Raw Story is reporting that Plame was outed to Woodward by National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley.
It was bad enough when I thought Rove and Libby (high-ranking hacks, but hacks nonetheless) were the big players in this mess, but I have to admit, when I saw Hadley’s name, I felt sick to my stomach. National Security Adviser. Really and truly fucked up.
Hadley
Ye Olde Enemies List, II
The list of bloggers who have written their “Dear Bill” letters is in the post below, and I’ll keep updating it as long as people send me links.
I just wanted to excerpt some of the truly hilarious lines from some of the linked posts…
“I would like to say that, as a matter of balance, your television show has been a part of my nightly viewing habits, but that would be grossly dishonest. Truth to tell, I cannot abide the sound of your nasally, pedantic voice for more than a few minutes at a time, lest I start projectile vomiting…”
“I also once sent an email to The Factor. You were doing a segment on cameras in schools, and you argued that having cameras in school would reduce bullying. I offered the counter argument that you have cameras on you all the time, to no apparent effect. Sadly, you didn't air it.”
“I look forward to getting a copy of this ‘enemies list’ if only to find some nice new reading material.”
“P.P.P.S. - Did I mention that I hate Christmas?”
“I have a well-documented history of anti-war writings and try never to miss an opportunity to propagandize my family, friends and whomever else I can find with my peacenik, socialist and dangerously hilarious guttersnipery, especially when it involves calling you a misogynistic fraud, which I already did twice today.”
And courtesy of the Dark Wraith:
Keep ’em coming, Shakers.
Ye Olde Enemies List
Since his announcement that he’s going to put together an enemies list, I suspect none too few smart asses have been emailing him asking for inclusion—which I think is just the funniest thing ever. How big a mockable, impotent pantload do you have to be for people to react to your announcement of an enemies list by sending emails requesting to be on it? Ha!
Earlier, I got cc’ed on an email to Blathero Bill, and I thought it might be funny to start collecting the emails and/or posts of people asking to be put on Ye Olde Enemies List. So here are a few to get started, and if you’ve got one you’d like me to post or link, let me know in comments or by email.
(And I see via Mannion that Earl has some ideas to help get yourself on Ye Olde Enemies List, too!)
Other blog entires: Agitprop, The Defeatists, Night Bird's Fountain, ReidBlog, Daily Pepper, Thoughts from an Empty Head, The Vitriolic Monkey, Archy, The One and Only Some Watery Tart, Whatever, Me4Pres, Expostulation, the Dark Wraith at Big Brass Blog, The Disgruntled Chemist, Official Reality Check.
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Dear Mr. O'Reilly:
I am kindly requesting you add my blog, Shakespeare's Sister, to your enemies list. Not only have I written about my disgust with your comments regarding offering up San Francisco to al-Qaida...here, here, and here…but I have been resolutely convinced you are an utter tool for quite some time now. If that doesn't qualify me, just let me know what I need to do. I don't want to miss my chance to be on the enemies list of the modern McCarthy!
If it helps convince you to include me, I'll even pretend to be scared when I find out I'm on the list. Maybe then you won't be deluged with requests to be on it, which is, you've got to admit, kind of sad.
Best regards,
Shakespeare's Sister
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Dear Mr. O'Reilly,
I'm not sure if you're taking submissions for your new "Enemies List" or not. If you are, could you please add my site, Two Glasses.
As you can see from my post the other day on your treasonous comments regarding San Francisco, my anti-O'Reilly credentials are impeccable.
Thanks, in advance, for your consideration.
Toast
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Sir:
Kindly add me to your enemies list, since I think you are a moneygrubbing, grandstanding piece of human waste who preys upon the ignorance of others for fun and profit. I know you're not nearly as stupid as your followers are, but that doesn't make what you do right. At least ignorance is rooted somewhere in innocence, whereas your brand of hate-filled lies contribute to that ignorance. It never ceases to amaze me how chickenhawks such as yourself can so readily beat the drum for war, and yet never once have you had the GUTS to even walk into a recruiting station and sign up, even in times of peace.
