"You say we're headed to war. I don't know why you say that."

That's what President Bush told reporters on December 31, 2002... as the unstoppable march to war grew.

What are we playing at with Iran? That's been a big question on a lot of people's minds since the President's speech Wednesday night, in which he engaged in much more specific saber-rattling toward Iran and Syria than usual. One liberal blogger thinks it's a bluff. Conservative bloggers, natch, are loving the war talk; Larry Kudlow at National Review Online called him "President Backbone". Yea, Larry, starting even more wars is pretty brave stuff.

This analysis from former CIA and Bush administration National Security Council senior official Flynt Leverett seems to me closer to my thoughts when I heard the President's remarks-

According to the President, the Iranians are providing "material support” to attacks on U.S. forces. That is a casus belli... In sum, the administration is laying the rhetorical and operational foundations for implementing a presidential decision to initiate military operations against Iran.

By itself, all this worry could be dismissed. But this is not occurring in a vaccuum. We've known since early 2002 that the Bush/Cheney administration wanted a war with Iran... not only was it mentioned #2 in the infamous 'axis of evil' speech, but taking down Tehran has long been a desired prize of the neoconservatives (who, as we learned Wednesday, are still very much in control of the Bush presidency), as has been heavily documented.

Not only did the Bush crew create their own Vietnam, now they want their Cambodia too.

Of course, it must be said now-- because the war supporters will seek to obscure it-- that the first calls for war with Iran predate the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the nuclear program, the Iraq war, and all the other reasons that have been cited by warmongers for why this country deserves to be invaded/blown up. But, as with the 2002/2003 case for the Iraq war, this will quickly be forgotten.

By framing any actions we might take against Iran as connected to the violence in Iraq, it would seem the administration is doing an endrun around the Congress. They know Congress would never authorize military action against Iran. But if Bush sidles into a conflict with Iran slowly, with limited action based around the Iraq war, he can say it's authorized by the Iraq force resolution and leave it at that. And if Iran retaliates, well then he can claim self-defense.

Such a move is in character for a White House that planned similar things before Iraq.

Luckily for us, it's not 2002 and the media is no longer afraid to ask questions and the Congress no longer has its head up its own ass. For instance, MSNBC's Chris Matthews confronted White House press secretary Tony Snow on this point-

MATTHEWS: My concern is we‘re going to see a ginning-up situation whereby we follow in hot pursuit any efforts by the Iranians to interfere with Iraq. We take a couple shots at them, they react. Then we bomb the hell out of them and hit their nuclear installations without any action by Congress. That‘s the scenario I fear, an extra-constitutional war is what I‘m worried about.

SNOW: Well, you‘ve been watching too, too many old movies featuring your old friend Slim Pickens is what you‘re doing now, come on.

MATTHEWS: No, I‘ve been watching the war in Iraq is what I‘ve been watching. As long as you say to me before we leave tonight that the president has to get approval from Congress before making war on Iran.

Notice that Tony Snow never really addressed the issue. He just dismissed the mere idea as silly. But, as the title of this blog indicates, they did the same thing before we invaded Iraq.

Senators are concerned as well, with Sen. Biden using his Senate Foreign Relation Committee hearings yesterday to deliver a warning to Condoleeza Rice, stating that an attack on Iran would "generate a constitutional confrontation in the Senate, I predict to you." And freshmen Senator Webb said the following-

Sen. Webb: And this is a question that can be answered either very briefly or through written testimony, but my question is: Is it the position of this administration that it possesses the authority to take
unilateral action against Iran in the absence of a direct threat without congressional approval?

Secy. Rice: Senator, I'm really loathe to get into questions of the president's authorities without a rather more clear understanding of what we are actually talking about. So let me answer you, in fact, in writing. I think that would be the best thing to do.

Sen. Webb: I would appreciate that.

Another dodge. Sen. Webb shouldn't expect that response anytime soon.

And then there was this news yesterday-

U.S. forces in Iraq raided Iran's consulate in the northern city of Arbil and detained five staff members, a state-run Iranian news service said.

The U.S. soldiers disarmed guards and broke open the consulate's gate before seizing documents and computers during the operation, which took place today at about 5 a.m. local time, the Islamic Republic News Agency said. There was no immediate information on whether any of those detained are diplomats...

Whether or not this was an official consulate is being heavily debated. Ominous either way.

