Run For Cover Week In Review

Bush ran to China and came back with NOTHING. Which is understandable, given that the Chinese hold 52% of our debt. Since China is no longer pegging its yuan to the dollar, it means China is buying more bonds in euros, yen and other currencies and less in US dollars. It hasn’t come to the point where China is selling off US treasuries, but a sell-off would be disastrous for us. So it’s understandable that Bush would kiss-ass in China. But let’s be clear, he made no headway, either on the balance of trade front or regarding China’s human rights offenses. There is no sign that Beijing intends to release anyone on the list of human rights cases that Bush gave to Chinese President Hu Jintao in New York in September. So the Bush trip to China simply got Bush out of the US but it accomplished nothing. And while Condoleezza Rice is condemning everyone and everything that doesn’t conform to her personal concept of God as a Christian Republican, she found time to say that she is not the White House official who leaked Plame’s status to Bob Woodward. And National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley says it’s not him. Most people think it’s Bush, Cheney or Rove. But since Woodward had his little tête-à-tête with the WH official in mid-June of 2003, the leaker could have been Colin Powell or John Ashcroft for that matter. If I were a Plame-outing bookie, I’d be highly favoring Colin Powell as the leaker. I had high hopes for the article that WaPo ombudsman Deborah Howell said she was working on re Bob Woodward. It was published today. She also gave us NOTHING. Howell said, “The Post took a hit to its credibility with readers last week…Woodward is part of the DNA of the Post newsroom…Woodward is listed as assistant managing editor, he has no management duties…The Post’s story Wednesday put the paper in a terrible light…many readers think Woodward ought to be fired or disciplined…He (Woodward) believes that when it all comes out readers will understand a lot more…Woodward said he hadn’t told (Executive Editor Len) Downie about what he knew because he was afraid of being subpoenaed…What now? Woodward ought to have an editor.” So there you have it. Nothing, but nothing. And yet, what’s that about Woodward not telling Downie about his talk with a senior official because he was afraid of being subpoenaed? Woodward talked to the White House official in mid-June of 2003 and Patrick Fitzgerald took over the Plame investigation from Ashcroft on December 20, 2003. That’s six months that Woodward surely had no fear of being subpoenaed by Bush-crony Ashcroft. Well, there’s a whole new ballgame now that Fitzgerald is convening a new grand jury. And Woodward is going to need a lot more than an editor.

Oh Spare Me, WaPo

Today’s Editorial in the Washington Post defends Bob Woodward and, of course, totally misses the point. Dear WaPo Editors: It’s not the fact that Bob Woodward protected his sources that has outraged us, you morons. It’s that Bob Woodward was swanning around downplaying the Wilson/Plame outing while at the same time he was in the thick of the Wilson/Plame outing himself. It’s that Bob Woodward was protecting the White House while he knew full well that White House officials had divulged Valerie Plame’s CIA status to punish her husband for revealing Bush administration lies. We all know that Bob Woodward can keep secrets. We’re not upset that Bob Woodward would not reveal a source. We’re upset that he made on-the-record comments about how insignificant the Wilson/Plame case was, while knowing that he himself had key info and that the Wilson/Plame case was of vital importance. The current issue of Time mag reports that Woodward came forward when he realized on October 28th that his informant had told him about Wilson’s wife earlier than Libby’s informant. Oh really? Here’s a man, Bob Woodward, who has extraordinary access to the White House. He comes and goes and interviews the Prez and the Prez’s men as he damn well pleases. And he suddenly realizes what he knew and when he knew it was before Libby’s epiphany? I don’t think so. Bob Woodward has known all along that he was the first reporter to have gotten the poop about Valerie Plame from a White House official. And for whatever reason…maybe someone threatened to rat Woodward out…but for whatever reason, Woodward suddenly understood he could no longer protect the White House and therefore he came forward. The Time mag article says Woodward asked his source three times to release him from their confidentiality agreement—once in 2004 and twice in 2005. Woodward says that when he told his source that their conversation was earlier than Libby’s conversation with his source, Woodward’s source said, "he or she had no alternative but to go to the prosecutor." Please! See, Mr. and Mrs. Washington Post, the whole thing doesn’t scan and we don’t trust Bob Woodward anymore. We think he’s a lying sack of shit just like the guys in the White House that he has been protecting. So Bob Woodward can wave the flag, and talk about protecting his sources, all he wants. And you can defend this lying sack of shit all you want. But it’s been 34 years since Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein made the Washington Post proud with their reporting on Watergate. So whether you want to admit it or not, little by little and inch by inch, Bob Woodward has used the Washington Post to advance his position as paid shill for the GOP. And now you can take your apologia and shove it.

