New Tenet book should be a solid read

I'm putting together a list of books I want to get through this summer, and former CIA Director George Tenet's book, At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA, will be somewhere on that list.

Tenet is a study is contradictions, in my view, especially when dealing with the run-up to the War in Iraq, as well as the 9-11 attacks. You pick those two scabs, you uncover a lot of puss. There's no question in my mind that he deserves to shoulder some of the blame for 9-11, the greatest intelligence failure in U.S. history.

As for the War in Iraq, he deserves some blame, but he also jumped on a grenade for the Bush administration. We've all heard about his mindless assertion that the intelligence proving Iraq's WMD fetish was "a slam dunk." Hell, it wasn't even a lay-up.

So, I'm very interested to read his side of the story on these two critical events and what his perspective is. I wonder if it will be a "tell-all" book of sorts, much like Richard Clarke's Against All Enemies and Ron Suskind's book on Paul O'Neill, The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill. (By the way, both books are excellent - if you haven't had a chance to read them, I highly recommend both.) If Tenet's book is on par with those two, we're in for a good read, and some additional insight into the schizophrenic workings of the Bush White House.

The more I think about it, Tenet's book just vaulted to hear the top of my reading list. I'll bring you my thoughts later this summer after I've digested this much-anticipated book.

P.S. - Keep an eye on the White House's reaction to this book. If it's in the vein of Clarke's and O'Neill's, the question won't be if they'll Swiftboat Tenet, but when.

Tenet's book goes on sale April 30.

Bill Maher is truly on a roll

I've been a critic of Bill Maher on a few occasions, but this is most definitely not one of them.

He seems to be gaining steam as his show's new season rolls on, and his diatribe last night against President Bush is as spot on as I've heard in Bush's second term, and probably during his entire presidency.

There's really not a whole lot more I can add to Maher's words here - just roll the footage, laugh, and ponder, because Maher slammed this one out of the park.

And for those of you who think that he's a bit vulgar, he is. I'm vulgar, too, at times, so the guy resonates. Anyone who can be vulgar in a funny way, and slam home a political point like he so succinctly does here is damn fine by me.

I particularly like two things about this clip:

1. He questions not only the president's judgment, but also his patriotism. Bravo. And for those of you who think that's outrageous, go back and watch this video clip again, and listen to Maher's words about what these people did to Valerie Plame. And they did it because she's married to Joseph C. Wilson IV, who dared to stand up and say "No!" to the administration's well-documented bogus claims about the Niger "sale" of yellowcake to Iraq.

2. His quote about Mark Twain: "Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it."

I love how Maher finishes up, too: Hillary Clinton should run for president in 2008 with the slogan "Restoring honor and integrity to the Oval Office." That's the exact slogan that Bush used when running for president in 2000. Anyone think he's succeeded?

"Hey, at least there isn't SEX going on in the Oval Office anymore!" all the Clinton haters love to say.

Hogwash - Bush, Dick and Rove conjure up ways to sodomize their opponents each and every day. Okay, not every day - sometimes they spend the weekend in Camp David.

Keep 'em straight, Maher. You have no bigger fan right now than me.

KO weighs in on Plame's credibility

It's been awhile since Keith Olbermann has made an appearance on CMB, so this video clip is the best way to break that unintentional drought.

KO rightfully slams the right wing noisemakers who are now suggesting that Valerie Plame was an insignificant, "third rate" agent. My favorite was a simple-minded moron on Fox who hilariously suggested that Plame didn't have to leave the Central Intelligence Agency, that she could have transferred. So, where could she have gone, Human Resources? (Actually, yesterday I posted footage of this "simple-minded moron" - Republican strategist Edwina Rogers, a complete imbecile who spewed more lies during a two minute appearance on Neil Cavuto's Fox show on Friday than Richard Nixon did in a lifetime.)

Later on in this piece, Olbermann interviews Larry Johnson, a former CIA colleague of Plame's, who confirms that Plame was a covert agent. But, Johnson be damned - Brit Hume says it's untrue! Who should the American people believe - Hume, a Fox News hack, or a former CIA agent who worked with Plame?

