J U R O R # ? !!!

FITZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

in your face ! there are rewards for hitting refresh only every 20 minutes as requested ; )

whither egregious ?

encouraging juror news.

Probably better to permalink the Froomkin for posterity’s sake — the above link just goes to whatever the current column is.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..00582.html

Further Adventures in Reading the New York Times. In 2 parts. Think of this as the final installment in a trilogy.

In the last two days, the Times has come out with two major articles trumpeting the incendiary case that Iran was supplying weapons that were killing Americans in Iraq, the first a stenographic effort by Michael Gordon and the second a more measured but still flawed piece by James Glanz. Today the Times has a shorter article entitled “Skeptics Doubt U.S. Evidence on Iran’s Actions in Iraq” by Helene Cooper and Mark Mazzetti that would seem to give the other side, enumerate the doubts, except it doesn’t.

First, my standard disclaimer that I am not a fan of the regime in Tehran.

The article starts out well enough “the Bush administration has laid out its evidence — and received in return a healthy dose of skepticism.” Unfortunately, the only caveat raised about the government’s case is one briefers themselves raised in their Sunday presentation: there is no hard evidence that the Iranian government is, in fact, involved. While this admission does essentially blow the government’s case out of the water, it has not stopped the Bush Administration and the New York Times from promoting the connection anyway and exaggerating the importance of explosively formed penetrators (EFPs) among the threats facing our troops in Iraq.

As I have laid out in my analyses of both the Gordon and Glanz articles, there are numerous weak points in the government’s case, questions about the casualty numbers they use, the number of EFPs involved, whether any of the EFPs (as opposed to mortar shells and RPGs) actually bore Iranian serial numbers, how these relate to total casualties in Iraq, how numbers of foreign Sunni fighters or jihadis relate to the Iranian presence in Iraq, the silence on the role of the Saudis and how many American deaths can be attributed to their activities, and the curiously selective and incomplete descriptions of American raids that netted a handful of Iranians.

This article addresses none of this. Instead we are treated to an uncritical and unconvincing regurgitation of the Administration’s line about how Sunday’s dog and pony show came together. It was apparently “carefully calibrated”, a trademark as we all know of this Administration’s actions. Their aim was “not to ignite a wider war” or raise “the rhetoric to major decibel levels.” Indeed in their wisdom, officials from State, Defense, and the intelligence community “anticipated resistance to their claims.”

Now in previous stories on this, it was reported that this presentation was going to be a major offering by Gates and Rice, of Defense and State which was, nevertheless, postponed twice because of concerns over the quality of the evidence. The New York Times now comes up with a mishmash that can, I think, be reconstructed into a fuller narrative although I am still not quite sure about the timing of the two delays.

Swirling down the drain.

[Joel] Surnow, [the creator of “24″] once appeared as a guest on Laura Ingraham’s show; she told him that, while she was undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer, “it was soothing to see Jack Bauer torture these terrorists, and I felt better.” Surnow joked, “We love to torture terrorists — it’s good for you!”

-GSD

Part 2

The Times story begins fuzzily so I will do some back filling. Bush in his January 10, 2007 escalation speech claimed, “Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops.” Iran’s ambassador to Iraq Hassan Kazemi Qumi apparently in reference to this demanded that we either put up or shut up. Our ambassador in Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad offered to “oblige him by having something done in the coming days.” Subsequently, a large presentation was put together in Baghdad and sent to Washington for review. There, National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley and Defense Secretary Robert Gates “concluded that there were aspects of the briefing that could not be supported by solid intelligence.” Given this Administration’s past commitment to having an airtight case before acting, this was perfectly understandable. So the dossier was sent back to be pared down and sharpened up. I’m guessing this is when one of the two delays occurred.

It was perhaps at this time that the decision was made for no senior officials, such as Khalilzad or Negroponte mentioned in the article (but also I would think Gates and Rice), to be involved in the presentation. It was such a strong case you see that no senior official wanted to get near it and invite “inevitable comparisons to the since-discredited presentation that Secretary of State Colin Powell made to the United Nations Security Council” before the start of the Second Gulf War. With the transfer back to Iraq and the principals out of the picture, I suppose this was also when the decision was made to keep the presentation in Iraq. On Sunday the “stripped-down version of the original presentation” was made to reporters. There were a lot of questions about why the presenters all demanded anonymity, especially since one of them it seems was Maj. Gen. William Caldwell the top military PR man in Iraq. Given how the principals all bailed on this though, I begin to see why no one else wanted their name attached to it either.

The Times article skates around all this and only comes up with something which sounds like business as usual: a presentation was put together, sent to Washington for review, sent back to Baghdad with recommendations, and finally given this Sunday. See they really meant to do it this way all along. It wasn’t that the evidence was weak. It was that it was “carefully calibrated”.

So here we have an article that is supposed to be about the skeptics of the Iran arming Shia militias in Iraq with EFPs and getting Americans killed story. However, not only does it not deal with the substance of the skepticism, it completely misses the point that the biggest skeptics of all weren’t Democrats or Iranians but the very principals, the Secretaries of Defense and State as well as Hadley, Negroponte and Khalilzad, who ordered it put together in the first place. Yet despite this, with the aid of an uncritical and compliant media, the Administration has strengthened its case for war with evidence that is reminiscent of that which it produced pre-war for WMD and al Qaeda connections in Iraq. As before, it is not about what is true but what must be true. Thank you, New York Times for being so willingly complicit in this, again.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02…..r=homepage

EPU’d from prior thread:

Marcy, Christy et al:

Jeralyn Merritt is saying on HufPo that it appears pretty certain that Libby will not testify. I realize that this is the strong inference from everything that Libby’s lawyers are saying and doing. But has there been anything more definitive said to confirm that?

And will there be further legal arguments before Judge Walton as to whether Libby can invoke the bad memory defense without Libby’s testimony? I would think that after the defense rests, Fitz could move to exclude that defense from being submitted to the jury based on the failure to lay a sufficient evidentiary basis. Without Libby testifing, it seems like it is asking for pure speculation by the jury.

What kind of sick fuck derives relief from chemo by watching people get tortured?

Twisted Martini @ 10

What kind of sick fuck derives relief from chemo by watching people get tortured?

Laura Ingraham

9/11 memories —

Then Joshua Bolten, after what he described in testimony as “a quiet moment,” spoke up. Bolten, the White House deputy chief of staff [now chief of staff], asked the veep to get back in touch with the president to “confirm the engage order.” Bolten was clearly subordinate to Cheney, but “he had not heard any prior conversation on the subject with the president,” the 9/11 report notes. Nor did the real-time notes taken by two others in the room, Cheney’s chief of staff, “Scooter” Libby—who is known for his meticulous record-keeping—or Cheney’s wife, Lynne, reflect that such a phone call between Bush and Cheney occurred or that such a major decision as shooting down a U.S. airliner was discussed. Bush and Cheney later testified the president gave the order. And national-security adviser Condoleezza Rice and a military aide said they remembered a call, but gave few specifics. The report concluded “there is no documentary evidence for this call.”

All this talk about “torture porn” for Repubes got me thinking about why I’m always checking in at FDL.

FDL is “Truth Porn.”

Been so desparate for truth in my news for so long, just can’t get enough nowadaze.

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/…..alth-care/

This kind of sick f*ck.

Elliott @ 11

Twisted Martini @ 10

What kind of sick fuck derives relief from chemo by watching people get tortured?

Laura Ingraham

Norman Cousins she aint.

-GSD

Fine analysis, Hugh. Having read your two previous installments, when i read the 3rd NYT piece this AM (europe) the lack of skepticsm on the facts was immediately apparent. What i don’t get is NYT motive?

That’s right, balance the budget on the backs of our wounded troops, but make those tax cuts for the 1% who really need ‘em permanent. What a fuck.

am sheepishly confessing I have something closely approximating a blog crush on TBogg – am so very envious of all the Firedogs who got to meet him at YKos

Reality nibbles Foggo and Wilkes

Foggo, Wilkes indictments expected today.

Federal prosecutors are expected to announce indictments today in the case involving the former No. 3 official at the CIA, Kyle “Dusty” Foggo, and defense contractor Brent Wilkes. “Foggo, who served as the CIA’s executive director, was accused last year by fellow CIA employees of steering contracts for the CIA station in Iraq” to Wilkes, whose activities also led to the indictment of former Rep. Duke Cunningham (R-CA).

