"...corporate leaders at companies as diverse as News Corp., Marriott International and Time Warner can profit by selling red-state consumers the very material that red-state culture is supposed to despise. Those elites then funnel the proceeds to the GOP, which in turn has used the money to successfully convince red-state voters that the other political party is solely responsible for the decline of the civilization."

The Republican National Committee apparently paid a Virginia networking firm to buy BushCheated.com on their behalf, RAW STORY has learned.

A representative for Network Solutions, LLC confirmed that they registered sites for the Republican National Committee. When asked if they registered BushCheated.com on behalf of the party, she said, “Yeah, then we probably did.”

A spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee declined to comment and said they would return the call.

The domain, which has no content, was likely registered to prevent others from setting up a website at the address.

“Campaigns have been doing this since 2000 to protect themselves,” a Democratic Internet consultant, who asked to remain anonymous, said.

The consultant noted that the Bush campaign registered various derivatives of “Bush sucks” during the 2000 campaign.

Asked why the RNC registered the site in April 2003, the consultant said they probably had registered the site when the original registrant’s control of the domain expired.

A register.com lookup for the registrant of
BushCheated.com produces the following result.

Registrant: Make this info private
Republican National Committee (VAVFGNVHZO)
310 First Street SE
Washington, DC 20003
US
Phone: 202-863-8670

Domain Name: BUSHCHEATED.COM

Administrative Contact :
Republican National Committee (VAVFGNVHZO)
gopdomains@rnchq.org
310 First Street SE
Washington, DC 20003
US
Phone: 202-863-8670

Technical Contact :
Network Solutions, LLC. (HOST-ORG)
customerservice@networksolutions.com
13200 Woodland Park Drive
Herndon, VA 20171-3025
US
Phone: 1-888-642-9675
Fax: 571-434-4620

Record expires on 08-Apr-2005
Record created on 08-Apr-2003
Database last updated on 09-Jul-2004

Domain servers in listed order: Manage DNS

NS29.WORLDNIC.COM 216.168.228.17
NS30.WORLDNIC.COM 216.168.225.160

Show underlying registry data for this record

Click here for registration image

• Scott at Poetic Leanings weighs in from South Jersey


• Jazz weighs in from whatever he's weighing in from

The research, which disputes images of ancient combat such as those seen in the Russell Crowe epic Gladiator, suggests that the fighters of yore would have far more in common with the overblown histrionics of modern-day premier league footballers or WWE wrestlers: highly trained, overpaid and pampered professionals with throngs of groupies - and an interest in not getting too badly injured.

Research into medieval and renaissance combat manuals has led one classical scholar to suggest that gladiatorial fighting had become more of a martial art at the beginning of the first millennium, a report in New Scientist reveals.

To thrill the crowds around the arena the combatants would "display" broad fighting skills rather than battle for their lives, according to Professor Steve Tuck of the University of Miami.

"Gladiatorial combat is seen as being related to killing and shedding of blood, but I think that what we are seeing is an entertaining martial art that was spectator-oriented," he said.

Prof Tuck focused on fighting methods used by pairs of gladiators in one-to-one combat, as opposed to mass battles or staged events, and examined 158 images that show combat, such as a gladiator pinning down his opponent, his shield and sword on the ground.

Such gladiatorial art adorns practically all Roman artefacts, from lamps, gems and pottery to large-scale wall paintings.

To try to ascertain more fully what these scenes show, Prof Tuck turned to the pages of fighting and martial-arts manuals produced in Germany and northern Italy in medieval and renaissance times. These provided instruction in everything from sword-fighting to wrestling. He argues that, as such, they are a good parallel for gladiatorial combat.

He said: "They are incredibly important because they show sequences of moves and have accompanying descriptions."

From the manuals and art, Prof Tuck concludes there were often three critical moments in such fights.

The first was initial contact, with both opponents fully armed and moving forward while going for body shots. The second was when one gladiator was wounded and sought to distance himself from his opponent. In the third, both gladiators dropped their shields, seemingly undamaged, before grappling with each other.

In the books, this very act of throwing down shields and weapons to grapple was a common way to conclude a fight, without necessarily intending to finish off an opponent.

Prof Tuck concludes from the Roman art he has examined that the same happened during gladiatorial bouts.

The White House has scrapped its list of Iraq allies known as the 45-member "coalition of the willing," which Washington used to back its argument that the 2003 invasion was a multilateral action, an official said on Friday.