Better yet, the current DCI, Michael V. Hayden, submitted a statement during the Scooter Libby Trial confirming the fact that Plame was a covert agent. So I guess the current director of the Central Intelligence Agency has it wrong, and Fox News has it right, right? I don't think Hollywood could come up with a more "out there" script than this.

The right's clumsy, pathetic attempts to smear Plame speaks a great deal about contemporary political discourse in America - the fact that the press will endlessly debate the meaning of "covert" and whether Plame was or wasn't, instead of focusing on the real issue here. Why is this still being discussed? It's clear she was covert, but the more time people on Fox and other networks devote to debating this already-established point, the less time people spend trying to get to the bottom of this administration's role in the outing of Plame in the first place.

One more thing people are missing. Often in political debates, I like to reverse the roles in a situation, to change the players, and reason if the outcome would be the same. Chew on this cud for second - imagine if someone in the Clinton Administration had blown the cover of a CIA agent in 1999 during the War in Kosovo. For instance, imagine a CIA agent's husband speaking out against the war. Try to go back in '99, to that politically charged, witch-hunt atmosphere. Can you even begin to imagine the outrage against Clinton if this would have happened then? It's not impossible to think that there probably would have been another impeachment trial.

ABC = All But Caving? (To right wingers)

Predictably, this is a story that's not going away anytime soon. Former Clinton administration officials are pissed, as they should be. Many people are deriding ABC for "interpreting" and "dramatizing" events on 9-11. As if 9-11 requires dramatizing.

Clinton's staff fired off a letter to ABC demanding certain portions of the movie be changed, including one scene depicting Clinton as being too distracted by the Lewinsky scandal to go after Islamic terrorists who blew up embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Clinton's former National Security Advisor, Sandy Berger, and former counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke are similarly outraged.

To wit, Clarke's response:

1. Contrary to the movie, no US military or CIA personnel were on the ground in Afghanistan and saw bin Laden.

2. Contrary to the movie, the head of the Northern Alliance, Masood, was nowhere near the alleged bin Laden camp and did not see UBL (that's Usama bin Laden, as Clarke refers to him - RJ).

3. Contrary to the movie, the CIA Director actually said that he could not recommend a strike on the camp because the information was single sourced and we would have no way to know if bin Laden was in the target area by the time a cruise missile hit it.

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There you have it, from Clarke, who was counterterrorism chief under Bush I, Clinton and Bush II until shortly after 9-11, when he quit in disgust.

Another amusing anecdote, this one from Tucker Carleson, a conservative that I normally admire (I occasionally watch his show on MSNBC). As reported in Media Matters today, Tucker wants this argument both ways. Well, he can't have it.

Here's what Media Matters had to say:
During a discussion with Media Matters for America president and CEO David Brock on the September 7 edition of MSNBC's Tucker, host Tucker Carlson falsely claimed that when CBS chose not to air the 2003 biopic, The Reagans, he had "sort of agreed" that the move constituted "censorship," just as he now argues that it will be "censorship" if ABC is pressured into not running The Path to 9/11. In fact, in 2003, Carlson specifically denied that CBS' decision to pull The Reagans was "censorship," saying that the use of the word in the context of CBS' Reagan movie "devalue[d] the term" and defending CBS' decision to pull the film because it was "inaccurate."

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What the fuck, Tuck?!? You're better than that.

Oh, and one more thing - yesterday I wrote of the urban legend that persists that Clinton could have had bin Laden. The source of this bullshit is Fateh Erwa, a known liar. The Washington Times, one of the most radical right-wing papers in the country, had this to say about Erwa and his allegations:

"No one should believe these allegations" from "Fateh Erwa, a Sudanese intelligence officer known for his penchant to deceive, that there was an offer to hand bin Laden over to the United States."

Folks, if the Washington Times is saying it, trust it, because that paper never, EVER misses an opportunity to make Clinton look bad.

Enough said.

ABC needs to do the responsible thing, and pull or significantly alter this movie. My prediction? The network will puss out, because all of the major media outlets (excluding Fox News, for obvious reasons) are afraid of being labeled "liberal" and of getting attacked by the right wing distortion machine.

The movie's a disgrace, and so is Tom Kean for being involved in it.

