Manscape

Did you have any problem with the US Supreme Court decision propelling MONKEY BOY to his year 2000 minority-vote presidential election victory, Sen. Graham? Or the US Supreme Court decision to uphold eminent domain in New London, CT. allowing government to SEIZE private homes NOT for civil infrastructure but for land developers, Grahamsy? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooooooooo.............. http://www.politico.com/blogs/thecrypt/060...if_necessa.html June 12, 2008 Categories: Iraq GOP blast Gitmo decision, Graham says he is willing to push for a constitutional amendment if necessary Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) vowed Thursday to do everything in his power to overturn the Supreme Court’s decision on Guantanamo Bay detainees, saying that, “if necessary,” he would push for a constitutional amendment to modify the decision. A former military prosecutor, Graham blasted the decision as “irresponsible and outrageous,” echoing the sentiments of many congressional Republicans and President Bush. Earlier in the day, the court ruled 5-4 that suspected terrorists held by the U.S. military at Guantanamo Bay have the right to challenge their detention in federal court. When talking to reporters Thursday afternoon, Graham cautioned that it he was still digesting the decision but said he was “looking at every way I can to modify this position,” including fighting to change the statute. “The American people are going to wake up tomorrow and be shocked to hear that a member of Al Qaeda has the same constitutional rights as an American citizen,” said Graham. “[Even] the Nazis never had that right.” Speaking to reporters in Italy, President Bush also said he disagreed with the court’s ruling, but said he would respect it. “We'll abide by the Court's decision,” said Bush. “That doesn't mean I have to agree with it. It's a deeply divided Court, and I strongly agree with those who dissented, and their dissent was based upon their serious concerns about U.S. national security.” Bush said he would study the opinion and “determine whether or not additional legislation might be appropriate” in order to protect the American people. Other prominent Republicans weighed in as well, with nearly all criticizing the decision. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) accused the court of "moving the goal posts on what the constitution requires" by changing the existing law regarding the rights of detainees. "It is up to us now to try and come back and address the court's concerns," said Cornyn, who said the decision should prompt Congress to review the Military Commission Act and possibly the Detainee Treatment Act. That might be a tall order for Senate Republicans, as Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) said earlier in the day he sees no need to revisit the two laws in light of the court's decision. Other Republicans focused on what the decision might mean for troops on the battlefield. “This decision will come at a cost,” said Rep. Duncan Hunter of California, the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee. “The Supreme Court just moved us closer to the day when U.S. Marine rifle teams will have to have lawyers read Miranda rights to terrorists captured on the battlefield.” By Daniel W. Reilly 03:37 PM

I'll take my chances with Barack Obama's written/spoken representation of himself and you can bet your prostate I'm NO Dem. At this late date, after the Bush regime epic disasters, anyone opting to reward Reublican John McCain with a vote is either a party cultist, a racist who won't vote for a black guy (a mullato actually) or a ravishing nincompoop. Do you people have ANY concept of the hypocritical embarassment silver spoon raised Keating Five member wrecker of 5 fighter jet planes and accused cause of the USS Forrestal aircraft carrier disaster that Bulgeface John McCain is? John McCain's Skeleton Closet John McCain is a maverick senator, Vietnam veteran and former prisoner of war for 5 years in North Vietnam. In 2000, he nearly beat George W. Bush by being an outspoken, even honest politician, which stunned everybody. He also is known for crafting bipartisan approaches to issues such as smoking and campaign reform. This time around though, at 71, he apparently decided "now or never" and seems to have sold his soul, suddenly adopting a bunch of boilerplate conservative positions he was brave enough to resist 8 years ago. Now, conveniently, he's even claiming to be a Baptist instead of an Episcopalian. It didn't look like anyone was buying it for a while there, but danged if he hasn't come back and pretty much sewed up the Republican nomination. McCain went from front runner to 3rd or 4th in various polls, spent all of his huge pile of cash and lost most of his staff, and worked his way back into a dominant position. Here are some negative allegations: Affairs -- Religion Shopping -- A Junkie Wife -- Keating 5 -- Mafia Ties -- Quotes -- Sources -- << Return To Skeleton Closet Main Page That New Time Religion John McCain grew up Episcopalian. He went to an Episcopalian high school. For at least 15 years, he has been listed as an Episcopalian in authoritative directories such as the Almanac of American Politics and Congressional Quarterly's Politics in America 2008. He told a reporter from McClatchy News Service in June 2007 that he was an Episcopalian. Suddenly, in September 2007, he's campaigning in South Carolina, the heavily Baptist state where George W. Bush barely managed to stop McCain's presidential campaign 8 years ago. And guess what? McCain tells a reporter "By the way, I'm not Episcopalian. I'm Baptist." When pressed, he said he's attended the North Phoenix Baptist Church in Arizona for more than 15 years, though he has never been baptized in that church. Now see, that's exactly the problem. Baptism is kind of a big thing in the Baptist Church. (That's how they got the name.) No baptism, not Baptist. Anyway, details aside, this is one very clear indication of how McCain has changed. Now, he's just another hungry politician, happy to pander if it helps him win. Which eliminates the very reason people were excited about him in 2000 -- his honesty. Founding Member of the Keating Five Back in the old days, defendants in famous trials got numbers -- the Chicago Eight, the Gang of Four, the Dave Clark Five, the Daytona 500. McCain was one of the "Keating Five," congressmen investigated on ethics charges for strenuously helping convicted racketeer Charles Keating after he gave them large campaign contributions and vacation trips. Charles Keating was convicted of racketeering and fraud in both state and federal court after his Lincoln Savings & Loan collapsed, costing the taxpayers $3.4 billion. His convictions were overturned on technicalities; for example, the federal conviction was overturned because jurors had heard about his state conviction, and his state charges because Judge Lance Ito (yes, that judge) screwed up jury instructions. Neither court cleared him, and he faces new trials in both courts.) Though he was not convicted of anything, McCain intervened on behalf of Charles Keating after Keating gave McCain at least $112,00 in contributions. In the mid-1980s, McCain made at least 9 trips on Keating's airplanes, and 3 of those were to Keating's luxurious retreat in the Bahamas. McCain's wife and father-in-law also were the largest investors (at $350,000) in a Keating shopping center; the Phoenix New Times called it a "sweetheart deal." Mafia ties: In 1995, McCain sent birthday regards, and regrets for not attending, to Joseph "Joe Bananas" Bonano, the head of the New York Bonano crime family, who had retired to Arizona. Another politician to send regrets was Governor Fife Symington, who has since been kicked out of office and convicted of 7 felonies relating to fraud and extortion. Family Problems McCain has a reputation as a politician who has difficulty keeping his pants zipped, according to Republican sources. He acknowledges that his adultery broke up his first marriage. His second wife Cindy, the daughter of a wealthy Budweiser beer distributor, was addicted to prescription narcotics and even stole hard drugs from a medical charity that she ran. McCain acknowledges that she didn't want him to run, and only agreed once he promised that she doesn't have to go to New Hampshire or Iowa. Quotes: - Leonardo DiCaprio is "an androgynous wimp." -- McCain. - "The thought of [McCain] being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me." -- Senator Thad Cochran of Mississippi, who has known McCain for 35 years. Sources: "McCain Says He's Been Baptist For Years", by Bruce Smith, The Associated Press, September 12, 2007 "Candidates invite questions about their faith", by Stephen Dinan, Washington Times, September 18, 2007 "The Pampered Politician", by Amy Silverman, The Phoenix New Times, May 15, 1997 "See John Run Off at the Mouth", Phoenix New Times, October 1, 1998 "Opiate for the Mrs.", Phoenix New Times, September 8, 1994 "Flashes: What's Up, Murdoch?", Phoenix New Times, September 17, 1998 the US Veteran's Dispatch web site. "Symington Gets Slammer", Phoenix New Times, February 2, 1998 Election 98: Arizona Governor, Fox News web site, 1998 coverage (no longer on web) "Keating Gets New Trial", CNNfn Web Site, December 2, 1996 "No More Wagging,", (editorial) by Maureen Dowd, The New York Times, January 3, 1999 "John McCain, rock-and-roll dad", by Andrew Essex, The New Yorker Magazine, December 6, 1999 p52 "Unmasking Darth McCain", by William Cleeland, The Daily Illini, March 9, 2001 "Famed McCain Temper is Tamed", By Michael Kranish Boston Globe, January 27, 2008 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Return To Top << Return To Skeleton Closet Main Page Paid for by Real People For Real Change and not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee. Copyright 2007 Real People For Real Change

How many times have you heard one j*rkoff or another bellow that Barack Obama is a Muslim or that he was NOT born in the USA or whatever OTHER outrageous "swiftboat" falsehood that can be passed off? Now you can get the FACTS, not "FIX" (noose).......if you have the decency to seek the truth! http://my.barackobama.com:80/page/content/...tthesmearshome/

This malevolent, bigoted television entity has preyed upon America for too long. It is the Bush regime clarion of choice and the wave of delivery for the much of the sad consequences we have come to know in modern America..............."FIX NOOSE"......... http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080613/ts_al...ZW0ZSxgnMhh24cA Fox News calls 'Obama Baby Mama' graphic poor judgment 31 minutes ago WASHINGTON (AFP) - US cable network Fox News found itself in hot water this week after referring to Barack Obama's wife as "Obama's Baby Mama" and asking if a gesture the Obamas exchanged was a "terrorist fist jab." A graphic with the words "Outraged Liberals: Stop Picking on Obama's Baby Mama!" displayed Wednesday during a Fox interview about whether Michelle Obama has been unfairly targeted by critics sparked outrage from political commentators and set the blogosphere humming. "Where do you even start when criticizing Fox's slur? Do you try to explain that 'baby mama' is slang for the unmarried mother of a man's child, and not his wife, or even a girlfriend?" Joan Walsh wrote on Slate.com, which spotted the graphic. A top Fox official said use of the graphic showed poor judgment. "A producer on the program exercised poor judgment in using this chyron during the segment," Fox's Senior Vice President of Programming Bill Shine told Politico.com. Fox, which Democrats accuse of displaying a right-wing bias in its coverage, earlier this week came under criticism for comments from one of its anchors. ED Hill lost her show after asking on air if a gesture between Barack and Michelle Obama on the night he claimed the Democratic nomination was a "terrorist fist jab." "A fist bump? A pound? A terrorist fist jab? The gesture everyone seems to interpret differently," Hill said ahead of a segment on body language on the June 6 edition of her afternoon news show "America's Pulse." The knuckle tap exchanged by the Obamas just before she exited the platform where he was to claim the nomination at a packed arena in Minnesota on June 3 generated a flood of ink and air in the US media. Commentators analyzed the second-long gesture, suggesting it was intimate, hip, African-American, never-before-seen among political power couples, or just plain lacking in decorum. The Washington Post called it "the fist bump heard 'round the world." The Boston Globe wrote: "The Obamas are proposing that the fist bump ... is the public-display-of-affection of change, the pucker-up of the future. And this, as much as anything Obama has espoused, is something of a mini-revolution." Hill appears to be the only one knocked over by the fist bump. Her show was dropped from Fox's afternoon lineup on June 10, but she was to remain at the network, where she is a ten-year veteran, in an as-yet unspecified capacity, US media said

