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Friday, August 13, 2004 |
Just an observation, but doesn't conservative journal ...pundit...Oh wait, I got it .Traitor, Robert Novak remind you of the Crypt Keeper? . It's also painful to hear him cackle on CNN's Crossfire. I thought FNC made their liberals look bad but between him and Tucker Carlson, I actually think Allan Colmes could kick both their asses. As for Novak who is portrayed on The Daily Show, oh so elegantly. A must see episode. Why isn't he locked up behind bars by U.S. District Chief Judge Thomas Hogan , since he knowingly outed Valerie Plame? His excuse is as laughable as his defense of writer John O'Neal.
9:46:10 PM 
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Dick Cheney's derision of comments Senator John Kerry made in an August 5 speech -- in which he called for a "more effective, more thoughtful, more strategic, more proactive, more sensitive war on terror that reaches out to other nations and brings them to our side" -- conservative pundits echoed Cheney's taunts on radio and television.
An August 13 account of Cheney's remarks in The Washington Times made clear what lay behind the taunts: "The escalation of rhetoric began when the Bush camp belatedly realized that Mr. Kerry's week-old call for 'sensitive war' had the potential to be as politically damaging as his March acknowledgment that he had voted for $87 billion in funding for troops in Iraq before voting against it."
In addition to Bush's comments August 6, the American Progress Action Fund has gathered numerous examples of Bush and other administration officials describing the need to be "sensitive" in conducting foreign policy and military operations, including the following:
BUSH: Precisely because America is powerful, we must be sensitive about expressing our power and influence (3/4/01).
CHENEY: We recognize that the presence of U.S. forces can in some cases present a burden on the local community. We're not insensitive to that (4/13/04).
DEFENSE SECRETARY DONALD RUMSFELD: [W]e have to be sensitive [to the threat of terrorist attacks outside of Iraq]. To the point the world thinks the United States is focused on the problems in Iraq, it is conceivable that someone could make a mistake and believe that that is an opportunity for them to make-- to take an action which they otherwise would have avoided, and we have to see that we are arranged, and it is clear to the world that that is-it will not be an opportune time (2/5/03).
ATTORNEY GENERAL JOHN ASHCROFT: The United States is very sensitive about interfering in the internal politics of other countries (Federal News Service, 4/28/03).
American Progress Action Fund's website lists more examples, including several by Cheney: "In conducting the first war in Iraq, then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney repeatedly stressed the need for America to fight a 'sensitive' war" and "On 2/7/90, Cheney told Congress that the Pentagon must be 'sensitive' in developing weapons."
9:31:02 PM
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A great in depth story about Bill O'Reilly in Rolling Stone.
Mad Dog
"Shut up!" and other deep thoughts from the angry mind of Bill O'Reilly. The truth about Fox News' number-one bigmouth
By JOHN COLAPINTO
It's not hard to figure out why people accuse O'Reilly of being a right-wing operative dressed in anchorman clothes. For one thing, The O'Reilly Factor is the centerpiece of a twenty-four-hour-a-day cable network, Fox News Channel, owned by right-wing media baron Rupert Murdoch and run by CEO and chairman Roger Ailes, the corrosively combative former media strategist for three Republican presidents and former producer of right-wing windbag Rush Limbaugh's now-defunct TV show. The recent documentary Outfoxed shows the many ways that the cable channel operates as little more than a PR arm for the Republican Party: putting a negative spin on anything to do with Democrats and issuing a steady stream of upbeat, often factually inaccurate, cheerleading for the Bush administration.
For Fox's critics, O'Reilly epitomizes all that is most sinister about Fox's methods. O'Reilly angrily rejects such charges. He even denies being a conservative. He says the New York Times and his other enemies in the "pinhead elite media" use the conservative label to marginalize him. "Their point is, 'This is a conservative -- you don't have to listen to him.' " He claims not to have made up his mind yet on whom he will vote for in the presidential election and denies trying to sway viewers in either direction. "I'm not out there like Rush Limbaugh trying to convert you to be a conservative," he says. "Or like Michael Kinsley trying to convert you to be a liberal. . . . My job is to analyze things honestly, tell you why I think it and back it up."
A great indepth story about Bill O
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story?id=6417561&;pageid=rs.Home&pageregion=single7&rnd=1092434607625&has-player=true&version=6.0.12.872
7:22:00 PM
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AUDACITY, THY NAME IS GEORGEGeorge Will on C-SPAN this morning: "There have been remarkably few scandals in this administration, compared to others."
