ritz fitz

Fitz, come home to mama!!

gimme an F
gimme an I
gimme a T
gimme a Z

Fitz-o-licious!

I think that the reason Woodward is talking resignation is because Josh Bolton told everyone if they were thinking of leaving, they should. Bob just seems to forget which government agency he is working for.

All roads lead to 911–follow the money!

Kazuza *G*

Cindy writes for the NY Post, so any other paper is, definitionally, “liberal.”

One thing though – She has been around for ever and she actually has a lot of very high level sources among the business and political elite regardless of party in NYC at a minimum, and DC really isn’t that far away.

I wouldn’t simply dismiss what she writes as the nutty jabberings of a gossip columnist. They might be, but then again…..

I wish I had an ipod :(

FWIW –
On first read, I thought that was an allusion to Woodward scooping W’s ‘R’…
—-
oh yeah, I’ll take the metallic grey iPod, plz. Free engraving?
“FitzMate!”

Wow, that NY Post could teach Hamsher and Smith a thing or too, no? I’m like, so edified!

Of course, that Wash Post – no, never mind, just too goddamned depressing. At least some people were willing to face Terri Schiavo’s persistent vegetative state.

Hey Jane — Stephen Parrish reminded me offline to check out Wayne Madsen’s Report in re: Rove. Went there, caught up on the last week’s post, noticed in particular a bit on Hadley in re: outing of NOC’s (plural), including Mike Spann. Guess whose name pops up in that post?

Yup, our friendly used Kleenex, Woodie.

AARG ; ) EPU’d

scarecrow,

“The FEMA story and the Senate vote on war funding may shake up a few pundits in DC tomorrow. The imagery is pwerful: an incompetent government at its most basic responsibilities – security — with all the wrong priorities — the wheels are coming off, and there is panic in the air.â€

You’ve got that right. From Joe Scarborough to Ole’ 60 Grit. You can see it in their eyes, FEAR! And I’m not talking about losing the House and Senate in the mid terms. I’m talking about NOW, with the executive office. They “get it†finally I think, that Bush is incompetent. THAT, is a bipartisan problem IMO.

What Blank Kludge said. I, too, thought it was a reference to W and the R word. Alas.

When Bernstein’s recent piece came out, I remember hearing that he thought Woodward was a tool, even during watergate. There’s only so long you can keep a tool sharp and this one is way past that time.

Was that a gossip column? It made no sense to me, neither.

I guess now we know who suggested Ben Domenech as a WaPo blogger.

So is the NY Post just upset that they didn’t get insider information also?

Sounds a bit, “me too!”-ish if you ask me.

What does fitz mean?

I think our CEO President is fast approaching his Ken Lay Enron moment…..when the business is in full collapse and he’s telling people everything is fine.

How many more things can come unravelled at this point?

The two bick ticking bombs are Iran and Iraq. They can throw the whole world into a tailspin.

-GSD

Ipods listed for sale, that’s just the class act. I can’t help but wonder if one of the snarky types around here posted that one and sat back grinning…

Why are we still surprised or at least scratching our collective heads about the direction of the Post? It’s bloody clear by now that the WaPost is committed to the conservative GOP path. Maybe it’s economics and deciding to follow Fox into the rich wonderland of meaningless corporate image ads, maybe it’s political true-belief by management and owners; but whatever, the Post is by-God committed and that’s the way it is. We probably need to get over it and continue to re-invent the way news and opinion and cutting-edge investigation is done in the twenty-first century.

Oops, the kid is hungry and I think something is burning in the oven. How do you-all find the time for this?

Other media things today that really irked me -
Tony Snowjob. Maybe I’m overreacting, but hiring a blatant Fox Ho as your WH press secretary? Why don’t they just come out and call Spin rather than explaining the decider’s deciding decisions? Talk about blurring the freakin’ lines. Is there any pretense of providing real information anymore? And what’s up with the constant “decider” meme?

Did I hear Brian Williams claim that the film United 93 reminds us why we’re at war right now? WTF?

Cindy Adams has contacts in the CIA? Further down in the linked piece, she writes:

Murblings and burblings will soon come out of the CIA. Mad as hell, they’re not going to take this anymore. Whenever something goes kerflooey warwise, globalwise or governmentwise, it’s always “There’s a gap in the CIA intelligence.” Insiders are telling outsiders there ain’t been no gap in their intelligence

(I bought a Mac laptop from a guy who threw in his ipod in the deal. It’s a totally early one and weighs about fifty pounds, 10 gb. Some Chinese billionaire overlord collector is gonna buy it from me for a million dollars on ebay. Then I’ll be able to pay the mortage and buy food for a month.

Charles Whitely
Are you serious? You don’t know? It’s like yelling “fore!” in golf. It’s a ceremonial start to a new topic. Refers to Patrick Fitgerald. Also a play on the word “first.”

Boy that Kornblut article is just so pig sloppy it’s hard to know where to begin. You look for any actual news but it’s all just so wrong you wonder if she’d recognize any if she fell into it face-first.

Thanks for the link to the WaPo
blog. It’s funny.
a sample:
****
Hello? Is this blog dead? You should remove the link off the homepage if you’re not going to update in at least once a week.
Here’s a suggestion for things you could write about: how about responding to all of the people who have taken time to write their concerns and questions here?
I don’t know, dead blog, ignoring your comments. I think it’s begining to smell in here.
Posted by: Beth | April 19, 2006 05:23 PM
****
I’ve made up my mind, I’m running for the vacated positions of Executive Editor, Ombudsman, moderator, and janitor of post.blog. I’ll play the devil’s advocate. I’ll be the government shill. I’ll drop in every now and then to see how things are going.
With the pace of this blog nowadays, I think that 10 votes would put me over the top. The same number would remove me from office and have my name replaced in all official records with the phrase, “that filthy criminal”.
Let the voting begin.
Oh, yeah…did I mention the tax cuts?
Posted by: smafdy | April 26, 2006 10:11 PM
***
Pore wittle bwog.
Posted by: AJ | April 22, 2006 09:09 PM

Sharkbabe -

$10 million USD? Sounds like you’re made. Gas is covered for the rest of the month!

cleter – #23

Next time you golf or hit the driving range, you should do that. Instead of yelling “fore!” just yell “Fitz!” It’s the “Marco – Polo” to find liberal bloggers.

Apple recently claimed that bloggers aren’t journalists, so it’s appropriate that was posted on the WashPo blog. :)

And, oh yeah, Apple is definitely evil.

Jane -

Did you get my latest e-mail?

EDIT: I like the “You can only post a comment every 15 seconds. Slow down, cowboy” error page. Nice touch.

mommybrain says:
“When Bernstein’s recent piece came out, I remember hearing that he thought Woodward was a tool, even during watergate.”
———–
Woodward is ex-naval intel (how’s he land WaPo?)
Bernstein burned leather covering the cops, iirc. (IOW, a ‘real’ reporter.

If you watch ‘ATPM’ you might notice that Bernstein is watching as W is typing THE FIRST REPORT. Bernstein ‘corrects’ W’s lede. Says, “You’re burying the key point.” Or words to that effect. It’s possible that Berstein’s journalistic instincts truly ‘broke’ the story. Purely by chance.

EPU’d…

Ohhhh….shit, shit, shit…

First word of a massive U.S. outbreak of bird flu has just hit — In Florida. Jeb Bush just announced a statewide quarantine to deal with it. Avian carcasses are littering the state. Oregon is next, followed by DC.

http://www.bgladd.com/Bird_flu_Florida.jpg

We are fucked.

meta #20– Brian Williams needs to stay home in New Canaan and sleep it off… then he needs a triple chocolatta espresso with an extra shot and then a face dunk in ice-cold water followed by a brrrrrrr shake off and maybe i will listen– get real or get out, bri- bri.

masculine_monica_nyc @ 21 -

Pissing off the people in the CIA who are 5 years or less from retirement is a REALLY REALLY bad idea.

These are people who specialize in bringing down governments. Its changed a bit from the 70’s, but the hands know it can be done. And pretty easily.

Woodward is CIA… or ona them spy plants in the media…

Interesting. On the Gainesville (FL) local news, there was a story about people pawning stuff to buy gas. They talked to a couple of the people, wwho same pretty unhappy. And they didn’t seem like, you know, progressives. Thay had a kind of GW base look about them. Also, Jeb (Jeb!) was poo-pooing the idea of gov’t invetigation of gas prices. Didn’t think it would accomplish anything. Man,if Jeb is getting a little squishy, W is in a world o’ hurt.

Woodward’s title at the WaPo is assistant managing editor. Short leash? Maybe they are going to have him start doing his job, assisting with the management of the newspaper. That would be under the thumb of the managing editor, and would involve getting news into the paper on a daily basis. As in not holding out on the paper when he has a scoop on a story of national signifigance because he wants to save it for his next book, as well as of course keep his position on the cocktail weenie circuit. How about it, Bob?

Matt O. this is especially for you.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/ind…..ofiteering
http://www.sourcewatch.org/ind…..nt%2C_Inc.
===BearingPoint (http://www.bearingpoint.com/portal/site/bearingpoint) was formerly KMPG Consulting Inc., the consulting division of the huge accounting firm KPMG LLP that was brought down in the Enron/Arthur Anderson scandal of 2002. On February, 8, 2001, the consulting branch was officially seperated from its parent due to a public offering on the company. When the Enron scandal broke, they changed their name to BearingPoint and subsquently acquired the operations left behind by the deteriorating Arthur Anderson….
* In July of 2003, BearingPoint was awarded a contract by USAID worth $79.5 million to facilitate Iraq’s economic recovery with a two-year option worth a total of $240,162,688.[2] (http://www.publicintegrity.org/wow/bio.aspx?act=pro&ddlC=5)3 (http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/contract/2004/0327sweetdeal.htm) Responsibilities in this contract include:

1. Creating Iraq’s budget
2. Writing business law
3. Setting up tax collection
4. Laying out trade and customs rules
5. Privatize state-owned enterprises by auctioning them off or issuing Iraqis shares in the enterprises.
6. Reopen banks and jump-start the private sector by making small loans of $100 to $10,000.
7. Wean Iraqis from the U.N. oil-for-food program, the main source of food for 60% of the population.
8. Issue a new currency and set exchange rates.[4]====

offtopic, but Fox News has just posted a bizarre article praising Neil Young’s new album, printing the lyrics to “Let’s Impeach the President” for the first time on the web, and promising more tomorrow “about this extraordinary and eye-opening recording”.

It’s like the day Gellman and Linzer published that great article in WaPo on the same day as their infamous “A Good Leak” editorial.

LINK

I did, Matt. Now that I’m Late Nited for the evening I’ll get a chance to read it, I’m really excited about the whole war profiteering column.

Did you see Robert Greenwald’s comment at the end of the thread last night? Pretty cool.

meta 20 – why keep up any pretense. I’m surprised they didn’t hire fucking Rush.

United 93 is gonna be more 9/11-porn-Bush-terra-war promoting bullshit. Fuck this HORSESHIT.

EVERY SINGLE 9/11 death is on Bush and Dickhead’s hands, every single one. God help this infantilized propagandized reptile-brain dying country.

obsessed -

Someone had to hack FOX News.com…

Jane -

I did! The pressure’s on. Hopefully I won’t disappiont.

BobbyG, you are a bad, bad person. I’m in Florida. That’s not funny. Well, maybe a little funny. You are a bad person.

cleter -

LOL! just that you can still post is a sign that all is not yet lost.

Cleter-

I don’t have an iPod like the cool kids either.

Let’s be friends.

BoobyG-That wasn’t funny! I’m in Florida….
my heart dropped 3 inches and I dropped my wireless mouse on the floor and the batteries came out.

BobbyG
No Ipod for you!