The Bush nightmare without end....... http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/poli...8_bush29.html?4 $4-a-gallon gas? Predictions surprise Bush By Seattle Times news services RON EDMONDS / AP President Bush speaks Thursday during a news conference at the White House. Related Pelosi seeks investigation of Bush aides Archive | Gas prices soaring as crude oil tops $101 WASHINGTON — The bulletin reached President Bush toward the end of his news conference Thursday. Peter Maer of CBS News Radio asked: "What's your advice to the average American who is hurting now, facing the prospect of $4-a-gallon gasoline, a lot of people facing ... " "Wait, what did you just say?" the president interrupted. "You're predicting $4-a-gallon gasoline?" Maer responded: "A number of analysts are predicting $4-a-gallon gasoline." Bush's rejoinder: "Oh, yeah? That's interesting. I hadn't heard that." The president, once known for his common-guy skills, sounded eerily like his father, who in 1992 seemed amazed to discover that supermarkets had bar-code scanners. The $4-a-gallon forecasts were reported widely in newspapers and on TV in the past week. The White House press secretary took a question about $4 gas at her Wednesday media briefing. A poll last month found that nearly three-quarters of Americans expect $4-a-gallon gas. The president, however, had difficulty grasping the possibility, even after Maer told him. "You just said the price of gasoline may be up to $4 a gallon — or some expert told you that," Bush repeated. "That creates a lot of uncertainty." Bush's acknowledged unfamiliarity with the recent cost of gasoline produced some fumes at the pump. At a Shell service station in San Mateo, Calif., the price of a gallon of regular had already reached $4.29, well above the California average of $3.42, as measured by AAA. "Bush is out of touch with a lot of things we are facing today," said Marisa Cajbon, 33, who was filling her Toyota Sequoia SUV. "I have to buy gas. I need to work. I have two kids. I think it's unfortunate. I think it's a crime." Bush also tried to put the best spin he could on months of bleak economic news. "I don't think we're headed to a recession, but no question we're in a slowdown," he said. When NBC's David Gregory invited him to criticize Democratic presidential candidates for not knowing much about the expected new Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, Bush replied: "I don't know much about Medvedev, either." Agence France-Presse's Olivier Knox asked Bush why he was going to the Olympics in China despite the country's human-rights record. "I'm a sports fan," the president said. Bush waded into presidential politics, criticizing the Democratic contenders for their positions on free trade and taking particular aim at Sen. Barack Obama for his comments about the wisdom of meeting the new leader of Cuba. Bush did not attack by name either Obama or his rival for the party's nomination, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. But there was no masking his disdain for the Democrats' positions on several campaign issues, including the war, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the political transition in Cuba. While both Democratic candidates have called for renegotiating NAFTA, the president stood behind the pact. "The idea of just unilaterally withdrawing from a trade treaty because of trying to score political points is not good policy," he said. He reserved his harshest comments for Obama's recent statement that he would be willing to meet the new leader of Cuba, Raul Castro, "without preconditions." Bush has refused to meet with foreign adversaries such as Kim Jong Il of North Korea and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran. "What's lost by embracing a tyrant who puts his people in prison because of their political beliefs?" Bush said in reference to Castro. "What's lost is it will send the wrong message. It will send a discouraging message to those who wonder whether America will continue to work for the freedom of prisoners." Bush went on: "I'm not suggesting there's never a time to talk, but I'm suggesting now is not the time — not to talk with Raul Castro." But "sitting down at the table, having your picture taken with a tyrant such as Raul Castro, for example, lends the status of the office and the status of our country to him," Bush said. "He gains a lot from it by saying, 'Look at me, I'm now recognized by the president of the United States.' " Material from The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times and Chicago Tribune is included in this report. Copyright © 2008 The Seattle Times Company

Group files complaint against McCain campaign By JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press Writer 24 minutes ago WASHINGTON - A group that supports public financing of campaigns filed a federal complaint against John McCain's presidential campaign Monday, calling for an investigation into two financial transactions involving two top McCain aides. The Federal Election Commission complaint by Campaign Money Watch, a group that has received financing from Democratic leaning donors, questions payments from former finance chair Tom Loeffler to campaign finance director Susan Nelson. It also questions the reduction of a debt to a Web services firm co-owned by McCain campaign manager Rick Davis. "A campaign manager renegotiating a debt with a company he partly owns raises serious conflict of interest questions," said David Donnelly, the director of Campaign Money Watch. Donnelly also questioned whether Loeffler's payments to Nelson amounted to an illegal subsidy to a campaign staffer. Loeffler is a lobbyist and former congressman and Nelson is a former associate of Loeffler's lobbying firm. The campaign has said the payments, first reported by Newsweek, were for legitimate work and were legal. Campaign spokesman Brian Rogers called the complaint "baseless." "All campaign actions were carefully reviewed by legal counsel and were fully in accord with FEC rules and election law," he said. "These are fact-specific issues, and Campaign Money Watch, a pro-Democratic, anti-McCain group, does not know any of the relevant facts. The FEC will undoubtedly throw these complaints out as soon as they review them." The campaign did not address the specific issues raised in the complaint. Under FEC guidelines, the McCain campaign has 15 days to respond to explain why the FEC should take no action. The FEC can then continue with the investigation or end its inquiry. Campaign Money Watch also began airing an ad on Washington, D.C., cable and broadcast channels questioning McCain's role in an Air Force contract with Northrop Grumman and European plane maker Airbus for a refueling tanker. Donnelly would not divulge how much the group spent on the commercial or how frequently the ad will appear. Campaign Money Watch is a nonprofit organization known as a 527 group, named after the section of the IRS code that governs such groups. Among its recent donors has been the Campaign to Defend America, a Democratic-leaning group that has been running anti-McCain ads. The group gave Campaign Money Watch $50,000 earlier this year, according to Internal Revenue Service records. .Barack Obama, the presumed Democratic presidential nominee, has called on such groups not to assist his campaign with ads directed at his opponent "We're not connected in any way, shape or form to the Democratic Party's committees or candidates," Donnelly said. "We've received contributions from thousands of people who support our mission. That mission has been quite clear for years — to advocate for public financing of elections and to hold candidates accountable who oppose it. Sen. McCain has retreated from his positions."

Hudson County's best/worst kept secret is hometown Harrison and the "perks" it likes to provide for its municipal superstars. "Found quarters" and courtesy gallons of "after hours" gas off the taxpayers' back for the municipally connected are merely what's right........a "tough" little town in the heart of the New York City metro area has to provide its savvy leadership with the necessities of new millennium survival and who should complain about it? When the revelation smoke clears, the Town of Harrison "management" will remain upon a strong footing to receive the replacements for the dead and buried grunts of these dark days, right? Count your change taxpayer and trust no government.

.......THANK YOU BILL MOYERS FOR EXPOSING AN EXPLOITATIVE AMERICAN MEDIA DEADENDER FOR THE MALIGNANCY THAT HE IS!!

The American people back home will SWALLOW ANYTHING, right Bulgy? http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/03/world/mi...t/03mccain.html McCain Wrong on Iraq Security, Merchants Say Sgt. Matthew Roe/10th Public Affairs Operations Center, via Reuters Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, in baseball cap, visited the Shorja market in Baghdad on Sunday with Gen. David H. Petraeus, left, the commander of the American forces in Iraq, accompanied by military escorts. Mr. McCain led a Congressional delegation on the visit. By KIRK SEMPLE Published: April 3, 2007 BAGHDAD, April 2 — A day after members of an American Congressional delegation led by Senator John McCain pointed to their brief visit to Baghdad’s central market as evidence that the new security plan for the city was working, the merchants there were incredulous about the Americans’ conclusions. Representative Mike Pence, an Indiana Republican, said the Shorja market was “like a normal outdoor market in Indiana.” “What are they talking about?” Ali Jassim Faiyad, the owner of an electrical appliances shop in the market, said Monday. “The security procedures were abnormal!” The delegation arrived at the market, which is called Shorja, on Sunday with more than 100 soldiers in armored Humvees — the equivalent of an entire company — and attack helicopters circled overhead, a senior American military official in Baghdad said. The soldiers redirected traffic from the area and restricted access to the Americans, witnesses said, and sharpshooters were posted on the roofs. The congressmen wore bulletproof vests throughout their hourlong visit. “They paralyzed the market when they came,” Mr. Faiyad said during an interview in his shop on Monday. “This was only for the media.” He added, “This will not change anything.” At a news conference shortly after their outing, Mr. McCain, an Arizona Republican, and his three Congressional colleagues described Shorja as a safe, bustling place full of hopeful and warmly welcoming Iraqis — “like a normal outdoor market in Indiana in the summertime,” offered Representative Mike Pence, an Indiana Republican who was a member of the delegation. But the market that the congressmen said they saw is fundamentally different from the market Iraqis know. Merchants and customers say that a campaign by insurgents to attack Baghdad’s markets has put many shop owners out of business and forced radical changes in the way people shop. Shorja, the city’s oldest and largest market, set in a sprawling labyrinth of narrow streets and alleyways, has been bombed at least a half-dozen times since last summer. At least 61 people were killed and many more wounded in a three-pronged attack there on Feb. 12 involving two vehicle bombs and a roadside bomb. American and Iraqi security forces have tried to protect Shorja and other markets against car bombs by restricting vehicular traffic in some shopping areas and erecting blast walls around the markets’ perimeters. But those measures, while making the markets safer, have not made them safe. In the latest large-scale attack on a Baghdad market, at least 60 people, most of them women and children, were killed last Thursday when a man wrapped in an explosives belt walked around such barriers into a crowded street market in the Shaab neighborhood and blew himself up. In recent weeks, snipers hidden in Shorja’s bazaar have killed several people, merchants and the police say, and gunfights have erupted between militants and the Iraqi security forces in the area. During their visit on Sunday, the Americans were buttonholed by merchants and customers who wanted to talk about how unsafe they felt and the urgent need for more security in the markets and throughout the city, witnesses said. “They asked about our conditions, and we told them the situation was bad,” said Aboud Sharif Kadhoury, 63, who peddles prayer rugs at a sidewalk stand. He said he sold a small prayer rug worth less than $1 to a member of the Congressional delegation. (The official paid $20 and told Mr. Kadhoury to keep the change, the vendor said.) Mr. Kadhoury said he lost more than $2,000 worth of merchandise in the triple bombing in February. “I was hit in the head and back with shrapnel,” he recalled. Ali Youssef, 39, who sells glassware from a sidewalk stand down the block from Mr. Kadhoury, recalled: “Everybody complained to them. We told them we were harmed.” He and other merchants used to keep their shops open until dusk, but with the dropoff in customers as a result of the attacks, and a nightly curfew, most shop owners close their businesses in the early afternoon. “This area here is very dangerous,” continued Mr. Youssef, who lost his shop in the February attack. “They cannot secure it.” But those conversations were not reflected in the congressmen’s comments at the news conference on Sunday. Instead, the politicians spoke of strolling through the marketplace, haggling with merchants and drinking tea. “The most deeply moving thing for me was to mix and mingle unfettered,” Mr. Pence said. Mr. McCain was asked about a comment he made on a radio program in which he said that he could walk freely through certain areas of Baghdad. “I just came from one,” he replied sharply. “Things are better and there are encouraging signs.” He added, “Never have I been able to go out into the city as I was today.” Told about Mr. McCain’s assessment of the market, Abu Samer, a kitchenware and clothing wholesaler, scoffed: “He is just using this visit for publicity. He is just using it for himself. They’ll just take a photo of him at our market and they will just show it in the United States. He will win in America and we will have nothing.” A Senate spokeswoman for Mr. McCain said he left Iraq on Monday and was unavailable for comment because he was traveling. Several merchants said Monday that the Americans’ visit might have only made the market a more inviting target for insurgents. “Every time the government announces anything — that the electricity is good or the water supply is good — the insurgents come to attack it immediately,” said Abu Samer, 49, who would give only his nickname out of concern for his safety. But even though he was fearful of a revenge attack, he said, he could not afford to stay away from the market. This was his livelihood. “We can never anticipate when they will attack,” he said, his voice heavy with gloomy resignation. “This is not a new worry.” ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ McCain Strolls Through Baghdad Market, Accompanied By 100 Soldiers, 3 Blackhawks, 2 Apache Gunships» Sen. John McCain strolled briefly through an open-air market in Baghdad today in an effort to prove that Americans are “not getting the full picture” of what’s going on in Iraq. NBC’s Nightly News provided further details about McCain’s one-hour guided tour. He was accompanied by “100 American soldiers, with three Blackhawk helicopters, and two Apache gunships overhead.” Still photographs provided by the military to NBC News seemed to show McCain wearing a bulletproof vest during his visit. Watch it: http://thinkprogress.org/2007/04/01/mccain-iraq-stroll/ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/10/438/ Published on Tuesday, April 10, 2007 by The Rocky Mountain News (Colorado) An Orwellian PR Stunt by Paul Campos Last week, Sen. John McCain staged a truly Orwellian publicity stunt in a Baghdad market. In a desperate attempt to give some sliver of credence to claims that the dreaded “liberal media” are failing to report on all the wonderful things happening in Iraq, McCain took a brief walk outside the American-maintained fortress that is Baghdad’s green zone.Afterward, McCain declared his walk through the Shurja market was a sign that security had improved significantly in the Iraqi capital, and the administration’s current troop escalation is working. What he didn’t mention was that, during his short stroll, he was accompanied by dozens of heavily armed U.S. troops and several armored vehicles, while a couple of attack helicopters hovered overhead. McCain’s photo op (which included the spectacle of the elderly senator wearing a flak jacket) was ludicrous on so many levels that even the normally docile national press, which has always treated McCain with kid gloves, pointed out he was making a fool of himself. Chastened, McCain issued a half-hearted apology a few days later, saying he “mis- spoke” when he pointed to his little walk under the protection of several platoons from the world’s most powerful military as evidence of Baghdad’s excellent shopping opportunities. The most interesting question raised by McCain’s pathetic stunt is why this genuine war hero - who after all knows far better than most politicians the difference between real courage and the made-for-TV kind - thought he could get away with it. The answer can be found by taking a random stroll through the archives of the very media McCain was trying to manipulate. From the first days of the Iraq war, it has been an article of dogmatic faith among the movement conservatives McCain is trying to woo that the liberal media have given Americans a far too bleak picture of what’s happening in Iraq. Here are just a few examples out of literally hundreds: In September of 2003, former Clinton adviser-turned-right-wing media pundit Dick Morris declared that the “incredibly biased” liberal media were claiming “that Iraq is a ‘quagmire’ and that there ‘aren’t any weapons of mass destruction,’ and that ‘Bush lied’ - and all the while, thanks to Fox News are seeing with their own eyes how much this is crazy spin.” A year later syndicated columnist and Bush administration stenographer Mark Steyn announced that the “liberal media” were doing their best to hide the fact that “the glass in Iraq is about two-thirds full. The bulk of the violence is confined to one province and parts of Baghdad . . . There is no ‘civil war.’ “ And last April, President Bush himself took the media to task: “The kind of progress that we and the Iraqi people are making in places like Tal Afar is not easy to capture in a short clip on the evening news,” he said. “Footage of children playing, or shops opening, and people resuming their normal lives will never be as dramatic as the footage of an IED explosion, or the destruction of a mosque, or soldiers and civilians being killed or injured.” (Two weeks ago, almost exactly a year to the day after Bush uttered these words, Tal Afar was the site of a particularly horrible massacre, in which 70 men and boys were lynched. Some of the murderers were members of the town’s police force.) Over the past four years it’s become clear that, when it comes to Iraq, perhaps a quarter of Americans are equipped with skulls that can successfully deflect almost all unpleasant facts. These people will account for the majority of the votes cast in next year’s Republican primaries - hence McCain’s extraordinarily well-armed stroll. Here’s another unpleasant fact: The day after McCain’s photo op, 21 people from that same market were kidnapped, taken north of the city, and murdered. Paul Campos is a professor of law at the University of Colorado. He can be reached at paul.campos@colorado.edu. © 2007 The Rocky Mountain News

