ATRIOS

Every day, after reading my e-mail and my local paper, I go read Atrios' blog. He invariably has several posts I'm interested in but what I most enjoy are his commenters. In addition to their humor being a welcome relief from the lies, mistakes and disasters of the Bush regime, they are also another source of information. Below is a pic of cascaded centrifuges, the sort that Saddam was supposed to have wanted to build with the now infamous aluminum tubes.

From Commenter Apikoros at Atrios' place. Original source here.



By my count, there are 84 centrifuges in this picture. How many would Saddam have needed?

All agencies agree that about 25,000 centrifuges based on tubes of the size Iraq is trying to acquire would be capable of producing approximately two weapons' worth of highly enriched uranium per year. LINK

C ommenter NTODD points out that even the most Bush-friendly poll, Rasmussen, now has Fredo at 40%, a new low for Rasmussen. Commenter JAWBONE links to a BBC article pointing out the regime hype surrounding "Operation Swarm." For a bit of relief, we also get a kitty pic from JEFFRAHAM PRESTONIAN.

Commenter DAVE™© provides this devastating exchange between Wolf Blitzer and Larry Wilkerson, who was Colin Powell's chief of staff at the State Department:

BLITZER:... Did the Bush administration deliberately mislead the American public on WMD?

WILKERSON: Wolf, there's no question in my mind now after looking back at is as an academic, doing research over this last year or two, and my time in the State Department, there's no doubt in my mind that certain members of the Bush administration did in fact politicize the intelligence, did cherry-pick the intelligence..

BLITZER: Who?

WILKERSON: I would put at the top of that list Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, in the Pentagon, who was more or less the planner, if you will, if you can use that term, for post- invasion Iraq.

BLITZER: And so what about Rumsfeld, who was his boss, Wolfowitz, who was his boss? What about them?

WILKERSON: Paul Wolfowitz as deputy secretary of defense probably -- probably did not do all that he could to make sure that the intelligence picture was as the intelligence community was rendering it. I'm not sure about Secretary Rumsfeld. I think Secretary Rumsfeld's major concern was with transformation of the armed forces. I don't think he was focused as much on war with Iraq as was the vice president's office and certain members of his own Pentagon. Did Secretary Rumsfeld politicize the intelligence? Did he cherry pick from the intelligence? If his policy planning shopper, his policy shop in Douglas Feith's realm was cherry picking the intelligence and providing talking points for the secretary to speak, then the secretary of defense was also cherry picking.

Commenter ERIC provides a link to an October 2004 NY Times article that is critical of the aluminum tubes story.

THE ASSHOLE SONG

This is from a screen capture of the filmstrip

THE NSA "REFORM" BILL

Glenn Greenwald makes several good points about the inadequacy of Sen. DeWine's bill to change FISA. I think commenter NJORL also makes some great points:

-The administration could spy on political opponents who try to get our troops out of Iraq on the basis that it aids terrorism.
-The administration could dispense with the justification, and just spy on them anyway.
-When their actions are reviewed, they could thumb their nose at the review panel which is powerless to offer any remedy.
-Anyone who reported this kind of abuse would be sent to prison.

(SIGH) MORE WINGNUT AGIT-PROP

TBogg catches an op-ed piece by Clifford May in USA Today. If you don't want to read it, you can get the gist of it from the LTE I sent:

I am astonished that USA Today would publish Clifford Mays' latest piece of agit-prop, "Inaction failed." It's good to have opinions but they should be backed up with facts, not daydreams and lies.

In his first two paragraphs, May distorts the history of our efforts against terrorism. It is simply false that we did nothing for 25 years. This false claim can be refuted by the creation of the National Counter-Terrorism Center in 1995 and the attempt to kill Osama Bin Laden in
1998.

May then says that it would've been wrong to continue to do nothing about Saddam. In his mind, getting a unanimous resolution to send weapons inspectors back into Iraq is "doing nothing."

Finally, May repeats the canard that Salman Pak was used to train terrorists despite the fact that we've known for going on 3 years that it was used for counter-terrorism training.

These lies all were put to print in an effort to justify not only the failure in Iraq but also to provide some help for the GOP in the 2006 elections by paving the way for military action against Iran.