Personally, I’m with Steve Gilliard on this one. Bush is broken man. He won’t make it through his full second-term. I’ll be surprised if he makes it through the rest of this year without passing out drunk in front of a live audience. He’ll resign.

sharkbabe — couldn’t agree more. I’m tired of all the wingnuts thinking they own 9/11 or something. I was gonna do a post about it tonight but told John Amato I’d wait until tomorrow. The studio only advertised the movie on right-wing sites because, you know, wingnuts are the only ones who care.

Oh well, I got a good one to go with my post ;)

cleter 35 –

I’ve read stories of people pawning their wedding rings to buy gasoline — times are tough for the paycheck to paycheck Americans.

T Rex
Ok.

BobbyG – don’t do that. You know I believe it and go all paniced and stuff. :-)

Some Ohio news…

A Democratic candidate running in a congressional primary sends out a mailer asking voters to support him over his opponent who “has been ENDORSED by the STONEWALL DEMOCRATS, who are a GAY/LESBIAN political action committee”.

The blogs responded. People called his endorsers. The UAW pulled their endorsement of the guy.

Sometimes I just love the “internets”.

cleter -

There is still time to escape, go NW to LA (lower Alabama), there’s no government there. You will be safe for now.

neurophius 36

That’s always seemed shaky to me. Funny, that job should be Bernstein’s. He’d actually be doing it; and well. As in a real, professional journalistic product.

sharkbabe

abso-fuckin’-lutely. Do they still say ‘word’? Well, even if they don’t ‘edifying’ should do. Inside job or whatever, the truth has not been told.

Perfect prescription, angie. I never watch him but was surfing for news about Rove and there he was saying this absurd stuff. Punk.

When I was walking to work today I started thinking that with all this negative stuff in our world, it will be important to visualize or imagine what it would be like to have W gone in 1,000 days or sooner. You know, like Lennon suggests. Imagine a President who can speak English. Imagine a President who has an idea in his head; a brain, too. Imagine a President who cares about something other than power and money and frat boy chatter. A Vice President who stands for something other than greed and duck hunting. Imagine a real person with a sense of humanity and leadership. Imagine a President who would inspire public service in the American Public Wow.

Matt O.- check up thread – my comment was moderated and just appeared.

cranky -

No matter how bad it gets, I could not see the man who defies all facts actually resigning because of them. Bush and his lackies are addicted to power, to the point of fixing elections and disenfranchising voters. I doubt he would resign. He’s a defiant guy.

I think a standoff at the White House as if it were a scene from Brian De Palma’s Scarface is more likely than resignation. He’d have to be forcefully removed rather than quietly leave on his own.

Thanks V.G.!

BobbyG
What, go to Dothan? Mobile? No thanks. I worked for an entire summer on a dig in Lower Alabama. That was plenty for me.

Sharkbabe– you are so right about United 93– I was very near NYC on 9/11/2001 and waited til 2am for survivors in my hospital, none came. One guy had chest pain on the train home mid morning. He survived, thank goodness. Red Cross was unavailable then, they are as corrupt as ever now and so is FEMA and now we have no recourse to save our people. This movie is meant to make money and raise ire. I will not see it.

We need to change the circumstances and the slogan. IMPEACH.

van der hei’s got new Ruskin/Rove spin up at Wapo.

BobbyG — you are not a bad person, but you probably started another “War of the Worlds” panic and could be locked up, rendered, tortured, and help forever, with no habeas corpus. I just went outside to check my flamingo, and its fine.

Jane — there are signs of “conservatives” bailing all over. Why not the WaPa too? It’s just prudent “repositioning” in case it all comes crashing down very quickly, as now seems possible.

Jane -

In regards to the 9/11 movie, I think the studio should donate at least some proceeds (though all would be best) to the 9/11 families. Their tragic loss is the production studio’s financial gain.

Laura can take over for Bush. The Republican party is already asking her, rather than him, speak at their funkytions. One show tonite said she is polling at 80% favorable…

Turthout.org says Rove got a target letter. How reliable is that website?

Imagine President Feingold. Imagine W’s White House staffers, with tears staining their piggy little faces, vindictively yanking the F keys off of their keyboards.

“Did I hear Brian Williams claim that the film United 93 reminds us why we’re at war right now? WTF?”

Brian Williams is a friend of Rush Limbaugh.

By the way, folks, we better get ready for more ugliness.

The Ramesh P. book; “Party of Death” is hitting the stands.

Ann Coulter is releasing her “Godless” book on 6/6/06—no kidding, like it is a 1960’s William Castle horror movie with a gimmick.

Michael Savage is calling for the death of “100 million Muslims”.

I have heard more than one winger calling for “executions” for treason for the press “leakers”.

They are ramping up here folks and it is bad.

The “Hutu Power” on the right is beginning to coalesce.

-GSD

and on topic: I also found this story, and the timing of it, to be absolutely bizarre. The WaPo has been going out of its way to become an over-the-top right wing shill rag and now suddently, out of the blue, THIS??the

I will be very surprised if this isn’t a the pre-emptive move to soften the impact of something that’s about to come out vis a vis the Fitzgerald investigation.

And from a right & wrong standpoint, I respectfully disagree on Woodward. I think his unforgivable crime of sitting on the Plame scandal until after the election is the worst thing that he or any other journalist or newspaper has ever done … period. It dwarfs the combined dubious efforts of Hiatt, Steno Sue, Deborah Howell et al. The only mitigating factor, which in no way saves Woodward from eternal damnation in my view, is that the NYT & Time are guilty of the same act of journalistic high treason.

is it this guy matt o who is doing something on federal spending, and waste?
Ghostman

WTF!?

“5. Privatize state-owned enterprises by auctioning them off or issuing Iraqis shares in the enterprises.”
—–
I don’t think that J. Heller had the reality imitating art in mind when he created Milo Minderbender in ‘Catch-22′.
———–
‘Holy-Crap!’

oh scarecrow, that is sooooo funny! I’ll bet the condo-commandos would die if someone put them all over the lawn while they were sleeping..I can just see them all waking up with all them damn birds….

Ghostman #70

Yes.

With a name like truthout it would be silly to make things up.

scarecrow -

LOL!

I don’t make the news, I just report it. The pink flamingos in my Mom’s yard in Palm Bay are on their asses, dying, flopping all over the place horribly. The gurgling, choking death throe sights and sounds are unbearable.

Oh and re bird flu – I went and saw V for Vendetta yet AGAIN tonight (4th time), my achingly pretty friend loved it in that sit-through-the-entire-credits-can’t-talk-for-awhile way. Then we had a great gab & nosh in a cheap italian place. What eyes, what a smile. I’m still high.

At this point the American neofascisti can pick and choose at leisure – binladen, disease – no end to fear stimuli. But humans are still out there, living life, enjoying other humans and saying fuck you by their existence.

an ancient Oklahoma proverb says:

If you can’t dazzle them with your brilliance, baffle them with your bullshit

the WaPo kinda makes sense thru that filter

cleter says:
April 26th, 2006 at 8:35 pm

T Rex
Ok.

Yay.

Angie: #61- How can you say that about the Red Cross. They got there a day early, remember?

Bobby G – you bad boy – that was funnier n hell.

the latest cool twist:
the I-Pawned

as in “I pawned this to buy gas”.

it’s all the rage.

73: well, if interested, you might want to peruse a book by melissa rossi, “what every american should know about who’s really running the world”. Among many things, you’ll find stuff on haliburton, iraq, and lots more goodies.
Ghostman

Thanks Ghostman.

Bobby G~ that was sooo funny! I can’t wait to print it up and post it in my office…Can I use your text?

If I was writing a book on the same story line as 911, I think I would place the president at a book reading with his security advisor in Katherine Harris’s district in Florida on the morning of the event.

cranky @ 48 -

ITS MORNING IN AMERICA!

Problem is, after a night of coke, whiskey and flirting with fascism, the Republicans are waking up with a throb and the somewhat blurry vision of George’s head on the pillow next to them.

Closing their eyes slowly (so the sound doesn’t wake the slumbering dauphin) they are silently constructing the alibi for their electoral wifey-poos.

“He didn’t mean a thing to me. And I was drunk.”

ALEXANDRIA, Virginia (CNN) — Prosecutors asked a judge to rethink granting 9/11 families suing airlines access to evidence gathered for the criminal case against al Qaeda terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui.

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema’s April 7 order requires prosecutors to provide copies of all unclassified aviation security documents to attorneys representing September 11 families in a civil lawsuit pending in New York.

Prosecutors called the order “unprecedented” and urged Brinkema to withdraw it. The motion was filed by Chuck Rosenberg, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Brinkema’s order would allow the families’ attorneys access to “highly sensitive” law enforcement documents and could compromise the continuing investigation into the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The inquiry is “the largest criminal investigation in our nation’s history, which is still ongoing,” the motion says…

—-

“Ahhh.h.h… I love the smell of civil action contingency fee money in the morning. Feels like Victory.”

Sorry. Nothin’ personal. This is business.

Yeah, cynical.

Catching up old topics b4 my battery runs out.

Lisa below – eventually we woul know, but not necessarily very soon. At some point, the plea deal cut goes to a judge. There is the chance of a plea being seale, but eventually word will out. IMO, not for awhile though.

Parsing: I have to say this again. The Whitehouse is under fire and it needs any blatant good news it can get. So if Rove has not ever received notice of being a target – at this point you preach it. You don’t say “in connection with this appearance yada yada. The significance of the target letter or notification vis a vis today is that if Rove was testifying and is a target, he needs some notice to be able to take the fifth if and as needed. If a plea deal or a limite testimony deal were cut prior to the testimony – everyone “could” be telling the truth. Rove “could” have receive a target letter, he could have discussed either a plea or limiting testimony with the Prosecutor, and gone into today knowing that, in connection with this appearance, he is not a target.

No way does Luskin say it that way if it is plain and simple that Rove is not and never has been, a target. IMstronglyheldO

GSD, you said something a long while back about Ashcroft and I have to disagreee. I think that the original DOJ investigator (was that Dion?) and the FBI guys probably get the initial kudos. Comey did probably help with arranging the recusal, but I have to wonder how Ashcroft’s knowledge of, and perhaps even BLUNT statements made to him about, the Abramoff investigation may have factored in. I put someting up a bit ago, but one of the released Abramoff emails is very bad for Ashcroft and his COS, David Ayres. Conyers and Dems on the House Judiciary are trying to get a special prosecutor appointed on that matter.

Frederick Black (acting USA for Guam and CNMI) and another DOJ lawyer authored a classified report that determined immigration issues should be taken back from regional CNMI control bc of national security issues. Abramoff was lobbying for CNMI, who did not want to give up immigration control, as they have what is basically a slave labor textiles arrangement with immigrants and can still label as “made in the USA”

So Abramoff has Ashcroft’s COS, Davi Ayres, out to his skybox and Ayres leaks to Ashcroft that the classified report is going to be bad for CNMI. Abramoff sends off emails to client, explaining this, and that there will be basketball games with Aschroft later, and he thinks he can get Aschcroft to take care of it at his level, and that they don’t have to worry about Ashcroft, just his “underlings” and there is other scuttlebutt that Abramoff was actually given the classified report itself.

More importantly – Congress is NOT given the report, ever,perio. Then Black begins investigating Abramoff and the Guam Superior court and is kicked out of his acting USAtty slot, demoted from where he had been before he took that slot, and prohibited from doing any corruption investigations (in a sequence of actions that reputely tie back to Karl Rove)

So I just have to wonder how altruistic were the motives behind Ashcroft’s recusal and how much Dion(? the initial espionage DOJ guy) and the FBI and knoweldge of other matters helped make up Ashcroft’s mind for him.

Despite all the other Abramoff matters, except for the Conyers inquiry, the emails about Ashcroft sure don’t get much press.

Final note – imo, we won’t know for awhile what is going on, if Rove has made ANY kind of deal at all and maybe even if he hasn’t. What we don’t know for sure about Rove, there is a good chance Libby’s lawyers don’t know for sure either (and Hadley’s, Cheney’s or anyone else’s) and if I were the Prosecutor, I’d be happy with things just like that. For now at least.