Even without his ANGER ISSUES, Bulgeface John McCain is apparently quite unstable. The following essay makes a case that few ordinary people will bother to examine because it takes too long to read and THINK upon. http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3369 Extra! May/June 2008 The Press Corps’ Unshakeable Crush on McCain Some straight talk about the media’s favorite ‘maverick’ By Peter Hart If you pay even passing attention to national politics, you know that presumptive GOP presidential candidate John McCain is a maverick who bucks his own party’s line and never wavers in his political beliefs. At least, that’s what the corporate media say—reality tells a very different story. A candidate could only get away with such an elaborate and long-running con with the media as willing accomplices. “The press loves McCain,” explained NBC host Chris Matthews (9/10/06). “We’re his base.” For much of the press, the early stages of the 2008 presidential campaign were a chance to fall in love all over again. “Those of us on the Straight Talk Express eight years ago got a breathtaking journalistic opportunity: to be inside the lively mind and heart of a leading contender for president,” Newsweek’s Howard Fineman recalled (3/3/08). “McCain was as joyously combative as Popeye and as earnestly confessional as Oprah.” Fineman was actually restrained when compared to some of the coverage from eight years prior. “I know it shouldn’t be happening, but it is,” wrote Charles Lane in the New Republic (10/18/99). “I’m falling for John McCain.” Lane’s confession was in turn surpassed in awkwardness by another writer in the same magazine: Michael Lewis (9/30/96) declared that his feelings for McCain were like “the war that must occur inside a 14-year-old boy who discovers he is more sexually attracted to boys than to girls.” The maverick is born The origin of the McCain the Maverick storyline is hard to pin down, but it gained a serious boost after CBS’s 60 Minutes delivered a mostly fawning segment headlined “The Maverick From Arizona” (10/12/97) that celebrated his quest to reform the campaign finance system. CBS interviewed several of McCain’s harshest home-state critics, but that tape was left on the cutting room floor (New Republic, 5/24/99). And CBS’s allegedly tough-as-nails correspondent Mike Wallace was clearly enamored with McCain, going so far as to say that he was considering joining his campaign: “I’m thinking I may quit my job if he gets the nomination,” Wallace declared (Washington Post, 6/8/98). It’s hard to overstate how vital this “maverick” meme is to media coverage of McCain. “McCain is nothing if not a maverick,” declared U.S. News & World Report (4/7/08), while CBS host Bob Schieffer (7/15/07) called him the “most famous maverick of the last half of the 20th century.” Time magazine (1/21/08) dubbed McCain “a free-ranging, fence-jumping, kick-the-corral maverick.” Contrasting McCain’s maverick ways with Barack Obama, New York Times columnist David Brooks (1/8/08) explained that McCain “is allergic to blind party discipline and builds radically different coalitions depending on his views on each issue.” ABC reporter Claire Shipman, meanwhile, once argued (7/15/07) that the McCain-as-maverick line is actually what the public prefers: “Look, that McCain is the underdog, the maverick, is the storyline the American public really likes for John McCain.” The real record McCain, of course, is actually quite conservative, with a 9 percent lifetime rating from Americans for Democratic Action, a liberal group that rates lawmakers’ voting records. But what’s most fascinating—and rarely discussed in the press—is not just that McCain is so conservative, but that, for a brief time, McCain’s voting record did line up with the media myth—before McCain reverted back to form. New Republic writer Jonathan Chait produced one of the most detailed accounts of McCain’s ideological meanderings in the magazine’s February 27, 2008 issue. Chait, who was once an admirer, argued that the media storyline “gets McCain almost totally backward. He has diverged wildly and repeatedly from conservative orthodoxy, but he has also reinvented himself so completely that it has become nearly impossible to figure out what he really believes.” Chait went on to argue that “McCain’s ideological transformation is unusual for two reasons: First, he has moved across the political spectrum not once—like Al Smith or Mitt Romney—but twice. And, second, he refuses to acknowledge his change.” Chait pointed out that in Bush’s first term, McCain performed almost exactly like the media’s version of himself—voting against the Bush tax cuts, co-sponsoring a patients’ bill of rights and taking on his party over emissions standards and climate change. By Bush’s second term, however, McCain was more of a team player, sticking with the party on an estate-tax repeal and aligning with Bush’s position on immigration “reform.” In other words, McCain wasn’t much of a maverick when the media affixed that label to him. He became one very briefly, and then returned more or less back to where he started. McCain’s voting pattern bears out this analysis. Before the 2000 campaign, McCain was consistently among the party’s most conservative members. In the 107th Congress (2001–02), McCain was the sixth most liberal Republican senator, according to the VoteView statistical analysis of voting patterns. In the next congressional session, he was the fourth most conservative. And he’s more or less stayed there since. According to VoteView, McCain’s voting record in 2005–06 made him the second-most conservative senator in the 109th Congress, and the eighth-most conservative in the 110th Senate. Outside of McCain’s brief tack to the middle, his overall voting record makes him a reliable member of his party’s caucus. ‘The renegade returns’ Indeed, for a brief time it looked as if many in the national press had arrived at the sad conclusion that McCain’s 2008 campaign would represent the end of his maverick ways. His turnabout on prominent religious right figures like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, whom he deemed “agents of intolerance” in the heat of the 2000 campaign, was early evidence that things might be different this time. A Washington Post report on March 15, 2007 was headlined “McCain Fighting to Recapture Maverick Spirit of 2000 Bid.” Two days later, the Los Angeles Times was pondering the same question, under the headline “McCain Loses Some of His Rebel Edge.” The most significant problem, as the press saw it, was that McCain had begun his 2008 campaign as the front-running candidate of the party establishment—the very opposite of the underdog McCain the press had come to admire. The campaign’s financial collapse months ahead of the Iowa caucuses nearly derailed McCain’s chances, but as the pundits saw it, this saved the day: The Maverick was reborn. Under the headline “The Renegade Returns,” Newsweek (8/6/07) reported: The scrappy war vet was never very convincing as the Anointed One anyway. Now he’s reverting to the formula that helped him win New Hampshire in 2000: a lean, insurgent candidacy heavy on retail politics and promises to take on Washington. The magazine, somewhat self-consciously, noted parenthetically, “It’s the same underdog storyline the media, which McCain used to call ‘his base,’ once found so appealing. And they would find it appealing again. Time’s Joe Klein turned in a piece (10/17/07) headlined “McCain Is Back,” which heralded this return to form. Klein wrote that McCain was “rising from the crypt, but not as a zombie. The foolishly conventional Republican McCain of last year was the zombie. No, this is the funny, free-range McCain reincarnated.” The return of the Maverick McCain was important: Months later, Time’s Michael Scherer (3/3/08) was predicting that McCain’s nomination would transform the GOP and “shift its priorities on key domestic issues ranging from global warming to the cheap importation of prescription drugs”—before asking: “Does this sound too good to be true?” Standing in the way, complained Scherer, was not its inherent improbability but the fact that “liberal advocacy group Media Matters has been releasing broadsides against any journalist who dares describe the sometimes maverick McCain as a maverick.” ‘Who’s the greenest?’ With McCain’s maverick credentials a given, reality must be warped in remarkable ways by the press in order to maintain the storyline. Newsweek’s April 14 cover story, “Who’s the Greenest of Them All?,” reached the remarkable conclusion that the answer could very well be John McCain. Readers first learned that Obama and Clinton received high marks from the League of Conservation Voters before Newsweek finally noted sheepishly: “Admittedly, McCain’s 2007 league rating is zero, putting him in the company of eight other Republicans, including the global-warming denier James Inhofe.” To soften that blow, the magazine offered that “a more relevant statistic might be his lifetime LCV rating, which is 26 percent, compared with an average of 16 percent for all Republicans.” Given that Obama and Clinton scored 96 and 90, respectively, it would be highly unusual for a group to offer its endorsement, as the magazine suggested the LCV might do, to a politician who mostly disagrees with their positions. But Newsweek wasn’t about to give up, crediting McCain with having “sided with environmentalists on fuel-efficiency standards and the talismanic issue of protecting the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.” As columnist David Sirota pointed out (4/4/08), McCain’s position on Alaska drilling has shifted back and forth over the years; most recently, in 2005, the senator voted to support drilling. Newsweek’s Jerry Adler sounded like he had convinced himself, at least, that McCain was actually the greener candidate: So, ironically, McCain—with a voting record that would put him at the bottom of the heap among Democrats—is sometimes perceived as more passionate about the environment than his Democratic opponents, whose objectively much stronger records are viewed as a matter of party orthodoxy. Such are the benefits of being a maverick; your actual record is much less important than how you are “perceived” by journalists. Straight flopper When John McCain unveiled his Straight Talk Express campaign bus in 1999, the rolling metaphor helped establish a political identity that would prove nearly impossible to challenge. The maverick storyline was seamlessly integrated with the theme that McCain simply stands his ground and sticks to his guns, no matter what the political consequences. When the 2008 campaign was still looking somewhat shaky, ABC’s Terry Moran (3/26/07) congratulated McCain for doing “what he’s always done, play it as straight as possible. A directness that still startles.” The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank declared (12/13/07): “He is the bravest candidate in the presidential race. While his rivals pander to primary constituencies, the former prisoner of war gives audiences a piece of his mind.” For a more typical politician, McCain’s myriad flip-flops would be a serious liability. But McCain mostly manages to get along just fine. Next to his turnabout on Jerry Falwell, McCain’s highest-profile reversal might be on Bush’s tax cuts. McCain bucked the White House by voting against both the 2001 and 2003 packages, pointing out that they were tilted in favor of the wealthy. In the 2008 campaign, McCain is running in support of extending the very same tax cuts. McCain’s campaign talking point now is that he opposed the cuts because they were not accompanied by spending cuts, a boldly disingenuous argument that is rarely challenged by the press corps. (The Associated Press was one notable exception—1/31/08.) McCain has even managed a flip-flop on one of his signature issues—immigration policy. Though he was cheered by some pundits for co-sponsoring legislation with liberal Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), McCain would eventually distance himself from that bill. On NBC’s Meet the Press (1/27/08), he tried to avoid answering a direct question about whether he would sign his very own bill as president, saying the “bill is dead as it is written” and that “the lesson is they want the border secured first.” The “they” he’s speaking of would seem to be the right-wing of the party, whom McCain had angered by resisting such “security first” demands for many months. U.S. News & World Report (3/24/08) signaled that McCain’s shift away from his own position was good news...for John McCain. The failure of his own bill “turned out to be a blessing in disguise because it gave McCain room to maneuver.” The piece even pointed out that days after McCain’s Meet the Press appearance, he more clearly declared he was no longer in favor of his previous immigration bill. In the 2000 campaign, McCain won praise for speaking out against ethanol subsidies, a highly problematic position for anyone running in the Iowa caucuses. By the time the 2008 campaign got rolling, McCain had a distinct change of heart, which Fortune (11/13/06) dubbed “a flip-flop so absurd it’ll be a wonder if it doesn’t get lampooned by late-night comedians, not to mention opponents’ negative ads.” But the about-face was hardly an issue. Flipping on foreign policy On foreign policy, McCain has moved from being a non-interventionist conservative to one of the leading politicians embraced—and advised—by prominent neo-conservatives, a journey summarized nicely by John Judis in the New Republic (10/16/06). McCain went from questioning troop deployments to Lebanon, Haiti and Somalia to pushing for a ground invasion during the NATO bombing of Serbia. In a major policy address in March of this year, McCain sounded a somewhat different tune, signaling a need to work more closely with international allies. Washington Post columnist David Broder (3/30/08) cheered that this “repudiation of unilateralism was just the first of many efforts to distinguish McCain’s approach from Bush’s.” It’s also different from McCain’s former approach, which for some time was to ridicule international objections to the Iraq War. As the website ThinkProgress noted (3/26/08), McCain once ridiculed the French by saying they “remind me of an aging movie actress in the 1940s who’s still trying to dine out on her looks, but doesn’t have the face for it.” The New York Times reported (2/13/03) that McCain derided French objections as “part of a continuing French practice of throwing sand in the gears of the Atlantic alliance.” McCain is often portrayed as one of the vigilant critics of the Iraq War’s execution; less well known is the fact that McCain assured that the war would be “fairly easy” (CNN, 9/24/02) and could be won “in a very short period of time” (CNN, 9/29/02). He would later complain (8/22/06) that people “were led to believe that this would be some kind of a day at the beach, which many of us fully understood from the very beginning would be a very, very difficult undertaking.” And while he’s relentlessly congratulated for having the foresight to see the weaknesses in Donald Rumsfeld’s Iraq strategy, Judis pointed out that McCain certainly didn’t think so at first, writing in May 2003: Thanks to a war plan that represented a revolutionary advance in military science, to the magnificent performance of our armed forces, and to the firm resolve of the president, the war in Iraq succeeded beyond the most optimistic expectations. Crooked talk At other times, McCain’s talk is so far from straight that it actually becomes difficult to parse. Journalist Matt Welch’s book McCain: The Myth of a Maverick recalls several striking episodes. In an interview with ABC’s George Stephanop-oulos, McCain seemed genuinely befuddled by an Arizona state initiative that would ban civil unions. In the course of a few televised moments, McCain declared he voted in favor of the proposition, but was not against civil unions—but then answered “No” when Stephanopoulos asked if he was for civil unions. This echoed a 2006 appearance on MSNBC’s Hardball (10/18/06), when McCain announced, “I think gay marriages should be allowed,” only to change his tune moments later after an aide whispered in his ear. McCain’s new line was, “I do not believe that gay marriages should be legal.” Perhaps most striking was when McCain was asked—aboard the Straight Talk Express, no less—an extraordinarily straightforward question: “Do you think contraceptives help stop the spread of HIV?” McCain responded by saying, “You’ve stumped me.” When the questioner offered some help (“I mean, I think you’d probably agree it probably does help stop it?”), McCain still wasn’t able to offer a response: I’m not informed enough on it. Let me find out. You know, I’m sure I’ve taken a position on it on the past. I have to find out what my position was. Brian, would you find out what my position is on contraception—I’m sure I’m opposed to government spending on it, I’m sure I support the president’s policies on it. McCain would go on to plead with an aide to “get me [sen. Tom] Coburn’s thing” to figure out his position. New York Times reporter Adam Nagourney wrote on the paper’s website (3/16/07) that “this went on for a few more moments until a reporter from the Chicago Tribune broke in and asked Mr. McCain about the weight of a pig that he saw at the Iowa State Fair last year.” That bit of press interference seemed to reflect the broader media trend, as McCain’s strange performance got remarkably little attention. Playing defense Given the media’s investment in McCain’s image, they have an incentive to not pay too much attention to his double-talk. Some opt to use soft language to describe this reality. Time magazine’s Michael Scherer noted (3/27/08) that McCain’s “self-image...as a saint operating in a sinner’s world” puts him in a certain bind—namely, the burden of actually practicing what he preaches. McCain the campaign reform advocate is also a “vigorous fund-raiser” whose “inner circle includes current and former lobbyists,” who has “begged discount private-jet flights from companies seeking his favor.” Scherer wrote off these contradictions as “nuance” that might get “lost” in the “free-fire information war of a presidential campaign.” Scherer concluded that “McCain is, in other words, not an easy man to judge.” Actually, politicians saying one thing and then doing another are usually labeled pretty easily. When McCain undeniably shifts his positions, the press often looks for unusual ways to describe this. The Los Angeles Times (3/27/08) labeled a major McCain foreign policy speech as a “political pivot” because he was clearly changing his tune. When McCain changed his position on mortgage relief to appear more concerned about homeowners in trouble, the New York Times (4/11/08) labeled it a “pivot” and a “shift in tone.” McCain has been praised in the media for opposing the White House and demanding an end to U.S. torture practices—which made his vote with the White House on a bill that could have limited CIA interrogation practices a surprise to some. Time’s Scherer (Time.com, 4/10/08) complained that “there is nothing the Democrats would like to do more than portray McCain as a rank hypocrite.” That charge was simply untrue, explained Scherer; the Democrats “turned a grain of truth into a misleading landslide of overheated accusation. A review of the record shows that McCain has neither changed his position on torture nor taken sides with President Bush on the substance of the issue.” McCain may have gotten the most media help on his comment that it would be “fine with me” if U.S. troops were in Iraq for 100 years—a statement that has received significant media attention, much of it directed at the unfairness of McCain’s opponents for speaking about it. New York Times columnist Frank Rich began his April 6 column, “Really, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton should be ashamed of themselves for libeling John McCain.” The Associated Press published a fact-check (2/29/08) that began bluntly, “No, John McCain is not proposing a 100-year war in Iraq.” The problem, reported AP, was that “Democrats leave out a vital caveat.” That caveat, though, is McCain’s nonsensical argument that a long occupation is acceptable “as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed”—while occupying a country “in a very volatile part of the world where Al-Qaeda is training, recruiting, equipping and motivating people every single day.” A Washington Post fact-check (4/3/08) also came down on McCain’s side, though the paper did note that McCain has managed to both endorse a comparison to the U.S. occupations of Korea and Germany and reject the same historical analogy. Apparently the Democrats have to be more careful about criticizing McCain—if they can figure out what his position is. ‘The world’s worst panderer’ For some pundits, it seemed necessary to deny that McCain could be suspected of any duplicity at all. “To be sure, no one can accuse McCain of pandering,” wrote the Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz (4/26/07)—ironically, in an article that detailed other pundits’ disappointment with McCain’s shifting positions. New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof dealt with all this dissonance by penning a February 17, 2008 column headlined “The World’s Worst Panderer.” Kristof admired McCain not for his positions, but for being “abysmal at pandering.” For example, Kristof wrote that McCain had denounced ethanol subsidies for years—and then abruptly reversed course in the early part of the 2008 campaign. This was acceptable, because “he was so manifestly insincere and incompetent in this pandering that the episode was less contemptible than amusing.” Kristof went on to write that when McCain “does try double-talk, he looks so guilty and uncomfortable that he convinces nobody.” Kristof concluded: “In short, Mr. McCain truly has principles that he bends or breaks out of desperation and with distaste. That’s preferable to politicians who are congenital invertebrates.” The Washington Post’s Richard Cohen (2/12/08) wrote a nearly identical column that seemed more personally sad than anything else: “McCain’s true virtue is that he is a lousy politician. He is not a convincing liar, and when he adopts positions that are not his own, they infect him, sapping him of what might be called integrity energy.” It’s worth noting that Cohen and Kristof were beaten to the punch by another pundit, almost two years earlier. “Go ahead, senator, flip-flop away,” wrote Jonathan Chait in the Los Angeles Times (4/19/06), trying to explain McCain’s shifting positions. “I know you’re with us at heart.” In the end, the question is not so much whether McCain will win the hearts—and votes—of the mainstream media. More important is what voters will think. The Washington Post (3/16/08) noted that a visit to several countries by McCain in March 2008 produced strikingly different press treatment: “Newspaper articles in Paris, London and Jerusalem raise questions about which McCain would become president: the moderate one who supports free trade and efforts to fight global warming; or the more conservative one, who vows never to let Iran acquire nuclear weapons.” American journalists, by and large, long ago decided to sell a moderate, “maverick” McCain to the U.S. public. See FAIR's Archives for more on: Elections/2008

