Somebody must be getting close to something big.

An extreme step. An outrage. Republicans must really be scared if they're willing to risk being seen as obstructing this investigation. Now they circle the wagons. If the Dems aren't smelling blood and fighting back on this one, they need to go.

Weren't the Republicans the ones who got an independent council to investigate the President, spending years and untold millions to establish that the guy got a blowjob? And politics had nothing do with it, right?

Now that the stakes are war and peace, life and death, the honesty and integrity of the White House and the future of national security, God forbid the Democrats even consider how the truth might serve their partisan cause.

The Republicans are without shame.

Totally unacceptable. Time to raise hell. E-mail and phone calls. Don't forget the newspapers and TV stations.

Good analogy. Maybe the Florida legislature and Jeb Bush will ride to the rescue, and insert feeding tubes into the investigation. Here's another - sounds like a partial birth abortion, just as the head appears, let's terminate it, for the sake of the mother's health.

Very funny line about the feeding tubes, lk.

The Dems should just announce that they are going to continue the committee investigation without the R's!

Bet they'd get a lot of volunteer info from CIA agents!

Wow. Republicans sure are sensitive about investigations into pre-invasion intelligence. But then, they seem to have become incredibly thin-skinned on most topics, lately.

Here's my fave quote from this brouhaha, courtesy of Pat Roberts:

"The memo said that at some point the Democrats could 'pull the trigger,' " he said. "When I read that, I felt like they're going to pull the trigger on me."

Here's what the memo actually says:

"We can pull the trigger on an independent investigation at any time-- but we can only do so once."

Big, sqawling baby, much? Actually, I like babies, and I should be kinder than to compare them to Pat Roberts. For the most part, I'd have to say babies show more courage than this bunch. At least babies can make a case that they deserve a good cry now and then.

But then, we all know what this crying is about. Their feelings aren't really hurt. They just want to shut the investigation down.

“Saint!” Showing up for Claudette was like giving a child a wondrous toy—men have circled the globe to receive such sparkling smiles framed in high chubby cheekbones and bobbed auburn hair. “How’d it go?” she asked, sliding his usual quinine and lemon across the clean surface.

“Hey Claudette,” Diego grinned as he shrugged off his pack. “Pretty good, pretty good!”

”Well c’mon, kiddo, tell me what happened!”

“Okay, okay,” he said, settling on a stool. “So this guy I know from the food bank lets me into the conventional hall, he’s worked there for seven years. I set up that grocery cart thing you gave me just like you said, I got 2 boxes with 60 shirts in there.”

“You knot ‘em like I told you?”

“Yeah, yeah, okay?” Diego giggled. “I just walked out to the main walkway between to big lower levels, right?” Claudette nodded. “Had to wait for a speaker to stop. When he finally does I just start walking the aisle with the cart and yellin’ ‘Get yer free t-shirt, Jesus was a Democrat, Jesus was a Democrat, free t-shirts, Jesus was a Democrat, free t-shirts!”

Claudette laughed. “I’d'a done anything to be there, sweetie. What happened?”

“I’m telling you, okay?” Diego laughed. “People stared at me like I was Richard fucking Nixon in drag. Then a few people started laughing and yelling at me to throw one up there!” Diego cocked a Johnny Unitas throw in the bar. “I’m heavin’ em up into the seats, other people start to notice, all of a sudden everyone wants one.”

“Free stuff,” Claudette said with a satisfied smile. “Gets ‘em every time.”

“Yeah,” he said, shaking his head in bemusement. “Even the ironworkers were nice to me. I swear I gave away every t-shirt in just 5 minutes.”

“Well, it is a cool shirt,” Claudette smiled. “That’s it, right?” she asked, chin-flicking the t-shirt under his loose shirt.

“Yeah” Diego darted his fingers to the other buttons and proudly puffed a dark blue shirt with JESUS in plain white letters above a thick cross, WAS A DEMOCRAT underneath.

“That reminds me,” Claudette arched an eyebrow. “Young lady’s been asking ‘bout you.”

Diego instantly froze, features sliding into a look of glinting puzzlement she knew well. “Me taking off my shirt reminded you of that?” Diego coolly shifted his arm on the bar. “What the hell is this?” he asked in even tones.