Okay, since this is late nite I’ll be the conspiracy theorist. The info about Flight 93 available from various “conspiracy threads” make for some reading. Frankly, I think there is something totally bogus about the “official version” and what finally got to me was that reported communications via cell phones from the flight. My cell phone hardly works in my brick building (and it’s on the ground). Usually have to go outside. Doubtful that cell phone conversations could have take place as reported from Flight 93 (being way up there in the air was a much bigger tech challenge than brick buildings are) and there is data about this.

Now that’s funny.

Also, $10 the movie tanks.

Leslie -

Have at it.

:)

“The pink flamingos in my Mom’s yard in Palm Bay are on their asses, dying, flopping all over the place horribly. The gurgling, choking death throe sights and sounds are unbearable.”

OMG, thanks for the warning. I just unbolted my two plastic pink flamingos from my front yard and put them in my garage out of harms way till this blows over.

did anyone mention how truly bizarre W was at the Snow announcement … his body language was very angular strange and his usual folksy delivery of the “you shoulda heard what I said about the other guy” line was so off … made me look up at my tv to see if he was robotic W or something.

ccmask– yeah, I remember.

I was a manager at a hospital and the ER waiting room quickly, by 10 am, was full of citizens begging to give blood. My COO asked me to talk to the Red Cross and they said– NO CAN DO– over and over and over again. I told them we would take the donations, the spokesperson said: tell all the people we will orgainize a drive next MONTH. blergh. They knew what was going on and never said…

Sharkbabe- is this the previous new friend, or a new new friend? Haven’t been wanting to ask before, cuz I didn’t see a follow up to the audacious email adventure..

Coz – you mentioned Scarborough going after fema, etc – Scarborough was one of the best (I am not kidding) during Katrina – he was livid and his broadcasts slammed W and DC every night. He and his wife organized relief work with their church (which I gather is one of those mondo crystal cathedral type places) and drove supplies into families, etc. I can’t stand his politics but he was stellar throughout that stretch.

89-the cell phone thing puzzled me also…but it may have been bad reporting by the officials? perhaps the passengers were using those air-phones on the back of the seat.
And, there are several reports of a piece of wreckage found 20 miles away…never figured that one out either.
As an overview, and I said this the other night…the gov’t is it’s own worst enemy. It would be better to release most everything in its files and be done with it.
Ghostman

Laugh mission accomplished. Love y’all. Gonna go crash.

‘Net neutrality. Vital. Cannot be understated.

I think BobbhG meant cannot be overstated.

BobbyG

Bobby G. That was GREAT. I copied it and sent it to all of my Florida relatives, before I read the posts telling you how much you had scared everyone, so now I’ll probably be in trouble, too.

OT, but I saw a great sign in the back of a car today, three inch high letters saying: IMPEACH and SHACKLE (Maryland license plate here in NM)

Ghostman- and, apparently there were a lot of investigative issues that weren’t addressed by the 9-11 commission. Agreed on your larger point.

neurophius -

Oops. Too much Shiraz…hic.

I’ve had a crazy day. I gotta go hit the pillow. Really.

This addictive place…

siun@93~
I didn’t actually see the whole thing, but Jon Stewart did a thing tonight on the announcement, and it was hysterical. I think it was the body language along with the verbal garbage that were targeted.

102….yep, much not looked into. Notice how everything on “Able Danger” suddenly went quiet? Nary a peep lately.
Ghostman

Suin: Funny you should mention W. I couldn’t take my eyes off him–he was really strange big time.

Well, Fitz among yourselves….I’ve got a long day tomorrow. Night.

Hugs Bobby G. I used to have a string of Flamingo lights but I gave them to friends in Florida. Similar can probably still found on the internet for purchase.

Mary,

Are not Ashcrofts recusals from Abramoff and Plame/Wilson separate?

I was just making a hunch of a guess. My friend who covered the JD said that Ashcroft was as from all of his dealings a pretty honorable guy. Second hand character assessments are suspect, I know.

My feelings were that he may have actually “gotten Jesus” and realized that he was working for the anti-Christ and decided to get out of Gomorrah before it got too hot.

Then again, maybe he was covering his ass.

-GSD

A goodnight shameless plug for my glorious friends:

http://santafeandthefatcityhorns.blogspot.com/

It does not get any better the these dudes.

If you’re ever in my town.

siun,

Scarborough is going after BUSH! I kid you not.

He has a “four point plan”. The transcript won’t be up till tomorrow but this is the jist of it…

1) Bush needs to fire his entire team.

2) Needs to appoint a credible Democrat to his new team.

3) Needs to get, or tell us the Iraq “end game”, “stay the course” isn’t cutting it.

I forget the other, the fourth ; ) LOL

Siun 93
Leslie 104

Did you notice that strange smirk on Bush’s face while Smowjob was speaking at the lectern and Bush was standing to his right? He smirks often, but this one had a peculiar childlike quality about it. I think he’s tickled to death at the coup he pulled by hiring Smowjob. Maybe he thinks it will save his sorry ass. Or maybe Faux News promised to buy him a pony.

Funny that Mr. Snow—the guy who was going to be “open” and “communicative” with the media….was quickly shuffled out of the room with nary a question taken.

They even lie about lying now.

-GSD

P.S. Chimpy must be stoked on some serious meds. Phizer and Merck must have annexes in the Lincoln Bedroom by now.

Snowjob

About Bush intro Snow;

I ‘heard’ it (TV not in view) GWB voice seemed…distant, hollow, disinterested; dare I say it “resigned”. And his little ‘you should heard what I said about the other guy’ was anything but smooth. Seemed like he was running in background in his brain. Halting. Had to search for it.

FWIW

I wonder who writes Bush’s funny little lines for occasions like that? Maybe that’s who he should really consider replacing.

Cozumel and siun ~
I watched Scarborough the other night for the first time since maybe, Katrina. I was shocked to hear him long and loudly criticize W. (mostly re:Iraq). I stayed tuned until he switched to another topic, where he sounded like the old Scarborough and I had to say “f*** you” and turn to the White Sox game. A far better choice.

Leslie – ah, so glad it was not just my jaundiced eye seeing the W performance as unusually strange … every once in a while, I see him as completely off … not just the usual dry drunk but really out there and today was definitely one of those

neurophius – yeah – though I thought he had a weirdly “effeminate” look or something – can’t pin it down but I suddenly thought … hmmm, Gannon’s bottom?

now I have to see if I can find a pic online that matches that …

On 911 I flipped between the American and Canadian stations.

One thing I always found curious, given the typical Canadian carefulness to report the known knowns and not the WAG type of reporting, were the reports on CBC before the Pentagon hit and just after.

They reported that 4 planes, IIRC, were still in the air and unreponsive. This went on for a while, without similar reports form the Americans, and then suddenly they just stopped talking about them.

They were actually counting down their location before they would hit DC. This was quite separate and apart from the known flights.

Don’t know what that was about.

Political analyst Ken Ruden on NPR’s Talk of the Nation today (hi Siun, listening to NPR so you don’t have to :~) … re W’s lacking-in-crediblity veto threat of the the latest Pork-a-palooza bill – he likened W to a three year old sitting in the corner, throwing a tantrum, saying he won’t eat.

Respect the presidency, deride the incumbent.

siun

I did not think he looked like much of a Decider.

siun

I did not think he looked like much of a Decider.

neurophius~ He looked like the kid who had just stuck a firecracker up the backside of a frog and then got some other kid in trouble for it. That man is pure evil.

There it is again! Two identical comments! Let’s see if one goes away this time…

deride the deciderer

VG – same excruciating person. I’m the dog chasing the car who catches the car, omg what now? The car likes me ok & at very least wants to linger gab etc! shaddup own mind and enjoy every shred of what there is to enjoy, that’s it.

Coz – yeah, I can’t figure out Scarborough. My daughter and I watched msnbc pretty constantly during Katrina and Scarborough went completely vicious on W and crew. I thought it might be a true believer before our eyes becoming totally disillusioned. What impressed me was that his complete allegiance was with the poor throughout – when all the racist looting tales etc were circulating, Scarborough was not buying it. And he actually got stuff done.

Interesting he’s now taking off at W – interesting guy and at times I think he taps that old time conservative line that has some integrity even though I disagree completely.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,193259,00.html
===Neil Young: Exclusive ‘Impeach the President’ Lyrics
Neil Young’s new album, Living with War, is an incendiary, moving, totally American document of peaceful protest that is going to make a lot of people crazy one way or another…
Let’s impeach the president for lying
And leading our country into war
Abusing all the power that we gave him
And shipping all our money out the door
He’s the man who hired all the criminals
The White House shadows who hide behind closed doors
And bend the facts to fit with their new stories
Of why we have to send our men to war
Let’s impeach the president for spying
On citizens inside their own homes
Breaking every law in the country
By tapping our computers and telephones
What if Al Qaeda blew up the levees
Would New Orleans have been safer that way
Sheltered by our government’s protection
Or was someone just not home that day?
Let’s impeach the president
For hijacking our religion and using it to get elected
Dividing our country into colors
And still leaving black people neglected
Thank god he’s racking down on steroids
Since he sold his old baseball team
There’s lot of people looking at big trouble
But of course the president is clean
Thank God===

neurophius ~ i saw the double post.

neurophius — nah only if I catch ‘em right after they’re made, if it will mess up the numbering and they’re short I usually leave ‘em.

The NSA I can’t speak for.

Blank Kludge says:
April 26th, 2006 at 9:12 pm

I thought, he’s still trying very hard to play Clint Eastwood. heh. Make my day.

I think this sums it all up perfectly:

[Harry is getting a dressing-down for his most recent arrest]
District Attorney Rothko: You’re lucky I’m not indicting you for assault with intent to commit murder.
Harry Callahan: What?
District Attorney Rothko: Where the hell does it say that you’ve got a right to kick down doors, torture suspects, deny medical attention and legal counsel? Where have you been? Does Escobedo ring a bell? Miranda? I mean, you must have heard of the Fourth Amendment. What I’m saying is that man had rights.
Harry Callahan: Well, I’m all broken up over that man’s rights!
>>>>>>
see??? baby bush, leader of the free world, is talkin’ tall. sheeit.

Bush is so finished – god are we Realities gonna bury this bizarre unreal pathetic asshole

g’night all you great, great people

the lads at the puzzle palace only monitor…never edit. chuckle.
Ghostman

More on the Neo-Con “Middle Eastern Sea of Tranquility” watch:

Bombs in Bahrain.

http://english.aljazeera.net/N…..25BC69.htm

Iranian Leader Khameini vows retaliation if attacked. Shorter Khameini-worldwide terror attacks on US interests.

http://english.aljazeera.net/N…..FE545B.htm

Heckuva job.

-GSD

Countdown just replayed the intro of Snow to the press corps. W looked like oatmeal. all grey and soggy.

Sharkbabe- hmmm… I remember a guy (friend who had the hots for me) telling me that when he got seriously interested in someone he started making dates with a whole lotta other women. Interesting perspective I thought… not into playing games myself, but nonetheless *interesting*. FWIW

punaise

can a president be impeached for getting a snowjob?

good night now
woof

oh, and on all the comments today about Luskin’s press release/statement about Rove testifying….I’m pretty sure, while reading one of Ms. Hamsher’s articles from today that prior statements from Luskin were quoted. And, as I recall, those prior Luskin statements were strikingly similar to today’s statement.
Ghostman

neurophius — yes. And if that is not an impeachable offense, we should amend the Constitution to make it so. Anything will do, at this point.

Thought: re pawning stuff for gas

If this is happening now…what are those folks going to do when gas goes higher further after the Iraq attack or Katrina II? (god forbid)

Bad stuff happening. Particularly since these folks are not spending their money on “every thing else they could buy”. People spending less slows the economy.

Thanks for all the cool comments! Can’t wait for tomorrows posts! I have got to get some rest.

Night all!

A bourse is a bourse of course, of course.