Will you "overlook" these BULGEFACE nuggets, deadender? Notice the contradiction and ambiguity of the BULGEFACE statements. Did you know that BULGEFACE fails to recall his own senatorial voting record? It will be fun watching the desperate and the despicable continue to cling to the Bush malignancy, the dance of the deadenders! McCain: I'd Spy on Americans Secretly, Too By Ryan Singel June 03, 2008 | 5:06:25 PMCategories: Election '08, NSA If elected president, Senator John McCain would reserve the right to run his own warrantless wiretapping program against Americans, based on the theory that the president's wartime powers trump federal criminal statutes and court oversight, according to a statement released by his campaign Monday. McCain's new tack towards the Bush administration's theory of executive power comes some 10 days after a McCain surrogate stated, incorrectly it seems, that the senator wanted hearings into telecom companies' cooperation with President Bush's warrantless wiretapping program, before he'd support giving those companies retroactive legal immunity. As first reported by Threat Level, Chuck Fish, a full-time lawyer for the McCain campaign, also said McCain wanted stricter rules on how the nation's telecoms work with U.S. spy agencies, and expected those companies to apologize for any lawbreaking before winning amnesty. But Monday, McCain adviser Doug Holtz-Eakin, speaking for the campaign, disavowed those statements, and for the first time cast McCain's views on warrantless wiretapping as identical to Bush's. [N]either the Administration nor the telecoms need apologize for actions that most people, except for the ACLU and the trial lawyers, understand were Constitutional and appropriate in the wake of the attacks on September 11, 2001. [...] We do not know what lies ahead in our nation’s fight against radical Islamic extremists, but John McCain will do everything he can to protect Americans from such threats, including asking the telecoms for appropriate assistance to collect intelligence against foreign threats to the United States as authorized by Article II of the Constitution. The Article II citation is key, since it refers to President Bush's longstanding arguments that the president has nearly unlimited powers during a time of war. The administration's analysis went so far as to say the Fourth Amendment did not apply inside the United States in the fight against terrorism, in one legal opinion from 2001. McCain's new position plainly contradicts statements he made in a December 20, 2007 interview with the Boston Globe where he implicitly criticized Bush's five-year secret end-run around the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. "I think that presidents have the obligation to obey and enforce laws that are passed by Congress and signed into law by the president, no matter what the situation is," McCain said. The Globe's Charlie Savage pushed further, asking , "So is that a no, in other words, federal statute trumps inherent power in that case, warrantless surveillance?" To which McCain answered, "I don't think the president has the right to disobey any law." McCain's embrace of extrajudicial domestic wiretapping is effectively a bounce-back from Fish's comments, made at the Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference in Connecticut last month. When liberal blogs picked up the story that McCain had moved to the left on wiretapping, the McCain campaign issued a letter insisting that he still supported unconditional immunity, as well as new rules that would expand the nation's spy powers. The campaign's response was consistent with McCain's past positions and votes. But it riled Andrew McCarthy at the conservative National Review Online, who read the campaign's position as a disavowal of Bush's warrantless wiretapping program, and a wimpy surrender of executive power to Congress. "What does it mean when he says Sen. McCain does not want the telecoms put into this position again?" McCarthy asked. "Is he saying that in a time of national crisis, the president should not be permitted to ask the telecoms for assistance that is arguably beyond what is prescribed in a statute?" That's when the campaign issued the letter explaining McCain's new views of executive power, and revealing that McCain would, in certain future circumstances, rely on the same theory of executive power in wartime. A spokesperson for McCain's camp did not respond to a request Monday for an explanation of the difference between the new policy and the December interview.

This is the "LEADER" the deadenders demand continue the madness. Dishes in the sink hold more inspiration. Enjoy the 4.5 star YOUTUBE specimen.

