From a most recent lie-fest errr...press briefing:

Well, again, Terry, what I am saying is that we are committed to making sure that the commission has all the information they need to do their job, and do a thorough job, and complete that work -- complete their work in a timely manner. We have provided them unprecedented cooperation. We have made administration officials -- let me just go down kind of a list of a few things here. There have been more than 100 briefings, including the head-of-agency-level officials briefing the commission. There have been some 500-plus interviews. We've provided more then 2.3 million pages of documents to the commission, as I cited a minute ago. And we are continuing to make sure they have all the information they need to do their job.

Q Can you say if White House officials, including Dr. Rice, are providing information under oath?

MR. McCLELLAN: I'm sorry?

Q Under oath?

MR. McCLELLAN: blah blah blah blabbity blah (see above)

and it's not going away anytime soon...

Ron Hutcheson of Knight Ridder writes that "President Bush's performance as commander-in-chief was supposed to be his strong suit in the November election, but questions about his leadership suddenly have forced him on the defensive."

NBC Nightly News devoted a two and a half minute "In-Depth" segment to the issue, in which David Gregory said that while Bush was "never formally accused" of anything, "there is no record that proves Bush showed up to fulfill his obligations" from May 1972 to May 1973. The report includes video from 2000 of Bush saying "I fulfilled my obligation."

And on CBS, Mark Strassman also got two and a half minutes, reporting that "Lt. Bush's records are sketchy, but suggest spotty attendance, and calling the furor "a clear warning shot on the debate to come on national security." He showed video of veterans campaigning for war hero John Kerry.

It seems to prove the theorem about the press being pack animals too ...

In the finest traditions of macho maleness this morning I disregarded the way-smarter-than-me Mrs. Fish and went walking down the driveway and fell on my arm then my ass on the ice. So now I have a temporarily clipped wing (not busted, just battered thank goodness) which means I have to type with one hand. What is the sound one hand blogging, grasshopper?

If I can do a short post or two, I might try it ... but it's so slow eeeek! And then there's the vicodin.

My new familial nickname is now "Crash", and me a pilot and all. The Family Fish find it all most amusing...

Our Ally in the War on Weasels, I mean Terra™ has just pardoned the guy who gave New-Kyu-Lar tek-no-logy to the them bad Axis folks. Yup Good Puppy Pervez Musharraf of our ally in the war on the noun (#2, drugs being #1) has done pardoned that critter.

Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, granted a full pardon on Thursday to Abdul Qadeer Khan, the founder of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, a day after Dr. Khan appeared on television and confessed to sharing nuclear technology with Iran, North Korea and Libya.

As a result, Dr. Khan, 67, will not face prison, a fine or any other punishment.

UggaBugga and BoloBoffin have it. Again. Goddam guys, keep up the great work.

Can you tell I'm pretty happy to see this stuff out there...at last!!!

Shocked!

Federal law-enforcement officials said that they have developed hard evidence of possible criminal misconduct by two employees of Vice President Dick Cheney's office related to the unlawful exposure of a CIA officer's identity last year. The investigation, which is continuing, could lead to indictments, a Justice Department official said.

According to these sources, John Hannah and Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, were the two Cheney employees. "We believe that Hannah was the major player in this," one federal law-enforcement officer said. Calls to the vice president's office were not returned, nor did Hannah and Libby return calls.

The strategy of the FBI is to make clear to Hannah "that he faces a real possibility of doing jail time" as a way to pressure him to name superiors, one federal law-enforcement official said.

If these guy were so arrogant as to break the law, they should both be facing jail time. But their alleged misdeeds just miss the mark for being held accountable by the 1600 Crew. So, it's a Statutory Mulligan and off they go to fat consulting contracts and positions as talking heads on some entity owned by News Corp or Moon.

Welcome back my friends, to the show that never ends...

Seems that Fearless Leader will be on Meet the WhorePress on Sunday. NBC has been busy flogging the dog. So here's the question, during the LoTU, several of us made donations to charities when Prezit No Give Turkee said certain things. I donated about a hundred bucks to Amnesty International and a fellow blogger after the LoTU. How about we play this game again? Perhaps instead of Amnesty you all pick another charity and I have a great blogger in mind who has just been having a wonder-fucking-ful time in the BushEconomy™. I'll take charitable suggestions until about noon on Saturday; there's nothing wrong with Amnesty, but I'm already on their mailing list.

I need to come up with some good terms for Fearless Leader to repeat/say, and a schedule of $$ for each term. Suggestions?

