Dick Cheney And The Dog That Didnt Bark

post from Firedoglake on 08 February 2007 08:00:05 AM. © Firedoglake

The media are now keenly aware that it is not just Scooter Libby on trial; he is also the proxy for a Vice President whose credibility and reputation, already damaged, are being destroyed by one revelation after another. Last night, the major[...]

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Thursday Morning Open Thread

post from AMERICAblog on 08 February 2007 07:47:00 AM. © AMERICAblog

Wow. It's so easy to be a right winger and manipulate the media.

Republicans in Congress are feigning outrage over the non-story that Nancy Pelosi gets a plane to fly her to her home district. It's not a story. It wasn't a story when Dennis Hastert had his fat ass hauled around the country. But the press is eating it up like the little lapdogs they are. Imagine if the GOP showed as much outrage over real issues, like the mess that is the Iraq war or the fact that our troops in the war they started don't have the right equipment.

Then there's the non-story started by an anti-semitic, homophobic loudmouth about bloggers on the Edwards campaign. A spewer of hateful venom, like Donohue, just has to feed inanity to the media -- and AP decides it's newsworthy. AP's reporters should consider their sources. But that might take too much work.

All of this plays out against the backdrop of the Libby trial where we've heard testimony about how the big names in DC media knew that the Bush administration leaked the name of an undercover CIA operative -- while we are at war. Yet, they all dutifully reported the Bush team's denials -- even when Bush himself was the denier. The White House played them all for the fools that they are.

The right wingers must just sit back and laugh at how easy it is for them to manipulate the traditional media.

Okay. I need coffee now.

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Condoleeza Rice Uses the Libby Defense

post from All Spin Zone on 08 February 2007 07:47:00 AM. © All Spin Zone

“I don’t remember.” Libby doesn’t remember talking to seven people about Valerie Plame, seven people who have testified under oath. The only defense he’s got is an incompetent brain. Now Condoleeza Rice is taking the same posture concerning an overture by Iran concerning the recognition of Israel back in 2003. Perhaps [...]

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More Imus and Matalin

post from Eschaton on 08 February 2007 07:22:00 AM. © Eschaton

Matalin: We were friends for a really really long time.

Imus: Why do you not like him now:

Matalin: This is not about him or me or liking or disliking. I do not like anyone - I'm being redundant here - who purports to be a purveyor of truth and serving the public by serving the truth out there who flagrantly is making up stuff. To my mind an observation a nightly flagrant bias, an untruthtelling, about the circumstances surrounding this and other things having to do with the Vice President. And I did call his producers to no avail. Chris is to his producers as you are to the world, but you're in a different position.

So it's not what I think about him. I think he's an incredible human being who has overcome a lot. I love his wife and when his show was first on it was must see TV. And now I can't trust... if I know for a fact that everything he's saying about things in which I'm involved are wrong then I can't trust anything else that he says.

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Imus Talks to Matalin

post from Eschaton on 08 February 2007 07:01:00 AM. © Eschaton

A few minutes ago. Imus actually asks a question:

Imus: Did you tell Scooter Libby to call Tim Russert because he hates Chris Matthews?

Matalin: I think I said "Tim hates me." Or "Tim hates..." I hate Matthews. Here's, no let me take you inside the room. When I was at the White House...

Imus: Do you know what you said?

Matalin: I know exactly what I meant then.

Imus: Well what did you say?

Matalin: I don't know why i would have said that but I would have said this. All I know is this: the notes that the prosecutor put up of... a characterization of a conversation .. the prosecutor in that instance and the rest of it mischaracterized what was in my mind. here's what was in my mind. So, here's what I know what was in my mind and here's how it works and here's how I did my job and how all these jobs have to be done.

Other than you, and maybe this has happened to you, when anyone else who purports to be an objective analyst goes on the air and bashes your principle as they're called, and in this case it was the vice president, then you call the bureau chief and you complain. In the case of Chris who purported to be on a nightly basis an objective analyst who would get on there and say things which we knew not to be true, as in Cheney saw this report. The Cheney we knew -Cheney didn't know Wilson, Cheney never sent Wilson, Cheney never saw the report, and the report that did exist corroborated the agency's belief that there was some effort by Saddam to procure yellowcake.