The senior administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the White House replaced the coalition list with a smaller roster of 28 countries with troops in Iraq sometime after the June transfer of power to an interim Iraqi government.

The official could not say when or why the administration did away with the list of the coalition of the willing.

The coalition, unveiled on the eve of the invasion, consisted of 30 countries that publicly offered support for the United States and another 15 that did not want to be named as part of the group.

Former coalition member Costa Rica withdrew last September under pressure from voters who opposed the government's decision to back the invasion.

On Friday, an organization from Iceland published a full-page advertisement in the New York Times calling for its country's withdrawal from the coalition and offering apologies for its support for U.S. policy.

The United States, backed by major allies, including Britain and Italy, invaded Iraq in March 2003 on the premise that Saddam Hussein posed a grave threat because he possessed weapons of mass destruction, or WMD.

The Bush administration acknowledged this month that it has abandoned its search for WMD without finding any biological, chemical or nuclear weapons.

Secretary of State-designate Condoleezza Rice, who was national security adviser to President Bush at the time of the invasion, told a Senate panel this week that the administration had made some bad decisions in Iraq.

Nearly 1,370 members of the U.S. armed forces have been killed and another 10,500 have been wounded in Iraq since the invasion.

Unofficial estimates put the civilian Iraqi death toll at between 14,000 and 100,000.

Federal Appeals Court Judge Michael Chertoff’s ties to the financiers of the Sept. 11 attacks may prevent his confirmation as Homeland Security Chief.

According to a June 20, 2000 article in the The Record of Bergen County, New Jersey, Chertoff defended accused terrorist financier Dr. Magdy Elamir.

Elamir’s HMO was sued by the State of New Jersey to recoup $16.7 million in losses. At least $5.7 million went “to unknown parties... by means of wire transfers to bank accounts where the beneficial owner of the account is unknown,” according to the article.

Foreign intelligence reports given to then chairman of the House International Relations Committee Ben Gilman,
R-New York, in 1998 accused Magdy Elamir of having “had financial ties with Osama bin Laden for years,” according to an Aug. 2, 2002 Dateline NBC broadcast.

In 1999, Magdy Elamir and brother Mohamed were named suspects in Operation Diamondback, an FBI/ATF undercover infiltration of Pakistani arms merchants who sought to arm Osama bin Laden with conventional and nuclear weapons, according to independent researcher and former New Jersey police officer Allan Duncan and taped transcripts with FBI informant Randy Glass.

Mohamed Elamir tried to purchase “small arms and ammunition” in a recorded telephone conversation with Glass, according to Dateline.

Dateline confirmed that Elamir and his corporations had paid at least $5,000 to Egyptian arms dealer Diaa Mohsen, who Elamir referred to on camera as a family friend. Moshen was sentenced to 30 months for his involvement in Operation Diamondback. However, Elamir was never convicted.

Duncan, who was hired by family members of the Sept. 11 victims to research government ties to the attacks, said the reason Magdy Elamir was never convicted was because he was never charged with a crime.

“By the time Operation Diamondback culminated in arrests in the summer of 2001, Michael Chertoff was the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the criminal division and Operation Diamondback would have fallen under his prevue since it was a criminal case and not a counterterrorism case,” Duncan said.

From 1990 to 1994, Chertoff was U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, during the period when the first attack on the World Trade Center took place.

Omar Abdel-Rahman preached at the Al Salam mosque and was later arrested for his role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, according to Dateline. Magdy Elamir was one of the Al Salam mosque’s financial supporters.

“The Jersey City area and particularly the Al Salam mosque were allowed to continue to be one of the major hubs of terrorist activity in the United States,” Duncan said.

On ABC News tonight they had a report about preparations for voting in the city of Mosul. The original plan was to have 100 polling places, but because of the violence there that's been cut down to 40.

The population of Mosul is 2 million, and you can probably figure that about two-thirds of that number are eligible to vote. That means each polling place will have to handle 33,000 voters. Even if turnout is only 50%, that's still about 16,000 people per polling station.

Even 100 polling stations sounds like far, far too few. But 40?

Then Jesus said to his disciples, "I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."

Shorter Jesus : Rich people suck.

Today's inauguration of President George W. Bush may depress many Democrats, who had hoped to take back the White House this year. But at Air America, the upstart liberal radio network, there's at least some cause for celebration.