Here's a start:
$1 for freedom-loving $.50 for Freedom
$5 for mentioning Saddam and 9/11 within related breaths (the first time)
you get the idea. I'm going to go take a look at SKBubba's schedule and maybe poach that, it was pretty good.
oh, how about $25 if Punkin'Head asks about his service records? That's the Prize.

Help me out here with a charity and some more watchwords...anyone else who wants to play and toss some bucks in is welcome to do so.

Seems that the Coalition of the Shilling and the UN (yeah, the one the republicans hate) are not so willing to play by the 1600 Crew's day-timer. Well, that's ok, but isn't there some way we can send the Neocons over there and bring our troops home. I mean aren't there at least 150,000 Certifiable Neocons out there?

The U.S. plan to hand over power in Iraq is increasingly likely to undergo major changes rather than merely "refinements," because of increasing skepticism about the June 30 deadline for creating a provisional government and erosion of support for the proposal to use caucuses to select it, according to senior U.S. and U.N. officials.
...
One option is extending the June 30 deadline for installing an Iraqi government to allow enough time for the direct elections demanded by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq's leading cleric. There is already talk about a hypothetical extension to Jan. 1, 2005.

This could mean that the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority would stay longer, which could carry political costs for President Bush in an election year and anger Iraqis who want an end to foreign occupation, U.S. officials concede.

So now the Liar-in-Chief has "graciously" decided to extend the deadline for the 9/11 commission report to July 26th.

President Bush reversed himself yesterday, agreeing to support a two-month extension of the deadline for completion of an independent investigation of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Yielding to pressure from the panel conducting the probe, the lawmakers who established it and families of victims, the White House set a schedule that calls for release of the unclassified version of the report by July 26, a month before Republicans gather for their national political convention near Ground Zero in New York City. Any extension of the deadline must be approved by Congress.

None of this report will ever see the light of day as long as the 1600 Crew has control, unless copious amounts of whitewash are liberally applied. After all, we would not want the Saudi's to know we know that we know what we know. Right?

Hey, I could get a job as a Smirky-qualified SpeechWhore. Nah.

Yeah, okay it's a golden oldie. It was right before I could vote. To this day, republicans who don't know any better laugh at George McGovern because he was a Dove in a time we were tearing ourselves apart over Vietnam. It mattered not to them that he stood and faced a fear flying Combat Bomber Missions over Europe in WWII that most of us will never know. He was excoriated by the right for his love of Peace, not his Love of War. Now he speaks again, and it's worth hearing his words.

I bested 16 other contenders in winning the nomination, with primary election victories in 11 states, including New York and California. Critics overlook the shooting of Gov. George Wallace of Alabama, who otherwise would have run as an independent, taking perhaps 20 million votes from Nixon. The formula for Nixon's landslide victory was the Wallace vote added to the Nixon vote. Critics also overlook my opponent's unprecedented campaign spending. Most of his negative television ads were designed to paint me as an extreme radical uninterested in the defense of the country. This even though I was a decorated combat bomber pilot in World War II, while Nixon was stationed far from battle.

I'm proud of my war service, but today I'm more interested in peace. I certainly don't want any more wars like the one in Iraq -- a country that posed no threat to us and had nothing to do with Sept. 11, 2001. There seem to be no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. But here at home, 100,000 Americans die each year from alcoholism. Multitudes are suffering from clinical depression or obesity or other disorders. And in the world at large a child dies from hunger every five seconds. Those are the weapons of mass destruction that disturb my rest.
...
It has always seemed to me that the leaders who are the quickest to send our boys and our young to war are those who have never known war themselves.

One thing Sullivan should never comment on is the use of any medications, for cosmetic or other reasons by any other living human being (or even dead ones for that matter). The Duchess goes after Kerry today for Botox (I guess he finally got around to reading MoDo). So what if Kerry wants to spend his money on Botox after all it's his money. Not Sullivan's. And why is this even worthy of being an issue? Is the Sully hoping that somehow the whole issue will time-warp back to the 60's and cause Kerry not to go to Vietnam, be awarded a Silver Star, Bronze Star and Three Purple Hearts while Commander Codpiece was in a drunken stupor somewhere near Valdosta, Ga.?

Then of course in keeping with more SullySilliness he takes on Atrios over the issue of being an anonyblogger. Of course Sullivan has never, ever been anonymous on the internet. Nope. Not him.

That'll be the day we "find" the WMD's not the WMD-PRA's. Right?

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Wednesday he is not ready to conclude that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction before U.S. troops invaded to depose him last year.
...
Rumsfeld offered several examples of what he called “alternative views” about why no weapons have been discovered in Iraq, starting with the possibility that banned arms never existed.