First, Rev. Wright hadn't done anything illegal! Second, Tony Rezko insidiously solicited every Dem in Illinois for favors. Obama had the brains to close the door (dirty money was given to charity when discovered) and nothing illegal was ever made of it. It happens often in all political arenas, except maybe..........IN HUDSON COUNTY, NEW JERSEY!!! You Bush deadenders are despicable. After almost 8 years of the most epic bumbling, duplicity and disaster the modern world has ever witnessed from an American presidential administration and the cult that enabled it (YOU!), here you are looking to "swiftboat" Barack Obama with a moron's assertion, blissfully ignorant of the horrors you've licensed via your own brutal political stupidity. Bring it on. We're waiting for you, deadender. The American page of your dark era is turning. Now....HOT OFF the PRESS......... http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080605/ap_on_..._intelligence_9 Here's a KEY paragraph for you BUSH DEADENDERS contained in the text. ENJOY IT! >>>Two Republicans, Sens. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Olympia Snowe of Maine, endorsed the report.<<< Report accuses Bush of misrepresenting Iraq intel By PAMELA HESS, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 22 minutes ago WASHINGTON - A new Senate report gives a fresh shot of adrenaline to the election-year debate over the Iraq war. President Bush and his top officials deliberately misrepresented secret intelligence to make the case to invade Iraq, according to the Senate Intelligence Committee. The panel put a new spin on old charges, comparing claims made in five speeches by top Bush administration officials with intelligence reports. The committee says officials wrongly linked Saddam Hussein to the Sept. 11 attacks and al-Qaida; claimed Iraq would give terrorist groups chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, and said Iraq was developing drone aircraft to spread chemical or biological agents over the United States. None was borne out by intelligence. The presumptive Democratic nominee for president, Sen. Barack Obama, has staked his campaign on his consistent opposition to the Iraq war. The presumptive Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain, has trumpeted his unflagging support for the war, if not how it was waged. The report released Thursday follows, by years, an earlier committee effort that assessed the quality of pre-war intelligence on Iraq and found it severely lacking. This report is known as "phase II" and spawned a nasty partisan fight in the committee. It plows well-tread political ground by contrasting what Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell and then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said between October 2002 and March 2003, when the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq began, with intelligence reports that since have been released. "These reports are about holding the government accountable and making sure these mistakes never happen again," said the committee's chairman, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va. According to Rockefeller, the problem was the Bush administration concealed information that would have undermined the case for war. "We might have avoided this catastrophe," he said. Bush's press secretary, Dana Perino, said the problem was flawed intelligence heading into the war. "We had the intelligence that we had, fully vetted, but it was wrong. And we certainly regret that," she said. The Senate report, however, found that intelligence supported most of the administration's statements about Iraq before the war. But officials often did not mention the level of dissension or uncertainty in the intelligence agencies about the information they were presenting. Two Republicans, Sens. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Olympia Snowe of Maine, endorsed the report. The committee's five other Republicans, however, assailed it as a partisan exercise. They accused Democrats of covering for their own members, including Rockefeller and Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., who made similar statements about Iraq based on the same intelligence the Bush administration used. "It is ironic that the Democrats would knowingly distort and misrepresent the committee's findings and the intelligence in an effort to prove that the administration distorted and mischaracterized the intelligence," said Sen. Christopher Bond of Missouri, the committee's top Republican. A second report issued by the committee Thursday says Pentagon officials concealed from U.S. intelligence agencies potentially useful tips from Iranian agents in 2001, including that Tehran allegedly sent hit teams to Afghanistan to kill Americans. The Iranians also told Pentagon employees at a December 2001 meeting in Rome of a purported tunnel complex used to store weapons and covertly move personnel out of Iran after Sept. 11, 2001, according to the committee report. In addition, the Iranians told of a long-standing relationship with the Palestine Liberation Organization and the growth of anti-government sentiment inside Iran. The information was questionable, the report suggests, citing the sources: a discredited former arms dealer who was peddling a plan to overthrow the Iranian government and a former U.S. official whose leads had failed to yield any substance for the CIA. Nonetheless, the report sheds new light on the mistrust and lack of cooperation by Cheney and Rumsfeld with the CIA and the State Department after 9/11. Committee Republicans, in a dissent, said the report had nothing to do with the original scope of the review — prewar intelligence on Iraq. They said it would be a "disappointment" for people looking for evidence of Pentagon wrongdoing. The report focuses on the series of meetings in Rome held over three days in December 2001. The U.S. was fighting in Afghanistan and working on initial planning for the Iraq war. Then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley authorized the meetings. Two Pentagon employees, one of whom worked for then-Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Doug Feith, went to Rome to meet with two Iranians — one a current member of the security service, the second a former member. Manucher Ghorbanifar, an Iranian middleman already dismissed by the CIA as untrustworthy, also attended, as did a representative from an unspecified foreign government's intelligence service. Michael Ledeen, a former Pentagon official and an analyst with the conservative American Enterprise Institute, arranged the meeting and attended. In one meeting, Ghorbanifar pressed for a change of government in Iran and, on a napkin, outlined a plan to do that, saying he would need $5 million to set it in motion, according to the report. The report said Hadley failed to fully inform then-CIA Director George Tenet and then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage about the meeting. But Hadley and the Pentagon were within their rights to conduct the meeting, the report said. White House spokesman Tony Fratto said Hadley notified all parties concerned appropriately. The report said Defense Department officials refused to allow "potentially useful and actionable intelligence" to be shared with intelligence agencies. The head of the DIA was briefed on the meeting but was not authorized to keep a written summary or it or to discuss it on the orders of Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. Ledeen said Thursday that the meetings were not kept secret from U.S. intelligence, and said he had briefed the U.S. ambassador to Italy twice about them. "Any time the CIA wanted to find out what was going on all they had to do was ask," he said. One of the two Pentagon representatives, Larry Franklin, now faces jail time after pleading guilty to espionage-related charges unrelated to the Rome meeting. Franklin told the committee he believed the intelligence gathered at the meetings "saved American lives." He passed word of the alleged hit teams to a special operations forces commander in Afghanistan. SHALL WE NOW DISCUSS SCOTT MCCLELLAN'S NEW BOOK, BUSH DEADENDER?

You got a fool's hypocrisy to cite Barack Obama's standing in your stupid rating index when monkey boy Bush and Ronnie Raygun blew the lid off the precedent for American debt. You are naked and butt ugly, a deadender like some crusty callous on the heel of a corpse and trust me, I'm being kind.

By now anyone with a brain must realize that we must begin to TAX all religions in the United States to justify the promotion of political bigotry from their pulpit. We as Americans en-mass are not ANYWHERE evolved enough to keep ALL RELIGION OUT of our government..........."separation of church and state"..............we certainly chortle about the princible, but invariably we let the various god dogma creep into US government like an insidious virus......and then BANG ZOOM.......we're off to WAR killing pitiful Muslim thirdworlders WHOLESALE, with the assurance that Jesus Christ is greatly pleased, as are the Zionistics (surely a group that embraces Jesus as a "SAVIOR" and NOT as someone "boiling is a caldron of hot fecal matter for eternity").......... Think. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/iraq/story/38870.html U.S. reassigns Marine for passing out Bible verses to Muslims More on this Story Story | Iraqis claim Marines are pushing Christianity in Fallujah Jamal Naji / MCT U.S. Marines are handing out this coin, imprinted with a Gospel verse, to Fallujah residents. | View larger image By Leila Fadel and Jamal Naji | McClatchy Newspapers BAGHDAD, Iraq — The U.S. military confirmed Thursday that a Marine in Fallujah passed out coins with a Gospel verse on them to Sunni Muslims, a military spokesman in the Iraqi city said. The man was immediately removed from the checkpoint and reassigned. The coins angered residents who said they felt that the American troops, whom they consider occupiers, were also acting as Christian missionaries in a predominantly Muslim nation. "It did happen," said Mike Isho, a spokesman for Multi National Forces West. "It's one guy and we're investigating." The Marine was passing out silver coins to residents of the Sunni Anbar province with Arabic translations of a Bible verse on them. On one side, the coin read, "Where will you spend eternity?" and on the other, "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. John 3:16." Following a McClatchy report about the proselytizing coins, a force was sent to the western gate of Fallujah and the Marines there were searched, Isho said. One man was found with the coins, removed from the gate and will no longer be working in predominantly Sunni Anbar province, he said. On Thursday, the U.S. military apologized for the incident, telling McClatchy special correspondent Jamal Naji that action would be taken following an investigation. One Marine making a mistake shouldn't brand the work of hundreds of Marines, said Sgt. Maj. Neil O'Connell in western Anbar province. He went on to tell the story of two young Marines who were killed to protect Iraqi police. "Such an action will not pass without proper punishment," O'Connell said. "We started a formal investigation to figure out exactly what happened." The correspondent was taken around the base in Fallujah and into the dining facilities to show that there's no religious proselytizing or discrimination on the military base. A poster on a base billboard advertised Friday prayers to observant Muslims, and Iraqi employees eat in the same dining facility where leading U.S. officers dine. A U.S. military spokesman said he was unsure where the silver coins came from, but speculated that they may have been sent to the young Marine from outside Iraq. "Regulations prohibit members of the coalition force from proselytizing any religion, faith or practices, and our troops are trained on those guidelines before they deploy," said Col. Bill Buckner, a Multi National Corps spokesman, in a statement. For two days, residents were being handed the coins when they passed through the western gate where all residents are searched and their residence badges are checked. Many considered the move an affront to their religion, humiliating and straining the relationship between Christians and Muslims in Iraq. The military is sensitive about the latest religious mishap following the May 11 discovery of a Quran, the holy book of Islam, which had been used as target practice. Iraqi police found the Quran riddled with bullets and filled with graffiti. The soldier was removed from Iraq. "This has our full attention," said Col. James L. Welsh, the chief of staff of the Multi-National Force-West in a statement. "We deeply value our relationship with the local citizens and share their concerns over this serious incident." Naji is a McClatchy special correspondent

GOOD MORNING! Great weather here and now! Thank you for the "MOONFACE" and "BULGEFACE" textual caricature attention. No need to explain why political cartoonists draw Bush like a CHIMP, is there now? Like a MONKEY! After all, deep down inside the most insidious bible thumpers greatest fear is the truth that we human beings are MERELY the higher monkeys. How vastly advanced the world could become if those mooks could face that fear.

On this Memorial Day, remember the US service members that died for truly noble causes for this and other nations, and ALSO PLEASE remember those US service men and women that died and became maimed trusting completely corrupt and absurdly hypocritical US leadership that did nothing but advance the obscene fortunes of their privleged goombas while wildly soiling America's traditional leading image of justice and freedom on this earth. A very timely progression in this thread............send it to someone you respect. http://www.speaker.gov/blog/?p=1356 House Passes Amendment Calling for an Investigation of the Pentagon’s “Information Dominance” Program May 22nd, 2008 by Karina Last month, the New York Times published an article outlining how the Pentagon set up private briefings for a network of “military experts,” who often held financial stakes dependent on continued Pentagon access, in order to achieve “information dominance” in the American media. As Chairman Skelton stated in April, “it all comes down to trust and credibility. And it would be a dangerous thing for the American people to lose trust in the Pentagon, in our retired officer corps, and in the press, each of which has a critical role to play in preserving our nation’s freedoms.” Tonight, the House passed an amendment introduced by Reps. Hodes, DeFazio, and DeLauro to the Defense Authorization Act for FY2009 requiring that “not later than 90 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Inspector General of the Department of Defense and the Comptroller General of the United States shall each conduct a study of, and submit to the Congress a report on, the extent to which the Department of Defense has violated the prohibition on propaganda” and defines propaganda as “any form of communication in support of national objectives designed to influence the opinions, emotions, attitudes, or behavior of the people of the United States in order to benefit the sponsor, either directly or indirectly.” On passage of the amendment, Speaker Pelosi said: In his farewell address, President Dwight D. Eisenhower stated that “only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.” The Pentagon media influence program reported by the New York Times struck at the heart of this principle – not only denying citizens the knowledge they deserve but also using the media to manipulate public opinion, and as a consequence, damaging our democracy. The President and members of his Administration led the country to war on the basis of unproven assertions, later confirmed to be false, and have continued to misrepresent the truth on the ground. The Hodes-DeFazio-DeLauro Amendment which prohibits the Department of Defense from using funds for propaganda purposes and initiates a GAO and IG investigative report into past use of propaganda, is a vital step toward restoring the public’s faith in information stemming from the Pentagon. Rep. Hodes: Rep. Hodes:“The American people were spun by Bush Administration “message multipliers.” They were fed Administration talking points, believing they were getting independent military analysis. Days after, the Pentagon suspended the program. The news outlets have been remarkably silent. The Department of Defense Inspector General has begun an internal review of the program but given the possibility as well as decision makers in this Congress were misled about the war in Iraq, I believe it is absolutely critical that a public investigation happen that is transparent to this body as well as to the American people. Congress cannot allow an Administration to manipulate the public on false propaganda on matters of war and national security.” Chairman Skelton: Chairman Skelton:“The fact that there were a good number of former military officers that were given special access, many of whom had conflicts of interest in various defense businesses and they are considered military television analysts - you see people in the military are trusted by Americans. People who are retired military are trusted by Americans. And what’s interesting is that this special group had special access to information in the Pentagon and obviously used that in their analysis…what’s real interesting is the fact that - their special access was canceled.” Rep. DeFazio: Rep. DeFazio:“We have prohibited propaganda directed at the people of the United States using taxpayer dollars by the Pentagon. What happened here was a violation of that law and that anybody would stand here on this floor and say that that law, which we have had in place for more than 50 years, should be repealed or undermined by one narrow-minded Administration or Vice President Cheney or anyone else who wants to manipulate intelligence to the Congress and American people to a war that should not have been initiated. An informed and free press is critical to our system of government to have informed decision makers here. Maybe you don’t want to hear the truth, but I do.” Rep. DeLauro: Rep. DeLauro:“This is propaganda, it is a military and industrial complex in which military analysts, many who have ties with the contractors making money off of the war and parroting DOD talking points on the air to mislead the American public and the TV networks did nothing to prevent it. And I would just tell my colleagues that if you voted for the DOD Appropriations Bill last year, you voted to prohibit this. You’ve done it since 2002. Donald Rumsfeld met with these guys 18 times, told them what to say, and then, my friends, DOD hired a company to track their remarks on the TV networks.”