MSM Is Back to Its Dissembling Ways

Both the New York Times and the Washington Post have decided that Bob Woodward’s day-late-and-dollar-short confession has put Scooter Libby in the clear. The NYT says, “The revelation left the special prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, grappling with an unexpected new twist - one that he had not uncovered in an exhaustive inquiry.” Grappling? What grappling? Since Fitzgerald has not commented on Woodward’s deposition, who says he’s grappling with anything? And since Fitzgerald is engaged in an on-going investigation, why does the NYT make it sound as though the investigation is done and therefore was not thorough? WaPo quotes former federal prosecutor John Moustakas, saying, "I think it's a considerable boost to the defendant's case. It casts doubt about whether Fitzgerald knew everything.” Fitzgerald is the last person to claim he knows everything. Fitzgerald himself said, “Mr. Libby was the first official known to have told a reporter when he talked to Judith Miller in June of 2003 about Valerie Wilson”. Fitzgerald never claimed to have knowledge that Libby was the only official to have told a reporter about Valerie Wilson. The Woodward disclosure may well be the “bombshell” that Libby’s lawyer, Theodore Wells, claims it to be. But not because it casts doubt on the Fitzgerald investigation. It’s a bombshell because it casts doubt on Bob Woodward and his extraordinary access to the White House. It’s a bombshell because it casts doubt on Woodward and his vaunted reporter’s objectivity. It’s a bombshell because it looks like Bob Woodward has been working for the Republican Party for the last two-and-a-half-years. Woodward continually criticized the Fitzgerald investigation and said the Wilson/Plame affair was unimportant during a time when he could come and go to the White House at will. Now we find out Woodward has been smack in the thick of the smarmy attempt of the White to discredit Joe Wilson and his wife Valerie Plame. What a thing. Bob Woodward turns out to be just a two-bit shill for the GOP. Cheap Throat.

When the Crazies Run the Asylum

"In that direction," the Cat said, waving its right paw round, "lives a Hatter: and in that direction," waving the other paw, "lives a March Hare. Visit either you like: they're both mad." "But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked. "Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad." "How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice. "You must be, said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here." The Moony rag (The Washington Times) says the Prez is drinking, won’t talk to anyone but Big Momma and the Little Mommies (Condi, Karen and Laura). The WashTimes also says the Prez is ticked off at Big Daddy and won’t talk to him anymore. In addition, the WashTimes says the Prez is testy, belligerent, argumentative and feels betrayed. Hunter over at Daily Kos is hinting that the President’s nutsoid condition could lead to a dangerous breach of national security. So, could it? Can the President, all on his own, have an attack of rodent rage and start World War III? No. I absolutely believe that dick Cheney could cause some serious mischief on his own hook. But George-the-Dupe Bush? Nah! And the reason is that when GWB was elected the first time, his minders knew there was a fifty-fifty chance he would have a psychotic break, start abusing booze and/or cocaine again and slide into a narcissistic episode. And with that prospect on the horizon, the president has never had any discretionary power. As with everything else in the Republican Party, the worst of it is that the president’s mental decline is bad for the country. It’s not that the USA can’t pull itself out of the morass the GOP has landed us in, it can. But it will take a quarter of a century for both parties to undo the effects of five years of Republican fascism. Not only has the Bush administration been bad for the nation, it’s been bad for the entire planet. And now we find out, integrity icon Bob Woodward has shot his credibility to hell by letting his Republican politics dictate his reporting. After reading the statement Woodward released re his testimony yesterday in front of Fitzgerald’s grand jury, you have to wonder: What was all that nonsense Woodward was spouting before the Libby indictment about Valerie Plame’s outing being a simple case of gossip? Woodward was one of the people the White House was giving information to. Woodward knew if anyone knew that the GOP’s concerted effort to discredit Wilson and his wife was serious business. It very much looks like Woodward was not just protecting his sources but was protecting the Republican Party. Well that’s that. Bob Woodward’s goodwill capital has been spent and in the aid of the most corrupt and power-mad administration in the history of the United States. What a waste! Ring around the rosey Pocket full of posies Upstairs, downstairs We all fall down

