The Beltway as Bret Michaels
In 17 words, Gabriel Sherman unwittingly sums up precisely what is wrong with American campaign journalism:
[T]he press wants to put its love somewhere, and, right now, that love is up for grabs.
Fuck the public interest–it’s all about who’s ready to rock Adam Nagourney’s world!
h/t Atrios
Sphere: Related ContentHow To Do Illegal Torture and Get Away With It
That’s the way Spencer Ackerman sums up the gist of the August 2002 Torture Memo — one of three memos that the ACLU received today pursuant to an FOIA request:
Sphere: Related ContentThat Was the Sheikh That Was
McCain’s attempts to get his cart before the horse analysis of the surge to make sense have only dug him in deeper:
Sphere: Related ContentOn John Edwards ‘Love Child’
“Double standard!” cries Slate media critic Jack Shafer. “An elaborate cover up!” whines hacktacular OG ‘even the liberal’ blogger Mickey Kaus. ‘Liberal bias!’ wails the wingnutosphere (surprise, surprise).
All that self-righteous sturm und drang simply because the MSM hasn’t dove on recent reports from that bastion of responsible journalism, The National Enquirer, alleging that former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards cheated on his wife, Elizabeth, with a woman named Reille Hunter.
Sphere: Related ContentNas Puts It Down
This is the man that will hand Fox News a petition with 600,000 signatures on it demanding that they stop spewing racial propaganda against the Obamas and black people. Fitting.
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Traveling Back in Time To Justify the Surge
Here’s the bottom line about McCain’s verbal typos: People would not make so much of them if McCain’s statements on foreign policy made sense in a larger, general context. Obama sometimes misstates facts that obviously he knows, out of exhaustion (like “57 states”), but he does not make extended statements or speeches about foreign policy that are substantively and factually wrong.
Sphere: Related ContentHomeland Insecurity in the US Dividing Refugee Families
Steve Lannen of the Lexington Herald-Leader reports on the unintended consequences of so-called ‘material support’ provisions contained within the Patriot Act:
Losi Grodya works two jobs, has a driver’s license, is working on a community college degree and is readying to take her U.S. citizenship exam.
Despite all she has accomplished since settling in Lexington as a refugee from her native Democratic Republic of Congo nearly six years ago, she feels helpless when she talks on the phone with her daughters. Their home has been a Rwandan refugee camp for the past four years.
”They ask me when they are coming. Why is it taking so long? They tell me since I am in America, I must be able to do something to get them to come, but I’ve tried everything I can,“ Grodya said. ”I just want them to come here so we can all be together again. … But I can’t even do that.“
Her daughters, who as of late January were approved by U.S. officials to join her in Lexington as refugees, have seen their cases caught up in a post-9/11 provision in the Patriot Act that bars people from entering the United States if suspected of aiding a terrorist group.
[...]
After months of delay, Grodya learned last week that her daughters are suspected of providing material support to a terrorist group. But she doesn’t know precisely what they are suspected of doing.
Grodya’s five daughters have shared stories not of complicity, but of kidnapping and rape in a country torn apart by decadelong conflict, she said. She fears they have not told her the worst, but that what they have said ”is now being turned against them.“
Unfortunately, because it wasn’t published in the New York Times or the Washington Post, the story of Losi Grodya–and the broader issue underlying her plight–likely won’t get the attention it deserves. But hopefully a little blogospheric momentum will help broaden its impact. So, please, read the whole thing, blog about it, pass it along to your friends, your colleagues, and your Congresscritters.
Sphere: Related ContentJewsOnFirst.org Pwns Pastor John Hagee; Greenwald Nails Joe Lieberman
(Christian) Zionism: yr doin it wrong:
I’m with Glenn: Serious Centrist™ Joe Lieberman is totally getting a whiteboy pass from the media for appearing at an event sponsored by this anti-Semitic extremist.
Sphere: Related ContentPolitico on McCain’s Treacherous Tongue
It’s not his age or his mental acuity, folks. It’s because he “spends much more time than Obama talking extemporaneously, taking questions from voters and reporters.”
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said “Iraq” on Monday when he apparently meant “Afghanistan”, adding to a string of mixed-up word choices that is giving ammunition to the opposition.
Just in the past three weeks, McCain has also mistaken “Somalia” for ”Sudan,” and even football’s Green Bay Packers for the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Ironically, the errors have been concentrated in what should be his area of expertise: foreign affairs.
McCain will turn 72 the day after Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) accepts his party’s nomination for president at the age of 47, calling new attention to the sensitive issue of McCain’s advanced age three days before the start of his own convention.
But McCain’s mistakes raise a serious, if uncomfortable question: Are the gaffes the result of his age? And what could that mean in the Oval Office?
I, for one, don’t think McCain makes so many “slips of the tongue” because he’s 72. I think he makes them because he’s not very bright, and really isn’t interested or curious or mentally agile enough to have the geopolitical knowledge and understanding that is essential for intelligent foreign policy.
Put more tartly, McCain really doesn’t know s**t about foreign policy.
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The Images The Right Does Not Want America To See
Al Rodgers at DailyKos has put together a tremendous collection of videos and pictures from Barack Obama’s visit to the Middle East.
Click on the first video and see the incredible reception Barack receives from the troops and staff members at the U.S. Embassy.
