Write your own 9/11 ad against Bush!
Following the lead of PrometheusSpeaks in an earlier diary, I think Democrats should take Dubya up on his invitation to discuss September 11th in campaign advertisements.Here's my humble effort to get...
View ArticleWaPo: Gay marriage as wedge issue backfiring
(Cross-posted at Needlenose.) My co-blogger Green Boy called it a month ago (with a follow-up here), and the Washington Post reports the payoff:Public support appears to be growing for legalizing...
View ArticleDon't fear the polls showing Bush ahead
To quote from an LA Times article by Ron Brownstein last week:Since the mid-1950s, every incumbent with an approval rating comfortably above 50% in the election year has easily won a second term:...
View ArticleTop 10 reasons Iraq isn't (and is) like Vietnam
As posted by my co-blogger, Green Boy, at Needlenose: Iraq isn't Vietnam because: 10) There are no Vietnamese in Iraq. 9) 500+ U.S. soldiers died per day in Vietnam towards the end of the conflict...
View ArticleHalliburton: $18 billion in Iraq contracts and counting
Before the war, the respectable media sneered at the notion that they were lining up to make a mint on the war. As the Freeway Blogger says, "Thanks for all the money! Sorry about your kids."
View ArticleJuly 4th: A day to say "Merci"
A great post by my co-blogger Green Boy at Needlenose reminds us that without the help of the French, we wouldn't have won our independence. He also mentions some interesting facts -- that at the...
View ArticleSistani being treated for heart problems
From Reuters:Iraq's Top Shiite Cleric Has Heart Problems Iraq's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, has heart trouble and is being treated by a team of specialists, one of his aides said...
View ArticleKerry on "Daily Show" confirms a Kos scoop
From the end of the AP article on Kerry's "Daily Show" appearance:Kerry offered an interesting observation on life as a presidential candidate."You'd be amazed at the number of people who want to...
View ArticleSistani in Iraq, calls for march on Najaf
He crossed the border from Kuwait this morning, and is resting in Basra before continuing to Najaf tomorrow morning. Shiite mosques throughout Iraq are broadcasting appeals to go to Najaf to...
View ArticleA debate brief for John Kerry, part 1
Over at Needlenose, I'm putting together a list of debate tips for Kerry -- covering everything from his overall manner and strategy to some suggested lines. Some excerpts are here and in the extended...
View ArticleEdwards: Ask, where are the grownups?
(Cross-posted from Needlenose) With Dubya looking so wobbly last Thursday and Sec. of Defense Rumsfeld flip-flopping like a hooked trout over Cheney's beloved Iraq/al-Qaeda connections, it's time to...
View ArticleHas Osama bin Forgotten *again*?!
(Cross-posted with further excerpts at Needlenose.) Once again, the war in Iraq has diverted resources from the pursuit of bin Laden. From a story for tomorrow's Sunday Times in Great...
View ArticleGOTV Flash animation: 'Visualize Winning'
< shameless promotion > In the interests of getting out the vote in November, my website brethren at Needlenose have created a humorous/inspirational Flash animation with sound, called "Visualize...
View ArticleDid the U.S. just lose the Iraqi elections?
Juan Cole has the scoop -- Ayatollah Sistani has announced his support for forming an opposition slate in the January elections. With Sistani on one side, and the hated occupier on the other, it's not...
View ArticleWaPo: Bushites know they've lost
(Crossposted at Needlenose.) Here's the Washington Post reporting from Air Dubya:With critical states still looking as if they could tip either way, some Bush advisers expressed worry about the...
View ArticleCIA purge = Dem opportunity on nat. security
(Cross-posted at Needlenose.) Rick Freedman of World on Fire has broken his post-election silence to make a brilliant point about the purge of CIA dissenters that the Orwell Bush administration intends...
View ArticleU.S arrests top Sistani aide in Iraq?!?
(Crossposted from Needlenose.) This is just an isolated report at the moment, so it may turn out not to be true. But Agence France Presse has a disturbing story from Najaf:...