Got my Anatomy of Deceit yesterday. It’s so shiny! My only complaint so far is there’s no author’s photo!

oooh Kirk Murphy, she purrs . . .thanks for that heads up

Christy made lunch! Thanks, Christy.Crazy Horse @
16

Fine analysis, Hugh. Having read your two previous installments, when i read the 3rd NYT piece this AM (europe) the lack of skepticsm on the facts was immediately apparent. What i don’t get is NYT motive?

Consider it an infommercial

What i don’t get is NYT motive?

IMHO they are pandering to readers who don’t get how much weaker Israel is, as a result of our invading Iraq.

Diminutive, bald, warmongering Australian PM, John “Ratty” Howard invokes the name of what morally bankrupt former Democrat to bolster his outlandish allegations against Barack Obama and Democrats in general?

If you guessed Sleazy Joe Lieberman give yourself a hand.

Joe Lieberman, he’s got the word LIE right in his name.

-GSD

For all the commentary about TYOI in the Hannah live blogging this morning, this particular bit from the Froomkin article:

And Correntewire blogger Lambert points out a passage I overlooked in DeYoung’s article in the Sunday Washington Post.

DeYoung wrote: “Some senior administration officials still relish the notion of a direct confrontation. One ambassador in Washington said he was taken aback when John Hannah, Vice President Cheney’s national security adviser, said during a recent meeting that the administration considers 2007 ‘the year of Iran’ and indicated that a U.S. attack was a real possibility. Hannah declined to be interviewed for this article.”

Cripes, even this trial and testimony under oath is nothing more to these warmongering universal fascists than another opportunity to push their propagands. I hope not a single corporate media outlet picks up a single utterance of the word “Iran” from Hannah when covering the trial; they’d getting used like tools all over again.

From WashPost, Bush dismisses House debate:

(snip)

Bush has no plans to watch the House debate his decision to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq.

“You know, I’ve got a full day,” he said. “I mean, it’s not as if the world stops when the Congress does their duty.”

Besides, he added: “I already know what the debate is. I hear a lot of opinions.”

(snip)

god f’in’ dammit !

“I think the evidence is strong that the Iranian government is making these IEDs, and the Iranian government is sending them across the border and they are killing U.S. troops once they get there,” says Richard Clarke, former White House counterterrorism chief and an ABC News consultant

http://blogs.abcnews.com/thebl…..e_ied.html

no valentine to Mr. Clarke, in fact STFU !!!

GSD @
24

Diminutive, bald, warmongering Australian PM, John “Ratty” Howard invokes the name of what morally bankrupt former Democrat to bolster his outlandish allegations against Barack Obama and Democrats in general?

If you guessed Sleazy Joe Lieberman give yourself a hand.

Joe Lieberman, he’s got the word LIE right in his name.

-GSD

Using Joe Lieberman as a “shield” is akin to using gasoline as a fire retardant.

Talk about tone deaf!

Biodun @ 25

From WashPost, Bush dismisses House debate:

(snip)

Bush has no plans to watch the House debate his decision to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq.

“You know, I’ve got a full day,” he said. “I mean, it’s not as if the world stops when the Congress does their duty.”

Besides, he added: “I already know what the debate is. I hear a lot of opinions.”

(snip)

Shorter Bush, to Congress: “Who cares what you think?”
_

Hannah’s tastimony was devastating in terms of Bush’s legacy as President. It appears to confirm that Cheney is Bush’s Regent.
Can anyone imagine an aide to Humphrey, Agnew……… claiming to carry such a weighty portfolio?

Crazy Horse @ 16

Fine analysis, Hugh. Having read your two previous installments, when i read the 3rd NYT piece this AM (europe) the lack of skepticsm on the facts was immediately apparent. What i don’t get is NYT motive?

I would say look at Hillary. It has taken her 4 years to come to the conclusion that Iraq just might be a mistake, although, of course, not her mistake. Something similar I think is going on at the times. Bill Keller the Times executive editor wanted to show that liberals could be hawks too. Pinch Sulzberger the Times publisher and until recently close friend of Judith Miller felt much the same. The result is an Establishment position on Iraq that is not far off the view of some neocons, say like a Fancis Fukuyama that while the theory was good, the execution was bad.

Along with this is the broader issue of the corporatization of the media, which has led to the current situation of the journalist in the safe and uncontroversial role of stenographer. The point is not to rock the boat, not to question authority or speak truth to it, not to investigate or examine critically, not to threaten the bottomline. The result is what we see in how the Iran EFP story is reported.

John Casper @ 23

What i don’t get is NYT motive?

IMHO they are pandering to readers who don’t get how much weaker Israel is, as a result of our invading Iraq.

I would have thought they’d be very proactive trying to win some of the lost credibility back, especially since in five years they want to be “Blog of the Year” Could you flesh out your point, i don’t follow?

John Casper @
23

What i don’t get is NYT motive?

IMHO they are pandering to readers who don’t get how much weaker Israel is, as a result of our invading Iraq.

Have you read this? http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/021307M.shtml

The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.

“[The New World Order] cannot happen without U.S. participation, as we are the most significant single component. Yes, there will be a New World Order, and it will force the United States to change it’s perceptions.” — Henry Kissenger, World Affairs Council Press Conference, Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel , April 19th 1994

GSD @ 24

Diminutive, bald, warmongering Australian PM, John “Ratty” Howard invokes the name of what morally bankrupt former Democrat to bolster his outlandish allegations against Barack Obama and Democrats in general?

If you guessed Sleazy Joe Lieberman give yourself a hand.

Joe Lieberman, he’s got the word LIE right in his name.

-GSD

I loved Obamas come back: Why don’t you send the extra 20,000 troops then. I will not be visiting Australia until Howard is gone.

Danke, Hugh, very cogent.

Tenet’s book will definitely be self-serving, but it may give us some insight as to the scum in the White House. After this administration leaves, everyone will write a book and we’ll see how awful they really were.

And some words of wisdom from Karl Rove:

(snip)

One visible thing that we have done for the last six years, particularly in the aftermath of the 2000 campaign, is putting a strong emphasis upon all the tools of the so-called 72-hour approach — micro-targeting. It’s got the least descriptive name of anything in politics. The 72-Hour Task Force says you use tools available to you in the computer age to identify people who are less likely to participate and are persuadable, and you focus all of your volunteer efforts on talking to that vast number of people in order to make certain that they are registered to vote, that they’re persuaded to support your candidate and that they’re then motivated to get out to vote.

(snip)

old gold @
30

Hannah’s tastimony was devastating in terms of Bush’s legacy as President. It appears to confirm that Cheney is Bush’s Regent.
Can anyone imagine an aide to Humphrey, Agnew……… claiming to carry such a weighty portfolio?

That’s a great point. I just had coffee with a frequent commenter at Glenn Greenwald’s site. She was pessimistic about the trial. I pointed out that it doesn’t matter, really, whether Libby is convicted. What is important is that the way in which the administration operated under Cheney is being documented, and the way in which the press lay down is also being documented.

BobbyG @ 29

Shorter Bush, to Congress: “Who cares what you think?”
_

Nearly a year ago Jane Smiley observed this typical reaction of Bush to those who do not agree with him in detail at HuffPo.

He has demonstrated this behavior repeatedly since then, despite polls, speeches and a little dust-up last November. During all this Congress, *our* Congress, has not even been able to boot a non-binding “Oh dear” across his desk.

And it looks like BushCo and *our* Congress are prepared to play this little game indefinitely.

Now we have Scooter and Cheney playing peek-a-boo to keep us distracted. Even a two-year-old gets tired of peek-a-boo in a couple of hours.

=====================
HAVE YOU HAD ENOUGH?
=====================

One more note: in (dis)honor of John Hannah’s bellicose statements of late, I will not follow my normal practice of referring to witnesses by their initials. Instead, I will refer to him as “The Year of Iran.”

we are living in the Hanna Barb Era.

Stephen Parrish, CPA @ 33

John Casper @
23

What i don’t get is NYT motive?

IMHO they are pandering to readers who don’t get how much weaker Israel is, as a result of our invading Iraq.

Have you read this? http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/021307M.shtml

Israel? Weak?

They control all of their own nuclear weapons
AND all of ours. Israel is the most powerful country on earth.

When Iran is attacked offensively with nuclear weapons, it will NOT be tactical. It will be overwhelming. A true Holocaust.

The only outstanding question at this stage is which false flag tactic the Zealots will employ to “justify” it all.

The unintended consequences are incalculable.