Before you say it, yes, I hate you. Years of watching this great nation (which I served in the military, by the way) decay because of hacks like you who call themselves journalists but whose only credentials are hatred and a healthy appreciation of the ignorance of their readers and listeners.
When you get to Hell, and by God, I'm certain you will, say hello to Adolf, GW, and all the Dicks (Cheney, Nixon, et al). If I get to my Judgment and am found lacking, I hope that at least I can spend all of eternity jabbing your sorry ass with a pitchfork.
Fuck you very much,
“Shaker Ben”
PS: If I am sent a single email by any of your fans I will forward it to Elliot Spitzer, Attorney General of New York State, and every single media outlet I can think of.
Farewell, Friends
Matt at The Tattered Coat and CN Todd at Freiheit und Wissen are bidding us adieu while they pursue other endeavors. I’ve given them the requisite couple of weeks to exclaim it was all just a fit of pique, but it looks like they’re really calling it quits—at least for the time being. I’ll miss them both...and I'm leaving them both on the blogroll with the hope they'll return.
Two Quick Notes
First- For what it's worth, I walked by A Taste of Heaven, the café mentioned in Shakes' It's Not That I Don't Like Kids post last night. Their windows are filled, filled with letters of support from the community. I know many of you Shakers disagree with their "policy," but it made me very happy to see that.
Second- D., Shakespeare's Sister contributer, has gone AWOL. I haven't received a response to a recent e-mail, and Shakes says that she's getting worried, too. Has anyone communicated with him recently? D., please drop us a note and let us know that you're okay.
New Horrors in New Orleans
Pam’s got two good posts you’ve got to read today. First, undocumented workers are essentially being enslaved by no-bid contract beneficiary Halliburton/KBR doing the post-Katrina clean-up effort. Secondly, New Orleans residents returning home to the ninth ward are discovering the dead bodies of their relatives. Heartbreaking:
So, I'm thinking that, OK, I was going to come and salvage a few pictures or something. And I walk in here. I found my grandma on the floor dead.As you may recall, the search for bodies was called off on October 3, because there were, so we were told, no more bodies to be found.
Bush and His Women
This story, published in the GOP hack-rag of the Moonie Times, is truly worrying:
President Bush feels betrayed by several of his most senior aides and advisors and has severely restricted access to the Oval Office, administration sources say. The president's reclusiveness in the face of relentless public scrutiny of the U.S.-led war in Iraq and White House leaks regarding CIA operative Valerie Plame has become so extreme that Mr. Bush has also reduced contact with his father, former President George H.W. Bush, administration sources said on the condition of anonymity.According to Drudge, Bush now “maintains daily contact” with only four people: first lady Laura Bush, his mother, Barbara Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Undersecretary of State Karen Hughes.
Is anyone else struck by what those four people have in common, beyond an evident reluctance to criticize Bush?
Essentially, Bush has reduced his inner circle of confidants to a harem of adoring women—his wife, his mother, a woman who is (one of several women) referred to as his “work-wife” and has been overheard (almost) referring to him as her husband, and a woman whose slavish devotion to him stunned even Tucker Carlson. Aside from the obvious problems for domestic and national security issues such a hermetic withdrawal causes (how, exactly, does the great war president run a war if he’s not in constant contact with the DoD?), there’s something deeply troubling about a man whose party and policies are hostile to women whittling down his inner circle to only four women, all of whom unconditionally adore him. And, more importantly perhaps, don’t challenge him. It’s the conservative movement’s concept of women writ large—faithful, unreserved, and unquestioning dedication to one’s husband/children, now extended to include one’s male employer as well.
