Login HereNo wonder Condi Rice is working so hard to avoid the subpoena from Waxman's committee for her testimony (despite having time to tape three Sunday Talking Head shows this morning). From ABC's This Week:
RICE: The question was...how long were you going to wait, given that it appeared that the situation was getting worse.GEORGE S.: Well, looking back, do you think that Iraq posed an imminent threat to the United States?
RICE: I think that...uh...an imminent threat? Certainly Iraq posed a threat, and the question was, was it going to get worse over time, or was it going to get better?
So...that would be a no, then? Keeping all those excuses straight is hard work. (ThinkProgress has more Condi idiocy from Face the Nation. It's time to dust off the Richard Clarke clips again.)
Meanwhile, 9 more soldiers have died in Iraq and Baghdad has been rocked with explosions. Juan Cole has much more. What a mess.
Actions have consequences and, at the moment, the idiotic, craptastic actions of the Bush Administration are having dire consequences in GOP fundraising and candidate recruitment. It seems that "the base" isn't holding so steady afterall, and that Karl's stroll through the cesspool political tactics manual has come up with a fundraising goose egg. Doesn't bode well for the future of the GOP and, as such, I'm beginning to wonder if someone (or several someones) might be contemplating how much play they might get from having such a high profile smarm merchant out for a bus? The question is, could it be done without Rove employing a scorched earth policy, taking all of his personal enemies under the bus with him?
Sucks when your political party becomes synonymous with political dirty tricks, lying, incompetence and failure, doesn't it, GOP bigwigs? But then again, what did you expect when you sold your party's soul for a few pieces of K Street silver and bought a fetid turdblossom in a poke with it? Chickens, meet roost.
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Ha! ZED?
you got it!conniptionfit @
1
Secundus?
Damn. Aunt Betsy beat me with the fastest fingers on the net.
Couldn’t happen to a nicer party :)
I want to thank all of those who watch Teh Talking Heads, so I don’t have to deal with more bouts of verbal vomiting. Mr Conniptionfit has asked that I don’t watch because he fears for my blood pressure and/or sanity. So what was Condi’s major talking point today?
George should have shot back with “No, I asked if Iraq was an imminent threat.”
You have to really watch how they parse their words with this crowd.
noen @ 7
Could have even played a clip of her talking about the mushroom cloud.
Happy Sunday Aunt Betsy! She’s a beaut!
“Actions have consequences and, at the moment, the idiotic, craptastic actions of the Bush Administration are having dire consequences”
I believe that for Cheney & Bush their Iraq war is having desired con$equences. They and they cronies are getting filthy richer off the blood of other humans.
conniptionfit @ 9
Happy Sunday to you too!
Christy,
Thank you so much for the Tribute to Joni Mitchell recommendation. It is fantastic!
From WaPo (by way of TPM):
Oh, please, please let it be Natasha.
I wish she would just dispense with this charade.
They lied. They’ve been caught.
Stop trying to keep alive the “threat” meme, Condi.
It’s over. America has woken up.
CHS; “Sucks when your political party becomes synonymous with political dirty tricks, lying, incompetence and failure, doesn’t it, GOP bigwigs?”
See “British Conservative Party, 1997″. Or rather, don’t, for the next ten years.
I didn’t watch MTP this morning but it has been reported that Rice said something about writing a book and that we can all read it then. If this is true, that is the most infuriating thing I’ve ever heard. Henry, did you hear that? She can’t report to you cuz it might hurt her book sales.
George @ 14
And they have no credibility…on anything.
Loo Hoo @ 12
I remember when it came out, biggest selling record ever. You know… they used to encode music on these vinyl discs and you decoded them by putting a diamond tipped needle in the grooves. yeah, weird, I know, but that’s how it was done. Then I rode my horse to school….
;)
noen @ 6
A sunny day can pose a threat as can a rainy one, and those can be imminent threats, a sunburn or a ruined cookout. Perhaps we should have invaded the weather, at least if we use Condi’s logic or lack thereof.
PeteCO @ 15
We can only hope.
snark_in_upstate @ 12
Ooohh, man, it would be just too easy….. it just writes itself, doesn’t it?
Christy,
Thank you for watching, so I don’t have to — and then wrapping the package up in the most attractive snark I can imagine.
Really, that made my morning and afternoon!
Thanks!
noen @ 18
You had a horse?! Damn, I had to walk uphill both ways through the snow.
Condi just layed a big egg and Waxman is about to fry it. Overhard please Henry!!
In the DC Madam scandal there are supposedly officers in the military who offered their “services” as fantasy “escorts”. Many many heads are going to roll before this is over. Sure like how the Bushies have brought back honor and decency to politics huh?
