Listen to him in person for an hour and 15 minutes, and the president's passion and enthusiasm make it clear that abandoning Iraqis to terrorists was never an option.

"If you think we are in a struggle with extremists and radicals, success in Iraq is essential to the security of this country," he says. "I believe it."

And that ideological struggle with killers requires an alternative ideology: hope.

"The only way radicals can recruit is when they find hopeless people," he says. "That's why, for example, an HIV/AIDS initiative is important. That's why a malaria initiative is important. And that's why confronting tyranny is important, because tyrannies are the most likely form of government to create hopelessness."

In Iraq, the central front in the campaign for hope, Bush is confident of success. "Security begets better economics; both beget better politics," he says.

No, the central government hasn't followed the benchmark prescription for success drafted by U.S. politicians. But there is political movement. Local and regional Sunni leaders have reached out to Americans to fight al-Qaeda. Sunnis and Shias are attempting reconciliation locally. In turn, they are demanding more from Baghdad.

Those demands, Bush says, have produced "significant revenue-sharing from the central government to the provinces."

Oil income is being shared - most of the country's revenue comes from oil - even without a national revenue-sharing law.

Sharing the wealth is crucial to a democratic Iraq, Bush says. "It will be a part of the healing process that needs to happen," he says.

Local and national leaders won't always agree on spending and priorities, but that's life in a democracy.

"It's a constant issue, just like here," Bush says. "And it will constantly evolve."

The next step, Bush says, is a long-term strategic relationship to help "deal with the mindset of people who wonder whether or not there is a security commitment by the United States."

And by next year?

"My hope is that we put [Iraq] in a position where the momentum, the freedom momentum, is strong and powerful . . . so that the decisions are easier to make for the next president."

Bush stands, as do the guests. The last-minute questions begin. He lists the historical nonfiction he's recently read, along with the novel A Confederacy of Dunces, a title that must make detractors smile and press aides wince.

An insecure president worried about criticism might not have mentioned it. But this is a confident, upbeat man who describes his White House years as a "joyous experience." He's secure in his principles, grounded by faith and family, and full of hope for his country and its future.

I really wish the Inquirer had the integrity to add a comments feature to all of its online content as many other news organizations have by now. The responses to this would have been hilarious (so….fighting the scourge of AIDS throughout the world, most notably sub-Saharan Africa, is part of the War on Terra?? I suppose you could claim that, but let’s stay on Iraq for now, get out and redeploy to Afghanistan, OK?).

And here is a link to a prior post about President Lyndon Johnson, a man who sent his two sons-in-law off to Vietnam (one of them, Charles Robb, went on to become the U.S. senator from Virginia). For all his faults, Johnson had more presence, intelligence and understanding of this country and its government in his cuticle than Dubya will ever have throughout his entire body.

What is also particularly striking to me about this is that Ferris has no sourcing for this column. None. In the past, he would at least go to the trouble of supporting his cheerleading for the war by referencing a fellow conservative pundit or two. But apparently, even that is too much trouble for him anymore.

Finally, I want to note this column because it references a book Dubya is supposedly reading called A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole.

Hmmm, that sounds familiar – could it be that (gasp!)…

…could it be that George W. Milhous Bush actually reads this blog??!!

Well, then, Mr. President, if I have the honor of addressing you, please let me say the following…

RESIGN IMMEDIATELY, YOU QUASI-LITERATE, DUNDERHEADED, DELUSIONAL NARCISSIST! AND TAKE DEADEYE DICK WITH YOU!!

And by the way, have a Merry Frackin’ Christmas back on your ranch. Do us all a favor and spend the rest of your days clearing brush, where the only person you can hurt, maim or kill is yourself.

Friday Freeper Double Feature, Part One

(You have to think a minute about this pic, I know, but it’s appro- priate…trust me.)

I can see that this Guest Opinion that appeared in the Bucks County Courier Times yesterday written by Bob Callahan of Upper Southampton is going to keep me busy (he describes himself as a graduate of the College of New Jersey with a degree in biology and the Pennsylvania College of Optometry – so, I guess that means that he can understand the strange life form he’s writing about here without actually being able to see it…??), so I’d better get started (no link available – nice one, phillyburbs).

This has to do with Flush Limbore’s “phony soldiers” controversy; Callahan is defending Limbaugh, or trying to anyway – I’ll let you decide.

In his Oct. 26 column (republished in the CT on the 26th, but originated on the 23rd), Dan Thomasson enshrined the latest lie into media common knowledge. Then Doonesbury attempted to drive it into deeper public awareness, as funny page simpletons repeated the lie. The course whereby this lie arrived at its destination should alarm every American.

Sounds like this should have been written by Dr. Earl Tilford, who once threatened that we would be invaded by Venezuela (haven’t been able to find much about him online lately, though, which is a triumph for informed discourse).

Seamless integration of press, politician, and propagandist on such a grand scale is indistinguishable from the tactics employed by communist regimes. The lie that radio personality Rush Limbaugh referred to soldiers opposed to the conduct of the Iraq war as “phony soldiers” prompted Congressman Patrick Murphy to launch a personal attack and Sen. Robert Casey to sign a letter of censure.