It ought to make me pleased when I hear the president of the United States has four women as his closest advisors, considering the majority party would likely stake out an anti-suffrage position if they thought they could get away with it. But I am not pleased, because Bush isn’t seeking advice; he’s seeking solace. He’s turned the Secretary of State into a highly-paid nursemaid, and worse than that, she’s accepted the role.
It WAS A Weapon
Last week, I wrote about an article that accused the United States of using white phosphorous as a chemical weapon. White phosphorous, when it comes in contact with skin, burns it to the bone in seconds. White phosphorous was used in an attack on Fallujah (and who knows how many other attacks). Just in case you were wondering, yes, there were innocents in Fallujah at the time.
Trust me, you don't want to see the pictures.
The White House pooh-poohed the accusations, claiming:
In December the US government formally denied the reports, describing them as "widespread myths". "Some news accounts have claimed that US forces have used 'outlawed' phosphorus shells in Fallujah," the USinfo website said. "Phosphorus shells are not outlawed. US forces have used them very sparingly in Fallujah, for illumination purposes.
"They were fired into the air to illuminate enemy positions at night, not at enemy fighters."
The other, more ridiculous excuse that I've heard claims that the use of white phosphorus is perfectly innocent, because it "is not covered by international conventions on chemical weapons."
In other words, since they forgot to put this one on their list, we can use it to burn the flesh off other human beings.
Well, guess what, kiddies? the use of white phosphorus as a weapon by the US Army has been admitted by... The US Army.
US forces yesterday made their clearest admission yet that white phosphorus was used as a weapon against insurgents in Iraq. A Pentagon spokesman told the BBC last night that it had been used as "an incendiary weapon" during the assault last year on Falluja in 2004.
Lieutenant Colonel Barry Venable said the substance, which can be used to lay smokescreens but burns down to the bone in contact with skin, was not covered by international conventions on chemical weapons.
(snip)
A recent documentary by the Italian state broadcaster, RAI, claimed that Iraqi civilians, including women and children, had died of burns caused by white phosphorus during the assault on Falluja. The report has been strenuously denied by the US. But Col Venable said it had been used to dislodge enemy fighters from entrenched positions in the city.
"White phosphorus is a conventional munition. It is not a chemical weapon. They are not outlawed or illegal," he told the BBC. "We use them primarily as obscurants, for smokescreens or target marking in some cases. However, it is an incendiary weapon, and may be used against enemy combatants."
Asked if it was used as an offensive weapon during the siege of Falluja, he replied: "Yes, it was used as an incendiary weapon against enemy combatants. When you have enemy forces that are in covered positions that your high explosive artillery rounds are not having an impact on, and you wish to get them out of those positions, one technique is to fire a white phosphorus round into the position: the combined effects of the fire and smoke - and in some case the terror brought about by the explosion on the ground - will drive them out of the holes so you can kill them with high explosives."
It also turns civilians into mush-covered skeletons. And then there's this.
They claimed the flammable material was only used to illuminate enemy positions or create smokescreens but US soldiers had written about the practice in an internal army magazine and a spokesman later confirmed white phosphorous had been deployed as an incendiary weapon during the assault on Fallujah.
The admission backs up claims made in an documentary by the Italian state broadcaster, RAI, which alleged Iraqi civilians had died of burns caused by the weapon.
Witnesses described other victims, including women and children, left with "caramelised" skin as a result of their injuries.
The Ministry of Defence said today that British troops have stocks of the chemical and have used it during operations in Iraq to create smokescreens.
But unlike the US, the UK is a signatory to protocol III of the 1980 Convention on Conventional Weapons, which prohibits the use of the substance as an incendiary weapon against civilians or in civilian areas.
Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Sir Menzies Campbell said: "A vital part of the effort in Iraq is to win the battle for hearts and minds.
"The use of this weapon may technically have been legal, but its effects are such that it will hand a propaganda victory to the insurgency."
Handing the insurgency ammunition doesn't necessarily mean handing them bullets. Idiots.