Whatever is going on, I hope these latest developments remind the Congress of what kind of President we are dealing with... one who is out of control, and is quickly becoming as great a danger to our security as those he seeks to eradicate. What are they willing to do about it? That remains to be seen.

[UPDATE (1/13): New info shows President Bush personally authorized that raid.]

Two More Years Of This Shit??!

My brain can't handle writing about this now. In the meantime, here's recommended links-

AP: Bush's Iraq plan faces defiant Congress

-NY Times: Promising Troops Where They Aren’t Really Wanted

-Attytood: "E-Day": It was 40 years ago today

-LA Times: 'Gated communities' planned for Baghdad-
New U.S. strategy calls for creating zones of safety in the Iraqi capital, then working outward.

-Think Progress: Great moments in Bush’s Iraq speeches

-AP: Pentagon abandons active-duty time limit

-----------
UPDATE (1/12): So did watch/listen to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings with Secretary Rice yesterday on C-SPAN. I thought most of the Senators did a job addressing the big questions (and pssst, NY Post, I'm sure Podhoretz and the rest there were real busted up over Sen. Boxer's remarks toward Condi, but eventually you'll have to acknowledge what a clusterfuck the White House has created). But I feel that the whole thing was masturbatory, though that's not the Senate's fault.

Listening, I was reminded of the 1966 Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings on Vietnam, of which I have heard clips from (courtesy of 'I Can Hear It Now: The Sixties', a great news compilation hosted by Walter Cronkite). During those hearings, Senators gave a similar grilling to Johnson administration officials-- expressing regret for their roles in starting it, concern over escalation, and remarked cynicism at the administration pronouncements that things were turning around. The Senators were correct; the White House was not.

But then I remember... that war would go on to last another 8-9 years. I fear the same fate awaits us here. We're stuck repeating the same mistakes, with a 'plan' that even conservatives admit lacks logic. Congress wants out, but they're afraid of the political ramifications of their two biggest tools-- cutting funds or impeachment-- to solving the Bush problem. They do have other options to explore, but none that will penetrate the bubble around the White House. And so, we're just stuck. And I'm officially all out of energy to care.

Odds and Ends

More miscellaneous news that has slipped through amidst the Iraq insanity...

Democrats have selected Denver to host their 2008 convention.

As for the Republicans, might I suggest Baghdad? After all, when the President's New Escalation Forward plan brings victory and security to the country, it will be a shining example for all the world, and the Republicans should be proud to highlight that in their 2008 convention... Oh, they're having it in Minneapolis? Lame.

The '100 Hours' agenda continues: "The Democratic-controlled House Thursday passed a bill bolstering embryonic stem cell research that advocates say shows promise for numerous medical cures." BUT... "the 253-174 vote fell short of the two-thirds margin required to overturn President Bush's promised veto."

Uh oh, Kofi Annan is gone, but now right-wingers have to turn the new U.N. Secretary General into a villian too! He said that the Guantanamo Bay prison should be shut down. This week marks the five-year anniversary of the opening of this monstrosity.

Finally, some scientists believe global warming could fuel an "evolution explosion".

"Once more into the meatgrinder, dear friends..." (Pt. II)

Well, this last-ditch-effort speech is over. The President looked nervous and awkward, I don't know what they were thinking having him stand up in front of that bookcase instead of sitting behind the desk.

In addition, I don't know what freaked me more... the very specific saber-rattling toward Iran and Syria, his invoking Joe Lieberman (and him alone) as indicating congressional support for this, or the constant revisionism used to blur the origins of this war. My eyes rolled when he tried to pretend oil revenues were going to the Iraqis, not of course mentioning that it's U.S. companies that will control the drilling. Also annoying was him spinning this as if we're sending in fresh new troops... instead of just speeding up the redeployment of troops and/or delaying those inside Iraq from coming home.

MSNBC is discussing the President's vague admitting of 'mistakes' as something new, but he's made such vague admissions before. It means nothing; he doesn't see mistakes in policy and ideology, just bad things that were out of our control. Also, one of the closing lines of the speech-- "The author of liberty will guide us through these trying hours"-- was just so very, very bad. This administration is all rhetoric, and their rhetoric isn't even good.

Sen. Durbin's Democratic response could've been better. And so the mess continues...

[UPDATE: RJ Eskow has a very good blog post on the calculated political moves behind the President's speech. He's taken withdrawal off the table; at this point the Democrats have to fight just to maintain the status quo. I felt the same way watching it too. It's all politics, and so a war that never should've begun likely won't end until a President who never should've been elected is gone from office.