Iranian oil bourse is set to open next week.

http://www.irna.ir/en/news/vie…..192849.htm

-GSD

GSD, I heard someone on Olbermann review the movie, and he said it was done in a documentary style. No frills. No narrator. Just trying to re-create what happened. I hope it will not ramp up the warbloggers’ blood lust. It doesn’t take much to do that, though.

It sounded very sad and shocking. He said the family members (some) had come to the premier and were crying at the end. And no one left until all the credits had rolled.

oatmeal grey pic of W with the famous Hands:

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmp…..121056.jpg

closest I could come to a pic of the weird W look today: http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmp…..bush_media

can’t find a pic of the look that really struck me

I hope someday we find out what the real deal with W is … drugs I’m sure since that press conference in spring 04 where he was visibly incoherent, drunk in argentina, now all these odd performances

like you knew Reagan was out of it when they’d show cabinet meeting shots but this is weirder

neuro 136

’sno job for any self-respecting flack

soooo. anything interesting and newsworthy happen today?

(rhetorical question – been away from computer)

siun

the first picture looks like gastointestinal distress.

I couldn’t get the second link to work.

I’m always concerned with blog-economics and ways to make them self-sustaining.

Sometimes simple things work–what if you had a membership level people could buy and in return there would be some simple marker on their posts here indicating they are a paying member. If people start seeing that in the posts, they’re gonna want one, too. It’s less egalitarian than they current postings, but I’d give up a little of that to support my favorite site. Of course, I don’t know how hard that is to do, on the tech side.
Best to all!

Re to 9/11 movie, whatever it’s merits as a film, I think it will have a different effect from what would have occurred two years ago. Before, it might have reenfored the Iraq war support. But that link has finally been broken for the majority; now the 9/11 reenactment will only raise questions about why OBL et al are still out there, still making threats, while we’re bogged down in the Iraq quagmire. The Administration cannot like this.

Amazing, wonderful community. Thanks to Jane and Christy. Night all.

per lemond54 above
Rove Testifies 5th Time On Leak

By Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 27, 2006; Page A0
Jeff has a very good analysis of VandeHei’s latest article over at tnh. I cut and pasted it here in its entirety:

“So I’m reading Vandehei’s article in tomorrow’s Post, and it is pretty straightforwardly (and honestly) Luskin’s version of what’s going on and what Rove testified to today. There’s a lot of interest, but overall Luskin has now pretty much persuaded me out of my earlier sense that Rove was getting off the hook. If this is the best that Rove’s got, I think he’s in deep trouble:
Rove’s testimony focused almost exclusively on his conversation about Plame with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper in 2003 and whether the top aide later tried to conceal it, the source said. Rove testified, in essence, that “it would have been a suicide mission” to “deliberately lie” about his conversation with Cooper because he knew beforehand that it eventually would be revealed, the source said.
This gets explained a little more explicitly later in the article:
Luskin told the prosecutor that Viveca Novak had informed him that she had heard from other Time reporters that Rove was Cooper’s source for a July 2003 story on Plame. Luskin shared this information with Rove — before Rove testified that he did not recall his conversation with Cooper.
Yesterday, Rove told the grand jury that it would make no sense for him to lie in February, knowing that all of this would soon be public, the source said.
Now, this is just about the lamest thing I have ever heard. Rove’s story, then, is that he heard from Luskin about TIME saying Rove was a source for them before he ever testified (which helps explain why there has been so much fuss about exactly when the VNovak-Luskin conversation took place), but didn’t mention it then because he truly couldn’t remember, and he couldn’t have been trying to hide anything because he knew contrary information would eventually come out. This story makes little sense in its own terms, it’s not believable in its own right, and for a specific reason I really doubt Fitzgerald will buy it.
It makes little sense on its own terms, because if Rove knew there were rumors – but rumors isn’t really the right word, since they were coming out of the very newsroom one of whose reporters Rove was said to have talked to – in February 2004, he almost certainly would have mentioned them in his testimony, no? Wouldn’t he have said something to the effect of, I’ve heard that people at TIME are saying I was a source for one of their reports, but I’ll be damned if I can remember anything like that? And it sure sounds like he made no mention of the rumors.
This story is not believable on its own terms in part for reasons Vandehei goes on to specify:
But the timing of that Luskin-Novak conversation is in dispute. Novak has said she testified that the conversation took place between January and May of 2004 — which could place it either before or after Rove’s initial grand jury testimony. Moreover, Rove did not know at that point that Cooper would later be forced to testify and reveal him as a source, according to lawyers who follow the case.
It may even be worse; Schuster is saying that Viveca Novak says the conversation took place in March, which would be really bad for Rove (though I’m skeptical of that report). In any case, this entire alibi from Rove leaves out a key element, one Fitzgerald recently showed us he attributed some importance to in the case of Libby: the fact that these guys first floated their stories to the FBI in the fall of 2003, perhaps never thinking it would go any further, and once it did, the die was cast, as Fitzgerald put it in relation to Libby, and they were compelled to tell a story to the grand jury that was at least largely consistent with what they had told the FBI. So on the assumption that Rove’s February 2004 testimony basically matched his fall 2003 FBI interview(s), I seriously doubt that Fitzgerald will be particularly impressed by this story, that Rove knew all about the Luskin-VNovak conversation by February 2004 and it had no impact on his testimony, thereby showing that he was testifying in good faith. The alternative explanation, which Fitzgerald has already suggested he buys with regard to Libby, is that the die was cast, and Rove was stuck with his bs story from his FBI interviews. This is bolstered by the fact that Rove appears not to have made any mention of his knowledge of the rumors about his involvement in February 2004, and by the fact that Rove did not have good reason to believe that Cooper would eventually be compelled to testify. Plus all the other evidence.
If this is really what Rove was up to today, I hereby retract my minimal hopes and expectations with regard to Rove’s fate.
Posted by: Jeff | April 27, 2006 at 00:24″

dog-drives-by:

iPods above; iPods below:

“In the last six years, Senator Conrad Burns’ campaign has taken $59k from TV/Music/Movie PACs, including $2k from the RIAA and Disney. He’s also the 4th-highest recipient of entertainment industry money in Congress. So we started wondering if Burns’ campaign has a new policy against accepting contributions from political action committees when they returned our iPod with this note: ‘Thank you, but we cannot accept this gift,’” Jake reports for iPac.

“Why not? IPac’s contribution is legal. It was submitted with all of the required paperwork,” Jake reports. “And it was paid for by ordinary Americans who care about balanced copyright and technology policy. We’re sending his campaign a letter to clarify their policy on accepting contributions from PACs, and we’ll let you know what they say. We hope their answer is that they’re swearing off *all* PAC contributions, including the tens of thousands of dollars that they take from the entertainment industry! It could also be that Senator Burns has sworn off all new technology. His campaign spokesperson had this to say to the Missoula Independent:
The iPod donation, says Klindt, “is the first time we have received something technological†as a donation, adding that “it’s just not a donation that we want†and confirming that while Burns does not presently own an iPod, “if he wants an iPod, he’ll buy one.â€

On April 11th, iPac shipped the first 12 iPods to Senatorial campaign committees as part of its “Your Senator Needs an iPod” campaign. The campaign is designed to bring attention to the growing issue of information policy (patents, copyrights, and trademarks). Key members of both political parties were given iPods for campaign activities illustrating how innovative digital devices can be used along with a rich array of cultural items provided by the public domain and initiatives like Creative Commmon.
————-
Not net neutrality, but same ballpark issue.

woofwoof

I pawed

148-speaking of OBL, I mentioned him in comments this past weekend…and look who popped up early this week. I read his speech….not good for us. He’s out there still…and now he says American civilians are as to blame as the gov’t. This is his way of saying to go ahead and strike. Not good at all.
Ghostman

GSD @ 108 -

I think you are right. True believers are sincerely concerned about their souls.

So, I said a few weeks back that God will call witnesses. Maybe the thing to add is that the defendent will choose the course of the judgement themselves. After that indictment how would they dare walk into heaven with the just accusers there?

neuro – try this link:

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmp…..bush_media

punaise — same ole, same ole:

Rove spent the afternoon with the GJ; he’s been there so often, he now has many frineds there.
The Senate diverted war funds to US border patrol, making both regions safer.
The Decider has a new liar, a faux person.
BobbyG flips out, kills his mom’s flamingos, causes panic.
It was Iran’s turn to threaten us; we get tomorrow and every other Saturday.

damn – when I search and copy the link, it works but not when I paste it in here – never mind, the pic is not the precise look I was trying to find a shot of anyhow

scarecrow 155 – thanks for the cogent summary. All par for the course, except perhaps for the flamingo thing. what’s next – rampaging garden gnomes?

siun – could you just draw us a picture? :~)

siun – OfT, but.. I would love to see you and your state-project Illinois go after Bobby Rush on the net neutrality issue!

Punaise — There are rovean bands of gnomes rampaging through congress as we speak.

I don’t think Bush can be impeached for a snowjob, but he may be buried by the avalanche of leaks and testimonies. Speaking of snow, I’ve just read most of the posts and comments from today, and what a blizzard (in the Dairy Queen sense) of analysis and links! punaise, is I-pawed British for i-pod ? :) I listened to marketplace on the way home this evening–some interview about the economy. Seems the rich are really hit hard by taxes, the middle-class ($50k and above to $200k) are getting great breaks, and everything is quite swell. Interviewee was from WSJ. It thought I was in another universe.

Wait, I just read the PoolBoy article in the Post: doesn’t attorney-client privilege work in only one direction? I thought that the attorney was the one who had to keep the secrets, and if the client waived it, the attorney could talk. But PoolBoy sez that Rover waived privilege to talk about the Luskin/VNovak conversations (which sounds to me more like hearsay than privilege, but IANAL). How could it matter that Rover waived attorney client privilege in order to discuss this conversation between two other people? Are there attorneys still awake? Teddy confused, or PoolBoy needs to engage brain after reading Luskin faxes.

Couple of questions about Rove’s job. Does he take personal leave for all these trips to the GJ? Also, who is doing the job he is being paid to do? Sorta related but not. Just askin.

For a multi-million dollar operation, that is just classy.

Hey, if you think that’s classy, this one

Have a nice day

Posted by: penis enlargement | April 18, 2006 05:51 PM

has been up for a week now. At the WaPo blog, “penis enlargement”, of course, is a link to a website that, I’m just going to assume, has something to do with making one’s genitals larger.

Jim Brady, Internet Genius strikes again.

BTW – when Bush said “you should have heard what he said about the other guy” –

which other guy?

dana 161 – iPawed is the canine version, for BlanK 151.

Just to reiterate the upshot of what John Casper pasted from elsewhere, having read Vandehei’s article in tomorrow’s Post, which basically channels Rove’s lawyer, if that’s the best that Rove’s got, I hereby retract my earlier endorsement of the pro-Rove spin that he is getting off the hook, and I now think that Rove may very well be in big trouble. His story is not only completely lame, I think Fitzgerald will be especially inclined not to believe it.

punaise 166, yeah, I got it. :) Then i-pawned it.

John Casper — thanks for posting the Jeff comments, very interesting.

I know I’m probably going to have to get back into the Vivac stuff again but I think there is some context for the VandeHei article. He was the only one when the Vivac thing went down who was trying to claim that Vivak told Luskin about Cooper before Rove testified in February. Everyone else was reporting that the official Luskin story was that Vivak’s tip led Luskin to begin the search through the emails and voila! Hadley. That seems to be backed up in the Schuster report today, who says the discrepancy is the seven months between Vivak’s tip and the production of the email is what Fitzgerald is focusing on.

The big chink in the VandeHei tale — aside from its superficial absurdity — is the fact that when Fitzgerald originally subpoenaed Vivak he did so regarding conversations beginning in May. If she was being called in to back up Luskin’s story, and Luskin was saying “January,” I really think Fitzgerald would’ve picked up on that. And Luskin was early on seemingly trying to paint as tight a timeline as possible between his conversation with Vivak and the discovery of the email. When Vivak actually testified it appeared she remembered things a bit differently, and I always thought the VandeHei story was an attempt to put a good face on a very bad situation. It never did so in any kind of a story I found satisfactory, so I’m buying the Shuster theory today and leaving the VandeHei alone as I have done before.

