Franken Punks Hillary Basher Ed Klein

On his Friday Show, Air America Radio Host Al Franken faced off with the author of the new sordid Hillary Clinton "tell-all" book - The Truth About Hillary - and with the help of Salon Columnist Joe Conason, proceeded to systematically expose Klein's book as a pack of lies and distortions in a wonderful display of hard-nosed, but still polite, questioning:

In the book, Klein asserts that Bill Clinton raped Hillary in order to conceive Chelsa, and that Hillary herself has "lesbian tendencies". Some of the allegations have been so outrageous that many Conservatives have denouced the book as "over the top" in it's vicious attack on the character of Hillary Clinton.

Conservative columnist John Podhoretz on The Truth about Hillary,

"This is one of the most sordid volumes I've ever waded through. Thirty pages into it, I wanted to take a shower. Sixty pages into it, I wanted to be decontaminated. And 200 pages into it, I wanted someone to drive stakes through my eyes so I wouldn't have to suffer through another word."

Streaming audio of the broadcast: Part 1. | Part 2.

Read full transcript courtesy of Media Matters.

Some key highlights:

On the subject of Pat Moynohan and Hillary Clinton:

FRANKEN: Yeah. Okay, and on page 172 --

KLEIN: Yes.

FRANKEN: This is a thing about [Sen. Daniel Patrick] Pat Moynihan [D-NY] and not being able to say her [Clinton's] name [during a press conference to announce her candidacy for the New York seat in the U.S. Senate from which Moynihan was retiring], and now let me quote the book and then I'll quote what...anyway, I'll just quote what you wrote:

...

"God, I almost forgot," he said, with a mischievous grin. "I'm here to say that I hope she will go all the way, I mean to go all the way with her. I think she's going to win. I think it's going to be wonderful for New York. For Moynihan, apparently, it was easier to say "she" than 'Hillary.'"

Now did you leave anything out there, in between the two sentences you quoted?

KLEIN: Are you reading from my book?

FRANKEN: Yes.

.... (Later)

FRANKEN: Well, this is what Moynihan said, and this is how he got into it. He said, "Now I have the great pleasure to welcome Mrs. Clinton to the farm and turn over the microphone to our candidate. Before you do, before I do... Oh, my God, I almost forgot. Yesterday Hillary Clinton established an exploratory committee as regards to her candidacy for the Senate, United States Senate from New York, a seat which I will vacate in a year and a half." And then you pick up with, "I'm here to say, I hope she will go all the way. I mean to go all the way with her. I think she's going to win. I think she's going to be wonderful for New York." So you leave out --

KLEIN: I left out an ellipsis.

CONASON: You did not.

FRANKEN: You didn't leave out an ellipsis. You deliberately left out the --

KLEIN: There's no --

CONASON: I know you don't have the book in front of you. How much would you like to bet there's no ellipsis on that page?

FRANKEN: No, he's saying that's what he left out.

KLEIN: That's what I'm saying, Joe.

CONASON: No, there's no ellipsis.

FRANKEN: No, he's saying he left it out.

KLEIN: I should have put in an ellipsis.

CONASON: Oh. And why would you have cut out the two references to her name and put in an ellipsis? That would have been equally dishonest.

FRANKEN: You know why? Because I -- here -- this is what I think, Ed, and you may take issue with this. I think you deliberately left it out because it would have hurt the sentence where you say, "For Moynihan it was easier to say 'she' than 'Hillary.' " I think that's why you left out the sentence that says, "Hillary."

KLEIN: Well I --

On the issue of FILEGATE

FRANKEN: OK. Ah, let's talk about the FBI files that you talk about, sort of what was called "Filegate." And you call it the "Purloined FBI Files," and you write about it on page 39.

KLEIN: Mm-hmm [affirmative].

FRANKEN: And later, in a Salon interview, you said, "Like Nixon, Hillary has used FBI files against her enemies."

KLEIN: Mm-hmm [affirmative].

FRANKEN: Now, you know that she was absolved of this by the Office of Independent Counsel.

KLEIN: Well, she may --

FRANKEN: I mean, shouldn't you have written about that? Shouldn't you have given that information to your readers?

KLEIN: It's still my -- it's still my belief and contention that Craig Livingstone was responsible for taking those files, and that he was operating under direct orders from Hillary.

CONASON: Do you know whose files those were? I mean, did you ever look at the names of the people whose files they were?