DrDick @ 22
In the dark!!
What I would like a talking head to ask Rice is “Did Bush say he wanted to bomb Al Jazeera at the April 2004 meeting with Blair?”
Rice was there.
At the current memo trial defense layers ask:
Powell, who was also there, punted with a non-denial denial. Don’t know if Waxman can get that memo. But it sure would be nice to know that our President didn’t plan an aggressive act of war.
The GOP is headed for destruction as a national party..the downside is that there are two carrier battle groups in or near the Gulf and Bush is a cornered psychopath. Hopefully, Rove’s scorched earth policy isn’t Iranian earth.
AZ Matt @ 24
Burn that sucker!
noen @ 25
And you wonder why they confiscated her files??
solai at 16 — That was apparently on CNN’s Late Edition this morning and not MtP, which was Condi-free today. I didn’t catch it, but I’ve gotten several e-mails on it — am waiting to see if anyone grabbed a clip.
Condi “mushroom cloud” Rice is coming undone!
noen @ 18
Oh yes. I had all the Joni Mitchell on vinyl and listened and sang along! This is a new one with others singing her songs. I particularly like Emmylou Harris, Prince, Annie Lennox, Sarah McLachlan and Elvis Costello.
Please contact Bill Moyers and encourage him to do a present time documentary on how the MSM has allowed the “cakewalk in Iraq” liars to repeat unsubstantiated claims about Iran for the last three years.
Ask Moyers to do a show on Iran and the media. Why has the MSM allowed the claims about an “alleged” nuclear weapons program to go mostly unchallenged. (Chris Matthews has been consistently challenging these claims). The rest of the MSM allows the unsubstantiated claims to be repeated over and over again.
Polls report that 70% of Americans now believe that Iran posesses nuclear weapons instead of a nuclear energy program. This belief did not happen via osmosis.
Please contact Bill Moyers so that he does a show NOW on the media and Iran not in two years after the Bush administration pre-emptively attacks Iran! Moyers can help stop aN illegal, and immoral pre-emptive strike on Iran by digging for the truth instead of repeating the “cakewalk in Iraq” liars inflammatory rhetoric about Iran.
CONTACT MOYERS
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/jour…..dback.html
This is a great article and I agree with it to some degree. Moyers did not mention how much anti-invasion info was on the web, and did not show very much coverage of the anti-invasion marches( we know the MSM did not)
http://www.axisoflogic.com/art…..4430.shtml
snark_in_upstate @ 13
Heh! I’ve been begging for Boris to be on the client list.
And with Newtie the Lobbyist being such a horndog, it’s an even-money bet he’s on the list, too.
As for Condi: She’s still trying to pretend that nobody warned her of the pressing need to deal with Al Qaeda, eh? Geez, Al Franken busted her ass years ago in the “Operation Ignore” chapter of Lies and the Lying Liars that Tell Them.
Do note that while Condi’s making the rounds of the Sunday Talks spewing this crap, she doesn’t dare say it under oath before Congress.
snark_in_upstate @ 13
So you did change your name, eh?
solai @
16
When I read about that on an earlier thread, I proposed a NEW RULE for Maher: Public officials CANNOT withhold information pertinent to the public need for information for the after office books.
Christy!
Actual facts and the free flow of information are the enemy of this administration - and we’ve got the best seats in the house - we’re witnessing the trickle of the Truth become a steady stream.
Oversight is a beautiful thing…
Peter Co 216
One of our signs said 650,ooo dead Iraqis, 2 million Iraqi refugees! DO YOU CARE?
As people drove by many big trucks with one person in them, people either looked at us with blank stares or looked away. I think if I were from another country and I saw people drawing blanks, yelling out “Iraqi’s are not people anyway” or ” go nuke them all”. It would confirm once and for all why you should fear Americans. The Bush administration has done their very best to dehumanize Muslim populations.
I have talked with quite a few soldiers returning from Iraq who are from southeastern Ohio. When you are patient enough you can find out that they are not proud of how they have knocked down doors in Iraq or how they have treated the Iraqi people. I think the Iraqi people have been incredibly mistreated by some of our soldiers, and many of our soldiers are going to be reluctant to talk about this honestly!
Didn’t ANY of the so called journalists ask Condi what she’s doing about Waxmans’ subpoena?
noen @ 25
Some people are downright giddy that the Bush Administration is about to be ensnared in another scandal. But I would remind them that nothing is more bipartisan than sexual indiscretion.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/
DrDick @ 23
I really did. Coco, she was a quater/thoroughbred mix. I trained her and rode her. She threw me once, got right back on. Feisty though, very hard to handle.
