Keith Olberman does the work of the Cowering "opposition" party Dems, who are AWOL as Rumsfeld-Bush-Cheney-Rove SMEAR American citizens, as usual.

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/08/30/keith-olbermann-delivers-one-hell-of-a-commentary-on-rumsfeld/


The transcript of Keith’s monumental, Ed Murrow-esque comments Weds., 30 August 2006 are at bottom this post.

WE MUST ASK YET AGAIN, WHY haven't our Democratic "leaders" DEMANDED ACCOUNTABILITY from the torture-promoting, responsibility-denying, "I doubt if the insurgency goes on past six weeks" Secretary of Defense?

Indeed, Mr. Rumsfeld's "I doubt the insurgency will go on past six weeks" is THE MONUMENTAL MISJUDGEMENT of this decade, if not our times.

Yet, not only is Mr. Rumsfeld NOT APOLOGETIC for his MONUMENTAL MISJUDGEMENT of the Iraq post-invasion insurgency.... Not only is Mr. Rumsfeld NOT APOLOGETIC that HIS ORDERS (and lack of sufficient US troops in Iraq, per his HUMILIATION and forced-retirement of General Shinseki, the Army Chief of Staff who very publicly requested DOUBLE the troops for the Iraq invasion, but was TURNED DOWN by Mr. Rumsfeld) ALLOWED THE LOOTING OF BAGHDAD....


- Not only is Mr. Rumsfeld NOT APOLOGETIC that Iraqi looters carted off (literally) TONS and TONS and TONS of explosives and munitions for the Al Qaqaa and other ammunition complexes, as US soldiers were uselessly ordered to do KP duty that Iraqis would gladly have done for the payment of potable drinking water and kitchen scraps....

- Not only is Mr. Rumsfeld UNAPOLOGETIC as that Al Qaqaa ammunition complex was looted, WHILE INTERNATOINAL WEAPONS INSPECTORS BEGGED the US Deparment of Defense to SECURE the site, which was under lock-and-seal and was the repository for the weapons-grade high explosives used in nuclear weapons research (and thus presumably where Iraq WOULD HAVE STORED any WMD projects, had they had any...) WHILE American command instead posted troops around and secured THE IRAQI MINISTRY OF OIL...

- NOT ONLY is Secretary Rumsfeld guilty of GROSS NEGLIGENCE if not DERELICTION OF DUTY in all the above, but now Mr. Rumsfeld equates opposition to his grossly negligent and incompetent leadership as "APPEASING THE ENEMY."

NO, Mr. Rumsfeld... it is YOU who SHOOK SADDAM's HANDS when delivering the word the that US government WOULD NOT OPPOSE Saddam's use of POISON GAS against Iranian troops and Kurdish and Iraqi opposition...

...it is YOUR GOVERNMENT which NEGLECTED the festering threat of the TALIBAN and AL QAIDA in Afghanistan before the 9-11 terror attacks...

...it is YOUR PARTY, the Republican Party, who SABOTAGES the NUCLEAR NON-PROLIFERATION TREATY, but is now trying to use "UN resolutions" as an excuse to bomb Iran...

....it is YOUR Republican govenment which has sold India Five Billion Dollars worth of GE nuclear processing technology, with the 'understanding' that India may operate its SEVENTEEN 'secret' military reactors, using that new technology, to produce MORE nuclear weapons, which will undoubtably spur India's arch-rival Pakistan to turn up THEIR NUCLEAR WEAPONS PRODUCTION. (What is the complaint against Iran again?) It is widely believed that Pakistan recently SUPPORTED THE TERRORISTS who staged BOMB ATTACKS on India's subway trains.

....it is YOUR PARTY which has overseen the GROSS CORRUPTION and MISMANAGEMENT of the Iraq reconstruction, with companies like HALLIBURTON paid, and overpaid, TENS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS for work that not only has NOT been completed, but which those various companies' excecutives NEVER INTENDED to start in the first place, "poor security environment" providing a good excuse to pocket the funds....

In short, Mr. Rusmfeld is THE FACE of the administration's GROSS NEGLIGENCE and INCOMPETENCE in Iraq, yet the Secretary is trying to make the case that Americans who oppose using their fathers, sons, brothers, and daughters as canon-fodder for Mr. Rumsfeld's INCOMPETENCE, are somehow guilty of AIDING (or "appeasing") THE ENEMY.


Keith Olberman, "Countdown" news show, MSNBC
Wed. Aug 30 2006 closing comments:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/08/30/keith-olbermann-delivers-one-hell-of-a-commentary-on-rumsfeld/

The man who sees absolutes, where all other men see nuances and

shades of meaning, is either a prophet, or a quack.

Donald H. Rumsfeld is not a prophet.

We end the countdown where we began, our #1 story.

with a special comment on

Mr. Rumsfeld’s remarkable speech to the American Legion

yesterday. It demands the deep analysis - and the sober contemplation - of every

American.

For it did not merely serve to impugn the morality or

intelligence - indeed, the loyalty - of the majority of Americans who

oppose the transient occupants of the highest offices in the land;

Worse, still, it credits those same transient occupants - our

employees - with a total omniscience; a total omniscience which neither

common sense, nor this administration’s track record at home or abroad,

suggests they deserve.

Dissent and disagreement with government is the life’s blood of

human freedom; And not merely because it is the first roadblock against the

kind of tyranny the men Mr. Rumsfeld likes to think of as "his" troops still

fight, this very evening, in Iraq.

It is also essential. Because just every once in awhile… it

is right - and the power to which it speaks, is wrong.

In a small irony, however, Mr. Rumsfeld’s speechwriter was

adroit in invoking the memory of the appeasement of the Nazis.

For, in their time, there was another government faced with true

peril - with a growing evil - powerful and remorseless.

That government, like Mr. Rumsfeld’s, had a monopoly on all the

facts. It, too, had the secret information. It alone had the true

picture of the threat. It too dismissed and insulted its critics in

terms like Mr. Rumsfeld’s - questioning their intellect and their

morality.

That government was England’s, in the 1930’s.

It knew Hitler posed no true threat to Europe, let alone to

England.

It knew Germany was not re-arming, in violation of all

treaties and accords.

It knew that the hard evidence it had received, which

contradicted it’s own policies, it’s own conclusions - it’s own omniscience - needed to be

dismissed.

The English government of Neville Chamberlain already knew

the truth.

Most relevant of all - it "knew" that its staunchest critics

needed to be marginalized and isolated. In fact, it portrayed the foremost

of them as a blood-thirsty war-monger who was, if not truly senile - at

best morally or intellectually confused.

That critic’s name… was Winston Churchill.

Sadly, we have no Winston Churchills evident among us this

evening. We have only Donald Rumsfelds, demonizing disagreement, the way

Neville Chamberlain demonized Winston Churchill.

History - and 163 million pounds of Luftwaffe bombs over England

- had taught us that all Mr. Chamberlain had was his certainty - and his own

confusion. A confusion that suggested that the office can not only make the

man, but that the office can also make the facts.

Thus did Mr. Rumsfeld make an apt historical analogy

excepting the fact that he has the battery plugged in backwards.

His government, absolute and exclusive in its knowledge, is not the

modern version of the one which stood up to the Nazis. It is the modern

version of the government… of Neville Chamberlain.

But back to today’s Omniscient Ones.

That about which Mr. Rumsfeld is confused is simply this:

This is a Democracy. Still. Sometimes just barely. And as such,

all voices count - not just his. Had he or his president perhaps

proven any of their prior claims of omniscience - about Osama Bin

Laden’s plans five years ago - about Saddam Hussein’s weapons four years ago

- about Hurricane Katrina’s impact one year ago - we all might be able to

swallow hard, and accept their omniscience as a bearable, even useful

recipe, of fact, plus ego.

But, to date, this government has proved little besides its own

arrogance, and its own hubris.

Mr. Rumsfeld is also personally confused, morally or

intellectually, about his own standing in this matter. From Iraq to

Katrina, to flu vaccine shortages, to the entire "Fog of Fear" which continues to envelope this

nation - he, Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, and their cronies, have - inadvertently

or intentionally - profited and benefited, both personally, and politically.

And yet he can stand up in public, and question the morality and

the intellect of those of us who dare ask just for the receipt for the

Emporer’s New Clothes.

In what country was Mr. Rumsfeld raised?

As a child, of whose heroism did he read?

On what side of the battle for freedom did he dream one day

to fight?

With what country has he confused… the United States of

America?

–

The confusion we - as its citizens - must now address, is

stark and forbidding. But variations of it have faced our forefathers, when

men like Nixon and McCarthy and Curtis LeMay have darkened our skies and

obscured our flag. Note - with hope in your heart - that those earlier

Americans always found their way to the light and we can too.

The confusion is about whether this Secretary of Defense, and

this Administration, are in fact now accomplishing what they claim the

terrorists seek: The destruction of our freedoms, the very ones for

which the same veterans Mr. Rumsfeld addressed yesterday in Salt Lake City,

so valiantly fought.

–

And about Mr. Rumsfeld’s other main assertion, that this country

faces a "new type of fascism."

As he was correct to remind us how a government that knew

everything could get everything wrong, so too was he right when he

said that - though probably not in the way he thought he meant it.

This country faces a new type of fascism - indeed.

–

Although I presumptuously use his sign-off each night, in feeble

tribute… I have utterly no claim to the words of the exemplary journalist

Edward R. Murrow.

But never in the trial of a thousand years of writing could

come close to matching how he phrased a warning to an earlier generation of

us, at a time when other politicians thought they (and they alone) knew

everything, and branded those who disagreed, "confused" or "immoral."

Thus forgive me for reading Murrow in full:

"We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty," he said, in 1954.

"We must remember always that accusation is not proof, and that conviction

depends upon evidence and due process of law.

We will not walk in fear - one, of another. We will not be

driven by fear into an age of un-reason, if we dig deep in our history

and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men;

Not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to

defend causes that were - for the moment - unpopular."

And so, good night, and good luck.

Bravo! Dems MUST MAKE CLEAR: Support for the "War on Terror" IS NOT SYNONYMOUS with Bush-Rumsfeld-Cheney INCOMPETENCE and CORRUPTION

Bravo! Barney Franks as an example for Democrats to follow: Support for the "War on Terror" IS NOT SYNONYMOUS with Bush-Rumsfeld-Cheney INCOMPETENCE and CORRUPTION.