Lies and distortions should be called out as lies and distortions, no matter when they happen. They can't just be bad when it's politically convenient, Mr. Carlson.

Clinton sodomized in 9-11 movie

I've been away for a while and haven't had much time to post much lately because of school and the craziness before, during and after the wedding (A good, but busy kind of craziness!). However, I do have a lot on my mind from my time away from the blog, and I do plan on at least partially catching up.

In the meantime, I laughed today when I clicked on a link of an article to The New York Post about the upcoming movie, The Path to 9-11, which will air on ABC this Sunday and Monday. Bill Clinton appears to be pretty pissed, and it looks like he has good reason to be. According to the article in the Post, part of the movie details how Clinton was too distracted by the Lewinsky scandal to deal with bin Laden. What a truckload of shit.

The accurate history of what happened the summer the embassies were bombed was that Clinton was busy going after bin Laden following the attacks, trying to do his job, despite a witch hunt out to get him. Unfortunately, this coincided with the growing momentum to impeach the president. Republicans in Congress accused the president of trying to distract the American public with a missile attack against bin Laden. Self-righteous Republicans didn't want to hear stories about bin Laden - they wanted to get the president. Fortunately, the American public wasn't fooled - nearly 3/4 of Americans didn't want to see Clinton removed from office, and he wasn't, much to the frustration of Republicans. However, when viewed through a post-9-11 lens, this paragraph all seems too unbelievable to be true, but it IS true.

Here's a thought - maybe if the FBI didn't have dozens (and I've read hundreds in some places) of agents investigating a blow job (along with the majority of Congress), maybe the agency could have been protecting America. The same goes for Congress at the time. Call me crazy.

And here's a few more thoughts on the movie and right-wing myths. 9-11 happened on Bush's watch, not Clinton's. Idiots on the far right suffer from amnesia about this. The Clinton administration handed over all sorts of information to the incoming Bush administration on bin Laden and the growing threat of terrorism, but to no avail. The Bush cabal was too busy trying to figure out a way to repay favors to people who put Bush in office. Part of this repayment included massive tax cuts for the rich (that we still can't afford), instead of taking part of that money and adequately funding anti-terrorism programs.

If this movie is depicted as discussed in the Post article, it is a massive distortion and a disservice to the dead of 9-11, and to all Americans. The latter all too often relies on movies and pop culture to get depictions of history, and this movie will unfortunately play a part. That's pathetic and sad.

ABC has already stated that some scenes were dramatized in the movie. Really? What a shock.

Two other quick points. I'm not one of those people who believe Bush knew about 9-11. No president would knowingly permit such a brutal, ghastly attack. I do believe that if the agencies, including the CIA, FBI and NSA, hadn't had its collective head up its ass, they may have been prevented. Bush deserves some blame, no doubt, but so does Clinton, Congress and a host of other people. This is a story that will continue to emerge for years if not decades. But, I also laugh derisively at people who buy into the urban legend making its way around the Internet that states bin Laden could have been handed over to the U.S., but Clinton refused to take him into custody. This absurd right-wing myth that persists, facts be damned, and it's laughable.

And Republicans were so obsessed with bin Laden in the late 1990s (a total fucking lie), they why haven't they captured his ass since then? They've only had nearly 6 years, and 5 since 9-11. But, don't worry, people. I'm sure bin Laden is somewhere in Iraq.

I don't know what's worse - the obsession with Clinton in the late 90s, or the travesty that continues in Iraq, each and every day. Bush has got us in a real quagmire. There, I said the Q word. His debacle in the Middle East will wear the Scarlet Q for years to come, all at the cost of American blood.

My other point? Rupert Murdoch is no doubt laughing his extremist-right-wing ass off today. He owns the Post.

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Anyway, I will watch the movie this Sunday and Monday, and report back how I feel about it. We are also having our post-wedding celebration in the Poconos this weekend, so I will no doubt have many great pictures to share. Oh, and a teeny little league called the NFL starts tonight, and I'm definitely ready for some football. And I'm even more ready for the NHL season. So much to write about, so little time. All for now.

Tune back tomorrow for a highly scientific analysis of who will have a better season, my Dallas Cowboys, or my wife's (and in-laws') Denver Broncos. Part of this proof will be in pictures!

