Tuesday, June 29, 2004

We're moving! Please visit our new home at http://marprelate.blogspot.com/ 9:38:44 PM    comment []

Wednesday, June 23, 2004

Torture Scandal Won't Go Away 'They said this is America . . . if a soldier orders you to take off your clothes, you must obey' We know about Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib but until now Bagram and America's secret network of Afghan jails have come under little scrutiny. In a major investigation, Duncan Campbell and Suzanne Goldenberg discovered a familiar pattern of violent abuse and sexual humiliation. But remember, Bush never condoned "torture" -- but only because his legal beagles had redefined "torture" as death and maiming... 9:14:18 PM    comment []

Big Dog on the SCLM Bill Clinton: I was genuinely confused by the mainstream press coverage of Whitewater... One day, after one of our budget meetings in October, I asked Senator Alan Simpson of Wyoming to stay a moment to talk. Simpson was a conservative Republican, but we had a pretty good relationship because of the friendship we had in common with his governor, Mike Sullivan. I asked Alan if he thought Hillary and I had done anything wrong in Whitewater. 'Of course not,' he said. 'That's not what this is about. This is about making the public think you did something wrong. Anybody who looked at the evidence would see that you didn't.' Simpson laughed at how willing the 'elitist' press was to swallow anything negative about small, rural places like Wyoming or Arkansas and made an interesting observation: 'You know, before you were elected, we Republicans believed the press was liberal. Now we have a more sophisticated view. They are liberal in a way. Most of them voted for you, but they think more like your right-wing critics do, and that's much more important.' When I asked him to explain, he said, 'Democrats like you and Sullivan get into government to help people. The right-wing extremists don't think government can do much to improve on human nature, but they like power. So does the press. And since you're President, they both get power the same way, by hurting you.' I appreciated Simpson's candor and I thought about what he said for months. For a long time, whenever I was angry about the Whitewater press coverage I would tell people about Simpson's analysis. When I finally just accepted his insight as accurate, it was liberating, and it cleared my head for the fight. 9:11:12 PM    comment []

Names? Who needs any stinkin' last names? The desperation of the bushies is growing ever more evident. Take the attempt to claim that two men with different names are in reality the same person -- based on the sole evidence of their names! That's the blarney the bushies had 9/11 investigator Lehmann trot out on Sunday on Meet the Press. No doubt, they did it not in the belief that it would convince many but those who are already in their camp, but more in order to simply muddy the waters. Still, you have to wonder if Lehmann likes being shown to be a fool... but then again, given his ideological leanings, he likely signed up for this kamikaze mission (kamikaze in terms of credibility). Read here why Ahmad Hikmat Shakir does not = Ahmad Hikmat Shakir Azzawi 1:12:06 AM    comment []

What's up with Ryans from Ill? Republican U.S. Senate nominee Jack Ryan's ex-wife, TV actress Jeri Ryan, accused him of taking her to sex clubs in New York and Paris, where he tried to coerce her into having sex with him in front of strangers, according to records released Monday from the couple's California divorce file. read more here 1:10:24 AM    comment []

Interior design Who knew? When the army said they wanted to Gitmo-ize Abu Ghraib they really were talking about decor... 1:08:06 AM    comment []

Monday, June 21, 2004

A dollar short... and a day late... Editors of The New Republic (falsely labeled a "left-leaning weekly") finally admit the obvious: Iraq War was a bad idea 8:33:23 PM    comment []

Media tids and bits Here are the SCLM at it again, perpetrating the tried and true propaganda foolishness that unless the Democratic nominee is penniless, he must be a hypocrite. (No mention made of the GOP's net worth.) And here is a nice summation of Tricky Dick Cheney versus the editorial board of the NY Times (which is oddly liberal, in contrast to the SC liberalism of the newsroom). Here's a choice quote: The Times editorial, titled "Show Us the Proof," said it was "surprised by the depth and ferocity of the administration's capacity for denial." It observed that what Cheney called "longstanding ties" between Saddam and bin Laden so far amount amounted "to one confirmed meeting, after which the Iraq government did not help Al Qaeda. By those standards, the United States has longstanding ties to North Korea." Cheney, as usual, the newspaper said, "is not prepared to offer any evidence beyond the flimsy-to-nonexistent arguments he has used in the past." 8:29:46 PM    comment []

Bush can read? And here's confirmation that Bush does indeed look at the headlines on the front pages of major newspapers-- even if he doesn't actually read the stories. Matthew Cooper writes in Time magazine that Bush "was furious when he saw a New York Times headline saying NO QAEDA-IRAQ TIE." But Cooper writes: "When it comes to describing purported connections between al-Qaeda and Saddam, the Bush Administration sometimes sounds like a teenager carefully delineating the different shades of romance from 'seeing other people' to 'hanging out' to 'hooking up.'" 7:04:15 PM    comment []