Indeed, giving Cheney-Rumsfeld-Bush-Rove carte-blanche to OUT CIA UNDERCOVER OPERATIONS as traitorous political 'payback' and intimidation of government whistleblowers and political opponents; allowing them to promote the TORTURE GENERALS while running KANGAROO courts for female volunteer privates; ALLOWING bush-rumsfeld-rove-cheney to LOOT THE US TREASURY while SHORTING FAA air traffic control experts at Kentucky airports, and funding for brain-traumatized Iraq war veterans...

Again, to date, the Bush administration's ONLY historical successes have been to COWER the Democratic opponents in two presidential elections (Gore in 2000 and Kerry in 2004 both gave Bush a "FREE PASS" for Bush's AWOL during Vietnam war record, for his Texas budget deficts record, and Kerry gave Bush a "FREE PASS for letting Osama bin Laden escape, and for letting the US occupation of Iraq degenerate into a murderous quagmire as unemployed Iraqis were FROZEN OUT of corrupt US mega-corporation fixed-bid contracts.



Barney Frank's Pro-War Op-Ed: Remembering Afghanistan
Steve Clemons
08.30.2006
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-clemons/barney-franks-prowar-op_b_28344.html


Barney Frank gets it. His Boston Globe piece this morning, "Afghanistan Ignored," reinforces a point I tried to make long ago -- those who have opposed Joe Lieberman's continued tenure are "not anti-war."

Rather, they are "anti-Iraq War."

Barney Frank rips up the fiction that Dems are mostly pacifists, a bias carried in too many editorial boards in the country, by writing:

Their argument is that the refusal of many Democrats to support the war in Iraq shows that President Bush's opposition is unwilling to use force against terrorism.

There is, of course, one factual refutation of this partisan distortion. Every Democratic senator and representative but one voted for the war in Afghanistan. It is this war that represented America's reaction to the murders of thousands of Americans on Sept. 11 . It was the Taliban regime in Afghanistan that was sheltering Osama bin Laden. The reaction of the overall majority of Americans, including virtually all Democrats, was to support the Afghan war as a necessary act of self-defense.



The Massachusetts 4th Congressman rips the clothes of the emperor with his sensible kicker:

Whether or not one subscribes to the geopolitical aims that motivated the Bush administration's intervention in Iraq, it is clearly invalid to assert that support for that war is the indispensable badge of one's willingness to confront terrorism. Only by adopting the techniques of the big lie can the vice president make his case that those opposed to the Iraqi war fail to understand the importance of a firm response to terrorists. In fact, given the deleterious effect it has had on our effort in Afghanistan, and the enormous boost it has given to anti-American forces around the world, the big truth is that the Iraq war has damaged our ability to fight terrorism.

Americans were united in their response to the mass murders of 9/11. The war in Iraq has weakened the United States internationally and divided it domestically, while draining needed resources. It is precisely because the Iraq war is not defensible on any other terms that the Bush/Cheney approach uses the big lie to defend the war in Iraq on grounds that in fact describe the war in Afghanistan.



Barney is exactly on target.

-- Steve Clemons is Senior Fellow and Director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation and publishes the popular political blog, The Washington Note.

Schumer prepares text-book example of silently ENABLING Joe Lieberman's ZELL MILLER'06 "stab-Democratic-voters-in-back" agenda...

We hate to name names here at C-dems.blgspt.com, in fact, we hate writing this blog, and wish we could add daily to "CourageousDemocrats.blogspot.com" (which see) or some other, even more mainstream blog.

And we remember cheering like crazy when CHARLES SCHUMER DEFEATED Rethuglican clown Al D'Amato in their New York senate race, we remember our optimism, "HERE IS A DEMOCRAT WHO KNOWS HOW TO FIGHT BACK!" against the relentlessly, billionaire-financed Rethuglican propaganda machine.

But somewhere along the line, Chuck Schumer decided that "fighting" means nothing more than RAISING MONEY and running WISHY-WASHY, DEFER-to-Repug-talking-points campaigns.

You know, (as we have been documenting for so long here at C-dems.blgspt.com), the DLC "SELL OUT DEMOCRATIC VOTERS for PENNIES ON THE DOLLAR" agenda -

- Selling out grandmothers forced to pay THREE TIMES AS MUCH for a prescription drug, as Canadian grandmothers pay for the exact same drugs....
- SELLING OUT New Orleans Blacks because the price of CONDEMNING the Bush administration's CORRUPT and murderously incompetent Katrina FEMA leadership was TOO HIGH for COWARDLY DEMOCRATS to bear....
- SELLING OUT Florida's Black voters in 2000, because Democrats were too cowed and too corrupted to CONFRONT serial, systematic, chronic, and relentless REPUBLICAN VOTE FRAUD.
- Selling out ALL American voters (at least Democrats, progressives, and non-Republicans) by REFUSING TO CONFRONT the HACKABILITY of "privatized" voting machines made by Deibold, ES&S, and Sequoia companies. Companies, which like Enron WALLOWING in their protection from the Cheney-Bush regime, as they EXTORED tens of millions of California rate-payers out of billions of dollars in electricity rates.

Well, here is a great DECONSTRUCTION of Chuck Schumer's "I am a leader... I FOLLOW the dicatates of the Karl Rove corporate media propaganda camapign" in REFUSING to CONFRONT JOE LIEBERMAN as the ZELL MILLER REPUBLICAN THUG that he is this election 2006.


Chuck Schumer: Ambition Trumps Loyalty to Democratic Voters
Pachutec
08.30.2006
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/pachacutec/chuck-schumer-ambition-_b_28370.html


For progressives, there comes a point in time when reactive rage morphs into diamond hard, condensed will.  From the Hartford Courant:


But Schumer turned cautious when talking about Connecticut, where Lieberman has led Lamont in post-primary polls.

"I can't predict who's going to win," Schumer said.

Asked if he would discourage Democrats from giving money to Lieberman, or from campaigning for the three-term incumbent, Schumer said, "We are supporting Ned Lamont. I'll be meeting with Ned Lamont to discuss what he needs," a meeting scheduled to occur in Washington next week.

But what if Democrats want to give to Lieberman?

Schumer gave the same answer: "We are supporting Ned Lamont."

Washington political analyst Jennifer Duffy explained why: "You can't afford to alienate Lieberman. Democrats are walking a very fine line."

Duffy, who was at the briefing, called Schumer's comments "a non-answer," explaining, "It just serves to demonstrate how tricky this race is for Democrats."


And again:


 Lamont campaign manager Tom Swan thought Schumer would go further in signaling a desire to distance the party from Lieberman.

"I'm surprised Sen. Schumer didn't make stronger comments," Swan said, "considering Lieberman's campaign has so clearly mimicked [White House political guru] Karl Rove's playbook, undermining Democrats in Connecticut and across the country."


Recall that Schumer is singularly focused on winning control of the Senate.  This New York Metro puff piece by our old friend (ahem) Ryan Lizza includes this little gem (emphasis added):


He is, famously, the Senate’s greatest fund-raiser and greatest TV hound, important qualifications for his new job. Schumer thought about running for governor this year but instead leveraged the threat of leaving the Senate to secure a spot on the powerful Finance Committee, which writes the nation’s tax laws and, not insignificant, is a perch that puts him in constant contact with the political donor class. “That was my dream,” he says. “I always wanted to be on the Finance Committee.”


Thus we have Chuck describing how he will punk the party to gain personal access to power and money through the "donor class."  Cognitive Diss has a bit more review of Schumer's choices, priorities and values.

Let's recap some undisputed facts for the record:  1)  Ned Lamont is the voter-chosen nominee of the Democratic Party of the state of Connecticut; 2) Joe Lieberman, primary loser, refuses to respect the will of the Democratic voters of Connecticut and has formed his own vanity party, Connecticut for Lieberman; 3) the Hartford Courant column rather accurately reflects, through a Schumer surrogate, Schumer's strategic calculations; 4)  those calculations emphasize the DSCC's consistent overriding goal of taking back the Senate, but do not reflect any principled loyalty to Democratic Party voters; 5) we in the netroots have been quite happy to praise Schumer's good actions , including his (eventual) support for net neutrality; 6) Joe Lieberman is campaigning alongside Republicans and accepting institutional Republican support, including help from consultants and endorsements from national figures in the Republican Party; 7) political analysts and pollsters agree that Joe's only path to victory requires him to maximize turnout among GOP voters in Connecticut; 8) bringing GOP voters to the polls hurts other Democrats running for office in Connecticut, including three key House candidates relied upon to help take back the House in November, 9) Fox News has just today quoted Lieberman as saying, when asked if his candidacy would negatively affect other Democratic campaigns in the state, "Well, I guess I should say that they should have thought of that during the primary, but here we are."  There could not be a clearer "Fuck you!" to Democrats than that.

The case against Lieberman as not only a traitor to the Democratic Party, but as an active agent of the Republican Party, is overwhelming.  The only counterargument is his promise to caucus with the Democratic Party should he win reelection under the Connecticut for Lieberman Party banner.  Chuck Schumer appears to give credence to that promise, but there are serious reasons to question his judgment in this matter:  1)  the Hartford Courant article mentions the dangling threat that the Lieberman campaign is holding against the DC Democrats to caucus with the Republicans if he is not treated well during the campaign; 2)  Tony Blankley, editor of the Moonie Washington Times and well known Republican mouthpiece, has also laundered this speculation on Hardball, signalling a probable deal already in place or, at the very least, already offered; 3) the Lieberman campaign's consistent pattern has been to lie whenever necessary to propel Joe's candidacy, and some reports suggest Lieberman previously promised both Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer that he would not run as an independent candidate if he were to be supported by the DC Democrats in the primary; 4) in order to believe Lieberman's promise to caucus with the Democrats, one must not only trust his word, one must believe that all of the national institutional Republican support for Lieberman's candidacy, including the decision by the NRSC not to support the state's Republican nominee, Alan Schlessinger, has been given to Lieberman freely and without cost, as part of no quid pro quo agreement, even though Karl Rove is on the record as having telephoned Lieberman right after Lieberman's loss in the primary; 5) in order to believe Lieberman's promise, one must also believe that he would support Democratic control of the Senate in spite of the fact that his voting base, and the foundation for his hypothetical win, is Republican.

From all of these things we can conclude that, if Chuck Schumer trusts Lieberman's word to caucus with the Democrats, he is either a fool, a reckless gambler or a man compromised.  But even if we stipulate that Lieberman's word is good, Schumer is refusing to take a principled stand in support of the choice of actual Democratic voters in order to hedge his bets, with the goal of gaining a Democratic Majority in the Senate.  In doing so, he is placing at risk downticket Democrats and control of the House of Representatives, which analysts agree is far more likely to swing to the Democrats than the Senate is.

