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Taylor Marsh has been writing on line since 1996, with the archives provided here a representation of that work.

Tag Archives | 9/11

Obama to Thank the Republicans Running for President

By on 24 January 2012

**UPDATED**

President Barack Obama talks with Jon Favreau, Director of Speechwriting, in the Oval Office, Jan. 23, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)


During his State of the Union address tonight, President Obama will announce the creation of a special unit to investigate misconduct and illegalities that contributed to both the financial collapse and the mortgage crisis. The office, part of a new Unit on Mortgage Origination and Securitization Abuses, will be chaired by Eric Schneiderman, the New York attorney general, according to a White House official. – Sam Stein, Exclusive

Mitt Romney’s careening from frontrunner to hanger-on.

Newt Gingrich is pitching a fit about the press, while whining that if he can’t have his audience he’s going take his Tea Party talking points and go home.

“I wish in retrospect I’d protested when Brian Williams took them out of it because I think it’s wrong,” Mr. Gingrich said. “And I think he took them out of it because the media is terrified that the audience is going to side with the candidates against the media, which is what they’ve done in every debate.”

[...] Mr. Gingrich clearly noticed something was off, too. “We’re going to serve notice on future debates,” he told Fox. “We’re just not going to allow that to happen. That’s wrong. The media doesn’t control free speech. People ought to be allowed to applaud if they want to.”

Romney and Gingrich are both a gift to Pres. Obama. They’re making him look awfully good these days.

From ABC News:

Unfavorable views of Mitt Romney have soared, doubts about Newt Gingrich remain widespread and Barack Obama has advanced to his highest personal popularity in more than a year — all in advance of the State of the Union address in which Obama makes his case for a second term.

Fifty-three percent of Americans in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll express a favorable opinion of Obama overall, up by 5 points from last month to the most since April 2010. It can matter: Favorability is the most basic measure of a public figure’s popularity.

UPDATE: OBL finish, the flag, the names, would have been a lot more moving & deserved to be, if speech had been disciplined instead of a laundry list of forgettable words.

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Hillary and Joe, Condi vs. Joe

By on 29 December 2011

The rumors are flying around the internets.

Robert Reich reveals the Democratic panic deep within the insiders by pushing a Hillary – Biden switch. He’s just the latest.

The subject of a Biden – Hillary switch makes my book, but I’ve yet to read anyone address the damage it would do to Pres. Obama, who right now is seeing his approval ratings rise. What would dumping Joe Biden, which isn’t going to happen, say about his candidacy? That he absolutely needs Hillary to win? There’s no proof that this is true.

Would Hillary supporters automatically vote for Pres. Obama if she’s on the ticket? Newsflash: Most Hillary supporters are going to vote for Obama anyway.

This site was a leading anti-Puma venue in the 2008 general election. Would anti-Obama voters who tilt Democratic and to the left automatically vote for Obama if Hillary was his nominee? Could these people be inspired to vote Obama in order to save Hillary from humiliation of the possibility of not delivering for him?

With Robert Reich the latest to hoist the Hillary – Biden swtich, there is obviously real worry by insider Democrats that the base won’t be inspired to turn out for Obama alone.

For me, however, the most interesting rumor hitting my inbox lately is Condi versus Biden. An abundance of popcorn would be required for a Rice debate with Joe Biden.

But as the CBS video above from November 2011 reveals, she says “… I’m a policy person not a politician. …politics doesn’t appeal to me.”

But before anything would happen Pres. Obama would be forced to combat yet another push for the Biden – Clinton tango, something I think is ludicrous to suggest and, for what it’s worth, do not endorse.

Dr. “swatting flies” Rice was arguably the worst national security adviser in U.S. history.

“I don’t think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon. That they would try to use an airplane as a missile? A hijacked airplane as a missile? All of this reporting about hijacking was about traditional hijacking.” – Condoleezza Rice

Another round of “mushroom clouds,” anyone?

There’s that little item “Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside U.S.” that didn’t get much attention from her. Rice’s reaction to George Tenet telling her the U.S. needed to strike Afghanistan is equally disturbing.

Dr. Rice played third fiddle in the Rummy-Cheney fiefdom, then allowed herself to be humiliated by Pres. Bush, who wouldn’t let her do her job and even hung her out on torture.

Rice also demoted Richard Clarke, the man Pres. Clinton elevated to a cabinet position, because of the terrorism threat, including cyberterrorism. Then there’s the decision not to set up a principle’s meeting with Clarke until after 9/11.

Dr. Rice missed the Hamas moment, when Pres. Bush pushed for elections that landed them in power (from 2006), which rendered her “surprised” at the time. It should be noted that the Palestinians warned Bush they weren’t yet ready.

But no one would likely care.

In a year of the Republican circus primary shuffle, Condoleeza Rice comes off like Margaret Thatcher, only moderate.

Ms. Rice is an abortion rights advocate, so she’ll catch some flak from some. However, among suburban women who vote Republican, as well as the highly educated contingent, and independents, not to mention cafeteria Catholics, that will be a plus.

It’s just another rumor, but if Dr. Rice heard George W. Bush’s voice on the phone saying her country needed her could she resist?

I’m still waiting for Liz Cheney’s move, though she’s got plenty of time to make it.

Assuming Romney prevails, the most dangerous man for team Obama remains Chris Christie, though everyone should remember only the fringe people vote on vice presidential choice alone. That includes Robert Reich’s hail Mary panic pick, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

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Pakistan to Boycott Conference on Afghanistan Future

By on 29 November 2011

According to Afghan security officials, their commandos were engaged with U.S. Special Operations troops in a nighttime raid against suspected Taliban insurgents when they came under cross-border fire and called in an airstrike. – Afghans say commando unit was attacked before airstrike was called on Pakistan

Watching the reaction of the Pakistanis after the NATO bombing incident that killed two dozen Pakistani soldiers, it was hard not to wonder if this would escalate further. It just did.

Calling the event a “tragedy,” Pres. Obama did not offer an apology, mainly because the events that played out are being contested.

From Foreign Policy’s daily brief today:

Pakistan’s government announced Monday that it will not participate in an upcoming conference in Bonn, Germany on Afghanistan’s future, in protest to this weekend’s bombing of two border posts in Mohmand by NATO forces that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers (BBC, Tel, AP, Reuters, ET, AFP). The decision came during a meeting of Pakistan’s cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, who promised in an interview with CNN Monday that there would be no more, “business as usual” with the United States following the raid (CNN, Reuters, ET, AFP/Dawn). In a briefing Tuesday Pakistani Gen. Ashfaq Nadeem called the incident a “deliberate act of aggression” by the United States, and said Pakistan was still deciding if they will cooperate with an American probe of the attack, whose results are due to be released December 23 (AP, Dawn).

Pakistan and the United States continue to dispute the events surrounding the bombing, as U.S. and Afghan officials describe a joint commando patrol near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border that came under attack from positions near or even inside the Pakistani army posts, while Pakistan has said the assault continued long after Pakistani forces identified themselves to NATO (Post, NYT, ET, BBC, AP, WSJ). President Barack Obama and other American leaders have called the incident a “tragedy” but refused to apologize (AFP/ET, Tel). The Pentagon said Monday that it would “carry on” in Afghanistan without supplies from Pakistan, which has closed its border to U.S. supplies, and Pakistan reportedly refused a request by the United Arab Emirates to review its decision to evict American personnel from the Shamsi airbase in Balochistan, which the Emirates are believed to control (AFP, ET, Dawn, AFP).

Pakistan is sending a chilling message that in the short term is saying they’re pulling out of any regional involvement on what happens with Afghanistan. Since Pres. Carter signed off on funding efforts in Pakistan and Afghanistan, there hasn’t been a development like this that I can remember.

A nuclear power in this region, with an unstable domestic landscape to boot, is not a positive prospect to consider.

Osama bin Laden picking Pakistan to hide away seems to have been foreshadowing and the result of the U.S. never quite understanding what we were dealing with in this country going all the way back to Ronald Reagan.

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Mullen: Pakistan Exporting Violence to Afghanistan

By on 23 September 2011



This was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen’s last testimony before retiring. It’s SecDef Panetta’s first appearance in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee, with the video via C-SPAN.

From ABC News (yesterday):

[...] Mullen even went so far as to say that Pakistan is “exporting violence” and that Pakistan’s intelligence agency provided the Haqqanis with support for their recent terror attacks in Kabul.

Mullen went further than defense officials who’ve said that the Haqqani Network was responsible for the recent terror attacks in Kabul prior to former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani’s assassination, although the bomber’s affiliation has yet to be determined.