‘Possible, but not likely’
“I suppose that’s possible, but not likely,” he said.

Other possibilities cited by Rumsfeld:

• Weapons may have been transferred to a third country before U.S. troops arrived in March.
• Weapons may have been dispersed throughout Iraq and hidden.
• Weapons existed but were destroyed by the Iraqis before the war started.

It'll be interesting to watch the spin get faster and tighter as the election grows closer. Preznit Give me no Turkee must be having WMD-PRA wet dreams now, as he grasps at any straws to make reality conform to his illusions.

Awww, CheneyBurton got caught with their hands in the cookie jar.

The Defense Department said yesterday that Halliburton Co. will reimburse the government $27.4 million for possible overcharges for food services in Iraq and Kuwait.
...
KBR runs dining facilities for soldiers and civilians under a Defense Department contract it won in 2001 to provide food, shelter and other logistical support to the U.S. military throughout the world. The company has been awarded $3.8 billion in work under the contract.

Sullivan says about the "Deserter Charge; not much there". Sort of the point Andrew me laddie, an Empty Flight Suit in Houston constitutes "Not Much There".

The totally resistible force meets the Immovable Object. Joementum went south.

Bye Joe, don't let the massless door hit you in the ass on the way out.

Since the Law of Unintended Irony still applies on the internet, I want to thank a certain female pop star from the Super Bowl Half Time Show. I for some reason (well the Mikey Powell post) got a ton of visits from now people looking for the object of Mikey's Wrath. Yeah, imagine that ... a sailor and a naked (not) lady.

Thanks for stopping by, hope you enjoyed DemVet, stop by again!

A Fearless Leader-appointed panel to investigate ... Fearless Leader. That's just too goddam funny.

The commission that President Bush will appoint to investigate the failures of prewar intelligence on Iraq will also review the CIA's misjudgments about weapons programs in Iran, Libya and North Korea, administration officials said yesterday.
...
White House press secretary Scott McClellan said the commission will incorporate the findings of the Iraq Survey Group; the weapons-hunting team is not expected to finish its work for months. "The Iraq Survey Group is doing its work, separately and apart from this commission," he said. "But it's important that their work -- that the commission look at their work as part of this broad assessment of our intelligence capabilities."
...
Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Bush "is showing strong leadership once again by establishing a panel of experts to perform a 'no holds barred' review of America's intelligence community to make it stronger and more effective in a post-9/11 world."

On the Clenis™.

Aww, now Colin "My Lai" Powell (okay, I resurrected that just for today) has said that ummmm, maybe he would not have been so quick on the trigger so to speak if he had only known more.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said yesterday that he does not know whether he would have recommended an invasion of Iraq if he had been told it had no stockpiles of banned weapons, even as he offered a broad defense of the Bush administration's decision to go to war.

Even without possessing chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein intended to acquire them and tried to maintain the capability of producing them in case international sanctions were lifted, Powell said in an interview. But he conceded that the administration's conviction that Hussein already had such weapons had made the case for war more urgent.

Fresh evidence emerged last night that Colin Powell, the US secretary of state, was so disturbed about questionable American intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction that he assembled a secret team to review the information he was given before he made a crucial speech to the UN security council on February 5.
...
Mr Powell's team removed dozens of pages of alleged evidence about Iraq's banned weapons and ties to terrorists from a draft of his speech, US News and World Report says today. At one point, he became so angry at the lack of adequate sourcing to intelligence claims that he declared: "I'm not reading this. This is bullshit," according to the magazine.

Presented with a script for his speech, Mr Powell suspected that Washington hawks were "cherry picking", the US magazine Newsweek also reports today. Greg Theilmann, a recently retired state department intelligence analyst directly involved in assessing the Iraqi threat, says that inside the Bush administration "there is a lot of sorrow and anger at the way intelligence was misused".

Kay "did say, with respect to stockpiles, we were wrong, terribly wrong," Powell said, flipping through the pages of Kay's transcript and quoting from selected sections. "But he also came to other conclusions that deal, I think, with intent and capability which resulted in a threat the president felt he had to respond to."

Other than bad hair and no mustache, what makes Kim Jong-Il any less deserving of the tender ministrations of the 1600 Crew than Saddam? Oh, right, no Oil, a huuuuge standing army and actual Weapons of Massive Freaking Destruction. And then of course there's the rose petal shortage in Pyongyang.

Eleanor Clift has a little op-eddie in Newsweek's on-line edition this week, don't know if it's in the dead-tree edition or not...don't subscribe, only read it in the "health professional's" waiting room, if available. Anyhow, Ms. Clift sort of picks up on the AWOLBUSH story, making a point we all know, if the Miserable Failure tries to match service records with either Kerry or Clark, it's a non-starter out of the gate.