I think a complete retraction by May or a full-scale rebuttal by the Editors of USA Today is called for.

May is the president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), a wingnut stink tank. Here's a little background on FDD from 2004:

FDD is best known through the frequent media interviews and news analysis by FDD's Clifford May, who before joining FDD was director of communications (1997-2001) for the Republican National Committee. May's other institutional affiliations include being vice-chair of the Republican Jewish Coalition. A veteran journalist, May continues to contributes regularly to National Review.

Republican Party insiders dominate FDD's board and staff. FDD's three board members are Steve Forbes, Jack Kemp, and Jeane Kirkpatrick. Its two “distinguished advisers” are Newt Gingrich and James Woolsey, while other advisers include Gary Bauer, Richard Perle, William Kristol, Walid Phares, Charles Krauthammer, and Frank Gaffney—all prominent neoconservative figures with multiple links to the Defense Policy Board, Center for Security Policy, American Enterprise Institute, Weekly Standard, and Project for the New American Century.

RADIO TIDBITS

Tony Snow was on a rant about how we should privatize health care in America and how bad all government-run programs are. A caller for Saskatchewan told Tony that Canada only spends 9% of its GDP on health care and the U.S. spends 14% but still has 40 million people uncovered. The caller also noted that a version of the new Medicare plan was tried in Saskatchewan and almost bankrupted the province. I didn't catch Tony's response but I think he just moved on to the next caller.

Tammy Bruce just had The Hat* on her show and was all excited about how the "new media" was doing a much better than than the MSM in handling the recent release of Saddam/Iraq documents. She recommended that people go to Pajamas Media for the facts about the links between Al-Queda and Iraq. The wingnuts are busy trying to push the idea that there was a meaningful connection between the two.

Sean Hannity continued his re-labeling move as he promoted a bumper sticker that said "What would Reagan do?".

*Roger L. Simon

FROM THE PEW POLL

Not looking good for Fredo

HELP SENATOR FEINGOLD

Commenter Karen McL at Glenn Greenwald's blog alerted me to an online sign-up sheet to support Feingold's call for censure.

Please sign here.

Glenn notes that a plurality of Americans support censure:


Do you favor or oppose the United States Senate passing a resolution censuring President George W. Bush for authorizing wiretaps of Americans within the United States without obtaining court orders?
All Adults - 3/15/06

Favor - 46%
Oppose - 44%
Undecided - 10%

Based on 1,100 completed telephone interviews among a random sample of adults nationwide March 13-15, 2006. The theoretical margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points, 95% of the time.

MIXED ARIZONA NEWS

Poll finds Arizonans support raising minimum wage
By Howard Fischer
CAPITOL MEDIA SERVICES
Tucson, Arizona Published: 03.15.2006

First, the good news:

The survey done by the Social Research Laboratory at Northern Arizona University shows that 62 percent of those asked said they strongly support an initiative drive to boost the base pay to $6.75 an hour next year. The same measure then would require automatic cost-of-living increases every year in the future.

Another 19 percent said they support the measure somewhat.

By contrast, only 9 percent of those questioned by the Social Research Laboratory at Northern Arizona University said they were strongly opposed to the idea, with another 5 percent somewhat in opposition.

Now, the bad news:

Q: Would you support amending the Arizona constitution to define marriage as between one man and one woman and prohibit benefits to domestic partners of government workers?
Support -- 52%
Oppose -- 40%
Don't know/depends -- 8%

TOP 25 TUCSON EMPLOYERS

Here are the 25 largest employers in Tucson, sorted by number of employees.