UPDATE #2: The Washington Post's Will Arkin ponders Bush's threats toward Iran and Syria.]

"Once more into the meatgrinder, dear friends..."

You probably will have already seen/ignored the President's speech by the time you read this, but as of this writing, excerpts have been leaked. It looks like the same type of tired propaganda we're used to. If this is Bush's 'A material', we're in deeper shit than I thought.

From the beginning-

"Tonight in Iraq, the Armed Forces of the United States are engaged in a struggle that will determine the direction of the global war on terror – and our safety here at home. The new strategy I outline tonight will change America's course in Iraq, and help us succeed in the fight against terror."

More false 9-11/terrorism emotional appeals. He's reaching for the desperate material right at the top; not a good sign. This is the point of the speech where any rational person's brain should power down to avoid any further damage.

More-

"I have made it clear to the Prime Minister and Iraq's other leaders that America's commitment is not open-ended."

That's right! January 2009 is only 24 long short months away.

Delusional, party of Bush-

"The challenge playing out across the broader Middle East is more than a military conflict. It is the decisive ideological struggle of our time..."

A challenge made more difficult by the monstrous failures and hubris of this administration.

On bringing the troops home-

"[To] step back now would force a collapse of the Iraqi government…Such a scenario would result in our troops being forced to stay in Iraq even longer, and confront an enemy that is even more lethal. If we increase our support at this crucial moment, and help the Iraqis break the current cycle of violence, we can hasten the day our troops begin coming home."

Translation: 'See? Sending in more troops will show the Iraqis that they can't be violent anymore and peace will spread across the region as if by a magical unicorn... and only then our troops can come home! Duh! It's so simple!'

Speech summary: "Yea, we've fucked up... But this time, things will be different. Trust us."

Same shit, different spin. Wake me when we get less complacent about this madness.

Oh yea... that escalation/'surge'? It's kind of already begun. Take THAT, American people.

[Related reading:
-AP: Analysis: Bush's New Plan Not All New
-Washington Post: On Iraq, Bush to pull away from generals
-Think Progress: BREAKING: Bush escalation will cost $6.8 billion.
-Baltimore Sun: Better armor lacking for new troops in Iraq]

The 100 Hours Continues

On yesterday's agenda was the implementation of some 9/11 Commission recommendations-

AP: House Democrats move on terror bill

Read the article for full details; it notes the bill faces a tough Senate fight. Up today is a minimum wage increase. Tomorrow they hope to tackle federal funding of stem cell research... but something tells me that they may end up having to deal with more more pressing matters first.

[UPDATE: The minimum wage increase has now passed in the House.

Elsewhere, Greg Saunders has some good thoughts on what the 100 Hour agenda says about the defunct GOP congress and a domestic agenda finally, slowly returning to reality.]

Quote of the Day

"Mr. Bush is expected to announce his plan for escalation in the next few days. According to the BBC, the theme of his speech will be 'sacrifice.' But sacrifice for what? Not for the national interest, which would be best served by withdrawing before the strain of the war breaks our ground forces. No, Iraq has become a quagmire of the vanities — a place where America is spending blood and treasure to protect the egos of men who won’t admit that they were wrong."
--The NY Times' Paul Krugman, in his new column 'Quagmire of the Vanities '.

Yes, tonight at 9pm EST, your regularly schedule programming will be interrupted by President Bush as he makes yet another last-ditch effort to keep punting on the war for another two years try and convince Americans he can somehow secure victory in Iraq with his latest half-assed proposal (and it's been about two years since using his full ass might've made a difference). I haven't decided yet whether or not to watch it, but like a bad car crash, I doubt I will be able to turn away.

The Democrats in the House and Senate are planning symbolic votes against the President's plan. Unless they can convince a significant amount of Republicans to stand with them, I'm not sure what impact they can have on The Decider, but at least they make it clear to Americans whose war this is... and whose war it isn't. Sen. Kennedy, for instance, "introduced legislation to require congressional approval before force levels can be increased" (see video here; Fox News' reaction is predictable, as always). I'm curious how far they are really willing to go, though. Likely not far enough.

[Related reading:
-USA Today: Most say no to Iraq buildup
-Balloon Juice: Throwing Afghanistan Into The Iraq Money Pit]

Factiness

Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are back, and in prime form. Last night, Stephen declared that 'truthiness' is out in 2007 and 'factiness' is in. Where "facts" (whatever that is) are concerned, choose what you like and discard the rest! It's all the rage in post-Democratic-takeover conservative thought.