So everything he was saying was wrong. And when that is the case then it is our job - the press guy's job - to call up and complain first to the producers of the show. Second, when there's no response forthcoming to the bureau chief. And, finally, in the case of Chris unfortunately - he used to be a friend of mine - to the New York bosses.

So I wasn't working there at the time and I said "you should call." And I don't remember saying, and I don't know that I would ever say that, because I don't know that Tim hates Chris. I think he likes Chris very much. I think he likes everybody over there. But I don't think he likes - and nor does any bureau chief ever like - when they have to take these complaint calls when their people are on the air saying these fallacious things.

a bit more in a bit

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WTF

post from Eschaton on 08 February 2007 06:46:00 AM. © Eschaton

I don't always agree with Clemons, but he usually isn't full of shit like this.

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Gen. Pace: they "don't have a clue how democracy
works"

post from Unclaimed Territory - by Glenn Greenwald on 08 February 2007 06:29:00 AM. © Unclaimed Territory - by Glenn Greenwald

(updated below)

That this is even notable at all, or that it has to be said, is by itself significant:

A top Pentagon leader weighed in yesterday on the war debate and appeared to undercut the argument advanced by the White House and many GOP lawmakers that a congressional debate challenging the Bush plan would hurt troop morale.

"There's no doubt in my mind that the dialogue here in Washington strengthens our democracy. Period," Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified before the House Armed Services Committee. He added that potential enemies may take some comfort from the rancor but said they "don't have a clue how democracy works."

It is not, of course, only "potential enemies" who "don't have a clue how democracy works." The same can be said for Dick Cheney, Joe Lieberman and their most extremist war supporters who spent the last month insisting that debates over the Leader's decisions must be stifled and that those who express opposition are helping the Enemy. The spectacle of watching American political leaders and their loyal pundit-allies instruct Americans of their duties to "be quiet for six or nine months" with regard to the Leader's actions is almost too extreme for words.

One of the more egregious examples of not "having a clue of how democracy works" -- independent through related -- is documented here by Isaac Chotiner, who highlights remarks by former federal prosecutor and current National Review commentator Andrew McCarthy, in which McCarthy accuses pro bono lawyers for Guantanamo detainees of "volunteering to help the enemy use [] our courts as a weapon of war against us" (and, just incidentally, someone should ask former prosecutor Rudy Giluiani his view of that particular controversy). That was preceded by The Corner's Clifford May's dissemination of absolutely reckless and fact-free innuendo that these lawyers are receiving secret payments from Saudi Arabia and other Terrorists helpers.

It is only those who are losing a debate who have a desire to suppress it. And it is only those who are acting illegally who are desperate to avoid judicial scrutiny of their behavior. In 2002, attempts to equate scrutiny and criticism of the Bush movement with pro-Terrorism and anti-Americanism was a potent and effective tool of intimidation. But now, it just seems desperate, the last gasps of a political movement which is dying and which knows it is, and whose only hope is to forcibly coerce acceptance of their views -- and foreclose examination of them -- by insisting that open debates are themselves improper and therefore must cease at once.

That rationale is the hallmark of every petty tyrant, and (as surging anti-war sentiment and the last election demonstrate) most Americans, when freed from exploitive fear-mongering, instinctively recoil from it. When even the Bush administration's top General publicly repudiates their principal weapon of coercion, it is a clear sign of how weakened and discredited they have become.

UPDATE: I'm reminded in comments that Anonymous Liberal has written the definitive post on the matter of the Guantanamo lawyers, the threats directed at them by Bush Pentagon official Cully Stimson, and the smearing of them by National Review Cornerites, including (needless to say) Mark Steyn.

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What Emboldens the Enemy

post from All Spin Zone on 08 February 2007 05:58:00 AM. © All Spin Zone

Bob Geiger has the lovely analysis, so I’ll just put up the Carl Levin quotes here and then link you to Geiger’s most excellent post:What emboldens the enemy is the almost 4 years’ presence of Western troops in the middle of a Muslim country’s capital, which causes over 70 percent of the residents of that [...]