(1) Raytheon Missile Systems 10,756

(2) University of Arizona 10,282

(3) Davis-Monthan Air Force Base 8,233

(4) Tucson Unified School District No. 1 7,623

(5) Pima County 6,765

(6) City of Tucson 5,306

(7) Carondelet Health Network 3,751

(8) TMC HealthCare (El Dorado info listed here) 3,276

(9) University Medical Center Corp. 2,969

(10) Pima Community College 2,248

(11) Amphitheater Public Schools 2,174

(12) Sunnyside Unified School District 2,126

(13) Fry's Food and Drug Stores 2,063

(14) CheckMate Professional Employer 2,036

(15) Northwest Medical Center 1,900

(16) International Business Machines Corp. 1,800

(17) University Physicians Healthcare 1,731

(18) Southern Arizona VA Health Care System 1,664

(19) Arizona Air National Guard 1,585

(20) Afni Inc. 1,437

(21) Intuit Inc. 1,420

(22) Walgreens Co. 1,350

(23) Long Realty Co. 1,333

(24) UniSource Energy Corp., 1,223
Tucson Electric Power Co.

(25) Citi (formerly listed as Citi Cards) 1,200

40% (10/25) are government entities.

MIKE STARK IS GOD!

Ok, a bit of early AM hyperbole, perhaps because I miss ScoobieDavis, but Mike more than holds his own in a call to that lying BushWhore Hannity. Here's an excerpt:

Hannity: Ya know what? This guy made the case for weapons of mass destruction - chemical, biological, nuclear - this is…
Me: He believed the President, you mean?
Hannity: Well, I mean, it’s a cute little line, but it’s - it would show how utterly and completely idiotic and incompetent all democrats are if in fact they make their decisions based only on what one person tells them. So if you are saying that they are that inept, then they don’t belong in office anyway…

You can listen to the entire call here. Footnote: Hannity's criticism popped up on a few AOL message boards yesterday. Of course, the BushBots never acknowledged who they got it from.

FOREIGN LAW AND THE SUPREME COURT

Wingnuttia has been in a tizzy for more than a year about the use of foreign law in U.S. Supreme Court decisions and I was also wondering about how that makes sense. Recently, Justice Ginsburg gave a speech in South Africa that clears up this culture war "issue."

Here are some excerpts:


Foreign opinions are not authoritative; they set no binding precedent for the U.S. judge. But they can add to the store of knowledge relevant to the solution of trying questions.

To a large extent, I believe, the critics in Congress and in the media misperceive how and why U.S. courts refer to foreign and international court decisions. We refer to decisions rendered abroad, it bears repetition, not as controlling authorities, but for their indication, in Judge Wald's words, of "common denominators of basic fairness governing relationships between the governors and the governed."

On the question of dynamic versus static, frozen-in-time constitutional interpretation, the Court's Lawrence v. Texas opinion instructs:

Had those who drew and ratified the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth Amendment or the Fourteenth Amendment known the components of liberty in its manifold possibilities, they might have been more specific. They did not presume to have this insight. They knew times can blind us to certain truths and later generations can see that laws once thought necessary and proper in fact serve only to oppress. As the Constitution endures, persons in every generation can invoke its principles in their own search for greater freedom.

Holding unconstitutional the execution of persons under the age of 18 when they committed capital crimes, the Court declared it fitting to acknowledge "the overwhelming weight of international opinion against the juvenile death penalty." Justice Kennedy wrote for the Court that the opinion of the world community provides "respected and significant confirmation of our own conclusions." "It does not lessen our fidelity to the Constitution," he explained, to recognize "the express affirmation of certain fundamental rights by other nations and peoples."

I was impressed by an observation made in September 2003 by Israel's Chief Justice Aharon Barak. September 11, he noted, confronts the United States with the dilemma of conducting a war on terrorism without sacrificing the nation's most cherished values, including our respect for human dignity. "We in Israel," Barak said, "have our September 11, and September 12 and so on." He spoke of his own Court's efforts to balance the government's no doubt compelling need to secure the safety of the State and of its citizens on the one hand, and the nation's high regard for "human dignity and freedom on the other hand." He referred, particularly, to a question presented to his Court: "Is it lawful to use violence (less euphemistically, torture) in interrogat[ing] [a] terrorist in a 'ticking bomb' situation." His Court's answer: No, "[n]ever use violence." He elaborated:

[It] is the fate of a democracy [that] not all means are acceptable to it, . . . not all methods employed by its enemies are open to it. Sometimes, a democracy must fight with one hand tied behind its back. Nonetheless, it has the upper hand. Preserving the rule of law and recognition of individual liberties constitute an important component of [a democracy's] understanding of security. At the end of the day, [those values buoy up] its spirit and strength [and its capacity to] overcome [the] difficulties.