Allow me to refresh your "superb" brain, which must be plumb tuckered out from parsing Latin verbs - I believe these qualify as "scandals" even to such pure intellects as your own:
1) Iraq and the non-connection to 9/11. Many, many dead soldiers and Iraqi civilians as a result.
2) The missing WMDs.
3) Halliburton.
4) Outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame.
5) Abu Ghraib.
6) Supreme Court appointment of Bush to the presidency.
7) Cheney's secret energy task force meetings.
8) Patriot Act abuses.
9) Ahmed Chalabi.
10) Sibel Edmunds.
11) Political purging of Florida's voting rolls.
12) Illegal executive order dismantling the Presidential Records Act - thus shielding Reagan, Bush I and Bush II records from the public eye.
I wan to thank Suburban Guerrila for this piece of info!
8:00:34 AM
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Well we have an Ashcroft Alert today in the NY Times:
Ashcroft's Quiet Prisoner
Mr. Joseph is a refugee from Haiti who is seeking asylum in the United States. He is not a terrorist, and no one has even suggested that he is a threat to anyone. And yet he's been in federal custody for nearly two years.
Playing his ever-present, all-encompassing terrorism card, Mr. Ashcroft personally intervened in Mr. Joseph's case, summarily blocking his release. According to the attorney general, releasing this young Haitian would tend to encourage mass migration from Haiti, and might exacerbate the potential danger to national security of nefarious aliens from Pakistan and elsewhere who might be inclined to use Haiti as a staging area for migration to the U.S.
This is our Attorney General.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/13/opinion/13herb.html?hp
7:40:34 AM
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Bush blew it the morning of 9/11
| By BILL MAHER
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John Kerry has waded into an issue raised by Michael Moore in his film "Fahrenheit 9/11," namely, President Bush's sitting for seven minutes in a Florida classroom after being told "the country is under attack." Republicans are waxing indignant, of course. But the criticism is richly deserved.
The fact that Bush wasted 27 minutes that day - not only the seven minutes reading to kids but 20 more at a photo op afterward - was, in my view, the most outrageous thing a President has done since Franklin Roosevelt tried to pack the Supreme Court.
http://www.nydailynews.com/08-12-2004/news/politics/story/221433p-190107c.html |
7:24:31 AM
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"It's not John Kerry (news - web sites)'s fault that he looks French," Smith told reporters on the conference call arranged by the Bush campaign.
Sen. Gordon Smith (news, bio, voting record) (R-Ore.) accused Kerry of advocating socialism within the United States and appeasement overseas.
"It's not John Kerry (news - web sites)'s fault that he looks French," Smith told reporters on the conference call arranged by the Bush campaign.
"But it is his fault that he wants to pursue policies that have us act like the French. He advocates all kinds of additional socialism at home, appeasement abroad, and what that means is weakness for the future."
Some Republicans have referred jokingly to Kerry's ability to speak French and his physical appearance, but rarely has the reference found its way onto the campaign trail.
6:57:51 AM
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All the criticizm being levied against the Fox News Channel seems to be having an effect.
Was I dreaming when I saw Bill Mahr debating Sean Hannity last night? An actual liberal that has a strong opinion and doesn't look like a gerbil. As the debate went on, Maher forced Hannity into his usual litany of Stepford Wives Republican talking points memos. (Kerry's a flip-flopper, Bush has stick- to-it-ness, yadda,yadda) Maher made them seem, well ridiculous. Maher also got Hannity to say that he didn't approve of the President's decision to do nothing for 7 minutes approach while 9/11 was happening. I just checked FNC's website of the Haniity and Colmes show and couldn't find a word about the interview on today's date. In the archives there was a note saying that Maher appeared. What I did see however are three pictures boldly placed in the center of the web page.
Picture 1: Michaeal Regan:He's tired of the Bush bashing. And wants Kerry to come clean on the issues.
Picture 2:Rodney Alexander , the democrat who turned Republican. Congressman Rodney Alexander angers Democrats and sends shock waves through the House of Representatives
Picture three: John O'Neal: New book that criticizes John Kerry's Vietnam record is causing an uproar.
Hmmm, looks like three republicans to zero democrats. I guess that's fair and balanced.
6:46:34 AM
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© Copyright 2004 John Amato.
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