Coinciding with the presidential ceremonies, Air America will launch its brash Bush-bashing talk-radio format onto the airwaves in President Bush's backyard -- Washington, D.C. -- as well as Detroit and Cincinnati, bringing its total nationwide reach to 45 markets.

It's a remarkable feat for a network that was nearly given up for dead just last year. After a hype-filled launch in March, stoked by the passion of the presidential-election campaign, the network ran out of money within six weeks and was kicked off the air in Los Angeles and Chicago, leaving it with just a New York station and two smaller markets. Critics predicted the company wouldn't recover, especially after the election ended and interest in politics faded.

But with an infusion of new financing and new management, the radio network has won high ratings in some of its local markets and has garnered the support of radio-industry giant Clear Channel Communications Inc. It has signed three-year contracts with its top two stars, Al Franken and Randi Rhodes, and raised an additional $19 million from private investors. People familiar with the situation say Air America is also finalizing a deal that would get it back on the air in Los Angeles via KXTA-AM, a Clear Channel sports station.

[snip]

Definitive ratings for most of Air America's markets won't be released until later in the month. But local market research and anecdotal evidence indicate that the network is gaining traction. On the Internet, Air America is the fourth most popular radio station, with almost 200,000 weekly Web listeners, according to Webcast Metrics. (The top rated online radio station is Digitally Imported, which offers "electronic dance music.")

In New York, Ms. Rhodes is tied with conservative Sean Hannity for the talk-show host that listeners spent the most time with each week in the fall season, according to Arbitron. Ms. Rhodes points out that she reached that level after just a few months of national exposure, and without the television show and book Mr. Hannity has to boost his public profile.

What if there really was no need for much - or even most - of the Cold War? What if, in fact, the Cold War had been kept alive for two decades based on phony WMD threats? What if, similarly, the War On Terror was largely a scam, and the administration was hyping it to seem larger-than-life? What if our "enemy" represented a real but relatively small threat posed by rogue and criminal groups well outside the mainstream of Islam? What if that hype was done largely to enhance the power, electability, and stature of George W. Bush and Tony Blair?

And what if the world was to discover the most shocking dimensions of these twin deceits - that the same men promulgated them in the 1970s and today? It happened.

The myth-shattering event took place in England the first three weeks of October, when the BBC aired a three-hour documentary written and produced by Adam Curtis, titled "The Power of Nightmares." If the emails and phone calls many of us in the US received from friends in the UK - and debate in the pages of publications like The Guardian are any indicator, this was a seismic event, one that may have even provoked a hasty meeting between Blair and Bush a few weeks later.

According to this carefully researched and well-vetted BBC documentary, Richard Nixon, following in the steps of his mentor and former boss Dwight D. Eisenhower, believed it was possible to end the Cold War and eliminate fear from the national psyche. The nation need no longer be afraid of communism or the Soviet Union. Nixon worked out a truce with the Soviets, meeting their demands for safety as well as the US needs for security, and then announced to Americans that they need no longer be afraid. In 1972, President Richard Nixon returned from the Soviet Union with a treaty worked out by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, the beginning of a process Kissinger called "détente." On June 1, 1972, Nixon gave a speech in which he said, "Last Friday, in Moscow, we witnessed the beginning of the end of that era which began in 1945. With this step, we have enhanced the security of both nations. We have begun to reduce the level of fear, by reducing the causes of fear—for our two peoples, and for all peoples in the world."

But Nixon left amid scandal and Ford came in, and Ford's Secretary of Defense (Donald Rumsfeld) and Chief of Staff (Dick Cheney) believed it was intolerable that Americans might no longer be bound by fear. Without fear, how could Americans be manipulated? Rumsfeld and Cheney began a concerted effort - first secretly and then openly - to undermine Nixon's treaty for peace and to rebuild the state of fear and, thus, reinstate the Cold War.

And these two men - 1974 Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Ford Chief of Staff Dick Cheney - did this by claiming that the Soviets had secret weapons of mass destruction that the president didn't know about, that the CIA didn't know about, that nobody but them knew about. And, they said, because of those weapons, the US must redirect billions of dollars away from domestic programs and instead give the money to defense contractors for whom these two men would one day work.