[PS- Set your TIVOs for Thursday, December 18th. On that momentous date, Stephen Colbert and Bill "Papa Bear" O'Reilly will trade appearances on each other's shows. An event 15 months in the making!]

Quote of the Day

"Liberals were 'right' about Vietnam, but they have paid a price ever since because they were so obnoxious about their correctness. The leftier liberals proceeded to see Vietnam in every American military initiative--the placement of Pershing missiles in Europe, Star Wars, the removal of Noriega, the first Gulf War--and they suffered as a result. Just because they're right about Iraq, and about this escalation, it doesn't mean they won't be blamed by the public if the result of an American withdrawal is lethal chaos in the region and $200 per barrel oil. All I'm saying is that those who oppose the war now have a responsibility to (a) oppose it judiciously, without hateful or extreme rhetoric and (b) start thinking very hard--and in a very detailed way--about how we begin to recover from this mess."
--Time magazine's top political columnist Joe Klein, in his fancy new blog.

Shorter Joe Klein: Liberals were right about Vietnam and they were right about Iraq, but it should never, ever be mentioned because liberals are icky and mean and everyone hates them.

(UPDATE: My friend Anthony adds a different summary: "Sure, they're usually right, but goddamn do I hate how they SAY it. So, let's ignore them." Yup.)

Liberal media's right. We really need to discuss urgent life-or-death matters more banally.

Yep, Still Talking About The War

The AP has a story announcing that the President will address the nation this Wednesday at 9pm to announce his new escalation (oops, I'm sorry, I meant 'surge') plans that everyone already knows about anyway. But buried in this routine story are some nuggets of note.

#1-

White House press secretary Tony Snow said Monday that Bush "understands there is a lot of public anxiety" about the war. On the other hand, he said that Americans "don't want another Sept. 11" type of terrorist attack and that it is wiser to confront terrorists overseas in Iraq and other battlegrounds rather than in the United States.

Whenever I read shit like this, I wonder why some White House press corps reporter doesn't run up to the podium and smack Tony Snow upside the head. It's 2007-- who's still falling for these cheap, bullshit Iraq-9/11 connections?

It really shouldn't have to keep being said, but it does. There were lots of areas after 9/11 where terrorists were... Afghanistan was the biggest one and we went in and then the White House quickly lost interest. Iraq wasn't one and the White House rushed in based on pre-9/11 agendas and have, in their botched execution of this war, made the global terrorism problem worse. And that's just the watered-down cliff notes. Tony Snow knows that, but it's literally his job to lie on behalf of the President. He does that. And it's the reporters' job to call him on it. They don't do that, and they should.

#2-

Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Congress has approved about $500 billion for Iraq, Afghanistan and other terrorism-fighting efforts. The White House is working on its largest-ever appeal for more war funds — a record $100 billion, at least. It will be submitted along with Bush's Feb. 5 budget.

Your tax dollars at work, courtesy of the party of fiscal responsibility wasteful war spending.

#3-

Sen. Joe Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a 2008 presidential candidate, said increasing troops would be a "tragic mistake." But he contended Congress was constitutionally powerless to second-guess Bush's military strategy because lawmakers had voted to authorize the commander in chief to wage war.

"As a practical matter, there's no way to say, 'Mr. President, stop,'" said Biden, D-Del., unless enough congressional Republicans join Democrats in persuading Bush that the strategy is wrong.

And this moron wants to run for President? There is so much that is wrong here... from his assertion that, because congress authorized the war, that they have no right to "second-guess" it now to his incorrect statement that congress has no power to stop an out-of-control President. Now some in congress may wish to avoid the ways to do that-- targetedly cutting funding at the easiest as Pelosi has suggested; impeachment and removal at the more severe end-- but that doesn't mean they don't have the power to. They are a co-equal branch of government; it's their duty to check and balance the President. That Biden seems purposely ignorant of that really makes me wish the person chairing the Foreign Relations Committee was not a triangulating presidential candidate.

And from across the pond, the UK's The Independent newspaper delivers supporting evidence for the obvious fact that was dismissed by war supporters in 2003... oil was a big issue of this war-

Iraq's massive oil reserves, the third-largest in the world, are about to be thrown open for large-scale exploitation by Western oil companies under a controversial law which is expected to come before the Iraqi parliament within days.