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Blog news

post from Unclaimed Territory - by Glenn Greenwald on 08 February 2007 05:25:00 AM. © Unclaimed Territory - by Glenn Greenwald

(updated below - Update II - Update III - Update IV)

In order to finalize a few remaining design and functionality issues, this blog's move to Salon, originally scheduled for today, will instead take place this Monday, February 12.

UPDATE: In the meantime, Steve Benen provides some suggestions for stories for intrepid reporters who are interested in exploring the connection between political figures and hate-spewing pundits.

And in one paragraph, TBogg illustrates the true and obvious absurdity at the core of the "Edwards controversy":

Rick "The Lesser" Moran writes about Amanda:

Her writing is full of so many half truths, manufactured criticisms, dead-wrong assumptions, and a child like ignorance of the emotional universe inhabited by normal men and women that trying to decipher her scribblings ? once you can get by the obscenities and work your way through the incoherence ? is a task best left to a psychiatrist.

...and then he invites his readers to go see the ever-sensible Michelle Malkin and Dan Riehl.

I could have stayed up all night and not come up with anything near that funny...

It would be as if The New York Times published a story about how the Edwards campaign found itself "in hot water" over offensive comments -- all based on complaints from Bill Donohue -- or if a political movement whose leading pundit was Rush Limbaugh was able to spark controversy by pretending to be upset by vulgar and offensive remarks from bloggers.

UPDATE II: An earnest, pious Jonah Goldberg, today, on how his political voice "as a writer" has "grown up":

You know, Jim [Geraghty] does make a good case [that this controversy will make online political debates more civil] and I hope he's right. I think about this a lot. I get a lot of grief from longtime readers about how I've "matured" or "grown up." And the truth is I have. Though I still think there's a lot of room left for humor (and once the book's done and put to bed, I'll bring back some pull-my-finger G-Filing), I'm basically burnt out on the smash-mouth stuff. When I criticize younger lefty bloggers for their excesses, I get a lot of "Hello Mr. Kettle, pot's calling on line one" grief. That's all fair to a point. But the basic fact is I don't do that stuff very much any more because it's cliched and boring to me . . .

Simply as a writer, when I see the nasty stuff now, on both the left and the right, my first reaction is to think how easy ? and therefore uninteresting ? it is. The Edwards bloggers' anti-Catholic diatribes bore me more than they offend me because they are precisely the sort of thing you'd expect to hear from a living cliche who can't imagine the other side might be worth listening too.

Jonah Goldberg's Regnery book, to be released at some point, presumably:

From the publisher's description of Jonah's book (the subtitle is The Totalitarian Temptation from Mussolini to Hillary Clinton):

LIBERAL FASCISM offers a startling new perspective on the theories and practices that define fascist politics. Replacing conveniently manufactured myths with surprising and enlightening research, Jonah Goldberg shows that the original fascists were really on the Left and that liberals, from Woodrow Wilson to FDR to Hillary Clinton, have advocated policies and principles remarkably similar to those of Hitler?s National Socialism. . . . he boldly illustrates the resemblances between the opinions advanced by Hitler and Mussolini and the current views of the Left.

I know this point has been made before, but this Edwards "controversy" and the accompanying lectures are really just too much to bear. We should absolutely not be hearing sermons about civility in our political discourse and how much one has "grown up" from someone who is about to release a book "documenting" how his political opponents "advocate[] policies and principles remarkably similar to those of Hitler?s National Socialism."

The tiniest amount of shame and self-awareness would prevent a lecture like that. But that is what this whole "Edwards controversy" is -- protests over incivility from a political movement that spent several years talking about the spots on Bill Clinton's penis and which, as its principal debating weapon, routinely labels their political opponents traitors, lunatics, cockroaches, and Nazis -- or "the C word." That the press falls for it without pointing out the practices of those who are complaining is, quite candidly, just maddening.

UPDATE III: More of Jonah's civil, substantive, adversary-respecting form of argumentation is here. As you read that, keep in mind that this is the same person who wrote today about how much he hopes Marcotte and McEwan are fired because they drag down the elevated political discourse in our "Republic."

UPDATE IV: Leon Wolf of the Bush-loving blog RedState has been hired as the "e-campaign coordiantor" by the Sam Brownback campaign. Please forward by email, or leave in comments, any worthwhile material from Leon's past writings.

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