Here’s Karl Rove’s theory of communication:

(snip)

The entire White House is spending a lot more time talking to the Hill and a lot more time seeking feedback and giving them the time that they want. It’s not that they didn’t want to talk to us before. But I think there’s a desire for them to talk to us more now. I think they want to be able to test whether or not we’re serious about working together by spending more time talking about whether or not we’re going to work together.

(snip)

Yes, John Casper at 33, McGovern’s point is clear, but why would the NYT be encouraging Israel’s suicide? Even Hillary wouldn’t do that, would she?

Crazy Horse @ 16

Fine analysis, Hugh. Having read your two previous installments, when i read the 3rd NYT piece this AM (europe) the lack of skepticsm on the facts was immediately apparent. What i don’t get is NYT motive?

I think it’s very easy for journalists who deal with national security and military matters to end up “in the tank,” even more so than the DC press corps, possibly because they’re even more dependent on official sources or they get no story at all. I was yelling at the radio just yesterday because the “National Security Correspondent” on the local news station (WTOP) was credulously parroting the “evidence” (which was nothing more than an accusation) that Iran was supplying weapons to al-Sadr (who I know is virulently anti-Iranian.) And this is far from the first time — virtually all of his reports just repeat the official story as fact. But looking at his bio, there’s no indication that he’s a closet partisan; I think he’s just in the tank.

GSD @
7

Swirling down the drain.

[Joel] Surnow, [the creator of “24″] once appeared as a guest on Laura Ingraham’s show; she told him that, while she was undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer, “it was soothing to see Jack Bauer torture these terrorists, and I felt better.” Surnow joked, “We love to torture terrorists — it’s good for you!”
-GSD

Hey, I live & work here in Hollyweird & this is a typical putz production exec attitude. All fun & games, we got a hit show, making $, who cares about content. ‘tude filters down from the top.

Redshift, i understand about NYT (and other military)MSM being in the tank, that’s why the blogosphere outperforms them. I’m trying to imagine who the readers are which the NYT is trying to woo?

BTW, somebody commented about the issue power of Cheney’s staff.

Fitz: My Hannah, do you in your experience believe that the POTUS also has a staff involved in these issues? Or was it all on the defendent?

jayackroyd @ 39

old gold @
30

Hannah’s tastimony was devastating in terms of Bush’s legacy as President. It appears to confirm that Cheney is Bush’s Regent.
Can anyone imagine an aide to Humphrey, Agnew……… claiming to carry such a weighty portfolio?

That’s a great point. I just had coffee with a frequent commenter at Glenn Greenwald’s site. She was pessimistic about the trial. I pointed out that it doesn’t matter, really, whether Libby is convicted. What is important is that the way in which the administration operated under Cheney is being documented, and the way in which the press lay down is also being documented.

Yes, Scooter Libby was so consumed by the awesome responsibility of single-handedly doing the jobs of Condi Rice, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, Tom Ridge, Jay Garner and Jerry Bremer, not to mention Dick Cheney, that he couldn’t possibly focus on something as unimportant as Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame.

EPU’d from last thread:

semiot @ 88

The defense in a nutshell:

“TYOI He was quite good at remembering ideas and concepts, very bad at figuring out where they came from, how they came to him.”

Let’s not forget that Scooter was very good at remembering “his own arguments” and “the points he wanted to make.”

Clearly, what overwhelmed Scooter’s memory of his dealings with The Dick, Judy Judy Judy, Matt Cooper, Ari Fleischer, and Turdblossom (Rove) was his own convoluted argument — also known as a “lie” — about how Tim Russert told him that Scooter that all the reporters knew Plame worked at the CIA.

GSD @
24

If you guessed Sleazy Joe Lieberman give yourself a hand.

‘But he’s so clean and well-spoken’

;>)

Atrios points to Amanda’s response to the, um, “Christians” who have taken down Pandagon.

It’s brilliant.

This link to Froomkin’s column includes the comments section.

P.S. CHS, we’ve got freezing rain now, going back to snow again tonight.

Will this February be the month the Wurlitzer melts down?

Edwards’ about face turns away swiftboaters..

“Madrassa” hoax unravels…

JCS Pace spikes Iran war pimps….

Kevin Drum’s expose reverberates:

Think Progress sez

CNN: Bush-Backed Shiite Group Receiving Weapons Shipments From Iran

U.S. intelligence and military officials have stated that Iranian weapons shipments “are going to Shiite militias that include rogue elements of Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mehdi army militia.” But U.S. officials have not been as vocal about possible Iranian support for a separate Shiite militia, the Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution In Iraq (SCIRI). The Mehdi Army and SCIRI are rivals, and both have armed wings.

Yesterday, Kevin Drum speculated that Iran might be providing the SCIRI militia with weaponry. Drum wrote, “In other words, if we had to guess where the bombs were going, we might guess that SCIRI’s militia is getting a share of the action too.” There’s no need to guess any longer. CNN’s Michael Ware has confirmed that Iranians have been supplying weapons to SCIRI.

Studies show Violent Television Weakens the Immune System

In two separate studies there were measurable effects of a weakened immune system by watching violence on television.

One study conducted by Duke University reflected that there was an increase in heart rates and blood pressure along with higher stress hormone levels. Originally published in the Medical Tribune in April 2005 issue, the researchers of this study believes that large amount of violence could be cause for major health problems.

Another study conducted by researchers at Ohio State University found that good stress such as work related was good for the immune system. They discovered that watching violent television weakened the immune system.

These researchers measured 34 participants after performing memory tasks and after watching a violent video. They analyzed saliva samples and measured the secretory immunuglobulin A (SIgA) as well as the secretory component (SC). The secretory immune system is the first defense system our body uses to protect the pathogens from entering into tissue.

After the memory test the saliva measured an increased concentration level of the SIgA. After watching the violent video the SIgA concentration levels were lowered.

There was also a measurement of the secretory component (SC) in both the memory task and the violent video was increased. The researchers still believe that the since the lowered levels of SIgA there is a definite measurable weakening of the immune system from watching the violent television.

Secretory IgA (sIgA) and SC both are important to the immune system and activate human eosinophils. Secretory IgA does not cause inflammation and is an important immune system defense.

Will this February be the month the Wurlitzer melts down?

Edwards’ about face turns away swiftboaters..

“Madrassa” hoax unravels…

Hardly. Swiftboating is like a meth addiction. And when you have enablers like Howard Kurtz and the rest of the MSM, the Wurlitzer will continue churning out its sordid tunes.

the McGovern piece at truthout -

wow, wow, and even more wow !!

appropos to the kewl kidz finally figuring out that Cheney really is running everything -

Bush was so obviously unprepared to discuss substance with his Saudi guests that some of the president’s aides checked into what had happened. The briefing packet for the president had been diverted to Cheney’s office. Bush never got it, so he was totally unaware of what the Saudis hoped to accomplish in making the hajj to Crawford.

Thank you Stephen Parrish,CPA !

everyone go read !
Ray McGovern

Crazy Horse @ 47

Redshift, i understand about NYT (and other military)MSM being in the tank, that’s why the blogosphere outperforms them. I’m trying to imagine who the readers are which the NYT is trying to woo?

Well, keep in mind that most people hearing these things aren’t political junkies, and don’t instantly know it’s BS. At this point, a lot of people are (sensibly) suspicious of administration claims, but having the inside story and information that no one else has access to is still compelling news.

While the blogosphere outperforms them in analysis, in raw newsgathering, the blogosphere’s got nothin’. And ordinary readers, in addition to us, do want actual information; the problem is that the neocons are poisoning the well. If the NYT reporters would just follow their own rules about anonymous sources, and include “administration says” in the headlines, I’d have no major problems with it.

CNN’s Michael Ware has confirmed that Iranians have been supplying weapons to SCIRI.

the face of SCIRI -

howdy podner !

Yes, John Casper at 33,

Crazy Horse, 33 is not my comment or my link.

McGovern’s point is clear, but why would the NYT be encouraging Israel’s suicide? Even Hillary wouldn’t do that, would she?

I haven’t had time to read it.
NYT’s is not encouraging Israel’s suicide. Hillary isn’t doing it either.

IMHO, there are neocons in the US and Israel who are ideologically related. Their ME policies begin with a fundamental disrespect for Islam and non-Western culture. Every day we stay in Iraq makes our armed forces and our economy weaker. That makes Iran and Russia more dominant in the ME. Iraq used to be the Sunni counterweight to Shia Iran. In a wide variety of scenarios the Shia Sunni conflict can make Israel more vulnerable. I don’t see our staying in Iraq enhancing Israeli security in any way.