KLEIN: They were a lot of Republican activists --

CONASON: There were not, actually. They were not. Can -- name one Republican activist whose file was taken. One.

KLEIN: I couldn't do that 'cause I --

CONASON: You couldn't! 'Cause you haven't looked at the names! Did you ever look at the names?

KLEIN: No, I haven't.

CONASON: Okay. Ah, you've never looked at the names, but you know they're a lot of Republican activists. How would you know that if you've never looked at the names?

KLEIN: I've read it in The New York Times and other publications.

CONASON: Oh, no, you didn't. You did not. You did not.

FRANKEN: You know, Ed, the first --

CONASON: Because the people whose names were on that list were former White House employees. Most of them were people like gardeners and janitors and people like that. I've looked at every name on that list --

KLEIN: Former White House employees --

CONASON: That's correct.

On the issue of President Clinton's devestating HAIRCUT at LAX

FRANKEN: Okay. How about the, ah, LAX thing? The haircut that supposedly held up traffic at LAX.

KLEIN: Mm-hmmm [affirmative].

FRANKEN: Now you know that that's not true, right?

KLEIN: No, I don't know that's not true.

CONASON: Again because you didn't do any reporting. That was, that story was debunked at the time that it came out 12 years ago. You, you, I mean it's just astonishing to me --

KLEIN: What?

CONASON: -- how little work was put into this book --

KLEIN: Well, you know --

CONASON: -- in terms of trying to establish whether any of this stuff that you've written here is true!

KLEIN: So, you're saying, Joe, that the president did not hold up traffic --

CONASON: Yeah.

KLEIN: -- at LAX?

CONASON: I'm saying that not only would I say that, but that's the established fact that's been reported after that story came out in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the FAA made it very clear that not one flight was held up as a result of that.

KLEIN: Well, Joe --

CONASON: And that was established a long time ago.

KLEIN: You and I are reading different, ah, newspapers, I think.

CONASON: No It's, it's not a matter of reading different newspapers; it's a matter of what the Federal Aviation Administration said about this incident. It was debunked at the time.

Now, what I have to say is THIS is the way you handle a liar and a political hack. This is the way that people should interview Bill O'Reilly, this is the way that Karl Rove should be handled, how Limbaugh should be questioned. You don't have to be mean, you don't have to call names - all you have to do is know the facts and simply present them with conviction.

Now is that really too much to ask?

Media Matters Full Breakdown of "The Truth About Hillary".

<>Vyan

14 CIA Agents Wanted for Kidnapping in Italy

Keeping in line with previous reports from New Yorker Columnist Sy Hersh, who stated that his sources had revealed to him the existence of a "Special Access" group of U.S. military personnel who have been traveling around the world and kidnapping suspected terrorist for interrogation, an Italian Judge has called for the arrest of 14 CIA agsnts for doing exactly what Hersh described before the November Election.

Italy Judge Orders Arrest of 13 CIA Agents

By AIDAN LEWIS, Associated Press Writer

Muslims pray on the sidewalk next to the Islamic ...

ROME - An Italian judge on Friday ordered the arrests of 13 CIA officers for secretly transporting a Muslim preacher from Italy to Egypt as part of U.S. anti-terrorism efforts - a rare public objection to the practice by a close American ally.

The Egyptian was spirited away in 2003, purportedly as part of the CIA's "extraordinary rendition" program in which terror suspects are transferred to third countries without court approval, subjecting them to possible torture.

The arrest warrants were announced Friday by the Milan prosecutor's office, which has called the disappearance a kidnapping and a blow to a terrorism investigation in Italy. The office said the imam was believed to belong to an Islamic terrorist group.

The 13 are accused of seizing Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, known as Abu Omar, on a Milan street on Feb. 17, 2003, and sending him to Egypt, where he reportedly was tortured, Milan prosecutor Manlio Claudio Minale said in a statement.

The U.S. Embassy in Rome and the CIA in Washington declined to comment.

More...

Vyan

Top Five Gitmo Falsehoods

As usual Media Matters is directly on target with their latest list of Gitmo Lies and Errors from the Republicans. It's critical if one is to push back against inaccurate information, that you have the best facts on hand at your fingertips. Thus, I post the Media Matter article in it's entirety:

Media Matters: Top Five Gitmo Falsehoods

In recent weeks, the debate over the Pentagon detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, has garnered increased coverage on cable and network news programs. But as Media Matters for America documents below, conservative media figures have often attempted to downplay the severity of the alleged abuses at Guantánamo, dismiss every detainee as a terrorist unprotected by international law, and distort criticism of the Bush administration's detention policy.