The Haqqanis are “veritable arm of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Agency [ISI],” he said in opening remarks before the Senate Armed Services Committee, adding that it had provided the Haqqanis with support to conduct the Kabul attacks.

“With ISI support, Haqqani operatives planned and conducted the truck bomb attack, as well as the assault on our embassy,” Mullen said of the recent attack on a base in Wardak that wounded 77 U.S. soldiers. “We also have credible intelligence that they were behind the June 28 attack against the Inter-Continental Hotel in Kabul and a host of other smaller but effective operations.”

Both Mullen and Panetta described the turn to high-profile attacks in Afghanistan as a shift in tactics because insurgents are losing on the battlefield. Mullen said they are “as much about headlines and playing on the fears of a traumatized people, as they are about inflicting casualties, maybe even more so.”

He added, “We must not misconstrue them. They are serious and significant in shaping perceptions but they do not represent a sea change in the odds of military success.”

Mullen said Pakistan’s government has chosen to “use violent extremism as an instrument of policy,” which jeopardizes its relationship with the United States and its role as a player in the region.

Former Pres. George W. Bush had a “Musharaff policy,” as it came to be known, which did us no good at all.

After Pres. Obama gave the go ahead for Seal Team Six to kill Osama bin Laden, who had obviously been protected by factions inside the Pakistani government, as well as the ISI, our relationship became even more tense.

Mullen’s accusation doesn’t surprise anyone and the blunt assessment is something that’s been obvious for many years, even amid billions and billions of dollars of U.S. aid.

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Bachmann Draws Blood on Perry, Romney Stays Steady

By on 13 September 2011

It was a brawl. A beautifully ugly Republican battle.

The Tea Party audience loved Rick Perry. …right up until he made the case for “illegal immigrant” children to get in-state tuition.

“I didn’t mind the vaccine, social security is a ponzi scheme, but the illegal immigration issue is killing Perry.” – Ann Coulter

The boos then started rolling in, which Romney utilized in a strong but not stand-out debate performance. But that wasn’t the worst of it for Perry.

Social Security is the issue that moves Democrats and progressives looking to the general election, with Romney and Perry going at it on it (video), but in a Tea Party nomination process on the way to securing the nomination, it’s crony capitalism that can kill you.

Bachmann’s attack on Perry drew praise from Sarah Palin, a line she used recently in Iowa to take on Republicans as she did in her rise in Alaska:

“That’s good… to call one another out on that,” Palin noted, as was it good to “fight crony capitalism.” “You have to go up against the big guns and they will trying to destroy you,” Palin argued, “I have the bumps and the bruises to prove it.” She predicted that Rep. Bachmann was “going to get crucified by some in the party who say ‘don’t violate Reagan’s 11th Commandment,’” one Palin made clear she had no intention of following herself, as she praised Rep. Bachmann for ignoring it.

Rick Perry’s been in Texas politics a long time and pay to play just happens to be the issue getting a lot of attention right now, with questions rising about whether it’s at the heart of Perry’s power.

When Bachmann got her chance she pounced and didn’t let go. It wasn’t just about the forced HPV vaccination of pre-teen girls, an issue of freedom and liberty, also close to the Tea Party’s heart, but the pay to play process that fueled it. Transcript and video via Huffington Post:


I just wanted to add that we cannot forget that in the midst of this executive order, there was a big drug company that made millions of dollars because of this mandate. We can’t deny that,” Bachmann said, referring to Merck.

“What I’m saying is that it’s wrong for a drug company — because the governor’s former chief of staff was the chief lobbyist for this drug company. The drug company gave thousands of dollars in political donations to the governor, and this is just flat-out wrong. The question is, is it about life, or was it about millions of dollars and potentially billions for a drug company?”

Perry clarified that he received a $5,000 donation from Merck. “I raised about $30 million,” he said. “And if you’re saying that I can be bought for $5,000, I’m offended.”

“Well, I’m offended for all the little girls and the parents that didn’t have a choice,” replied Bachmann. “That’s what I’m offended for.”

Bachmann’s team went further, sending out a press release on Perry’s pay to play:

Texas Governor Rick Perry has admitted he was mistaken to issue his 2007 executive order mandating the Gardasil vaccine against a sexually-transmitted disease for 11-year-old girls. However, it remains unclear how much his ties to Merck, Gardasil’s maker, influenced this decision. Key advisors to Perry worked for Merck as lobbyists before and after he issued this executive order and Merck donated $6,000 to Perry in 2007. The drug maker stood to make tens of millions off Perry’s order until the legislature overturned it. ….

Lobbyist Mike Toomey served as Perry’s chief of staff for two years, then went on to lobby for gambling interests and the manufacturer of the HPV vaccine. …

Internal Perry office emails show frequent contact and coordination with Merck lobbyists, such as Mike Toomey and Lara Keel, in the weeks leading up to Perry’s decision on the executive order.

It had to delight the Romney campaign.

This is the way in on Perry, with Bachmann finding the vein. Romney needs to mine it, because although he was steady tonight, Perry’s clout with primary Tea Party voters is undeniable, as is Perry’s presence, with Tea Party voters besotted with the Governor.

As for the others, Santorum and Newt found their fraternal coupling, with Gingrich giving him a knowing wink at one point when Santorum went after Ron Paul over 9/11.

Ron Paul got booed when suggesting having the U.S. military stationed across the globe causes us trouble. And when he said sick people were on their own to die if they didn’t have or want health care, the audience cheered “Yeah!” for death (video).

Herman Cain had the quip of the night, when Blitzer asked what each candidate would bring to the White House as president: “I would bring a sense of humor to the White House, because America is too uptight.”

Jon Huntsman had a rough night, at one point calling out Perry for “treason” for saying the border could not be secured with a fence. It not only fell flat, but sounded like a line to make him sound more Tea Party-esque, which made him sound fake, because he’s not that guy.

CNN did a good job, with Wolf Blitzer distinguishing himself.

It was another rousing evening for Republicans, no doubt fueling enthusiasm, but who continue to sound crazier than a person wondering the street trying to get paid for his ramblings.

That’s why steady as he goes Mitt Romney has no choice but to just keep on sounding and looking like the grown up amidst the rabble, hoping Michele Bachmann will keep serving up Perry plums, because he can’t attack Perry on crony capitalism because he’s the poster man for it.

Rick Perry’s now got entry wounds even if the Tea Party can’t see them and doesn’t care. Social Security in the general election, but “illegal immigration” tuition is one for the primaries, with the pay to play HPV Merck example certainly not the only quid pro quo in his closet.

But you can bet Team Obama is doing opposition research while hoping Perry ends up being the one.

The Tea Party is giddy that they’ve found their man.

Meanwhile, the Republican establishment is drinking Highland Park hoping it’s all a bad dream.

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New York, Weprin, Obama & Israel

By on 12 September 2011

**UPDATED**

It’s no coincidence that the day before the special election in New York, with an upset in the making, there is an incendiary ad on the New York Times website hitting Obama on Israel. It links to the website “Not Pro Israel.”

A Times editorial on Palestinian statehood runs today:

A United Nations vote on Palestinian membership would be ruinous. Yet with little time left before the U.N. General Assembly meets, the United States, Israel and Europe have shown insufficient urgency or boldness in trying to find a compromise solution. The need for action is even more acute after alarming tensions flared in recent days between Israel and two critical regional players — Egypt and Turkey.

There is nothing more incendiary in American politics than the Who Is More Pro Israel? fight.

There is simply no evidence that Pres. Obama is less a friend of Israel than any other establishment politician or any Republican presidential candidate vying for his job.

But that didn’t keep New York Republicans from utilizing the kitchen sink strategy in tying Weprin to Obama, while on the weekend of the 10th year commemoration of 9/11 also invoking the Ground Zero mosque to try to score political points.

Needless to say, this foreshadows what I’ve warned about for 2012, which is the painting of Obama as anti-Israel, whether it’s true or not. It’s not.

UPDATE 2: Wanted to also put up the PPP poll for those who hadn’t seen it:

The issue of Israel does appear to be having a major impact on this race. A plurality of voters- 37%- said that Israel was ‘very important’ in determining their votes. Turner is winning those folks by an amazing 71-22 margin. With everyone who doesn’t say Israel is a very important issue for them Weprin actually leads 52-36. Turner is in fact winning the Jewish vote by a 56-39 margin, very unusual for a Republican candidate. This seems to be rooted in deep unhappiness with Obama on this issue- only 30% of voters overall approve of how he’s handling Israel to 54% who disapprove and with Jewish voters his approval on Israel is 22% with 68 of voters disapproving. That has a lot to do with why Turner’s in such a strong position.