The voters don't want to refight the Vietnam war, but with John Kerry looking like the likely nominee, Vietnam returns to the front pages. Kerry is accompanied on the campaign trail by the men he served with in the Mekong Delta. "I know a little something about aircraft carriers for real," he says, in an allusion to President George W. Bush's premature "Mission Accomplished" landing last spring on the USS Abraham Lincoln.
...
...Some GOP strategists envision television ads linking Kerry with Jane Fonda in order to undermine his credentials as a decorated war veteran.

Highlighting Kerry's antiwar activism is a risky strategy for the Republicans. To quote Kerry, who quotes the president: "Bring it on." If the election turns into a debate over war records, Bush can't win.

But I digress, Ms. Clift after giving Wes Clark the now-obligatory press thrashing for not opening a 55-gallon drum of whoop-ass on Michael Moore, seems to concede that perhaps more questions need to be answered by Fearless Leader for the record to be made clear.

He has not been candid about his absences from the Guard. After the Boston Globe story broke in 2000, Bush said through a spokesman that he has "some recollection" of attending drills during the time period in question, but conceded that he was not consistent. Records unearthed by the Globe showed that Bush was removed from flight status in August 1972 for failing to take his annual flight physical. Bush aides said he didn't take the physical because his personal physician was in Houston, and he was in Alabama working on a political campaign. But that explanation didn't hold up because flight physicals must be administered by certified Air Force flight surgeons, and Bush easily could have found one at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Ala., where he was living.

What was Fat Mikey Powell talking about here?

...Federal Communications Commission chief Michael Powell called it “a classless, crass and deplorable stunt.”

Gee, which would be more obscene, Janet Jackson's semi-bare breast or war?

Pretty sure I know the answer to that one. Colin Powell's fat little tribute to Nepotism seems to miss the point entirely

If there were ever a less noxious day of blogging by Sullivan, I'm not sure when it has been. He must really miss Bill Clinton.

Andrew wants soooo badly to see Kerry become a non-factor in the race to become the Democratic Nominee, he has made every possible accusation against Kerry except that he uses Botox, and that's only because he's a few days behind in his MoDo Blast-mail.

If either Kerry or Clark become the nominee, Sullivan will be deeper in hackery than at any point in his life spinning everything from the success at finding WMD-PRA to the massive fiscal restraint shown by the 1600 Crew. He'll certainly be spinning and shilling Fearless Leaders "dangerous service" keeeping the VC out of Alabama mail rooms and off of Ellington AFB in Houston. Bet on that. If Andrew mentions Jane Fonda and John Kerry as co-protestors of the Vietnam War in the same post, I'll kick in another 50 Bucks to Amnesty International, because I'm betting he'll do it. It will be part of the RoveCo spin (I hear it may actually be already).

What Andrew seems to miss is that perhaps voters actually want to hear more than the "nullity" that is Fearless Leader. It seems the the Duchess and others of her ilk that are clamoring for "thinking in sound bites" not real statements, because their child-like attention spans are overwhelmed by actual thinking and analysis (Mickey Kaus), not to mention actual reporting sans nicknames.

Let's see if we can do this statement thingy in terms that the Princess does not need to move her lips to read: Presidents with Actual Thinking and Intelligence (of all kinds) which lead to peace and prosperity: Good. Preznit who no read paper and has no ability to think and brings us war and deficits to eternity: Bad. See, less than 30 seconds and now you can move your lips again with the whole story in your head Andrew.

Brett Bursey, the man prosecuted by Snake-Handler Johnny and Spawn of Strom for a little constitutional free speech has a few words.

A Secret Service agent then told us we had to go to the free-speech zone. I offered to move again, and she said there was nowhere we could be but the free-speech zone. I told her that I was already in a free-speech zone — the United States of America — and she ordered a local cop to arrest me. The arresting officer told me the problem was the content of my sign.

I see the courage and valor of a hundred ... cowards in him. If there were ever a more chickenshit human being in the office of the president, I'm not sure who it was. History will remember this man, and it will not be kind.

They smile and deny it. They have prominent African-American spokes-folks up on daises with them at speeches. It's the one thing that they hold dearly, as the most effective part of Richard Nixon's Southern Strategy that coding, those words, those thoughts. The insidious way they find and exploit our "weaknesses", then tear our collective social fabric, with thoughts and words so ingrained that they sneak out when they least expect it.