Falsehood #1: Abuse at Guantánamo is "minor," allegations are based on "rumor"

Conservative commentators have repeatedly attempted to dismiss the alleged detainee abuse at Guantánamo as unsubstantiated or harmless. But these claims ignore firsthand accounts by FBI agents and human rights monitors that paint a much grimmer picture of detainee treatment at Guantánamo.

In a series of emails and letters, which the American Civil Liberties Union first obtained in December 2004 through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, FBI agents described graphic instances of abuse by interrogators at Guantánamo that the agents personally witnessed. In one email, an FBI agent described the interrogation methods employed by Department of Defense officials as "torture techniques." An email by deputy assistant FBI director for counterterrorism T.J. Harrington detailed several agents' accounts of abusive treatment, including one in which a female sergeant "grabbed detainee's thumbs and bent them backwards and indicated that she also grabbed his genitals." Worse, the sergeant warned that past interrogations had left other "detainees curling into a fetal position on the floor and crying in pain." Harrington also included an account of a detainee being "subjected to intense isolation for longer than three months ... in a cell that was always flooded with light," which led to him showing signs of "extreme psychological trauma (talking to non existent people, reporting hearing voices, crouching in a cell covered with a sheet for hours on end).' " A third FBI document described a detainee "chained hand and foot to the floor" and subjected to food deprivation and temperature extremes. "The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor with a pile of hair next to him," the FBI agent wrote. "He had apparently been literally pulling his own hair out throughout the night."

Further, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has described prisoner abuse at Guantánamo. The New York Times, which first obtained a memo that summarizes the confidential report of the ICRC, reported that the Red Cross delegation cited the use of "temperature extremes, persistent noise, and 'some beatings.' "

Falsehood #2: All Guantánamo detainees are confirmed terrorists

Numerous media figures have stated or suggested that the prisoners held at Guantánamo are all terrorists. On the June 21, 2004, edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, host Bill O'Reilly stated, "From what I understand, they had -- they took most of [the Guantánamo detainees], like 95 percent of them, off the battlefield, number one. So what the heck were they doing there?"

More recently, Fox host John Gibson asserted that "We have 520 terrorists where we want them, with our boot on their neck." [Fox News' The Big Story with John Gibson, 6/15/05]

But the Pentagon's decision to release numerous Guantánamo detainees suggests that many were not terrorists. In a letter to Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Matthew Waxman reportedly wrote that, as of April 2005, "167 [Guantánamo] prisoners had been released and 67 had been transferred to the custody of other countries." The 167 detainees released were presumably found not to be terrorists, as in the cases of Abdul Rahim and Mamdouh Habib. Both men were captured in Pakistan following September 11, 2001. The U.S. later transferred them to Guantánamo, where they remained for more than two years, accused -- but never charged -- of involvement in terrorist activities. In 2005, the United States released them without charge.

Falsehood #3: The Geneva Conventions apply only to prisoners of war

Numerous media figures have defended the harsh treatment of Guantánamo detainees by claiming that the Geneva Conventions apply exclusively to prisoners of war (POWs). Though many legal scholars agree that Al Qaeda detainees are not entitled to POW status under the Third Geneva Convention, which details protections specifically for POWs, the Fourth Geneva Convention (GCIV) grants different protections to non-POWs.

But the U.S. Army's own field manual states that GCIV protects "all persons who have engaged in hostile or belligerent conduct but who are not entitled to treatment as prisoners of war."

Even the White House has acknowledged that the Geneva Conventions grant protections to some detainees who are not POWs. On May 7, 2003, the White House announced that President Bush had revised his earlier determination and decided that the conventions would apply to the suspected Taliban (but not Al Qaeda) detainees held at Guantánamo even though they are not POWs. Then-press secretary Ari Fleischer explained:

FLEISCHER: Although the United States does not recognize the Taliban as a legitimate Afghani government, the President determined that the Taliban members are covered under the treaty because Afghanistan is a party to the Convention. Under Article 4 of the Geneva Convention, however, Taliban detainees are not entitled to POW status.