How To Deny Withdrawing and Withdraw

This latest Bush administration claim that black is white is a wonder to observe. An article in this morning’s NYT by Carl Hulse, “Senate Republicans Pushing for a Plan on Ending the War in Iraq”, shows the GOP wants to withdraw from Iraq because the war has become a political liability. Of course this means setting a timetable for withdrawing from Iraq. And a timetable is the same thing as setting a target date. And a target date is the same thing as a plan to get the hell out. But the White House has vehemently claimed it would never set a target date or a timetable or a plan for phased-out withdrawal or anything remotely approaching getting the hell out. So how does the White House keep vowing: We will never abandon Iraq, we will never back down, we won’t leave until victory has been won, we are in this for the long haul, we will defend Iraq until the angel Gabriel blows his horn, we are Iraq’s saviors, and at the same time pull our troops out and leave the Iraqis high and dry? For the White House, that’s easy. The White House will simply withdraw and say it is not withdrawing. What could be simpler? Senate majority leader Bill Frist (R-TN) and Senator John W. Warner (R-VA), chairman of the Armed Services Committee have come up with a plan that is the carbon copy of a Democratic proposal, except that the GOP plan doesn’t establish dates for withdrawal. Which is a marvelous trick. You can’t withdraw without withdrawing. Unless of course you are devising a plan for the Bush administration. As the NYT article says, “The primary differences between the party approaches regards fixing dates for a withdrawal. The Democratic plan called for the administration to provide ‘estimated dates’ for redeployment of American troops once a series of conditions was met, with the caveat that unexpected contingencies may arise.’ “But Republicans said that provision was cutting too close to setting a schedule for withdrawal. ‘We are not going to have any timetable,’ Mr. Warner said.” We’re going to pull out the troops but there will be no timetable, no target date, and no phased-out withdrawal. The White House will think of something, count on it. It may say that the Iraqis are kicking us out. It may spin a new slogan called: “Phase Two Mission Accomplished”. Or the GOP may say the Democrats have a gun to their heads. But the fact is, the war in Iraq has become political poison. Ergo, the Bush administration is going to cut and run. And lie, lie, lie.

Now They’re Lying about Lying

Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman was on Meet the Press yesterday. I keep wondering if one of our guys looked like Mehlman, would his ever-present sneer and inadvertent blowing out of his cheeks when he says a word starting with “P” irritate me the way Mehlman irritates me? Mehlman has injected irritating into every facet of his persona. It’s his tell. How do we know when Ken Mehlman is lying? He’s irritating. Mehlman is the brains behind the GOP talking points for defending the war in Iraq. And he has absolute faith in the premise that a lie will eventually be accepted as true if it is told often enough. The current oft-told tale as perfected by Ken Mehlman is that everyone in Congress was bamboozled by the same faulty intelligence as the White House when the US voted to attack Iraq. Lie! Lie! Lie! The White House spread the faulty intelligence knowing it was faulty. There was no other intelligence being disseminated except the faulty intelligence promulgated by the White House. The big sin is that the White House knew it was faulty. Never forget and never let anyone else forget that Colin Powell stood up at the UN and told lies he knew were lies. Whether individual congressmen voted to attack Iraq is not important. It’s important that those congressmen who did vote to attack Iraq did so on the strength of faulty intelligence which the White House knew was untrue. And that is the crux and the crime of the entire catastrophe in Iraq. Two-thousand and sixty-seven American soldiers have died in Iraq. Fifteen-thousand-five-hundred and sixty-eight American soldiers have been wounded in Iraq. All the deaths, maiming and destruction in Iraq have been caused by lies knowingly spread by the Bush administration in order to justify its vision of US global supremacy.

Impeach Bush and Get Cheney for Prez

The current argument against impeaching Bush is that we would get Vice President Cheney for Prez. Or if we impeach both Bush and Cheney we’d get Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert for president. So? It’s not as though either Cheney or Hastert would have any real power after an impeachment. The worst impact of an impeachment would be the time consumed by the process and the chaos that would inevitably result if Bush and Cheney were convicted. But the power of the White House is already shot to hell no matter who succeeds as president. The answer to the dread question, "Do you want Cheney to be president?" is, "Not as an elected president." But it’s a completely different situation if Bush is forced to resign or is impeached and Cheney becomes president by default. To impeach a president and/or vice president, the House of Representatives would have to pass articles of impeachment by a simple majority. These articles detail the allegations. When the articles of impeachment are passed, the accused has been impeached. Then the Senate tries the defendant. A two-thirds majority vote of the Senators present is necessary in order to convict a defendant who has been impeached. My argument against impeachment is that it is not necessary now that the White House has so effectively impeached itself. In any case, the country is still going to have to witness time-consuming legal processes and chaos, which inevitably will result from the present investigations. And the governing of our country has already being sidetracked. Whether or not to impeach is irrelevant. The White House has already made decisions that have left it hamstrung, discredited and impotent. It doesn’t matter now who has the title of Official Asshole in Chief. The fact of the matter is that there is no option that would be cleaner and less damaging to the country than any other option. Impeachment, resignation and investigations all lead to dishonor and ignominy for the Bush administration, and ineffective government and waste of resources for the people. We have to get through the next three years as best we can. But first we have to get the troops home. Then, the elections in 2006 will begin the end of fascist rule in Congress.