Thursday, June 17, 2004

Hannity held accountable More hi-jinks from the SCLM: Speaking at the Take Back America conference on June 3, American Progress CEO John Podesta said, "I think when you get so distant from the facts as -- as guys like Limbaugh and Sean Hannity do, yeah, I think that tends to -- it kind of -- it tends to corrupt the dialogue."  Apparently he struck a nerve with Fox News' Sean Hannity. Hannity challenged Podesta to "defend and explain one example where I -- where I said something that was so false."  Since choosing just one of Hannity's distortions is too difficult, here are fifteen examples: 11:05:56 PM    comment []

Whoops he did it again Bush's spokesmen are now saying that the debunking of his and Cheney's claims that Iraq was in cahoots with Osama and in on 9-11 miss the mark because, according to White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett: "President Bush has made it very clear that there was not direct evidence linking to the 9/11 plot, and never did he make that suggestion." Really? Then how do they explain this justification for the Iraq war? ...acting pursuant to the Constitution and Public Law 107-243 is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001. Sincerely, GEORGE W. BUSH 8:25:00 PM    comment []

Wednesday, June 16, 2004

Two more reasons... ... its called the "So-Called Liberal Media": Big Bird Flies Right and, of course, from that citadel of "supposed liberalism" -- "the War Witch who sold America on the existence of weapons of mass destruction."  11:22:32 PM    comment []

Must read -- incisive take on the torture scandals What is difficult is separating what we now know from what we have long known but have mostly refused to admit. Though the events and disclosures of the last weeks have taken on the familiar clothing of a Washington scandal—complete with full-dress congressional hearings, daily leaks to reporters from victim and accused alike, and of course the garish, spectacular photographs and videos from Abu Ghraib—beyond that bright glare of revelation lies a dark area of unacknowledged clarity. Behind the exotic brutality so painstakingly recorded in Abu Ghraib, and the multiple tangled plotlines that will be teased out in the coming weeks and months about responsibility, knowledge, and culpability, lies a simple truth, well known but not yet publicly admitted in Washington: that since the attacks of September 11, 2001, officials of the United States, at various locations around the world, from Bagram in Afghanistan to Guantanamo in Cuba to Abu Ghraib in Iraq, have been torturing prisoners. UPDATE: this is a must see animated cartoon! 7:16:50 PM    comment []

Tuesday, June 15, 2004

Congrats to the Pistons It's nice to see a team win the ultimate team game for a change. Like many, I loathed the Lakers this season -- the arrogance, the sense of entitlement, the lack of fundamentals, the personalities, the hype. How did the Pistons do it? Everyone points to their defense, which is part of the answer, certainly. They took good advantage of the new rules that enable a team to truly play team defense, but they also made a commitment to guarding all of the Lakers and using lots of bodies -- long, quick bodies. Their defense was at core man to man, not the Riley-inspired double teaming gimmicks that have dominated for the past two decades. But another key, that seems to get overlooked is that they out rebounded the Lakers, and hence were able to run on the Lakers, further tiring out Shaq (who remember is likely closer to 400 pounds than he is to 300). But defense and rebounding, as key as they are, are not the whole story with the Pistons -- they actually pass the ball on offense, playing a true team offense rather than the isolations that have been the hallmark of the NBA since Jordan and Phil Jackson won their first championship. The way to beat the Pistons is to beat them down the floor with a fast break -- the one thing the Lakers as currently constructed could not do on a consistent basis: they are simply too old, slow, and short on bench strength. Plus Shaq hates running -- if you weighed 375 lbs you would too. And when Shaq gets tired, he gets ineffective (just eight rebounds tonight). That was the one thing I don't think other coaches realized when employing the hack-a-shaq: you slow the game down, give Shaq a breather, and allow him to play at a pace that is perfect for his bulk, while also giving him a chance at free points. Great to see team basketball win again. Hopefully, this should lead other teams to start attempting to defend and attack as teams once again. 11:00:46 PM    comment []

Monday, June 14, 2004

scandals galore Here's a nice summary of the two torture memos (Pentagon in 2003, Justice dept in 2002) in terms of time line. And here is a PDF of the actual Justice department torture memo that Ashcroft refused to share with Congress. (It basically OKs anything that doesn't maim or kill). Gosh, with Halliburton no-bid contracts being arranged out of the VPs office, the investigation into the theft of Democratic Senators correspondence, the on-going Plame investigation, the exposure of the false stats regarding the diminishing -- oops, growing number of acts of terrorism after the Iraq invasion, and Junior's begging for the Pope to lean on his bishops to help Bush get elected, you need a score card to keep all the scandals straight. 9:12:19 PM    comment []