When the victor writes the history, heroes ABOUND from America's GREATEST generation. Yeah Rite! http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2008-05...ea_N.htm?csp=34 Thousands killed by Korean ally of U.S. Posted 2h 31m ago | Comments8 | Recommend E-mail | Save | Print | Yahoo! Buzz Digg Newsvine Reddit FacebookWhat's this?By Charles J. Hanley And Jae-Soon Chang, Associated Press DAEJEON, South Korea — Grave by mass grave, South Korea is unearthing the skeletons and buried truths of a cold-blooded slaughter from early in the Korean War, when this nation's U.S.-backed regime killed untold thousands of leftists and hapless peasants in a summer of terror in 1950. With U.S. military officers sometimes present, and as North Korean invaders pushed down the peninsula, the southern army and police emptied South Korean prisons, lined up detainees and shot them in the head, dumping the bodies into hastily dug trenches. Others were thrown into abandoned mines or into the sea. Women and children were among those killed. Many victims never faced charges or trial. The mass executions — intended to keep possible southern leftists from reinforcing the northerners — were carried out over mere weeks and were largely hidden from history for a half-century. They were "the most tragic and brutal chapter of the Korean War," said historian Kim Dong-choon, a member of a 2-year-old government commission investigating the killings. Hundreds of sets of remains have been uncovered so far, but researchers say they are only a tiny fraction of the deaths. The commission estimates at least 100,000 people were executed, in a South Korean population of 20 million. That estimate is based on projections from local surveys and is "very conservative," said Kim. The true toll may be twice that or more, he told The Associated Press. FIND MORE STORIES IN: Washington | Japan | North Korean | Korean War | South Koreans | Lee Myung-bak | Reconciliation Commission | U.S.-Soviet | Ulsan | U.S.-installed | Daejeon In addition, thousands of South Koreans who allegedly collaborated with the communist occupation were slain by southern forces later in 1950, and the invaders staged their own executions of rightists. Through the postwar decades of South Korean right-wing dictatorships, victims' fearful families kept silent about that blood-soaked summer. American military reports of the South Korean slaughter were stamped "secret" and filed away in Washington. Communist accounts were dismissed as lies. Only since the 1990s, and South Korea's democratization, has the truth begun to seep out. In 2002, a typhoon's fury uncovered one mass grave. Another was found by a television news team that broke into a sealed mine. Further corroboration comes from a trickle of declassified U.S. military documents, including U.S. Army photographs of a mass killing outside this central South Korean city. Now Kim's Truth and Reconciliation Commission has added government authority to the work of scattered researchers, family members and journalists trying to peel away the long-running cover-up. The commissioners have the help of a handful of remorseful old men. "Even now, I feel guilty that I pulled the trigger," said Lee Joon-young, 83, one of the executioners in a secluded valley near Daejeon in early July 1950. The retired prison guard told the AP he knew that many of those shot and buried en masse were ordinary convicts or illiterate peasants wrongly ensnared in roundups of supposed communist sympathizers. They didn't deserve to die, he said. They "knew nothing about communism." The 17 investigators of the commission's subcommittee on "mass civilian sacrifice," led by Kim, have been dealing with petitions from more than 7,000 South Koreans, involving some 1,200 alleged incidents — not just mass planned executions, but also 215 cases in which the U.S. military is accused of the indiscriminate killing of South Korean civilians in 1950-51, usually in air attacks. The commission last year excavated sites at four of an estimated 150 mass graves around the country, recovering remains of more than 400 people. Working deliberately, matching documents to eyewitness and survivor testimony, it has officially confirmed two large-scale executions — at a warehouse in the central South Korean county of Cheongwon, and at Ulsan on the southeast coast. In January, then-President Roh Moo-hyun, under whose liberal leadership the commission was established, formally apologized for the more than 870 deaths confirmed at Ulsan, calling them "illegal acts the then-state authority committed." The commission, with no power to compel testimony or prosecute, faces daunting tasks both in verifying events and identifying victims, and in tracing a chain of responsibility. Under Roh's conservative successor, Lee Myung-bak, whose party is seen as democratic heir to the old autocratic right wing, the commission may find less budgetary and political support. The roots of the summer 1950 bloodbath lie in the U.S.-Soviet division of Japan's former Korea colony in 1945, which precipitated north-south turmoil and eventual war. In the late 1940s, President Syngman Rhee's U.S.-installed rightist regime crushed leftist political activity in South Korea, including a guerrilla uprising inspired by the communists ruling the north. By 1950, southern jails were packed with up to 30,000 political prisoners. The southern government, meanwhile, also created the National Guidance League, a "re-education" organization for recanting leftists and others suspected of communist leanings. Historians say officials met membership quotas by pressuring peasants into signing up with promises of rice rations or other benefits. By 1950, more than 300,000 people were on the league's rolls, organizers said. North Korean invaders seized Seoul, the southern capital, in late June 1950 and freed thousands of prisoners, who rallied to the northern cause. Southern authorities, in full retreat with their U.S. military advisers, ordered National Guidance League members in areas they controlled to report to the police, who detained them. Soon after, commission researchers say, the organized mass executions of people regarded as potential collaborators began — "bad security risks," as a police official described the detainees at the time. The declassified record of U.S. documents shows an ambivalent American attitude toward the killings. American diplomats that summer urged restraint on southern officials — to no obvious effect — but a State Department cable that fall said overall commander Gen. Douglas MacArthur viewed the executions as a Korean "internal matter," even though he controlled South Korea's military. Ninety miles south of Seoul, here in the narrow, peaceful valley of Sannae, truckloads of prisoners were brought in from Daejeon Prison and elsewhere day after day in July 1950, as the North Koreans bore down on the city. The American photos, taken by an Army major and kept classified for a half-century, show the macabre sequence of events. White-clad detainees — bent, submissive, with hands bound — were thrown down prone, jammed side by side, on the edge of a long trench. South Korean military and national policemen then stepped up behind, pointed their rifles at the backs of their heads and fired. The bodies were tipped into the trench. Trembling policemen — "they hadn't shot anyone before" — were sometimes off-target, leaving men wounded but alive, Lee said. He and others were ordered to check for wounded and finish them off. Evidence indicates South Korean executioners killed between 3,000 and 7,000 here, said commissioner Kim. A half-dozen trenches, each up to 150 yards long and full of bodies, extended over an area almost a mile long, said Kim Chong-hyun, 70, chairman of a group of bereaved families campaigning for disclosure and compensation for the Daejeon killings. His father, accused but never convicted of militant leftist activity, was one victim. Another was Yeo Tae-ku's father, whose wife and mother searched for him afterward. "Bodies were just piled upon each other," said Yeo, 59, remembering his mother's description. "Arms would come off when they turned them over." The desperate women never found him, and the mass graves were quickly covered over, as were others in isolated spots up and down this mountainous peninsula, to be officially "forgotten." When British communist journalist Alan Winnington entered Daejeon that summer with North Korean troops and visited the site, writing of "waxy dead hands and feet (that) stick through the soil," his reports in the Daily Worker were denounced as "fabrication" by the U.S. Embassy in London. American military accounts focused instead on North Korean reprisal killings that followed in Daejeon. But CIA and U.S. military intelligence documents circulating even before the Winnington report, classified "secret" and since declassified, told of the executions by the South Koreans. Lt. Col. Bob Edwards, U.S. Embassy military attache in South Korea, wrote in conveying the Daejeon photos to Army intelligence in Washington that he believed nationwide "thousands of political prisoners were executed within (a) few weeks" by the South Koreans. Another glimpse of the carnage appeared in an unofficial U.S. source, an obscure memoir self-published in 1981 by the late Donald Nichols, a U.S. Air Force intelligence officer, who told of witnessing "the unforgettable massacre of approximately 1,800 at Suwon," 20 miles south of Seoul. Such reports lend credibility to a captured North Korean document from Aug. 2, 1950, eventually declassified by Washington, which spoke of mass executions in 12 South Korean cities, including 1,000 killed in Suwon and 4,000 in Daejeon. That early, incomplete North Korean report couldn't include those executed in territory still held by the southerners. Up to 10,000 were killed in the city of Busan alone, a South Korean lawmaker, Park Chan-hyun, estimated in 1960. His investigation came during a 12-month democratic interlude between the overthrow of Rhee and a government takeover by Maj. Gen. Park Chung-hee's authoritarian military, which quickly arrested many then probing for the hidden story of 1950. Kim said his projection of at least 100,000 dead is based in part on extrapolating from a survey by non-governmental organizations in one province, Busan's South Gyeongsang, which estimated 25,000 killed there. And initial evidence suggests most of the National Guidance League's 300,000 members were killed, he said. Commission investigators agree with the late Lt. Col. Edwards' note to Washington in 1950, that "orders for execution undoubtedly came from the top," that is, President Rhee, who died in 1965. But any documentary proof of that may have been destroyed, just as the facts of the mass killings themselves were buried. In 1953, after the war ended in stalemate, after the deaths of at least 2 million people, half or more of them civilians, a U.S. Army war crimes report attributed all summary executions here in Daejeon to the "murderous barbarism" of North Koreans. Such myths survived a half-century, in part because those who knew the truth were cowed into silence. "My mother destroyed all pictures of my father, for fear the family would get an image as leftists," said Koh Chung-ryol, 57, who is convinced her 29-year-old father was innocent of wrongdoing when picked up in a broad police sweep here, to die in Sannae valley. "My mother tried hard to get rid of anything about her husband," she said. "She suffered unspeakable pain." Even educated South Koreans remained ignorant of their country's past. As a young researcher in the late 1980s, Yonsei University's Park Myung-lim, today a leading Korean War historian, was deeply shaken as he sought out confidential accounts of those days from ordinary Koreans. "I cried," he said. "I felt, 'Oh, my goodness. Oh, Jesus. This was my country? It was true?'" The Truth and Reconciliation Commission can recommend but not award compensation for lost and ruined lives, nor can it bring surviving perpetrators to justice. "Our investigative power is so meager," commission President Ahn Byung-ook told the AP. His immediate concern is resources. "The current government isn't friendly toward us, and so we're concerned that the budget may be cut next year," he said. South Korean conservatives complain the "truth" campaign will only reopen old wounds from a time when, even at the village level, leftists and rightists carried out bloody reprisals against each other. The life of the commission — with a staff of 240 and annual budget of $19 million — is guaranteed by law until at least 2010, when it will issue a final, comprehensive report. Later this spring and summer its teams will resume digging at mass grave sites. Thus far, it has verified 16 incidents of 1950-51 — not just large-scale detainee killings, but also such events as a South Korean battalion's cold-blooded killing of 187 men, women and children at Kochang village, supposed sympathizers with leftist guerrillas. By exposing the truth of such episodes, "we hope to heal the trauma and pain of the bereaved families," the commission says. It also wants to educate people, "not just in Korea, but throughout the international community," to the reality of that long-ago conflict, to "prevent such a tragic war from reoccurring in the future."

After Bush II.....the Republican party is absolutely BENT and beyond hypocrisy.....get a HINT from this latest incident from the party of "individual responsibility"..........GOD's party.......how so very CHRISTIAN of you Hucky.....I'll leave it up to you to search for the perfunctory "apology" this j*rkoff has issued....... http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2...aimed_at_b.html Mike Huckabee quips about gun aimed at Barack Obama during NRA speech THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Friday, May 16th 2008, 3:53 PM LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Republican Mike Huckabee responded to an offstage noise during his speech to the National Rifle Association by suggesting it was Barack Obama diving to the floor because someone had aimed a gun at him. Hearing a loud noise and interrupting his speech, Huckabee said: "That was Barack Obama. He just tripped off a chair. He's getting ready to speak and somebody aimed a gun at him and he — he dove for the floor." There were only a few murmurs in the crowd after the remark. The Obama campaign had no comment. Huckabee, who sought the GOP presidential nomination, won the leadoff Iowa caucuses and seven other states. But he dropped out after Sen. John McCain, the likely nominee, piled up a series of big victories. An ordained Baptist minister, Huckabee attracted strong support among religious conservatives. He and former GOP candidate Mitt Romney addressed the NRA convention Friday as did McCain. Support the Republican CULT after Bush and more? You must need a FRICKEN BRAIN transplant!