Jeff — glad to have you back from the darkside ;)

GSD @ 9:06 pm (#108) – It’s an understatement to say I’ve never had much respect for Ashcroft, but he does seem to be the one lawyer in the Bush Administration who recognized a conflict of interest when he was involved in one.

Here is a link to a picture of Bush and Snow at today’s announcement. It’s not a very bbig picture, however, and I don’t know how to enlarge it.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITI…..index.html

dana 168 – I plod (along)

Re: Ashcroft, I thought that he was strongly encouraged to recuse himself.

TeddySanFran:

Why is he called PoolBoy?

watching Bush this morning at the Snow intro, I thought Bush looked like he was being made to do something he really didn’t want to do – a little kid pouting….

punaise, I pwod (awong) –it’s so scawy lately.

OK dana – with that, you win!
I nod to you (or I gnawed, canine version)

dana

two wongs don’t make a wight

dana @ 10:12 pm (#174) – I’m not saying he did it on his own ;)

tsf,
imo, “pool boy” caught on because of how slavishly VandeHei printed whatever the WH, Woodward, Rove, or Rove’s attorney, Luskin, wanted him to print,. The fact that it made no sense or contradicted what he had written before didn’t bother Jim in the least. The first time I read “pool boy,” IIRC, was in one of Jane’s posts. She also had a great pic of VandeHei next to a pool.

Goodnight, everyone! I thoroughly enjoyed this whole day on FDl, even though I read it all late tonight.

I must away…
‘night all…

Maybe it’s as simple as this:
Rove lied. Rove knew he was lying. Rove lied because he figured…he could get away with it. He figured he could get away with it BECAUSE the only witnesses to his lies were reporters, and the law would protect the reporters via confidential source rules. Then…
Oops! Courts say “no confidentiality here….reporters gotta testify”. Rove knows he’s now caught firmly “with his pants down”. What to do? He can’t very well go and tell the GJ “now that you got me, let me change my testimony”. So…
Maybe he “invents” this “sudden discovery of a Hadley email” as his excuse that “jogged his memory”. he knew all along about the Hadley email, but only used it, like a playing card, when he knew the gig was up.
And, I’m probably missing something or in error somewhere. This case is incredibly complex….many moving pieces.
Ghostman

OldCoastie, that was kind of my impression. It has to be a downer to get a kool kid coming to work for you who’s as fit, smarter, worked for your dad, had a successful career and said things about you that pissed you off.

Margot:

And can speak English.

Bush doesn’t like any criticism… there’s that story from many years ago where he asked Laura what she thought of a speech he gave and she said something mild like, “coulda been better” and he got so mad, he drove the car thru the back of the garage… no tolerance for criticism of any kind… can’t imagine what he thinks of Snow’s comments…

he must be very pissed.

Go look at the picture on Desert Rat Democrat’s Web site

http://www.desertratdemocrat.c…..the_f.html

punaise – envision W looking longingly at Snowboy ;-> (and how’s the move going?)

Shoephone – I had a lengthy chat with Rush’s senior legislative aide yesterday who said that they support net neutrality but he was not the telco bill expert and he had not seen the amendment at that point, I’m hoping to get her on the phone tomorrow or friday (she was too tied up in the markup session to take a call) and find out the reasons for their vote. While it may be as presented (payoff for contribution) I am interested in hearing their rationale since the aide I spoke to was quite clear on net neutrality. I know that their focus was on the main body of the legislation which they felt would provide more access to Rush’s consituents and Rush has been very involved in access issues in the past – so I want to find out what’s really going on there before I yell.

Rush’s office was very open to constituent discussions so I expect we can have a meeting and ongoing talks.

I thought VanDerHei was called PoolBoy because he’s almost always the WaPo reporter assigned to the White House “pool” or small group of reporters that travels with the Preznit. And because he’s particularly slavish with the WH spin. For instance, if you only read Jim’s “pool” reports from the Preznit’s trip to California last weekend, you would never know there were any protesters, even though protesters met W at every stop.

I call him PoolBoy because Jane Hamsher calls him PoolBoy. And because it sounds particularly demeaning, whatever its genesis.

Apparently BobbyG’s report of the massive bird flu outbreak in Florida isn’t the only disturbing news breaking today.

from Louisiana…

“Police Search For Man Accused of Bestiality with Horse; Surveillance Tape Released”
http://www.wafb.com/Global/story.asp?S=4823631
(Warning..graphic story & pics)

My first thought was..Jeebus, first Katrina, now this?

My second thought..can anybody vouch for Santorum’s whereabouts on the night(s) in question?

OC 188: quite a vehicular couple, those Bushes, eh?

siun – as expected, you are already on the case. Excellent work. Maybe you can enlighten him…Please keep us posted.

TSF – maybe he’s drinking the Pool-Aid

siun – (scrubbing image from eyes) – re office move: hectic week!

neuorphius, yes, that too!

OldCoastie–Laura Bush told that story on Jay Leno, I think. She’s probably been walking on eggshells around him for years. Not fun.

Teddy — yep, I did call him pool boy. And Monk did a very memorable graphic.

“Police Search for Man Accused of Bestiality With a Horse”:

I hate to break it to you, but about 3 months ago a man in Washington State also committed that abuse —- and died violently during the episode.

Getting back to the Woodward issue…

There are excellent reasons why the Post is extremely unhappy with Woodward right now.

First and foremost, his story makes no sense. And what “sense†it does make, implicates Woodward (and, by extension, the Post) in a conspiracy to obstruct justice.

First, why Woodward’s story makes no sense.

1) Woodward claims that he was told about “Wilson’s wife†before anyone else.
2) Woodward claims that he told Pincus immediately, but didn’t tell Downie at that point.
3) Woodward knows that Pincus has an obligation to tell Downie (and the Post lawyers) everything he knows about the “Plame†story, especially given that Pincus was subpoenaed and the Post’s lawyers negotiated the terms under which Pincus was eventually deposed by Fitzgerald
4) Thus, Woodward has to have assumed that Pincus had told Downie that Woodward had told Pincus about “Wilson’s wifeâ€, and that there was no reason for Woodward to have kept it a secret from Downie until October 24th.
5) When Woodward went public with his “I told Pincus†story, Pincus denied it.
6) When Woodward was questioned about telling Pincus, he said that he told Pincus while he was passing Pincus’s desk, and Pincus said “What?â€, which Woodward took to mean “That’s interestingâ€. Woodward also said that was the full extent of the conversation
7) Woodward later admitted that “What?†could have meant “I didn’t hear what you said.â€

Conclusion – Woodward never told Pincus what he claims he told Pincus. If Woodward believed that Pincus knew, he would not have kept the info from Downie. Pincus had no reason to hide from Downie the fact that Woodward had told him about “Wilson’s wifeâ€, he denied ever being told about “Wilson’s wife†by Woodward, and Woodward’s “explanation†was not merely incredibly lame, but was eventually retracted.

Next, lets deal with the “obstruction of justice†question.
1) Woodward claimed that he went to his source on a number of occasions and reminded his source of their conversation, and suggested that his source tell the special prosecutor.
2) Woodward claims that his source repeatedly ignored Woodward’s urgings to tell the story to Fitzgerald –
3) Thus, (assuming Woodward’s source was someone who had been questioned by the FBI and/or testified under oath) Woodward literally conspired with his source to keep information material to a federal grand jury investigation from that grand jury.

Especially given Woodward’s role as an editor of the Post, and the involvement of the Post’s lawyers in the Pincus negotiations, this puts the Post in a really bad position — not only did one of their supervisory personnel conspire to keep material information from the Special Prosecutor, he did so while the Post was negotiating the terms under which a Post reporter would be allowed to be deposed under super “special†circumstances.

***************************

Then, there is the whole question of the timing of Woodward’s involvement. In the month before the grand jury was to expire, there were tons of reports about all sorts of people being indicted by Fitzgerald. Woodward, who had shown no interest in the story until that point, suddenly decides he wants to “report†on it for the Post.

So Woodward starts investigating….and comes up with a story so big that he has to go on October 24th to Downie and tell him about being told about “Wilson’s wife†very early on. But, even though Woodward had this huge story – a story so big that he has to disclose to Downie the secret he’d been keeping for two years — Woodward never publishes that story. Moreover, on October 27(?), when he shows up on TV and is asked about the rumors that he has a “bombshell†story that is coming about about the Plame affair, he denies it—-and around the same time says that the whole “Plamegate†thing is just a molehill being made into a mountain.

So, what happened to Woodward’s scoop that was so big that he had to go to Downie with the “I heard about Wilson’s wife first and told Pincus†story?

**********************

Here’s the thing that most people don’t yet understand. FitzG let Pincus be deposed under very “special†arrangements (like not having to actually name his source) based on promises that Pincus and the Post were operating in good faith. Doubtless, one of the questions that were resolved during the negotiations and/or deposition was that Pincus first heard about Wilson’s wife from his “White House source.†So, when Bob Woodward shows up on October 24.(four days before the grand jury is about to expire) and tells Len Downie “I told Walter Pincus about Wilson’s wife long before he heard about it from his government sourceâ€, all hell broke out at the Post.

The first thing that would have happened is that the Post would have told FitzG that that the reliability of Pincus’s testimony had been drawn into serious question by Bob Woodward, one of the Post’s editors — and that would have happened immediately—-the Post had to notify FitzG that there were questions about Pincus’s testimony before FitzG cited Pincus in an indictment.

So, with days left before the Grand Jury was about to expire, FitzG is confronted with information that one of his key witnesses may have lied under oath. Since he didn’t have time to figure out what the hell had happened, he did the only thing he could do—- create indictments without ever referring to Pincus’s testimony. And THAT is why Libby is the only person who was indicted….

Of course, FitzG is pissed, and is now demanding that the Post demonstrate its good faith by turning over all of Woodwards notes having to do with his “investigation†of Plamegate — and because of the whole “obstruction of justice†charge hanging over Woodward, the Post is more than willing to comply.

But Woodward isn’t. Which is why Cindy Adams is reporting that Woodward may be out at the Post.

shoephone,

But, but, that doesn’t make any sense…Ricky’s dead?
I could swear I just saw Santorum on the news today.
I’m so confused.

I thought Santorum had expressed a special interest in dogs. The guy in that Louisiana video may be a horse of a different color.

Damn, p luk, that is great stuff, thanks.

p.lukasiak 199 – Good stuff, thanks

OK, I meant great stuff, too

PLuk:

Wow … thanks for the great post! All day I’ve been having this nagging feeling that the big story of the day has nothing to do with Karl Rove.

In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That’s not to pick on homosexuality. It’s not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/w…..erpt_x.htm

I found this link for a short video on net neutrality:
http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/307

Pach, great email from the states Roots Project tonight that included the “Dear Verizon/ATT Five” letter from Matt Stoller! It was a chuckle.

Friendly reminder to All:
To join the Roots Project send an email to stateproject at gmail dot com
Include your home state only in your subject line, with no other text. Please include in the body of your email your screen name or Kos user name.
More info in the Roots Project category in the right sidebar above if needed. We’re making a difference, make a difference with us to take our country back.

ah … got distracted … daughter just got into college and we were doing the excited but oh so anxious discussion – how will I know what to take, how will I get all the work done, will I …. ah youth!

but I am so happy she got in – the perfect school for her (Coumbia College in Chicago – art, music, theatre, poetry, journalism – her desire, music journo – a student body into doing rather than standard academics, faculty of working professionals – phew! mom is megarelieved!)

JC, punaise, obsessed….