Here is a link to Patrick Murphy’s post on HuffPo about this; I’d love to read through what Patrick said and highlight key points, but I’m having a technical issue with HuffPo in that my browser window frequently locks up from this location when I try to read their content (my guess is some kind of scripting conflict with a pop-up ad or something). I’ll keep at this.

Also, here is a link that takes you to the Media Matters post on this with the transcript; Callahan will get into that a bit later, but you can read it and hear the audio before that if you want.

And the Limbaugh censure resolution followed the idiotic “wrist slap” of MoveOn.org for its “General Betray Us” ad here (and, as noted from the link, many of MoveOn’s members are former military personnel and families and friends of presently serving members). Of course, Callahan won’t tell you any of this.

Media Matters for America, an Internet site Sen. Hillary Clinton claims to have “helped start,” initiated the process.

Oh brother…

Here is a link to a Wikipedia article on Media Matters that tells you at least three things: 1) It was founded by David Brock in 2004, 2) It has not been or is not now bankrolled in any way by George Soros, and 3) Aside from mention in site posts from time to time, Hillary Clinton has nothing to do with it (and for good measure, here's more information on who runs the group).

Their “phony soldiers” version was repeated verbatim by print and broadcast outlets, and within hours the president’s press secretary was being asked if Mr. Bush agreed with Limbaugh’s assessment that soldiers who disagree with the administration are “phony soldiers.” Within hours, senators and congressmen were offering condemnations and threats from their chambers and elsewhere. In terms of choreography and coordination, the attack was as stunning as any Broadway spectacle.

I suppose, pretty much parroting in a way what the right-wing noise machine (with Limbaugh often figuring prominently) has been inflicting on our discourse for years. And if you want to read just one example of this (there are many, many others, most notably the Terri Schiavo circus), this tells you how Hillary Clinton’s “laugh” became the “news” story of the days a couple of months ago.

Even for a cynical and informed observer, the breadth and synchronization of this attack was awesome. Imagine if the full weight of media, every avenue of information – broadcast, print, even cartoon – tried to crush you with slander.

I don’t have to imagine, Callahan. I watched you and your fellow travelers inflict this on President Bill Clinton from the early stages of his campaign until the moment he left office.

Imagine if the United States Senate, with total power of regulation over your profession, bludgeoned you with this lie. Whatever one thinks of Limbaugh, he would not be crushed, and the parties to this attack were thoroughly discounted. In particular, the credibility of dominant media has fallen so far that the news reporting must be considered for entertainment purposes only.

That last sentence is solely Callahan’s laughable opinion, and to this day, I have not seen an apology forthcoming from Media Matters, VoteVets or anyone else who quite rightly held Limbaugh to account because no such apologies are necessary.

For anyone who heard Limbaugh’s show in real time on Sept. 26, it was impossible to miss his meaning.

That much is true.

Inspired by an ABC News broadcast about soldiers who misrepresent or fake their service, termed by ABC the “Phony Heroes,” Limbaugh, on Sept. 25, aired a morning update (a monologue that runs proceeding the show) discussing phony soldiers. This morning update was an exposition of how the anti-war movement presents soldiers who are abject frauds, such as Jesse Macbeth, or military personnel who submit fraudulent accounts, such as Scott Beauchamp. In either case they are celebrated for their ability to discredit, demoralize and endanger the U.S. military with fabrication being irrelevant.

It’s laughable at this point to watch someone like Callahan create more of a smokescreen in defense of Limbaugh here as to what he really meant when the Media Matters transcript plainly shows that Limbaugh was not referring to Macbeth or Beauchamp by name, but just for the record, here is the story on Macbeth (and only Limbaugh would have the gall to utter the phrase “genuine phony soldier” as he does here with a straight face).

Also, I would suggest reading this well-researched column on Scott Thomas Beauchamp (I know a plethora of other blogs have covered him already) and tell me that you don’t think something fishy is going on, particularly between the Drudge obfuscation noted by writer Tim Rutten, the sloth of The New Republic’s editors in publishing Beauchamp’s claims without corroboration, and the Army’s refusal to comply with TNR’s Freedom Of Information Act request regarding the Beauchamp case. Given all of that, I think there’s more to this story than Callahan will ever tell us.

On Sept. 26, a caller to Limbaugh’s show, referring presumably to anti-war activists, stated, “they never talk to real soldiers. They like to pull these soldiers that come up out of the blue and spout to the media.” Limbaugh responded, “the phony soldiers.” After ending the telephone conversation, Limbaugh read the text; “Here is a morning update we did recently about fake soldiers.”

He detailed how the phony soldier and anti-war hero Macbeth’s false accounts of U.S. atrocities were publicized and even translated into Arabic by anti-war media. His outrage was with the purpose of the phony soldier paradigm, employed to damage the stature and morale of the U.S. military. By extension, Congressman Murtha’s deceitful description of Marine conduct in Haditha fits this template.