View ArticleThe Iraq elections Bush didn't want
[Crossposted from Needlenose.) As media coverage of today's elections in Iraq swims in phrases like "major test of President Bush's goal of promoting democracy," and as the Orwell, um, Bush...
View ArticleShould Democrats 'Daschle' Bill Frist? (Updated)
Knight Ridder had a story yesterday on Sen. Bill Frist's barely-hidden ambition to run for the White House in 2008. He's already making trips to New Hampshire, and decided not to run for reelection to...
View ArticleNovak/NRO smear of Carl Ford debunked here
My co-blogger fubar has a great post at Needlenose heading off the personal attacks (which I guess we should have expected) on Carl Ford, the ex-State Dept. employee who called John Bolton a "kiss-up,...
View ArticleKurds (and U.S.?) trying to derail Jaafari govt. in Iraq
The New York Times has a story out tonight with this lead paragraph:Some leading Kurdish political figures are trying to stall the formation of a new Iraqi government in an effort to force out Ibrahim...
View ArticleDeja vu: Four permanent US bases in Iraq
From the Washington Post (demurely buried on page A27) this evening:U.S. military commanders have prepared plans to consolidate American troops in Iraq into four large air bases as they look ahead to...
View ArticleBush and our troops: A trust betrayed
I have a post at Needlenose on the need for Democrats to address the collision course between any desire to "stay and win" in Iraq (whatever "winning" might mean at this point) and our plummeting...
View ArticleBurns in NYT: Iraq drawdown next year, ready or not
The article is mostly about the lack of troops forcing us to play whack-a-mole with the insurgents, but check out the ending:... a feeling is growing among senior officers in Baghdad and Washington...
View ArticleWas Judith Miller a *source* of the Plame leak?
See this post at Needlenose for the full breakdown, links, etc., but here's a synopsis: Rove et al. have seemed confident from the start that there was a loophole that got them off the hook from having...
View ArticleGetting Rove through Card, Fleischer, and Bartlett
Apologies for repeating something I mentioned in the open thread, but this may be a bit of a scoop -- I think I've figured out the players in the famous Washington Post scoop of late September 2003...
View ArticleWaPo: No phone records of Cooper call, Rove kept quiet
Here's the link. And here's the main "scoop":Two lawyers involved in the case say that although Fitzgerald used phone logs to determine some contacts between officials and reporters, they believe there...
View ArticleStop asking what Bush knew and when he knew it!
Stop asking it, and start asserting it. On every news outlet, Democrats should lay out the bottom line: "Karl Rove told reporters that Joe Wilson's wife worked for the CIA. Calls were made from Air...
View ArticleCIA to Rove on Plame: "We know what you did that summer"
Ahh, so you thought the weekend was going to drift by with no Plame news? Fear not, Kosnians! Time has a short article today that delves into the background of the State Dept. memo we've been hearing...
View ArticleFox News website puts false spin on Novak AP story
I stumbled across this by accident in a GoogleNews search -- there's an AP story on today's Novak column, and the Fox News website rewrote the headline to say something entirely backwards from the...
View ArticleBurn Notice: IGNORE the Roger Morris article about Condi Rice and Plame
Were the late 1990s so long ago that everybody's forgotten who Roger Morris is? Judging from the recommended diary on his Condi Rice article, I guess they have. For those who don't know, Morris...
View ArticleTim Russert's non-denial denial on Plame and Libby
This is something that's been mentioned on a couple of non-progressive blogs, but doesn't seem to have gotten any attention on this side of the blogosphere -- contrary to media reports, Tim Russert did...
View ArticleWaPo on Plame tonight: Why did Libby/Rove story match State Dept. memo?
I just wrote a post at Needlenose about a curiously written story by Walter Pincus in the Washington Post tonight. Taken at face value, the story examines the conflicting accounts of why Joseph Wilson...