Claudette waved her hands at miniature crowds. “Some woman was asking about you last night, she was pestering Jimmy and then messed him up real good, okay?” Claudette giggled. “The story I got from Mike was that last week she’d been here and heard you called Saint, she came back last night and wanted to find out why.”

Diego sighed and shook his head. “Damn the fools who ever started this.”

“Just a fact of life, honey!” Claudette declared flatly. “So I kid you not, Jimmy’s the good guy and all, he’s not telling this nosie hottie nothing for 10 minutes, right?” Diego cocked his head, skeptically curling his lip. “So finally she gets pissed off at him, okay? She’s wearing this red dress shirt with a tank top underneath.” Claudette shook her head in resigned disgust. “She took off her shirt and said ‘Look, I’ve got big tits, can’t I get any respect around here?”

“No way!” Diego smiled, relaxing a little.

“Way, way, man,” Claudette said in exaggerated in SoCal tones. “Poor got Jimmy all messed up and had to go home, Mike closed alone, it was all right.”

“What do you mean, messed up?”

Claudette shook her head. “Well, Jimmy apparently thought this lil’ hottie from hell had the bombin’ boobs of Venus, he can’t say a word for thirty seconds and then he gets mad ‘cause he thinks he’s being manipulated.”

“Uh oh,” Diego said. Jimmy’s endless ranting crusades against American commercial sexual manipulation were the stuff of Whiskey Bar legend. He waited a few seconds. “What he’d tell her?”

Claudette shrugged. “Nothing, so far as I know. He went on and on about how television tits have ruined this country and made idiots of men, she can’t say a word and she finally stomps out.”

Diego looked at her steadily. “That’s it?”

“That’s it,” she said, innocently wiping the bar.

Diego silently drummed his fingers on the mahogany, the crackling hiss of the fire suddenly loud in two o’clock November gloom.

“Shall I relentlessly and brilliantly seduce her, giving her a night of wine, food, ambiance, and the most adventuresome sex of her life to be forever cherished by her memory as the best one night stand man she ever had?” he demanded.

“Saint!” Claudette said, forty generations of motherhood disapproval in her voice.

“Shall I actually the play the role of thirty-something urban dater, wearing cashmere sweaters and drinking lattes in some endless spiral of commercialized American love in city canyons of apartment life?”

Claudette sighed and stared wiping the bar again.

“Shall I actually let myself fall in the love with the hottie from hell? Fool myself into some goofy giddiness that marriage, children and enslavement to salary for them is the correct, responsible thing in life?” he asked.

Claudette looked at him directly. “You could at least pass on your genes for Darwin,” she said in serrated scorn.

Diego, slightly taken aback, started looking at his softly drumming fingers again. Claudette wiped the bar in easy strokes, easily moving away from him. If you couldn’t be alone with your thoughts at the Whiskey Bar the place might as well be closed down, the owner always said.

Forgive me for posting this again, but I think it is important:

Cool War - Economic Sanctions as a Weapon of Mass Destruction

If I were an Iraqi, I wouldn't be so glad at the American occupation as they seem to be. I would be, perhaps, a tiny bit angry.

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As stupid as this story is, who the hell allowed that STUPID MEMO to get out?

God Dammit!

Just when the Democrats start looking like the honest ones fighting for the truth, this memo arrives just in time to reveal that we're just as nasty and vindictive as they are.

They will never learn. We will never learn. And so it goes.

Idiots all.

Too good to miss! This is Tom Burka:

Iran Up To Its Eyeballs In Terror, U.S. Advisor Up To His Ears In Brown Substance

Influential Pentagon adviser Richard Perle said on Thursday that Iran was "up to its eyeballs in terrorism" and the United States should quietly be encouraging a democratic revolution from within.
An alarmed Richard Perle has said that Iran is "up to its eyeballs in terrorism," that Lybia is up to its elbows in eyeballs, and Israel is up to its neck in yarmulkes.

"There are body parts serving as hallmarks everywhere!" he cried. He bemoaned that he had 'had it up to here" with terrorism, skepticism, and paranoia. "If we don't do something soon we'll be in over our heads,' he warned.

