Saturday, March 06, 2004
Who knew Chalabi and Chutzpah were pronounced the same way?!
Text: In His Words: John Kerry
Administration Sets Forth a Limited View on Privacy . . .
Stewardess ID'd Hijackers Early, Transcripts Show
What the 9-11 commission isn't looking at is pretty amazing: a flight attentdant's report of being shown a bomb, the swiftness with which the hijackers were identified as compared to the apparent slowness with which the feds acted . . .
Friday, March 05, 2004
U.S. general says al-Qaida eyeing Africa
Coincidentally, I learned a few things at the Field Museum today that the general apparently doesn't know about Africa. One, contrary to Tarzan movies, which are otherwise quite reliable sources of information about the "dark continent," there are no jungles in Africa -- rain forests, yes, but no jungles. Second, Africa is large enough to fit all of North America, all of Europe, Argentina, and China . . . and still have some empty space -- so we might need a slightly bigger military to do what he proposes.
You Gotta Love Her
Tom Hayden with an interesting take on Vietnam revisionism and its current uses and abuses.
Their spin doesn't even make sense anymore
Tell me what sense this makes: "The Bush campaign viewed the additional jobs as a positive sign for the president�s policies. �Today�s job report demonstrates the importance of having a president in the White House who is committed to a vigorous job creation agenda of lower taxes, lower health care costs and lower energy costs,� campaign spokesman Terry Holt said in a statement."
Karnak could do better at predicting job growth
Two days ago, I read a story confidently asserting that the February job report would show the 125,000 predicted by economists, slightly less than the adminsitration's projection. They only missed it by 104,000, and, to add insult to injury, the January numbers were revised downward from 112,000 to 97,000. That BC '04 commercial talking about jobs is going to look pretty silly competing with this report.
Thursday, March 04, 2004
The Editorial Pages and the Case for War
A report on low standards that should surprise no one who was paying any attention.
An adman's dream headline
9/11 Victims' Kin Angered by Bush Ads: I didn't think much of it when I read something from a single 9/11 relative on Salon last night, figuring it would't be hard to find one -- and I thought the ads' use of 9/11 was pretty low key, so I thought the response might be muted. Early reports suggest they guessed wrong on this one.
Wednesday, March 03, 2004
Interesting read on the new BC '04 ads
Joshua Micah Marshall argues that the message of the ads is, "Don't blame us!" I think there's some truth to it, but I don't know that many people will read them that way.
The administration did appear to get the correct name of the country (Iraq), though
Hussein ties to al Qaeda appear faulty: "The Bush administration's assertion that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had ties to al Qaeda -- one of the administration's central arguments for a preemptive war -- appears to have been based on even less solid intelligence than the administration's claims that Iraq had hidden stocks of chemical and biological weapons.
Nearly a year after U.S. and British troops invaded Iraq, no evidence has turned up to verify allegations of Hussein's links with al Qaeda, and several key parts of the administration's case have either proved false or seem increasingly doubtful.
Senior U.S. officials now say there never was any evidence that Hussein's secular police state and Osama bin Laden's Islamic terrorism network were in league. At most, there were occasional meetings."
Nearly a year after U.S. and British troops invaded Iraq, no evidence has turned up to verify allegations of Hussein's links with al Qaeda, and several key parts of the administration's case have either proved false or seem increasingly doubtful.
Senior U.S. officials now say there never was any evidence that Hussein's secular police state and Osama bin Laden's Islamic terrorism network were in league. At most, there were occasional meetings."
Remember Stonewall -- no, not that one, this one
9/11 Panel Rejects White House Limits on Interviews, but also indicates there's little they can do about them.
---
Deeper in the story is the following assertion, unchallenged:
A spokesman for the National Security Council, Sean McCormack, said Tuesday that the White House believed it would be inappropriate for Ms. Rice to appear at a public hearing as a matter of legal precedent. "White House staff have not testified before legislative bodies," Mr. McCormack said. "This is not a matter of Dr. Rice's preferences."
Let's see. Oliver North, John Poindexter, John Dean, John Ehrlichman, H.R. Haldeman. Oh, and then there would be almost everyone who served on Clinton's staff -- is it somehow a violation of journalistic standards to point out such an obvious falsehood?
---
Deeper in the story is the following assertion, unchallenged:
A spokesman for the National Security Council, Sean McCormack, said Tuesday that the White House believed it would be inappropriate for Ms. Rice to appear at a public hearing as a matter of legal precedent. "White House staff have not testified before legislative bodies," Mr. McCormack said. "This is not a matter of Dr. Rice's preferences."
Let's see. Oliver North, John Poindexter, John Dean, John Ehrlichman, H.R. Haldeman. Oh, and then there would be almost everyone who served on Clinton's staff -- is it somehow a violation of journalistic standards to point out such an obvious falsehood?
Our war president -- hah!
Avoiding attacking suspected terrorist mastermind: Let's see, go after a known terrorist or avoid difficulty in getting abcking for a war? Easy choice.
Safire emulates his old boss by lying , , ,
Tuesday, March 02, 2004
The same day Bush declares we're making progress . . .
the Justice Dept. announces four more years without coordination with Border Patrol -- No Lie Left Behind.
Cementing his reputation as a moron . . .
Monday, March 01, 2004
Proof positive that "political" journalists are in-bred, self-important morons
Bumiller thinks she's at the track, Dapper Dan thinks he's hosting a game show, and Kirtzman doesn't think at all. I actually found myself pulling for Al Sharpton, since he clearly was right that they were ignoring him and Kucinich. And did Dan Rather not understand that discussing Iraq and Haiti actually counted as foreign policy discussion? The best move for one of the candidates would have been to look across at the "journalists" and ask, How did any of you ever get a job?
Seymour Hersh strikes again
The New Yorker piece is scary as hell . . . did you read it?