Three More Years

George W. Bush won’t back down, won’t say he’s made a mistake, won’t admit he’s ever been wrong. Yesterday, the president was supposed to give one of the most important speeches of his disastrous presidency. With the drubbing he’s been receiving lately over his policies, political choices and quagmire in Iraq, he was supposed to answer his detractors in spades. The purpose of this all-important speech was to tell the people who voted for him that he still was their guy, that he still had the stuff to lead, that he was their president and he could and would cut the mustard. But instead of looking to the future and outlining plans for the next three years, GWB looked back. He seemed to be debating his opponent on the 2004 campaign trail. On Veteran’s Day, 2005, the President made arguments about why his catastrophic war of choice in Iraq had been the right thing to do. And further, he again stated, “we will never back down, we will never give in”. God help us! As David Gergen said last night on Lou Dobbs Tonight, the President needs to correct his course. But Gergen also said, “In this case, Lou, I think the course correction is one of philosophy, as well. That is, the president has assumed that he can rebuild his presidency by appealing to his base, his conservative base. “But the truth is, he's losing a lot of moderates and independents. If he's going to rebuild his presidency, he has to be president of more than the base. He has to be president of the entire country. To do that, he has to go back and appeal more to the independents and the moderates and join them to his base.” David Gergen and all the other pundits and opinion-givers are counseling the president to do the one thing he cannot do: Change. Well of course he can’t change. That is precisely why the puppet-meisters picked him in the first place. All they had to do was point GWB in a direction and know he would never deviate, never make adjustments, never veer or swerve. They could rest in the knowledge that GWB would march to their drumbeat and preach the doctrine of global supremacy, as ordered. But these White House geniuses never reckoned on leaks, investigations, indictments, backlash and Republican disenchantment. So what now? The president needs to correct his course but he can’t. And all the president’s men cannot make him do the one thing that might save his presidency, might save the Bush administration, might save the GOP, and might save the Republican Party. Three more years and the GOP is stuck with a president unable to alter his course, a vice president too old and sick to alter anything, a speaker of the house who is more concerned about who leaked the news about torture prisons than investigating the fact that the US has torture prisons, a secretary of state who owes her career to a man who is too mentally unstable to save his own ass. What now? Well, I know what the Vatican would do…the Cardinals would kill all the bastards and leave no trace. But even the GOP has better morals than the Vatican. I think the Repubs will turn on the BushMen and demand resignations down to and including No. 8 in the line of succession. How does Secretary of Agriculture sound for Prez?

Veterans Day

It still means something to honor our war dead and wounded on Veterans Day. That is, it means something to the folks who get up in the morning and go to work and make the wheels go round that move our daily lives forward. Of course, our war dead and wounded mean absolutely nothing to the armchair warriors in the White House who have never gone to war and who turned themselves inside out to keep from going to war: George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Official Asshole Karl Rove. These traitors to the real heroes who made our country great have killed 2,065 American soldiers in Iraq for no good reason and have wounded 15,568 soldiers for no good reason other than to inflate their egos. The war in Iraq is a sin, travesty and blot against our entire country. But the brave men and women who have given their lives and who have been wounded in Iraq are a credit to the entire world and deserve better leaders than they have had to endure. The New York Times reported this morning that a senior administration official said President Bush has chosen today, Veteran’s Day, to deliver a speech which will be “the most direct refutation of the Democrat charges you've seen probably since the election.” President Bush will refute his anti-war critics by saying that Democrats who voted for the war used the same intelligence that Bush used but the Dems have switched. Yesterday Senator McCain (R-AZ) said, "There is an undeniable sense that things are slipping in Iraq." But he also said that withdrawing troops would be wrong. Instead, McCain wants more troops in Iraq…from 10,000 to 165,000 more troops. Do not be deceived by the faulty reasoning coming out of both Bush and McCain. They both know full well that although the people who voted for the war did not know the intelligence was faulty, the White House not only knew the intelligence was faulty, the Bush administration promoted the faulty intelligence as 100% reliable. That is a monumental difference. On Veterans Day of all days in the year, we must honor the Iraq war dead and wounded by demanding that the warmongers in the White House withdraw our troops from Iraq. There is no rationalization for the war in Iraq that President George W. Bush can come up with today or any other day that will justify the war crimes the Bush administration has committed. They all should face criminal charges and they all should be forced to resign.

John McCain For Prez? NO FUCKING WAY!