A White House spokesman up to his knees in fleas leaked in response that "the White House is examining the situation," noting that it had to juggle considerations that North Korea was "up to its urethra in uranium,' and Syria was "up to its adam's apples in Arabs." He said nothing of the fact that Pakistan is up to its adenoids in al Queda.

Forrest Forthatries, an analyst at the Darren Stephens School of Acting Intelligence, commented. "I don't know about all these reckless accusations. Here in America we're up to our eardrums in assholes."

Democrats need to call a spade a spade here.

Sen. Frist says the Dem's are acting political!

First stops the investigation on such petty charges. PLEASE.

This is where Dem's need to point out that Bush looks damn guilty because of what Sen. Frist is doing. I would not waste any time but quickly point out that Sen. Frist appears to be actively trying to hide evidence of Bush's misuse of intelligence.

These are a list of things that shows that Bush KNEW there were NO WMD in Iraq after Bush politicizing the war in Iraq with SOTU speech.

1). Right after the major hostilities ceased in Iraq there was an act of large scaling looting in Iraq. The looting was taking place in the palaces and government offices in Iraq. WHY didn't the Bush administration worry about the looting if Bush truly believed that there where WMD in Iraq? because a looter could have found canisters or vials of toxins and sold them to terrorist under conditions where looting was wide spread, especially if the looters were members of the Baathist Party.

2) Bush himself did not EVEN inquire about WMD and did NOT EVEN know who was in charge of handling his search for all the WMD in Iraq that he claim existed in his SOTU speech. Bush first questioned Gen. Myers who said it wasn't him and he didn't know who Bush's WMD team was or where they were located, Nor, for that fact, did any of the other military officers handling war matters in Iraq. Later Bush finds his man responsible for WMD in Iraq is back in an office in the states. Bush wasn't concerned at all about the WMD until the public started question the whereabouts of all these WMD that Bush hype in his SOTU speech, that was somthing like a month after major hostilities had ceased.

Where were the a)25,000 liters of anthrax, b)38,000 liters of botulinum toxin, c)500 tons of sarin, mustard, and VX nerve agent materials, d)several mobile biological weapons labs, and biggest lie of all from Bush's SOTU speech e)"The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed in the 1990s that Saddam Hussein had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a design for a nuclear weapon and was working on five different methods of enriching uranium for a bomb."

Wouldn't a "reasonable" person concluded that Bush in fact knew that Iraq had NO WMD because he simply wasn't worried about located them directly after the war.

So Sen. Frist is the person playing politics here by use of projection, the Republicans have used this tactic repeatedly to stop lazy Dem's. It's designed to say Democrat are acting partisan when in fact the Republican are useing slight of hand and pratices partison politics themselves to stop these investigation.

NOW the Democratic Senators in Washington are all aware of this, because they are all college educated people and some of them are even lawyers, so therefore are wise to this sort of thing.

This is why Howard Dean is right, we need new Dem's because if those Democrats on this committee, let the Republicans do this to them and stop this investigaion on the "memo" thing which incidentally, looks like Dem's know Bush lied, so without defining a message for the public on these matters, and quickly -they should be FIRED and/or RECALLED - They are NOT doing their DAMN jobs and don't deserve that 150 thousand a year that taxpayers are paying them.

This isn't spinelessness, it's pure D lazyness. Dem's better call a F--king press meeting and they better leave that A-hole Daschle in his f**king closet. Daschle gets in from of a camera and tells the American public that he is quote "Outraged, just Outraged that the Republicans are saying Democrats are practices politics" - the Democrats will lose across the board and they can kiss a lot of the lazy asses good bye again in 2004 election. NO voter is going to throw him/herself in front of a train for Democrat representatives that are this lazy.

Damn F**king Democrats. They better get off the dime.

NO voter is going to throw him/herself in front of a train for Democrat representatives that are this lazy.

Damn F**king Democrats. They better get off the dime.

Why start now?

Apparently if we are to get answers to these questions and justice for this administration, we are going to have to elect a Democrat president in 2004.

i think that the reporting is buried on pg A-18 is a huge part of this story!

i mean, isnt this a coup?