I can’t believe you read the whole thing! :)

(I was thinking about asking jane/christie to make it into a “guest post”…. I didn’t because although I’m happy with the ideas/logic, the writing sucks, and there are no links! ;) )

congrats, siun! may her activism flourish.

hi, Shez!

neurophius,

Perhaps he’s working his way up the animal kingdom chain.
I wouldn’t be suprised if it all started with a pet gerbil (or ferret) he had as a kid. Sadly, research indicates that unhealthy behaviors of this type only intensify with age.

Thanks Punaise! it was touch and go so this is extra good news – very nontraditional student background, etc. – thank goddess for nontraditional schools! (and a very active school too!)

Jane – Glad to be back. I am still trying to keep expectations low. I will also add, since I was brought back by Vandehei’s article, that I had doubts at the time that Viveca Novak’s subpoena really was for May 2004 on, and I still have those doubts, as it seems like Luskin has been telling a consistent story. Or else he’s just telling a consistent story to Vandehei. But that wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense.

time for sleep … g’nite all!

see you in the am!

p.lukasiak,

Absolutely awesome comment …should be posted everywhere on the internets.

Paul Luk 199–This is one of those analyses that is so brilliant it now seems obvious. Great work. I would love to see those old Larry King interviews with Woodward again through this prism.

Thank you!

—

“maybe he’s drinking the Pool-Aid”

ROFL punaise, love it. Some are drinking the Tool-Aid. And Bush is drinking de cider. Sheeesh what a bunch of sorry sots.

this question might have been posed already, but any idea what “search words” were used to find the missing hadley email?

wonder if a point of inquiry for fitz would be to try to recreate that search and see if that email would’nt have popped up, per the white house explanation?

let’s see- the email as revealed has cooper, niger, etc… the date was right on…

we all know this email “popping” up is bullshit, but i wonder if fitz can call him on this… that would be obstruction easily.

Shez – heh…
de hard cider! (decisionating is such hard work)

Drool-Aid

PLuk, Jane & Christie:

I agree that #199 would be an excellent guest post, and am hoping that the events of the forthcoming week will make it the main topic of discussion in all quarters. I view Woodward’s role in the epic WaterGate/TreasonGate saga as analogous to the role of Gollum in the tales of Tolkein. He stumbled on the ring, and after benefitting from its power, was corrupted by it, and his ongoing obsession eventually destroyed them all.

p.s. Jane – I haven’t thanked you for your Rove summary, which was brilliant, and greatly appreciated. This kind of summation is badly needed at this point in the drama, as more and more people become aware of what’s been going on.

p.lukasiak–of course we read the whole thing!

we all know this email “popping†up is bullshit, but i wonder if fitz can call him on this… that would be obstruction easily.

this is why I think Card resigned…..he erased (or had erased) bunches of emails from the White House servers in the 12 hour period before the White House staff was ordered to preserve everything.

the “searches” were doubtless done on the white house servers which stored/backed up everything, rather than on the individual computers of the people involved. I suspect that Luskin instructed Rove (or a techie on behalf of Rove) to do a “keyword” search on Roves computer, and print out everything that matched — which wound up being hundreds (if not thousands) of pages of emails. (Luskin would want that done right away, while Karl still had access to his WH computer… he wasn’t taking any chances. ) Of courlse all of this paper was just stored, since Karl hadn’t been indicted, and thus there was no need to go through everything looking for exculpatory evidence.

Paul — I just finished reading it and half way through I thought “hmm, wonder if Paul would let me use that as a guest post….” I’m going to assume that’s a “yes” unless you tell me no. That’s great.

p.lukasiak 199: great summary, I’ve been busy lately with other matters. Thanks for bring moi up to speed.

Let’s face it, Woodward is a Media Whore par Excellance. They broke the mold when they ‘made’ Bobster. He is bought and paid for by the NeoConvicts, plain and simple.

What should be done about it?

What first comes to mind is ‘off with his head’. A quaint but true gut reaction to a total sellout like ‘I’ve got a real Woody’ Bob.

The Pen is mightier than the sword, I think not in Woodturd’s case. His pen-is way smaller than ye thinks.

Should the WaPooH be tarred with the same brush? You bet your ass they should. One of their employee’s broke the law while on the payrole, you know, Pimping for the Man.

As a ‘Made’ journalist, Woody should be asked, in public and preferably under oath, if he has ever received Any payment and/or other valuable considerations for his lack of candor over the years. Get to the heart of what motivated him to act like a criminal instead of a real reporter. He’s just a Wanna Bee.

When all is said and done in this pitiful WaPooh melodrama, it is my firm conclusion that Woodard is such a pansy:

“….flowers are essentially tarts, prostitutes for the bees…’

Withnail and I

obsessed — thanks. I did it as much for me as anyone else, I kept going back and trying to remember what he testified to when and I finally threw up my hands and said “screw it” and made it into a post.

Gentleman Jim: well-placed hyphen.

tarred-blossom

Wow, Paul, what a late night treat, I’d almost logged off. Your analysis was very nicely knitted together. I used to be a fan of Woodward’s (who wasn’t?) and it’s tragic to see him corrupted by access.

Jane – Everyone is always stunned that, you, RH, EW, Jeff, PollyUSA, PLuk, Swopa, et al can keep the whole insane chronology straight in your minds, and I think the mental process of writing these summation posts is a big part of it. Your own unique gift is the ability to distill it in such a way that someone new to the subject can grasp it quickly (or some obsessed lunatic who’s been following for months, for that matter).

Did we ever get a confirmation on how long Rove was in with the GJ today? David Shuster said on Keith O. it was 3 1/2 hours.

Also Keith had O’Lielly as his Worst Person in the World again. Apparently Bill’s new line is, “The Smear Stops Here”. mwahahaaaa

p.lukasiak

Re: 199

Great Post! Very intriguing speculation!

Teddy-

Have a great time tomorrow. I know you will.

-Jacqrat

“maybe he’s drinking the Pool-Aidâ€

punaise – you’ve now officially earned the rights to your screen name

obsessed
228 – indeed. amazing work, all.
232 – it’s a Sisyp(h)un task

“Smear stop here”? Please!

More like “The smear starts here, constantly recited without any evidence, and when I am refuted, I call the watchdogs ‘vile’ and ’smear machines’ to motivate my braindead viewers/listeners to do what I want them to do.”

Punaise–
A Texas dawg carries a Ah-pawed.

sure thing, pawdnuh

LOL Matt… oh Keith sure had a grin over that one. I’m going to have to watch the repeat tomorrow to recall the rest of it. I know he mentioned Bill is supposed to have a webpage soon, to list all the no good smearing perps he’s going to refute with his beautiful and balanced mind.

BTW, no pressure on the war profiteering project, you know a bunch of us will be helping you come up with the research. ;)

zennurse-

to answer your question from downstream about rover being a target and an impending indictment — Fitz could not allow rover to testify without informing him that he is a target if he is because that might result in rover not taking the 5th when he had a legal right to do so. if a conviction or plea agreement followed such a move, an appeals court would certainly overturn it.

furthermore, rover could be a “subject”. I think a subject is still supposed to be informed he is a subject prior to testifying. it is notable that Luskin has not said that rover is not a subject. personally, I think he is a subject and Luskin is spinning.

RWCole is also right that the time period between being a witness b4 a gj, being a target and being indicted can be measured in nanoseconds. but the rules forbid Fitz from knowingly questioning a target under oath without informing him of his right to take the 5th.

is it normal for there to be a huge lag time between what one types and what one sees on the screen with this software? if so, it sucks the big one.

One last thing before I go crash out, found this on another site a few minutes ago:

“And this just showed up by email from a friend…”
WHAT GAS SHORTAGE??

I just think everyone should know… I am a tugboat sailor. The gas shortage is totally bogus. There are “fleets” all up and down the gulf coast that you don’t know about. They consist of hundreds and thousands of tank barges that we tie up daily that are filled with millions of gallons of fuel. The big companies pump their fuel into the barges and as long as the fuel is in a barge it is considered offshore and not part of the reserve. So, there are millions of gallons of fuel tied up to spud barges all through the bays, intracoastal inlets, and canals all up and down the coast that the companies don’t have to report. They fabricate the shortage by pumping their millions of gallons of fuel and hide them in these fleets creating the shortage so they can make their multi billion dollar gains while we can’t afford the gas at the pump. I’ve never in my life asked anyone to forward anything, but this has me fuming. Accidental pun now intended. With many voices, we can put a stop to this.
James F. Ransdell
Posted by: JudiGem on April 27, 2006″

FBI profilers are certain that a link exist’s between childhood Sadism and serial killers.
GW Bush is known to have tortured small animals to death.
There is some disagreement among the professional profiler’s about ‘ Blitz attack’s’ and whether they are linked to a speech or social communication’s problem of some kind but there is a proven statistical link by some widely recognized benchmark analysis that is the ‘ gold standard’.
So generally accepted heuristic’s suggest a link with the Blitz style attack GW Bush launched against a man in SW Asia.
There is a lot of work being done on serial ‘ team killer’s’ that seems to fit the GW Bush modus operandi. I refer those interested to word search’s by keyword.
Bush serially killed aproximately 200 people when he was Governor of Texas and joked about one of his victims begging for her life while he pardoned Henry Lee Lucas who he may have identified with as there were a number of similarities.
Rumours that GW Bush murdered at least one illegal immigrant and often tortured cats to death remain unconfirmed speculation at this point though he was seen to torture a small dog just recently.
Investigation’s are proceeding and a forensic crime scene near Joshua Tree has been fenced off as evidence and corroboration is sought to link the president to a murder committed during GWB’s short lived Hollwood ‘ career’.
CSI Potomac will resume after this short message – please stay tuned. Next weeks episode will cover the Crawford internet cannibal scene.

Shez – WTF?! is that credible?

ztiF, all

I’m thinking we’ll see a Rove indictment soon or never.

Maggie, I’m seeing a delay of about a second or so when typing one character. But it gets much worse if I type quickly (the CPU goes to 100%). I’d prefer that the software didn’t react to every keystroke. I’d rather see a preview button.

Hey kids!

“Put on your raincoats…”

It’s time for the Spongebath Snowpants show!

;>)

thanks, semblance, it’s yucky.

shez- that email guy, Ransdell, needs to shoot some photos.

professor, WTF are you talking about?

God help this infantilized propagandized reptile-brain dying country.

Aw man, Sharkbabe, dat’s beautiful. Personally, I use Ratfuck Nation these days. Dying it is, or maybe never was. (Someone should go ask the Natives.) We all have a lot to learn. Too bad some of it will be rammed down our throats with a telephone pole.

Everything you ever wanted to know about Fitz*

*but were afraid to ask!

http://www.regis-nyc.org/news……;Type=Main

concerning Joe Scarborough, two words:

Lori Klausutis

Well, I wake up to very interesting media doings.

Jane and Paul 199 — thanks, bright morning here on the east coast — both the weather and the future for truth seekers.

This tidbit from today’s NY Times article:
“Mr. Novak has testified to the grand jury since Mr. Rove’s last appearance in October 2005.”

Hmmm, I wonder when this was written. Cause you know just the other night, Cindy Adams was at the TriBeCa film festival opening night party, accompanied by Barbara Walters. Also present were Lauren Bush, Joe Wilson, Walter Cronkite and prolly a few other high-connected folks.

punaise striking multiple times. keep that up and Fitz will get you for ‘contructing justice’…Many chuckles as the groggies fade this am (Couple close calls with coffee spewing onto kbd. ;>

p.luk’s post brougth is all together. Somebody called it speculation…not to me. The narrative fits the facts better than other ‘explanations’ posited I’ve seen. I’d maybe call ‘highly educated guesss.’

Jane sounded like she’s got her highly focused memory, sticky notes (alluded to from SoCal) and hard drive data. I’d encourage a single united ‘repository’ that can be expanded. I wasn’t kidding in my previous comment. Get an old Mac and installl HyperCard. Result is electronically hyperlinked virtual 3×5 cards. It was invented just for this kind of task. Although, the post is quite stunningly put together. Adding/appending info going forward.