UPDATE: Good post over at DK on this race:

It’s not necessarily over for Weprin, but if one-time Obama voters are now showing up to vote Republican, that’s a pretty brutal sign. Coming on top of Siena’s poll which also had Turner up by six, it’s hard to see much cause for optimism.

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The Cost of Fear: Osama Won

By on 11 September 2011

by NOLA LOPEZ

“The dangerous trend in Pakistan,” he said, “is that there is far more hate for America now than there was ever love of Osama.” – Mission Unfinished, BY JILL ABRAMSON – In the twilight of America’s decade-long, multibillion-dollar intervention, Afghanistan remains highly unstable, the Pakistanis trust us less than ever, and it is not at all clear how “the big things are going to turn out.”

As the man who gave the order to kill Osama bin Laden fights for his reelection amidst horrific economic times, there can be only one conclusion. We blew it.

Osama bin Laden’s purpose in targeting the financial heart of the United States was to bring the body of our economic engine to its knees.

Mission accomplished.

There’s little doubt, as Pres. Obama’s new SecDef decides troops should stay in Iraq, while Mr. Obama continues to make the case for endless engagement in Afghanistan, while our economic health is on life support, we’ve lost sight of creating our own destiny by looking forward instead of back.

Once the airlines opened after 9/11, I took a very long flight to a family wedding. We hopscotched across the country, we lonely 8 in the plane, after we each were searched within an inch of our lives, which began the unraveling of what America means, because fear had gripped our soul.

Then we did the unthinkable, the most un-American of acts: we tortured.

In “The Making of a Man,” which I wrote 11 years ago after Pres. Bush’s eloquent speech at the National Cathedral, I never suspected what his Administration would plot next.

Former Pres. George W. Bush and V.P. Dick Cheney have a lot for which they should be made to answer, however, instead they’ve both enjoyed a rehabilitation.

Preemptive war in Iraq on the wings of the new U.S. policy of regime change, while keeping the costs off the books, was one of the single worst economic wounds to be dealt to this country.

The drum beat to war singled the death of American journalism, with uncritical thinking, access and cowardice the media’s chosen path.

It allowed Afghanistan to weaken, with candidate Obama inspired to label Afghanistan the “good war” from which it seems we shall never be freed.

Today our economy is hobbled, with the response from Wall Street to 9/11 being greed and recklessness, while our politicians, no matter the party, looked the other way for fear their campaign coffers wouldn’t be filled.

All of this was laid on the ground of fear. The fear that terrorists would hit us again. That sacrificing civil liberties was the cost. That solidifying our future in the global, 21st century economy wasn’t the priority.

A grateful China kept busy.

Our leaders believed that keeping us safe had everything to do with militarism, but forgot the most important part of our national security strength is our economic prowess and the ability to build, compete and challenge nations whose armies are secondary, because the U.S. is the global policeman on which they can rely.

This is no longer F.D.R.’s America. It’s not even John F. Kennedy’s anymore.

Our economic weaknesses today were laid on the foundation from Pres. Bush, who said to go shopping, while he plotted to attack Iraq, a country that had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11. It came after a decade of peace and prosperity that handed him a surplus which he blew through with the reckless abandon of a drunken teenager with an unlimited credit line.

…and Pres. Obama and the Democrats simply shrugged and said we need to move on, while ignoring the legacy of Bush-Cheney, which was an economy on its knees.

You can call this politics.

I call it truth.

He may be dead, but he drove our leaders to distraction that led to the collapse of our economy, which was his main goal 10 years ago today.

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9/11 Commemoration: Three Presidents, Different Perspectives

By on 10 September 2011

“There has always been a special place in the common memory for people who deliberately, knowingly, certainly lay down their lives for other people to live. …” – Pres. Bill Clinton

Every time I hear the word “anniversary” invoked for 9/11 I cringe. There is nothing celebratory about the date, with it a commemoration of a horrific tragedy that now with the 9/11 memorials in place should take a new spot in our national dialogue. Revisiting the history of it that has an end, which came with Pres. Obama’s call to send Seal Team Six into Pakistan to risk it all to kill Osama bin Laden.

The politics of 9/11, however, will go on, as we saw last Sunday on Fox News with Chris Wallace, when the anchor decided not ask former V.P. Dick Cheney about the killing of Osama bin Laden, because the thought of crediting Pres. Obama with an extraordinary point of leadership, which didn’t require torturing anyone, would be just too much for FNC viewers to take.

From Politico, the politics of 9/11.

A decade later, 9/11 has finally brought the political parties together in this respect: They’ve both mastered the art of politicizing the terrorist attacks.

[...] But the presence of 9/11 in politics is as profuse as ever. Most recently – days ahead of the tenth anniversary of the attacks – candidates in a New York congressional election have traded sharp accusations over who’s more committed to protecting the country from terrorism and supporting first responders.

Continue Reading →

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10 Years After 9/11, Afghanistan Is No Longer Our Fight

By on 08 September 2011

Kudos to Joe Scarborough for taking the risk, stepping out and releasing this song (video below), “Reason to Believe.”

When I look at Democratic actions to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, I see Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand asking for a quicker timeline, but that’s hardly enough. As a new generation leader and a woman, why isn’t she demanding a full withdrawal immediately? Her timidity represents continued establishment-tied status quo in many ways.

Why won’t Democrats lead the way to get out of Afghanistan?

With SecDef Leon Panetta wanting to stay in Iraq, with Pres. Obama’s Libya regime change policy juxtaposed against Syria’s bloodletting and our inability to respond, there is nothing from Democrats that inspires on the foreign policy front.

See Somalia and the reports from Jeremy Scahill.

I supported Obama’s actions in Afghanistan at first, because Bush allowed the country to spin while our Iraq misadventure manifested regime change. Because I believed soft power delivered through Secy. Clinton could make a difference, which it has. However, once McChrystal imploded in Rolling Stone it was obvious it was over.

How many more men and women have to pay the ultimate price 10 years after 9/11 for a war that is unwinnable by any measurable standards?

We don’t seem to ever learn.

That people continue to support politicians who haven’t either is at the heart of America’s decline.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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Chris Wallace Proves (again) Why He’s the Worst Anchor on TV

By on 04 September 2011

… But both parties are not rotten in quite the same way. The Democrats have their share of machine politicians, careerists, corporate bagmen, egomaniacs and kooks. Nothing, however, quite matches the modern GOP. [...] – Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult

Fox News Channel and Chris Wallace won’t be leaving the “cult” anytime soon. In fact, today is representative of how they keep the cult alive, along with the mythology that helps promote, but also hide, the rancid reality of Republicanism today, not only where the economy is concerned, but also on matters of national security.

If you want to get an idea of how awful Chris Wallace is as a news man, today was another example. While discussing Cheney’s book, Mr. Wallace danced around 9/11 without ever once mentioning the killing of Osama bin Laden and the mission Pres. Obama approved to get that job done. It’s the exact opposite approach he took with former Pres. Clinton one day in 2006, with the entire spectacle today on Fox representative of the worst of today’s national security media mendacity.

What’s even worse is that Chris Wallace allowed former V.P. Dick Cheney to once again embellish, some would say continue to perpetuate a historical lie when compared to the facts, his role on 9/11. I’ve written about it before, in 2007 and in 2006, with the second link to 2006 giving you an example of the types of questions Wallace asked former Pres. Bill Clinton compared to how Wallace tip toes around Dick Cheney.

So, take yourself back…

It’s 9/11.

All hell has broken loose, with hijacked planes bearing down on the nation’s capitol, Washington, D.C. and outlying areas and and the financial center of the United States, New York City.

V.P. Dick Cheney has been whisked to the bunker for safety, but according to Mr. Cheney, he’s also in charge of events.

What kind of man lies about his role on 9/11?

Unfortunately, it’s now becoming legend, as Mr. Cheney once again regurgitated his story to Chris Wallace, who did nothing to challenge his version of events.

From a very important Vanity Fair article back in 2006, “9/11 Live: The NORAD Tapes” (the salient section about Cheney being proved a liar on page 18).

Nasypany starts walking up and down the floor, asking all his section heads and weapons techs if they are prepared to shoot down a civilian airliner if need be, but he’s jumping the gun: he doesn’t have the authority to order a shootdown, nor does Marr or Arnold, or Vice President Cheney, for that matter. The order will need to come from President Bush, who has only just learned of the attack at a photo op in Florida.