Norn,

It's not a coup....yet.

But it seems like the WH and Repubs are willing to push the limits of abusing their power further with each passing day.

Shutting down investigations and relying on extreme levels of secrecy to prevent damaging information from getting out only works as long as your party is in power. It's a big gamble to take. What if a Democrat is elected Prez in 2004, they would be able to release any and all of the info that the current administration is hiding. If any of the information is damaging, it will have a double whammy effect, since the coverup is often worse than the crime in most people's eyes.

These guys are like de-generate gamblers who keep doubling down there bets in a effort to avoid walking away from the table as a loser. If the stakes get high enough, they may not be able to afford losing the next election. That's when the real coup begins.

Has anyone connected the dots between this outrage, and the other outrage of refusing to answer questions not channeled through Republican-led Committees?

And the other other outrage of redistricting that concentrates power in the partisan hands instead of diluting it to get better representation?

Democracy is dying in this United States. Gasping for air. The plastic bag over her head is being tightened by the Republicans every day.

Has anyone connected the dots between this outrage, and the other outrage of refusing to answer questions not channeled through Republican-led Committees?

Two posts down: A Few Bad Men

Might help if y'all also kept in mind that as bitterly disgusting the depths which both the congress and the current admin (dem, rep, & ind) have devolved to, our boys in too many places of harms way face worse... REMEMBER THEM...

Here's a poem recieved from a Southern Lady, Y'all Dean affacionados , heck, y'all yankees, please note...

Bless the warrior heart that beats
and stilled by tolling bell;
who did not shirk the hissing noise
of rocket, shot and shell.

Exploding cannon did not stop
but cut thru man and tree
and now our men are all sent forth
to make another free?

The whispers of another time
ring loudly in my ear
and Southon heart knows deep inside
our troops are needed here.

The coup was nearly 3 years ago. This is just a mopping up action. Bush, like King George, would want to disband our elected representatives but that might not play well even for his lap dog press. Instead of disbanding it, Bush and Rove are making it irrelevant.

Cheryl, I agree with your characterization of the Republicans using the technique of "projection" to both cover their own tracks and to put the Democrats on the defensive. The Rethugs do it so well, reminds one of the big lie tactics the Nazis employed so effectively back in the thirties. But, the Democrats have a few more problems. (l) Denial. They don't want, IMO, to face how bad things are and that the Republic is in such severe danger. I think most of Anerica is suffering from the same ailment. (2)Rationalization. They feed from the same corporate trough as the Rethugs. Both parties argue for keeping the political system even though it is corrupt, unrepresentative of the majority, and in an advanced state of decay. The ship of state has hit a moral iceberg; I don't think bailing out the water will do any good, any more. Maybe, the most we can hope for is to launch the lifeboats and, next time, plot a safer course. That is, to build a protective wall separating money from governance, provide for a truly representational democracy, and, of course, a dynamic and vital Bill or Rights

Good luck to you, though, on your attempts to patch up this ship and to reeducate the pathetic crew that sails it.

Maybe the Dems could just send a note to the White House asking what the President knew and when. Oh, silly me, the Dems aren't allowed to ask questions. I forgot.

Irrevelant?....

The dang fools can wish!!!

"When We assumed the soldier, we did not give up the citizen" - George Washington of Virginia

I wish I bookmarked the site but the Republicans are no longer playing by the unwritten rules of US politics. For example, you redistrict only once every ten years. Now they will redistrict whenever they can get away with it. Frist’s action is just a continuation of this policy. The democrats in Congress are like deer frozen by headlights. They still haven’t grasped Paul Krugman’s basic thesis that they are up against Radicals in the grand tradition of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. They still think they can reason and compromise with the GOP. Wrong, the Republicans have thrown away all the rule books and limitations in their quest of power. Democrats have to break out of their fog of reasonableness and fight for their lives or democracy will be gone in the USA.

At this point I doubt there is any outrage that will stir the Dems to any meaningful action.

For all intents and purposes, save blocking a Nazi judge or two, they do not exist.