View Article(RENAMED) Salam Pax on Iraq's unfinished constitution
Salam Pax is live-blogging the National Assembly meeting. His rough transcript (the comment in parentheses is his, I think):as we have told the Iraqi people that we will work hard to achieve a...
View ArticleWhat Stirling missed in his Plame diary today
Stirling Newberry built a great timeline out of the Los Angeles Times story today on the Bushite assault on Joseph Wilson, and it was deservedly on the "recommended diaries" list all day. But despite...
View ArticleHey, Kos: WaPo story on mercenaries in Iraq
Contractors 'Run Loose' in Iraq Security Firms Scrutinized in Series of ShootingsRecent shootings of Iraqi civilians, allegedly involving the legion of U.S., British and other foreign security...
View ArticleBushites' bogus & conflicting spin in WaPo Katrina overview
(Adapted from a post at Needlenose.) Out of all the Katrina retrospectives this morning, the Washington Post's day-by-day reconstruction is inadvertently amusing because it gives Bushite officials...
View ArticleSteal this meme: The fair-weather President
(Cross-posted to Needlenose.) You can bet that as the rebuilding of New Orleans progresses, the city will have to get a restraining order to keep Dubya away -- that's how desperate he is to put his...
View ArticleStealing GOP anti-spending rhetoric
(Adapted from a post today at Needlenose.) Last night, Josh Marshall sounded the alarm about Shrubya's apparent intent to rebuild his political capital by flooding the hurricane-damaged Gulf Coast...
View ArticlePlame: Screw the law, it's about values
In a diary comment yesterday and a post at Needlenose last night, I've tried to raise a simple issue: Politically speaking, why are we sitting around waiting for Patrick Fitzgerald to do our work for...
View ArticleSunday WaPo proves Libby lied - but to whom?
(Adapted from a post at Needlenose.)Anonymous Liberal caught an important passage in Sunday's Washington Post Plame article:By early June, several weeks before Libby is said to have known Plame's name,...
View ArticleWorkers ripped off by FEMA roofing scams
(Adapted from a post at Needlenose -- more tips have been posted since then, including one with an e-mail address for journalists to contact.) A couple of weeks ago, I wrote at Needlenose about...
View ArticleWinning the Iraq debate the wrong way
(Adapted from a post at Needlenose.) Between Rep. Murtha's blockbuster speech yesterday and the recent admissions by John Kerry and John Edwards that their pro-war votes in 2002 were mistakes, it's...
View ArticleSo long, Chalabi? Less than 0.5% of Iraq vote so far
I have a post at Needlenose rounding up some of the news stories about the preliminary voting numbers announced in Iraq today. To sum them up: -- The governing Shiite religious parties appear likely...
View ArticleCENTCOM posted a comment on my blog today.
Hi... as some of you may already know, I'm the main poster at an off-off-Broadway blog called Needlenose. Like most bloggers, I have a few pet topics that I post about often -- if anything, I may be...
View ArticleWill the NSA ruling make Dems "cut and run" on national security?
(Adapted from a post at Needlenose.) I guess we should have known it was too good to last. In recent weeks, prominent Democrats have begun to find their public voice on national security issues --...
View Article"I believe he said Valerie Plame"
(Cross-posted from Needlenose.)If you're not following emptywheel's live-blogging of the Scooter Libby trial at Firedoglake, you're missing bombshells being dropped. This is former White House...
View ArticleHiding in Plame Sight: The Blockbuster Story No One Is Reporting from the...
(Cross-posted at the Huffington Post and Firedoglake.)Consider this an open letter to the reporters covering the Lewis "Scooter" Libby perjury/obstruction of justice trial, as well as the rest of the...
View ArticleIs a special counsel for Trump-Russia really the best option??
(*opens crypt door, blinks repeatedly*)(*crawls out*)In the justified firestorm of outrage after Jim Comey’s firing as FBI director, the central demand among Democrats in Congress and elsewhere -- for...
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