Clinton tops Bush in poll

"The man below is this much more popular than I am!"

A recent CNN poll finds that former President Bill Clinton still hasn't lost his mojo; his popularity endures. Like that's a difficult thing to do, considering this administration would screw up a two-car funeral. The poll of 1,021 adult Americans was conducted May 5-7 by Opinion Research Corp. for CNN. You can get the whole story Here.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but I'm not at all surprised by this poll. I'd have given my left arm for Clinton to have been able to run against Bush - he would have mopped the floor with Dubya's snide little smirk. The bumbling W would have been for no match for Clinton the master politician. Anyway, I laugh at what many Republicans will probably say that this is a "liberal network [CNN]" poll. Not so fast. Fox News recently reported that Bush's approval rating is hovering around 33%, and that was a few weeks ago, and it's even lower now. A few days ago, I heard 29% on TV, but I don't remember where I heard it.

Anyway, a few thoughts:

Clinton got a 2-to-1 margin in handling the economy: 63% to Bush's 26%. In foreign affairs, Clinton enjoyed a 56% to 32% edge; and in the handling of natural disasters, Clinton had a 51% to 30% advantage. (I question that last one - where the hell was that 30% during Hurricane Katrina? but I digress.)

I wish there would have been a question about terrorism. Clinton did more to combat terrorism than probably any other president, and I'm including Dubya here. I've been doing lots of political reading about terrorism lately, and my favorite misnomer about Clinton was that he "didn't do anything about terrorism," courtesy of right-wing hacks. Yea, right. Probably my favorite goes something like this, and I've read and heard people say some form of this about Clinton:

"The first World Trade Center attack happened on Clinton's watch, and 9-11 happened only 8 months after Bush took office."

Yah! Well, Clinton's administration only captured those responsible for the '93 bombing - Ramzi Yousef, Abdul Hakim Murad and Wali Khan Amin Shah. They were convicted and are behind bars, serving life in prison. I wonder how tough they think Clinton was on terrorism? The person responsible for 9-11 was Osama bin Laden, and the prison where he's incarcerated is in... oh wait, he's still at large, almost five years later. But we got Saddam!

The '93 attack happened 38 days after Clinton took office, and 9-11 happened nearly 8 months after he left office, yet he gets blamed for both by myopic Republicans who refuse to acknowlege the facts. Amazing. It's well documented that the new Bush administration, leading up to the inauguration in January '01, thought that Clinton's team was "obsessed" with terrorism. I've read numerous accounts of this, most notably from Richard Clarke, who worked for both Clinton and Dubya. But, GOP amnesia quickly set in after 9-11.

One more quick example - some people to this day believe we did not retaliate following the August 1998 al Queda attacks on U.S. embassies in Nariobi and Tanzania in Africa. Clinton did all he could with a Republican Congress. He ordered a missile attack on one of bin Laden's compounds, and we just missed him by hours. However, when this missile retaliation occurred, it was right around the time he was testifying about oral sex, and virtually every Republican leader in Congress questioned the timing of the attack. Would this be the same thing as Reagan invading Grenada two days after the bombing of the Marine barracks in 1983, when 241 Americans died? Reagan's response to the scum who killed the Marines? Cut and run from Lebanon.

Clinton attacked when the CIA told him they knew of bin Laden's whereabouts, period. The operation, called Infinite Reach, tried to get bin Laden, and it just missed. In addition, seven people have been jailed or remain in custody in relation to the embassy bombings. Others are still at large, but to say we did nothing is GOP-grade bullshit.

I actually feel less safe under Bush than I did under Clinton. The issue is a lot more complicated than I'm willing to get into here (my blog entries have been way too long lately!), but I feel our borders are wide open. This has gone largely underreported since 9-11, but the press is starting to take wake up and take notice (thankfully).

Something that enraged me on the actual day of 9-11 and in the days immediately after was when I heard some Republicans actually say out loud, "Thank God Gore isn't in there."

I wonder if they still feel that way now? I suspect even the most ardent of Bush supporters would hesitate to answer yes, and recent Bush opinion/popularity polls bear this out.

Dubya on & off script...scary

Jon Stewart must have the best crack research department in the political comedy business.