Falsehood #4: Enemy combatants do not qualify for protection under the Fourth Geneva Convention

Some conservatives have disputed whether the Guantánamo detainees even qualify for protections under GCIV. Their common argument is that GCIV applies specifically to civilians, thereby excluding so-called "illegal enemy combatants."

Again, the Army's field manual recognizes GCIV protections for non-POWs "engaged in hostile or belligerent conduct."

Further, the ICRC -- the organization that pioneered the concept of international humanitarian law and has monitored compliance with the Geneva Conventions for more than 140 years -- concluded in a 2003 legal analysis that "unlawful combatants" are entitled to protections under GCIV, citing its 1958 analysis of GCIV, which stated:

Every person in enemy hands must have some status under international law: he is either a prisoner of war and, as such, covered by the Third Convention, a civilian covered by the Fourth Convention, [or] a member of the medical personnel of the armed forces who is covered by the First Convention. There is no intermediate status; nobody in enemy hands can fall outside the law. (Commentary: IV Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, Geneva, 1958)

Falsehood #5: Detainees captured on the "battlefield" are not criminal defendants, so they have no right to petition U.S. courts

A June 22 Washington Times editorial warned, "If the critics are right, and detained terrorists have an inalienable right to access U.S. courts, then they have created a new standard -- one which has no precedent in the Geneva Conventions, the Constitution or U.S. history."

But it is not merely "critics" who have taken the position that the detainees "have access to U.S. courts"; the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that detainees have the right to challenge the legality of their detentions in federal court. In Rasul v. Bush, the high court ruled that the "United States courts have jurisdiction to consider challenges to the legality of the detention of foreign nationals captured abroad in connection with hostilities and incarcerated at Guantánamo Bay."

Conservatives also have attempted to paint opponents of the Bush administration's detention policy as advocates of granting detainees the full due process rights that U.S. citizens enjoy. The Times, for example, referred to "the current effort to treat Guantanamo detainees like American criminals, with full access to our courts." In fact, while "critics" have frequently argued that detainees must have some legal recourse to challenge their detention, Media Matters for America found no instances of human rights groups or elected officials arguing that the detainees have the same constitutional rights as U.S. citizens or that they deserve the same treatment as "American criminals."

— J.K. & G.W.

Posted to the web on Thursday June 23, 2005 at 4:45 PM EST

Top General Proves Cheney Wrong Again

Top General Disputes Cheney Claim That Iraq Insurgency in Last Throes

By Liz Sidoti Associated Press Writer
Published: Jun 23, 2005

WASHINGTON (AP) - The top American military commander in the Persian Gulf disputed a contention by Vice President Dick Cheney that the Iraqi insurgency was in its "last thoes" and told Congress on Thursday its strength was basically undiminished from six months ago.

Furthermore, Gen. John Abizaid told the Senate Armed Services Committee, "I believe there are more foreign fighters coming into Iraq than there were six months ago."

His testimony came as the nation's top defense leaders rejected calls by some lawmakers for the Bush administration to set a timetable for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. "That would be a mistake," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told the committtee.

In a CNN interview last month, Cheney said: "The level of activity that we see today from a military standpoint, I think, will clearly decline. I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency."

Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the committee's senior Democrat, asked Abizaid if he realized he was contradicting Cheney.

"I don't know that I would make any comment about that other than to say there's a lot of work to be done," said Abizaid. "I gave you my opinion."

Levin and other congressional Democrats - and some Republicans as well - have criticized administration officials for painting an unrealistically rosy picture of the situation in Iraq.

For his part, Rumsfeld sought to explain what Cheney meant.

Between now and when an Iraqi constitution is drafted and voted on later this year, "They may very well be in their last throes by their own view cause they recognize how important it will be if the lose," he said.

Of Cheney's words specifically, Rumsfeld added: "While I didn't use them and I might not use them, I think it's understandable that we can expect that kind of a response from the enemy."

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBZZWC5BAE.html

O'Reilly hits an all new low

My favorite bloviating blowhard Bill O'Liely has managed to even sink below his own snail-like standard.

From Media Matters:

O'Reilly: FBI should arrest the "clowns" at Air America Radio for being traitors

Responding to controversial comments by Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-IL) regarding the treatment of detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, Fox News host Bill O'Reilly said that Americans "must know the difference between dissent from the Iraq war and the war on terror and undermining it," and that "any American who undermines that war ... is a traitor." He then hurled this accusation at Air America Radio: "So, all those clowns at the liberal radio network, we could incarcerate them immediately. Will you have that done, please? Send over the FBI and just put them in chains, because they, you know, they're undermining everything and they don't care."