As Gore Vidal said watching Eleanor Roosevelt's funeral cortege, we're really on our own now.

And as Bartcop's always saying - any action against these thugs will ultimately come from other Republicans. I believe it. Never have I seen, or could have imagined, such a total capitulation/collapse of the "opposition." They stand for nothing but keeping their fucking jobs for which they vote themselves ever greater salary and benefit increases. They make the Vichys look kickass.

And as Bartcop's always saying - any action against these thugs will ultimately come from other Republicans.

Good luck with that one: "Any action against Jim Jones ultimately will come from the members of his cult."

It makes me sad to say it, especially because I have a young American son, but I do believe the party's over. If the events from 11/00 to the present have not raised the ire of the common citizen -- and to my way of seeing, my fellow citizens look remarkably unruffled -- I can't imagine an act this administration could commit that would spark an outrage adequate to the task of tossing them all out. Day after day here in comfortable suburbia I look for signs that my compatriots are discomfitted by this war, these deaths, these lies, these judicial fiats, and I see nary a bumpersticker. Lots of brand new SUVs; no lawn signs saying "NO!"

That George Bush remains a viable contender in '04 despite his public failures (plus god knows what he's screwed up behind our backs) tells me 1) the concerted efforts to dumb-down our public education system have worked marvelously and many of us are really, really ignorant, and 2) we are like babies who just want our pacifiers, and as long as we have shiny new gadgets we can be endlessly diverted..... Sigh. There's not a lot of hope in that.

It makes me sad to say it, especially because I have a young American son, but I do believe the party's over.

I'm trying to be philosophical about it -- 230 years (give or take) is a pretty good run for a democracy, even if the last few decades have been pretty much all downhill. Nothing lasts forever, including empires. Maybe someday, when the United States is just something kids study in history class, somebody else will figure out how to do it better.

But I admit, taking the long view isn't much comfort when I look at my 12-year old son and think about all these rumors about bringing back the draft.

Yes, this is a coup. Moving in slow motion because of the residual American dislike for the overthrow of democracy, but definitely a coup.

Forget damning the Dems for letting the memo get loose. The Repubs don't need no stinking memo. If necessary (a la the Lies of Al Gore) they will just make it up. It's not like their followers ever check to see if it's true.

OTOH, in one of history's greatest blunders, they're seizing the government of a bankrupt nation.

syndney blumenthal just had a good line on cspan2

"if you cant stand up for yourself, people won't trust you to stand up for them"

Good point, serial catowner, that if there were no memo they would just make one up; but actually I think that is almost what they have done anyway. I don't get what is so wrong with this memo, all it does is suggest a strategy for how to proceed with the supposed function of the committee (ie to investigate) after the Republican committee chair has already announced the conclusion will be that the CIA will get the blame for providing bad intelligence.

So the Big Lie this time is that the purpose of the memo is a campaign tactic for the Presidential race. But that's not what the memo says. Rather, it appears to be a strategey for how the minority can proceed with the investigation, faced with a majority who has already essentially declared there is nothing left to investigate.

sharkbabe

They make the Vichys look kickass.

Heh. Good one!

So who's Marshal Petain?

is there anything to stop the Dems from setting up the rump investigation starting Monday?

"Any five members can call a committee meeting even if the Chair doesn’t want them to (Rule 1.5)... it only takes five members to initiate an investigation, which gets the staff up and running on the problem. (Rule 6)... More importantly, the Vice Chair — that’s Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.) — has the power to issue a subpoena. (Rule 7)."

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2003/11/can_senate_intelligence_committee_democrats_go_it_alone_yes_unless_the_rules_are_changed.html

"Any five members can call a committee meeting even if the Chair doesn’t want them to (Rule 1.5)... it only takes five members to initiate an investigation, which gets the staff up and running on the problem. (Rule 6)... More importantly, the Vice Chair — that’s Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.) — has the power to issue a subpoena. (Rule 7)

Those are precisely the rules the Republicans are now talking about changing -- to cement their control over the committee. The memo is their tool to do it.

Copy of e-mail which I sent to about a dozen Demo Senators:

The CRAP has got to STOP!!! Senator Frist's proclamation regarding the Intelligence Committee's activities is pure, Un-American (a/k/a Republican) cow manure.