[...] A former senior executive at the F.A.A., speaking to me on the condition that I not identify him by name, tried to explain. “Our whole procedures prior to 9/11 were that you turned everything [regarding a hijacking] over to the F.B.I.,” he said, reiterating that hijackers had never actually flown airplanes; it was expected that they’d land and make demands. “There were absolutely no shootdown protocols at all. The F.A.A. had nothing to do with whether they were going to shoot anybody down. We had no protocols or rules of engagement.”

In his bunker under the White House, Vice President Cheney was not notified about United 93 until 10:02—only one minute before the airliner impacted the ground. Yet it was with dark bravado that the vice president and others in the Bush administration would later recount sober deliberations about the prospect of shooting down United 93. “Very, very tough decision, and the president understood the magnitude of that decision,” Bush’s then chief of staff, Andrew Card, told ABC News.

Cheney echoed, “The significance of saying to a pilot that you are authorized to shoot down a plane full of Americans is, a, you know, it’s an order that had never been given before.” And it wasn’t on 9/11, either.

President Bush would finally grant commanders the authority to give that order at 10:18, which—though no one knew it at the time—was 15 minutes after the attack was over.

Rewriting Bush-Cheney history has been happening a lot in the Obama era.

Now segue to Wallace interviewing former Pres. Bill Clinton in 2006. While Wallace today didn’t bother to ask Cheney why former Pres. George W. Bush said he was “truly not that concerned” about bin Laden. As you can witness by former Pres. Bill Clinton’s response to Wallace’s blatant bias, love him or hate him, the Big Dawg didn’t take Chris’ crap when Wallace tried to sandbag him on 9/11. Here’s the excerpt, since minds have gone soft as we approach the commemoration of the horrific tragedy next week.

WALLACE: When we announced that you were going to be on Fox News Sunday, I got a lot of email from viewers, and I got to say I was surprised most of them wanted me to ask you this question. Why didn’t you do more to put Bin Laden and al Qaeda out of business when you were President? There’s a new book out which I suspect you’ve read called the Looming Tower. And it talks about how the fact that when you pulled troops out of Somalia in 1993, Bin Laden said “I have seen the frailty and the weakness and the cowardice of US troops.” Then there was the bombing of the embassies in Africa and the attack on the USS Cole.

CLINTON: OK..

WALLACE: Let me — let me — may I just finish the question, sir?

And after the attack, the book says that bin Laden separated his leaders, spread them around, because he expected an attack, and there was no response.

I understand that hindsight is always 20/20…

CLINTON: No let’s talk about–

WALLACE: …but the question is why didn’t you do more, connect the dots and put them out of business?

CLINTON: OK, let’s talk about it. I will answer all of those things on the merits but I want to talk about the context of which this arises. I’m being asked this on the FOX network. ABC just had a right wing conservative on the Path to 9/11 falsely claim that it was based on the 9/11 Commission report with three things asserted against me that are directly contradicted by the 9/11 Commission report. I think it’s very interesting that all the conservative Republicans who now say that I didn’t do enough, claimed that I was obsessed with Bin Laden. All of President Bush’s neocons claimed that I was too obsessed with finding Bin Laden when they didn’t have a single meeting about Bin Laden for the nine months after I left office. All the right wingers who now say that I didn’t do enough said that I did too much. Same people.

Clinton takes on Fox News bias:

WALLACE: Do you think you did enough sir?

CLINTON: No, because I didn’t get him.

WALLACE: Right

CLINTON: But at least I tried. That’s the difference in me and some, including all the right wingers who are attacking me now. They ridiculed me for trying. They had eight months to try and they didn’t. I tried. So I tried and failed. When I failed I left a comprehensive anti-terror strategy and the best guy in the country, Dick Clarke. So you did FOX’s bidding on this show. You did you nice little conservative hit job on me. But what I want to know..

WALLACE: Well, wait a minute, sir.

CLINTON: No, wait. No, no…

WALLACE: I want to ask a question. You don’t think that’s a legitimate question?

CLINTON: It was a perfectly legitimate question, but I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you asked this question of.

I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you asked, Why didn’t you do anything about the Cole?

I want to know how many you asked, Why did you fire Dick Clarke?

I want to know how many people you asked…

WALLACE: We asked — we asked…

CLINTON: I don’t…

WALLACE: Do you ever watch Fox News Sunday, sir?

CLINTON: I don’t believe you asked them that.

WALLACE: We ask plenty of questions of…

CLINTON: You didn’t ask that, did you? Tell the truth, Chris.

WALLACE: About the USS Cole?

CLINTON: Tell the truth, Chris.

WALLACE: With Iraq and Afghanistan, there’s plenty of stuff to ask.

CLINTON: Did you ever ask that?

You set this meeting up because you were going to get a lot of criticism from your viewers because Rupert Murdoch’s supporting my work on climate change.

And you came here under false pretenses and said that you’d spend half the time talking about — you said you’d spend half the time talking about what we did out there to raise $7-billion-plus in three days from 215 different commitments. And you don’t care.

WALLACE: But, President Clinton, if you look at the questions here, you’ll see half the questions are about that. I didn’t think this was going to set you off on such a tear.

CLINTON: You launched it — it set me off on a tear because you didn’t formulate it in an honest way and because you people ask me questions you don’t ask the other side.

WALLACE: That’s not true. Sir, that is not true.

CLINTON: And Richard Clarke made it clear in his testimony…

WALLACE: Would you like to talk about the Clinton Global Initiative?

CLINTON: No, I want to finish this now.

WALLACE: All right. Well, after you.

CLINTON: All I’m saying is, you falsely accused me of giving aid and comfort to bin Laden because of what happened in Somalia. No one knew Al Qaida existed then. And…

WALLACE: But did they know in 1996 when he declared war on the U.S.? Did they know in 1998…

CLINTON: Absolutely, they did.

WALLACE: … when he bombed the two embassies?

CLINTON: And who talked about…

WALLACE: Did they know in 2000 when he hit the Cole?

CLINTON: What did I do? What did I do? I worked hard to try to kill him. I authorized a finding for the CIA to kill him. We contracted with people to kill him. I got closer to killing him than anybody has gotten since. And if I were still president, we’d have more than 20,000 troops there trying to kill him.

Now, I’ve never criticized President Bush, and I don’t think this is useful. But you know we do have a government that thinks Afghanistan is only one-seventh as important as Iraq.

And you ask me about terror and Al Qaida with that sort of dismissive thing? When all you have to do is read Richard Clarke’s book to look at what we did in a comprehensive, systematic way to try to protect the country against terror.

And you’ve got that little smirk on your face and you think you’re so clever. But I had responsibility for trying to protect this country. I tried and I failed to get bin Laden. I regret it. But I did try. And I did everything I thought I responsibly could.

The entire military was against sending Special Forces in to Afghanistan and refueling by helicopter. And no one thought we could do it otherwise, because we could not get the CIA and the FBI to certify that Al Qaida was responsible while I was president.

And so, I left office. And yet, I get asked about this all the time. They had three times as much time to deal with it, and nobody ever asks them about it. I think that’s strange.

The entire interview from 2006 is instructive. Because whatever you think of Clinton, and his third way-ism, NAFTA and other policies that were destructive to progressive economics, while paving the way for Obama’s Republicanism, at least the man didn’t use kumbaya bipartisan excuses to keep from fighting battles that need to be fought. Bipartisanship for Clinton didn’t require caving to wingnuts out of fear of partisanship or because he might scare off Independents.

As for Dick Cheney’s other claim today on Fox News Sunday that Obama’s made the economy worse, said with a straight face and without a hint of irony, Chris Wallace didn’t challenge him on that either. The fact that Bush-Cheney kept the wars off the budget, gave massive tax cuts that produced no jobs, while blowing the surplus Clinton left them, with the list a lot longer than this, none of this was on Chris Wallace’s mind either.

That’s because Mr. Wallace feels more comfortable catering to the Fox News audience, so presenting facts over ideological fluffery isn’t his top priority. He does prove why they’re the least informed, because he and others on the network make sure of it.

Simply, do you think there was a liberal bias in the mainstream media? – Chris Wallace to former V.P. Dick Cheney

Maybe Mr. Wallace should try his luck at comedy, because as a journalist, “fair and balanced” or otherwise, he continues to fail.

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Thanks the Gods John McCain Never Got Near 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

By on 23 August 2011

“The end of the Qadaffi regime in Libya is a victory for the Libyan people and for the broader cause of freedom in the Middle East and throughout the world. This achievement was made possible first and foremost by the struggle and sacrifice of countless Libyans, whose courage and perseverance we applaud. We also commend our British, French, and other allies, as well as our Arab partners, especially Qatar and the UAE, for their leadership in this conflict. Americans can be proud of the role our country has played in helping to defeat Qaddafi, but we regret that this success was so long in coming due to the failure of the United States to employ the full weight of our airpower. [...] – Senators McCain and Graham

Boy, the day Pres. Obama got Osama bin Laden, I bet Cindy had to pull John McCain off the ceiling.

