NB Extra

CHENEY: Terrorism has nothing to do with Iraq war.

I suppose they would argue that that's a capsule of Cheney's comments that 9/11 happened before we invaded, but aren't those capsules there specifically for people who are just finding their seats? Perhaps they might try something that actually reflects what he said, something like:

"CHENEY: 9/11 preceded Iraq invasion."

MRC Free Market Project's Amy Menefee gives two thumbs down to Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Living over at freemarketproject.org.

Writes Menefee, "claims against the company in [producer Robert] Greenwald’s film were undermined by his hyperbole and his staunch refusal to acknowledge the way Wal-Mart really impacted communities – paying millions in taxes, employing thousands, and saving countless shoppers millions of dollars."

There are two absolutely extraordinary aspects of this story. One is that Bill Clinton, a former President of the United States, offered the “good German” defense of the murderers, torturers, and rapists who worked for Saddam Hussein, and he did so on foreign soil. Equally extraordinary, however, is the fact that only Newsmax.com, and an on-line publication called Village Soup in Maine, bothered to report this comment. Here is the quote:

"When [the U.S.] kicked out Saddam, they decided to dismantle the whole authority structure," Clinton told an audience at American University in Dubai. "Most of the people who were part of that structure were good, decent people who were making the best out of a very bad situation," he added.

Source: http://www.villagesoup.com/commletters/letters.cfm?TopicID=6534

The headline, “US Has Detained 83,000 in War on Terror”, greeted me when I logged on the Internet on Wed. Nov. 16 after lunch.  I was stunned. Where were all the prisoners being held?  Was this another leak from the CIA?  I clicked on the link without thinking twice.

Surprise, Surprise – another AP story extolling the negatives from Iraq.  Another day, another negative story from the AP.

The article opens with the statement “The United States has detained more than 83,000 foreigners in the four years of the war on terror, enough to nearly fill the NFL’s largest stadium”.  Since when do we equate the war on terror and terrorists with the size of football stadiums? I have yet to see an article where the writer compared the number of Coalition soldiers and Iraqi civilians killed by the terrorists in Iraq to the capacity of a sports arena.  I was at a loss trying to understand why such a comparison was necessary or appropriate.

Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne, Jr.’s op-ed yesterday did not mince words. In Dionne’s view, the president’s speech on Veterans Day was pure, “partisan politics” that “will only add to his troubles.” Dionne’s contention was that the president is just continuing a pattern of partisan attacks that he started in October 2002 as Congress was debating the Iraq war resolution:

“There is a great missing element in the argument over whether the administration manipulated the facts. Neither side wants to talk about the context in which Bush won a blank check from Congress to invade Iraq. He doesn't want us to remember that he injected the war debate into the 2002 midterm election campaign for partisan purposes, and he doesn't want to acknowledge that he used the post-Sept. 11 mood to do all he could to intimidate Democrats from raising questions more of them should have raised.”

So, I guess we shouldn't be surprised to find zero mention by the media, even with tongue in cheek, of CODEPINK's "Letter from God" delivered by Lea Arellano , applauding the group for their efforts. Which, by the way, I ran across while researching for a piece on CODEPINK's upcoming anti-military recruitment invasion on school campuses and recruitment offices this week, with their "Not Your Soldier" & "National Stand Down" student days on November 17th & 18th.

Did Democratic Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia tip off our enemies in the Middle East in early 2002 that President Bush was readying to invade Iraq?

Bill Bennett, in a new article at National Review Online, is questioning a possible "prewar intelligence giveaway" in light of remarks that Sen. Rockefeller made to Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday on November 13, 2005. In responding to a question that Sen. Rockefeller himself "hyped" intelligence, here's what the vice chairman of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence told Wallace (emphasis mine):

ROCKEFELLER: ... I took a trip by myself in January of 2002 to Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria, and I told each of the heads of state that it was my view that George Bush had already made up his mind to go to war against Iraq — that that was a predetermined set course which had taken shape shortly after 9/11.

There’s been a lot of suggestion by the media lately -- especially since the elections last Tuesday -- that the Republican Party is in dire trouble, and could lose control of the House and the Senate in 2006. For those interested in a side of this debate that the media are ignoring, you should watch today’s “Meet the Press,” in particular the second-half with DNC chairman Howard Dean.

Some of the pertinent exchanges of note:

DR. DEAN:  I think Democrats always have to stand up and tell the truth and that's what we're doing.  The truth is that the president misled America when he sent us to war.  They did--he even didn't tell the truth in the speech he gave.  First of all, think there were a lot of veterans were kind of upset that the president chose their day to make a partisan speech. 

Every now and then, America wakes up to hear the nonsensical and pathetic whinings of what many believe to be America's worst president in the last 50 years.  I refer to Jimmy Carter, who lately, cannot seem to appreciate the immortal words of Clintonista James Carville, who pondered over the wise and sagacious "glory of the unspoken thought."

In Carter's case, that would mean honoring the unwritten yet scrupulously-adhered to history of former presidents not attacking a sitting-president.  Carter not only throws this maxim out the window, he even writes a book about it.