Yes, Scooter Libby was so consumed by the awesome responsibility of single-handedly doing the jobs of Condi Rice, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, Tom Ridge, Jay Garner and Jerry Bremer, not to mention Dick Cheney, that he couldn’t possibly focus on something as unimportant as Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame.

[chuckle]

You know, this is so typical of how these people run things. NOW the issue is saving Libby. So we’ll effectively trash Bush in order to save Libby.

Or maybe this is what Cheney wants. Make the president the king–the guy who attends ceremonies blessing ships, driving farm machinery into gaggles of reporters, displaying a codpiece on an aircraft carrier–while the VP/Prime Minister runs the government.

No zigs here, rayne.

Sparkles the Iguana @ 54

Will this February be the month the Wurlitzer melts down?

Edwards’ about face turns away swiftboaters..

“Madrassa” hoax unravels…

Hardly. Swiftboating is like a meth addiction. And when you have enablers like Howard Kurtz and the rest of the MSM, the Wurlitzer will continue churning out its sordid tunes.

For instance, Newsweek pushing the sordid and debunked Pelosi plane smear.

If the NYT reporters would just follow their own rules about anonymous sources, and include “administration says” in the headlines, I’d have no major problems with it.

How about “this administration says, emulating the boy who cried wolf”.

From Democracy Now!, let’s not forget Josh Wolf:

Josh Wolf, 24, has spent almost six months in jail. More time than any journalist in US history for protecting his sources. He was jailed on August 1st of last year when he refused to turn over video that he had shot of an anti-G8 demonstration in San Francisco to a federal grand jury. [includes rush transcript]
——————————————————————————–
Wolf had sold some of the footage to the nightly news as well as posted some on his website. The news broadcast attracted the attention of local and federal law enforcement agents who were investigating clashes between the police and demonstrators at the protest. They later served Wolf a federal subpoena requiring he turn over his unpublished video footage as well as testify about the protesters seen on the tape. When Wolf refused to comply, he was charged with contempt of court and incarcerated.

(snip)

litigatormom @
48

jayackroyd @ 39

old gold @
30

Hannah’s tastimony was devastating in terms of Bush’s legacy as President. It appears to confirm that Cheney is Bush’s Regent.
Can anyone imagine an aide to Humphrey, Agnew……… claiming to carry such a weighty portfolio?

That’s a great point. I just had coffee with a frequent commenter at Glenn Greenwald’s site. She was pessimistic about the trial. I pointed out that it doesn’t matter, really, whether Libby is convicted. What is important is that the way in which the administration operated under Cheney is being documented, and the way in which the press lay down is also being documented.

Yes, Scooter Libby was so consumed by the awesome responsibility of single-handedly doing the jobs of Condi Rice, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, Tom Ridge, Jay Garner and Jerry Bremer, not to mention Dick Cheney, that he couldn’t possibly focus on something as unimportant as Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame.

EPU’d from last thread:

semiot @ 88

The defense in a nutshell:

“TYOI He was quite good at remembering ideas and concepts, very bad at figuring out where they came from, how they came to him.”

Let’s not forget that Scooter was very good at remembering “his own arguments” and “the points he wanted to make.”

Clearly, what overwhelmed Scooter’s memory of his dealings with The Dick, Judy Judy Judy, Matt Cooper, Ari Fleischer, and Turdblossom (Rove) was his own convoluted argument — also known as a “lie” — about how Tim Russert told him that Scooter that all the reporters knew Plame worked at the CIA.

Also EPU’d:

It’s the Jayson Blair Defense: “I’m a really great writer! I almost won a Puitzer! just don’t ask me where the words came from.”

CNN’s Michael Ware has confirmed that Iranians have been supplying weapons to SCIRI.

cbl,

I’m glad to hear that Michael Ware can confirm what our government can’t prove. As I was saying yesterday, I can and have inferred this kind of a thing for a while, but inference is not proof. If Ware has real evidence, he should produce it, but I doubt that he does. This is more likely I think another example of speculation masquerading as fact.

Greetings earthlings.

Christy and Pach, message received.

It was an absorbing experience to be in the courtroom and hear Fitzgerald in person. He kind of leans towards people when he is listening, very intense face and eyes.

I’ve got notes about both the substance and the feel of the courtroom but will probably write them up later. Those of you who know I am bipolar will not be surprised to hear I’m running pretty high right now and need to spend the next 30 minutes seriously calming down.

David Shuster came and sat next to me in court.

Twisted Martini @ 10

What kind of sick fuck derives relief from chemo by watching people get tortured?

OBJECTION! Leading the witness.

I’m trying to imagine who the readers are which the NYT is trying to woo?

Don’t forget the Washington insiders. I have a dear friend who’s a lobbyist in DC, and he quotes the NYT like it’s the bible (probably because he gives them interviews from time to time). He’s often shocked that I have better information than he does, though I live in the hinterlands. I tell him that he needs to get his head out of the NYT and the Post, and also to stop listening to DLC talking points.

Some courtrooms are closing for the snow. The sense of the media room is that this trial will continue today. It doesn’t feel like very much snow to me, but then I lived in Boston for a long time.

Re: and from the NYTimes, more woes for MSM:

It’s fair to say that the relationship between the press and the Bush White House has often been one of mutual suspicion and sometimes outright hostility. And the administration and its allies have at times been outspoken in their belief that the mainstream press was biased against it. But as evidenced by the “Frontline” four-part series “News War,” whose first episode appears tonight on PBS, government skepticism toward the press is just one of the trials faced by today’s news organizations. Those challenges include everything from declining audiences, to the warp speed of the 24/7 news cycle, to the Internet’s undercutting the press’s monopoly on information, to news operations beholden to conglomerates that sometimes view news as another entertainment portal.

(snip)

egregious, can’t wait to hear your thoughts! Thanks for taking the time to do this.

Christy I got to meet Jeralyn at lunch. Re real people versus video, I thought briefly about waving hello to her and realized, she doesn’t know who the heck I am. Just because I know the other 2 people in the Politics TV video, Jane and Marcy…

egregious @ 68

Some courtrooms are closing for the snow. The sense of the media room is that this trial will continue today. It doesn’t feel like very much snow to me, but then I lived in Boston for a long time.

I was just wondering about this, since I came from another website mentioning that the federal government has decided to close at 2:00 pm today.

Egregious, I’m looking forward to your comments later!

-S

The press in the courtroom were pretty sedate, for example, there wasn’t a big change wrt Fitz’s argument of the 1-2 hour meeting being important. I think because we kind of saw how his argument was developing and there wasn’t one moment of ‘gasp’. However there were some serious snorts of derision when it was asked of Jill Abramson whether the July 6 Joe Wilson op-ed was viewed as important/memorable.

Hugh,

that was not my quote, I was using to show the Chimp made nice with known Iranian Agent, and absolutely no one questioned his doing so –

and I agree with you about Ware’s probable speculation

fyi – Prof Cole has been posting plenty of sqiblets over at his place regarding weaponry making it’s way in to Iraq

egregious @ 68

Some courtrooms are closing for the snow. The sense of the media room is that this trial will continue today. It doesn’t feel like very much snow to me, but then I lived in Boston for a long time.

Washington shuts down due to snow easily…I used to get out of school for just an inch or so. It looks like Columbus is getting up to 8, total, by tomorrow morning. So I guess at least some more is headed your way.

Let’s not forget that Scooter was very good at remembering “his own arguments” and “the points he wanted to make.”

Can I just point out that this isn’t “memory”? This is, um, “sanity.”

Imagine Donohue launching into a diatribe based on (h/t amanda) the parable of stoning the adultress, and then saying “Oh, shit, um, never mind. Forgot my own argument.”

We are not automatically closing. It is on a judge by judge basis. A person who works here is going to go up and find out what’s the story.

Hugh @ 64:

I’m surprised about and by Michael Ware. Usually he’s one of the sober MSM reporters (including John Burns) reporting the facts from the ground in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq.

egregious @ 65

He kind of leans towards people when he is listening, very intense face and eyes.

I {{{love}}} when Fitz does this. I noticed that when he came out with Libby’s indictment and the sense I got was that he was really, really listening, so much so that it makes you feel that he is really considering you. IOW, he’s a very considerate and caring person. Ooh, what I would give for such a man!