An interesting side drama here is the conflict of interests between the DCCC headed by Rahm Emanuel and the DSCC headed by Schumer.  Right after Lamont's primary win, Rahm Emanuel called Lieberman George Bush's "love child," but has since changed his tune.  It apears that Rahm understood at first the implications of Lieberman's independent run, but then someone got to him.  My guess would be that someone was Chuck Schumer.

Let me say that I do not begrudge Chuck Schumer his ambition.  Everyone in Washington DC is ambitious.  Ambition is what makes the town run.  But based on all of this, I do emphatically fault Schumer's judgment in taking Lieberman at his word to caucus with Democrats, and even more fundamentally, I fault Schumer for his failure to take a stand in support of the clearly stated will of Connecticut's Democrats not only to support Ned Lamont, but also to reject Joe Lieberman.  It is insufficient on its face to say "We are supporting Ned Lamont" when that support does not include a rejection of Joe Lieberman.  Failure to reject, openly, Joe Lieberman is a betrayal of Connecticut's Democrats in favor of the accretion of personal or institutional power.

There are those who will argue, I'm sure, that is it inappropriate to call out Chuck Schumer so close to November, when there is so much on the line in the midterm elections.  To that I can only respond by repeating my view, shared it seems by very many progressives in the netroots and grassroots:  I am a progressive first and a Democrat second.  The Democratic Party is not, in my view, the property of the elected officials who serve it, but rather of the people who elect those officials.  A Democratic Senate majority that relies on Lieberman's loyalty to the caucus to sustain majority status is neither a stable, reliable majority nor is it an instrument that can reliably uphold and represent progressive values.  So I will say this bluntly:  I would rather not gain back the Senate than rely on Joe Lieberman to sustain Democratic control of the Senate.

However, I don't think there is really much risk of Leiberman being reelected if the Democratic Party insiders would take a principled, unified stand in support of the chosen nominee of the Connecticut Democratic Party voters.  I appreciate that Schumer may feel blackmailed by Lieberman, that Lieberman is holding a metaphorical gun to the head of the DC incumbents in the party, but that gun is probably loaded with blanks.  Connecticut is not Nebraska.  When the DC party servants unite with the grassroots of the party, the party is stronger and Lieberman is outgunned.  Given Lieberman's uncanny ability to alienate voters the more he campaigns, and given Lamont's remarkably broad appeal, Lieberman may very well implode anyway.  The Lamont campaign has proven itself to be nimble and formidable, with all the momentum in its favor.  The strategic downside risk of throwing Leiberman an anchor is not really so high, in my view.  It's just not.

In the meantime, Schumer is auditioning to become the new bete noir of the grassroots and netroots.  Progressives will not forget this.  To Charles Schumer, I say, if you want to be the new Lieberman, once we dispense with the old one, you can have the job.  The choice is yours.


I see Schumer is meeting with Lamont's people next week.  Let's hope, for his sake and for the sake of the Democratic Party, he gets right on this by then.  If he does not, then I would expect long term institutional planning to reduce Schumer's power will begin in earnest. It's no longer sufficient to write angry, reactive critiques of Schumer's choices and actions.  Possible actions against Schumer will no doubt include pressure and outreach to the donor class Schumer seems to hold most dear.  The Democratic Party is not the property of those elected to serve it or of the donors so interested in making friends on the Senate Finance Committee.  It belongs instead to the people.

COWARDLY Democrats ALLOW Cheney-Rove-Bush to MUDDY THE WATERS on CIA-outing scandal. Armitage the new fall guy NOT the source of Plame's outing!

The CIA Leak case: Rove-Cheney-Libby come up with Dick Armitage at State Department, as their new FALL GUY.

This is a terrifically important article, as it demonstrates THE SUCCESS the Bush administration has had in MUDDYING THE WATERS on the illegal, CRIMINAL OUTING of not only a CIA undercover agent (Valerie Plame) as means of intimidating her whistleblower husband, but the CRIMINAL OUTING of Valerie Plame ALSO "OUTED" the ENTRE UNDERCOVER ORGANIZATION that she was working for, and ALL THE OTHER AGENTS WORKING FOR THAT cover company, Brewster Jennings energy consulatants.

This confirms yet again the Bush administration's #1. priority: MAINTAINING POWER is FAR MORE IMPORTANT than "protecting the American people" or providing for genuine NATIONAL SECURITY.

The Rove-Cheney-Libby OUTING of Valerie Plame follows a long list of Bush administration BETRAYALS of national security... from being AWOL, dereliction in duty as terrorists planned the 9-11 hijacking, NOT allowing FBI counter-terror expert John O'Neill to go to Yemen to investigate the Al Qaida bomb attack on the USS Cole there (O'Neill's team was DENIED PERMISSION to enter Yemen by President Bush's selection as Ambassador to that country


The CIA Leak Case- Bob Novak, the Washington Post, and Winds to War
Brent Budowsky
08.29.2006
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brent-budowsky/the-cia-leak-case-on-bob_b_28283.html

With the latest "news" on this case, several points should be clearly understood at the outset. First, Dick Armitage's role was widely and publicly discussed as early as March, and second, Dick Armitage clearly screwed up but was NOT the original source of the leak. While he does share moral culpability, the driving force behind the leak came from the


neocon and partisan wings of the White House.
It is their spin, and nothing more, to try to defend themselves by shifting blame to the anti-Iraq war Armitage, and to the anti-Iraq war State Department, who they believe "needs an American desk." If Armitage never existed the leaks would have happened exactly the same way. If the White House-neocon axis never existed the leaks would never have happened. Whatever the shortcomings of Armitage and State, the real culpability for the identity disclosures reside elsewhere and progressives should be very careful to avoid unknowingly pushing the neocon line.

This whole episode of a political vendetta that involved distorting the debate about WMD in Iraq and naming intelligence identities is the single most shameful, unpatriotic, and totally dishonorable business that I have seen from the moment I first set foot in Washington.

And let me disclose my one and only bias: to protect the men and women who serve our country courageously and covertly, and the men and women of foreign nations who help our country courageously and covertly.

I was in the core group of writers of the CIA Identities Bill from the beginning, working for its original sponsor, Senator Bentsen. I was sufficiently involved to have been commended at the level of Director of Central Intelligence. There were many others involved in this law, from both parties. I only state my history to make it clear that my views on this are not stated casually, offered politically or arrived at recently.

I know a lot about the covert business on both the policy and operational sides and this whole business of "naming names" is sickening, nauseating and the ultimate symbol of how far Washington under George Bush has come from what used to be the nonpartisan treatment of intelligence and the traditional standards of honor.

I have always refused to comment, even in off the record conversations with journalists, on the legal guilt or innocence of any party in this case. That is a decision by the legal system, without trial by media, and without trial by partisans. But this matter affects the core of our national security, the heart of our decision- making process about going to war, and the soul of our spirit of patriotism and honor that should rule out public disclosure of intelligence identities by any person, for any reason, ever.

The same people most responsible for peddling Plames name were the same people peddling WMD stories to Judy Miller and others.

Sadly, shamefully, the issue lives. We now have the House Intelligence Committee issuing a public report attacking Iran-related intel that is clearly designed to bang the war drums for an attack on Iran, and to politicize intelligence for ideology and partisanship yet again. We almost certainly do have shortcomings about intelligence from Iran, in part caused by the very people who try to manipulate the issue, in part caused by events and mistakes, but this should be used and abused to push yet another rush, to another unwise war.

One point that the neoconservatives and the partisan right has never understood is this: when they say don't negotiate with this country or that country, don't do business with this country or that country, the result is that major intelligence dries up. That's how it works. On a country by country basis, sometimes it is best to negotiate, or not; to trade, or not. But the way intelligence works, much intelligence comes directly or indirectly from the processes and people of diplomacy and world trade.

It is disingenuous or dishonest for some to say we should go to war with everyone, negotiate with no one, have sanctions against everyone, and then attack the intelligence loss from their very obsessive policies. And I would repeat my point that those who are universally hostile to diplomacy and universally favorable to war should be asked: where will you get the troops, and do you favor a return to the draft?

All of the pressures, distortions, politicization of intelligence cannot hide or mask this matter, as we witness today in Iraq, while the drums of war are being banged again by those who know little about how to fight wars, how to win wars, or how to exit the wars they rush into.

They never learn. They should be respecting, not demeaning, the advice of our military commanders. They should be improving and analyzing the product of intelligence, not twisting or distorting it, to push a predetermined policy for yet another war.

This business about leaking identities is not only about partisan and political vendettas. It is about how and when we go to war, how and when we should not go to war, and why it is so fundamentally important that intelligence should be based on facts and truth, and not twisted and distorted for the ideology of going to war, or the partisanship of exploiting war.

What went wrong in Iraq, is that the democratic process of making the decision to wage war was corrupted and warped from the beginning.

There is plenty to blame to be apportioned, on all sides, for that. It is not partisan. The issue for us, today, is that we not repeat these corruptions again. Intelligence must be returned to its pre-Bush nonpartisanship. Intelligence must be used objectively, to help us achieve the most acceptable outcome in Iraq, and to avoid repeating the fiasco elsewhere.

In my view, whatever the legalities, there is a special place in hell on this issue for Bob Novak, who named the name, and for the Washington Post Editorial Page, which then published the name, and for Bob Woodward, who attacked the prosecutor without disclosing to his readers or the nation his private interest in the case. Though I will give Woodward credit for this: he never published the Plame story, and neither did Judy Miller, by the way.

This whole episode demonstrates how far from traditional moral and patriotic bearing Washington has come, during what historians will call, not fondly, the Bush years. In this environment anything goes, and insiders, surrounded by courtiers, substitute politics and spin for honesty and truth even on the matter of going to war.

Whatever the legal outcome, on fundamental issues of patriotism, morality and honor there is a higher standard for those of us who know how the real world works, on these matters.

Bob Novak is a smart guy who has been around this town for decades. The Washington Post is the paper of record for the national security establishment in Washington and knows exactly how real world intelligence works. These are people who chortled when Bill Clinton defined what is, is, and now they chortle playing word games with what "covert" is.

Without getting into details, right now, today, as you read these words there are brave and courageous Americans working under cover, risking their lives, often giving their lives, to defend our security. Right now, today, as you read these words there are brave and equally courageous foreigners working with our people, some for ulterior motives, others are authentic freedom and democracy fighters in their native lands.

Intelligence can help us avoid wars; intelligence can help us minimize casualties of wars; and intelligence can help us avoid obsessive and disastrously planned wars. Had this been applied before Iraq, we would not be in the mess. If this is applied going forward, we can avoid a future mess at a time when some seem to want war, everywhere.