RADIO TIDBITS

A caller to The John Gibson Show remarked that there should be someone looking over the NSA's domestic spying program and ... Gibson agreed! From the context, it was clear that the caller and Gibson meant that oversight by an NSA shift supervisor wasn't enough to protect our liberties.

SOME GOOD LINKS

Atrios finds the new Pew poll and sees that Fredo is at 33% and discovers that the new word for Fredo is "incompetent."

ANOTHER "DAKOTA KEN"

This guy on AOL claims to have been a scientist for 20 years:

God and evolution are diametrically opposed, so you can't thank God for something He did not invent.
Evolution maintains that from chaos, things move toward perfection or a higher order.
God made everything perfect and due to sin, it is moving toward chaos, until God intervenes to end it.
There is a scientific field of study that agrees with God.
Physics maintains that things start out whole and move toward
chaos, and unlike evolution, physics has sceintific evidence to back up their
field of study.

Towrjon

ANOTHER GREAT QUOTE

John from AmericaBlog found this:


"Senator, when you took your oath of office, you placed your hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. You didn't place your hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible."

- Jamie Raskin, testifying Wednesday, March 1, 2006 before the Maryland Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee in response to a question from Republican Senator Nancy Jacobs about whether marriage discrimination against gay people is required by "God's Law."

"HEARTS & MINDS" - THE PICTURE

This picture is from the story below.

3 MORE DEAD "TERRORISTS"

CHENEY WAS CORRECT

Not in the last 5 years, however. (Via Baghdad Dweller)

The notion that we ought to now go to Baghdad and somehow take control of the country strikes me as an extremely serious one in terms of what we’d have to do once we got there. You’d probably have to put some new government in place. It’s not clear what kind of government that would be, how long you’d have to stay. For the U.S. to get involved militarily in determining the outcome of the struggle over who’s going to govern in Iraq strikes me as a classic definition of a quagmire.

Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney speaking on NPR in 1991

MORE HEARTS AND MINDS

Iraqis say 11 people killed in U.S. raid

By ZIAD KHALAF
Associated Press Writer
Mar 15, 8:21 AM EST


ISAHAQI, Iraq (AP) -- Eleven people - most of them women and children - were killed when U.S. forces bombed a house during a raid north of Baghdad early Wednesday, police and relatives said. Insurgent attacks killed at least four more people.

The U.S. military acknowledged the raid and said it captured one insurgent. It took place near Balad, about 50 miles north of the capital. But the military said only four people were killed - a man, two women and a child.

Police Capt. Laith Mohammed, in nearby Samarra, said American warplanes and armor were used in the strike, which flattened the house and killed the 11 people inside.

An AP reporter at the scene in the rural Isahaqi area said the roof of the house collapsed, three cars were destroyed and two cows killed.

Eleven bodies, wrapped in blankets, were driven in the back of three pickup trucks to the Tikrit General Hospital, about 45 miles to the north, relatives said.

Associated Press photographs showed the bodies of two men, five children and four other covered figures arriving at the hospital accompanied by grief-stricken relatives.
The victims were covered in dust with bits of rubble tangled in their hair.

Riyadh Majid, who identified himself as the nephew of the killed head of the family - Faez Khalaf - told AP at the hospital that U.S. forces landed in helicopters and raided the home early Wednesday.

Khalaf's brother, Ahmed, said nine of the victims were family members who lived at the house and two were visitors. "The killed family was not part of the resistance, they were women and children," Ahmed Khalaf said. "The Americans have promised us a better life, but we get only death."

The U.S. military said it was targeting and captured an individual suspected of supporting foreign fighters for the al-Qaida in Iraq terror network.

"Troops were engaged by enemy fire as they approached the building," said Tech. Sgt. Stacy Simon, a military spokeswoman. "Coalition forces returned fire utilizing both air and ground assets."