Do not even consider the remote possibility of voting for John McCain. You saw him on The Daily Show last night. The man seems to be a nice man; he’s a funny man, a self-effacing man. He acts like a Republican with a conscience and a heart in the right place. But just remember, John McCain can find it in that heart to defend Dick Cheney, Colin Powell and the US attack on Iraq, which was accomplished with bogus intelligence. John McCain, for all his nice trappings is a neocon. He’s a foot soldier who has been given his marching orders. And those marching orders are to charm the nation into forgetting who he is and what he stands for. Anyone who can defend Colin Powell and Powell's speech in front of the UN is obeying orders. McCain claims that Powell threw out half of the UN speech before he delivered it and that Powell now regrets that blot on his record. Well, let me remind you, Mr. McCain, the half of the speech Powell didn’t throw out was the part where he unreservedly and without qualification swore that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. And Powell knew it was a lie at the time. Trust me, the only reason Powell regrets giving that speech is because it’s playing havoc with his visions of a career in politics. Serving as John McCain’s Vice President would be a nice re-entry. Anyone who can defend Dick Cheney (and McCain most assuredly defends Dick Cheney) has to be tossed into the same pot with Cheney. The Republican party is hoping the Democrats will not be able to come up with a candidate in 2008 who can inspire confidence, who has a twinkle in his eye and who commands respect. The Republican Party has chosen their man who fills that bill: John McCain. Know this about John McCain: He has a core of steel. He will never bend. He may trade horses about matters of integrity and truth but he will never give up the idea that the United States must rule the world, by force if necessary; that nukes are necessary for us, while the rest of the world must give up their nukes; and that the U.S. must pre-emptively strike all nations who might be a threat any time, now or in the future. Following is a capsule of McCain and his military beliefs. War & Peace: The War on Terror is the overriding and transcendent issue.(11-2004) Looting, terrorism in Iraq was a result of US mistakes.(9-2004) The Iraqi war was necessary after years of failed diplomacy.(9-2004) The War on Terror is a fight between good and evil.(8-2004) The War on Terror is a war we must fight.(9-2004) Avoiding the War on Terror has cost us dearly.(8-2004) Bush promised enemies would soon hear from us and they did.(9-2004) Saddam would have acquired terrible weapons again.(8-2004) The Iraqi war was necessary, achievable and noble.(9-2004) Our adversaries express a hatred for all good in humanity.(8-2004) The cause of the Iraqi war was just.(4-2004) Kosovo an example of feckless photo-op foreign policy.(12-1999) Fighting was based on polls and photo-ops.(11-1999) Important to win, important for US to be superpower.(6-1999) Distrust Milosevic, and Verify.(6-1999) Authorize Clinton to send in ground troops.(5-1999) Supported deployment in Bosnia; supports it in Kosovo.(4-1999) Higher price for security due to earlier idle threats.(4-1999) Palestine: Against declaration of statehood.(2-1999) Voted YES- $86.5 billion for military operations in Iraq & Afghanistan. (10-2003) Voted YES- authorizing use of military force against Iraq. (10-2002) Voted NO- allowing all necessary forces and other means in Kosovo. (5-1999) Voted YES- authorizing air strikes in Kosovo. (3-1999) Voted YES- ending the Bosnian arms embargo. 7-1995) Supports $48 billion in new spending for anti-terrorism. (1-2002) CIA assessments in Iraqi WMDs were all wrong. (3-2005) Belief in Iraqi nukes was poor analysis of aluminum tubes. (3-2005) Belief in Iraqi BWs was based on one unreliable person. (3-2005) Belief in Iraqi CWs was based on flawed imagery. (3-2005) Iraq never had delivery systems to attack US mainland. (3-2005) CIA never questioned assumption that Saddam had WMDs. (3-2005) Conclusions on Iran and North Korea are all classified. (3-2005) Move the US Embassy to Jerusalem. (11-1995) Foreign Policy: We have good reason to expect solidarity of our allies. (8-2004) Suu Kyi & the people of Burma will rule themselves someday.(4-2004) Overthrow “rogue” governments to keep Americans safe. (2- 2000) Our conscience influences US intervention, as in Rwanda. (2-2000) Africa: Money for AIDS would be lost to corruption. (1-2000) Concern over Chechnya spreads to Caucasus oil reserves. (1-2000) Russia: Sanctions until Putin exits Chechnya. (1-2000) IMF’s Russia policies bad, but agency is OK. (10-1999) Urge Japan to open economy to ensure Asian recovery. (5-1999) Clinton abandoned framework of “assertive multilateralism”. (4-1999) Korea: ease starvation, but avoid war during death throes. (4-1999) Pay dues to UN after UN reforms. (7-1998) Cuba: No diplomatic and trade relations. (7-1998) The man is a neocon.

VOTE!

We’ve all got to vote! Even if it’s only to remind ourselves what happened on November 7, 2000, and November 2, 2004, we must go to the polls. Those two days are black spots on the voting rights of the American people. When an election day comes along now, we must go to the polls. It doesn’t matter that the elections are small potatoes or that the fate of the world won’t be changed. We must vote! It’s our right and our duty! VOTE!