Also, I arrived on shore here just shortly after Jane’s PoolBoy post. If you haven’t seen it, not onlly is the graphic ’stunning’ but the text of the post itself is a screed that would bring a grin to the late HST himself. Nicely done.

immanentize-yep. Quite bright in Western New England.

FDLers – Fitz might say “Top o’ the morn’ to ya!”

Rice and Rummy in Iraq same day then this?!

http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WO…..iraq.main/

goddess, make it stop…plz.

Actually, on further reflection any modern word processor allows creating hyperlinks within and between docs. Just created a bunch of little paragraph items like example ‘oct 24 rove said this’ and link the word ‘this’ to another doc that has Rove quotation.
(one could maybe even use Lotus 1-2-3…)

FOr public use, make a web page.

Only in DC kids, only in DC.

Okay anyone who calls the Washington Post a “liberal bastion” at this point clearly has no idea what she’s talking about, so I take this with a huge grain of salt.

The person saying that is of course employed by archconservative Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post.

Blank Kludge – let me throw out another option. There are online office suites that include word processing, are browser-based, offer online storage of documents and allow collaboration or sharing. Here’s a link to a “best of breed” article. The challenge with this kind of system is that the users must have very recent browser software; fortunately, there are readily available low-to-no cost solutions for that, too.

PLuk – While it is now morning, and long since you posted, I read the whole thing and actually understood a bit more about this mess. The circle of Rove>Luskin>Woodward>Pincus >Viveca is very confusing. Did Viveca truly surpise Luskin with the info or did he (Luskin) finally realize their lies were unearthed.

P.S. The lag time between keystroke and appearance of words is excruciating this morning. Over 4 minuts to type this.

Rayne 256

Of course! (forehead smacking here)

Thanks for another accurate observation (h/t to some comments I’ve seen here lately. Too many to mention…)

I’ve been reading last two threads for awhile, lots of great info, special thanks to PL for concise Woodward recap. I’m feeling patient about indictments, given the interesting changes at the WH. I have a couple of observations and questions.

I only heard Bush’s comments during the Snow announcement yesterday, but he sounded very slowed down and soft-spoken to me, almost garbled. I thought of still groggy from bedtime meds, but then I’m a nurse. Remember the reports of temper tantrums a few months ago; I suggested then that he may be on some combination of meds to calm him down and help him maintain control. They may make him look pudding-faced, often cause weight gain (noted at watertiger’s) and slowed speech and thoughts (kinda the point). Just my thoughts.

I am embarrassed about not being clear about who Jeff is and I’d like to know. I feel like I missed a day of class, although I read everything, but on Mondays don’t always process well. Could someone reintroduce for me? I have appreciated comments and responses from him.

What is ztiF?

Good morning to all, here’s go an exciting news day, although I have to plant today, too.

Grandma…

Did Viveca truly surpise Luskin with the info or did he (Luskin) finally realize their lies were unearthed.

my guess is that luskin was truly surprised. As a lawyer, he could never have allowed Rove to testify the way he did in front of the grand jury the first time knowing ROve had spoken to Cooper — though Luskin may have suspected that his client was not being fully forthcoming with him.

(it s important to realize that there is a difference between Luksin acting on behalf of Rove’s interests in this matter, and Luskin acting as a “defense attorney”. In the latter case, a lawyer needs to know just about everything (unless his client is guilty but is claiming innocence) — in the former case, sometimes the less the lawyer knows, the better.

Blank Kludge (258) — no problem, only a cautionary statement that if you use one online, you should keep a copy on your harddrive as a backup.

Paul Lukasiak (199) — great analysis, but let me point to 22-APR-06 post at WayneMadsenReport.com. (Yes, I know, there are folks who think WMR is crackpot, but he’s been more right than wrong.) Let’s say there’s more than one investigation on-going into leaks of classified intel, and Woodie’s in the thick of it (as is that piece of crap Robert Novak)…what’s the chances that WaPo is torqued about more than Woodie’s tool-like utility in the Plame leak?

Just saw the post about Tariq al-Hashimi’s sister and his brother’s recent murder.

I wish I could just shake the universe and realign hearts and minds. I feel so powerless in the face of such hate and inhumanity.

I was reading Huffinton Post and came across this bit re Conor Oberst’s (aka Bright Eyes) song When The President Talks to God by one of their commenters, Rita [can’t remember last name]. She has some of the words printed.

Sorry everyone – can’t switch between windows to copy, but it was very entertaining.

Sorry, it is Romi Lassally, not Rita, who mentions the song I referred to, and here is the first stanza:

When the president talks to God
Are the conversations brief or long?
Does he ask to rape our women’s’ rights
And send poor farm kids off to die?
Does God suggest an oil hike
When the president talks to God?

Good Morning Everyone,

I’m definitely going back to re-read some of the comments upthread – keep thinking had there been today’s internet during Watergate, Nixon would have left office a year earlier !

My first thought when I saw the Cindy Adams ‘item’ was Lally Weymouth – always somewhat imperious – who might be unhappy about the ‘hired help’: Woodward getting the paper embroiled in a legal matter, but as noted in several comments above, Adams is extremely well connected (didn’t she ‘break’ part of the ‘Martha’ story ?) and it could’ve been any number of the mover & shakers crowd

and just what will Team Clusterfuck bring us today ?

And of course, a huge hahahaha to all of our punmasters, inspired by the incomparable punaise, appearing nightly again. (hooray!)

Side bar your honor – longish post -sorry. Goes to motive.
I don’t have to justify the condition of my life to you or any of you. No matter what I will carry on until I fully understand what that function is regardless of the form or content. Regardless of the fact we must try to understand the function of our capacity to obtain, to personify the condition, the condition of our existence.

2005. Acrylic on canvas, 30×48â€byMartin Ostrye“

American policy making needs to be taken away from military planners and military-minded civilians, including those in the White House.†Chalmers Johnson Professor Emeritus, U.C. San Diego author of Blowback.
The term “blowbackâ€, invented by the Central Intelligence Agency, is the “unintended consequences of covert operations.”
The first use of the word appears in classified documents after the CIA overthrow of the Iranian government in 1953, whereupon, the United State’s put in place its puppet dictator, Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. That covert operation was to become the blueprint for toppling more governments in other parts of the world.
In July 1979 President Jimmy Carter signed a directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet government in Kabul, Afghanistan. At the time, National Security Advisor,Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote a note to President Carter saying that aiding the opposition was going to trigger the Soviets to invade. The Soviets rolled into Afghanistan in December 1979. Brzezinski upon hearing the news, wrote a note to Carter again, saying that “[we] now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam War.”
The CIA then began to aid the mujahideen (Islamic guerrillas) in 1980. Later, when Brzezinski was asked, by the French weekly magazine, Le Nouvel Observateur, whether he regretted these provocative actions, said, “The secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap.” When asked if he regretted arming and supporting Islamic fundamentalism, he arrogantly said, “What is more important in world history? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some agitated Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?”
The United States trained and financed the organizational structure of Al Qaeda. “With generous American aid, Pakistan opened its border to 3 million Afghan refugees and allowed the CIA to conduct its secret war without restraint. Along the border, American operatives ran training camps for the mujaheddin guerrillas and in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, the CIA maintained one of its largest foreign stations to direct the covert war.†( Charlie Wilson’s war )
As long as Islamic fundamentalists were terrorizing the Soviets in Afghanistan we called them freedom fighters and applauded their operations. When the terrorism was killing foreigners, we didn’t have a problem with it – we encouraged it. However, the CIA and senior government officials should have known (and probably did know) that one day it would blowback on us.
During the Reagan administration, CIA Director William Casey, a bumbling old man who was more troublemaker than intellectual or analyst, and had been a member of the OSS during World War II, was determined to pin international terrorism on the Soviet Union. He had come across a New York Times Magazine story, “Terrorism: Tracing the International Network†by Claire Sterling.
Sterling concluded that that there was “massive proof that the Soviet Union and its surrogates, over the last decade, have provided the weapons, training and sanctuary for a worldwide terror network aimed at the destablization of Western democratic society.â€
KGB instructors, Cubans, Palestinians and members of the Red Brigades were holding conventions and meetings at terrorist camps.
Director Casey believed that Sterling was out ahead of the CIA and took a copy of the article to his analysts. He wanted to know why. CIA “covert operators argued that Sterling’s method was preposterous.†Her reasoning was, “a kind of McCarthyist “linkmanship.â€
When a senior Soviet analyst looked into it, his conclusion “cleared the Soviets of involvement in terrorism.â€
Casey didn’t believe it. Casey told the senior analyst to “read Claire Sterling’s book and forget this mush,†refering to the actual intelligence.
“It turned out that parts of Claire Sterlings information had come from an Italian press story on the Red Brigade.â€
The story had been part of a CIA propaganda operation. It was blowback.

Another interesting blowback topic is Saudi Arabia. After the oil embargo of the 1970s, the United States set out to induce the corrupt Saudi family and kingdom to become dependent on the U.S. through various constuction and engineering projects. The Saudis would get drawn into design and construction schemes, as well as long-term management agreements for engineering companies like Bechtel, Brown & Root, Halliburton, Stone & Webster.
However, “the modernization of [the] oil-rich kingdom would trigger adverse reactions. For instance, conservative Muslims would be furious; Israel and other neighboring countries would feel threatened. The economic development of [the] nation was likely to spawn the growth of another industry: protecting the Arabian Peninsula. Private companies specializing insuch activities, as well as the U.S. military and defense industry, could expect generous contracts.â€
That in turn, “would require [more] engineering and construction projects, including airports, missile sites, personnel bases, and all the infrastructure associated with such faclities.â€
In exchange for a guaranteed supply of oil, the United States would support the Saudi royal family with a “commitment to provide total and unequivocal U.S. political and – if necessary- military support, [to ensure] their continued existence as the rulers of [the] country.â€
In return, “Saudi Arabia would use its petrodollars to purchase U.S. government securities†and interest on the oil revenue would pay the American corporations. The United States Treasury Department would hire the companies “at Saudi expense to build [the] infrastructure projects and even entire cites.†Which meant that, “the prospects for immense profits seemed limitless. It was a sweetheart deal with potential to set an amazing precedent. And to make the deal even sweeter, no one had to obtain congressional approval.â€20In other words, the corporations began crafting foreign policy for their own self-interest, which in turn would create the seeds of resentment and hostility toward the Unites States without Americans ever understanding why. After all, the Saudis would never be able to withstand the military and political pressure from the U.S.. They saw and understood what the United States did in Iran where the CIA toppled the democratically elected Prime Minister, Mohammad Mossadegh (Time magazine’s 1951 Man of the Year) and put in place the corrupt CIA puppet Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi(who was eventually dethroned by popular revolution).
The Saudi royal family have always been favored by the Bush family, the multinational corporations and the Republican party because they maintain a corrupt authortarian government that allows American corporations and defense contractors free reign to make allthe profits they desire. It would be the end of the Saudi family if they ever decided to say no to the United States. When George W. Bush was holding the hand of the current Saudi leader, it was more literal than Americans realize. Perhaps, it was the last grasp on the end of rope. With the kinds of operations the Bush administration is carrying out today, both militarily and economically, in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Haiti, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Eastern Europe, Sudan, Venezula, Asia, and other areas of the globe, the future possiblities for blowback staggers the imagination. And many of those are the operations that have been exposed to the American public. However, it is the secret operations that today may be sowing the seeds for the reaping of a greater whirlwind tomorrow.
Notes Chalmers Johnson, Blowback, (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2000) Alfred W. McCoy, The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade, (Lawrence Hill Books, 1991), p. 451.7. Bob Woodward, Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA 1981-1987, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987)John Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., 2004)etc, etc.

Here in my opinion, is where Woodward was fatally corrupted.
He saw this blowback through the New York Times that was abused by the state through Al Haig and Casey and wrote about it but by the time it happened again with Judy’s little tubes of terror Woodward was hopelessly inbedded in the West Wing sucking Jeff Guckert’s dick.
From exposing Watergate to steno-ing Iran/contra to becoming a part of Yellowgate. Bob Woodward is now just a handful of dust.