"The Soviet Union has been busy," Defense Secretary Rumsfeld explained to America in 1976. "They’ve been busy in terms of their level of effort; they’ve been busy in terms of the actual weapons they’ve been producing; they’ve been busy in terms of expanding production rates; they’ve been busy in terms of expanding their institutional capability to produce additional weapons at additional rates; they’ve been busy in terms of expanding their capability to increasingly improve the sophistication of those weapons. Year after year after year, they’ve been demonstrating that they have steadiness of purpose. They’re purposeful about what they’re doing."

The CIA strongly disagreed, calling Rumsfeld's position a "complete fiction" and pointing out that the Soviet Union was disintegrating from within, could barely afford to feed their own people, and would collapse within a decade or two if simply left alone. But Rumsfeld and Cheney wanted Americans to believe there was something nefarious going on, something we should be very afraid of. To this end, they convinced President Ford to appoint a commission including their old friend Paul Wolfowitz to prove that the Soviets were up to no good.

Watching the inaugural ceremonies yesterday reminded me of the scenes near the end of "The Godfather" in which a solemn occasion (a baptism in the movie) is interspersed with a series of spectacularly violent murders.

Even as President Bush was taking the oath of office and delivering his Inaugural Address beneath the clear, cold skies of Washington, the news wires were churning out stories about the tragic mayhem in Iraq. There is no end in sight to the carnage, which was unleashed nearly two years ago by President Bush's decision to launch this wholly unnecessary war, one of the worst presidential decisions in American history.

Incredibly, with more than 1,360 American troops dead and more than 10,000 wounded, and with scores of thousands of Iraqis dead and wounded, the president never once mentioned the word Iraq in his Inaugural Address. He avoided all but the most general references to the war. Lyndon Johnson used to agonize over the war that unraveled his presidency. Mr. Bush, riding the crest of his re-election wave, seems not to be similarly bothered.

In January 1945, with World War II still raging, Franklin Roosevelt insisted on a low-key inauguration. Already gravely ill, he began his address by saying, "Mr. Chief Justice, Mr. Vice President, my friends, you will understand and, I believe, agree with my wish that the form of this inauguration be simple and its words brief."

Times have changed. President Bush and his equally tone-deaf supporters spent the past few days partying hard while Americans, Iraqis and others continued to suffer and die in the Iraq conflagration. Nothing was too good for the princes and princesses of the new American plutocracy. Tens of millions of dollars were spent on fireworks, cocktail receptions, gala dinners and sumptuous balls.

Ten thousand people, including the president and Laura Bush, turned out Wednesday night for the Black Tie and Boots Ball. According to The Associated Press, one of the guests, Lorian Sessions of San Antonio, "donned a new pair of black kangaroo boots, decorated with a white star and embroidery, with an aqua-colored mink wrap she bought on sale at Saks."

An article in The Washington Post mentioned a peace activist who complained that the money lavished on the balls would have been better spent on body armor for under-equipped troops in Iraq.

As the well-heeled Bush crowd was laughing and dancing in tuxedos and designer gowns, the situation in Iraq was deteriorating to new levels of horror. The Black Tie and Boots Ball was held on the same day that 26 people were killed in five powerful car and truck bombs in Baghdad. With the elections just a week and a half away, American commanders, according to John F. Burns of The Times, are seeking "to prepare public opinion in Iraq and abroad for one of the bloodiest chapters in the war so far."

A photo at the end of Mr. Burns's article showed an Iraqi National Guard member carrying the remains of a suicide bomber in a garbage bag.

The disconnect between the over-the-top celebrations in Washington and the hideous reality of Iraq does not in any way surprise me. It's exactly what we should expect from the president and his supporters, who seem always to exist in a fantasy realm far removed from such ugly realities as war and suffering. In that realm you can start wars without having to deal with the consequences of them. You don't even have to pay for them. You can put them on a credit card.

People traveling in the real world may see Iraq as a place where bombings, kidnappings and assassinations are an integral part of daily life; where police officers are blown to pieces as they line up for their pay; where innocent men, women and children are slain by the thousands for no good reason; where cities like Falluja are leveled in order to save them; where America's overwhelming superiority in firepower has not been enough to win the war; and where the upcoming elections seem very much like a joke since many of the candidates have to keep their identities secret and the locations of many polling places remain undisclosed.