Neil Armstrong And His Famous One-liner

Neil Armstrong stepped out of the lunar module on July 20, 1969, set one foot on the moon and was supposed to say, "That's one small step for a man; one giant leap for mankind.” But he flubbed the line. What Armstrong said scans better, but makes no sense: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”. In that sentence, man and mankind mean the same thing. But nevermind. NASA immediately started the old political cover-up and claimed Armstrong really had said, “a man”, it’s just that the “a” was buried under static. And Armstrong backed NASA up saying he’s pretty sure he said the “a” but it got lost in space. But that’s all old news. The new news is that Armstrong is now 75 years old and James Hansen, an Auburn University (Montgomery, AL) history professor who grew up in Indiana has come out with a Neil Armstrong biography, called "First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong," The media blitz started last night on “60 Minutes”. I had thought it was pretty much accepted that NASA had scripted the now-famous one-liner. But once again, Armstrong said on “60 Minutes” that he had written the little gem himself. He had an epiphany while on the space flight to the moon. And Hansen repeats the old story that Armstrong was the author, but suggests he may have been influenced by Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings”, or Dwight Eisenhower who said in 1957 that Sputnik was a call for "a giant leap into outer space." I don’t think for a minute that Neil Armstrong thought up that line. NASA and the United States government aren’t that sloppy about PR. They would never have taken the chance that an astronaut whose lifetime experience had been living in one small town in Ohio after another, might step out of the moon pod and say, “Hi Mom. I got here OK.” I have no idea who wrote the line, but William Safire was a White House speechwriter at the time and he wrote the snippet for the plaque that was placed on the moon that day: “Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon, July 1969 A.D.” I’m not a fan of Safire’s, but I do like it that he admitted he’d made a mistake on that plaque. The “A.D.” should have gone before 1969, not after, he said. In the end, so what? Why not let the first man to set foot on the moon have his day in the sun. He’s been a quiet man, a self-effacing man, a man who minded his own business for the last 36 years. Does it matter whether he actually authored one of the most oft-repeated phrases ever quoted? It matters.

EXTRA! EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT!

It’s in the New York Times …read it for yourselves. The following first paragraphs of four NYT stories show the collapse of the Bush administration far better than anything I could write. 1) MAR DEL PLATA, Argentina, Nov. 4 - President Bush's troubles trailed him to an international summit meeting here on Friday as anti-Bush protesters turned violent just blocks from the gathering site, and Hugo Chávez, Venezuela's fiery populist leader, rallied a soccer stadium filled with at least 25,000 people against the United States. 2) An auditing board sponsored by the United Nations recommended yesterday that the United States repay as much as $208 million to the Iraqi government for contracting work in 2003 and 2004 assigned to Kellogg, Brown & Root, the Halliburton subsidiary.. 3) MAR DEL PLATA, Argentina, Nov. 4 - President Bush was asked four times on Friday about Karl Rove and the C.I.A. leak investigation, and four times he refused to answer. 4) Public outrage over President Bush's mishandling of the Katrina disaster has forced the administration to back away - if only temporarily - from a deeply wrongheaded policy on low-income housing. In New Orleans this week, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson announced with great fanfare that the government would tear down some of the most unlivable high-density public housing in the country and replace it with model lower-density housing, which will probably serve mixed-income residents. And speaking of troubles the GOP brings on itself. The movie "Good Night and Good Luck" is a straightforward look at CBS and Edward R. Murrow during the Joseph McCarthy era. And the message is: The GOP never learns. The public will accept only so much deceit, manipulation and lies from its government before the people rise up and say, ENOUGH!

ABC Poll November 3, 2005

Bush Disapproval Ratings: Overall job: 60% disapprove Economy: 61% disapprove Iraq: 64% disapprove Health care: 61% disapprove Gas prices: 68% disapprove Bush Personal Ratings: Is a strong leader: 53% say No Is honest and trustworthy: 58% say No Shares your values: 58% say No Understands problems of people like you: 66% say No In addition to the above results, the poll revealed that “73 percent of Americans call the level of U.S. military casualties in Iraq ‘unacceptable,’ and fewer than half, 46 percent, think the war has contributed to the long-term security of the United States…and just 39 percent now say the war was worth fighting.” So now the whole world knows how the majority of Americans feel about their President. The whole world except George W. Bush who reads nothing, sees nothing and talks to only five people in addition to his image in the White House reflecting pool. One wonders how Bush’s surrogate mommies Karen Hughes and Condi Rice are spinning the dose of reality he’s getting in Argentina. Thousands of protesters are chanting, “Get Out Bush” and Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez has made mocking jokes that Bush is afraid of Chavez. As of yesterday, 2037 American soldiers have been killed in the Bush war of choice in Iraq. Since landing aboard USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003, wearing a macho-man green flight suit, holding a white helmet, swaggering, saluting and proclaiming, “Mission Accomplished”, the President has killed 1,898 more American soldiers. It’s difficult to know exactly what the man deserves. Eternal damnation, for sure. But for now, the President’s Daily Press Grief is one of this life’s little pleasures.