Libby’s entire defense was laid out almost 30 years ago by comedian Steve Martin. For those too young to remember, a quick recap. As part of his stand-up act, Steve Martin did a bit on “How You Can Be A Millionaire And Not Pay Any Taxes”. It went something like this…

First, get a million dollars. Then when the IRS shows up and asks you why you didn’t pay any taxes on your million dollars, you respond with 2 simple words: I forgot.

It’s encouraging to hear that some of the jurors are showing signs of not falling for this charade.

duplicate

Redshift #45,

I agree with the in the tank idea. Martha Raddatz has become a little more skeptical of late but it used to drive me crazy to hear her recite whatever piffle the Pentagon had handed her that day. This is still true of Jim Miklaszewski.

Of course sometimes it is just a political bent. Last night the NewsHour had two foreign policy analysts on to discuss the Iran EFP story: Flynt Leverett of the “centrist” New America Foundation and Matthew Levitt of the AIPAC derived Washington Institute for Near East Policy. They were as uncritical and credulous in their analysis as any reporter at the Times. It was depressing to listen to two “experts” talk with so few facts or insight about the situation.

On the other hand, I hope that the members of Congress, particularly in the opposition party, understand the grave danger of Iran having a nuclear weapon.

Dubya is getting in front of Cheney’s trip tp Australia by adopting their political nomecloture in his speaking points.

Well be alarmed to learn that Australia has reason to believe Iran has purchased signifigant quantities of yellowcake from Africa…

Hubris.

ifthethunderdontgetya @ 60

Sparkles the Iguana @ 54

Will this February be the month the Wurlitzer melts down?

Edwards’ about face turns away swiftboaters..

“Madrassa” hoax unravels…

Hardly. Swiftboating is like a meth addiction. And when you have enablers like Howard Kurtz and the rest of the MSM, the Wurlitzer will continue churning out its sordid tunes.

For instance, Newsweek pushing the sordid and debunked Pelosi plane smear.

Last Sunday on national television Howard Kurtz blamed Hillary Clinton’s campaign for the “Obama Madrassa swiftboat.” I heard him say, I googled it, I read about it. Kurtz blamed it on Hillary unequivocally, almost as an aside, while there are numerous reasons to believe it was not her campaign. Kurtz sucks. What kind of politics do assholes like Kurtz sell when his story is a story about a slime story?

Legislation passed in the early 1970’s prohibits a retiring member of Congress from retaining leftover campaign funds for personal use. As I recall, a fair number of Congresscritters with big warchests retired during the last term before the new law took effect.

It begins to look as if all the pundits were wrong, when they predicted that Speaker Hastert wouldn’t even complete this term, let alone run again.

Biodun @ 78

Hugh @ 64:

I’m surprised about and by Michael Ware. Usually he’s one of the sober MSM reporters (including John Burns) reporting the facts from the ground in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq.

Maybe they’re, um, filling some recent vacancies in the Steno Pool?

John Casper, sorry, i conflated your post and Stephen Parrish’s link to the McGovern article, which does analyze Israel’s suicide. I was so busy i forgot it, but then learned it as if new.

What a synchronicity between TYOI’s testimony and the revelation about Cheney stealing shrub’s briefing book.

David Shuster came and sat next to me in court.

baberiffic ! mr cbl, the suit diva went off over shuster’s gorgeous outfit yesterday (yeah, I know, boyz don’t have ‘outfits’)

Christopher Walker @ 84

It begins to look as if all the pundits were wrong, when they predicted that Speaker Hastert wouldn’t even complete this term, let alone run again.

Hastert is no longer speaker. Madame Chairwoman Pelosi is.

From the Frontline program to be aired tonight:

The Post’s Bob Woodward, echoing previous statements, admits his blunder in believing that Iraq probably possessed weapons of mass destruction: “It was totally wrong. I think I dropped the ball here. I should have pushed much, much harder.” And he roundly criticizes Judith Miller, the former correspondent for The Times. “She had the wrong sources,” he says. “The excuse can’t be ‘I’m only as good as my sources.’ ”

Surprisingly, though, Mr. Woodward says he still regards the Plame affair as much ado about gossip. “There was a lot of energy and air time and ink spent over something that really didn’t amount to a violation of the law,” he says. “There’s no echo of Watergate.”

My bold.

Christopher Walker @
85

Legislation passed in the early 1970’s prohibits a retiring member of Congress from retaining leftover campaign funds for personal use. As I recall, a fair number of Congresscritters with big warchests retired during the last term before the new law took effect.

It begins to look as if all the pundits were wrong, when they predicted that Speaker Hastert wouldn’t even complete this term, let alone run again.

I forgot to add that according to FEC figures filed in December, while Dennis Hastert raised quite a lot of money for the 2006 cycle, he spent it; so he’s not sitting on a big leftover warchest, anyhow. $18,000 and change, I think it said.

BREAKING: Rep. Charlie Norwood (R-GA) Dies at Age 65

cbl @ 27

god f’in’ dammit !

“I think the evidence is strong that the Iranian government is making these IEDs, and the Iranian government is sending them across the border and they are killing U.S. troops once they get there,” says Richard Clarke, former White House counterterrorism chief and an ABC News consultant

http://blogs.abcnews.com/thebl…..e_ied.html

you know, that breaks my heart…I’ve had quite a bit of respect for clarke, now my wingnuts are gonna throw this up in my face

I was so busy i forgot it, but then learned it as if new.

LMAO.

Btw, loved your work at the Fetterman Massacre Battle and the Little Big Horn

Congressman Norwood (R-GA) just passed away of Cancer! RIP and blessings to the family.

I stumbled across a link spelling out what Gov. Perdue’s duties are in terms of the next step for that seat.

If the congressman resigns or dies, Gov. Sonny Perdue has 10 days to call a special election to be held at least 30 days later, the newspaper said. Any number of candidates from either party could appear on the ballot. (c)

Eureka Springs, AR @ 95

Congressman Norwood (R-GA) just passed away of Cancer! RIP and blessings to the family.

I stumbled across a link spelling out what Gov. Perdue’s duties are in terms of the next step for that seat.

If the congressman resigns or dies, Gov. Sonny Perdue has 10 days to call a special election to be held at least 30 days later, the newspaper said. Any number of candidates from either party could appear on the ballot. (c)

ONE MORE DEMOCRAT IN THE SENATE PLEASE

New York MSM fantasy about 2008:

ELLIS HENICAN: God has never been kinder to New York newspaper columnists -

BOB GARFIELD: [LAUGHS]

ELLIS HENICAN: – than it looks like he might be. And it’s not just that Rudy and Hillary come from New York. I mean, that would be nice if that’s all they were. But these are two large, divisive, almost cartoonish characters that you can’t help but have a strong opinion about either one of them.

My goodness, if we wake up in the morning sometime in the summer of next year and this race is between Rudy and Hillary, I truly will think I have died and gone to heaven. Savor the moment. Never let it end.

BOB GARFIELD: [LAUGHS]

ELLIS HENICAN: Let them just beat up on each other for the next 30 years. I won’t have to worry about anything else for the rest of my career.

you know, that breaks my heart…I’ve had quite a bit of respect for clarke, now my wingnuts are gonna throw this up in my face

I saw him a few weeks ago on teevee saying that Scooter’s memory defense made sense to him, because of all the pressure. I bet none of these guys, Scooter, Hannah, Clark even speak a Middle Eastern language. I hope someone at the NYT’s or the WaPo notices.

perris @ 96

Eureka Springs, AR @ 95

Congressman Norwood (R-GA) just passed away of Cancer! RIP and blessings to the family.

I stumbled across a link spelling out what Gov. Perdue’s duties are in terms of the next step for that seat.

If the congressman resigns or dies, Gov. Sonny Perdue has 10 days to call a special election to be held at least 30 days later, the newspaper said. Any number of candidates from either party could appear on the ballot. (c)

ONE MORE DEMOCRAT IN THE SENATE PLEASE

House, not Senate. And not gonna happen in that district.

cbl,

I know that wasn’t your quote. I just wanted to comment on it. My point is that for Juan Cole, myself, or anyone else, we can be pretty sure something is going on, but that does not constitute actual proof. Even if there were such proof, it would still tell only part of the story. Weapons coming from Iran doesn’t mean governmental participation, just as surface to air missiles coming from Romania and going to Sunni insurgents don’t prove Romanian involvement. Moreover, even if there were such involvement and were proved, it would still need to be given its proper weight and not blown out of proportion. When Iranian involvement with Shia militias is raised as an issue I like to point to the foreign jihadis and Saudi financial involvment with the Sunni insurgency which is responsible for most attacks against Americans. I think this is how these things need to be assessed and I don’t see it happening.