SLAVISH DEVOTION TO PRES. FREDO

Next to only LadyMac, ECOLI, as I call him, is the most obscenely loyal of the BushBots on AOL. Here's an example of the delusions he usually posts:

THE WAR IS NOT MISMANAGED AT ALL.

- ECinicola

SAINT RONNIE

Since the wingnuts are trying to hide from Fredo's failing presidency by seeking shelter in the past, it's good to have a little reminder of what Raygun did. David Corn gives us a great set of snapshots (bolding by me) :

66 Things to Think AboutWhen Flying Into Reagan National Airport
by DAVID CORN
The Nation
Posted June 7, 2004

The firing of the air traffic controllers, winnable nuclear war, recallable nuclear missiles, trees that cause pollution, Elliott Abrams lying to Congress, ketchup as a vegetable, colluding with Guatemalan thugs, pardons for F.B.I. lawbreakers, voodoo economics, budget deficits, toasts to Ferdinand Marcos, public housing cutbacks, redbaiting the nuclear freeze movement, James Watt.

Getting cozy with Argentine fascist generals, tax credits for segregated schools, disinformation campaigns, "homeless by choice," Manuel Noriega, falling wages, the HUD scandal, air raids on Libya, "constructive engagement" with apartheid South Africa, United States Information Agency blacklists of liberal speakers, attacks on OSHA and workplace safety, the invasion of Grenada, assassination manuals, Nancy's astrologer.

Drug tests, lie detector tests, Fawn Hall, female appointees (8 percent), mining harbors, the S&L scandal, 239 dead U.S. troops in Beirut, Al Haig "in control," silence on AIDS, food-stamp reductions, Debategate, White House shredding, Jonas Savimbi, tax cuts for the rich, "mistakes were made."

Michael Deaver's conviction for influence peddling, Lyn Nofziger's conviction for influence peddling, Caspar Weinberger's five-count indictment, Ed Meese ("You don't have many suspects who are innocent of a crime"), Donald Regan (women don't "understand throw-weights"), education cuts, massacres in El Salvador.

"The bombing begins in five minutes," $640 Pentagon toilet seats, African- American judicial appointees (1.9 percent), Reader's Digest, C.I.A.-sponsored car-bombing in Lebanon (more than eighty civilians killed), 200 officials accused of wrongdoing, William Casey, Iran/contra, "Facts are stupid things," three-by-five cards, the MX missile, Bitburg, S.D.I., Robert Bork, naps, Teflon.

ANOTHER "WOLFIE"

(Hat-tip to Rep. John Murtha at HuffPo)

The U.S. and coalition military leaders today have a strong partnership with the Iraqi security forces and every week the number of Iraqis who are participating in the security forces is growing. Today there are some 200,000 Iraqis who are serving in the police and the civil defense corps and the border patrol and the army.

Rumsfeld, Monday, February 23, 2004

There is no reason to believe ANYTHING this Administration says.

SADDAM: WE HAVE NO WMD

Wingnuts like Stephen Hayes have been making a lot of noise about tapes and documents from the Saddam regime. Under the guise of freedom of informatiom, they will misuse the documents to show that Saddam did have WMD at or near the time we invaded. Of course, that is just another wingnut delusion:

Even as U.S. Invaded, Hussein Saw Iraqi Unrest as Top Threat

By MICHAEL R. GORDON and BERNARD E. TRAINOR
Published: March 12, 2006

Posing as military historians, American analysts interrogated more than 110 Iraqi officials and military officers, treating some to lavish dinners to pry loose their secrets and questioning others in a detention center at the Baghdad airport or the Abu Ghraib prison. United States military officials view the accounts as credible because many were similar. In addition, more than 600 captured Iraqi documents were reviewed.

In December 2002, he [Saddam] told his top commanders that Iraq did not possess unconventional arms, like nuclear, biological or chemical weapons, according to the Iraq Survey Group, a task force established by the C.I.A. to investigate what happened to Iraq's weapons programs. Mr. Hussein wanted his officers to know they could not rely on poison gas or germ weapons if war broke out. The disclosure that the cupboard was bare, Mr. Aziz said, sent morale plummeting.