People traveling in the real world may see Iraq that way. But in the fantasy-laden Bush realm, Iraq is a place where freedom is on the march. So why not raise a toast to freedom, and dance the night away.

the Times claims that Clinton's second inauguration cost $42 million, and adjusted for inflation, that means it cost $49 million in 2005 dollars. And voila, Clinton spent more than Bush. The only problem is, according to a vast array of news accounts (Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, Newsday, St. Petersburg Times), Clinton's 1997 inauguration cost $30 million or, more precisely, $29.7 million. Even adjusted for inflation, that puts the '97 cost at less than $35 million, well behind the $40-$50 million the Bush camp will spend.

The only way the Times can boost the Clinton cost to $42 million is if it adds in the approximately $12 million spent in '97 by the Defense Department, the National Park Service, the General Services Administration and the government of the District of Columbia, which traditionally chip in to cover inauguration costs. But then the Times would have to add the roughly $20 million being spent this week by the federal government, which would boost Bush's tally toward $60-$70 million. Any way you look at it, the Times' lame defense does not add up.

• Scott at Poetic Leanings translates selections from C-Plus Caligula's inauguration speech. (Based on listening to about 10 minutes each of NPR and Al Franken in the car on the way home at lunchtime, you'd think they were talking about two different speeches.)


• Jazz at Running Scared visits some Iraqi blogs, which really should go on this blogroll as well.
  
• Waveflux has a bunch of good stuff today, including thoughts on Juan Cole's post-mortem on the genuflecting before Condi Rice by everyone but Barbara Boxer.


• Steve Gilliard has some graphic photos and an analysis of the kind of winning over of hearts and minds Bush's policy is doing in Iraq. Presumably we can look forward to more of this as he does PNAC's billing for the next four years.


• John Howard has had quite enough reductio ad absurdum about Bill Clinton, thank you very much.
And don't miss his thoughts on so-called Intelligent Design theory, which pretty much shoot that concept right into oblivion where it belongs.

• Tresy at Corrente is moving to Canada, and invites the rest of us go come along. It sure is tempting...
  

The immediate goals of the attacks would be to destroy, or at least temporarily derail, Iran’s ability to go nuclear. But there are other, equally purposeful, motives at work. The government consultant told me that the hawks in the Pentagon, in private discussions, have been urging a limited attack on Iran because they believe it could lead to a toppling of the religious leadership. “Within the soul of Iran there is a struggle between secular nationalists and reformers, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the fundamentalist Islamic movement,” the consultant told me. “The minute the aura of invincibility which the mullahs enjoy is shattered, and with it the ability to hoodwink the West, the Iranian regime will collapse”—like the former Communist regimes in Romania, East Germany, and the Soviet Union. Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz share that belief, he said.

“The idea that an American attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities would produce a popular uprising is extremely illinformed,” said Flynt Leverett, a Middle East scholar who worked on the National Security Council in the Bush Administration. “You have to understand that the nuclear ambition in Iran is supported across the political spectrum, and Iranians will perceive attacks on these sites as attacks on their ambitions to be a major regional player and a modern nation that’s technologically sophisticated.” Leverett, who is now a senior fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, at the Brookings Institution, warned that an American attack, if it takes place, “will produce an Iranian backlash against the United States and a rallying around the regime.”

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Jan. 19 (UPI) -- A Saudi actor announced Wednesday his plans to produce a talk show called "Peace on my Nation" to combat the terrorism sweeping Saudi Arabia.

Mr. Moonves said he was looking to install something more "cutting edge" this time. As part of the overhaul he indicated he would even consider a role for Jon Stewart of Comedy Central's "Daily Show." Mr. Stewart has emerged as both a late-night comedy star and a biting commentator on the news.

[snip]

Mr. Moonves, who is also the a president of CBS's parent company, Viacom, noted that because Comedy Central is also owned by Viacom, Mr. Stewart is available for such consideration. "Jon Stewart is part of our company and we speak regularly about all sorts of different things," Mr. Moonves said.

This administration hasn't told the whole story about what we face. I hope I'm wrong. I've been here 32 years and go back a long way. I am concerned that the American people, when the going gets rougher, will decide they want to get out of there. And if we leave before the job is done we will have chaos in the middle east for a generation. I hope I'm wrong. The people who are saying that we should stay the course are the ones who think the prez has told them the whole deal.

Allen said we want to advance freedom. We want to score, but if the offense you're using isn't working what you want to ask at halftime is to ask what is the game plan. Are you going to stop trying to run the ball up the middle? How are you gonna score? We can't advance freedom by wishing that if we just make it available to you you will rise up and embrace it. We need a game plan. (to continue this silly analogy) The one we have is not working.