JF @
99

perris @ 96

Eureka Springs, AR @ 95

Congressman Norwood (R-GA) just passed away of Cancer! RIP and blessings to the family.

I stumbled across a link spelling out what Gov. Perdue’s duties are in terms of the next step for that seat.

If the congressman resigns or dies, Gov. Sonny Perdue has 10 days to call a special election to be held at least 30 days later, the newspaper said. Any number of candidates from either party could appear on the ballot. (c)

ONE MORE DEMOCRAT IN THE SENATE PLEASE

House, not Senate. And not gonna happen in that district.

You got that right!

Lucy Dalglish, Executive Director, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press , chatting now at WaPo on “The Libby Trial’s Implications for the Media.”

I’m watching bits of the anti-surge resolution debate in the House on C-SPAN, and boy, would it be great if congresspersons had to face cross-examination from Fitz after their testimony…

amen Hugh

Just caught a snippet of Joe Scarborough interviewing David Gergen on MSNBC.

David Gergen’s summary of Bush’s strategy of dealing with Iran: “Go put a stick in their eye”. (He said this in criticism, making clear that it appears Bush wants to provoke them into conflict.).

Well said, Mr. Gergen!

Btw,

I know a lot of you were frustrated with teh The Year of Iran this morning. I apologize for that–but I did it to raise attention to the quote. From some of the response I’ve gotten from folks who simply read–don’t comment–it had the desired effect. Hopefully, they will follow through on their newfound awareness of the quote.

Thanks for your indulgence…

WashPost’s Dana Millbank on yesterday at the trial:

(snip)

It was a rare moment at the federal courthouse yesterday, and not only because Washington’s most famous journalist was answering questions from somebody other than Larry King. Woodward, columnist Robert Novak and a quartet of prominent journalists were called to the stand for the first day of Libby’s defense.

Libby must believe himself to be in desperate legal straits to have six journalists serve as his character witnesses. And, indeed, the reporters’ testimony appeared to do little to dent the prosecution’s case that the former chief of staff to Vice President Cheney eagerly shared CIA officer Valerie Plame’s name with reporters and then said otherwise under oath. But Libby’s team did establish that the defendant wasn’t the only administration official dishing about Plame

(snip)

Hey, at least some of Jane’s and Swopa’s PoliticsTV appearances are back up at YouTube. I thought Google and YouTube took them down?

Biodun @ 107

WashPost’s Dana Millbank on yesterday at the trial:

(snip)

It was a rare moment at the federal courthouse yesterday, and not only because Washington’s most famous journalist was answering questions from somebody other than Larry King. Woodward, columnist Robert Novak and a quartet of prominent journalists were called to the stand for the first day of Libby’s defense.

Libby must believe himself to be in desperate legal straits to have six journalists serve as his character witnesses. And, indeed, the reporters’ testimony appeared to do little to dent the prosecution’s case that the former chief of staff to Vice President Cheney eagerly shared CIA officer Valerie Plame’s name with reporters and then said otherwise under oath. But Libby’s team did establish that the defendant wasn’t the only administration official dishing about Plame

(snip)

DANA!

LandOfTheFree @ 105

Just caught a snippet of Joe Scarborough interviewing David Gergen on MSNBC.

David Gergen’s summary of Bush’s strategy of dealing with Iran: “Go put a stick in their eye”. (He said this in criticism, making clear that it appears Bush wants to provoke them into conflict.).

Well said, Mr. Gergen!

Is it the same stick Libby used to arouse that bear?

I just want to step back and declare that even if Iran is sending arms into Iraq. So what? They are threatened by US and the instability in Iraq. Why shouldn’t they consider themselves obliged to do something?

It’s not Iran that worries me, it’s my government.

/end declaration

LandOfTheFree at 11:19 am

Great catch.

That James Baker III using one of DC’s most famous leakers to paste one on the Shrub.

Hugh @ 100

Moreover, even if there were such involvement and were proved, it would still need to be given its proper weight and not blown out of proportion. When Iranian involvement with Shia militias is raised as an issue I like to point to the foreign jihadis and Saudi financial involvment with the Sunni insurgency which is responsible for most attacks against Americans. I think this is how these things need to be assessed and I don’t see it happening.

Exactly. Even if this “evidence” were entirely true, it would not mean war with Iran. As Sen. Webb has pointed out, China was definitely involved in Vietnam, and all of the weapons used against us there were made in China, the Soviet Union, or Eastern Europe, but we didn’t go to war with them over it.

Biodun #90,

Bob Woodward has some rare talents. Who knew he could talk with his head that far up his backside, for instance?

TeddySanFran @ 102

Lucy Dalglish, Executive Director, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press , chatting now at WaPo on “The Libby Trial’s Implications for the Media.”

I liked your comment on Richard Cohen’s hypocrisy du jour, Teddy.

EW @ 106:

No need for apologies. You’re doing a great job, as usual. The people who were complaining missed the point of the sobriquet.

Marcy,

don’t you dare apologize to those whiners !

as a casual plameologist, my current outfit of robe and slippers is a testament to the stunning and gripping nature of your work out of Prettyman – don’t change a thing and let those fingers of fire type whatever they want !

Apparently, John Boner got teary eyed at the Iraq debate this morning.

I’m having visions of Pelosi bouncing a ball off Boner’s head like Duvall in the Great Santini-”C’mon Johnny, squirt a few!”

Hugh @ 82

Of course sometimes it is just a political bent. Last night the NewsHour had two foreign policy analysts on to discuss the Iran EFP story: Flynt Leverett of the “centrist” New America Foundation and Matthew Levitt of the AIPAC derived Washington Institute for Near East Policy. They were as uncritical and credulous in their analysis as any reporter at the Times. It was depressing to listen to two “experts” talk with so few facts or insight about the situation.

Yes, that’s a problem as well. It’s long been the case that those with the experience to serve as “national security consultants” or “military consultants” for news outlets are much more likely to have hawkish views and be sympathetic to militarism in general.

John Casper @
94

I was so busy i forgot it, but then learned it as if new.

LMAO.

Btw, loved your work at the Fetterman Massacre Battle and the Little Big Horn

Pilamaya yelo aloh, or in Mohawk, n’yawehn.

Or as TRex would say, yeah, rode bareback in both (battles.)

From Glenn Greewald this morning. Thewingnuts are foaming at th mouth again.

Extremist Bush supporter calls for murder of scientists
(updated below)

Whenever you think that Bush followers cannot get any more depraved in what they advocate, they always prove you wrong. This is what University of Tennessee Law Professor and right-wing blogger Glenn Reynolds said today about claims by the administration that Iran is supplying weapons to Iraqi insurgents (claims which, needless to say, he blindly believes):

This has been obvious for a long time anyway, and I don’t understand why the Bush Administration has been so slow to respond. Nor do I think that high-profile diplomacy is an appropriate response. We should be responding quietly, killing radical mullahs and iranian atomic scientists, supporting the simmering insurgencies within Iran, putting the mullahs’ expat business interests out of business, etc.

Basically, stepping on the Iranians’ toes hard enough to make them reconsider their not-so-covert war against us in Iraq. And we should have been doing this since the summer 2003. But as far as I can tell, we’ve done nothing along these lines.

Just think about how extremist and deranged that is. We are not even at war with Iran. Congress has not declared war or authorized military force against that country. Yet Reynolds thinks that the Bush administration, unilaterally, should send people to murder Iranian scientists and religious leaders — just pick out whichever ones we don’t like and slaughter them. No charges. No trial. No accountability. Just roving death squads deployed and commanded by our Leader, slaughtering whomever he wants dead.

Apparently, John Boner got teary eyed at the Iraq debate this morning

why ? did they show a busted oil pipeline or somethin’ ?

Iran may well be providing arms to its allies in Iraq, just as the Saudis are to their friends. I take this as less about the insurgency, and more about the civil war.

Emptywheel: You are a marvel

perris @ 93

cbl @ 27

god f’in’ dammit !

“I think the evidence is strong that the Iranian government is making these IEDs, and the Iranian government is sending them across the border and they are killing U.S. troops once they get there,” says Richard Clarke, former White House counterterrorism chief and an ABC News consultant

http://blogs.abcnews.com/thebl…..e_ied.html

you know, that breaks my heart…I’ve had quite a bit of respect for clarke, now my wingnuts are gonna throw this up in my face

From Pat Lang’s blog (he appeared on Late Edition Sunday last:

Wolf Blitzer: Let me ask you, Pat Lang, first, to comment on this briefing that reporters in Baghdad were given today, suggesting that Iranians — whether the Iranian Republican Guard, the Quds division, whatever — are providing the most sophisticated explosives that can take out an Abrams battle tank, all the armor, to Shiite militias in Iraq. And those explosives have already killed well more than 100 American troops.