THE NEO-CONS ARE SCARED

It's almost funny that Richared Perle has to have a security entourage to go to a wingnut meeting. From The Hat's blog:

Richard Perle, at least from my viewpoint, was a very pleasant fellow. Outspoken, yes. But not from the hip and not the slightest bit the "dark prince." The night after my interview, I ran into him at a party at the home of a fellow conspirator and he wasn't the least bit anti-social there either. Whether Perle is paranoid or not to be traveling with the security entourage he does, I don't know, although I suspect he was being extra cautious for the Intelligence Summit (or someone asked him to be).

GOP IS LOOKING TO THE PAST

I posted before (here and here) that there seems to be an effort to recast the "true" GOP as the Party of Reagan and on Tony Snow's radio show I heard a little more evidence. He was talking with Lucienne Goldberg (ugh!) and they were both getting excited singing the praises of Reagan and his policies. They spoke disparagingly of the current GOP presidential hopefuls, especially McCain.

ANOTHER LUNATIC FUNDIE

This hateful screed has appeared all over the AOL message boards today:


#7 - 3/14/06 03:08 AM (Msg Id: 560409:7401)
Re:#5

Hawk of Aragon
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GOD HAS HIS HANDS ON OUR GREAT PRESIDENT'S SHOULDER. PRESIDENT BUSH HAS KEPT AMERICA SAFE AND HE HAS THE GREAT UNSWERVING COURAGE NOT TO BE SWAYED BY SIMPLE MINDED ANTAGONIST COWARDLY AND TRAITOROUS ATTACKS ON HIM BY THE EXTREMIST LEFT WING LIBERALS WHO WOULD RUIN THIS COUNTRY IF UNWARY AMERICAN PEOPLE WOULD LET THESE FOOLISH PEOPLE BACK IN POWER.
THE LIBERAL EXTREMISTS HAVE STEADILY BEEN CHIPPING AWAY AT AMERICA'S MORALS UNTIL THERE IS GREAT DANGER TO OUR CHILDREN'S FUTURE AND THEIR CHILDREN'S FUTURE FOR GENERATIONS TO COME.
COWARD MARXIST LEFTISTS THE LIKE OF HILLARY ROTTEN HILLARY CONSIDER THEMSELVES SO EDUCATED AND ABOVE THAT OF GEORGE W. BUSH THAT HE COMPLETELY OUTWITTED AND OUTSMARTED THEM IN WINNING TWO ELECTIONS IN LESS THAN 5 YEARS. "THATS THE EDUCATION WE REPUBLICANS ARE TALKING ABOUT"! THEY CAME SHY OF EDUCATION AGAINST THE GREAT PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH. THEY WERE MADE TO LOOK LIKE CHIMPS AND MORONS! OF COURSE THEY WERE SO SMART THAT THEY CHOSE TO RUN A VIET CONG HERO, HANOI KERRY FOR PRESIDENT. THAT WAS THEIR SECOND UNEDUCATED MISTAKE AFTER CHOOSING GORE THE FIRST GO AROUND.

NOW THE LEFTIST COWARD LIBERAL DEMOCRATS WANT MORE FREEDOM FOR IMMORAL PRACTICES AND FREEDOM FOR EVERYTHING IMMORAL UNDER THE SUN.ASK THEM TO DEFEND THEIR COUNTRY AND THEY WILL SHIRK AND SHOW THEIR COWARDICE. THEY ARE GOOD AT BAD MOUTHING OUR PRESIDENT AND OUR COUNTRY WHILE WE ARE AT WAR BECAUSE THEY HAVE THAT FREEDOM BUT THE COWARDS DO NOT HAVE THE STOMACH OR BALLS TO DEFEND THAT FREEDOM.
JUST TAKE A LOOK AT ALL THEIR COWARD LEADERS IN THE CONGRESS THAT THEY UPHOLD: FEINGOLD. KENNEDY, CLINTON, TURBAN DURBIN, VIET CONG HERO HANOI KERRY, DINGY HARRY REID, LEAKY LEAHY, PIGSTY PELOSI, BIG MOUTH BOXER, SLEAZY BABS WATERS, BARAK OSAMA OBAMA, KKK BYRD, MARXIST CONYERS, AND THE LIST GOES ON AND ON. THESE THESE ARE THE WORST OF THE WORST IN CONGRESS!
AMERICA WILL REMEMBER THESE CUT AND RUN COWARDS LATER THIS YEAR AND IN 2008 FOR SURE.
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OUR "LIBERAL MEDIA" AT WORK

