When it comes to funding our troops, some in Washington should spend more time responding to the warnings of terrorists like Osama bin Laden and the requests of our commanders on the ground, and less time responding to the demands of MoveOn.org bloggers and Code Pink protesters. [source]

So sad. So pathetic.

And how concerned is Bush about Bin Laden? From March 13th, 2002:

THE PRESIDENT: Deep in my heart I know the man is on the run, if he’s alive at all. Who knows if he’s hiding in some cave or not; we haven’t heard from him in a long time. And the idea of focusing on one person is — really indicates to me people don’t understand the scope of the mission.

Terror is bigger than one person. And he’s just — he’s a person who’s now been marginalized. His network, his host government has been destroyed. He’s the ultimate parasite who found weakness, exploited it, and met his match. He is — as I mentioned in my speech, I do mention the fact that this is a fellow who is willing to commit youngsters to their death and he, himself, tries to hide — if, in fact, he’s hiding at all.

So I don’t know where he is, nor[*]… You know, I just don’t spend that much time on him, Kelly, to be honest with you.

* he almost said, “Nor do I care.” at the end. An element that the White House official transcript removed.

Watching that video, all I could think was, “What a smug, condescending, arrogant idiot.”

They [the source's institution] have “instructions” (yes, that was the word used) from the Office of the Vice-President to roll out a campaign for war with Iran in the week after Labor Day; it will be coordinated with the American Enterprise Institute, the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard, Commentary, Fox, and the usual suspects. It will be heavy sustained assault on the airwaves, designed to knock public sentiment into a position from which a war can be maintained. Evidently they don’t think they’ll ever get majority support for this–they want something like 35-40 percent support, which in their book is “plenty.” [source: Informed Comment Global Affairs]

The psy-ops campaign on Iran has been in full gear from George “Worst. President. Ever.” Bush for all of August and their strategy must be to now have others chime in supporting the administration’s claims. Good luck.

As I’ve noted many times, America should not be willing to trust these clowns in the White House with anything of substance anymore.

From the Washington Post:

In a memo to the bank’s vice president for human resources dated Aug. 11, 2005, Wolfowitz wrote, “I now direct you to agree to a proposal which includes the following terms and conditions.” Riza was to be “detailed to an outside institution of her choosing while retaining Bank salary and benefits.” She was to receive an immediate raise with approximate annual increases of 8 percent.

What surprises me is that Wolfowitz was even considered for the job if his girlfriend worked there. Clearly the United States (read: Bush Administration) forced the World Bank to take him on, despite the ethical issues. What other motivation would they have to offer up something that would never have been tolerated in any private corporation?

Iran has more than tripled its ability to produce enriched uranium in the last three months, adding some 1,000 centrifuges which are used to separate radioactive particles from the raw material.

The development means Iran could have enough material for a nuclear bomb by 2009, sources familiar with the dramatic upgrade tell ABC News.

Does this method of influencing public opinion sound familiar? Niger, yellowcake uranium, aluminum tubes, Valerie Plame, Joe Wilson, and Colin Powell at the UN redux.

Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com points out that Bush was asked about this report today in his press conference, and notes

So within less than 24 hours, a completely shoddy, unreliable and vague ABC News report translates into a straightforward statement at the President’s Press Conference that “Iran will be capable of building a nuclear bomb within two years.”

With the Bush Administration’s credibility so deep in the crapper, the Neocons need to get ABC’s investigative reporters to run stories with unsubstantiated information in order to bolster their case against another Middle Eastern big talker, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The Blotter should be ashamed of running that story. I guess the Bushies may have found their new Judith Miller.

From an article in the Capitol Journal:

The blurring of entertainment and news and the relaxing of journalistic standards can be seen in online bloggers who are critical of people without giving them an opportunity to respond or who don’t post corrections when they learn that what they have posted is wrong.

Um… That’s wrong, wrong, wrong. I realize that I’m just a blogger with poor ethics, but how much easier could it be for you to respond to my post here? Respond away!

No corrections? She clearly reads blogs about as much as she checked her sources on her Iraq psy-ops news stories she so dutifully published for the Bush Administration and that shifty guy Chalabi. Corrections are made all the time right in the post…sometimes even striking out the incorrect text so the reader can see just how wrong the writer was.

Did the New York Times run a correction for the 8 months of vaunted journalism they did before the U.S. invaded Iraq? Please…

“I’m worried about bloggers,” she said. “(A post) starts as a rumor and within 24 hours it’s repeated as fact.”

And she scoffs at the blogging world as opposed to newspapers like the New York Times where reporters repeat her “facts” so many times that our country goes into a bogus war?

[via ThinkProgress.org]

A defeat [in Iraq] — in other words, if we were to withdraw before the job is done, it would embolden extremists. They would say, you know, we were right about America in the first place, that America did not have the will necessary to do the hard work. That’s precisely what Osama bin Laden has said, for example. A defeat there would make it easier for people to be able to recruit extremists and kids, to be able to use their tactics to destroy innocent life. A defeat there would dispirit people throughout the Middle East who wonder whether America is genuine in our commitment to moderation and democracy.

I’m sorry to tell you, Mr. President, but people are already dispirited in the world. Iraq now makes it very easy for extremists to recruit. Most of us feel significantly less safe now than we did immediately after 9/11. So how exactly are we supposed to win? What does this win look like?

By many accounts his description describes a dream that is the exact opposite from the reality on the ground. Our very presence in Iraq emboldens the terrorists and forces many to question whether we are for moderation and democracy. Further, while there might have been groups of outside fighters that the Bush Administration could refer to as “outside terrorists”, it now appears that the U.S. is battling substantial Iraqi sects, each with their own 2000-year-old agendas. His dream for Iraq assumes we can just roust out those troublemakers from Iraq, and when we do, we’ll come home. Alas, it’s quite unlikely that we’ll roust Iraqis from Iraq.

Unfortunately, the situation in Iraq plays exactly to a key Bush weakness: To Bush, there is no nuance, no complexity.

History is already being written and in the end, I believe, George W. Bush will be remembered as a vapid, inept executive who set our nation back decades. If you want to watch chapter one of this history, you need to watch the chilling documentary from Frontline, The Lost Year in Iraq. These guys have been wrong about every strategy they’ve taken…and yet some would consider still listening to him and his cronies?