“[T]he most important masculine gender characteristics are those related to male honour – control over women and younger family members and virility, this last chiefly expressed through impregnation.” p. 20

Also this evening, I watched Gwen Ifill’s PBS show Washington Week, and Pierre Thomas expressed the sentiment that Fitz’s reputation will be severely damaged if Libby is acquitted. It seemed to me that this was what he and perhaps others on the panel were hoping for.

Thank you for the comprehensive list! During the 2004 campaign, Cheney also authoritatively asserted that if John Kerry were elected that the US would be at increased risk of another terrorist attack

He was absolutely right. Why should terrorists waste their time and energy attacking the Bush and Dick show? When someone is doing your job for you already, you have nothing left to do but watch and pop popcorn. I wonder if bin Ladin likes popcorn? Even if he did, he’s probably frigging sick of it by now. Overdose, you know.

I’ve long agreed with the position taken by Randi Rhodes of AAR: that the outing of Plame and Brewster Jennings was a death threat against the intelligence community, and part of a “threefer” hatched in Cheney’s evil brain, to wit:

1. Leak Ms. Plame Wilson (blowing her cover and destroying her further usefulness as a NOC for our country) and the notion that “she nepotistically sent Joe on a junket, as a boondoggle” in an attempt to discredit him;
2. Issue a thinly-veiled death threat against the intel community: “We Will Kill You If You Try To Stop This War!” and finally
3. Destroy Brewster Jennings (and cause many deaths amongst its staff and contacts), which was the CIA’s anti-WMD eyes and ears in the middle east — so that his own twisted intel could be used to sandbag a credulous pReznit and American People into going to war.

Am I wrong on this, FellowFirePups?

Major actions like this are not done in some little snit. They are planned in advance to scratch several itches at the same time. There are probably a couple of other itches that we don’t know about. For example, establishing a precedent for the immaculate declassification (i loves me that so much) process.

“My understanding is that the Congolese mines were closed years ago and that any mining now is purely artisanal,” said this official.

artisanal? Like some sort of boutique radioactive mining operation? Like people learning how to be a blacksmith or make woad?

Thanks. Christy for reminding us about the rules of the site. The rage many of us feel needs to be kept calm and clean to protect the righteous mission of FDL as you so rightly reminded us.

As I read the diversity of opinions allowed to be printed here, I sometimes wonder how best to walk the tight rope balancing the need for rational, effective credibility and the temptation for impotent flailing about. I marvel at the preponderance of reasonable critiques. I marvel at the moderators’ capacity for choosing this and rejecting that. Sometimes it seems we’re allowed a great deal of flailing, but balanced by great control.

On balance, I respect much of what I find here, biting my own tongue at times, lest I express my volcanic rage and disgust in hurtful ways. At other times I am praying for protection before the vulnerability I see.

I’m grateful that there are great writers and analysts; grateful that there are leaders whose vision both nurtures and restrains us. I’m in awe of those whose vocations and avocations insist upon a high level of integrity for public service and civil discourse within a broad range of expressions and sentiments of unbearable frustration and daring hope.

So, my own integrity leaves me sighing in gratitude, thanks be to God for the gift of FDL. Long may its prophetic mission flourish!

Hersh said that those who had seen the videos of the horrible screams of the children being raped by the US contractor were unforgettable.

Bush was ordered more than a year ago by a judge to release the tapes which according to Biden and Rumsfeld showed torture, rapes and murders beyond anything that has been written about or seen in photographs or videos.

Bush continues to defy the court in refusing to release the videos of American soldiers watching CACI contractors raping very young boys.

Most of them work hard and well, which is why Dick Cheney has worked tirelessly to punish and demoralize them, to make them powerless, and most of all, to make them leave government service.

Remember Andrew Card’s lunchtime speech a few years ago to hundreds of the best and brightest DC interns. A man who had spent his entire career working his way to the top levels of government – or government influence (eg, General Motor’s top lobbyist). Mr. Card “departed from his prepared speech” and told those would be public servants to go home. Public service was a contradiction in terms. Go to the Private Sector Young Man (and Woman), decreed our modern Horatio Alger. Only there will you find fulfillment and reward. Working for government will get you nowhere. This from a government employee, the President’s Chief of Staff, and one of the most powerful men in Washington.

On the darker side of this effort, good employees have been shorn of their union protections, security clearances, and job responsibilities. Many have been side-stepped in the reporting and policy process – which itself has been corrupted and squeezed into the OVP’s shop. Many have been given nothing to do for months, or demoted or put under the command of inexperienced ideologues. All in the hope that they would give up and leave, and allow their posts to remain vacant, their leadership untapped, and their mentoring of junior public servants undone. Their places taken by the faithful.

Why this effort, which started in January 2001? Because many of the government’s professional employees do a good job. Many know more about their one thing than anybody in the private sector or state government. Most of all, professional, well-placed bureaucrats know each other, know their facts, and know how policy is meant to be vetted – seared and roasted from many sides in private so that what makes it into adopted policy has a decent chance of being factual, logical and workable.

As such, they are the quintessential roadblocks to the creation of Dick Cheney’s fantasyworld and the implementation of his dogmatic agenda, which is why Mr. Cheney has put them on his personal endangered species list.