It seems that “the base” isn’t holding so steady afterall, and that Karl’s stroll through the cesspool political tactics manual has come up with a fundraising goose egg.
And yet here’s Rassmussen, with Bush approval right back up to 41%.
Rassmussen has contended that having a larger number of Bush deadenders in his sample doesn’t matter, since the same trends will be seen as in other polls. How long can he cling to that fig leaf (or vice versa, heh!).
Steve @ 28
That’s why Nicholas Kristof’s NYT column today is so important: He spills the beans on how the Iranian moderates in 2003 came to Bush to cut a peace deal, but Bush’s PNAC Platoon goons nixed it – an act which led to the downfall of the mods.
Oh, for the love of God. Iraq was not a threat to the US. Saddam was no more threatening than any other unpleasant dictator. What, did he have swarms of invisible landing craft poised to deliver his massive clone army to our shores? No.
At the risk of sounding heretical—-terrorism isn’t that big a threat, either. Yes, 9/11 was a tragedy. But if you double the 9/11 death toll, you have a number that is ONE TENTH as many people as die annually in traffic accidents. Terrorism is as big a threat to our way of life as drunk driving. It’s a bad thing. But it is not a WWII style defining conflict of our lifetimes. And we didn’t react to drunk driving with a poorly conceived military invasion and occupation of Tennesse to shut down the Jack Daniels distillery.
We need to reframe this terrorosm bulls**t.
moeman @ 10
I agree. All the actions of this administration have had enrichment of its members and corporate friends as its primary objective.
noen @ 42
Actually, many of my friends (mostly female ones) had horses when I was growing up (this was in Oklahoma after all), buit none of them actually rode them to school. As we lived in a town of about 30,000, I do not think the police would have approved (there actually were laws on the books which prohibited tying up you horse on main street).
Steve @ 28
I doubt the GOP as a whole is going the way of the dodo. But hopefully the neo-con, anti separation of church and state group is. We need reasoned opposing ideas.
OT but big new in the San Fran Bay area. Check out the photos:
Was Rice arrogant and dismissive before she was in the Bush administration?
Is it legal to not respond to a subpoena? What will they do next in regard to Rice?
http://www.federalnewsradio.co.....id=1125826
Zee @ 48
Yeah, I am also not quite so sanguine about the imminent extinct of the Rethuglicans (though I can fantasize). There are still a lot of pre-Neanderthals out there.
The view here is that Secretary Rice has been getting more or less a free ride for far too long. As to the reasons for this I can only guess. This individual is no better than the rest of the Bush mob. I have disliked this unprincipled person’s act for a long time. Intensely so.
ifthethunderdontgetya @ 43
Geez. Rasmussen’s a GOP pollster, but he usually doesn’t fudge more than 2% in favor of the Republican side of things, and he’s predictable in his fudging (unlike other polls which are all over the map); if you know to automatically shave 2% off the GOP side and give it to the Democratic side, you’ll get a pretty close approximation of reality.
For him to be racheting up the fudging means that he must be getting tons of flak from the RNC and/or other folks.
DrDick @ 47
I meant that I really did have a horse. Sorry I wasn’t clear. No I couldn’t have rode her into town to school, that was ten miles away. But I did have to milk the Guernsey and chop wood for the wood burning stove.
Juan Cole on CNN, All!
Juan Cole being interviewed on CNN right now.
Steve @ 28
Psychopaths seem to run in crowds these days. Kristol, Woolsey, Feith, Cheney, Wolfowitz Bush, Frum, Bolton, Wurmser’s. The devil is going to have to build a new wing,when the earth is blessed to seem them go!
noen @ 54
Sounds bucolic. Unfortunately, I also have done that on my grandfather’s farm as a youth and know it is actually hard assed work.
Christy Hardin Smith @ 56
Link?
kathleen at 59 — No link — he’s on TV.
Sorry, Christy! Just wanted to make sure everyone saw it. I was overly exited.
Zee @ 48
Yes we do. Liberal vs Progressives sounds reasoned to me.
;)
Hoosierville — No apology necessary — you beat me to the punch. *g*
Cnn is stepping out! Maybe they will have Flynt Leverett and Scott Ritter on. Go Juan Cole (one of my heroes)
So many little steaming piles left behind by Turdblossom, it is sometimes difficult to see the individual piles through the rising steam before you step in one. But Abramoff and his machine pre-dated Rove and his. The aide shared by Jack Abramoff and Don Young, Mark Zachares, who copped a plea last week to a conspiracy with Abramoff, is making Rep. Don Young feel nervous, to say the least.
The info Zachares is sharing with the Feds on the blocking of legislation by Young to bring workers’ rights to the slaves in the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas WILL topple Young. If not soon, certainly in the 2008 election.
This makes for a great Sunday for ET, as I’ve been predicting this would happen and chastising Alaska reporters over their timidity on investigating Young’s criminality since late last summer.
Army chief wants to speed up troop hike
Gen. Casey pushes accelerated plan to boost number of active duty soldiers
SCHOFIELD BARRACKS, Hawaii - The Army’s new chief of staff said Saturday he wants to accelerate by two years a plan to increase the nation’s active duty soldiers by 65,000.
The Army has set 2012 as its target date for a force expansion to 547,000 troops, but Gen. George Casey said he told his staff to have the soldiers ready earlier.
“I said that’s too long. Go back and tell me what it would take to get it done faster,” he said in an interview with The Associated Press during a stop in Hawaii.
I think Glenn Greenwald’s right about their being a sea-change….even in the msm. *g*…and make that a big s**t-eating one.
Texas Betsy @
8
George gets his marching orders from teh timmeh ……
So, which 2008 GOP primary candidate is Rove going to work for? Newt? He seems like a Newt kind of guy.
Or is he going to wait until there’s a nominee, and go work for whoever that is?
I wouldn’t worry too much. The Bushies have had eight years to sweep out as many Democrats as possible from government posts, much to the detriment of governmental functions. Besides, few DC Democratic civil servants can afford $275 an hour for a 90-minute minimum, which is what Palfrey charged. You have to be a lobbyist (hi, Newt!) or a prominent lawyer (hi, Joey DiGenova!) to afford that kind of expense on a regular basis.
Note that while White House officials have been mentioned as being on the list, no current members of Congress have been. And even if a former Clintonite’s name appears, nobody aside from the wingers will care, as that was a decade ago or more: The dude’s not in power NOW and hasn’t been for years.
Steve @ 28
This really scares me to death.
Phoenix Woman @ 35
I was skipping around among the talking heads but couldn’t bear to listen to her. Strange that apparently none of the interviewers pointed this out.
DrDick @ 58
We had a hobby farm. My father remembering his boyhood in Iowa I guess. And we only had the wood stove for a short time while our real house was being built. And we had a pneumatic milker and only the one cow. So… it was still nice growing up in that kind of environment. Now I live downtown Minneapolis and have to deal with drunks and gangbangers… oh well.
Phoenix Woman @ 53
Not to make too much of it, but Rasmussen has been on average (IIRC) about five points higher on Bush’s approval rating than the median of the other polls. The excuse is that he uses a “likely voter” model and that Republicans are much more likely to vote.
Beautiful sand dune photo Christy. Reminds me of the Sand Dunes in southern Colorado.
http://www.greatsanddunes.info/GSD_images.htm Worth a trip to these dunes, while going from one hot spring to the next in Colorado.
http://www.trails.com/toptrails.asp?area=10541.
Anyone else a hotsprings junkie?
In southeastern Ohio we have been blessed with plenty of rain, so that grass and trees are emerald green with redbuds and dogwood in full bloom up against the green. The woods are filled with spring beuties, dutchman’s britches, trillium, black and blue cohosh, phlox, violets, jack in the pulpit, ginseng, may apple, blood root, golebseal and oh so many Appalachian treasures blooming.
What does spring look like in your neck of the woods?
DrDick @
20
i’ll keep my fingers crossed. we know what Tony Blair turned out to be:
“Bush’s Poodle”
noen @ 72
I hear that. I lived in Chicago for 12 years after leaving Oklahoma. Kind of a shock to the system, but I enjoyed it. I have lived the last 9 years in Missoula, Montana, which is a university town with about 60,000 people in the northern Rockies, surrounded by literally millions of acres of national forests and wilderness areas. We get deer and even the occasional black bear in the middle of town. Elk and mountain lions are frequent visitors on the outskirts ( a bit scary for pet owners). I have gotten within 20 feet of both bald and golden eagles (perched on fence posts) and there are dozens of ospreys around town. Best of both world to my mind.
MayDaze @ 73
I don’t think Republicans were much more likely to vote in 2006, and while November, 2008 is a long ways away, I’m guessing they’ll be even more ashamed then. The ones that have a sense of shame, anyways.
Newt isn’t enough of an empty suit for Rove - although eventually Karl may heed the siren’s deep pockets song :)
kathleen @ 74
We’ve had a lot of rain here in central Oklahoma (wettest March on record with over eight inches) and the drought that has been a fixture for years is officially over. Lots of greenery for a change. The birds love it!
cbl @ 78
Actually, I am kind of hoping he is backing Duke Cunningham while they share a cell block in a federal prison.
noen @ 25
Careful what you wish for. Some of the “johns” are inevitably going to be Dems, so be prepared for the onslaughts of “they do it too.” We also have to take pains to distinguish sexual scandals from political corruption, though, due to the nature of the beast, they often intertwine.
It is unfair to say that people in prominence and power should operate at a higher standard than you and me, but they certainly should be more discreet. But I think power blinds people to their own vulnerability, and they do rilly, rilly, stupid things. The classic of all time, being Bubba and Monica.
“I didn’t have sex with that woman.”
More Condi Rice greatest hits:
“I believe the title was, ‘Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.’”
Condi Rice, responding to 9/11 Commission question about the title of the infamous August 6, 2001 PDB warning of Al Qaeda strikes in the U.S., May 19, 2004.
“I know there were people who said, ‘Why don’t we get out of this now, take a peace with the South, but leave the South with slaves?’”
Condi Rice, on Iraq withdrawal debate, September 4, 2006.
“Punish France, ignore Germany and forgive Russia.” Secretary State nominee Condoleezza Rice, on her foreign policy approach, 2003.
“I know we’ve made tactical errors, thousands of them I’m sure.”
Condoleezza Rice, March 31, 2006.
MayDaze @ 79
Where in central OK? I am from Bartlesville and went to OU many years ago.
Dr. Condoleeza Rice, Phd. There apparently are cases where education has proved meaningless.
cbl @ 78
The real question is there any GOP hopeful that will have the Turdblossom? Even Newt would think twice, if he wants to get elected that is.
The GOP is having it’s convention here in the TwinCities. Should be interesting.
Oklahoma kiddo @ 83
If I had my way, her degree (in political science) would be rescinded, since it was obviously acquired under false pretenses.
ifthethunderdontgetya @ 77
I hope you’re right, but I have never gotten the impression that the diehard Republicans have a sense of shame. As digby says, they just say “He wasn’t a real conservative” (about anyone who has disappointed them) and blithely vote “R”.
MayDaze @ 86
I haven’t seen anyone who has really caught fire with the GOP. That Gulianni is currently in the lead tells me that the GOP voters are moving away from anyone who smells of the Bush. I think that trend will only increase once the real hearings get going.
DrDick @ 83
South Oklahoma City - Northwest Cleveland County. I live about 6 miles or so SSE of the airport.
http://www.pollster.com/presbushapproval.php has about 34% approval for The Worst President.
Peace and Justice are the real enemies of the loyal Bushies, with billions of dollars of corruption, thousands of clients of “Pamela Martin”, and millions of missing Repiblican e-mails, and 600,000 dead due to Republican war and genocide. I think we may need a QUANTUM COMPUTER to keep track of all the information.
Excue me, I confess-I have become addicted to Snark-a Snarkie? Can Rehab help?
But Firedoglake is the gold standard for Truth to Power. Maybe Jane and Christy (and T-Rexx) should be on Bill Moyers next show.
MayDaze @ 88
Moore or Midwest City?
MayDaze…
Another Oklahoman. I like it! ;0)
noen @ 88
I think they’ll vote for anyone they think can win. Their conservative agenda is much more important to them than any particular candidate.
Oklahoma kiddo @ 92
I have family in Durant and Broken Bow Lake in the fall is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been.
DrDick @ 91
I’m actually in Oklahoma City, just west of Moore.
MayDaze @ 94
I know the area, but it has been 20 years since I was there. OKC just sprawls all over hell and gone.
noen @
85
Don’t you think Karl will be too busy fighting his legal woes?
Oklahoma kiddo @ 83
Condi got where she is now because she was mentored by Brent Scowcroft when he was national security advisor to Bush the Elder. To the extent she has diplomatic expertise, it is mostly Cold War diplomacy vis a vis the Soviets. When she took over as national security advisor, her credentials vis a vis terrorism was absolute zero, in fact, net minus, since she operated under a lot of misinformation and willful deceit.
Although she is sometimes identitied with the neocons, I think that is partly inaccurate. What she is, is a bit worse, a pure opportunist who lacks even the ideological zeal of a neocon.
Don’t ever make the mistake of thinking of her as dumb though. They don’t come any smarter than Condi, Ph. D notwithstanding.
I respectfully disagree - it is all about the power - if it was about their agenda, Dobson et al would have already annointed Huckabee