PAT LANG, FORMER DIA ANALYST: Well, anyone who has been studying this knows that the Iranians are playing a significant role in Iraq, because they are interested in the political outcome there. And the combat situation, of course, directly effects what the political outcome will be.

I think there is not much doubt that they probably have been supplying materiel of one kind of another to the Iraqi Shia. I don’t have a problem with believing that.

What I have difficulty understanding, and maybe Ray does, too — I don’t know — is the idea that all of a sudden, things which have probably been going on for months and months and months have taken on a whole new significance and now we are beating the drum over and over again about the degree of Iranian participation in the war and combat casualties amongst our troops when, in fact, the Iranians have been an ever-present factor from the beginning.

BLITZER: So I just want to get this straight. So you think there’s a political motive for releasing this information right now?

LANG: I think there’s kind of an eerie resemblance right now, of what’s going on in the continual iteration of statements concerning the Iranians, about their nuclear program, about their general menace in the world, about their actions in Iraq, all these kinds of things to what went on in ‘02 as part of the buildup done in making people think that the Iraqis were such a menace that something had to be done. I think there’s a resemblance.

Lang’s blog which details this:
http://turcopolier.typepad.com….._tyrannis/

emptywheel @ 106

Btw,

I know a lot of you were frustrated with teh The Year of Iran this morning. I apologize for that–but I did it to raise attention to the quote. From some of the response I’ve gotten from folks who simply read–don’t comment–it had the desired effect. Hopefully, they will follow through on their newfound awareness of the quote.

Thanks for your indulgence…

Actually, I think the only real problem was that when you’re doing the high-speed liveblogging, you don’t have a colon separating the name from the quote. That works fine with initials, but when the name is whole words, it becomes difficult to read. That said, I adapted to it pretty quickly, and certainly the appalling quote is well worth making into an albatross around Hannah’s neck.

What did I miss. Is Bush going after the Saudi’s for helping their neighbors?

jeffreyw @ 122

Iran may well be providing arms to its allies in Iraq, just as the Saudis are to their friends. I take this as less about the insurgency, and more about the civil war.

you know, through all this weapons from Iran stuff, the worst I’ve heard is that these weapons were manufactured in IRan

this makes absolutely NO claim that the Iranian government is endorsing what’s happened with weapons manufactured in their country

this is like an uzi machine gun coming from israel…the fact that israel might manufacture uzi’s does not in any sense of the term mean that Israel sponsered every terrorist that uses an uzi

Cripes:

Lucy Dalglish: There are several aspects of your question that should be addressed.
First of all, I think it has been demonstrated conclusively that identifying Valerie Plame’s name in this particular case was not a crime.
Secondly, if the intelligence identities act is violated, it specifically exempts journalists from being charged with a crime.
Third, journalists have very good reasons for refusing to identify sources. We can talk more about that later, if you’d like.

Maybe she should read Marcy Wheeler’s book, before presuming to answer questions about the matter.

Redshift @ 125

emptywheel @ 106

Btw,

I know a lot of you were frustrated with teh The Year of Iran this morning. I apologize for that–but I did it to raise attention to the quote. From some of the response I’ve gotten from folks who simply read–don’t comment–it had the desired effect. Hopefully, they will follow through on their newfound awareness of the quote.

Thanks for your indulgence…

Actually, I think the only real problem was that when you’re doing the high-speed liveblogging, you don’t have a colon separating the name from the quote. That works fine with initials, but when the name is whole words, it becomes difficult to read. That said, I adapted to it pretty quickly, and certainly the appalling quote is well worth making into an albatross around Hannah’s neck.

I think the next time this is done, just embolden or italisize the phrase, leaving the test normal font

If an Iraqi got caught wearing a T-shirt made in the USA, would that mean we were helping? Oh, wait, we’re supposed to be helping.

Federal govt closing at 2PM due to weather. Does this mean the trial is closed today?

Way OT.

Newsweek online has a thoughtful account of the writer’s visit with Miep Gies, the woman who helped hide Anne Frank and her family.

A Tribute to Miep Gies

Somehow, it occurred to me this group might appreciate a palate-cleanser about a woman of great courage and a long life of hope and faith in our better natures.

Hugh @ 100

cbl,

I know that wasn’t your quote. I just wanted to comment on it. My point is that for Juan Cole, myself, or anyone else, we can be pretty sure something is going on, but that does not constitute actual proof. Even if there were such proof, it would still tell only part of the story. Weapons coming from Iran doesn’t mean governmental participation, just as surface to air missiles coming from Romania and going to Sunni insurgents don’t prove Romanian involvement. Moreover, even if there were such involvement and were proved, it would still need to be given its proper weight and not blown out of proportion. When Iranian involvement with Shia militias is raised as an issue I like to point to the foreign jihadis and Saudi financial involvment with the Sunni insurgency which is responsible for most attacks against Americans. I think this is how these things need to be assessed and I don’t see it happening.

hugh, I so appreciate your careful, precise analyses and observations.

As I introduced this fibre to the the thread, I should have pointed out that I didn’t vet/confirm the report. (And I’d have no way of doing so – i’m sitting on my behind in the Bay Area.)

My interest in the story – and my reason for including it here – is with the response of MSM to the WH’s disinfo campaign.

For me, the CNN pick-up of Kevin Drum’s story suggests the disinfo campaign is failing – but that could simply be my wishful thinking now that the sun is out..

Again, thanks for the erudition and scholarship you share with the Lake.

this makes absolutely NO claim that the Iranian government is endorsing what’s happened with weapons manufactured in their country

I agree. Just hypothetical at this point. Peter Pace has said no evidence of gov’t complicity so far.

Loved the “The Year of Iraq” moniker. It pissed people on the right too!

Eureka Springs AR #111:

I second your “so what” on Iran being involved in Iraq. I mean, WTF did the Bush/Cheney war geniuses THINK Iran would do?

(Shall we compare what Iran may be doing with what we know the USA has done in many countries to supply weapons to various sides?)

from Phoenix Woman – caught over at Gilliard’s

http://cernigsnewshog.blogspot…..-this.html

in Iran virtually all numbers were in the Farsi-Arabic script.

Key thing showing this isn’t an Iranian shell: The lettering was done by Westerners.

The mortar shell was likely pulled from a Brit stockpile near Basra and ‘found’ miraculously.

emptywheel @
106

Btw,

I know a lot of you were frustrated with teh The Year of Iran this morning. I apologize for that–but I did it to raise attention to the quote. From some of the response I’ve gotten from folks who simply read–don’t comment–it had the desired effect. Hopefully, they will follow through on their newfound awareness of the quote.

Thanks for your indulgence…

Well, which is it. I, for one, am blown away by your work in the book and at the trial. I assume that you want folks to read what you write and the Year of Iran made it very difficult to follow. perris @ 130

Redshift @ 125

emptywheel @ 106

Btw,

I know a lot of you were frustrated with teh The Year of Iran this morning. I apologize for that–but I did it to raise attention to the quote. From some of the response I’ve gotten from folks who simply read–don’t comment–it had the desired effect. Hopefully, they will follow through on their newfound awareness of the quote.

Thanks for your indulgence…

Actually, I think the only real problem was that when you’re doing the high-speed liveblogging, you don’t have a colon separating the name from the quote. That works fine with initials, but when the name is whole words, it becomes difficult to read. That said, I adapted to it pretty quickly, and certainly the appalling quote is well worth making into an albatross around Hannah’s neck.

I think the next time this is done, just embolden or italisize the phrase, leaving the test normal font

The only real problem anyone had was that it made it very difficult to read what was and is great writing. What a horrible crime.

jeffreyw @ 123

Iran may well be providing arms to its allies in Iraq, just as the Saudis are to their friends. I take this as less about the insurgency, and more about the civil war.

Well, it is about the civil war, but even so most American deaths occur because of Sunni attacks. So why is the Bush Administration going ape sh*t over the Iranians at the moment when as Marie Roget notes in the Pat Lang quote this has been known for months? Indeed the casualty figures the government was citing go back to June 2004.

ccmask @ 127

What did I miss. Is Bush going after the Saudi’s for helping their neighbors?

