How many of the folks who would accuse Clinton of timing military actions to improve his poll numbers are going to assign the same malfeasance to GWB?

I'm a little confused here, though. Apparently this action interrupted a landmark Parliamentary session, with members scurrying off as bombs exploded with no scheduled next meeting....hmmm...another "bring it on" success story??

I doubt the bombings really were a PR trick. I think instead their necessity reflects just how badly this administration--which three years ago touted the end of military operations in Iraq--has performed.

No, this administration is gonna need something far more drastic to distract from the fact that a new NBC poll now shows only 25% of the country approves of Bush. A big, serious distraction. Hey! Maybe they can come up with a "Terror Alert" increase? Or maybe even contruct their OWN terrorist attack......

For Bush & the filth that report to him to start spreading the word that the government's failing to obtain a death sentence against Moussaoui was Clinton's fault?

The current Atlantic Monthly has a piece entitled "Big Brother is Listening" by James Bamford about GWB's wiretapping. Nothing earth- shattering and I don't think reading it will change hearts/minds on either side, but interesting numbers to contemplate when you're trying to decide how you feel about this issue.

The current Foreign Affairs, especially Paul Pillar's "Unheeded Intelligence" and a very interesting brief piece by Daniel Byman entitled "Do Targeted Killings Work?" Also important pieces on Sino-Japan relations and the independence movement in Taiwan.

These should be read by serious conservatives and liberals alike (as should National Review, The New Yorker, The New York Times and Wall Street Journal) on a regular basis.

Oh, and George Bush supporters, I'm sure there's a good article on American Idol in People magazine this week.

Oh! Woops!!! It's not a liberal at all!! Look who's giving us a pretty frightening assessment of the threat America faces from George W Bush and the filth that report to him:

Via NPR. Rush transcript by RAW STORY.

Supreme Court justices keep many opinions private but Sandra Day O’Connor no longer faces that obligation. Yesterday, the retired justice criticized Republicans who criticized the courts. She said they challenge the independence of judges and the freedoms of all Americans. O’Connor’s speech at Georgetown University was not available for broadcast but NPR’s legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg was there.

Nina Totenberg: In an unusually forceful and forthright speech, O’Connor said that attacks on the judiciary by some Republican leaders pose a direct threat to our constitutional freedoms. O’Connor began by conceding that courts do have the power to make presidents or the Congress or governors, as she put it “really, really angry.” But, she continued, if we don’t make them mad some of the time we probably aren’t doing our jobs as judges, and our effectiveness, she said, is premised on the notion that we won’t be subject to retaliation for our judicial acts. The nation’s founders wrote repeatedly, she said, that without an independent judiciary to protect individual rights from the other branches of government those rights and privileges would amount to nothing. But, said O’Connor, as the founding fathers knew statutes and constitutions don’t protect judicial independence, people do.

And then she took aim at former House GOP leader Tom DeLay. She didn’t name him, but she quoted his attacks on the courts at a meeting of the conservative Christian group Justice Sunday last year when DeLay took out after the courts for rulings on abortions, prayer and the Terri Schiavo case. This, said O’Connor, was after the federal courts had applied Congress’ onetime only statute about Schiavo as it was written. Not, said O’Connor, as the congressman might have wished it were written. This response to this flagrant display of judicial restraint, said O’Connor, her voice dripping with sarcasm, was that the congressman blasted the courts.

It gets worse, she said, noting that death threats against judges are increasing. It doesn’t help, she said, when a high-profile senator suggests there may be a connection between violence against judges and decisions that the senator disagrees with. She didn’t name him, but it was Texas senator John Cornyn who made that statement, after a Georgia judge was murdered in the courtroom and the family of a federal judge in Illinois murdered in the judge’s home. O’Connor observed that there have been a lot of suggestions lately for so-called judicial reforms, recommendations for the massive impeachment of judges, stripping the courts of jurisdiction and cutting judicial budgets to punish offending judges. Any of these might be debatable, she said, as long as they are not retaliation for decisions that political leaders disagree with.

I, said O’Connor, am against judicial reforms driven by nakedly partisan reasoning. Pointing to the experiences of developing countries and former communist countries where interference with an independent judiciary has allowed dictatorship to flourish, O’Connor said we must be ever-vigilant against those who would strongarm the judiciary into adopting their preferred policies. It takes a lot of degeneration before a country falls into dictatorship, she said, but we should avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings.

Nina Totenberg, NPR News, Washington.

One of the things I love most about the duped--you know, George Bush supporters--is their refusal to risk getting in a discussion exchanging points of view. Obviously, this reflects in large part that they can't really formualte a point of view or structure an argument backed with facts and/or reason. Right? What "reason" do you fall back on to defend an administration that's fucked up so much on so many different levels?

So, if you're a Bush supporter, you do two things in encounters with dissent or opposition whether it's within your own party or not: You rely on dirty tricks, lies and distortions. You call in the Swift Boat Cowards and Karl Rove, and you let 'em go to work.

The other thing you do is you insult and disparage without allowing yourself to get into a discussion of the actual issues involved. Someone has an issue with a policy? Don't discuss or debate the issue--that's a surefire way to lose. Instead, comeback with "oh, you're a liberal"; "you're a traitor"; "you don't support the troops"; "you want innocent babies to be murdered"; "you want Americans to live in fear"; "you want to give criminals vacations instead of punishment" and the list goes on and on. And as far as they're concerned, they win. People don't have time to pay attention to details of issues, so, keep calling someone a "baby-killer" and you'll win. After all, who wants to support or vote for a baby-killer?

And sadly, in our rapid-fire news cycle culture and an environment in which people simply don't have the time to concentrate or even think about what they think about the issues of the day, this strategy is frequently just enough to win--and that's what counts.

Except that it is killing our already rapidly-deteriorating country.

We are being led down a very dangerous path, and that path is overcrowded with cowards and ignoramuses who unfathomably put their politics ahead of the best interests of their country.

This is an invitation to any conservatives out there who are willing to discuss in detail why they support George Bush on any given issue.

I have asked the same of numerous cowards here and all I get are insults, or "I don't have time to respond", etc.

How sad.