http://www.antiwar.com/orig/cook.php?articleid=12850 On Independence Day, Israeli Arabs Reminded of Their Place by Jonathan Cook It has been a week of adulation from world leaders, ostentatious displays of military prowess, and street parties. Heads of state have rubbed shoulders with celebrities to pay homage to the Jewish state on its 60th birthday, while a million Israelis reportedly headed off to the country's forests to enjoy the national pastime: a barbecue. But this year's Independence Day festivities have concealed as much as they have revealed. The images of joy and celebration seen by the world have failed to acknowledge the reality of a deeply divided Israel, shared by two peoples with conflicting memories and claims to the land. They have also served to shield from view the fact that the Palestinians' dispossession is continuing in both the occupied territories and inside Israel itself. Far from being a historical event, Israel's "independence" – and the ever greater toll it is inflicting on the Palestinian people – is very much a live issue. Away from the cameras, a fifth of the Israeli population – more than one million Palestinian citizens – remembered al-Nakba, the Catastrophe of 1948 that befell the Palestinian people as the Jewish state was built on the ruins of their society. As it has been doing for the past decade, Israel's Palestinian minority staged an alternative act of commemoration: a procession of families, many of them refugees from the 1948 war, to one of more than 400 Palestinian villages erased by Israel in a monumental act of state vandalism after the fighting. The villages were destroyed to ensure that the 750,000 Palestinians expelled from the state under the cover of war never return. But in a sign of how far Israel still is from coming to terms with the circumstances of its birth, this year's march was forcibly broken up by the Israeli police. They clubbed unarmed demonstrators with batons and fired tear gas and stun grenades into crowds of families that included young children. Although most of the refugees from the 1948 war – numbering in their millions – ended up in camps in neighboring Arab states, a few remained inside Israel. Today one in four Palestinian citizens of Israel is either a refugee or descended from one. Not only have they been denied the right ever to return to their homes, like the other refugees, but many live tantalizingly close to their former communities. The destroyed Palestinian villages have either been reinvented as exclusive Jewish communities or buried under the foliage of national forestation programs overseen by the Jewish National Fund and paid for with charitable donations from American and European Jews. There have been many Nakba processions held over the past week but the march across fields close by the city of Nazareth was the only one whose destination was a former Palestinian village now occupied by Jews. The village of Saffuriya was bombed from the air for two hours in July 1948, in one of the first uses of air power by the new Jewish state. Most of Saffuriya's 5,000 inhabitants fled northwards towards Lebanon, where they have spent six decades waiting for justice. But a small number went south towards Nazareth, where they sought sanctuary and eventually became Israeli citizens. Today they live in a neighbourhood of Nazareth called Safafra, after their destroyed village. They look down into the valley where a Jewish farming community known as Zippori has been established on the ruins of their homes. This year's Nakba procession to Saffuriya was a small act of defiance by Palestinian citizens in returning to the village, even if only symbolically and for a few hours. The threat this posed to Israeli Jews' enduring sense of their own exclusive victimhood was revealed in the unprovoked violence unleashed against the defenceless marchers, many of them children. Like many others, I was there with a child – my five-month-old daughter. Fortunately, for her and my sake, we left after she grew tired from being in the heat for so long, moments before the trouble started. When we left, things were entirely peaceful. Nonetheless, as we drove away, I saw members of a special paramilitary police unit known as the Yassam appearing on their motorbikes. The Yassam are effectively a hit squad, known for striking out first and asking questions later. Trouble invariably follows in their wake. The events that unfolded that afternoon have been captured on mostly home-made videos that can be viewed on the internet. The context for understanding these images is provided below in accounts from witnesses to the police attack: Several thousand Palestinians, waving flags and chanting Palestinian songs, marched towards a forest planted on Saffuriya's lands. Old people, some of whom remembered fleeing their villages in 1948, were joined by young families and several dozen sympathetic Israeli Jews. As the marchers headed towards Saffuriya's spring, sealed off by the authorities with a metal fence a few years ago to stop the villagers collecting water, they were greeted with a small counter-demonstration by right-wing Israeli Jews. They had taken over the fields on the other side of the main road at the entrance to what is now the Jewish community of Zippori. They waved Israeli flags and sang nationalist Hebrew songs, as armed riot police lined the edge of the road that separated the two demonstrations. Tareq Shehadeh, head of the Nazareth Culture and Tourism Association whose parents were expelled from Saffuriya, said: "There were some 50 Jewish demonstrators who had been allowed to take over the planned destination of our march. Their rights automatically trumped ours, even though there were thousands of us there and only a handful of them." The police had their backs to the Jewish demonstrators while they faced off with the Palestinian procession. "It was as if they were telling us: we are here only for the benefit of Jews, not for you," said Shehadeh. "It was a reminder, if we needed it, that this is a Jewish state and we are even less welcome than usual when we meet as Palestinians." The marchers turned away and headed uphill into the woods, to a clearing where Palestinian refugees recounted their memories. When the event ended in late afternoon, the marchers headed back to the main road and their cars. In the police version, Palestinian youths blocked the road and threw stones at passing cars, forcing the police to use force to restore order. Dozens of marchers were injured, including women and children, and two Arab Knesset members, Mohammed Barakeh and Wassel Taha, were bloodied by police batons. Mounted police charged into the crowds, while stun grenades and tear gas were liberally fired into fields being crossed by families. Eight youths were arrested. Shehadeh, who was close to the police when the trouble began, and many other marchers say they saw the Jewish rightwingers throwing stones at them from behind the police. A handful of Palestinian youngsters responded in kind. Others add that the police were provoked by a young woman waving a Palestinian flag. "None of the police were interested in stopping the Jews throwing stones. And even if a few Palestinian youths were reacting, you chase after them and arrest them, you don't send police on mounted horseback charging into a crowd of families and fire tear gas and stun grenades at them. It was totally indiscriminate and reckless." Clouds of gas enveloped the slowest families as they struggled with their children to take cover in the forest. Therese Zbeidat, a Dutch national who was there with her Palestinian husband Ali and their two teenage daughters, Dina and Awda, called the experiences of her family and others at the hands of the police "horrifying." "Until then it really was a family occasion. When the police fired the tear gas, there were a couple near us pushing a stroller down the stony track towards the road. A thick cloud of gas was coming towards us. I told the man to leave the stroller and run uphill as fast as he could with the baby. "Later I found them with the baby retching, its eyes streaming and choking. It broke my heart. There were so many families with young children, and the police charge was just so unprovoked. It started from nothing." The 17-year-old boyfriend of Therese Zbeidat's daughter, Awda, was among those arrested. "It was his first time at any kind of nationalist event," she said. "He was with his mother, and when we started running up the hill away from the police on horseback, she stumbled and fell. "He went to help her and the next thing a group of about 10 police were firing tear gas cannisters directly at him. Then they grabbed him by the keffiyah [scarf] around his neck and pulled him away. All he was doing was helping his mother!" Later, Therese and her daughters thought they had made it to safety only to find themselves in the midst of another charge from a different direction, this time by police on foot. Awda was knocked to the ground and kicked in her leg, while Dina was threatened by a policeman who told her: "I will break your head." "I've been on several demonstrations before when the police have turned nasty," said Therese, "but this was unlike anything I've seen. Those young children, some barely toddlers, amidst all that chaos crying for their parents – what a way to mark Independence Day!" Jafar Farah, head of the political lobbying group Mossawa, who was there with his two young sons, found them a safe spot in the forest and rushed downhill to help ferry other children to safety. The next day he attended a court hearing at which the police demanded that the eight arrested men be detained for a further seven days. Three, including a local journalist who had been beaten and had his camera stolen by police, were freed after the judge watched video footage of the confrontation taken by marchers. Farah said of the Independence Day events: "For decades our community was banned from remembering publicly what happened to us as a people during the Nakba. Our teachers were sacked for mentioning it. We were not even supposed to know that we are Palestinians. "And in addition, the police have regularly used violence against us to teach us our place. In October 2000, at the start of the intifada, 13 of our unarmed young men were shot dead for demonstrating. No one has ever been held accountable. "Despite all that we started to believe that Israel was finally mature enough to let us remember our own national tragedy. Families came to show their children the ruins of the villages so they had an idea of where they came from. The procession was becoming a large and prominent event. People felt safe attending. "But we were wrong, it seems. It looked to me very much like this attack by the police was planned. I think the authorities were unhappy about the success of the processions, and wanted them stopped. "They may yet win. What parent will bring their children to the march next year knowing that they will be attacked by armed police?"

MONKUS MOND!!! How NOBLE of you!!!! Giving up golf to support the troops........ http://wiredispatch.com/news/?id=172578 Bush's golf claim angers veterans guardian.co.uk May 15, 2008 George Bush has angered US war veterans by declaring that out of solidarity with those who made the ultimate sacrifice in Iraq he decided to make his own sacrifice: giving up golf. In an interview with the Politico website, the president said he took the decision because of the war. "I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf. I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal." Brandon Friedman, a veteran US infantry officer who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan, told the Press Association: "Thousands of Americans have given up a lot more than golf for this war. For President Bush to imply that he somehow stands in solidarity with families of American soldiers by giving up golf is disgraceful. It's an insult to all Americans and a slap in the face to our troops' families." Friedman, who is vice chairman of the US veterans' organisation VoteVets, added: "It shows how disconnected he is from everyday Americans, especially those who are serving in Iraq." Bush said he laid down his clubs after the August 2003 bombing of United Nations offices in Baghdad that killed the UN's top official in the country, Sergio Vieira de Mello. "I remember when de Mello got killed as a result of these murderers taking this good man's life. I was playing golf - I think in central Texas - and they pulled me off the golf course and I said, 'It's just not worth it any more'." According to a database held by CBS News the statement is not entirely accurate. He did cut short a round of golf at the 12th hole on that day, but his last recorded game came two months later, October 13. Source: guardian.co.uk

Like McCain for POTUS? Maybe you think we won Vietnam? http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080517/ap_on_...obama_mccain_19 Obama criticizes McCain for 'naive' foreign policy By MIKE GLOVER, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 19 minutes ago WATERTOWN, S.D. - Barack Obama laid into John McCain on Friday for advancing a tough-guy foreign policy that he called "naive and irresponsible," serving notice that he's ready to launch a full-throttle challenge to the Republican presidential contender on international relations in the general election campaign. Lumping McCain together with President Bush, Obama declared: "If they want a debate about protecting the United States of America, that's a debate I'm ready to win because George Bush and John McCain have a lot to answer for." He blamed Bush for policies that enhance the strength of terrorist groups such as Hamas and "the fact that al-Qaida's leadership is stronger than ever because we took our eye off the ball in Afghanistan," among other failings. McCain agreed, at least, that there were huge differences between himself and Obama on foreign policy, and said he'd be happy to let the American people decide who was right. "It would be a wonderful thing if we lived in a world where we don't have enemies. But that's not the world we live in. And until Senator Obama understands that reality, the American people have every reason to doubt whether he has the strength, judgment and determination to keep us safe," McCain said in a speech to the National Rifle Association in Louisville, Ky. McCain rejected the naive comment, saying Obama should have known better, and added: "Talking, not even with soaring rhetoric, in unconditional meetings with the man who calls Israel 'a stinking corpse,' and arms terrorists who kill Americans, will not convince Iran to give up its nuclear program. It is reckless. It is reckless to suggest that unconditional neetings will advance our interests." His campaign issued a statement accusing Obama of making a "hysterical diatribe." The three-way dustup over foreign policy — Bush vs. Obama vs. McCain — began a day earlier, when Bush gave a speech to the Israeli Knesset in which he criticized those who believe the United States should negotiate with terrorists and radicals. Obama said Bush's criticism was directed at him, and took umbrage; the White House denied the president had Obama in mind; McCain said Obama must explain why he wants to talk with rogue leaders. Obama continued the debate on Friday at a town-hall meeting in a livestock barn. He said he had planned to focus on rural issues during his swing through South Dakota, but felt compelled to answer the remarks from Bush and McCain. "I'm a strong believer in civility and I'm a strong believer in a bipartisan foreign policy, but that cause is not served with dishonest, divisive attacks of the sort that we've seen out of George Bush and John McCain over the last couple days," he said. Obama said McCain had a "naive and irresponsible belief that tough talk from Washington will somehow cause Iran to give up its nuclear program and support for terrorism." Speaking of McCain and Bush together, he added: "They aren't telling you the truth. They are trying to fool you and scare you because they can't win a foreign policy debate on the merits. But it's not going to work. Not this time, not this year." Obama vowed to turn the foreign policy debate back against Bush and McCain, rejecting the notion that Democrats critical of the war in Iraq are vulnerable to charges of being soft on terrorism. Meeting with reporters, he argued that tough-minded diplomacy and engagement with rivals have long coexisted, citing the foreign policies of former Presidents Kennedy, Nixon and Reagan. "That has been the history of U.S. diplomacy until very recently," Obama said. "I find it puzzling that we view this as in any way controversial. This whole notion of not talking to people, it didn't hold in the '60s, it didn't hold in the '70s ... When Kennedy met with (Soviet leader Nikita) Khrushchev, we were on the brink of nuclear war." He also noted that Nixon opened talks with China with the knowledge that Chinese leader Mao Zedong "had exterminated millions of people." Laying down a marker for the fall campaign, Obama offered a challenge to the GOP nominee: "If John McCain wants to meet me anywhere, any time to have a debate about our respective policies ... that is a conversation I am happy to have." Other Democrats accused McCain of hypocrisy Friday, saying the certain GOP presidential nominee had previously said he would be willing to negotiate with the militant Palestinian group Hamas. McCain told reporters in West Virginia: "I made it very clear, at that time, before and after, that we will not negotiate with terrorist organizations, that Hamas would have to abandon their terrorism, their advocacy to the extermination of the state of Israel, and be willing to negotiate in a way that recognizes the right of the state of Israel and abandons their terrorist position and advocacy." McCain said there was a "huge difference" between his own statements and Obama's willingness to negotiate with "sponsors of terrorist organizations." "I'll let the American people decide whether that's a significant difference or not," he said. "I believe it is." Obama said he has stated "over and over again that I will not negotiate with terrorists like Hamas." Obama closed out his campaign day with a noisy rally in Sioux Falls before about 6,500 cheering backers, perhaps showing some of the strain of a long campaign day. "Thank you Sioux City," Obama said, as a roar greeted his entrance. He quickly corrected his reference to a nearby Iowa town. "I've been in Iowa too long," said Obama, referring to his long campaign to win that state's leadoff caucuses in January.