More at this Kos diary, which points out that Field Artillery Magazine fails to point out that:
. . . there is no way you can use white phosphorus like that without forming a deadly chemical cloud that kills everything within a tenth of a mile in all directions from where it hits. Obviously, the effect of such deadly clouds weren't just psychological in nature.
So, even when you're "not using it as a weapon," you're using it as a weapon. Of course, they were using it as a weapon, so que sera sera.
I'm anxiously awaiting all the right-wing, pro-war, anti-Saddam bloggers and pundits (such as Little Green Racists and Blogs for Bush, who were whining "it wasn't a chemical weapon"... no links; I refuse to link to them.) to immediately decry the use of white phosphorus; pointing out that it is extremely hypocritical to "take Saddam out" on the grounds of WMDs and chemical weapons, when we are using chemical weapons. I'm sure they'll also point out the fact that the Army and the White House have been lying all along.
Just watch me hold my breath.
Update: Pusboy looks into his crystal ball and forsees neocon talking points. My favorite: "The president needs to have every kind of weapon at his disposal, even those that cause slow, painful, agonizing death. You know, because of 9-11 and stuff."
(Tip 'o the Energy Dome to The Green Knight. I've got a telephone cross-post from Istanbul...)
Boo-hoo for the Bridges to Nowhere
I guess Alaskan Governor Frank Murkowski and his daughter Senator Lisa Murkowski will just have to find a new way to fleece the American taxpayers.
The Senate Appropriations Committee removed earmarks for two controversial "bridges to nowhere" in Alaska: the Gravina bridge, which would connect Ketchikan to an island of 50 people, and the Knik Arm bridge, which would link Anchorage to a sparsely populated area. The projects have been the subject of strong criticism because of the general backlog of existing roads and bridges in desperate need of repair, especially those affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. According to the National Association of Civil Engineers, one in four bridges nationwide is structurally deficient or functionally obsolete, not including the damage from Katrina and Rita.Removing the earmarks doesn’t mean the money will end up where it’s most needed, or even that it won’t be used to build those stinking bridges anyway, but at least it’s a start.
Woodward Stinks
How do you go from being one of the Watergate reporters to being a slithering scumbag that helps a crooked administration keep its dirty laundry secreted away, doing your darnedest to prevent justice from prevailing against the lot of traitorous miscreants running this country? Bob Woodward, you are an asshole of the highest order.
Washington Post Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward testified under oath Monday in the CIA leak case that a senior administration official told him about CIA operative Valerie Plame and her position at the agency nearly a month before her identity was disclosed.Woodward has been, as Josh Marshall puts it, an aggressive commentator, not to mention an outspoken critic, of Fitzgerald’s investigation—actively working to attempt to minimize its importance to the public and repeatedly issuing opinions on a case where he was a key witness, unbeknownst, apparently, to prosecutors. He went on Larry King arguing principle on behalf of Judith Miller, and saying he’d serve some of her jail time if the judge would allow it. (Maybe he just should have been serving some jail time of his own.) But in the end, the principle he was defending is the right of an administration official to use reporters to leak classified national security information as retribution with not just anonymity, but impunity.
In a more than two-hour deposition, Woodward told Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald that the official casually told him in mid-June 2003 that Plame worked as a CIA analyst on weapons of mass destruction, and that he did not believe the information to be classified or sensitive, according to a statement Woodward released yesterday.
[…]
Citing a confidentiality agreement in which the source freed Woodward to testify but would not allow him to discuss their conversations publicly, Woodward and Post editors refused to disclose the official's name or provide crucial details about the testimony…
Woodward's testimony appears to change key elements in the chronology Fitzgerald laid out in his investigation and announced when indicting Libby three weeks ago. It would make the unnamed official -- not Libby -- the first government employee to disclose Plame's CIA employment to a reporter. It would also make Woodward, who has been publicly critical of the investigation, the first reporter known to have learned about Plame from a government source.