CNN’s Aaron Brown Is Out

I don’t think he wanted in. There have been signs that Aaron Brown was not sure he wanted to work at CNN. Brown went on the payroll at CNN in July, 2000. On the fifth anniversary of his first show he said he’d signed another contract. And, oddly, he said, “After that, we’ll see.” Before that, on February 1, 2003 when the space shuttle Columbia broke apart, Brown didn’t come in to work. Reports were that he was playing golf. The New York Times reported this morning, “Jonathan Klein, the president of CNN/U.S., said today that he and Mr. Brown had mutually agreed that Mr. Brown would leave the cable news network because the new CNN lineup left ‘no options’ for a program that would include Mr. Brown.” It would be interesting to know the ins and outs of the CNN/Aaron Brown tug-of-war, but Brown has not been happy for sometime. And being paired with Anderson Cooper was not going to work in anyone’s alternate reality. For once, the old “mutually agreed” rhetoric was probably true. I’m an Aaron Brown fan. I hope he turns up somewhere and soon, with a show and lineup of his choosing. Good luck, Aaron!

ROTF…LMFAO!!!!

Senate Majority Leader (R-TN) Bill Frist had a snit-fit-and-a-half yesterday. The Senate "has been hijacked by the Democratic leadership," he said. “They have no convictions, they have no principles, they have no ideas…for the next year and a half, I can’t trust Senator Reid.” This is the same Bill Frist, MD, who said AIDs could be transmitted by tears and sweat and then had to admit his statement was not true. This is the Bill Frist who claimed Terri Schiavo was not in a vegetative state though he’d never seen her in person; this is the same Bill Frist who is being investigated by the SEC for insider trading. Republicans whining about trust and hijacked leadership is too funny. The occasion was when Democrat Leader Harry Reid (NV) forced the Senate to close down by invoking the little-used Senate Rule No. 21. After the Senate was cleared, the lawmakers spent two hours behind closed doors and agreed to name three members from each party to assess the state of the Intelligence Committee's inquiry into prewar intelligence and report back by Nov. 14. Harry Reid and the Democrats had had enough of the foot-dragging and obstructionist tactics of the Intelligence Committee that is supposedly investigating the Bush administration’s use of intelligence to justify the Iraq war. WaPo reported that Frist could hardly find words to express his anger, but that he finally said, “This is an affront to me personally. It's an affront to our leadership. It's an affront to the United States of America. And it is wrong." However, the NYT reported that, “Senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, the senior Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, questioned Mr. Roberts's (Intelligence Committee chairman, R-KS) commitment to the inquiry. He said that whenever the panel closed in on the sensitive question of administration handling of intelligence, ‘then all of a sudden an iron curtain comes down. ‘I have to say in all honesty that I am troubled by what I see as a concerted effort by this administration to use its influence to limit, delay, to frustrate, to deny the Intelligence Committee's oversight work into the intelligence reporting and activities leading up to the invasion of Iraq,’ Mr. Rockefeller said.” For his part, Harry Reid seems unconcerned that Frist won’t be able to trust him anymore. The NYT quoted Senator Reid saying, "If Senator Frist is upset about my following Senate procedures, then I'm sorry he's disappointed with my following Senate procedures.” Reid added he had "zero" regrets about his maneuver and said “the American people had a victory today”. Yes we surely did have a victory. The Republicans control all three branches of government—judicial, legislative and executive—and yet Harry Reid closed down the Senate and forced the whole lot to act like responsible legislators. Hooray!

George W. Bush Will Never Say He’s Wrong

He’ll talk about his war of choice, And birds that got the flu, He’ll brag about Alito, And praise his mother too. He’ll rant about the rights of cells And say they’re holy spawn What won’t he say? He won’t say he’s wrong He’ll say he’s gotta stay the course And kill off more GI’s. He’ll rave for hours on terrorists And tell a million lies. He’ll say the poor and old folks In his world don’t belong. What won’t he say? He won’t say he’s wrong. He’ll say a bunch of crap, but holy mother! There is one particular thing he won’t say, no never, not ever! In no way, shape or form Will anything be so strong As to make him say he’s wrong. He’ll say he’s gotta save Iraqis And teach democracy. He’ll say it’s worth 200 mil a day To remake their history. He’ll say it takes balls to lose a war And watch mothers pale and drawn. What won’t he say? He won’t say he’s wrong. (With apologies to Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein, II and the entire cast of South Pacific.) As of yesterday, 2027 American soldiers have died in Iraq. And this morning, because the Prez can’t say he was wrong, can’t say we should pull out of Iraq, can’t talk about the Libby indictment, can’t say he was sorry his aides had lied, and can’t say he will fire Karl Rove, he talked about bird flu. He said the US is prepared for a pandemic. Which it isn’t and won’t be in the foreseeable future. But of this, we can be sure: The President will never say he’s wrong.