Really......when do the ROTTEN TOMATOES begin to smack this j*rkoff in his monkey mush? http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080517/ap_on_...ush_mideast_122 Bush fails to win Saudi help on gas prices By TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent 25 minutes ago RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - President Bush failed to win the help he sought from Saudi Arabia to relieve skyrocketing American gas prices Friday, a setback for the former Texas oilman who took office predicting he would jawbone oil-producing nations to help the U.S. Bush got a red-carpet welcome to this desert kingdom, home to the world's largest oil reserves, and promised to ask King Abdullah to increase production to reduce pressure on prices, which soared past $127 for the first time Friday. But Saudi officials said they already were meeting the needs of their customers worldwide and there was no need to pump more. Their answer recalled Bush's trip to Saudi Arabia in January when he urged an increase in production but was rebuffed. Saudi oil minister Ali al-Naimi said the kingdom decided on May 10 to increase production by 300,000 barrels a day to help meet U.S. needs after Venezuela and Mexico cut back deliveries. "Supply and demand are in balance today," al-Naimi told a news conference, bristling at criticism from the U.S. Congress. "How much does Saudi Arabia need to do to satisfy people who are questioning our oil practices and policies?" Early this week, Senate Democrats introduced a resolution to block $1.4 billion in arms sales to Saudi Arabia unless Riyadh agreed to increase its oil production by 1 million barrels per day. Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal said the discussion with Bush about oil was friendly. "He didn't punch any tables or shout at anybody," the minister said. "I think he was satisfied." That couldn't be said for at least one of the candidates hoping to succeed Bush in January. Said Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton: "I think it's very important that we do something more dramatic than going to have tea with the Saudis." National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said consumers would not see dramatic price reductions. Oil experts agreed. Bernard Picchi, an energy analyst at Wall Street Access, an independent research firm, called the 300,000 barrel Saudi production increase "a token amount." It would be different, he said, if Saudi Arabia boosted production by 1 million or 1.5 million barrels a day. The announced increase will have Saudi Arabia pumping 9.45 million barrels a day by June, Saudi officials said. That's about 2 million barrels below its capacity. Analysts also discounted the impact of the U.S. Energy Department's announcement that it would cancel shipments into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve for six months beginning July 1. "It's ridiculous because I don't think this is going to bring the price down," said Phil Flynn, analyst at Alaron Trading Corp., of the Energy Department's move. Midway through a five-day Mideast trip that began in Israel and ends in Egypt, Bush spent the day with Abdullah at his weekend retreat outside the capital. It is known as a horse farm since the king maintains 150 Arabian stallions there. The farm also produces thousands of goats and sheep, bred for the king's royal banquets. The sagging U.S. economy and painful gasoline prices are the top concerns of Americans in the heart of a heated presidential campaign. The run-up in oil prices has been alarming. Futures prices of crude on the New York Mercantile Exchange have more than doubled in the past year, from $62.46 a barrel in the first week of May, 2007. Prices reached $100 a barrel for the first time in February and continued rising. They closed at $126.29 Friday. On Jan. 26, 2000, during a presidential debate, Bush opposed taking oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and instead said then-President Clinton should "jawbone" oil producing nations. That week crude oil prices were $28 a barrel. Hadley said the Saudis briefed Bush on plans to increase their production capacity. They also argued that even an increase would be unlikely to bring down the soaring prices, which they said were driven more by uncertainty in the market, lack of refining capacity for the type of oil readily available and other complicated dynamics. Economists say prices are being driven up by increased demand, not slow production. China and India are stretching supplies as they use ever increasing amounts of energy. Hadley suggested the White House was satisfied with — or at least accepted — the Saudi response. However, he said the Bush administration will see if the explanation "conforms to what our experts say." Hadley said Bush and the king also focused on Iran and concern about recent violence in Lebanon, where Hezbollah overran Beirut neighborhoods last week in protest of measures by the U.S.-backed government. The display of military power by the Shiite militant group, which the U.S. considers a terrorist organization, resulted in the worst internal fighting since the end of Lebanon's 1975-90 civil war. Sunni-dominated Saudi Arabia — eager to stop any advance of regional power by Shiite-dominated Iran — joins the West in supporting Lebanon's government. Hadley said Bush and Abdullah shared a concern that the recent events would "embolden Iran." The U.S. and Saudi Arabia, he said, "are of one mind in condemning what Hezbollah did." On Thursday, Hezbollah and the Lebanese government reached a deal to end the violence after Lebanon's Cabinet reversed measures aimed at the militants. Bush's visit was billed as a celebration of 75 years of U.S.-Saudi relations, though they have been frayed by Arab perceptions that Washington favors Israel too much in the dispute with the Palestinians, the Iraq war and the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The two countries used the occasion of Bush's visit to sign new agreements. Among them was an agreement for the U.S. to assist the kingdom in developing civilian nuclear power. Another involves U.S. promises to help protect any Saudi nuclear infrastructure with training, the exchange of experts "and other support services as needed." Hadley said it would not involve U.S. troops. Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal, at the news conference with the oil minister, said he shared Bush's hope for a Mideast peace agreement by next January but sharply criticized Israel for the "humanistic suffering weighed upon the West Bank and Gaza Strip population" of Palestinians. He said Israel's "continued policy of expanding settlements on Palestinian territories" undermines the peace process.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200805130001 Tue, May 13, 2008 8:25am ET Military analysts named in Times exposé appeared or were quoted more than 4,500 times on broadcast nets, cables, NPR Summary: A New York Times article detailed the connection between numerous media military analysts and the Pentagon and defense industries, reporting that "the Bush administration has used its control over access and information in an effort to transform" media military analysts "into a kind of media Trojan horse -- an instrument intended to shape terrorism coverage from inside the major TV and radio networks." A Media Matters review found that since January 1, 2002, the analysts named in the Times article -- many identified as having ties to the defense industry -- collectively appeared or were quoted as experts more than 4,500 times on ABC, ABC News Now, CBS, CBS Radio Network, NBC, CNN, CNN Headline News, Fox News, MSNBC, CNBC, and NPR. On April 20, The New York Times published an article by investigative reporter David Barstow that detailed the connection between numerous media military analysts and the Pentagon and defense industries. Barstow reported that "the Bush administration has used its control over access and information in an effort to transform" media military analysts, many of whom have clients or work for companies with an interest in obtaining Pentagon contracts, "into a kind of media Trojan horse -- an instrument intended to shape terrorism coverage from inside the major TV and radio networks." A Media Matters review found that since January 1, 2002, the analysts named in Barstow's article -- many identified as having ties to the defense industry -- collectively appeared or were quoted as experts more than 4,500 times on ABC, ABC News Now, CBS, CBS Radio Network, NBC, CNN, CNN Headline News, Fox News, MSNBC, CNBC, and NPR in segments covering the Iraq war both before and after the invasion, as well as numerous other national security or government policy issues. A spreadsheet listing each of the analysts' appearances documented by Media Matters is available here. The following chart lists 20 analysts included in Barstow's article, the network or networks on which each analyst appeared, and the number of appearances made by each analyst since January 1, 2002, as tabulated by Media Matters: Military analyst Networks Number of appearances identified by Media Matters David L. Grange CNN, CNN Headline News 921 Donald W. Shepperd CNN 713 Barry R. McCaffrey NBC, MSNBC, CNBC 642 James Marks CNN 299 Rick Francona NBC, MSNBC, CNBC 296 Wayne A. Downing NBC, MSNBC, CNBC 270 Robert H. Scales Jr. Fox News, National Public Radio 176 (Fox News) 73 (NPR)* William V. Cowan Fox News 189 Kenneth Allard NBC, MSNBC, CNBC 180 Thomas G. McInerney Fox News 144 Montgomery Meigs NBC, MSNBC, CNBC 125 Robert L. Maginnis Fox News 113 William L. Nash ABC, ABC News Now 96 Paul E. Vallely Fox News 81 Charles T. Nash Fox News 54 Robert S. Bevelacqua Fox News 48 Jeffrey D. McCausland CBS, CBS Radio Network 43 Timur J. Eads Fox News 28 Joseph W. Ralston CBS, CBS Radio Network 19 John C. Garrett Fox News 8 NOTE: Transcripts for all programs on CNN are available in the Nexis database, but for the other cable news networks transcripts are available for only some shows. *This figure includes 31 appearances from 2005 and later, when -- according to NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik -- Scales was no longer serving as an official NPR consultant but rather was an unpaid guest. Methodology Media Matters used the Nexis database to tabulate appearances by analysts on networks with which they were affiliated that included discussions of issues related to national security or U.S. government policy. Instances in which analysts appeared on networks other than those with which they were affiliated were not counted. Media Matters counted as appearances both instances in which an analyst appeared as a guest on a show -- either live during the show, or in a pre-taped interview aired during the show -- and instances in which a report included a clip of an analyst's commentary. The study was limited to appearances made after January 1, 2002. Re-airings of news programs in their entirety were excluded from the study. However, instances in which the same report, interview, or quote was aired on different shows or more than once during the course of the same program were counted as separate appearances in this study. If an analyst appeared several separate times during the same show, Media Matters counted each one as a distinct appearance. Nexis includes transcripts for all news programs on CNN but for the other cable news networks transcripts are available for only some shows; appearances on programs whose transcripts do not appear in Nexis were not included in this study. Finally, the Times article reported that some of the analysts "pointed out, accurately, that they did not always agree with the administration or each other" and that "[m]any analysts strongly denied that they had either been co-opted or had allowed outside business interests to affect their on-air comments, and some have used their platforms to criticize the conduct of the war." In conducting this study, Media Matters did not assess whether individual instances of commentary -- or the analysts themselves -- were supportive of administration policy. —L.K.A., M.A., T.A., M.B.B., M.M.B., K.E., J.M., J.S., A.J.W., & L.Y.

I know you Bush DEADENDERS won't have a problem with the political aptitude of the Washington Times. Enjoy the Ride! http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.d.../702074707/1013 Cindy McCain's 'privacy' charade THE WASHINGTON TIMES EDITORIAL May 14, 2008 Cindy McCain refuses to release her tax returns. This is not just a questionable political decision that threatens to haunt her husband's campaign for the next six months. It is also the wrong decision. Mrs. McCain needs to change her mind and release the returns as quickly as possible. How Republican John McCain, the presumptive presidential nominee who rightly fancies himself the king of transparency on Capitol Hill, and his campaign strategists can permit this open sore to fester is unimaginable. As the chairman of the Anheuser-Busch distributorship Hensley & Co., which her father founded, Mrs. McCain is an heiress whose income and assets will directly benefit from the tax policies espoused by her husband. Mr. McCain would also benefit. Taxpayers and voters are entitled to know how much these benefits will be. With a net worth estimated in the range of $100 million, Mrs. McCain would directly benefit from her husband's pledge to permanently extend the top income-tax rate of 35 percent (which was lowered from 39.6 percent in 2001), the top capital gains tax rate of 15 percent (which was lowered from 20 percent in 2003) and the top dividend tax rate of 15 percent (which was lowered from 38.6 percent in 2003). Mr. McCain opposed those cuts in 2001 and 2003, but now wants to make them permanent. The McCains may also derive great benefit from his promise to completely eliminate the individual alternative minimum tax. Until she releases her tax returns, voters cannot know for certain. Moreover, during a crucial period of the Republican nomination contest — from last August (after Mr. McCain's campaign had collapsed financially) through February (when its remarkable political rebound effectively clinched the Republican nomination) — Mrs. McCain used accoutrements of her wealth to keep her husband's campaign literally "in the air," traveling from one campaign stop to another. Many of those photos you saw of Mr. McCain carrying his own luggage through airports during that seven-month period were snapped after he disembarked from the corporate jet owned by the company headed by his wife. According to an exhaustive analysis by the New York Times, Mr. McCain complied with federal law regarding the use of the plane. But he uncharacteristically exploited a massive loophole that the Federal Election Commission has been trying to close. That loophole allowed Mr. McCain to fly relatively inexpensively. The law, whose loophole specifically exempted aircraft owned by a candidate's family or by a company it controls, enabled the campaign to use that jet as a charter plane while paying much cheaper first-class fares and indulge in a subsidy. Mrs. McCain needs to end the "privacy" charade and release her tax returns. (maybe Cindypooh can hook up with party ICON Rish Limpie for a hand full of "Mommy's little helpers"!! )