Diplomacy will be the watchword. Did any of you hear any plan on diplomacy? I didn't hear a thing. Other than assertions that we want to do this.

The thing that stunned me most was her unwillingness to talk about the economy. She didn't have an opinion on the position of the dollar - that's the Sec of Treasury's job.

My job is to continue to have a relationship with the Sec of State. And it gets harder when you vote no. I've been disappointed, but for me in my particular role, I need to work with her, because I do think she has the president's ear. I hope she is willing to take on some of the neo conservatives in this administration. Maybe she is a neoconservative. Which is why I asked her about the Hirsch story about Iran. I hope to god she doesn't believe that if they go into Iran the people will rise up, and I hope she will argue against it.

I'll end with this point. I thought that Senator Kerry was eloquent in how he chooses to view this question. Samuel Johnson says anyone who marries for a second time "chooses the triumph of hope over experience". And I acknowledge that I am choosing the triumph of hope over experience, because my experience of the first 4 years of this administration has not been very good. But I am choosing hope.

I only vote against if incompetant or of poor character. So I'm voting for Rice. But I hope she's telling the president the truth. "Hey boss... there just that many people trained", "Hey boss..."

Dr. Rice, before I get to my formal remarks, you no doubt will be confirmed -- that's at least what we think. And if you're going to become the voice of diplomacy -- this is just a helpful point -- when Senator Voinovich mentioned the issue of tsunami relief, you said -- your first words were, "The tsunami was a wonderful opportunity for us." Now, the tsunami was one of the worst tragedies of our lifetime -- one of the worst -- and it's going to have a 10-year impact on rebuilding that area. I was very disappointed in your statement. I think you blew the opportunity. You mention it as part of one sentence. And I would hope to work with you on this, because children are suffering, we're worried they're going to get in the sex trade. This thing is a disaster, a true natural disaster and a human disaster of great proportions, and I hope that the State Department will take a huge lead under your leadership in helping those folks in the long range.

Dr. Rice, I was glad you mentioned Martin Luther King -- it was very appropriate, given everything. And he also said, Martin Luther King, quote, "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter." And one of the things that matters most to my people in California and the people in America is this war in Iraq.

So in your statement it takes you to page three to mention the word "Iraq." Then you mention it in the context of elections -- which is fine -- but you never even mention indirectly the 1,366 American troops that have died, or the 10,372 who have been wounded -- many mentally, as a report that I read over the weekend that maybe a third will come home and need help because of what they saw -- it's been so traumatic to them. And 25 percent of those dead are from my home state. And this from a war that was based on what everyone now says, including your own administration, were falsehoods about WMDs, weapons of mass destruction. And I've had tens of thousands of people from all over the country say that they disagree -- although they respect the president -- they disagree that this administration and the people in it shouldn't be held accountable.

[snip]

And I think the way we should start is by trying to set the record straight on some of the things you said going into this war. Now, since 9/11 we've been engaged in a just fight against terror. And I, like Senator Feingold and everyone here who was in the Senate at the time, voted to go after Osama bin Laden and to go after the Taliban, and to defeat al Qaeda. And you say they have left territory -- that's not true. Your own documents show that al Qaeda has expanded from 45 countries in '01 to more than 60 countries today.

Well, with you in the lead role, Dr. Rice, we went into Iraq. I want to read you a paragraph that best expresses my views, and ask my staff if they would hold this up -- and I believe the views of millions of Californians and Americans. It was written by one of the world's experts on terrorism, Peter Bergen, five months ago. He wrote: "What we have done in Iraq is what bin Laden could not have hoped for in his wildest dreams: We invaded an oil-rich Muslim nation in the heart of the Middle East, the very type of imperial adventure bin Laden has long predicted was the U.S.'s long-term goal in the region. We deposed the secular socialist Saddam, whom bin Laden has long despised, ignited Sunni and Shi'a fundamentalist fervor in Iraq, and have now provoked a defensive jihad that has galvanized jihad- minded Muslims around the world. It's hard to imagine a set of policies better designed to sabotage the war on terror." This conclusion was reiterated last Thursday by the National Intelligence Council, the CIA director's think tank, which released a report saying that Iraq has replaced Afghanistan as the training ground for the next generation of professionalized terrorists.