Callahan should read this account of what happened in Haditha, particularly this excerpt…

The Pentagon has said little publicly about the Haditha deaths, and in Iraq the incident has caused little controversy - US troops there are already viewed by most Iraqis as trigger-happy and indifferent to civilian casualties.

Now four marines in that group, including Staff Sgt Frank Wuterich, 26, are facing charges of unpremeditated murder.

A further four face lesser charges over alleged failures in investigating and reporting the incident.

The US military has confirmed that 24 Iraqi civilians died in Haditha that day, none of them killed by a roadside bomb.

Col Stewart Navarre, announcing the charges on 21 December 2006, said: "The reporting of the incident up the chain of command was inaccurate and untimely."

And by the way, “Democrat” Congressman John Murtha (Even overseas? Oy…) is mentioned at the very end of the story after all of the grisly details have bee presented, and the quote about “Iraq’s My Lai” is not associated to him, but to “media commentators.”

From that exchange, Media Matters inferred an abuse of authentic soldiers where no reference is made, and ignored the lengthy discussion where phony soldiers are defined. Clinton’s Internet proxy offered the tedious and inane defense that allowing the caller 90 seconds to make an additional unrelated point before referencing only one example of numerous and documented phony soldiers somehow nullified the truth.

I don’t know what the hell that sentence means, and at this point, I don’t really care because Callahan is flat wrong anyway.

And the axis of Internet propagandists, corrupt politicians, and subservient press, in ferocious unison, tried to destroy a man and his reputation. Where do our politicians fall within this axis of weasels?

Yep, Rush knows all about trying to destroy reputations, whether or not it’s through his sickening spectacle of imitating Michael J. Fox’s symptoms of Parkinson’s disease (here) or impugning 12-year-old Graeme Frost who committed the unpardonable offense (in Limbaugh’s evil eye) of standing up to President Nutball and his veto of SCHIP (here).

It is telling that Murphy and Casey chose the dishonor of propagating a lie instead of promoting the truth about phony soldiers and the incredible damage inflicted by false portrayals of the character and conduct of our American servicemen. And it is telling that among the large body of American media only radio penetrates institutional deception.

I think the best way for me to end this is to let Jon Soltz of VoteVets have the last word here (via ThinkProgress – I have more “fun” to get to shortly).

The "Piano Man" And The War

This AP News story tells us about a new single just released by Billy Joel titled "Christmas in Fallujah," in which he asked 21-year-old singer-songwriter Cass Dillon to sing the vocals. As the story notes, Joel thought the song should be sung by someone "about a soldier's age," and he wanted to help someone else (Dillon) benefit from his experience, which is a classy thing to do.

The proceeds from the song will be donated to Homes For Our Troops, which builds homes for severely wounded veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. The song also just went on sale Tuesday at iTunes, which is good because I can't imagine that it will get any radio airplay (should, though, of course, maybe on some of the "classic" rock stations...???).

Anyway, here it is...

Thursday Videos

Keane ("Somewhere Only We Know"; uh, OK - nice song, but he's an alien cult leader? Huh??)...



...Happy 87th Birthday to Dave Brubeck ("Take Five," the tune that epitomized the "cool jazz" of the late '50s and '60s)...



...OK, I've put this off for as long as I can, but it's December 6th, so it's time for holiday music; here's the tune only for "A Cradle in Bethlehem" from Nat "King" Cole's 1963 "Christmas Song" recording (Happy Hanukkah to those observing the festival of lights, by the way)...



...and the workshop elves bring us "Crank That Santa Claus" (interesting use of a steel drum, I must say - go dawg!).

Thursday Political Stuff

Testimonials on behalf of Sibel Edmonds (Prof. Marcus "fills in the blanks" here)...



...and "The Pap Attack" takes on Nancy Nord (more information here from yours truly).

Anticlimactic Punishment?

This story tells us that the State Supreme Court of New Jersey recently upheld the death sentence of Ambrose Harris, convicted of the rape and murder of Bucks County graphic artist Kristin Huggins in 1992 (Harris also killed fellow prison inmate Robert “Mudman” Simon, though a jury found in 2001 that Harris acted in self defense).

The larger issue, though, is that New Jersey is probably going to abolish the death penalty in that state shortly, meaning that Harris’s sentence would then be commuted to life without parole.

I posted about this here, and as I noted last May, there are plenty of valid reasons to do this, chief of which is that it would cancel the appeals process for criminals sentenced to death. Also, Harris is only one of eight inmates on that state’s death row anyway, and New Jersey hasn’t executed anyone since 1963.

But somehow, I just worry that there will be fallout for this that will hit the Dems chiefly (the NJ Repugs, as per usual, are already crying that the Dems are “rushing this through,” the state legislature; related bills, that is), though I definitely believe that this will NOT start a wave of states abolishing the death penalty. And I can’t imagine that the family and friends of the victims of those eight Garden State life forms are very happy about this.