And by the way, Scooter’s lawyers are going haywire with this, saying Fitzy didn’t have all the facts, yadda yadda yadda. (It makes no difference to perjury and obstruction charges, but nevermind.) Thanks a lot, Woodward, you sack of shit. I wonder who sold him down the river.
Question of the Day
Sorry I haven't written much today. I'm working on a redesign, because I can't stand to look at that picture of the Bard anymore. So one day in the future, you might pop in and find a new look. Or maybe not. It depends on whether I design something I really like or drive myself berserk trying, before I ever manage it.
Anyway...
Since yesterday's QotD was kind of heavy, I thought we'd do something light today. Hat tip to Steven, from whom I've stolen it (with notice).
Who is your favorite movie character of all time? (I know it's hard to pick just one, so feel free to do as many as you like.)
I'll have to think about this one for awhile, but off the top of my head...Princess Leia, Maude (0f Harold &...), Indiana Jones, and Napoleon Dynamite all come immediately to mind.
Issue #1
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Nothing we say or do matters if we don’t have fair elections. And as of right now, we don’t.
A must read: BradBlog’s The Staggeringly Impossible Results of Ohio’s ’05 Election.
Also, as Brad notes, Free Press’ heroic Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman’s “article on what happened on ballot issues 1 through 5 last week is A MUST READ for anybody who still gives the slightest damn about whatever democracy might be left in America.”
Something seriously screwed up is going on. It’s great that Bush is tanking, and it’s great that Americans seem to be waking up to the fatally flawed neo-conservative philosophy, and it’s great that polls indicate voters are increasingly likely to vote Dem in next year’s mid-terms. But none of it matters if elections can be stolen. The lack of accountability that is the hallmark of the Bush administration starts with a lack of voting accountability. We’ve got to have a paper trail.
To that end, in February, Congressman Rush Holt (D-NJ) introduced H.R.550 (pdf of the entire bill here) which seeks to amend the Help America Vote Act of 2002 with respect to: (1) voter verification and mandatory paper record audit capacity; and (2) accessibility and voter verification of results for individuals with disabilities.
To register your support for H.R.550, sign online petitions here and here. (Thank you to DBK for the links.)
Numenorean
Numenorean
To which race of Middle Earth do you belong?
brought to you by Quizilla
Tragically ungraceful and undignified, more like.
Now, this is pure speculation, but I think I might have thrown off the results when I was asked, “Under which leader would you prefer to serve?” and I responded, “Eomer.” I suspect my answer was based on an interpretation of the question which probably wasn’t intended.
Mmmm…horse helmet.
(Via The Green Knight.)
O’Reilly is an Un-American Jackass
After offering up San Francisco to terrorists, then defending his statement as something that needed to be said, and then referring to it on his own show as a satirical riff, now O’Reilly has decided that instead of admitting he crossed a line, apologizing, and getting on with his usual borderline nutcase bloviations, he will seek vengeance on those who dared call him on his lunatic hyperbole. Like any other rat, backed into a corner, he goes on the offensive. Next stop: a McCarthy-style enemies list.
Some far left internet smear sites have launched a campaign to get me fired over my point of view. I believe they do this on a daily basis. This time the theme is O’Reilly is encouraging terrorist attacks. Unbelievably stupid. Not unusual with these guttersnipes.Crooks and Liars has the video here.
I’m glad the smear sites made a big deal out of it. Now we can all know who was with the anti-military internet crowd. We’ll post the names of all who support the smear merchants on billoreilly.com. So check with us.
All I want to know is, how do I get on that list? Nothing would make me prouder than to be on a list of sites loathed by the repellent O’Reilly.
(As a side note…Idiot O’Jabberjaws might want to note who managed to piss off the military on Veterans’ Day. It wasn’t lefty bloggers.)
Rome Redux
Does the Republican Palace resemble the Coliseum, or do some of our soldiers just have a gladiator complex?