When any identity is published, by any party, for any reason, at any time, every single one of them is disserved. The message goes out, we cannot be trusted with secrets. Some new information goes out, which can be traced back to our people, or our friends. Our communities are endangered and the terrorists and hostile governments are helped.

The same people who bang the drums of war the loudest, are helping our enemies, by disclosing names. They are hurting our troops, by distorting our intelligence that is so essential to knowing when to wage war and how to wage it, when we must, and why to avoid it, when we can.

Let the courts decide the law, but those who do these dirty deeds deserve a special place in hell, and those who never risked their lives for our country themselves, and endanger the lives of covert people who risk their lives every day, and endanger the lives of troops who go to war with politically distorted intelligence, deserve the hottest place of all.

Let the courts decide the law, but I guarantee that when the sun has set on the Administration now in power, those who did these dirty deeds will be indicted by the court of history, while others will have to clean up the mess they leave.

Blogosphere OUTS dicatorial, PORK-BARREL Sen. Ted Stevens...

BRAVO! IN a stunning new case of cooperation between those on the "lefty" (liberal, progressive, democratic) side of the blogosphere and 'conservative' (or right-wing) activists, these unified Liberal and Conservative sleuths from the Left AND Right tracked down the "obstructionist" Senator who was, single-handedly, BLOCKING a senate bill to POST ALL GOVERMENT SPENDING, and especially 'PORK BARREL" "ear-marks", in a Google-type searchable on-line database that would be available to all viewers.

And the guilty party is.. Conservative curmudugeon Senator TED STEVENS of Alaska, the imperious right-winger who feels that he is lord and master, not only of the state of Alaska, but the ENTIRE Senate budget process of the United States of America as well.

Senator Stevens, WELCOME TO DEMOCRACY, American style!

WE THE PEOPLE are YOUR boss, NOT the other way around!

We here at C-dems.blgspt.com are DELIGHTED that Righties are joining the fight to MAKE GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABLE to voters... in this case, against the Right-Wing Republican-dominated government which can not only issue a SECRET veto on behalf of a single senator, but in the case of Katrina reconstruction contracts, Iraq reconstruction contracts, Iraq war contracts, and dozens of other cases of federal spending, that government provides NO OVERSIGHT or ACCOUNTABILITY whatsoever.

And since the concept of GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY to voters is what we call "liberal democracy," which in turn is a development of the rationalism and intellectual curiousity of THE AGE OF ENLIGHTMENT (which in turn followed the reforms of the Renaissance and Reformation), HOLDING GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABLE is not only a "liberal' concept, BUT SOMETHING for liberals AND conservatives TO BE PROUD OF.



Caught Red-Handed: Stevens Blocked Creation of Federal Spending Database
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/08/30/stevens-caught/

Last week, an “unidentified senator” placed a hold on legislation introduced by Sens. Barack Obama (D-IL) and Tom Coburn (R-OK) that would create a easily-accessible Google-like database of all federal spending, which totaled $2.5 trillion last year.

The bill appeared to be headed for passage after being approved unanimously in committee. However, the anonymous senator’s hold on the bill prevented it from coming to a vote.

In response, liberals and conservatives worked together to ask every Senate office whether they had placed a hold on the bill. Of all 100 senators, only Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) would not deny placing the hold. In addition, one of the bill’s leading sponsors, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), said of Stevens, “he’s the only senator blocking it.” Stevens’s opposition to such a bill is not surprising; he is one of the most prolific earmarkers in the Senate:

– In 2005, Stevens helped slip in legislation to begin construction on the “Bridge to Nowhere,” earmarking over $200 million for a bridge to an island home to 50 people. When an amendment jeopardized funding for the project, Stevens threatened to resign.

– Later that year, Stevens tried to insert an amendment into the national defense bill allowing oil drilling in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge. When the Senate struck the provision, Stevens called it “the saddest day of my life” and has “written off” Senate friends who opposed drilling.

– This year, Stevens earmarked $450,000 to research baby food made from salmon and over $1 million for “alternative salmon product research.” This is the third year in a row he has appropriated money to research salmon products.

More at TPMmuckraker.
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001440.php

and at
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/4137637.html

– Scott Keyes

WAR PROFITEERING: Cowering Democrats AWOL as admin. friendly corporations EXTORT Iraq war and Defense funds...

WAR PROFITEERING: Cowering Democrats AWOL as corporations EXTORT the Department of Defense for huge defense contracts, just as Enron EXTORTED CA rate payers with Bush-Cheney blessings; just as Cheney's Halliburton EXTORTS Iraq reconstruction funds with the Vice President's blessings, just as the Bush administration and Rethuglican Congress EXTORT American taxpayers, saddling American taxpayers with BILLIONS OF DOLLARS OF DEFICITS under the propaganda guise of "cutting taxes."
It truly is amazing to behold just how craven, incompetent, and SUBSERVIENT to Republicans (and the corportate media propaganda machine) the Democratic Party has become...

<< Casualties [in Iraq] = $$ [PROFTS for Health Net corp.]

Investors shouldn't trouble their little heads over the possibility of a U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq, Health Net CEO Jay Gellert said in a conference call, since the military's own medical capacity will be stretched "into the foreseeable future" by the huge number of injured troops. That's reassuring for Health Net, which, thanks to Pentagon outsourcing, provides managed care services to as many as three million persons in the military and their families.

Another company spokesperson boasted of how war-time stress has turned its mental health services into a "fast-growing business." >>

=======================================


Blatantly Boasting War Profiteers
By Sarah Anderson, AlterNet.
August 30, 2006.
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/40962/


Profiteering execs don't usually brag about their windfalls from the 'war on terror' -- unless they're talking to potential investors.


Like Sen. George "macaca" Allen in a crowd of white Virginia Republicans and Rep. Katherine "God chooses our rulers" Harris with a reporter for a Baptist newspaper, defense executives tend to let their hair down in conversations with investment analysts.

In their glossy annual reports, military contractors are typically modest about how much loot they've gotten from a bloody and increasingly unpopular "War on Terror." But read the transcript of virtually any Q&A session with Wall Street and the truth comes out. While millions are suffering from the human and economic costs of the Iraq war, the violence has been very good for the bottom lines of military contractors and their top executives.

Black Hawk up

"Obviously, military was a big bang for us in the post-September 11 period," crowed George David, CEO of United Technologies, in a meeting with analysts last December. UTC makes Black Hawk helicopters and fighter jet engines, along with civilian aircraft and elevators. David went on to boast that UTC had beaten all its competitors because the military side of its business had more than made up for a 25 percent drop in commercial aerospace revenues.

Not surprisingly, David's personal rewards haven't been too shabby either. Since 9/11, he has been by far the highest paid defense executive, hauling in a total of more than $200 million. David and other top defense executives are highlighted in a new report, "Executive Excess," by the Institute for Policy Studies and United for a Fair Economy (PDF).

So confident is Mr. David of continued military largesse that he's biting the hand that feeds him. In a lawsuit that is the first of its kind, UTC is suing the Pentagon to block the public release of documents related to alleged quality control problems in its Black Hawk factories. The Bush administration, not exactly known for its openness, had agreed to make the documents public in response to a journalist's Freedom of Information Act request.

A pop for "Uncle Bucky"

"Obviously, we got a pop during the Iraq and Afghani thing," CEO Gerald Potthoff of Engineered Support Systems International candidly if indelicately told an investment publication last year. A big pop indeed. A series of war-related contracts for logistical services, some awarded on a no-bid basis, drove company earnings to record levels and set up executives for a lucrative sale of the company to another defense contractor, DRS Technologies, earlier this year.

Among the beneficiaries of that sale: President George W. Bush's uncle, William H. T. Bush, an ESSI director, who cleared $2.7 million in cash and stock. Known to the president as "Uncle Bucky," he claims he had nothing to do with the company's landing lucrative defense contracts.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is now investigating whether company officials went even further to jack up their war windfalls by manipulating the value of their stock options. In 2004, Potthoff's pay, including options gains, came to nearly $40 million.

Casualties = $$

Investors shouldn't trouble their little heads over the possibility of a U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq, Health Net CEO Jay Gellert said in a conference call, since the military's own medical capacity will be stretched "into the foreseeable future" by the huge number of injured troops. That's reassuring for Health Net, which, thanks to Pentagon outsourcing, provides managed care services to as many as three million persons in the military and their families.

Another company spokesperson boasted of how war-time stress has turned its mental health services into a "fast-growing business."

The military's booming health care needs have sent CEO Gellert's personal fortunes soaring. He took home a total of more than $28 million during the past four years, compared to only $2.3 million during the four preceding years. That 1,134 percent increase is the biggest enjoyed by any defense executive.

Upbeat reports such as these have helped make Wall Street bullish on defense. The IPS/UFE study found that the top 34 military contractors had a 48 percent increase in their share prices between the end of 2000 and the end of 2005. By contrast, the S&P 500 dropped 5 percent during that period.

These stock gains have translated into big paydays for defense industry executives. The top 34 enjoyed a doubling of their compensation during the four years after 9/11.

Business grows. Stock price rises. CEO gets big reward. That's the American way, right?

Even during peacetime, there are strong arguments for broadening the definition of executive performance beyond the bottom line. Everyone, not just shareholders, has a real stake in how corporations are run and how executives are paid. Compensation should reward responsible leadership, including strong environmental performance and job creation, and not be so astronomical as to exacerbate the inequalities that undermine our democracy.

During times of war, there are even stronger arguments for pay restraint. For years, experts like management guru Peter Drucker have been advising against morale-killing pay gaps within companies. Imagine how it must feel to be risking your life every day on the front lines in Iraq, knowing that military contractors are getting grotesquely rich in the comfort of their executive suites? No wonder we're seeing the U.S. Marine Corps having to force their reservists back to the battlefield.

It's also no secret that defense executives tend to be well-connected politically. Why should we allow guys who play golf with top government officials to have personal profit motives for continuing the war -- or getting into new ones?

Congress could put an end to this by requiring that all defense contractors restrain executive pay to reasonable levels during wartime. This wouldn't need to be a fixed dollar cap. Procurement rules could instead deny defense contracts to companies that pay their top executives more than 20 times what their lowest-paid worker receives.

Current U.S. laws already deny government contracts to companies that discriminate against women and people of color. Why should we let our tax dollars subsidize war profiteering?

Sarah Anderson is a Fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies and a coauthor of the report "Executive Excess 2006: Defense and Oil Executives Cash in on Conflict," published by IPS and United for a Fair Economy.

