Saturday, July 10, 2004
How Can the Democrats Win? | Jesse Jackson's new Atkins Diet | The PATRIOT Act lives on | More dirty tricks by the Republicans
John Kerry talks with Rev. Jesse Jackson prior to addressing the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition in Chicago.
Image courtesy: Scott Olson, Getty Images/USA Today
What liberal media? Within 24 hours of the Democratic ticket announcement, it was knives out by the media questioning Edwards' supposed lack of experience to be a heartbeat away from the presidency. Where were these pundits when George Bush was running in 2000? (The Arizona Republic)
GOP SOP: the Republicans resort yet again to fear mongering to keep the "War on Terror" on the front burner and as a distraction away from Bush's failures everywhere else in his administration. (Newsday)
"The outlook is pretty grim. Right now, it's not a choice between war and no war. It's a choice between war and endless war" -- Anonymous, an unnamed top CIA official who is the author of Imperial Hubris -- Why the West is Losing the War on Terror, a new book that argues not only that Al Qaeda is not on the run but that the Iraq war has actually helped Bin Laden recruit a new generation of terrorist recruits.
Meanwhile the intelligence reports used to make the case for the Iraq war were almost all overstated, not supported by the facts, or simply wrong, a Senate panel concluded yesterday after a yearlong investigation into prewar information about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. (full story at The Boston Globe)
And Jason at 1115.org puts you up on game about how the Pentagon claims to have destroyed payroll records specifically covering the three month period in 1972 and 1973 when President Bush's claims of Air national Guard service in Alabama have been called into question. (related: The New York Times coverage)
The Republican-led House bowed to a White House veto threat Thursday and stood by the USA Patriot Act, defeating an effort to block the part of the anti-terrorism law that helps the government investigate people's reading habits. (full story at The Chicago Sun-Times)
A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit Tuesday by a former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds (sexist side note: hottie alert on Ms. Edmonds) because the information needed to prove the case was classified and protected by what is known as the "state secrets privilege." Yet more game by the basically one-party government we're all currently living under. (full story at CNN.com)
John B. Judis, Spencer Ackerman & Massoud Ansari on US government attempts to pressure Pakistan into delivering news of the killing or capture of Osama bin Laden, his deputy, Ayman Al Zawahiri, or the Taliban's Mullah Mohammed Omar in time to upstage the Democratic National Convention. Is there no end to the shame of these people? (The New Republic)
Bush is one thing but isn't Tony Blair too smart to only now be coming to this realization? British Prime Minister Tony Blair has said that weapons of mass destruction may never be found in Iraq, but he insisted former leader Saddam Hussein had posed a threat to "the wider world." (full story CNNInternational.com)
Jesse Jackson says: "I'm on a low-carb diet: no Cheney, no Ashcroft, no Rumsfeld, no Bush and very little Rice...." Exactly. (from USA Today)
And Rick Perlstein asks How Can the Democrats Win? (at Boston Review plus related: responses from prominent Democrats)
Well at least the New York Post has a sense of humor about their cover gaffe earlier this week. (Gothamist)
Finally to end: suprise, suprise Bush, yet again, refused to address the annual NAACP convention having now declined invitations in each year of his presidency and becoming the first president since Herbert Hoover not to attend. Kerry is scheduled to speak next Thursday on the final day of the convention. (CNN.com)