From the June 20 broadcast of Westwood One's The Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly:

O'REILLY: And when he [Durbin] went out there, his intent was to whip up the American public against the Bush detainee policy. That's what his intent was. His intent wasn't to undermine the war effort, because he never even thought about it. He never even thought about it. But by not thinking about it, he made an egregious mistake because you must know the difference between dissent from the Iraq war and the war on terror and undermining it. And any American that undermines that war, with our soldiers in the field, or undermines the war on terror, with 3,000 dead on 9-11, is a traitor.

Everybody got it? Dissent, fine; undermining, you're a traitor. Got it? So, all those clowns over at the liberal radio network, we could incarcerate them immediately. Will you have that done, please? Send over the FBI and just put them in chains, because they, you know, they're undermining everything and they don't care, couldn't care less.

Posted to the web on Wednesday June 22, 2005 at 2:53 PM EST

And they say Sen. Dick Durbin just disgraced America? Take another look around.

Vyan

Soldier Sues Over Guantanamo Beating

Here's a report I recall seeing before on 60 Minutes (back on Nov 3rd), now reported by the LA Times:

LATimes: Soldier Sues Over Guantanamo Beating

Spc. Sean Baker, who was medically retired after a drill went awry, asks for $15 million.

By David Zucchino, Times Staff Writer

A U.S. military policeman who was beaten by fellow MPs during a botched training drill at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, prison for detainees has sued the Pentagon for $15 million, alleging that the incident violated his constitutional rights.

Spc. Sean D. Baker, 38, was assaulted in January 2003 after he volunteered to wear an orange jumpsuit and portray an uncooperative detainee. Baker said the MPs, who were told that he was an unruly detainee who had assaulted an American sergeant, inflicted a beating that resulted in a traumatic brain injury.
Baker, a Gulf War veteran who reenlisted after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, was medically retired in April 2004. He said the assault left him with seizures, blackouts, headaches, insomnia and psychological problems.

In the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Lexington, Ky., Baker asked the Army to reinstate him in a position that would accommodate his medical condition. He said the Army put him on medical retirement against his wishes.

"Somebody has to step up to serve, and I still want to serve," Baker said Friday in a telephone interview from his home in Georgetown, Ky. "There's some task somewhere I can do in the Army."

A Pentagon spokeswoman declined to comment, saying she had not seen the lawsuit and could not discuss pending litigation.

....

Baker said he put on the jumpsuit and squeezed under a prison bunk after being told by a lieutenant that he would be portraying an unruly detainee. He said he was assured that MPs conducting the "extraction drill" knew it was a training exercise and that Baker was an American soldier.

As he was being choked and beaten, Baker said, he screamed a code word, "red," and shouted: "I'm a U.S. soldier! I'm a U.S. soldier!" He said the beating continued until the jumpsuit was yanked down during the struggle, revealing his military uniform.

The lawsuit says of the extraction team: "Armed with the highly inflammatory, false, incendiary and misleading information that had been loaded into their psyches by their platoon leader, these perceptions and fears … became their operative reality, and they acted upon these fears, all to the detriment of Sean Baker."

No one has been disciplined or punished for the assault, said Baker's lawyer, T. Bruce Simpson Jr.

So when we wonder exactly what kind of treatment that actual Prisoners are receiving if they happen to become "unruly", we have no further to look that the treatment of Spc. Sean Baker.

Vyan

Families of Fallen Soldiers Deserve Truth

It appears that there just might be some steam picking up behind the idea I presented last week, that the families of the fallen such as Cindy Sheehan of (Gold Star Families for Peace) are likely to be the first to really begin to shake the foundations of the Bush Administration regarding the false pretenses which brought us into War with Iraq.

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Families of dead soldiers demand truth from Bush

By Beth Quinn
Times Herald-Record
bquinn@th-record.com

The one reservation I had last week when I wrote about the Downing Street Memo was this: How will the loved ones of the soldiers who've died in Iraq feel when they read this?
How much more pain will it cause them to know we now have strong evidence that George Bush knew all along there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? That he made the "facts" fit his personal plan for war?
How does your mind accept what surely breaks your heart? And how much harder to know that your child, your spouse, your parent died in a war that a growing number of Americans are questioning?
Since that column ran, the loved ones of two soldiers, dead in Iraq, have told me.
Their words are far more meaningful than anything I could say, so I will turn this column over to them.