FIRE Rahm Emanuel from DCCC chair! Thanks to Chris Boyers from MyDD for pointing out Rahm's RETHUGLICAN TALKING POINTS....

FIRE Rahm Emanuel as DCCC chair!

(sigh) IF WE HAVE TO FIRE EVERY SINGLE damn DLC 'Democrat' in Washington DC, we will come within one-one-thousandth of knowing how President Lincoln felt, firing US Army generals (after disastrous, high-casualty battles) like discarding cards in a hand of poker, until he found those, like Generals Grant and Sherman, WHO WOULD FIGHT!

Rahm Emanuel, DCCC chair, spouting off almost every_single_one of Karl Rove's 'despise Democrats as weak, cowering, and unAmerican' (paraphrasing the distilled essence of Rove's GOP-) talking points:

<< In this case,[Emanuel's book] it was virtually EVERY MAJOR ANTI-Democratic NARRATIVE IN THE COUNTRY. >>

<< Wow. In just a few paragraphs, Reed and [DCCC Chair Rahm] Emanuel MANAGE TO REINFORCE VIRTUALLY EVERY ANTI-Democratic NARRATIVE IN EXISTANCE. We have NO new ideas, we DON'T STAND FOR ANYTHING, we are EQUALLY TO BLAME for polarized politics, we have been taken over by the angry left, conservatism is the only good ideology, Democrats won't do any better, our predecessors expanded government too much, and maverick John McCain is the only hope for unifying this country. And so our national image as a party is completely destroyed. >>

[plus of course the alpha-and-omega of Rethuglican Propaganda, that RETHUGLICANS ARE BETTER at PROTECTING AMERICA and 'fighting the war on terra' than clueless, cowering Democrats, who have, indeed, been parasitized from inside out by DLC corporate whores, like Emanuel, who spout a RETHUGLICAN, 'despise Democrats' message from WITHIN the Democratic Party.]


---------------------------------------

Thanks to Chris Boyers from MyDD for pointing out Rahm's RETHUGLICAN TALKING POINTS, and Eric Alterman for pointing out Chris Boyer's excellent compilation/deconstruction.

Boyer's excellent line-by-line deconstrution shows us.... that What we have here is outright TREACHERY: Democrat "LEADERS" ** CAUGHT IN THE ACT of SABOTAGING Democratic and American voter's needs and wishes ** (affordable prescription drugs, COMPETENT disaster relief, COMPETENCE in prosecuting the war on terror, protection from credit extortion for American consumers, protection for American jobs from 'Free Trade' outsourcing, protection from corporate fraud and media consolidation, etc., etc., etc., ad infinitum).

In this case Rahm Emanuel sounds LIKE KARL ROVE's PUPPY on a leash, so HE, DCCC Chair Rahm Emauel (and the other DLC corporate whore 'Democrats'), can maintain their bubble of comfort, SELLING OUT DEMOCRATIC VOTERS in return from lobbyist and big-corporate campaign donations and the power and influence that comes with being a Democrat party powerbroker.

-----------------------------------

This Is Progress: The Heavy Cost of Government [AND MEDIA!] Lies
by Eric Alterman
29 August 2006
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-alterman/this-is-progress-the-hea_b_28302.html

When I read David Grossman's eulogy for his son, Uri, here,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/25/AR2006082501192_pf.html
I started to cry in the middle of it and couldn't do anything else for a long time. Remember, there are over 5,200 American parents and roughly 100,000 Iraqi parents who feel the same way today, all due to our government's lies--and so much of the media's willingness to shill for them.

And hey look, Mickey is hassling....
http://www.slate.com/id/2148486/
.....Chris Matthews, of all people, for not being sufficiently optimistic about Iraq, given alleged late-breaking news, which is apparently exclusive to Andrew Sullivan.

Ruhhly. What is in the koolaid they sell at Slate? Hey "Mickster," [did you] see TP this morning?
http://www.slate.com/id/2148538


====================================
[Note: due to formating, this article is much better viewed at the original site]


Don't Read This Book
by Chris Bowers, Wed Aug 16, 2006 at 01:03:32 PM EST
http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/8/16/13332/0850


Oh my, Emanuel, and I had been complementing you a lot recently too. Naively, I had thought that the new book by Emanuel and Reed would just be a list of wonky policy details, and would restrain itself from attacking Democrats. Wrongo--I should have know there was no way Reed could restrain himself from doing that. Here is most of excerpt from the prologue the new book by Bruce Reed and Rahm Emanuel:

<< We're both dyed-in-the-wool, lifelong Democrats, but... >>
I always dread the end of any sentence that starts that way, wondering what anti-Democratic narrative is about to be reified by our "leadership."

In this case, it was virtually every major anti-Democratic narrative in the country.

<< ...we can't help but notice that in recent years, both parties in Washington lost their way. >>
Message to voters: don't vote, we both suck. Democrats are no better than Republicans.
Americans scratch their heads in wonder that Republicans and Democrats can't find common purpose.
Message to voters: Democrats and Republicans are equally to blame for a polarized Washington, even though Republicans are in charge during this period of increased polarization..
But the challenge is deeper: Each party needs to be clearer in its own purpose.
Message to voters: Republicans are correct when they say Democrats really don't stand for anything.
How could conservatism--which even with its many shortcomings was once a rigorous doctrine--have come to such a small-minded, unsatisfying demise? Republicans who rode to power on conservative ideals turned them into a hollow faith. Conservatism became a strategy for winning elections, not leading a nation--for staying in power, not respecting its limits. Conservative leaders forgot what made them conservatives in the first place: a recognition that rigid ideology has always been the God That Failed, and that no idea is good if it doesn't work.
Message to voters: The Club for Growth is right. Conservatism is the best and only ideological doctrine in this country, it just needs to be done right.
Ironically, conservatives made government bigger, not smaller. In Senator John McCain's phrase, Washington Republicans spent like drunken sailors--a conservative administration leading the biggest domestic spending spree since Lyndon Johnson.
Message to voters: John McCain for President, because Democratic Presidents are bad and spend too much
No wonder Republicans are confused of late: They say their purpose is to get government off our backs, but they have little interest in or intention of doing so, and years of conclusive proof show that left to their own devices, they'll do just the opposite.
Message to voters: Republicans are right in what they say, so we are just going actually follow through on it.
With Republicans confused and corrupted by being in power, Democrats became so desperate to stop the damage that we often forgot to show where we'd like to lead the country instead.
Message to voters: Republicans are right when they say Democrats have no ideas.
In the 1990s, Democrats began to define a new mission for the country and the party, with impressive results. But in recent years, our anger and frustration with the other side steered us away from our real strength: America hires Democrats to help solve problems, not to listen to us whine about them.
Message to voters: Republicans are right when they say Democrats have been taken over by the angry left.
If all this were just about politics--one confused party somehow outmaneuvering the other--it might not matter that so many Republicans and some Democrats lost their way.
Message to voters: it does not matter who is in charge.

Wow. In just a few paragraphs, Reed and Emanuel manage to reinforce virtually every anti-Democratic narrative in existence. We have no new ideas, we don't stand for anything, we are equally to blame for polarized politics, we have been taken over by the angry left, conservatism is the only good ideology, Democrats won't do any better, our predecessors expanded government too much, and maverick John McCain is the only hope for unifying this country. And so our national image as a party is completely destroyed.

Don't read this book. Stay as far away form it as you can. It may very well succeed in wiping out any and all progress we have tried to make on anti-Democratic media narratives for the past couple years. This book closes Daou's triangle on us so many times in such a short stretch that even Joe Lieberman would be stunned. I don't know how they "plan" to triangulate themselves against their entire party and then still see that party take power, but hey, if that is their "plan," then I have a "plan" too.

Here is my "plan": someone, for the love of God, invent a time machine so Bruce Reed and Rahm Emanuel can just go and live in the 1990's forever, pretending that the messages that worked then will work even unto the ending of the world. They can also pretend that their 1990's strategy of reifying every negative about Demcorats that Republicans spin played absolutely no role in Republicans dominating electoral politics of the last several cycles. I'll come back and go to a few concerts with them, but I won't stay. I always regretted that I couldn't go see the Red Hot Chili Peppers on tour with Pearl Jam and the Smashing Pumpkins, since the New York State public high school cross country championships were the next day. That was in late-1991 before any of those bands were "cool," and when Emanuel and Reed could still justifiably claim that repeating the same things about Democrats that Republicans say didn't lead to a massive deterioration in our national image as a party. Then, I suppose, we will all be happy.

TRAITOR Dems Tom Carper, Mark Pryor, Ken Salazar, Bob Nelson, and Mary Landrieu STILL SUPPORT TRAITOR Joe Lieberman's "KILL THE OPPOSITION PARTY" run!

Senator Daniel Inouye Pulls his Endorsement of Joe Lieberman - that STILL leaves FIVE Democrat Senators SUPPORTING Traitor Joe Lieberman's "TEAR THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY APART, and ENABLE the Bush-Rove-Cheney thug administration" 'independent' campaign!!

Clearly these Senators AGREE WITH Sen. Lieberman's agenda, which is to say the Bush-Rove-Cheney-Scalia-Scaife-Murdoch-GE "WAR CRIMES, WAR, SECRECY, CORRUPTION, ENRON, HALLIBURTON, KATRINA, and TORTURE, FOREVER and EVER and EVER, AMEN!" agenda...

===================================

Inouye Pulls his Lieberman Endorsement
Bob Geiger
August 29, 2006
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-geiger/inouye-pulls-lieberman-en_b_28246.html

When Joe Lieberman gave the middle finger to Democratic voters in Connecticut after they selected Ned Lamont as their Senate nominee and promptly jumped into an ill-advised independent bid for the Senate, my guess was that the whole thing would run its course and begin to unravel by the end of September.

It looks like it's starting a month early.

Senator Daniel Inouye (D-HI), a longtime Lieberman supporter, has announced that he is pulling his endorsement of Lieberman's independent candidacy. The Honolulu Advertiser reports that Inouye was under fire by Hawaii Democrats for his steadfast support of Lieberman and that there is precedent in Hawaii for Democrats facing disciplinary action within the party for backing a third-party candidate over the voters' choice.

The newspaper also reports that Inouye became disenchanted with Lieberman after he made a speech critical of the party. "I told some of my friends after he gave his speech saying the party isn't the party he knew that he doesn't get my support," Inouye said in an interview.

I have a call and an e-mail in to Inouye Communications Director, Mike Yuen, and I will update this post when I get confirmation and further information.