The righties still push the "liberal media bias" whine but Atrios points out a nice piece in the HuffPo that analyzes some recent coverage by Big Time news organizations of Fredo's unpopularity:


But even now the debate over Bush's slow motion demise is being framed very narrowly, as in, What do Republicans think of Bush's unpopularity? On Sunday, the New York Times published two articles addressing Bush's lack of support. Combined, the two articles quoted 16 sources, all 16 were Republicans. Not one Democrat or even one neutral political observer, such as a poli-sci prof or think tank guru, was quoted. On Monday, the Washington Post published a page 1 piece that gently asked the question, Why are senior White House strategists suddenly so ineffective? (Answer: They're tired.) The article quoted six people; all of them Republicans. And this week's Time magazine addresses Bush's obvious political woes. The article quotes five sources; all of them Republicans. So between the Times, the Post and Time articles, 27 sources were quoted and not one Democrat or independent was ever asked to voice their opinion about Bush's sagging performance.

30K BY SEPTEMBER, 2003

I've read different accounts of the unfounded optimism of the Iraq war planning but, until now, the earliest date for a major drawdown I've seen was December, 2003. On Meet the Press, the planners were even more out of touch than that:

MR. RUSSERT: So in April of 2003, General Franks was planning to remove all troops from Iraq by September, other than 30,000?

MR. GORDON: On April 16, 2003, General Franks flew to Baghdad—I was there at the time—and he delivered guidance to his commanders to be prepared—not necessarily to leave, but be, to be prepared to reduce forces down to a division-plus by September, conditions permitting, but it was his assumption and hope that the conditions would allow that.

In Generation Kill, Evan Wright recounts how sectarian violence broke out even before Baghdad officially fell. I guess Franks didn't get the memo.

FUNNIEST LIBERAL BLOG POST

Wampum has a list and you can pick one for the Koufax Awards. I have only read a few of them but my favorite is Tbogg's hilarious spoof of Jonah "Doughy Pantload" Goldberg. Here's how it starts:

NRO post day one

Kathrin says I shoud rite down waht I think and remeber and evrey thing that happins to me from now on. I dont know why but she says its importint so they will see if they can use me. I hope they use me becaus my mom says that she wont suport me any more and I should get a job. My name is Jonah Goldberg and now I werk at NRO wich is easy to spel wich is good. I told Kathrin and mr Buckley taht I dont rite so good and they said it doesnt mater because theyre readers dont think so good. Kathrin says I shoud just rite like I talk and like the compushishens I rote at Goucher school taht my mom also got me into. I hope this goes good.

MORON HUMOR ON AOL

This statement by John Stuart Mill is attached to all my message board posts on AOL

Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives

- John Stuart Mill
English economist & philosopher

and I get a few replies from BushBots who object to it. This is the funniest one I've seen so far:


#4 - 3/12/06 10:36 PM (Msg Id: 560391:1552)
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WISH YOU WOULD CHANGE YOU LITTLE POST.AFTER ABOUT THE FIRST 20 TIMES ITS GETTING OLD.JOHN STUART MILL WAS A COMMIE.READ HIS HISTORY

SEN. JEEBUS BROWNBACK

TUNAMAN at DKOS found an article in Rolling Stone Magazine about JB that shows he fits right in with Scalia and D. James Kennedy: All 3 want a theocratic America and they mean their god, not yours or mine.

Excerpts from the article:

Brownback seeks something far more radical: not faith-based politics but faith in place of politics. In his dream America, the one he believes both the Bible and the Constitution promise, the state will simply wither away. In its place will be a country so suffused with God and the free market that the social fabric of the last hundred years -- schools, Social Security, welfare -- will be privatized or simply done away with. There will be no abortions; sex will be confined to heterosexual marriage. Men will lead families, mothers will tend children, and big business and the church will take care of all.