Now, I remain against the notion that regime change is smart U.S. foreign policy. But one thing you cannot call what is happening in Libya is “failure.”

The only thing I did agree upon when Pres. Obama launched his Libyan gamble was letting Pres. Sarkozy take the lead, along with PM Cameron. It’s the only thing that made sense out of the operation.

Lawrence Korb was on with Melissa Harris-Perry last night, who is subbing for Lawrence O’Donnell (and doing a brilliant job as she always does). Mr. Korb rightly criticized McCain and Graham, using Iraq to do it, while saying Obama’s “patience” paid off. This is a ridiculous statement, because it’s not like Pres. Obama had a choice when Gadhafi didn’t quit when “days, not weeks” turned into 6 months, which isn’t a minor point.

But anyone watching the news can tell that what Obama, Clinton, Power, Rice, et al. hoped and intended would manifest is currently unfolding. There was likely a collective exhale and some satisfaction on what the Obama administration’s decision ended up meaning for the rebels, because this story just as easily could have gone the other way.

I’m a “what’s next?” type of foreign policy type. It’s like getting all excited about getting married, but not thinking about the day after when you have to live with the person you’ve chosen and what comes next. Day to day living can be tedious and tough, too. So, I am cautiously hopeful, while thrilled watching the news of the Libyan rebels, knowing this isn’t close to being over, with many minefields ahead.

There also remains a danger that the regime change that is occurring in Libya will be considered smart U.S. policy, because like Bush, Obama chose that route, too, but did so with a country not in our strategic interest. We’ve also now made Libya just that, a strategic interest, but we won’t be able to affect what’s going on. This continues to make the situation precarious for us, but this isn’t about us and never has been.

But calling the results a “failure” because of lack of airpower? This is simply wrong.

An added benefit that made me smile is that Pres. Assad of Syria has got to be feeling a bit queasy about the news coming out of Libya.

Not bad for $896 million.

Regime change is now what we do.

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Perry’s Brand of Birtherism

By on 15 August 2011

Gov. Rick Perry said something that mimicked what Herman Cain said last week. Cain was defending himself against charges he doesn’t have foreign policy experience by questioning, “and he has?”, speaking of Pres. Obama. My response via Twitter went like this: Just saw Cain’s “He’s got foreign policy experience?” As commander in chief, Obama gave order SEAL Team 6 executed that killed OBL. You?

This is a direct attack on Pres. Obama as commander in chief utilizing the deadly virus of birtherism and division that Americans are sick to death of hearing from the Right.

Tea Party secessionist Rick Perry, a former military man, thinks this is what America wants to hear today:

“One of the reasons, one of the powerful reasons that I’m running for the presidency of the United States is to make sure that every young man and woman who puts on the uniform of this country respects highly the president of the United States.” – Gov. Rick Perry (Waterloo, Iowa)

You can win a wingnut primary battle through this sort of despicable dog whistle, but you’ll never win the general election on it. Mr. Perry’s brand of birtherism won’t hunt in 2012.

Some Republicans know this and are scared to death. And you know what, any Republican who wants to beat Obama should be.

“You don’t want these candidates moving so Right in the Republican primary that it becomes impossible for them to win the general election, because it will become a self-defeating message in the primary. People want to win. They don’t want somebody who goes so far to the extremes of either party that they lack a chance to carry a victory off in November.” – Karl Rove

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Bill Clinton Played Hardball and Won, Obama Paid Ransom and America Lost

By on 03 August 2011

“(Pres. Bill Clinton) beat the hell out of us first, for a year. He pummeled us for a year. … He didn’t roll over the second we walked in. … Then he out-negotiated us for a year. He brought us to our knees.” – Joe Scarborough

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Those were the days. A time when a Democratic president in the White House knew how to wage a political fight. Today, not only has Pres. Obama ceded our national economic policies to Republicans and Tea Party extortionists, but he’s managed to alter the entire debate forever.

What we have done, Larry, also is set a new template. In the future, any president, this one or another one, when they request us to raise the debt ceiling, it will not be clean anymore. This is just the first step. This, we anticipate, will take us into 2013. Whoever the new president is, is probably going to be asking us to raise the debt ceiling again. Then we will go through the process again and see what we can continue to achieve in connection with these debt ceiling requests of presidents to get our financial house in order. – Sen. Mitch McConnell

Joe Scarborough was there and explained it best back when the Gingrich revolution rolled into Washington, something I remember well. Joe also makes the Democratic argument starting at around 6:45, with the money quote at 11:45 on the video above.

Back in the ’90s, William Jefferson Clinton had many things going for him Obama didn’t have during the debt ceiling debacle. First, as Kara Brandeisky writes in TNR, there was a roaring economy, but there were also no Republicans willing to take the country over a financial cliff.

Pres. Clinton had something else too. Yes, he became a Third Way centrist hated by progressives, but Clinton drew a line in concrete on what he would accept and not accept. But more importantly, he didn’t let the Republican extortionists set the terms of goddam debate.

November 9, 1995, a senior administration official told the Washington Post, “Our position is it does not matter what they put on this legislation, we are not going to accept anything but clean bills because we will not be blackmailed over default. Get it? No extortion. No blackmail. What you hear are their screams of complaint as they realize we are not, not, not budging on this.” – How Clinton Handled His Debt Ceiling Crisis Better Than Obama

As Jonathan Chait notes as well, it’s not about looking at Bill Clinton’s centrist presidency, which was filled with compromises, with rose-colored glasses, which isn’t going to happen anyway.

Obama and his loyalists have gone overboard the same way George W. Bush did when he came in. Bush’s Anything But Bill strategy led to the demoting of the first terrorism export, then 9/11. Obama’s aversion to Bill Clinton’s politics, but also Obama’s arrogance in not learning the lessons of his presidency, especially his hardball tactics that go back to Lyndon Johnson, has now given Republican economics to America.

Worse yet, Obama has also told his adversaries that there isn’t anything he won’t do to avoid a confrontation, while simultaneously yielding the economic debate to Republicans.

Clinton may be a lot of things, but he wasn’t a political coward.

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Pres. Obama’s Deficit Debacle, National Security, and Warmaking

By on 03 August 2011

I’ve been reading a lot about the Pentagon’s possible budget hit, with analysis all over the map. What this proves conclusively is that no one knows what will happen. That’s the real rub in Obama’s debt ceiling debacle. No one can possibly know the specifics in outlying years. There are too many unknown unknowables, to paraphrase big spender Rummy, which is proven by reading the myriad of opinions on what might manifest.

William Hartung, Director, Arms Security Project, Center for International Policy*:

“In the short-term, the budget deal crafted by the president and the congressional leadership gives the Pentagon virtually a free ride. It reduces projected Pentagon spending by less than one percent. These proposed reductions are further diluted by the fact that they will be counted against a broad ‘security’ category that will include the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies beyond the Pentagon proper. These miniscule reductions are unacceptable. Real cuts in Pentagon expenditures can be imposed without reducing our security. Any longer-term deal should reflect this reality.”

Andrew Bacevich, Professor, Boston University:

“The prospect of defense cuts ought to concentrate some minds in Washington. To avoid reductions that are arbitrary and capricious requires clarity of strategic purpose. The really big question is not how many billions should come out of the Pentagon’s bloated budget. No, the big question is this one: given our straitened economic circumstances and in light of the monumental catastrophes of the past decade, what is America’s proper role in the world? Simply reciting cliches about ‘global leadership’ won’t cut it. The time to make hard choices is at hand.”

Winslow Wheeler, head of the Strauss Military Reform Project at the Center for Defense Information, via Josh Rogin:

…said that the whole notion of the cuts is misleading anyway, because the numbers are being compared projections that were inaccurate in the first place.

“There will be reductions … but the actual figure is also masked by the fact that the debt deal is compared to a ten year CBO ‘baseline,’ which is [the fiscal] 2011 spending levels adjusted according to arcane rules and inflated by a highly unreliable projection of long term future inflation,” he said.

“The debt deal kicks the defense budget can down the road for this and future Congresses. People should not read precision and certainty into a political deal specifically designed to be uncertain and indistinct.”

From McClatchy:

Rather than cutting $400 billion in defense spending through 2023, as President Barack Obama had proposed in April, the current debt proposal trims $350 billion through 2024, effectively giving the Pentagon $50 billion more than it had been expecting over the next decade.

With the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan winding down, experts said, the overall change in defense spending practices could be minimal: Instead of cuts, the Pentagon merely could face slower growth.