A state senator used a racial slur to describe another legislator during an argument over a bill, prompting some black leaders to demand the senator's resignation.
Sen. Alex Deccio, R-Yakima, called Rep. Tom Campbell, R-Roy, a "n***** in the woodpile" during a meeting about health insurance reforms Thursday night. Both men are white. (I redacted the word, I can't stand it even in a news story, sorry).

The intent to demean and dehumanize opposition, even intra-party opposition is so strong in these people, it will be the downfall of us all. Civil discourse is no longer possible in the age of Manufactured Outrage, any arguments are met with straw-man rebuttals and ad hominem attacks on our Honor, Patriotism and Fidelity. Just take a look at "Senator" Deccio, what a shining example of a fine American.

Several folks around blogtopia have noted that the 1600 Crew has spent as much or more on their uncontested bid for election than some of the Democratic candidates. Many are wondering how this can be.

Spending to date has left ChimpCo with a mere $99 million or so in the bank for the general election and beating up whoever the eventual (winning) Democratic Nominee will be. Perhaps in the interest of protecting their investment CheneyBurton has formed a campaign management subsidiary and they're ... overbilling as is normal CheneyBurton Procedure. In which case I say, Go CheneyBurton! Spend that cash!!

So here I sit, looking out at the frozen wasteland that is my front yard and reading Roger Ailes blog about the maroons in Georgia. Well, the whole christo-fascist populace at large. How about a new name for them...something catchy, something with a beat; something we can dance to.

The Footloose Generation. And we're all only six-degrees away from knowing one.

While you were out vacationing in Crawford, taking those cat-naps or hanging with your rich homeboys at Camp David about 500-plus Americans braver than you got themselves killed so you could make sure CheneyBurton and your other campaign contributors got richer via their offshore job-stealing companies.

But wait, Dear Leader, now there's word that some more of the Brave Americans who have been sent to Iraq to play in your mythical republican word games (imminent) are trying to take their own lives, and some have succeeded. Are you not ashamed? No, because being a Fuck-Up means never having to say you're sorry.

Texas Army Specialist Joseph Suell told his mother he wasn't cut out to fight the Iraq war.

"He said 'Momma I haven't killed anybody here and I hope I never have to kill anybody,'" said Rena Mathis.

Instead, the 24-year-old husband and father of three apparently took his own life.
...
An army study three years ago forecast an impending soldier-suicide crisis, but critics say it was largely ignored until more than 600 U.S. soldiers began being evacuated from Iraq for psychiatric reasons.

"I tried to blow my head off with my weapon and then one split second more and I would have succeeded," one soldier said. "I mean I had the gun to my head with the safety off, with the round chambered."

McNamara wanted to know, "What saved you?"

"They did, they took the weapon away from me," he answered.

SPC Suell and many others will be looking for the answers as they sit in silent judgement of your actions. I doubt you have too many coherent anwers. You never do.

Yours truly,

Jo Fish, a guy who actually kept his oath.

So, maybe we have Peter Jennings, Michael Moore and Wes Clark to thank for this. I hope. Seems that at a rally in South Carolina, someone is finally starting the fireworks over the AWOL issue. More importantly, it's getting some traction in the media.

Speaking to about 250 veterans and South Carolina voters at a town-hall-style forum, four days before the state's primary, former US senator Max Cleland of Georgia introduced Kerry as a combat leader with the caring touch of Shakespeare's Henry V, while accusing Bush of shirking his military duty during the Vietnam era.

"We need somebody who has felt the sting of battle, not someone who didn't even complete his tour stateside in the Guard," said Cleland, who lost three limbs in Vietnam, in a reference to allegations that Bush, who stopped flying with the Texas Air National Guard in 1972, did not fulfill the last two years of his military obligation.

For some reason I just don't think you are going to find too many highly-visible republican veterans sticking up for Fearless Leader's service record. If any do, I'm betting that the only comment will be something along the lines of 'National Guard Service was valuable too' ... a la John McCain. I never understood why McCain fell in line with that, especially after the way the Chimp campaign savaged him in South Carolina...

Well, the Miserable Failure can at least count on Dan Quayle, oh no, wait, he actually showed up.

botox

AWOL

botox

AWOL

let's see if there is intelligent life outside blogtopia.

1. Press Secretary Droppings
   
2. It's heeere!
   
3. Blogging Lite Tonite
   
4. Pardonez Moi?
   
5. Better AWOL Stuff still coming out
   
6. Rick, There's Gambling going on here...etc
   
7. Punkin' Chimpy for Charity
   
8. Sick of Iraq...just you wait
   
9. Buck Fush
   
10. McGovern For President