This leaves Tom Carper (DE), Mark Pryor (AR), Ken Salazar (CO), Ben Nelson (NE) and Mary Landrieu (LA) as the only Senate Democrats still supporting Lieberman's trashing of both the party and the will of Connecticut voters.

Stay tuned...

You can read more from Bob at BobGeiger.com.

Cowardly Democrats AWOL, NO UNIFIED RESPONSE as Karl Rove runs YET ANOTHER SMEAR-MOB election campaign....! HOW COWARDLY CAN THE DEMOCRATS GET??

Rove Has Unparalleled Influence With Bush
By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press
08.29.2006, 03:28 AM
http://www.forbes.com/business/feeds/ap/2006/08/29/ap2978817.html


Karl Rove was not "frog-marched" out of the White House in handcuffs as his detractors had hoped, but the past year was certainly a low point for President Bush's close friend and chief political strategist.

A criminal investigation put Rove under scrutiny for months, then he was forced to surrender a key policy role in a move that raised questions about his authority in the White House.

While Rove fought the allegations and kept a low public profile, he never lost his unparalleled influence on the president, say those close to him.

"The history of a lot of folks in these jobs is that they are hired guns," Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman said. "With Karl, you have someone who has been central to what the president has been doing for decades."

Mehlman and others in the White House say Rove gave up his responsibilities as chief policy coordinator in April, but remains heavily involved in all aspects of domestic and international policy.

The coordinator role had turned Rove into an internal White House diplomat, trying to coordinate different views into a coherent position while maintaining neutrality. Some felt it stretched the political strategist too thin.

The slimmed-down portfolio leaves Rove freer to focus on politics, look at the big picture and provide a gut-check in a White House that has struggled with missteps that may leave Republicans vulnerable in the midterm congressional elections.

Rove fell under a legal cloud after a grand jury, starting late in 2003, began investigating the leak of a CIA officer's identity to reporters. He learned in June that he would not be indicted.

With that threat behind him, Rove is back to his old playful self - sporting Elvis sideburns on a recent trip to Memphis with the president and traveling around the country for lucrative storytelling to GOP donors.

The Republican base never flinched at suggestions that Rove tried to smear administration critic Joe Wilson by revealing his wife's role as a CIA operative.

Publicity surrounding the case may have increased Rove's stature among Republicans and contributed to an almost mystical view of the longtime Bush strategist among the party faithful because he came out on top.

At a recent presidential fundraiser near Bush's Texas ranch, a line that formed for photos with Rove was nearly as long as the line waiting to see the president.

Rove is an impressive fundraiser himself, bringing in $10.4 million in 75 events this cycle, more than any other Republican official besides the president, first lady and vice president.

"He came out clean," said Robert Pruger, one of the donors who recently paid $1,000 to hear Rove speak in Toledo. "When your opponent hits you and it doesn't stick, you end up stronger for it."

The fundraiser aided the campaign of Ohio gubernatorial candidate Ken Blackwell. Financial consultant Cleves Delp was told that if he helped stage the fundraiser, he could get any leading conservative he liked to attend.

Rove wasn't the first choice, but Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas couldn't raise money for the GOP, Delp learned.

Instead he got Rove, who mingled at Delp's home before the main event. Donors paid at least $10,000 each for the privilege of meeting Rove privately.

Delp was thrilled with the insider stories told by Rove.

If Rove experienced any pain from having his own reputation questioned, it hasn't stopped him from tearing down political opponents with attacks on their credibility.

Once again he's using the tactic that helped Bush win re-election in 2004 - suggesting that Democrats cannot adequately protect the country from terrorists.

"The problem for these Democrats is that their policies would have consequences and their policies would make us more, not less, vulnerable," Rove said from a podium beneath the beamed, vaulted ceilings and brass chandeliers of the Inverness Country Club in Toledo. "And in war, weakness emboldens your enemies and it's an invitation for disaster."

He even targets those who are decorated military veterans like Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry and Pennsylvania Rep. John Murtha.

Rove recently said those Democrats "may be with you at the first shots, but they are not going to be there for the last tough battles."

He criticizes the media too. A favorite target is The New York Times and its role in revealing the administration's secret tracking of terrorist financing. He recently said journalists often criticize political professionals because they want to draw attention away from the "corrosive role their coverage has played focusing attention on process and not substance."

That might offer a clue to why Rove declined to be interviewed for this article and quickly left the Toledo fundraiser - a rare public forum that attracted a media pack that chased him out to his car.

Asked about his recent weight loss, Rove, without mentioning his liquid-based diet, smiled and told reporters he'd lost 22 pounds through "clean living."

The mischievous Rove stuck his head out of the car before it sped off to add gleefully: "And avoiding you guys."

Cowering Dems ALLOW Bush-Rove-Repugs/Major-Media to BLAME CLINTON for 9-11, and BLAME VICTIMS for drowning in New Orleans.

Cowering Dems ALLOW Bush-Rove-Repugs/Major-Media to BLAME CLINTON for 9-11, and BLAME VICTIMS for drowning in New Orleans. Do You STAND for America?

AS PREDICTED here at C-dems.blogspot.com, the COWARDLY DEMOCRATS are in FULL-on SNATCH DEFEAT FROM THE JAWS OF VICTORY mode.

#1. we've already seen - Ned Lamont DEFEATED corporate Dem/Rethug light Joe Lieberman (and his TWENTY MILLION DOLLAR WAR CHEST) for the Democratic primary, so IMMEDIATELY the BushCo thugs instructed the Brits to RUSH THE ARRESTS of a British Muslims who might possibly have contemplated "liquid bomb" terrorist attacks - a means of bomb-making that the Bush administration/Homeland Security was WELL AWARE OF LONG OVER A YEAR AGO.

The terror alerts/arrests did SUCCEED in KNOCKING Ned Lamont's WINNING election campaign OUT OF THE NEWS... a tactic the COWARDLY SENATE and DLC 'Democrats' ALLOWED TO PASS UNCONTENTESTED.

Sure enough, Bush's poll numbers WENT UP 10% within the week.

NOW the Bush-Rove media machine and their Media Whores are going to trot out EIGHT WEEKS of "BLAME CLINTON for 9-11, and BLAME THE VICTIMS for DROWNING and DYING in New Orleans in the flooding that followed the Katrina hurricane.

AGAIN, DEMOCRATS *WILL NOT CONTEST* this media/repuglican propaganda blitz - ALLOWING Bush and the Repugs to CLOSE ANOTHER 5+% in the polls before the end of September.

THEN THERE WILL BE ANOTHER *MAJOR SECURITY ALERT* - possibly even an attack - and "TERROR!" and "SECURITY!" will DOMINATE THE NEWS YET AGAIN.... and the Repubs will salvage victory from defeat, as the clueless cowering Democrats look around and ask "what hap'ned?"

In 2000 Democrats DID NOT RESPOND to Bush's "Restore Honor and Dignity to the White House" campaign, FAILING to point out that Bush himself WENT AWOL from his Texas Air National Guard unit during the Vietnam War. (Or, more specifically, from the Alabama Air Nat. Guard unit he was transferred to after REFUSING to undergo a flight medical in Texas as ordered).

In 2002 Dem. Senate MAJORITY Leader Tom Daschle, and Senate Govermental Affairs Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman, QUASHED a powerful and thorough investigation of ENRON corruption, a PROSECUTION FUNCTION that the Democratic 'leadership' REFUSED TO PROVIDE, which in turn ALLOWED the Bush-Cheney administration to RUN BLOCKING for Enron's EXTORTION of California electric consumers (rate payers), a coordinated shut-down of California energy production that cost the California economy BILLIONS and BILLIONS of dollars, and LED DIRECTLY TO THE RECALL ELECTION of California's governor, what's his useless name.

THEN, in 2004, JOHN KERRY STOOD THERE LIKE A BOX OF ROCKS as Pres. Bush looked into TV cameras in the 3rd debate and said, "My opponent is a FLIP-FLOPPER," kerry too stupid, cowed, or corrupted (like Bush, a fellow member of Yale's morbid 'SKULL AND BONES' fraternity) to STATE THE OBVIOUS: it was GEORGE W. BUSH who FLIP-FLOPPED on his 'Get bin Laden dead or alive' pledge, a FAILURE to catch bin Laden at Tora Bora (in the Afghan mountains) that ALLOWED THAT TERRORIST to PRODUCE VIDEOS that were distributed in America on election's eve!

NOW, in 2006, the cowering Democrats ARE ONCE AGAIN ALLOWING KARL ROVE, GEORGE W. Bush, and the RETHUGLICAN MEDIA MACHINE to CONTROL the media discourse, Nancy Pelosi and what's-his-name (Harry Reid, the AWOL 'leader' of the Senate Dems.) AWOL as providing a Democratic message that actually reaches TV viewers this season.

HOW MANY ELECTIONS will the Democrats be able to trot out their "FADE AWAY AND YIELD the TV SCREENS to BUSH-ROVE-Murdoch/GE/nbc" campaign cluelessness????????

----------------------------------
ABC docudrama will blame Clinton and Dems for 9/11
by theyrereal
Sun Aug 27, 2006 at 10:46:09 PM PDT
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/8/28/1469/21819
-------------------------------------------------

DATA DUMP: "9/11 was Clinton's fault" [NOT!]
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=1975019&mesg_id=1975019

The two great myths that have settled across the nation, beyond the Hussein-9/11 connection, are that Clinton did not do enough during his tenure to stop the spread of radical terrorist organizations like al Qaeda, and that the attacks themselves could not have been anticipated or stopped. Blumenthal's insider perspective on these matters bursts the myths entirely, and reveals a level of complicity regarding the attacks within the journalistic realm and the conservative political ranks that is infuriating and disturbing.
Starting in 1995, Clinton took actions against terrorism that were unprecedented in American history. He poured billions and billions of dollars into counterterrorism activities across the entire spectrum of the intelligence community. He poured billions more into the protection of critical infrastructure. He ordered massive federal stockpiling of antidotes and vaccines to prepare for a possible bioterror attack. He order a reorganization of the intelligence community itself, ramming through reforms and new procedures to address the demonstrable threat. Within the National Security Council, "threat meetings" were held three times a week to assess looming conspiracies. His National Security Advisor, Sandy Berger, prepared a voluminous dossier on al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, actively tracking them across the planet. Clinton raised the issue of terrorism in virtually every important speech he gave in the last three years of his tenure. In 1996, Clinton delivered a major address to the United Nations on the matter of international terrorism, calling it "The enemy of our generation."