“This is a good deal for defense when you probe under the numbers,” said Lawrence Korb, a defense expert at the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning research center. “It’s better than what the Defense Department was expecting.”

[...] But the bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform — known as the Bowles-Simpson proposal, for its two chairmen — proposed far deeper reductions last fall, saying the military could still maintain its power.

Korb, who studies defense budgets, said Congress could cut the defense baseline budget by $100 billion annually over the next decade and still spend more than it did during the height of the Cold War, adjusted for inflation. He noted that the baseline defense budget has climbed every year for 13 years, a record increase.

Anthony H. Cordesman from CSIS on the debt ceiling deal:

There is good reason why anyone who cares about the current legislation on the budget deficit should care about its near-term impact on national security:

  • The entire debate reflected a total disregard of the need for the State Department and other civil departments to play a major role in consolidating our victory in Iraq, supporting a transition to Afghan control in 2014, and preparing for the United States to play a major role in supporting democracy and political change in the Middle East.
  • This pressure comes at a time when the Defense Department has had years of growth in real spending, does little or no realistic long-term force planning, cannot control its manpower and procurement costs, and was already seeking cuts in programs between $78 billion and $400 billion. Even before the president added the goal of cutting the budget by $400 million over the next 12 years (long before the present debate), the Defense Department had planned to eliminate all real growth in defense spending after FY2013—which would reduce the total defense budget from $708 billion in FY2011 to $661 billion in FY2016—even if one assumes that the United States will still be spending $50 billion a year on its wars.
  • Not one word of the debate addressed the rise in the total interagency homeland defense budget to over $70 billion a year, a massive new effort that has grown with minimal efficiency and without adult supervision.
  • The new legislation layers a whole new set of cuts over the existing cuts forced on the defense secretary in preparing the FY2012 budget submission, which means massive new short-term pressure to find cuts—any cuts—in defense spending.
  • The debate that led up to the legislation produced a totally dishonest proposal for cuts in wartime spending amounting to $1 trillion dollars. This was matched by an equally dishonest Future Year Defense Program submission for FY2012 from the Defense Department, which claimed that the total cost of Afghanistan, Iraq, and the global war on terrorism would suddenly drop from $159 billion in FY2011 and $118 billion in FY2012 to a constant level of $50 billion in FY2013–2016. The real cost of our wars has to be over $75 billion in FY2013, and no one knows the out-year costs. As for the $1 trillion in savings, it would take 20 years to achieve a $1-trillion savings at a rate of $50 billion a year, and that would mean two decades in which the United States could not spend a dime on any overseas contingency.

But, the legislation is not going to survive in ways that have any real mid- or long-term impact. This becomes clear the moment anyone examines the real-world nature of the supposed longer-term plans for defense cuts in the legislation.

First, there is no way to usefully assess what the numbers involved actually mean or to regard them as politically credible. We are talking about making cuts to nonexistent plans and budget baselines some 12 years into the future.

Second, these cuts are to be made in undefined dollars, where no one can yet define current or constant dollars for the time period involved or estimate the extent to which the cost of defense rises faster than the average rate of future inflation.

Third, the cuts are purely political numbers that do not reflect any analysis of national security needs, where the cuts would come from, or the risk involved. They make no allowance for new contingency requirements. They are to be carried out over more than a decade without regard to future developments in the U.S. economy and competing needs for federal spending.

Fourth, the cuts are not based on any serious examination of the priority of national security spending relative to other discretionary spending and entitlements programs and sources of revenue. They do not look at the fact that national security—which everyone agrees is a legitimate priority for federal activity—costs less than 5 percent of a $14 trillion dollar economy even though we are still involved in two wars. They totally ignore the fact that it is the rising cost of medical treatment (rising from 5 to 6 percent of GDP in the past toward 19 percent) and the needs of an aging population (rising from 12 to 20 percent of the total) that is the key area that has pushed up our debt and deficit and where we need sound national programs—not simply budget cuts.

Fifth, the deadlines that could trigger the massive additional cuts are absurd. There is no credible way that the Special Joint Committee can really address the cuts that should be made in our national security efforts by November 23, 2011, or that the Congress as whole could properly evaluate the result for an up-or-down vote by December 23, 2011.

Lawrence Korb, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress; former Assistant Secretary of Defense*:

 ”The proposed deal does not go far enough in reining in a military budget which in real terms is higher than at any time since World War II. In fact, the total reductions over the next decade are likely to be less than the $400 billion proposed by President Obama.”

Heather Hurlburt, Executive Director, National Security Network*:

“If a congressional commission includes a serious, bipartisan review of defense strategy and expenditures, and abides by its recommendations, this is an opportunity for all sides to show they’re serious about constructing an American defense strategy that is effective and affordable for our times.”

ABC News:

On first blush it appears the $2.1 billion debt ceiling compromise hits the Pentagon’s budget pretty hard in the next decade, but the reality is that in the short term the $350 billion in defense cuts is smaller than what Pentagon officials had been preparing for. However, the deal also holds out the possibility that in the long term there could be even deeper cuts in defense spending if a bipartisan committee is unable to come up with an additional $1.2 trillion in savings by the end of this year.

…and just in case you haven’t been paying attention, which plays into Pres. Obama’s hands on national security, as well as obliterates the line between Democrats and Republicans, secrecy still rules (n/t Noah Shachtman of Danger Room).

The Senate Intelligence Committee rejected an amendment that would have required the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence to confront the problem of “secret law,” by which government agencies rely on legal authorities that are unknown or misunderstood by the public.

The amendment, proposed by Sen. Ron Wyden and Sen. Mark Udall, was rejected on a voice vote, according to the new Committee report on the FY2012 Intelligence Authorization Act.

“We remain very concerned that the U.S. government’s official interpretation of the Patriot Act is inconsistent with the public’s understanding of the law,” Senators Wyden and Udall wrote. “We believe that most members of the American public would be very surprised to learn how federal surveillance law is being interpreted in secret.”

Finally, Adm. Dennis Blair, former United States Director of National Intelligence in the Obama administration, for all you wonks (substance starts at 3 min. in). Blair starts with a terrific quote from John Cleese, which is pretty perfect considering the absurdity we’ve all had to endure the last weeks.

*TM Note: Attribution on this quote has been changed.

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Murdoch Global Sleaze Machine Continues to Unravel

By on 11 July 2011

… Whether or not the Mirror’s claims are verified, the allegations may raise the volume on questions about the editorial judgment and ethics employed by Murdoch titles in the U.S. “The News of the World has lots of reporters at any given time on the ground in the U.S.,” Murdoch biographer Michael Wolff tells CBS News. “Many of its stories, particularly many of its celebrity stories, are dateline here. So, I think that’s the next step.” [...] – Murdoch’s hacking woes grow; 9/11 victims eyed?

This story boggles the mind. Following it since it broke has been a stunning trip through the worst media scandals in modern times, with no parallel. The villain in this tale is a notorious conservative whose propaganda outreach includes the most popular cable TV channel in the U.S., Fox News Channel. Even after the worst was uncovered, with images of grubby people deleting phone messages from missing 13-year-old Milly Dowler’s phone, Ruppert Murdoch shows no remorse. It’s all about his enemies trying to get even with him.

What Murdoch seems most desperate about is saving his monopoly hunger from running aground. His bid to buy BSkyB is stalling since this scandal exploded, with Labour leader Ed Miliband vowing to challenge Mr. Murdoch until the bitter end.

Bloomberg’s Lizzy O’Leary mis-reported News Corp. was to bow out of the Sky bid earlier today.

Then Forbes reported that after News Corp. withdrew its pledge to spin off Sky News as a condition for acquiring BSkyB, Britain’s Competition Commission could go “for a full-scale inquiry,” which is exactly what has happened.

While the latest from the The Independent on the political targets brings in Gordon Brown:

… Brown joins a long list of Labour politicians who are known to have been targeted by private investigators working for News International, including the former prime minister Tony Blair and his media adviser Alastair Campbell, the former deputy prime minister John Prescott and his political adviser Joan Hammell, Peter Mandelson as trade secretary, Jack Straw and David Blunkett as home secretaries, Tessa Jowell as media secretary and her special adviser Bill Bush, and Chris Bryant as minister for Europe.

[...] The sheer scale of the data assault on Brown is unusual, with evidence of attempts to obtain his legal, financial, tax, medical and police records as well as to listen to his voicemail. All of these incidents are linked to media organisations. In many cases, there is evidence of a link to News International.