No, I was just pointing it out as a counterweight to the Iranian argument.

cbl @
138

from Phoenix Woman – caught over at Gilliard’s

http://cernigsnewshog.blogspot…..-this.html

in Iran virtually all numbers were in the Farsi-Arabic script.

Key thing showing this isn’t an Iranian shell: The lettering was done by Westerners.

The mortar shell was likely pulled from a Brit stockpile near Basra and ‘found’ miraculously.

I’ll ask my gf, born in Tehran, if she thinks military mfg stuff goes out with western and/or farsi script.

emptywheel @
106

Btw,

I know a lot of you were frustrated with teh The Year of Iran this morning. I apologize for that–but I did it to raise attention to the quote. From some of the response I’ve gotten from folks who simply read–don’t comment–it had the desired effect. Hopefully, they will follow through on their newfound awareness of the quote.

Thanks for your indulgence…

No need to apologize, Marcy, you are doing a fantastic job. Thank you, however, for switching to “TYOI”.

To those who decry the posters who asked for the change, please find something else to whine about. It was making the flow of the testimony hard to follow and the tiniest bit of constructive criticism wasn’t out of line IMO. Nobody lost the point of the nickname nor its relevancy. Nobody was really whining about it that I saw. I did see, however, more comments criticizing the criticizers than anything else, and that was after Christy asked people to stop harping on it. Not once, but twice. By the third time it had basically stopped.

But anyway… thank you again Marcy. I believe you took the suggestion in the spirit in which it was offered – without offense – and did the right thing. Of course it goes without saying you can type anything you want. You could have called him Evil Minion of Darth Big Time With a Huge Chip on His Shoulder for all I care, but you were reasonable and flexible enough to … ah, enough. That’s the end of my comments on the subject. You’re doing an excellent job.

ccmask @ 124

Emptywheel: You are a marvel

Seconded.

Are you people serious about the difficulty is reading something someone is speed typing? Geez.

I guess we will need to make a left turn into Vienna right before we head to Iran.

Austrian rifles used in Iraq, reports say
dpa German Press Agency
Published: Tuesday February 13, 2007

Vienna- Reports of US soldiers confiscating around 100 Austrian-made sniper rifles in Iraq have not yet been confirmed by Austrian officials. Spokespersons for both the interior and foreign ministries and the manufacturer stressed that they had not yet received any official information on whether the weapons really originated in Austria.

Astrid Harz of the Foreign Ministry said the Austrian government’s approval of the deal in late 2004 “had been legal and correct based on the Austrian legal regulations.”

Iran’s security forces said that the guns would be used to fight drug-trafficking in its border regions. Rudolf Gollia, a spokesman for the Austrian Interior Ministry stressed that the end-use certificate had been double-checked with Iranian ministries.

Snip

http://rawstory.com/news/2006/…..32007.html

Hi JohnC. And Hugh, I had to hit control find to read your post. Excellent, as usual.

following on the Leeden mention earlier, it would not surprise me if invading Europe is on the table, too.

ccmask @ 143

Are you people serious about the difficulty is reading something someone is speed typing? Geez.

You know, I got told in no uncertain terms to stop this conversation, then it pops back up. Is it over or not. If it was such an unreasonable request why was it changed?

anti thesis – just finished skimming the article myself – plenty of updated links towards end of post –

and yes, my machinist of 30 years husband wants to see the tail fin pics too

TeddySanFran @ 102

Lucy Dalglish, Executive Director, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press , chatting now at WaPo on “The Libby Trial’s Implications for the Media.”

She took my question (Columbus, Ohio).

MSNBC Breaking News: Cheney will NOT testify.

per Joe Scarborough just now

More live blog upstairs.

GSD @
24

Diminutive, bald, warmongering Australian PM, John “Ratty” Howard invokes the name of what morally bankrupt former Democrat to bolster his outlandish allegations against Barack Obama and Democrats in general?

If you guessed Sleazy Joe Lieberman give yourself a hand.

Joe Lieberman, he’s got the word LIE right in his name.

-GSD

Sent my [cough] senator, LIEberman, a second letter yesterday, about his little problem with his mouth, and mentioned he’s seen as an ignorant and arrogant tool for this administration.
can’t wait to hear back from him…doubt I ever will.

Terre @ 151

MSNBC Breaking News: Cheney will NOT testify.

per Joe Scarborough just now

I’m not sure when he said he would testify he realized he was going to be implicated before he took the stand

that said, I thought mentioning him was nothing but a shiney object, forcing fitz to prepare and waste as much of the prosecution’s resources as possible

still, I would have liked to see fitz subpeona the vp himself

I suppose fitz knew there would be a court challenge to his subpeona and wanted the trial to move forward.

cbl @ 149

anti thesis – just finished skimming the article myself – plenty of updated links towards end of post –

and yes, my machinist of 30 years husband wants to see the tail fin pics too

“Ledeen”

I’m an artist and never made the connection re: futurism and facism.

I am learning something everyday from FDL, thank you!
I just wish I didn’t have that yucky feeling every time I make a discovery like that…

cbl @ 138

from Phoenix Woman – caught over at Gilliard’s

http://cernigsnewshog.blogspot…..-this.html

in Iran virtually all numbers were in the Farsi-Arabic script.

Key thing showing this isn’t an Iranian shell: The lettering was done by Westerners.

The mortar shell was likely pulled from a Brit stockpile near Basra and ‘found’ miraculously.

More inconsistencies:

Michael Winship raises another trenchant question – why are Iranians “date stamping” their munitions not using Iranian/regional time/date formats, but instead using American time/date formats?

([re] Sunday’s bizarre press conference in Baghdad’s Green Zone. Bizarre because reporters’ cellphones were seized, no one was allowed to shoot photos or video and the briefers insisted on anonymity.

Our military presented alleged evidence of Iran’s ties to Shiite militias in Iraq — in the form of rocket-propelled grenades (RPG’s), mortar shells and especially vicious devices that tear through armor called EFP’s — explosively formed penetrators. All are said to be of Iranian manufacture, purportedly brought into Iraq by the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

I’m just wondering, by the way, not judging: According to the New York Times, “The shells had serial numbers in English in order to comply with international standards for arms, the officials said. One grenade, for instance, was marked with the serial number P.G.7-AT-1 followed by LOT:5-31-2006.” Numbering month-day-year is an American standard. Virtually every other country, including English-speaking ones, uses day-month-year: 31-05-2006. I asked two, Mideast native speakers if the day-month-year standard was also true in Iran’s Farsi language and Arabic. They answered yes.)

I’m guessing that – in accordance with regional values of hospitality – the Iranians anticipated their munitions would have center stage at US military propaganda psychological warfare press conferences.

The Iranians, all too painfully aware of Americans’ lack of linguistic and cultural competence, thoughtfully chose to produce their own munitions with US date stamps to make things easier for America’s beleaguered propagandists military press officers.

So the real question – where’s the mole?

How did the Iranians know – years before the event – that the US would hold last Sunday’s presser?

Perhaps they read about the Gleiwitz incident.

On the night of August 31, 1939 a small group of German operatives led by Naujocks seized the Gleiwitz station and broadcast a message in Polish that urged the Poles living in Silesia to strike against Germans. The Germans’ goal was to make the attack and the broadcast look like the work of anti-German Polish saboteurs.

In order to make the attack scene more convincing, the Germans brought in Franciszek Honiok, a German Silesian known for sympathizing with the Poles, who had been arrested the previous day by the Gestapo. Honiok was dressed to look like a saboteur; then killed by lethal injection, given gunshot wounds, and left dead at the scene, so that he appeared to have been killed while attacking the station. His corpse was subsequently presented as proof of the attack to the police and press.

[snip]

At the same time as the Gleiwitz attack there were other incidents orchestrated by Germany along the Polish-German border, such as house torching in the Polish Corridor and spurious propaganda output. The entire project, dubbed Operation Himmler and comprising 21 incidents in all, was intended to give the appearance of Polish aggression against Germany.

The Gleiwitz incident: pretext for the last* World War.

(*until the next one)

Gee – how could the Iranians possibly have anticipated Operation Cheney?

Gotta find the mole.

ifthethunderdontgetya @ 150

TeddySanFran @ 102

Lucy Dalglish, Executive Director, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press , chatting now at WaPo on “The Libby Trial’s Implications for the Media.”

She took my question (Columbus, Ohio).

Lucy’s sticking with “not a crime” although not providing cites for her conclusion.

Worries me that someone like Libby who is supposed to have such a bad memory was in a high position in this administration!