The US government has been involved in drawing up the law, a draft of which has been seen by The Independent on Sunday. It would give big oil companies such as BP, Shell and Exxon 30-year contracts to extract Iraqi crude and allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil interests in the country since the industry was nationalised in 1972...

*gasp* I am shocked! Shocked I tell you!

More-

Supporters say the provision allowing oil companies to take up to 75 per cent of the profits will last until they have recouped initial drilling costs. After that, they would collect about 20 per cent of all profits, according to industry sources in Iraq. But that is twice the industry average for such deals.

And we are only two months or so away from the 4th anniversary. It's been worth it, no?

[PS- I can't recommend enough Glenn Greenwald's American Conservative article on the historical revisionism that's been used by war supporters to hide their records.]

Odds and Ends

Too much news; it gives me a headache. Here's some you may have missed...

Breaking news: U.S. airstrike targets al-Qaida in Somalia.

That sound you hear is the sound of a thousand right-wingers shrieking. From the AP: "Democrats are not ruling out raising taxes for the wealthiest people to help pay for tax cuts for middle-income families, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said. She spoke of pursuing an estimated $300 billion that people owe in back taxes, eliminating deficit spending and reducing wasteful federal spending."

Furthermore, it notes that "A budget rule, known as the pay-as-you-go rule, that was approved by the Democratic-run House on Friday requires that tax cuts have corresponding cuts in government spending or tax increases elsewhere to pay for them."

One Daily Kos writer asks the new Congress: Fix the deficit, yes, but fix the country, too.

Here's some interesting news out of California that positively goes against political conventions: "Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday proposed extending health coverage to nearly all of California's 6.5 million uninsured residents, promising to spread the cost among businesses, individuals, hospitals, insurers and the government." Expect the universal health care issue to get bigger going into 2008.

Meanwhile, on ABC, George Stephanopoulos reported that Speaker Pelosi "is considering setting up a special committee in the House to deal with climate change and global warming." It's a start.

Sen. Obama has an editorial discussing his proposals to stop congressional corruption.

Democrats also ran on implementing the 9/11 Commission recommendations that had been ignored by the previous congress. Tomorrow they will introduce legislation to do just that. Salon's Tim Grieve has all the details.

Finally, Al Gore remains the big, unanswered question in the 2008 Democratic primary field.

It's Time To Cut Bushie's Allowance

Completely cutting off funding for the war, as Congress did toward the end of Vietnam, seems to be a politically impossible move at this point (but give the public six more months of this shit and I'll bet it becomes less difficult)... but could Congress stop funding in a targeted way to stop escalation, as Rep. Murtha (D-PA) has discussed doing? It seems the obvious move to me, but I'm not optimistic about Democratic leaders all signing on, as they won't want to rock the boat this early on in their term (even though doing so was, ya know, partially what they were elected for).

This latest talk from Speaker Pelosi is encouraging, however-

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said newly empowered Democrats will not give President Bush a blank check to wage war in Iraq, hinting they could deny funding if he seeks additional troops.

"If the president chooses to escalate the war, in his budget request, we want to see a distinction between what is there to support the troops who are there now," she said in an interview broadcast Sunday.

"The American people and the Congress support those troops. We will not abandon them. But if the president wants to add to this mission, he is going to have to justify it and this is new for him because up until now the Republican Congress has given him a blank check with no oversight, no standards, no conditions," said Pelosi, D-Calif...

....Pelosi and Reid told Bush in a letter last week that Democrats oppose additional U.S. forces in Iraq and want him to begin withdrawing in four months to six months American troops already there....

..."So when the bill comes ... it will receive the harshest scrutiny. What do we really need to protect our troops? What is there for an escalation? What is the justification for that?"...

Video- here. More of this, please.

Salon's Tim Grieve has thoughts on the madness that allowed all this 'surge' talk to get this far: "One could argue that the American people have shown a good deal of patience with the president and his war already. As the war began, Dick Cheney was telling folks that he expected it to last 'weeks rather than months.' Nearly four years and what seems like a lifetime of 'critical next six months' later, it's a lot to ask anyone for another two or three years -- particularly when that could mean that a few thousand more American troops will join the more than 3,000 who have been killed in the war already... [And] can the president really keep sending more troops to Iraq without support from the American people or their elected representatives? And how can he possibly get that support unless the 'way forward' he's about to unveil is more clearly the 'way out' than it's shaping up to be now?"

