They're Not Robots
First Jonathan Chait and now Spencer Ackerman have escaped Marty's grasp reached beyond their New Republic home to oppose Lieberman. Chait's contribution is a logical attack on Joe's justification for his run (if surprising, given the source).
What's the point of running to uphold Democratichawkishness when you're running against the Democratic Party and itschosen nominee?
NeoCon Joe, the Failed Lebanese Campaign, and Losing by Winning
This is going to be a bit of a wandering post. But I'm going to cover the following and hopefully finish in enough time to go can peaches:Taking Joe at his wordHersh's portrayal of failureOn how the Neocons may become winners out of losing
Taking Joe at His Word
Mark Schmitt asked the other day,
Can someone explain what Senator Lieberman could possibly mean when he says the following:
“I’m worried that too many people,
An Issue of Fairness
mamayaga makes a superb point, in response to Byron Calame's explanation that withholding the NSA domestic spying story was an issue of fairness:
[C]andidatesaffected by a negative article deserve to have time — several days to aweek — to get their response disseminated before voters head to thepolls.
To which mamayaga asks:
By the same logic, shouldn't the major news media have held the storyof bin Laden's conveeeenient new videotape until a few days
The Plot Thickens
So here's how the plot was going to work. 20 men of South Asian descent, traveling in pairs, buy tickets for flights the US on-line. They pack their carry-ons carefully, with their bottles of acetone and hydrogen peroxide. They're a little nervous as they approach Check-In, but confident that things will go well.
The Gray Lady's Gray Area
Byron Calame pretends to come clean today, forcing the NYT to admit that it knew about the NSA domestic spying story before the 2004 elections. Come clean, you say? Then he must have revealed precisely when Risen first had the story, right?
Not really.
Calame comes closest to revealing precisely when the NYT had the NSA story when he says,
Holding a fresh draft of the story just days before the electionalso was
What a Difference a Year Makes
I'm having a little bit of deja vu this morning. When I did my post on the background to Cheney's Old Man Shooting Party, I reviewed the fundraiser that attracted Bush Pioneers from all over the country--including Katharine "Where's Waldo of Republican Warmongering" Armstrong, who owns Dick's shooting range--the annual fundraiser at the Broken Spoke Ranch.
How Many Terrorists Does One F-16 Get You?
Fred Kaplan tries to teach BushCo a lesson about cooperating with unsavory regimes by pointing out the central role Pakistan played in yesterday's big terrorist bust.
There's a broader lesson here, and it speaks to the Bushadministration's present jam throughout the Middle East and in otherdanger zones. If the British had adopted the same policy toward dealingwith Pakistan that Bush has adopted toward dealing with, say, Syria orIran (namely, it's an evil
GOP Domestic Spying and "Trepidation"
Amidst the hoopla about threats to America yesterday, a Walter Pincus story about a different kind of threat to America kind of fell through the cracks. Pincus reported that the top two officials of the Counterintelligence Field Activity, CIFA, abruptly announced their resignation (effective the end of the month). Justin Rood at TPMM managed to get a copy of the resignation email, which basically described how two guys decided to resign
What Would Joe Do for $17,000?
Scout Prime has a really superb post up on this WaPo article, which in turn talks about the big contractors that failed miserably in their Katrina response, but which have just gotten new contracts for further hurricaine response. From Scout Prime's post:
Companies that received 4 FEMA Katrina contracts "repeatedly faulted"by the DHS inspector general, congressional auditors and the Senatereceived 4 new FEMA contracts for future hurricane work.
Marty Marty Marty
I'm going to take a guess and say that Marty Peretz has been designated as the guy who will give Joementum cover for joining the Republican party, in fact if not in name. I say that for two reasons. First, there's this little bit of nuttiness:
Worse can besaid of Bill Clinton's stumping in Connecticut for Joe (and Hillary'sendorsement, too.) When Clinton came into the state, Lieberman andLamont were running dead even
Unsound Methods
Via Steve Gilliard I see we're still using unsound methods to create ourselves some informers.
The story of the San Francisco resident [Yassine Ouassif] — a security guard andpart-time engineering student — is in some ways unremarkable. He is oneof many immigrants investigated, yet not charged or deported, in thepost-Sept. 11 era.
How to Lose
About one thing the squalling Neocon Democrats are consistent. They claim that their positions--centrism and hawkishness--are the winning positions. But they ignore that in both recent elections and recent wars, those "winning" policies brought Democrats and the US only failure.
Which is about all you need to know about Marty Peretz' latest straw man op-ed, beyond the fact that is filled with nasty name-calling.
Dot Dot Dot, Dash Dash Dash, Dot Dot Dot
Oh man. I can think of no greater, pathetic, fitting, hysterical, sad symbol for the state of our country than the news that the NSA is running out of power.
The demand for electricity to operate its expanding intelligencesystems has left the high-tech eavesdropping agency on the verge ofexceeding its power supply, the lifeblood of its sprawling 350-acreFort Meade headquarters, according to current and former intelligenceofficials.
Agency officials anticipated the problem nearly a
Pat Lang's Four Questions and Hezbollah
What a dirty trick Pat Lang played, sending his friends a list of four issues with the US-French peace plan, but not addressing those four issues himself.France and the United States are not at war with each other. They cannot agree to end the fighting.Hizbullah thinks it is winning both tactically and strategically.Why will it agree to anything other than a cease-fire in place?Such a cease-fire will be a victory
Can You Hear Me NOW?
The NYT's blockbuster story on Brent Wilkes is most interesting, IMO, for the delicate dance of threat and technical legal denial it portrays. Wilkes leaves little doubt as to why he agreed to the interview.
Ms. Luque said her client’s legal problems were a battle that he “will fight and win.â€
Shesaid federal prosecutors told her in January that they were notinterested in Mr.
More Fog about the Fog of War
I feel like I'm watching a ping pong game being played over this giant monster, about to raise its head and knock over the entire ping pong table.
On Wednesday, the WaPo broke the news (a mere two years old now) that the 9/11 Commission strongly suspected that Pentagon officials lied about their actions on 9/11.
Some staff members and commissioners of the Sept.
A Squabble between Roberts and His Masters?
One of the most amusing bits from this article on the upcoming Phase II publication (I guess we have to call the stuff Roberts has delayed further, Phase II.2?) is its description of a dispute between BushCo and Senator Pat Roberts.
The Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee lashed outat the White House on Thursday, criticizing attempts by the Bushadministration to keep secret parts of a report on the role Iraqiexiles
DeLay's Dilemma
Let's say you're Tom DeLay. It's February 2006, and your legal defense fund is beginning to run dry.Well, not just run dry. It's already running a deficit. You're already polling behind your Democratic opponent in the polls, and you haven't even won the primary yet. Thing is, you consider the three people running against you disloyal.
Lamont's "Single Issue" Voters
The Q-Poll shows that 44% of Lamont's supporters support him mainly because of Lieberman's stance on the Iraq war. And Markos anticipates a bunch of pundits frowning on the large number of "Single Issue" voters.
For a pundit to suggest the Iraq war is a "Single Issue" simply betrays their ignorance of the impact that war has and will continue to have on this country and the rest of the world.
Some are
Judy's Call Data Versus My Call Data
There's an irony to yesterday's 2nd Circuit Court decision that the NYT must turn over Judy Miller's and Phillip Shenon's phone records to DOJ. Since the District Court decision that the NYT didn't have to turn over phone data, we've learned that the government is already getting our phone data--all of ours, journalist or not--in the name of fighting terrorism.