Can't Compromise With Crackpots

Short Digby: You can't compromise with crackpots. The anti-intellectuals who oppose abortion, evolution and gay marriage are just plain wrong.

Just go read Digby.

Blogs Translate the News the Corporate Media Just Hears

Yesterday on CNN, Commander Codpiece was interviewed by Wolf Blitzer. Our Fearmonger Leader said Iraq will be a "comma" in history. Huh?

I just put it down to his cold callous nature until I read this in Steve Gilliard's News Blog today:

When Bush said Iraq was a comma, he was speaking in dog whistle to the fundies. It comes from a saying "Never put a period where God puts a comma".Which means things will get better. Which is, of course, insane.

Now I understand. It was a cold, callous message to fundamentalist Christians that Georgie is their guy. Ugh.

Editor & Publisher:
For Americans Killed in Iraq: A Period, Not a Comma
In an interview aired on CNN on Sunday, President Bush suggested that one day the conflict in Iraq will be looked back on as "just a comma." The dead, and their families, might propose different punctuation. Here are some alternatives.

(September 24, 2006) -- Amid the Sunday uproar over The New York Times' report on a secret intelligence report labeling the war in Iraq an answer to anti-U.S. terrorists' prayers, CNN aired a portion of an interview with President Bush conducted by Wolf Blitzer earlier in the week.

In a report here at E&P, we observed that in this exchange, Blitzer asked about the latest setbacks in Iraq and indications that civil war may be at hand. Bush, with a slight smile, replied, "Yes, you see — you see it on TV, and that’s the power of an enemy that is willing to kill innocent people. But there’s also an unbelievable will and resiliency by the Iraqi people…. I like to tell people when the final history is written on Iraq, it will look like just a comma because there is — my point is, there’s a strong will for democracy."

Vacationing Bush Administration Ignored FBI Agent's Attempts to Prevent 9/11

While President Smirky McAWOL spent the month of August 2001 on vacation, FBI agents in Minnesota spent a fruitless month trying to get the FBI in Washington to take their information seriously. Testimony in Moussaoui's trial yesterday established that Agent Harry Samit made more the 70 separate attempts to get the Bush Administration to realize that Moussaoui was a serious threat, and that he was plotting to hijack an airplane. Samit contacted his superiors at the FBI, as well as FBI's London, Paris and Oklahoma City offices, FBI headquarters files, the CIA's counterterrorism center, the Secret Service, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Federal Aviation Administration, possibly the National Security Agency (he couldn't say the name in court), and the FBI's Iran, Osama bin Laden, radical fundamentalist, and national security law units at headquarters. Yet no one took him seriously.

When incompetent, idiotic liars run the government, disasters happen.


WaPo:
FBI Was Warned About Moussaoui
Agent Tells Court Of Repeated Efforts Before 9/11 Attacks

An FBI agent who interrogated Zacarias Moussaoui before Sept. 11, 2001, warned his supervisors more than 70 times that Moussaoui was a terrorist and spelled out his suspicions that the al-Qaeda operative was plotting to hijack an airplane, according to federal court testimony yesterday.

Agent Harry Samit told jurors at Moussaoui's death penalty trial that his efforts to secure a warrant to search Moussaoui's belongings were frustrated at every turn by FBI officials he accused of "criminal negligence." Samit said he had sought help from a colleague, writing that he was "so desperate to get into Moussaoui's computer I'll take anything."

That was on Sept. 10, 2001.

[]

MacMahon zeroed in on increasingly urgent warnings Samit issued to his FBI supervisors after he interviewed Moussaoui at a Minnesota jail in mid-August 2001. Moussaoui had raised Samit's suspicions because he was training on a 747 simulator with limited flying experience and could not explain his foreign sources of income.

By Aug. 18, 2001, Samit was telling FBI headquarters that he believed Moussaoui intended to hijack a plane "for the purpose of seizing control of the aircraft." A few days later, he learned from FBI agents in France that Moussaoui had been a recruiter for a Muslim group in Chechnya linked to Osama bin Laden.