Bush has nominated Air Force General Michael Hayden to replace Porter Goss as head of the CIA. The other night on The Daily Show, Stewart played clips of when Bush announced both Goss and Hayden as his nominee to head the agency. Identical. Hilarious. Download and the view the clip Here. When you click on the link, you will have to go down the page about 2/3 of the way, but trust me, this is worth the effort - it's Bush at his scripted best (or worst?)!

I'm not so sure that Hayden is the best choice, but, to be honest, I view his having headed the NSA for six years as a positive, not a negative. But, I haven't done a whole lot of reading and research on him yet, so that opinion is off the cuff and nothing more.

Bush At His Unscripted Worst
During a question and answer session on May 9 at the Kings Point Clubhouse in Sun City Center, Florida, Bush answered (or attempted to answer) a question about the Alaskan pipeline. Take a read...

Q: I would like to ask one question about the Alaskan pipeline. My understanding is that most of that supply does not come to the United States, and I would like to know why that goes to other countries rather than to where it's needed here, so that we can --

THE PRESIDENT: You mean the crude oil coming down the pipeline?

Q: Yes, sir.

THE PRESIDENT: I don't know where it goes, to be honest with you. Sorry. I can find out. (Laughter)

Q: Okay. Could we just divert a little bit of that our direction, please? (Laughter)

THE PRESIDENT: I thought you were going to ask, how come we don't have the gas pipeline coming down yet - because there's a lot of untapped oil and gas up there that can be explored in environmentally friendly ways. And I think we ought to be drilling in ANWR - it's called ANWR. I know we can do it and protect the environment at the same time. And I know there's a lot of untapped gas up there that we ought to get down through pipeline, as well. I don't know where all the oil goes coming out of the pipeline now. I'll try to find out for you.

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Now I may be nitpicking here, but it cracks me up that the president knows so much about all of the natural gas and oil that we should drill and explore for in ANWR, yet he cannot even answer a question about where the oil goes now. No wonder he played to carefully screened and selected audiences prior to the '04 election, and why his advisors don't want him in many unscripted situations.

I won't get into an ANWR rant right now, except to say this: When the president says that ANWR can be explored in "environmentally friendly ways," he should be wearing a brown suit, because he's 100% full of shit. Anyone remember the Exxon Valdez disaster? That's when about 12 million gallons of crude oil were dumped into Prince William Sound in 1989 when the Exxon supertanker ran aground, devastating the environment, wildlife and the lives of fisherman and residents. To date, Exxon has paid a measly $300 million in cleanup costs. I say measly because Exxon, the world's biggest oil company, lost a court ruling and has been ordered to pay over $5 billion to the people whose lives the drunken, iceberg slaloming captain of the Valdez ruined. Yet, the company continues to fight and appeal instead paying the settlement and allowing these people to move on with their lives. By the way, last year alone the company had over $30 billion in profits .

So, there isn't exactly a good precedent of oil companies being friendly to the environment up north, and when an accident does happen, big oil hasn't exactly been contrite and willing to do the right thing. So, why should the government whore out more of its lands to big oil? And let's be honest here, if this was a puddle of black gold the size of the Saudi Arabian oil fields, that might outweigh the risks. But, it's not - all of the oil extracted from the ground might supply the U.S. for less than a year, and that's an optimistic estimate. Depending on where you get your numbers from and the ax that source has to grind, estimates on how much oil is in ANWR vary widely. But, even with the most optimistic of estimates, it's not like we're sitting on a gigantic, untapped oil reserve that could change the course of our foreign oil dependence. Experts have been saying this for years, but deaf Republicans obviously aren't listening - we cannot drill our way out of foreign oil dependence. (Maybe Republicans are "deaf" because of all the green that big oil lines their pockets with.) So, I still think drilling in ANWR isn't worth the environmental costs and risks, at least until the oil companies can totally prove they can do it without screwing the environment, and until they sign a legally binding pledge to pay all cleanup costs in the event of an accident, and not fight damages Exxon style. When those two conditions are met, maybe, just maybe, it'll be time to drill.

Speaking of ANWR, the president sure seemed happy that he knew it's called ANWR, didn't he? Doofus. I bet he had one of those snide grins when he said that, too.