Predictable Failure Update
Justin Rood points to this Observer article which supports two of my past speculations.
emptywheel, 8/18
But I suspect he may be misreading theadministration's dominant impulse with regards to information. Roodargues that because the administration hates leaks, the leak musteither have been sanctioned or just something the administrationmissed.
Most likely, the leak was sanctioned.
I Wonder How Dick Annotated THIS Hersh Article?
We know that Dick reads--and probably annotates--Sy Hersh's articles. No lesser source than Patrick Fitzgerald suggested as much in his filing describing which newspaper articles he'll submit as evidence during Libby's trial. You remember--the filing where he showed us Dick's annotated copy of Wilson's op-ed? Well, in the same filing, he revealed that a copy of Sy Hersh's famous Stovepipe article circulated around OVP, and Libby and "others" had annotated the
Yoo Misleads You
The most breathtaking moment in John Yoo's op-ed today in the LAT comes when he seamlessly moves from claiming British "advantages" over our civil liberties protections don't go far enough to throwing out probable cause as equally old fashioned.
But increasing detention time or making warrants easier to come by merely extends an old-fashioned approach to catching terrorists.
Secrecy or Spin?
Justin Rood points out an interesting leak--the tidbit that some of the people arrested in last week's alleged terrorist plot made phone calls to the United States.
That's why my antennae started buzzing when I read this paragraph from an Aug. 12 AP story about U.S. government efforts to trace possible domestic links to the recently-foiled London terror plot:
Two.
A Guide to Domestic Surveillance
Jane Harman is confused. In her statement responding to yesterday's court decision, she said (looking for a link, not up on her site yet):
Today, a federal court in Detroitstruck down as unconstitutional the President's NSA Program. Thedecision is significant in that it represents the first judicialdetermination that the President's program violates the law and theConstitution.
The terrorists who are plotting against us would like nothing more thanto see us erode our
Republican Foreign Policy: Make a Profit on Destruction, Make a Profit on Reconstruction
I can't remember where I asked it, but several weeks ago I asked who was going to pay for Lebanon's reconstruction. Some in the thread mused that we, the American taxpayers, would pay for it. Well, wouldn't you know:
The Bush administration is scrambling to assemble a plan to helprebuild Lebanon, hoping that by competing with Hezbollah for thepublic's favor it can undo the damage the war has inflicted on itsimage and
Judy and Johnny
It seems Arianna hasn't disbanded her impressive network of Judy Miller sources. She reports:
At 7:30 this morning, John Bolton was having breakfast at Oscar's at the Waldorf with Judy Miller.
Arianna wonders whether Bolton's nomination battle to be reappointed came up. But I'm not convinced. After all, we have good reason to believe that John Bolton is the only Neocon who has availed himself of Judy's particular talent for WMD porn since
First Wilkes and Now Mrs. Cunningham
Last week we were treated to Brent Wilkes' attempt to exonerate himself publicly and/or threaten his co-conspirators, Lowery and Lewis. This week, we're treated to Mrs. Randall "Duke" Cunningham's story (sub. required), who is apparently a person of interest in the investigation. As Mrs. Cunningham's lawyer explains, she's trying to convince us that she didn't know about Duke's multi-million dollar bribery racket.
"My client faces an uphill battle as faras people believing
The Question They Didn't Ask and Bush's New Plan C
You don't need me to tell you things are not going well in Iraq. The NYT surveys the state of affairs this morning, and the news is not good.
The number of roadside bombs planted in Iraqrose in July to the highest monthly total of the war, offering moreevidence that the anti-American insurgency has continued to strengthendespite the killing of the terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
How Was Rashid Rauf Arrested?
Atrios links to Andrew Sullivan being skeptical who links to Craig Murray being even more skeptical. And Murray raised a point that I had raised earlier. Here's Murray:
What is more, many of those arrested had been under surveillance forover a year - like thousands of other British Muslims. And not justMuslims.
Allen's Mob and Their Caca
By now, you've no doubt read about or seen the video of George Allen drudging up the racism his mother taught him to insult an Indian-American student trailing his campaign for the Webb campaign. Allen is now on his second or third excuse right now, trying to claim he was talking caca all the time.
Allen's a racist, and we need to use Allen's antics to make that clear to people.
But I'd
The Shrillification of the Moderates
I'm fascinated by the outpouring of moderates' conversion narratives, from balanced and temperate to, um, shrill. JMM started it:
As Americans I think we need to grapple with what's happened. And it goes beyond President Bush. He did after all win reelection.He marginally expanded his congressional majorities. In the rough andtumble of the political moment, the fight needs to be taken to thepresident and his party.
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