AP: FBI Agent Slams Bosses at Moussaoui Trial

MacMahon walked Samit through e-mails and letters the agent sent seeking help from the FBI's London, Paris and Oklahoma City offices, FBI headquarters files, the CIA's counterterrorism center, the Secret Service, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Federal Aviation Administration, an intelligence agency not identified publicly by name in court (possibly the National Security Agency), and the FBI's Iran, Osama bin Laden, radical fundamentalist, and national security law units at headquarters.

[]

MacMahon introduced an Aug. 31 letter Samit drafted "to advise the FAA of a potential threat to security of commercial aircraft" from whomever Moussaoui was conspiring with.

But [FBI headquarters agent Mike] Maltbie barred him from sending it to FAA headquarters, saying he would handle that, Samit testified. The agent added that he did tell FAA officials in Minneapolis of his suspicions.

Some Things Aren't Funny

Danish embassies are burning around the world because of the cartoons printed in a right-wing Danish newspaper depicting the prophet Muhammed as a terrorist: one showed a bomb in place of his turban.

I agree with this op-ed in today's London Times:

These cartoons don't defend free speech, they threaten it

A newspaper is not a monastery, its mind blind to the world and deaf to reaction. Every inch of published print reflects the views of its writers and the judgment of its editors. Every day newspapers decide on the balance of boldness, offence, taste, discretion and recklessness. They must decide who is to be allowed a voice and who not. They are curbed by libel laws, common decency and their own sense of what is acceptable to readers. Speech is free only on a mountain top; all else is editing.

Despite Britons’ robust attitude to religion, no newspaper would let a cartoonist depict Jesus Christ dropping cluster bombs, or lampoon the Holocaust. Pictures of bodies are not carried if they are likely to be seen by family members. Privacy and dignity are respected, even if such restraint is usually unknown to readers. Over every page hovers a censor, even if he is graced with the title of editor.

To imply that some great issue of censorship is raised by the Danish cartoons is nonsense. They were offensive and inflammatory. The best policy would have been to apologise and shut up. For Danish journalists to demand “Europe-wide solidarity” in the cause of free speech and to deride those who are offended as “fundamentalists . . . who have a problem with the entire western world” comes close to racial provocation. We do not go about punching people in the face to test their commitment to non-violence. To be a European should not involve initiation by religious insult.

WWJDD?

No, this isn't a fundamentalist post. WWJDD stands for "What Would Johnny Damon Do". I just bought a WWJDD shirt on ebay, which shows our Caveman standing in the classic Jesus pose, one hand raised palm up, the bleeding heart in his chest.

So, WWJDD? Go to the All-Star game, apparently. The gang on NESN are reporting that a late surge of votes -- probably helped by the local TV guys all going on at 6 & 11 last night encouraging Sox fans to to vote for him -- has put Johnny Damon on the American League All-Star team.

OK, I admit it, I voted my 25 times between 11:25 and 11:40 last night. The guy is having an all-star year. And the World Champion Boston Red Sox deserve as many All-Stars as possible.

Pete McCloskey (Republican) Endorses Kerry

Pete McCloskey has endorsed Kerry.

Although I'm a lifelong Republican, I will vote for John Kerry on Nov. 2. The choice seems simple under traditional principles of the Republican Party.

**************

The primary issue in November will be who can best lead us in the bitter struggle against the Islamic fundamentalists who perpetrated 9/11 and are willing to die to kill Americans throughout the world. The Iraq occupation has caused thousands of new suicide bombers to join the jihad against us; with Kerry as president, the nation will properly refocus the battle away from Iraq and against the true enemy, Al-Qaida.

As Kerry has stated, we desperately need the cooperation of every country in the world, friend and enemy, where terrorist cells can germinate and operate.

We need to be more humble in asking for this assistance. A return to the ``speak softly but carry a big stick'' philosophy of Teddy Roosevelt should be far more effective than the bluster, bravado and ``shock and awe'' firepower of the neocon advisers who have commandeered White House foreign policy.

*******************

In truth, John Kerry and John Edwards come far closer to the Republicanism of Teddy Roosevelt, Earl Warren, Barry Goldwater, George Bush the elder and, yes, even Richard Nixon, than does the present incumbent.

Ending secrecy and bringing truth and honesty back to the White House are reasons enough to elect Kerry and Edwards.