From Lauren Bowker of Middletown:
"As a loved one of Joseph Tremblay of New Windsor, who died April 27 in Iraq doing what he considered his duty for his country and fellow Marines, I have feelings of such loss and sadness – and also extreme anger.
"The article (on the Downing Street Memo) has helped me understand my anger towards the President and his underhanded, dishonest and dangerous policies in Iraq.
"I urge every American to demand that President Bush be made to answer these allegations regarding what has become known as the Downing Street Memo. I sent in the petition (demanding a hearing) and called all my family and friends, urging them to do the same.
"I am very proud of Joey and the ultimate price he paid for our country, but if President Bush had not lied and been so determined to invade Iraq, Joey would be here with his loved ones, planning his wedding and looking forward to what a young man with such promise could have contributed to the world.
"My question to President Bush is – how do you look yourself in the mirror every morning with a clear conscience knowing that 1,700 young Americans are dead based on a lie?"

From Karen Meredith of Mountain View, Calif.:
"My only child, Lt. Ken Ballard, was 26 years old when he was killed in Najaf, Iraq, on 5-30-04. My son saved the lives of 60 men that horrible night – they all got to go home to their families. He was one of three soldiers in his battalion killed after they were extended with the First Armored Division.
"After I read the notes from the meeting at Downing Street, I knew that his fate was decided and he was a dead man in July 2002, when that meeting took place.
"How sad that I didn't know then – just two months after he was commissioned an officer in the U.S. Army, just two months after he took an oath to obey the orders of the President of the United States – that his fate was already determined by a corrupt administration. Members of the Bush Administration lied repeatedly to this country when they told us time and again that no decision to go to war had been made.
"And how devastating to know that if the administration had planned for more ground strength, my son might be alive today.
"I belong to a group called Gold Star Families for Peace. The most difficult thing we encounter when we speak out against the war is that most of us are not anti-military and would never malign the soldiers or their service to this country. My son was a fourth-generation Army officer.
"But our members provide witness to the lies that resulted in our children being killed. We are all trying to put some sanity in this world gone mad. "

Our soldiers in Iraq are dying on average of two per day.
How can the rest of us do nothing to protest this travesty when our silence means that, today, two more families will know such pain?

Beth Quinn's column appears on Monday. Talk to her at 346-3147 or at bquinn@th-record.com.

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Vyan

MSNBC's David Shuster shows some spine!

Here's a new phenomenon, people in the MSM with some backbone. Here's some daring commentary from MSNBC's David Shuster on the Hardblogger.

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The White House spin cycle (David Shuster)

I don't know if things are getting better or worse in Iraq. But I do know the Bush administration is now in total panic mode over the erosion of public support for the occupation. How else could one explain the President's bizarre radio address this past Saturday or the even more surreal comments recently from other administration officials?

First, the president's radio address: On Saturday President Bush defended the war in Iraq saying, "We went to war because we were attacked." Huh? In September 2003, the President himself stated, "We've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the September 11th attacks." (For the record, the 9/11 Commission is on the side of the Sept. 2003 President Bush — The commission found there was "no collaborative relationship between Iraq and Al-Qaeda.")

On Sunday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said criticism of the handling of the war isn't justified because "The administration, I think, has said to the American people that it is a generational commitment to Iraq." What? That was said... but it came from Senators pouring cold water on the administration's optimistic pre-war predictions. What were those predictions? Vice President Cheney (March 16, 2003) said, "My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators... I think it will go relatively quickly... in weeks rather than months." Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld on Feb. 7, 2003 said, "It is unknowable how long that conflict will last. It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months." Former Budget director Mitch Daniels (March 28, 2003) stated, "The United States is committed to helping Iraq recover from the conflict, but Iraq will not require sustained aid."

Iraq will not require sustained aid? Hmmm. Today, Congress voted to send the Pentagon another $45 billion for operations in Iraq. That brings the total amount appropriated so far, for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, to $322.40 billion.

The administration seems to think that by shifting the justification for the war or changing what administration officials said 3 years ago, the president's poll numbers will magically turn around. The pretzel shaped logic of this strategy is mind-boggling. And one begins to wonder if the gang that helped President Bush win a 2nd term has been stuffed into a closet.

More...

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Vyan