Will He or Won’t He?

Talk about the horns of a dilemma. All the talking heads on Sunday morning said President Bush has only one chance of repairing the damage the Bush administration has done to itself. A two-pronged chance, actually: 1) Bush and Cheney should apologize to the American people for the actions of their aides. 2) Bush should widen his circle of trusted friends/advisers. Better yet, he should shitcan the old crowd and get a new crowd. What a challenge. Even to say he had been misled would show a flaw in judgment and George W. Bush has no flaws in the eyes of George W. Bush. The only way the Prez can maintain his self-image of God-like rectitude is to talk to only a very tiny group of people…five at most. He’s never wrong, makes no mistakes and never hears a discouraging word. Will he apologize? Will he fire his enablers? Not likely. What the Bush administration will do now though is become even more hardline, even more intransigent about its policies. All through history any group that feels threatened shows a marked tendency to circle the wagons and to intensify the attitudes and actions that got the group in trouble in the first place. Look for the BushMen to appoint more unqualified cronies to important positions, to kiss up even more embarrassingly to the far-right religious faction, to try to cut all services to the elderly and poor, to not only defend the war in Iraq but to bomb more cities and kill more American soldiers, and to threaten to attack more countries in the Middle East, even though the US has no means to implement another war. To retrench would show weakness. The Bush administration is now the weakest of any administration in the last fifty years and it would rather destroy itself than show weakness. Which, of course, is the worst show of weakness. Do last-ditch frenzied attempts to regain lost power ever work? No. They inevitably lead to implosion and total collapse.

Official A

We know that Patrick Fitzgerald’s “Official A” is Karl Rove. But Joe Cannon over at Cannonfire says it stands for Official Asshole. Thanks, Joe. May it stick like superglue: Karl Rove, Official Asshole. Next week marks the anniversary of a date that surely will live in disgrace, if not infamy--November 2nd, 2004. Was there ever a bunch of criminals as high on themselves as the Bush administration when they bragged of having a mandate one year ago? And since the Official Asshole is the location of Bush’s brain, we can only conclude that it was OA who put these now-notorious words in GWB’s mouth: “Let me put it to you this way: I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it. It is my style.” Twelve months later and the mandate that never was has slipped from the collective GOP memory. And not only has the President spent his political capital, the account is in the red. One year later. Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff Scooter Libby has been charged with committing five crimes and has resigned. The OA may be indicted in a future investigation. The illegal acts pf the President and Vice President may also be under Fitzgerald’s microscope. Chaos reigns in the White House. And the only thing reminiscent of the fascist takeover last November is Bush’s style, which hangs in the air like sewer gas. Go for a ride on your mountain bike, George. Better yet, have a drink. It’s only going to get worse.

2011 Dead; White House Dead Wrong

Last night I watched a rerun of “CNN Presents: Dead Wrong”, which originally aired on August 21, 2005. And there they all were, the a priori White House cast of characters lying their heads off to justify a preemptive strike in Iraq: Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Dick Cheney. As of October 27th 2,011 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq because Powell, Rice and Cheney lied. And their lies worked. Questions were not asked, investigations were not mounted, and demands for corroboration were not made. To our eternal discredit, Congress blindly voted in favor of authorizing President Bush to attack Iraq if Saddam Hussein refused to give up his WMD’s. Even though Congress never passed a formal declaration of war, the US attacked Iraq on March 19, 2003 because a group of insane warmongering neocons decided in 1997 to institute a plan of US global aggression. It was a perfect program to watch on the night Scooter Libby had been indicted. Dick Cheney’s chief of staff Scooter Libby, Project for the New American Century signer Scooter Libby, White House Iraq Group member Scooter Libby. This promoter of the US as a global aggressor, Scooter Libby, was charged with five crimes by Patrick Fitzgerald’s grand jury. Eventually, we will find out if Fitzgerald will indict Karl Rove and whether a broadened investigation into malfeasance in the White House will lead to Vice President Richard Cheney’s downfall and the total destruction of the Bush administration. But until that day, the tag line on the New York Times editorial this morning (The Case Against Scooter Libby) is the point we must never forget: “,,,as absorbing as this criminal investigation has been, the big point Americans need to keep in mind is this: There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.”