=====================================

The Sins of September 11 -
[aka Bush-Rove BLAMES Clinton Administration for 9-11 terror attacks]
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective ** 2003 ***
Monday 13 October 2003
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/101303A.shtml

I am beginning to despise reading. I have lost count of the number of times I have read some passage in a politically-oriented book, and then been uncontrollably motivated to hurl said book against a wall or across the room in fury. My library looks like someone took a weed-whacker to it; all the dust-jackets have taken a fearsome beating.

The book currently on my desk has begun to retain a damaged appearance. Sidney Blumenthal's "The Clinton Wars" is a meticulously researched and foot-noted tour de force through the last ten years of the brainless savagery of American politics. The retelling of the contrived scandals clarioned by a media establishment which abandoned any pretense of journalistic integrity, pushed by a cabal of House members and right-wing activists whose worshipped altar was the desire for raw power, and the sad and sorry tale of the impeachment itself, is a difficult but necessary review of a truly pathetic time in our history. Blumenthal manages to bring his readers back to that tar pit, and keep them enthralled, with an excellent and deft literary touch.

Since I have read most of the other books on the scandal-gasm and impeachment, there was not much through the middle of this book that brought me up short, though Blumenthal does present interviews and perspectives of players on both sides of that aisle which are not present in the other histories (It was amusing to read Congressional impeachment warrior James Rogan speak of being "On the wrong side of history" regarding the trial in the Senate). No, the book began to take its obligatory pounding when I reached page 656, and the second part of the chapter entitled "The Twenty-First Century."

The astounding level of blunt ignorance within the American populace about the events surrounding the attacks of September 11 cannot be easily quantified. In a nation with thousands of newspapers, thousands of radio stations, and a ceaseless data stream from CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, Fox, NBC, ABC, CBS and PBS, some 70% of the population believed as late as a month ago that Saddam Hussein was centrally involved in and personally responsible for the attacks which destroyed the Towers and struck the Pentagon. Beyond that, what most people know about the single most important event in American history does not go much beyond "evildoers" who "hate our freedom."

That is, simply, incredible. It is also not an accident. This ignorance has a great deal to do with the stunning mediocrity of the television news media, that empty well where most Americans go to become informed. This ignorance also, and far more importantly, has a great deal to do with the Clinton-era actions of a large number of conservatives, many of whom are in positions of power today, many of whom are now making careers out of September 11.

The two great myths that have settled across the nation, beyond the Hussein-9/11 connection, are that Clinton did not do enough during his tenure to stop the spread of radical terrorist organizations like al Qaeda, and that the attacks themselves could not have been anticipated or stopped. Blumenthal's insider perspective on these matters bursts the myths entirely, and reveals a level of complicity regarding the attacks within the journalistic realm and the conservative political ranks that is infuriating and disturbing.

Starting in 1995, Clinton took actions against terrorism that were unprecedented in American history. He poured billions and billions of dollars into counterterrorism activities across the entire spectrum of the intelligence community. He poured billions more into the protection of critical infrastructure. He ordered massive federal stockpiling of antidotes and vaccines to prepare for a possible bioterror attack. He order a reorganization of the intelligence community itself, ramming through reforms and new procedures to address the demonstrable threat. Within the National Security Council, "threat meetings" were held three times a week to assess looming conspiracies. His National Security Advisor, Sandy Berger, prepared a voluminous dossier on al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, actively tracking them across the planet. Clinton raised the issue of terrorism in virtually every important speech he gave in the last three years of his tenure. In 1996, Clinton delivered a major address to the United Nations on the matter of international terrorism, calling it "The enemy of our generation."

Behind the scenes, he leaned vigorously on the leaders of nations within the terrorist sphere. In particular, he pushed Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to assist him in dealing with the threat from neighboring Afghanistan and its favorite guest, Osama bin Laden. Before Sharif could be compelled to act, he was thrown out of office by his own army. His replacement, Pervez Musharraf, pointedly refused to do anything to assist Clinton in dealing with these threats. Despite these and other diplomatic setbacks, terrorist cell after terrorist cell were destroyed across the world, and bomb plots against American embassies were thwarted. Because of security concerns, these victories were never revealed to the American people until very recently.

In America, few people heard anything about this. Clinton's dire public warnings about the threat posed by terrorism, and the massive non-secret actions taken to thwart it, went completely unreported by the media, which was far more concerned with stained dresses and baseless Drudge Report rumors. When the administration did act militarily against bin Laden and his terrorist network, the actions were dismissed by partisans within the media and Congress as scandalous "wag the dog" tactics. The TV networks actually broadcast clips of the movie "Wag The Dog" to accentuate the idea that everything the administration was doing was contrived fakery.

The bombing of the Sundanese factory at al-Shifa, in particular, drew wide condemnation from these quarters, despite the fact that the CIA found and certified VX nerve agent precursor in the ground outside the factory, despite the fact that the factory was owned by Osama bin Laden's Military Industrial Corporation, and despite the fact that the manager of the factory lived in bin Laden's villa in Khartoum. The book "Age of Sacred Terror" quantifies the al-Shifa issue thusly: "The dismissal of the al-Shifa attack as a scandalous blunder had serious consequences, including the failure of the public to comprehend the nature of the al Qaeda threat."

In Congress, Clinton was thwarted by the reactionary conservative majority in virtually every attempt he made to pass legislation that would attack al Qaeda and terrorism. His 1996 omnibus terror bill, which included many of the anti-terror measures we now take for granted after September 11, was withered almost to the point of uselessness by attacks from the right; Jesse Helms and Trent Lott were openly dismissive of the threats Clinton spoke of.

Clinton wanted to attack the financial underpinnings of the al-Qaeda network by banning American companies and individuals from dealing with foreign banks and financial institutions that al Qaeda was using for its money-laundering operations. Texas Senator Phil Gramm, chairman of the Banking Committee, killed Clinton's bill on this matter and called it "totalitarian." In fact, he was compelled to kill the bill because his most devoted patrons, the Enron Corporation and its criminal executives in Houston, were using those same terrorist financial networks to launder their own dirty money and rip off the Enron stockholders.

Just before departing office, Clinton managed to make a deal with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to have some twenty nations close tax havens used by al Qaeda. His term ended before the deal was sealed, and the incoming Bush administration acted immediately to destroy the agreement. According to Time magazine, in an article entitled "Banking on Secrecy" published in October of 2001, Bush economic advisors Larry Lindsey and R. Glenn Hubbard were urged by think tanks like the Center for Freedom and Prosperity to opt out of the coalition Clinton had formed. The conservative Heritage Foundation lobbied Bush's Treasury Secretary, Paul O'Neill, to do the same. In the end, the lobbyists got what they wanted, and the Bush administration pulled America out of the plan. The Time article stated, "Without the world's financial superpower, the biggest effort in years to rid the world's financial system of dirty money was short-circuited."

This laundry list of partisan catastrophes goes on and on. Far from being inept on the matter of terrorism, Clinton was profoundly activist in his attempts to address terrorism. Much of his work was foiled by right-wing Congressional conservatives who, simply, refused to accept the fact that he was President. These men, paid to work for the public trust, spent eight years working diligently to paralyze any and all Clinton policies, including anti-terror initiatives that, if enacted, would have gone a long way towards thwarting the September 11 attacks. Beyond them lay the worthless television media, which ignored and spun the terrorist issue as it pursued salacious leaks from Ken Starr's office, leaving the American people drowning in a swamp of ignorance on a matter of deadly global importance.

Over and above the theoretical questions regarding whether or not Clinton's anti-terror policies, if passed, would have stopped September 11 lies the very real fact that attacks very much like 9/11 were, in fact, stopped dead by the Clinton administration. The most glaring example of this came on December 31, 1999, when the world gathered to celebrate the passing of the millennium. On that night, al Qaeda was gathering as well.

The terrorist network planned to simultaneously attack the national airports in Washington DC and Los Angeles, the Amman Raddison Hotel in Jordan, a constellation of holy sites in Israel, and the USS The Sullivans at dock in Yemen. Each and every single one of these plots, which ranged from one side of the planet to the other, was foiled by the efforts of the Clinton administration. Speaking for the first time about these millennium plots, in a speech delivered to the Coast Guard Academy on May 17, 2000, Clinton said, "I want to tell you a story that, unfortunately, will not be the last example you will have to face."

Indeed.

Clinton proved that Osama bin Laden and his terror network can be foiled, can be thwarted, can be stopped. The multifaceted and complex nature of the international millennium plots rivals the plans laid before September 11, and involved counter-terrorism actions within several countries and across the entire American intelligence and military community. All resources were brought to bear, and the terrorists went down to defeat. The proof is in the pudding here. September 11, like the millennium plots, could have been avoided.

Couple this with other facts about the Bush administration we now have in hand. The administration was warned about a massive terror plot in the months before September by the security services of several countries, including Israel, Egypt, Germany and Russia. CIA Director George Tenet delivered a specific briefing on the matter to the administration on August 8, 2001. The massive compendium of data on Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda compiled by Sandy Berger, and delivered to Condoleezza Rice upon his departure, went completely and admittedly unread until the attacks took place. The attacks themselves managed, for over an hour, to pierce the most formidable air defense system in the history of the Earth without a single fighter aircraft taking wing until the catastrophe was concluded.

It is not fashionable these days to pine for the return of William Jefferson Clinton. Given the facts above, and the realities we face about the administration of George W. Bush, and the realities we endure regarding the aftermath of September 11, the United States of America would be, and was, well served by its previous leader. That we do not know this, that September 11 happened at all, that it was such a wretched shock to the American people, that we were so woefully unprepared, can be laid at the feet of a failed news media establishment, and at the feet of a pack of power-mad conservative extremists who now have a great deal to atone for.

Had Clinton been heeded, the measures he espoused would have been put in place, and a number of powerful bulwarks would have been thrown into the paths of those commercial airplanes. Had the news media been something other than a purveyor of masturbation fantasies from the far-right, the American people would have know the threats we faced, and would have compelled their Congressmen to act. Had Congress itself been something other than an institution ruled by narrow men whose only desire was to break a sitting President by any means necessary, we would very probably still have a New York skyline dominated by two soaring towers.

Had the Bush administration not continued this pattern of gross partisan ineptitude and heeded the blitz of domestic and international warnings, instead of trooping off to Texas for a month-long vacation, had Bush's National Security Advisor done one hour's worth of her homework, we probably would not be in the grotesque global mess that currently envelops us. Never forget that many of the activists who pushed throughout the 1990s for the annihilation of all things Clinton are now foursquare in charge of the country today.