He [JB] tells a story about a chaplain who challenged a group of senators to reconsider their conception of democracy. "How many constituents do you have?" the chaplain asked. The senators answered: 4 million, 9 million, 12 million. "May I suggest," the chaplain replied, "that you have only one constituent?" Brownback pauses. That moment, he declares, changed his life. "This" -- being senator, running for president, waving the flag of a Christian nation -- "is about serving one constituent." He raises a hand and points above him.

Pat Robertson has tapped the "outstanding senator from Kansas" as his man for president. David Barton, the Christian right's all-but-official presidential historian, calls Brownback "uncompromising" -- the highest praise in a movement that considers intransigence next to godliness. And James Dobson, the movement's strongest chieftain, can find no fault in Brownback. "He has fulfilled every expectation," Dobson says.

Every Tuesday, before his evening meeting with his prayer brothers, Brownback chairs another small cell -- one explicitly dedicated to altering public policy. It is called the Values Action Team, and it is composed of representatives from leading organizations on the religious right. James Dobson's Focus on the Family sends an emissary, as does the Family Research Council, the Eagle Forum, the Christian Coalition, the Traditional Values Coalition, Concerned Women for America and many more.

Brownback's chief of staff, Robert Wasinger, who clears attendees with his boss. Wasinger is from Hays, Kansas, but he speaks with a Harvard drawl, and he is still remembered in Cambridge twelve years after graduation for a fight he led to get gay faculty booted.

Every Wednesday at noon, he trots upstairs from his office to a radio studio maintained by the Republican leadership to rally support from Christian America for VAT's agenda. One participant in the broadcast, Salem Radio Network News, reaches more than 1,500 Christian stations nationwide, and Focus on the Family offers access to an audience of 1.5 million.

Brownback is less concerned about the world being polluted by people. His biggest financial backer is Koch Industries, an oil company that ranks among America's largest privately held companies. "The Koch folks," as they're known around the senator's office, are among the nation's worst polluters.

Brownback has been a staunch opponent of environmental regulations that Koch finds annoying, fighting fuel-efficiency standards and the Kyoto Protocol on global warming. But for the senator, there's no real divide between the predatory economic interests of his corporate backers and his own moral passions.

Digby and Amy Sullivan each have some further thoughts on this and I would like to add a bit from the Intelligent Design crew that shows just how far these people want their control to extend.

HOW MANY ABORTION VOTERS?

I've been wondering how many voters decide solely on the candidates' stance on abortion and an AP story that appeared in my local paper indicates that it is between 9% and 13%. Of those, the GOP gets most of the votes. Here's more from the article:

Poll: Americans inconsistent on abortion
By NANCY BENAC Associated Press Writer
Mar 12, 6:58 PM EST

A solid majority long have felt that Roe v. Wade should be upheld. Yet most support at least some restrictions on when abortions can be performed. "Rock solid in its absolutely contradictory opinions" is how public opinion expert Karlyn Bowman describes the nation's mind-set.

"When we as a society make up our minds about something, as we have about abortion, most people tend to pull away from it," says Bowman, an American Enterprise Institute fellow who has studied abortion opinion over the decades. "Something really significant has to occur to bring Americans back into the debate."

In this latest poll, 19 percent of Americans said abortion should be legal in all cases; 16 percent said it should never be legal; 6 percent did not know. That left nearly three-fifths somewhere in between, believing abortion should be legal only under certain circumstances.

Dicing the same data a different way, 52 percent of those surveyed thought abortion should be legal in most or all cases; 43 percent said it should be illegal most or all of the time.

The survey, taken Feb. 28-March 2, found that men's and women's views were similar, although men were a little more likely to be undecided.

With slight shifts one way or another, this is about where Americans have been for decades.

In the AP poll, two-thirds of Democrats said abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while two-thirds of Republicans said it should be illegal all or most of the time.

Bowman said that about 9 percent to 13 percent of voters tend to cast their ballots based on a candidate's stance on abortion, with Republicans tending to benefit the most from these single-issue voters at the national level while results are more mixed in state races. The recent developments could be significant in rallying voters, particularly in off-year elections, she said.