It's time for this country to be told the TRUTH.....the COMPLETE truth....the UNVARNISHED truth! And let the chips fall where they may!

This administration has blocked, stonewalled, deceived, LIED, misled, weaseled and just about every other despicable, undemocratic tactic known to man; and as an American World War II veteran, I am sick of it.

The time has come for OPEN REVOLT, for non-participation in what have heretofore been bipartisan activities. The time is now for a Democratic walkout from the seat of government and a total opening of the books....whether classified or unclassified....on the vile, nefarious and criminal activities of Bush, Cheney and Company.

Of Cheney's indefensible "secret meetings" with energy company executives.
Of the events leadilng up to 9/11 which I am absolutely certain will show their complicity in that calamity.
Of the LIES, LIES and more lies about Iraqi WMD, starting with Bush's juvenile West Point address, Cheney's VFW speech and Rice's "mushroom cloud".
Of their real plans to bankrupt the country, thus enabling the death of Social Security, Medicare and other programs which have vastly improved the lives of Americans for more than half a century.

Do Democrats really have BALLS? Or are they so consumed by self-preservation and special interest protection that they have become the very cowards that sit across the aisle from them. Civility be damned; the watchword now is ACTION.

If America is to be saved from the inexorable encroachment of Bush-driven FASCISM then brave men and women must rise up and smite the enemy; in my day those enemies were Nazis and Japs....today they wear American flags on their lapels and spout soul-less jibberish about tax cuts and the need to gut our Constitutional rights. Foreign enemies are to be expected, domestic ones are far more evil, more vile, more contemptible....but no less real, and FAR more dangerous for they undermine from within; they are today's "fifth columnists" and they MUST BE REMOVED FROM POWER IF AMERICA IS TO SURVIVE!

Will it be DEMOCRACY.....or FASCISM? It's up to YOU!!!

After watching the rise of the neoconservative movement over the last two decades, I can't believe how much I miss Barry Goldwater. Yes, that's right, Barry Goldwater. Even though his views came from deep right field, he was honest in his expression, and fair to those who disagreed with him. In stark contrast to the neocons that now dominate our political landscape, Goldwater's brand of conservatism -- extreme in its time, but tame by modern standards -- was principled, consistent, and, in the end, respectful. One can only wonder what he would think of the duplicitous, trash-talking vandals who have commandeered his party and are using it as a staging area for every half-baked, wingnut ideology under the sun.

In my experience, the hallmark of the neoconservative movement is its complete and utter lack of respect for...everything. The ends always justify the means, and the only desirable end is whatever ruse, ploy, or artifice that can be pressed into service to perpetuate the movement's own existence. In other words, the machine exists only to replicate itself. It has no other purpose or goal.

What I dont understand about the Democrats is why they are blowing the chance at controlling the Senate next year. Four maybe five senators are not going to run for reelection(Bob Graham, Zell Miller, Jon Edwards, Fritz Holling, and possibly John Breaux. I think the Democrats have a good shot at winning the white house next year, but if we dont and we win the senate, it could still be a win for democrats if we win back the senate(ala 1972 watergate- esque impeachment time of Bush). Why are so many Democrat senators not running for reelection, when most of them have relatively safe seats I dont understand what the hell the dnc is thinking about. Do they really want to get back power? I am truly confused.

This intell memo and the weak response by the Democrats regarding it is just indicative of how much power the democrats are relinquishing without a fight. Im tired of it.

Sad to say even we didn't put up a post on this thread yesterday. Bearing in mind Ehecleon and other web-surveying devices, remember that the numbers (distribution of wealth, movement of our incomes etc) suggest we are in a pre-reovultoinray situtation. It may be that a significant change in government is in the offing. Food for thought.

That said, IMHO senators are wayed more by demands that they uphold the traditions and rules of the senate. In this case that's all we need to do to make Bush and the bushies uncomfortable. This for people like me who like to keep letters to senators brief.

Still, it's a big tent and part of my role over the years has been to make moderate reformers look good compared with firebreathers like myself.

A serious business.