Scotland Yard recently wrote separately to Brown and to his wife to tell them that their details had been found in evidence collected by Operation Weeting, the special inquiry into phone hacking at the News of the World. It is believed that this refers to handwritten notes kept by Mulcaire, which were seized by police in August 2006 and never previously investigated. Brown last year asked Scotland Yard if there was evidence that he had been targeted by the private investigator and was told there was none.

Journalists who have worked at News International say they believe that Brown’s personal bank account was accessed on several occasions when he was chancellor of the exchequer. An internal inquiry by Abbey National’s fraud department found that during January 2000, somebody acting on behalf of the Sunday Times contacted their Bradford call centre six times, posing as Brown, and succeeded in extracting details from his account.

Scotland Yard involved in Murdoch’s messy and possible malfeasance, with all sorts of politicians being targeted is especially interesting when you consider what might happen if this had happened in the U.S. It puts the 2000 election finale in perspective, a time when Roger Ailes allowed the relative of George W. Bush to control the election results that fateful election. From Rolling Stone on Ailes, just to drive home the entire picture, now that we see what’s hitting the fan in Britain:

But it was the election of George W. Bush in 2000 that revealed the true power of Fox News as a political machine. According to a study of voting patterns by the University of California, Fox News shifted roughly 200,000 ballots to Bush in areas where voters had access to the network. But Ailes, ever the political operative, didn’t leave the outcome to anything as dicey as the popular vote. The man he tapped to head the network’s “decision desk” on election night – the consultant responsible for calling states for either Gore or Bush – was none other than John Prescott Ellis, Bush’s first cousin. As a columnist at The Boston Globe, Ellis had recused himself from covering the campaign. “There is no way for you to know if I am telling you the truth about George W. Bush’s presidential campaign,” he told his readers, “because in his case, my loyalty goes to him and not to you.”

In any newsroom worthy of the name, such a conflict of interest would have immediately disqualified Ellis. But for Ailes, loyalty to Bush was an asset. “We at Fox News,” he would later tell a House hearing, “do not discriminate against people because of their family connections.” On Election Day, Ellis was in constant contact with Bush himself. After midnight, when a wave of late numbers showed Bush with a narrow lead, Ellis jumped on the data to declare Bush the winner – even though Florida was still rated too close to call by the vote-tracking consortium used by all the networks. Hume announced Fox’s call for Bush at 2:16 a.m. – a move that spurred every other network to follow suit, and led to bush wins headlines in the morning papers.

[...] Dwell on this for a moment: A “news” network controlled by a GOP operative who had spent decades shaping just such political narratives – including those that helped elect the candidate’s father – declared George W. Bush the victor based on the analysis of a man who had proclaimed himself loyal to Bush over the facts. “Of everything that happened on election night, this was the most important in impact,” Rep. Henry Waxman said at the time. “It immeasurably helped George Bush maintain the idea in people’s minds that he was the man who won the election.”

After Bush took office, Ailes stayed in frequent touch with the new Republican president. “The senior-level editorial people believe that Roger was on the phone every day with Bush,” a source close to Fox News tells Rolling Stone. “He gave Bush the same kind of pointers he used to give George H.W. Bush – delivery, effectiveness, political coaching.” In the aftermath of 9/11, Ailes sent a back-channel memo to the president through Karl Rove, advising Bush to ramp up the War on Terror. As reported by Bob Woodward, Ailes advised Bush that “the American public would tolerate waiting and would be patient, but only as long as they were convinced that Bush was using the harshest measures possible.”

Fox News did its part to make sure that viewers lined up behind those harsh measures. The network plastered an American flag in the corner of the screen, dolled up one female anchor in a camouflaged silk blouse, and featured Geraldo Rivera threatening to hunt down Osama bin Laden with a pistol. The militarism even seemed to infect the culture of Fox News. “Roger Ailes is the general,” declared Bill O’Reilly. “And the general sets the tone of the army. Our army is very George Patton-esque. We charge. We roll.”

As an aside, Roger Ailes is the man who tried to save Sarah Palin from herself when she was choosing whether to wade into the Loughner tragedy, but even with Mr. Ailes’s formidable power and standing as the Republican political general, Sarah thought she knew best. Few people survive this type of arrogance in a party that considers FNC its megaphone and election death star.

Topping the already cruel cravenness is covering for Rebekah Brooks, as so many others lose their jobs.

Michael Wolff, who has written a biography on Murdoch, was a guest on Keith Olbermann’s “Countdown” all last week and though I find him an arrogant boor, he has made some interesting points amidst his mumbling pontification. With so many of those unemployed being journalistic types, this story has the possibilities of a never ending soap opera, with grudges sure to continue to pop up in salaciousness still to come.

Vendetta, anyone?

But could what happen over there hit Murdoch over here?

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E. J. Dionne’s Nostalgia for Bush Meets Enemies List

By on 16 June 2011

A former senior C.I.A. official says that officials in the Bush White House sought damaging personal information on a prominent American critic of the Iraq war in order to discredit him. Glenn L. Carle, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer who was a top counterterrorism official during the administration of President George W. Bush, said the White House at least twice asked intelligence officials to gather sensitive information on Juan Cole, a University of Michigan professor who writes an influential blog that criticized the war. – Ex-Spy Alleges Bush White House Sought to Discredit Critic



E.J. Dionne has written a whopper today by trying to be clever, but just comes off as daft analysis combined with negligence for uttering such blather. His a weird little column about his nostalgia for George W. Bush seems instead like a love letter to encourage Republicans. It’s all predicated on this week’s GOP debate, because he’s scared of Michele Bachmann, forgetting that Obama and the Democrats helped create her, while the Tea Party started as a reaction to George W. Bush on his watch.

That’s why I felt nostalgia for Bush, especially the guy who was a candidate for president in 2000. Unlike this crowd of Republicans, Bush acknowledged that the federal government can ease injustices and get useful things done.

At least he admits Bush’s debacle in Iraq is “why Bush nostalgia takes you only so far.”

This is the kind of stuff that’s written when you don’t hold a president accountable for his unspeakable acts, starting with war in Iraq and Abu Ghraib, but also allowing his vice president to run the show, while the man who killed over 3,000 people got away. A man who kept wars off the books and broke our economy with tax cuts, which Pres. Obama embraced with both arms. This man Mr. Dionne is nostalgic for was a failed businessman, prodigal son and duty dodging Guardsman, ran a race-baiting campaign in South Carolina against John McCain, all of while conspiring with Roger Ailes and one of his relatives on the Fox payroll who was primarily responsible for the Bush won theme that developed on election night.

From Rolling Stone magazine, a president who used Roger Ailes as an adviser, that’s who Mr. Dionne is getting wistful about today:

[...] After Bush took office, Ailes stayed in frequent touch with the new Republican president. “The senior-level editorial people believe that Roger was on the phone every day with Bush,” a source close to Fox News tells Rolling Stone. “He gave Bush the same kind of pointers he used to give George H.W. Bush – delivery, effectiveness, political coaching.” In the aftermath of 9/11, Ailes sent a back-channel memo to the president through Karl Rove, advising Bush to ramp up the War on Terror. As reported by Bob Woodward, Ailes advised Bush that “the American public would tolerate waiting and would be patient, but only as long as they were convinced that Bush was using the harshest measures possible.”Fox News tilted the electoral balance to George W. Bush in 2000, prematurely declaring him president in a move that prompted every other network to follow suit. It helped create the Tea Party, transforming it from the butt of late-night jokes into a nationwide insurgency capable of electing U.S. senators. …

Bush ignored warnings about Al Qaeda and bin Laden, with the list of economic incompetency lingering in a legacy that has us still suffering from it economically today.

Mr. Dionne conveniently forgets there was a set-up for all this and it began with Pres. Obama and Democrats not making their own case for what the Democratic Party believes government can do, but instead adopted Republican economic theory that got us into this mess in the first place.

Now we find, unsurprisingly let me add, that George W. Bush wanted to target Juan Cole because of his effectiveness at criticizing the Iraq war.

Suck on that morsel from Mr. Dionne’s nostalgia pie.

However, the pathetic part about E.J. Dionne’s nostalgia is that it’s not his fault. This absurd nostalgia for Bush should be laid at the door of Congress, when Speaker Pelosi refused to strip the bark off a president whose malfeasance and recklessness was the worst since Nixon. When a president turned the C.I.A. into his own personal misinformation center on a war that we’re still fighting in a country that never attacked us.

It’s this same presidential hubris that inspired Barack Obama to bomb Libya and many other things he’s done to mimic the imperial presidency of George W. Bush. Glenn Greenwald keeps a running list if you’ve forgotten.