These are the sins of September 11. Thank you, Sidney. I'm sorry I broke your book.

-------

William Rivers Pitt is the Managing Editor of truthout.org. He is a New York Times and international best-selling author of three books - "War On Iraq," available from Context Books, "The Greatest Sedit

National Security coalition agrees - Hillary the cowering, "ALL SHOW and NO SUBSTANCE" Dem who REFUSES TO STAND UP for American citizen!

National Security coalition agrees - Hillary the cowering, "ALL SHOW and NO SUBSTANCE" Dem who REFUSES TO STAND UP for American citizens.

As we have pointed out in previous posts, AS WITH THE ENTIRE Democratic Senate Caucus, Hillary REFUSES to SPEAK OUT - VOCALLY, PUBLICLY, AGAINST the complicity of the Mainstream-Media and Bush admin. CENSORSHIP - against the Bush admin. SLASHING funding for brain-injury and war-traumatized Iraq combat veterans, GRANDMOTHERS forced to pay THREE TIMES the price for pharmaceutical drugs that Canadian Seniors pay, nor will Hillary SPEAK OUT against the "OUTSOURCING" vital American jobs...

Hell, Hillary is so beholden to the Bush/GOP/major-media 'CONVENTIONAL WISDOM" propagand campaign, that she won't even speak out on behalf of her AIPAC paymasters, about the OUTSOURCING of US ports and US port security !! to foreign nations, some at least which have known ties to the 9-11 hijack terrorists, nor of the "D" and "F" - FAILING grades! - of the 9-11 commission final report!
http://www.9-11pdp.org/press/2005-12-05_report.pdf


Senator Hillary Clinton: All Show and no Substance
By Sibel Edmonds & William Weaver
August 28, 2006
http://nswbc.org/Op%20Ed/ClintonOpEd-Aug28-06.htm


Recent surveys measuring public opinion and confidence in congress all arrived at the same conclusion: over seventy percent of Americans have lost faith and confidence in the United States Congress. The public no longer trusts this body of politicians who were elected to represent the people and the peoples’ interests. Instead, they now view these “representatives” as servants of special interest groups, corporations and high-powered lobbyists. Americans are tired of watching and listening to elected officials who refrain from taking a strong stand on crucial issues, and who almost never state their positions with conviction and sincerity. In the eyes of the nation these senators and representatives are nothing more than programmed publicity puppets, competing for face time in the media. Common adjectives used by our citizens to describe these officials clearly reflect their sentiments: “spineless,” “phony,” “corrupt,” “out of touch,” “timid,” “all show and no substance,” and the list goes on. Why have we Americans lost confidence and faith in those elected? Where and when did we go wrong; or perhaps more correctly, they go wrong? What have these representatives done, or, failed to do, that arouses such anger and loathing in the very same constituents who voted them into office?

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is a perfect example; an elected senator who has served six years in her seat, never taking a strong stand in support of her constituents on any serious or controversial issue; a senator who has used her record-breaking TV public appearances to say “nothing”; a senator whose senate office adheres strictly to a motto of “See no Evil, Hear no Evil”; an elected official who has no record of conducting investigations into cases that are matters of great concern to her constituents and to our nation; a senator who has consistently stood quietly on the sidelines when the issues at hand demand public hearings –waiting to determine the direction of each blowing wind; a politician who has spent all her focus and energy on a campaign of shallow publicity glitz and her PR empire behind it. Here are some documented illustrative examples:

James J. DiGeorgio and Carl Steubing died in ways no war veteran should. They were subjected to illegal drug experimentation by employees of the Stratton Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Albany, New York; killed by servants of the very government they fought to protect. Scores of other veterans were injured in these experiments, and only by the courage of whistleblowers Jeffrey Fudin and Anthony Mariano was any measure of justice achieved for these misdeeds. One person was convicted of manslaughter, but investigations into other officials collapsed because of a lack of institutional nerve to follow the investigation to the end. A scape-goated employee went to prison, while those who supervised, facilitated, and reaped the benefits of the lucrative, illegal drug testing went on to other VA positions with promotions and raises.

Between 2000 and June 2006, numerous contacts with Senator Hillary Clinton over the Stratton tragedy went unacknowledged, or glossed over, or shuffled around to various offices with no substantive action. No less than five Clinton staff members heard presentations and received documentation about the experiments, and Senator Clinton herself is personally aware of the detailed facts of the case. This personal knowledge did not translate into action, for though Senator Clinton carefully scripts her numerous public appearances to give the impression of caring and concern, her actions speak otherwise. She noted "our nation made a pact with those who serve their country in the Armed Forces – a commitment that those who served would have access to quality health care through the VA hospital system . . . and they deserve to be treated as the best." But while Senator Clinton was issuing such lofty statements and mugging for photo opportunities with active duty military, she did nothing about the systematic abuse and murder of veterans within her own constituency. The Veterans Affairs Whistleblowers Coalition, and more recently the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition, sent numerous letters and e-mails and copious documentation, pleading for help from the Senator to investigate and address the crimes committed at Stratton, including unrelenting retaliation against the whistleblowers who brought these matters to public attention

Notably, the VAWBC recognized that the motivations and incentives that led to abuse at Stratton were present at many hospitals throughout the VA system, and that greed and poor management in the VA guaranteed that the events of Stratton would be repeated elsewhere. The most vulnerable people, the sick and dying with nowhere to turn but to the VA, were exploited and killed by those tasked with their medical care, and their suffering and death were ignored by Senator Clinton. It is doubly offensive that this woman sits on the Armed Services Committee, which, along with the Veterans Affairs Committee, has the duty to provide for the well-being of current and former military service members. For all her posturing; for a senator who advertises herself as a hawk and pro military; how does she show it in action? By abandoning our veterans and war heroes in need!

Senator Clinton’s failure concerning Stratton is not an isolated event; it is part of a pattern of studious avoidance of principled action in the face of serious government misconduct, and the refusal to come to the aid of those people who expose that misconduct. When Bunnatine Greenhouse exposed extraordinary graft and impropriety in government contracting with Halliburton, when Sergeant Samuel Provance reported prisoner abuse and torture at Abu Ghraib, when Russ Tice disclosed violations of the Constitution by the National Security Agency, and when Jay Stroup, Thomas Bittler, Jim Griffin, and Ray Guagliardi exposed serious defects and negligence in the Transportation Security Administration that puts travelers at risk, Clinton did nothing. No words of support, no calls for investigations, no efforts to prevent the lives and careers of whistleblowers from being destroyed. Documents on numerous cases were shared with her office, offers to brief her and her staff have been made on many occasions, pleas for her to live up to the words she so casually utters, have all been ignored, or even ridiculed.

In her six years as senator she has done nothing but attempt to position herself for the presidency, done nothing but avoid acting out of principle and justice, done everything to offend no one. We respect our opponents in much greater measure than we respect Senator Clinton, for with our opponents at least the fight is joined; at least they have the courage of their convictions, at least they place their bets in public. But Senator Clinton, by trying to be something to everyone ends up being nothing to anyone. Where she cannot act safely, she does not act. The current times call for politicians to act with conviction and intelligence, not with cynical, calculated action in response to what opinion polls indicate. If Senator Clinton cannot even come to the aid of constituent veterans being killed through grotesquely immoral and illegal medical experimentation, if she cannot commit herself to call for investigations of national security vulnerabilities that risk national catastrophe, if she cannot offer even moral support to those who disclose outrageous government incompetence and impropriety, is there anything that would prompt her to take a stance out of conviction? Such a person has no business representing the people of this country. Nothing stirs her soul except for her own selfish ambitions; ambitions that she places in front of the nation’s welfare.

Two weeks from today, New Yorkers will cast their vote to determine their upcoming democratic candidate. We hope that they will ask themselves a few hard questions and consider their answers before they cast their vital votes. Are they among those who are tired and disgusted with the current Congress, which has abdicated its duty and responsibility to the public at large? Are they going to have “needed change and reform” in mind when voting for their next candidate? Will they vote for someone with an established record of failure? Or will they take a chance on new blood? Are they going to take into consideration this incumbent’s misuse of “national security and terrorism”? Will they reflect on her failures when presented with real issues threatening our security - brought to her by those on the front lines? Will they consider having raised more money than any other democratic candidate a plus or a minus - questioning all she had to promise and everyone she had to sell out in order to raise those millions? Will they simply ask, isn’t six years long enough? Isn’t it time for a change? Isn’t it time to give another democrat the opportunity to step up and become what we all long for – a true representative of the people?

We have confidence in the sophistication of our New Yorkers. We believe they’ll say: “Ms. Clinton, fool us once, shame on you; fool us twice shame on us.”


Sibel Edmonds is the founder and director of National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC). Ms. Edmonds worked as a language specialist for the FBI. During her work with the bureau, she discovered and reported serious acts of security breaches, cover-ups, and intentional blocking of intelligence that had national security implications. After she reported these acts to FBI management, she was retaliated against by the FBI and ultimately fired in March 2002. Since that time, court proceedings on her case have been blocked by the assertion of “State Secret Privilege”; the Congress of the United States has been gagged and prevented from any discussion of her case through retroactive re-classification by the Department of Justice. Ms. Edmonds is fluent in Turkish, Farsi and Azerbaijani; and has a MA in Public Policy and International Commerce from George Mason University, and a BA in Criminal Justice and Psychology from George Washington University. PEN American Center awarded Ms. Edmonds the 2006 PEN/Newman's Own First Amendment Award.

Professor William Weaver is the senior advisor and a board member of National Security Whistleblowers Coalition. Mr. Weaver served in U.S. Army signals intelligence for eight years in Berlin and Augsburg, Germany, in the late 1970s and 1980s. He subsequently received his law degree and Ph.D. in politics from the University of Virginia, where he was on the editorial board of the Virginia Law Review. He is presently an Associate Professor of political science and an Associate in the Center for Law and Border Studies at the University of Texas at El Paso. He specializes in executive branch secrecy policy, governmental abuse, and law and bureaucracy. His articles have appeared in American Political Science Review, Political Science Quarterly, Virginia Law Review, Journal of Business Ethics, Organization and other journals. With co-author Robert Pallitto, his book Presidential Secrecy and the Law is forthcoming from Johns Hopkins University Press in the spring of 2007. His views and positions arising from his affiliation with the NSWBC do not reflect the sentiments of, or constitute and endorsement by, the University of Texas at El Paso.


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© Copyright 2006, National Security Whistleblowers Coalition. Information in this release may be freely distributed and published provided that all such distributions make appropriate attribution to the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition