Another Corner Turned
ArchPundit
One has to wonder if George Bush is, as George Carlin described it, leaving his left blinker on and circling the world to the left.
The Adults are Back In Charge
Making Nixon Look Like a Piker
senior federal law enforcement official tells ABC News the government is tracking the phone numbers we call in an effort to root out confidential sources.
“It’s time for you to get some new cell phones, quick,” the source told us in an in-person conversation.
ABC News does not know how the government determined who we are calling, or whether our phone records were provided to the government as part of the recently-disclosed NSA collection of domestic phone calls.
Other sources have told us that phone calls and contacts by reporters for ABC News, along with the New York Times and the Washington Post, are being examined as part of a widespread CIA leak investigation.
NSA whistleblower Russ Tice says he will tell Congress Wednesday of “probable unlawful and unconstitutional acts” involving the agency’s former director, Gen. Michael Hayden, President Bush’s nominee to run the CIA.
Tice, a former technical intelligence specialist at NSA who first went public on ABC News, says he has been asked to testify Wednesday before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
In a letter to the committee, Tice says the alleged illegal acts involved “very highly sensitive intelligence programs and operations known as Special Access Programs (SAPs).”
I’m sure it’s all legal because the Preznit says so. This is stuff I would have dismissed as crazy conspiracy talk one year ago. Now, I’m not even surprised.
Clap Louder!
Obama explains the strategery in Iraq.
“This idea that somehow if you say the words `plan for victory’ and `stay the course’ over and over and over and over again,” Obama said, “and you put these subliminal messages behind you that say `victory’ and `victory’ and `victory,’ that somehow people are not going to notice the 2,400 flag-draped coffins that have arrived at the Dover Air Force Base.”
I Can’t Improve on Frank James’ Title
Bush cabinet member’s world of make-believe
One correction actually–put the apostrophe after the s.
“What the secretary was talking about (in his speech) was all of our accomplishments with minority contracts. At at the very end of his statement, the secretary offered an anecdote to explain politics in Washington D.C. He was speaking to a group of business leaders in Dallas and there were lots of Dallas Cowboys in the room.
“So he was offering an anecdote to say, this is how politics works in DC. In DC people won’t just stab you in the back, they’ll stab you in the front. And so the secretary’s point was a hypothetical, what he said was an anecdote. It did not happen.”
Let’s stop here momentarily and leave aside Tucker’s apparent misimpression that an anecdote is by definition fictional. It isn’t. An anecdote is a story about something that really happened, often used to illustrate a larger point.
Read the whole thing–James’ piece is brilliant in it’s simplicity.
Hat tip to Austin Mayor
It’s Not that He Believes It, It’s That He’s Stupid Enough To Say It
After discussing the huge strides the agency has made in doing business with minority-owned companies, Jackson closed with a cautionary tale, relaying a conversation he had with a prospective advertising contractor.
“He had made every effort to get a contract with HUD for 10 years,” Jackson said of the prospective contractor. “He made a heck of a proposal and was on the (General Services Administration) list, so we selected him. He came to see me and thank me for selecting him. Then he said something … he said, ‘I have a problem with your president.’
“I said, ‘What do you mean?’ He said, ‘I don’t like President Bush.’ I thought to myself, ‘Brother, you have a disconnect — the president is elected, I was selected. You wouldn’t be getting the contract unless I was sitting here. If you have a problem with the president, don’t tell the secretary.’
“He didn’t get the contract,” Jackson continued. “Why should I reward someone who doesn’t like the president, so they can use funds to try to campaign against the president? Logic says they don’t get the contract. That’s the way I believe.”
CIA Officials and Hookers
And Congressman. And Defense Contractors. And Bribery. And Did I mention hookers?
One can only hope that someone from Illinois gets snared up because only that could make this more fun (and let’s not speculate in comments).
People understand hookers and Congressman. Sex sells and this is going to be a hoot.
UPDATE: ummm…while I hate to be a conspiracy theorist:
Foggo, who occasionally hosted the poker parties at his house in northern Virginia, is under investigation by the CIA’s inspector general to determine whether he helped Wilkes gain CIA contracts.
Say It Isn’t So Denny
I guess alternative fuels aren’t such a big thing for the big guy as he takes his SUV back to the Hill after leaving the press conference in an alternative fuel vehicle.
A picture is indeed worth a thousand words.
Holy Bad Poll Numbers Batman
Bush at 29% Approval in Illinois. That’s like Keyes land. 67% Disapproval. That’s actually a tie with his November numbers, but when 2/3 of a state disapprove of a President–his party has problems up and down the ticket.
His disapproval by men is higher than his disapproval amongst women–that’s topsy turvey and his approval is the same for both genders.
18-34 20% approval.
Conservative Voters: 47% approval
Republican base strength stays around 70% which has been typical. UPDATE: Actually that has been falling—as recently as February, that number was closer to 80%.
Hispanic: 14% approval – 83% Disapproval
The Republican sample is lower than recent polls, but it’s hard to tell if that’s because Bush is so unpopular to be getting people to call themselves Independents or if the sample is slightly off. Even if off–it’s only by about 3 points at the most.
Pro-life 49%-49%
The Congressional Candidates for the Rs have to be very worried about these numbers as does Topinka.
Baffling Trib Editorial
Celebrating the success in Afghanistan:
It would be curious to know, though, how many of them advised against plans to invade Afghanistan with a light and nimble force–and were proved wrong. Some in the military and many outside analysts argued that such a strategy carried too much risk for failure. They would have allowed Al Qaeda and its host, the Taliban, to operate much longer while the U.S. assembled a large force to invade. They were wrong.
The issue wasn’t just whether we had a large or small force, but whether we allowed the plan to be carried out by Afghan warlords. We see the result of the problem with relying on warlords–they tend to be more worried about themselves than the objective. That was part of the argument about Afghanistan. In addition, we didn’t cut off escape routes so much of Pakistan’s tribal territories are now hiding places and an attack on that nation would both topple the leadership and potentially put nukes in the hands of Islamists not in 10 years in Iran, but now in Pakistan.
It’s hard to imagine how a small force achieved our longer term goals of destroying Al Qaeda’s leadership and denying them a place to operate from. We did neither.