I am embarrassed about not being clear about who Jeff is and I’d like to know.

Jeff is one of the most knowledgeable and insightful plame-o-logists around — he posts here, and also frequently at http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/ Emptywheel is the resident plameologist over there, and the comments sections are full of extremely informed discussions filled with Plame minutiae that (IMHO) are not generally suitable for the Plamegate noviate.

(also see John Casper, another brilliant Plameologist who comments both here and at Next Hurrah, plus mimikatz, pollyusa, and a couple of others whom I’ve doubtles forgotten because I haven’t had my coffee yet, and actually plan on going back to bed)

zennurse says: “What is ztiF?”
April 27th, 2006 at 5:41 am

It’s Fitz spelled backwards.

Thanks, paul, I knew I should know, and here I thought John Casper was all “ours”. And where is the ever wished for paul lukasiak blog? Called “incredibly logical comment”? *g*

Good morning Stephen. Um, now I feel really soft. How did I miss that. I’ve gone to all my acrronym lists, etc, and it was right here all along. Thanks so much, good for t shirt, very inside.

Do you have any thoughts about the comment above from the tugboat guy re: the fuel shortage? Is that realistic? I’m thinking it would take many many tankers to make that much of a difference, but I am deeply suspicious of the bigoil guys.

great analysis, but let me point to 22-APR-06 post at WayneMadsenReport.com. (Yes, I know, there are folks who think WMR is crackpot, but he’s been more right than wrong.) Let’s say there’s more than one investigation on-going into leaks of classified intel, and Woodie’s in the thick of it (as is that piece of crap Robert Novak)…what’s the chances that WaPo is torqued about more than Woodie’s tool-like utility in the Plame leak?

I don’t think that the Post would abandon Woodward for his willingness to be a conduit for administration propaganda (hell, that’s why he;s “embedded” in the white house), even propaganda that threates national security and the identity of CIA personnel. But the line may be drawn when he puts the Post and its lawyers and editors in the middle of a legal no-mans-land like WOodward appears to have done with his very late “Plame revelation”. And its probably not helping Woodward that he’s chosen the “White House” side in the “White House/CIA bureaucracy battles…..

p. lukasiak (272) — I think WaPo is enough of a mouthpiece for the White House that the Plame leak didn’t concern them overmuch. But if they get TWO investigations that lead to Woodie’s desk, they begin to look to their readers like they are part and parcel of a broader conspiracy (even if they are in truth a functionary of domestic psyops). This could lead to a downturn in WaPo sales, hitting them where it really hurts and putting them in the same league as NYT. But that’s just my opinion.

Rebublican?

Democrat?

Liberal?

Concervative?

Neocon?

Christian?

Muslim?

Atheist?

Etc… For the sake of clarification…

Using today’s terminology, there are no “Liberals”. Yes, there is a ‘perfect world’, and another name for that is liberalism, but the facts are that as soon as You do anything within a capitalistic society and/or that certain liberal idea becomes Your life (religion) to enact and disseminate to the world (albeit a small of a large world), then one is no longer a liberal, but rather a capitalist — religious fanatic (degrees of not a concern here). Religious fanatics are conservative/moderate as all Religious Fanatics are. There is no difference between a Catholic or a Democrat or a Republican and a Communist. They are all serving the same ‘god(s)’.

The war of words will be won every time by the one lower of the food chain… The Evangleistic/Republican. But, just because one has ‘high ideals’ and is still striving for at least one of them, does not make that one better than those lower on the puke chain of live and living. If the one with the “high ideals” wishes to do all that they can to at least make that “one meaningful change’, that one has to be as, or less than, those extreme religious kind. In doing so, the catch twenty-two is that one will become as those that one needs to defeat. Such is the nature of it all. In the end, we all that will change the world will continue the world as it is.

Anytime and all times, if one takes ‘money’ for any reason, they are that much closer to the pukes on the bottom. Each time one takes ‘money’ for any reason, the stench from ‘below’ may very well be themself.

Your satans are your gods:-)

It’s !ztiF zennurse

I’ve taken up temporary residence at the end of every Late Nite thread in an excercise to explore the idea of “defined spaces” that are created in the blogosphere.

It’s a strange medium for an artist, perhaps, but I’ve used even stranger media in my career.

So far, it’s proven to at least a little useful as a roadside guide to stragglers that comment late in the thread not to the commentariat but rather to the blog post itself. If they say something that deserves a wider audience than just, well me, I encourage them to re-post up-blog.

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zennurse,

And, of course, !ztiF ends the thread just as Fitz! begins a new one.

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you can’t get hardly no more bigger

I couldn’t get past this. I sincerely hope the author of this isn’t a supporter of English as the Official Language.

Woohoo! I’m famous! I just posted on the Washington Post Blog! Millions will see my words! Woohoo!

heh heh…boy, did that work out badly for them or what? I feel regretful that we don’t have Brady to kick around anymore…he’s hiding under a rock somewhere, muttering incoherently about foul-mouthed and rude bloggers. It’s kind of sad in a way.

zennurse says:
April 27th, 2006 at 6:13 am

I haven’t read all the posts in this thread and have only briefly glanced at Shez’s 12:27 am post. If there are that many barges in the locations mentioned, how easy would it be to spot them?

Ah, now that’s satisfying! I !ztiFed a minute before Plano Tex Fitz!ed up-blog.

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“Anyway, he is heretofore and forthwith about to be – the words being told to me are -”kept on a short leash.” What that means, I don’t know. Maybe even he doesn’t know and they don’t know.”

-Maybe they are doing this so that he can get mad and quit.

…oh, and I have an iPod…and it’s cool. :-)

I especially want to thank Paul Lukasiak who has been, literally, a dedicated blogger to FDL’s comment thread for his Woodward work.

I would hope that Jane would link to his comment above just as she would any other source as she posts. She could drive traffic to one of her blog’s most important assets.

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I don’t have in “iPod”, and I feel that’s cool.

I don’t have a TV, and I feel that’s cool.

I don’t have a radio, and I feel that’s cool.

I don’t have a stereo, and I feel that’s cool.

If yall want to be controlled a little bit or to the max (or anywhere in between), keep on keeping on just as You are — as ‘they’ have conditioned yall too, all the while complaining about ‘them’… While all the while You are actually one of ‘them’. Yall cannot live in ‘their’ world and not be one of ‘them’.

Your gods are satans:-)

deviant — iPods and all other technology are only tools, like screwdrivers. They can be used for good or evil and are dependent upon the skill and intent of the wielder.

iPods and all other MP3 devices can be tools for the promotion of democracy, when used to that end. Ditto television or any other media technology, like the internet. I notice you use a computer, which for all intents and purposes is a convergent tool combining the features of MP3 devices, television, radio, all in one. Is that cool, too? Or is it evil?

Depends entirely on the wielder.

Stephen (279) — Ever done a fly-over the Gulf en route to NOLA? Pretty easy to see a BIG chunk of the petro industry from the air, including barges.

professor rat (267) — nice post, very easy to see how Woodie got enfolded and trapped in blowback. But then, we’re all stuck in blowback, some of us more than others.

deviantdevil,

Why now isn’t that just special!

We just love postings like yours here in the EPU’d Zone.

Now if I can only get professor rat to answer my question of a couple of days ago.

First:

Paul L. Wonderful, wonderful post. Your theory really hangs together and I am inclined to adopt it. Wholesale. The logic is so linear.

Second:

Re: Cindy Adams .
About a million years ago, I was working on a very high profile trial. People on line outside the courtroom to get into the gallery(and we were in the BIG cerimonial courtroom), 3 full rows in the gallery for the sketch artists alone, whole 9 yards.

Anyway, in addition to the legit Newpaper, magazine and TV reporters, who turns up more days than not? Cindy Adams.

We were all amazed, and perplexed. So, one day, one of the agents working on the case (a very cheeky sort of guy) waltzes over during the lunch break and strikes up a conversation with her.

It seems that every so often a case (or an investigation) just catches her fancy and she decides to do “hard” news. Sometimes she would devote an enire column to it. During our trial, on rare occasions, in addition to her regular gossip column, she did an actual “news” article in the regular sction of the papaer. IIRC, I think she even had a front page article on it one time.

It was so long ago, I had forgotten about her and this quirk until this AM. She had surprisingly good sources back them.

She KNOWS EVRYBODY on the planet and I think the are not as guarded when they talk to her b/c they don’t fear a “mere” gossip columnist, so they forget to rerequest to go off the record b/c they are not giving her dish about someone’s sex life. They think they are just chatting.

Of course one is never “just chatting” with a journo.

I am inclined to take anything she is reporting seriuosly enough to be on the lookout for follow up. FWIW

“Rayne”, you have accepted ‘their’ conditioning well. A person who is honestly willing to admit that they are a Republican and/or a neocon and/or a conservative and/or a moderate and/or an Evangleist/Christian (or whatever) could not have responded any better than You did. In your fantasy world, you just keep on make-believing anything you want to… As long as you are happy(?).

Your satans are your gods:-)

deviant — I note you willing use the tools of the same Satan with great ease and what appears to be no small amount of smug pleasure.

Trex on Aisle 5, please.

From Kevin Kelly’s Cool Tools meta on meta over at popurls

Cool!

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Well according to according to Mr. Sheri Annis in today’s”Pravda,” the “Libs” (that’s us you know) are attacking Tony Snowjob. Got that now? We’re “the Libs.”

looseheadprop EPU’d Zone Alert! You should take that comment to a recent comment thread.

Rayne, what do you think we should do about troll feeding/not feeding here in the EPU’d Zone?

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“Rayne” and “J i O”

One so politely condescending to others and the other rudely condescending… (hmmm… must be born-againers or college educated, both one in the same — pseudo-christian).

ROFL… You two, like most “liberals” and/or democrats just do not get it. You talk and respond EXACTLY like the GOP operatives that You say that You despise. You are hypocrites, just like the christians and others.

Ahhh… But as ‘intellectual’ as both of you make-believe that you are, denial will always be a beautiful thing. As such, please, just move right on over to the GOP and quit pretending to be liberals and/or democrats… Or are yall GOP moles (like if those two would tell the truth about anything anyway).

Your satans are your living gods:-)

JiO – has this become a trend of late, that the creatures come out of the recesses to feed in the EPU Zone? Just curious, noticed this beginning before transition from Haloscan/Blogger.

Personally, I’d get out the Trex.

And thanks for that reminder about Cool Tools, haven’t been there in a while now. Good stuff!

As for Woody, the CIA is at war with the Bush administration. And for all his CIA past, Woody has quite clearly, been “turned.” He works for BushCo, not the CIA.

Rayne,

If I were still in the game, perhaps I’d be tempted to add your observation to the “artist’s mythos aura”, that package of self-promotion every artist on the hook for money has to deploy.

Yeah, that’s the ticket…I noticed a long time ago, even before “the change” that the back end of the thread needed defendin’ and started hanging back. Yeah. Good story line, Rayne, thanks!

As to the deployment of heavy weaponry here with the dreaded 144mm trex, that’ll be up to the thread overloards, who, I presume, wield authority even here deep in the EPU’d Zone.

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David E.,

IIRC Woody was naval intel.

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deviantdevil,

C’mon. Truth. If I were to peek under your scary costume I’d see Bob Somerby in there wouldn’t I?

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# 300 — grub –

This is the earliest, April 4, appearance of the tugboat sailor Shez mentioned above.

Hmmm…it seems I cannot post two links in a single comment.

–

Here’s that link to the earliest tugboat sailor posting I could find.

Oh, man, egregious, punaise is going to be jealous!

Oh I know he was in Naval Inteligence. Lucian K. Truscott IV told me all about it.

J i O: damn, why didn’t I think of that one

JiO – hat tip and deep bow to you, for covering the rear flank. Interesting…”artist’s mythos aura”…hmm. May I refer you to Carl Sagan? I think the so-called aura would trigger the detection process, don’t you think?