That Pres. Obama had to tape Afghanistan back together because of Bush’s negligence, which evolved into a nightmare scenario of unending occupation is another example of why nostalgia for anything George W. Bush is simply a pathetic case of selective amnesia. Bush’s Pakistan strategy part of the disaster that allowed the ISI to likely shelter him all these years.

But Bush nostalgia really owes a debt of thanks to the Democrats. They’re the ones who allowed former Pres. Bush to ride into the sunset and set up his rehabilitation tour that never should have been allowed, let alone have history rewritten by he and Rumsfeld, with Cheney’s tome about to drop.

E.J. Dionne adds his piece of rewriting history to make 2012 Republicans look bad, by positing that George W. Bush was not a nightmare. His case falls apart as he ties himself in knots trying to prove a case that only could have been suggested by one of his Republican bosses trying to save the GOP from themselves.

I wish the gods could save us from amnesiac political writers in the traditional press and the partisan hacks who suck it up, but it seems people are suckers for stupidity.

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TIME: Grand Jury Investigating CIA Abu Ghraib Torture for War Crimes

By on 14 June 2011

The ghosts of Bush-Cheney-Rummy torture still hangs over the C.I.A., no matter what Leon Panetta has done to infuse the agency with honor. From TIME magazine:

Manadel al-Jamadi

It has been nearly a decade since Manadel al-Jamadi, an Iraqi prisoner known as “the Iceman” — for the bungled attempt to cool his body and make him look less dead — perished in CIA custody at Abu Ghraib. But now there are rumbles in Washington that the notorious case, as well as other alleged CIA abuses, could be returning to haunt the agency. TIME has learned that a prosecutor tasked with probing the CIA — John Durham, a respected, Republican-appointed U.S. Attorney from Connecticut — has begun calling witnesses before a secret federal grand jury in Alexandria, Va., looking into, among other things, the lurid Nov. 4, 2003, homicide, which was documented by TIME in 2005.

TIME has obtained a copy of a subpoena signed by Durham that points to his grand jury’s broader mandate, which could involve charging additional CIA officers and contract employees in other cases. The subpoena says “the grand jury is conducting an investigation of possible violations of federal criminal laws involving War Crimes (18 USC/2441), Torture (18 USC 243OA) and related federal offenses.” [...]

I’ll never understand the sense in allowing former Pres. Bush, V.P. Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld to walk out of Washington without a serious hearing on the malfeasance surrounding their prosecution of the Iraq war. I never wanted impeachment hearings to be the primary goal after he won reelection, but there’s something craven about the Democratic cowardice to hold our own leaders culpable by investigating their actions when in office. It’s one of Speaker Pelosi’s gravest errors in judgment.

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Panetta in Pakistan

By on 10 June 2011

Coming after his confirmation hearings for SecDef, Leon Panetta arrives in Pakistan:

CIA director Leon Panetta arrived here Friday on an unannounced visit that marked his first trip to Pakistan since al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was killed in a Navy SEAL raid more than a month ago, U.S. and Pakistani officials said. Panetta’s visit comes as the administration seeks to keep its badly bruised relations with Pakistan from deteriorating any further.

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Weiner Should Pull a Hugh Grant and Talk to Jon Stewart

By on 07 June 2011

“I don’t represent the hide-under-the-desk wing of the Democratic Party.” – Rep. Anthony Weiner

Rep. Weiner was not shy or quiet about taking on Pres. Obama and Speaker Pelosi, whom he believed hadn’t made the case on health care strongly enough. He also told Republicans to “put up or shut up” on the necessity of health care for the country.

Democrats would be better off if more of them acted like Weiners.

As the first anniversary of the health-care law approached this week, many Democratic lawmakers went to ground, leaving unanswered Republican accusations that the legislation is socialist, unconstitutional, bankrupting the country, destroying the medical system and generally bringing about the apocalypse. But not Anthony Weiner.

… Nancy Pelosi, he said, has been “inartful.” President Obama, he said, hasn’t provided “air cover” for Democrats in Congress. The White House “hasn’t done a very good job” confronting critics. The administration needs to make its case “more forcefully.” And his colleagues are limp, Weiner said: “We have to stop cowering.”

This is an independent progressive who isn’t afraid to stand up to the leaders in the Democratic Party, especially when they’re leading. That means he has very few friends right now.

From Huffington Post:

On top of that, one New York lawmaker noted that the state is about to go through a redistricting of House seats in which it will lose two districts. There would be little incentive to protect a disgraced Weiner in a district that was not drawn to protect minority voting rights. “I don’t see how anyone goes out of their way to save his district,” the legislator said.

Fighting relentlessly for the public option, Rep. Weiner said “Healthcare is not a commodity.”

I’ve read comments and tweets and also heard from quite a few people who stood up for Rep. Weiner who are hurt, bitter and angry that they walked the line for him. Anyone, including Rachel Maddow who offered a very soft interview space for him, has every right to be furious.

Ed Schultz delivered a chicken liver performance last night when he asked Rep. Weiner to resign.

That may be what happens, especially with Andrew Breitbart alleging he has an X-rated photo, as TMZ breaks wide with a story that reportedly shows Weiner aiding the porn actress to lie. There’s no doubt this is getting ugly, which is what happens when someone can’t control their compulsions and won’t admit they need help.

On Charlie Rose last night, Roger Simon went through a weird fantasy tale serving up the possibility that Rep. Weiner could have engaged with women underage, even if there’s no proof whatsoever that this happened.

But considering social media does allow for teens to fake their age, this talking point, if it catches hold, could simply add to the hysteria building.

All the while Democrats hold his fate, some of which he has tweaked over policies and party strategy, which made Rep. Weiner a fighter against the Obama machine.

When Rep. King caused the failure of a 9/11 first responder bill, Weiner’s constituents applauded him saying he “took a stand for the rescuers at 9/11.”

Rep. Weiner put himself in political peril, with his adversaries inside the Democratic Party not willing to lift a finger as the drip, drip, drip continues.

As long as David Letterman is out there it’s not going to get any easier for Anthony Weiner. Maybe he should consider pulling a Hugh Grant, only give Jon Stewart the shot, like Grant gave Leno. “What were you thinking?”, along with Weiner’s savvy, might just be the ticket.

…though with TMZ and Breitbart on Weiner’s heels it’s hard to say it’s not already too late. Hugh Grant simply propositioned a hooker in Hollywood. Rep. Weiner’s predilections aren’t that conventional, with revelations continuing to spin out.

But redemption is built into the American political fabric as long as the guilty person prostrates himself. There is life after politics, especially for he and his wife. Jon Stewart could help him get there, maybe even stop the crescendo that’s building.

With Rep. Pelosi and Rep. Steve Israel calling for an ethics investigation, Rep. Weiner needs to do something.

For my money, the work Rep. Weiner’s done to make the progressive case on policy when the Democratic Party lamely couldn’t speak out under Pres. Obama, matters a lot.

I live in the Beltway, but I’m not a creature of it and never will be, having lived from Missouri to New York to Nevada to Beverly Hills in Los Angeles and many points in between. But I know one thing: if the Obama loyalists and Beltway Dems want Weiner’s (ahem… and ugh) pound of flesh that’s exactly what they’ll likely get.

Screen capture from Huffington Post.

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Why Obama Could Lose Reelection: Unemployment Ticks UP

By on 03 June 2011

“Today’s data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that the job market has weakened considerably as employers added only 54,000 jobs in May. Yet Congress is dithering on increasing the debt ceiling. Failing to do so will lead to a sharp and immediate drop in economic output due to reductions in government spending and investment and their effects on the private sector. Employers’ confidence in the ability of Congress to act may be already shaken. Clearly, today’s data show that the labor market would be unable to handle such a large shock. Policymakers should focus first and foremost on doing no harm and acting to sustain, not derail, the economic recovery.“ – CAP Senior Economist Heather Boushey

Osama schmama, the state of jobs means more to Americans than catching and killing the mastermind of 9/11. Voters have very short allegiances.

Felix Salmon is dreaming through the one ray of light he sees in the disastrous jobs news today and that is it might get Congress to act more seriously and quit playing chicken with the debt ceiling and get down to solving some of our economic challenges.

Republicans are likely gleeful at the jobs number, because nothing can hurt Obama’s reelection chances more than the economy, specifically the way people are feeling about their future, which right now isn’t good.

Pres. Obama has not been a jobs president. He hasn’t spoken to the issue in any way that resonates. It’s like he doesn’t understand how people are feeling. There is a complete out of touch feeling about everything Obama does on jobs and the economy, as if the issue isn’t impacting the lives of real people and families. I’m not sure there is any way to change this. Barack Obama just isn’t a feel your economic pain kind of president.

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