He also looks at Bush's BS rhetoric about 'benchmarks' in Iraq (which is, like, totally different from timetables), just another changed, made-up policy borne out of a President with his back to the wall, desperate not to have the war lost on his watch, and willing to sacrifice anything and anyone to delay that.

The end of his blank check can't come soon enough.

[UPDATE: Atrios reminds us of the good ol' days-- aka, last month-- when the politicians and media pundits were obsessed with the Baker-Hamilton group and actually believed that the President would listen to a word they had to say. Their optimistic naivetivity about Bush never ceases to disgust amaze me. And it is because they keep giving him the benefit of the doubt that he has been allowed to keep making these disastrous decisions.

UPDATE #2: Prime Minister Blair on the surge: No, thank you.]

Condoleeza Rice, You're Up First

Blank checks are sooo 2006. Checks and balances are in now! Democrats have promised to make up for lost time in beginning the oversight of the war that was ignored by their predecessors. TPMmuckraker has details on what's up first-

Who'll receive the first grilling of the new era of oversight? Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is the lucky winner, who'll be the first administration official to run the Democratic gauntlet.

On Thursday, she'll start the day with a 10 A.M. hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Iraq, and then, after a short lunch, make her way over to the House to spend some time with the House Committee on Foreign Affairs at 2 P.M on the same topic.

For an encore, the Senate Armed Services Committee will follow up by questioning SecDef Robert Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Peter Pace Friday morning.

C-SPAN junkies = stoked.

On a related note, the President has picked a replacement for Harriet Miers as White House counsel. It will be Fred F. Fielding, who held that position in the Reagan White House. And if anyone knows anything about giving Congress the runaround on numerous constitutional crimes and abuses, it's a Reagan administration laywer. It's gonna be a busy two years.

Does This Make Any Sense To Anyone?

This one's a real head-scratcher-

Saddam Hussein's trial for the killing of 180,000 Kurds in the 1980s resumed Monday with the late dictator's seat empty, nine days after he went to the gallows. The court's first order of business was to drop all charges against Saddam...

I know he's dead, but isn't this a little odd? The killing of the Kurds was always trumpeted as Hussein's worst offense and not only was he executed before standing trial for it (the specific crimes he was executed for raise more questions), but now he gets a posthumous acquittal? Hey, why not pull a Ken Lay and acquit him for the rest? It's not like this mess could get any worse.

And the ridiculously mismanaged execution of Hussein has-- surprise-- made him a martyr.

An Inconvenient Truth

The silliest of the silly right-wing talking points/defenses during the height of the CIA leak scandal was that Valerie Plame wasn't really covert, so exposing her identity wasn't a scandal or a crime (oh, and also everyone knew Joe Wilson's wife existed and therefore must've known she was a CIA agent... or something). This, of course, has been repeatedly debunked, but like like many right-wing lies (Saddam had 9/11 connections, Al Gore claimed he invented the internet, Iraq did have WMDs, etc), it will live on in perpetuity.

With Scooter Libby's long-delayed trial set to begin next week, a reminder of reality-

Remember how the outing of Valerie Plame was no big thing because everybody knew that she was an undercover CIA operative? A CIA panel has declared that Plame can't even mention in her upcoming book that she worked for the CIA because she had "nonofficial cover" while there.

Oop.

We here at Politics4geekz wish Mr. Libby the best of luck with his 'bad memory' defense.

The Dumbest Things President Bush Said in 2006

About.com features the Top 10 Bushisms of 2006.

There's a lot of classics in here. Number 1 is, of course:
"I'm the decider, and I decide what is best. And what's best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the Secretary of Defense."
--Washington, D.C. April 18, 2006

So, How Was Your Week?

Just winding down/waking up after another week. There certainly was no shortage of news, such as more leaks (thought the White House hated those?) about Bush's plans for continuing to fuck up Iraq, to be announced in a few days. Oh, and we got a new Congress. That was pretty nice. Fox News, of course, handled this transition of power with the most fair and balanced coverage possible-



Nice to see journalism alive and well. To wash that out, here's some better things to read...

The American Conservative: Selective Amnesia: The pundits who sold the Iraq War change their tune and bury their records.

Balloon Juice: The Cost of War

Atrios takes on the myth/BS about the "Isolationist Left"

Newsweek: 'Greenwashing Oil': A report says the world’s largest corporation funded studies that cast doubts on the link between fossil fuels and climate change.

USA Today: Warm winter wreaks havoc

Hope you find at least one of those of interest. Have a lazy, fun Sunday!