"They took us to a cage -- an animal cage that had lions in it within the Republican Palace," he said. "And they threatened us that if we did not confess, they would put us inside the cage with the lions in it. It scared me a lot when they got me close to the cage, and they threatened me. And they opened the door and they threatened that if I did not confess, that they were going to throw me inside the cage. And as the lion was coming closer, they would pull me back out and shut the door, and tell me, 'We will give you one more chance to confess.' And I would say, 'Confess to what?'"Go read the rest. Then tell me if you think the president was correct when he said, “We do not torture.”
Truth-a-Thon 2005
Looks like the NY Times has decided not to be outdone by the WaPo, and today runs their own editorial accusing Bush of a lack of truthiness:
To avoid having to account for his administration's misleading statements before the war with Iraq, President Bush has tried denial, saying he did not skew the intelligence. He's tried to share the blame, claiming that Congress had the same intelligence he had, as well as President Bill Clinton. He's tried to pass the buck and blame the C.I.A. Lately, he's gone on the attack, accusing Democrats in Congress of aiding the terrorists.I see your “Neither assertion is wholly accurate” and raise you “None of it has been true.” It’s like a truth-off, all of a sudden. After five years of fighting over who was going to suck his knob and who was going to play with his balls, now these two cornerstones of the “liberal media” are playing a game of one-upmanship to expose Bush’s lies and unravel his defenses. A fun game, no doubt—and one that would be decidedly less engaging had they not spent the entirety of his presidency helping him spin his web of deceit in the first bloody place.
Yesterday in Alaska, Mr. Bush trotted out the same tedious deflection on Iraq that he usually attempts when his back is against the wall: he claims that questioning his actions three years ago is a betrayal of the troops in battle today.
It all amounts to one energetic effort at avoidance. But like the W.M.D. reports that started the whole thing, the only problem is that none of it has been true.
The president and his top advisers may very well have sincerely believed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. But they did not allow the American people, or even Congress, to have the information necessary to make reasoned judgments of their own. It's obvious that the Bush administration misled Americans about Mr. Hussein's weapons and his terrorist connections. We need to know how that happened and why.Uh, you are the paper that employed Judith Miller, right?
Mr. Bush said last Friday that he welcomed debate, even in a time of war, but that "it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began." We agree, but it is Mr. Bush and his team who are rewriting history.Forgive me, Gray Lady; I know your interest, sudden though it may be, in trying to prevent Mr. Toad from careening off the cliff ought to be appreciated, but I’m just not ready to forgive you for helping him fuel up his jalopy to take us on this wild ride to begin with. The Bush-version of history began to be written when you decided not to question him or his decisions in the wake of 9/11. The rewriting of history to reflect the reality of that time has only just begun.
Telly
So, “pro-family” activist David Barton thinks it’s about time to revive the trusty old conservative argument which suggests that ownership of televisions is evidence a family isn’t living in poverty.
First of all, what Atrios said.
Secondly, television is the primary news source in many (if not most) American households. And why not, when a yearly subscription even to my crappy local paper is $51.48, but you can get a TV from Wal-Mart for $69.88? Aside from that, illiteracy is higher in poor communities, and newspapers aren’t of much use to a person who can’t read.
Having access to a news source isn’t a luxury, and having access to an immediate news source (television, radio, or the internet) is now imperative—storm warnings, emergency bulletins, evacuations, terrorist alerts, etc. are all issued via network (free) television. The administration didn’t design the color-coded terrorism warning system for the Wall Street Journal, you know what I mean? There is wide acknowledgement that in case of emergency, people will turn on their televisions to find out what’s happening. During elections, the only place one is likely to get a glimpse of the people for one can vote is on the television. If you weren’t on the president’s approved audience list, the only place you ever saw him speak was on the television. On a whole slew of topics, television is necessarily a primary source of information.
Having a telly isn’t indulgent; it’s responsible.