I’ve jacked one picture here, but click on the link and check out the whole thing.
Sphere: Related ContentHooray for Hillary
It’s been a long time since I’ve written “hooray” and “Hillary” in such close proximity, but this piece of hers in The Huffington Post — about the Bush administration’s planned new “rules” that would block access to many common forms of contraception for the very women who need them the most — is terrific:
Sphere: Related ContentThe Bush administration is up to its old tricks again, quietly putting ideology before science and women’s health. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is poised to put in place new barriers to accessing common forms of contraception like birth control pills, emergency contraception and IUDs by labeling them “abortion.” These proposed regulations set to be released next week will allow healthcare providers to refuse to provide contraception to women who need it. We can’t let them get away with this underhanded move to undermine women’s health and that’s why I am sounding the alarm.
These rules pose a serious threat to providers and uninsured and low-income Americans seeking care. They could prevent providers of federally-funded family planning services, like Medicaid and Title X, from guaranteeing their patients access to the full range of comprehensive family planning services. They’ll also build significant barriers to counseling, education, contraception and preventive health services for those who need it most: low-income and uninsured women and men.
The regulations could even invalidate state laws that currently ensure access to contraception for many Americans. In fact, they describe New York and California’s laws requiring prescription drug insurance plans to provide coverage for contraceptives as part of “the problem.” These rules would even interfere with New York State law that ensures survivors of sexual assault and rape receive emergency contraception in hospital emergency rooms.
We’ve seen this kind of ideologically driven move from the Bush administration before. Senator Patty Murray and I went toe to toe with the Bush administration to demand a decision on Plan B by the FDA. We won that fight and we need to win this one too.
Fun With Maps
Matthew Yglesias has some irresistible snark on that fictional border between Iraq and Pakistan.
Domenico Montanaro explains that McCain “probably meant to say the Afghanistan-Pakistan border as they were talking about Afghanistan and there is no Iraq-Pakistan border. ” Montanaro also passes on the Republican defense to McCain’s many flubs:
Republicans have pointed out Obama telling CBS he’d be dealing with Maliki for the next eight to 10 years. They have snarkily said apparently Obama wants to change the Constitution because the most a president can serve is eight years. If Obama were to serve two terms, that would be about eight-and-a-half years from now. Republicans also point out that it’s been 925 days since Obama has been to Iraq, but McCain has been there eight times.
And he still doesn’t know which countries border Iraq.
Sphere: Related ContentDo You Have To Know Geography To Be Good at Foreign Policy?
So far, Barack Obama has not made any faux pas in his trip to Afghanistan and Iraq — but John McCain has:
… In a verbal flub that will spark renewed recollections of his Shiite/Sunni miscue earlier this year while he was visiting the Middle East, he erroneously reconfigured the map of the world.
Asked on ABC about the uptick in violence by Islamic extremists in Afghanistan, he replied: “We have a lot of work to do and I’m afraid it’s a very hard struggle, particularly given the situation on the Iraq/Pakistan border.”
Iraq borders several nations, but Pakistan is not among them — looming between the two is Iran. (Pakistan’s neighbors, however, include Afghanistan).
Steve Benen has the video.
Sphere: Related ContentBREAKING: Radovan Karadzic Arrested
Good news for human rights accountability as Radovan Karadzic - the Bosnian Serb politician indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal - has reportedly been arrested.
Al-Maliki Is Foremost A Politician
As many are, I have been watching the comments coming from Iraqi PM Nouri Al-Maliki with some amusement as he twists John McCain and the Right in knots about US troop withdrawal from Iraq. Josh Marshall, as one might expect, has numerous posts with all the walkbacks and reverse walkbacks, etc.
But the major point being missed by many is that Al-Maliki really has no choice but to expressly support a US troop withdrawal in the very near future. Iraqi elections are right around the corner and his electoral opponents are undoubtedly making hay of the continued presence of, to paraphrase them, “an occupying army.” Al-Maliki will do what he needs to do to pick-up votes that can’t be manipulated in other ways. Hell, the guy was just passing out cash to voters on the streets of Baghdad.
While this may help Obama - if the media gives it much coverage - I still would warn those on the left to be wary of Al-Maliki. My belief is that he is taking this position solely out of political necessity.
I gotta admit, though, it sure is fun watching the contortions righties like Patterico are going through, over and over, pushing for a rewrite of what Al-Maliki is saying. Pat, as Atrios might say, check the kerning, buddy. I bet if you do, you’ll ultimately find that Al-Maliki is saying Iraqis love and support John McCain’s policy of “America Forever in Iraq!”
Sphere: Related ContentOn Kangaroo Courts and Dry Runs: Hamden is Ready For His Close-Up
Tomorrow marks an historic occasion: the first military commission trial of a so-called ‘enemy combatant’ in the War on Terror is scheduled to take place at beautiful, sunny Guantanamo. And Osama Bin Laden’s chauffeur–a prime example of “the worst of the worst”, IMO–is the lucky duck who’s been given the opportunity to see post-9/11 justice in action:
Sphere: Related ContentA Real Hero
The word “hero” is SO overused today that it’s possible to forget what a hero actually is. This woman was a hero. She died two months ago, but I only just learned that she even existed. This Guardian article is from a year ago, on the occasion of the Polish government’s issuing a special resolution honoring her as a national hero:
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