That's your own administration's CIA. NIC chairman Robert Hutchings said Iraq is, quote, "a magnet for international terrorist activity."

And this was not the case in '01. And I have great proof of it, including a State Department document that lists every country -- could you hold that up? -- in which al Qaeda operated prior to 9/11. And you can see the countries; no mention of Iraq. And this booklet was signed off on by the president of the United States, George W. Bush. It was put out by George Bush's State Department, and he signed it. There was no al Qaeda activity there -- no cells.

Now, the war was sold to the American people, as Chief of Staff to President Bush Andy Card said, like a "new product." Those were his words. Remember, he said, "You don't roll out a new product in the summer." Now, you rolled out the idea and then you had to convince the people, as you made your case with the president.

And I personally believe -- this is my personal view -- that your loyalty to the mission you were given, to sell this war, overwhelmed your respect for the truth. And I don't say it lightly, and I'm going to go into the documents that show your statements and the facts at the time.

Now, I don't want the families of those 1,366 troops that were killed or the 10,372 that were wounded to believe for a minute that their lives and their bodies were given in vain, because when your commander-in-chief asks you to sacrifice yourself for your country, it is the most noble thing you can do to answer that call.

I am giving their families, as we all are here, all the support they want and need. But I also will not shrink from questioning a war that was not built on the truth.

Now, perhaps the most well-known statement you've made was the one about Saddam Hussein launching a nuclear weapon on America with the image of, quote, quoting you, "a mushroom cloud." That image had to frighten every American into believing that Saddam Hussein was on the verge of annihilating them if he was not stopped. And I will be placing into the record a number of such statements you made which have not been consistent with the facts.

As the nominee for secretary of State, you must answer to the American people, and you are doing that now through this confirmation process. And I continue to stand in awe of our founders, who understood that ultimately those of us in the highest positions of our government must be held accountable to the people we serve.

So I want to show you some statements that you made regarding the nuclear threat and the ability of Saddam to attack us. Now, September 5th -- let me get to the right package here. On July 30th, 2003, you were asked by PBS NewsHour's Gwen Ifill if you continued to stand by the claims you made about Saddam's nuclear program in the days and months leading up to the war.

In what appears to be an effort to downplay the nuclear-weapons scare tactics you used before the war, your answer was, and I quote, "It was a case that said he was trying to reconstitute. He's trying to acquire nuclear weapons. Nobody ever said that it was going to be the next year." So that's what you said to the American people on television -- "Nobody ever said it was going to be the next year."

Well, that wasn't true, because nine months before you said this to the American people, what had George Bush said, President Bush, at his speech at the Cincinnati Museum Center? "If the Iraqi regime is able to produce, buy or steal an amount of highly-enriched uranium a little larger than a single softball, it could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year."

So the president tells the people there could be a weapon. Nine months later you said no one ever said he could have a weapon in a year, when in fact the president said it.

And here's the real kicker. On October 10th, '04, on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace, three months ago, you were asked about CIA Director Tenet's remark that prior to the war he had, quote, "made it clear to the White House that he thought the nuclear-weapons program was much weaker than the program to develop other WMDs. Your response was this: "The intelligence assessment was that he was reconstituting his nuclear program; that, left unchecked, he would have a nuclear weapon by the end of the year."

So here you are, first contradicting the president and then contradicting yourself. So it's hard to even ask you a question about this, because you are on the record basically taking two sides of an issue. And this does not serve the American people.

If it served your purpose to downplay the threat of nuclear weapons, you said, "No one said he's going to have it in a year." But then later, when you thought that perhaps you were on more solid ground with the American people because at the time the war was probably popular, or more popular, you'd say, "We thought he was going to have a weapon within a year."

And this is -- the question is, this is a pattern here of what I see from you on this issue, on the issue of the aluminum tubes, on the issue of whether al Qaeda was actually involved in Iraq, which you've said many times. And in my rounds -- I don't have any questions on this round, because I'm just laying this out; I do have questions on further rounds about similar contradictions. It's very troubling.

You know, if you were rolling out a new product like a can opener, who would care about what we said? But this product is a war, and people are dead and dying, and people are now saying they're not going to go back because of what they experienced there. And it's very serious.

And as much as I want to look ahead -- and we will work together on a myriad of issues -- it's hard for me to let go of this war, because people are still dying. And you have not laid out an exit strategy. You've not set up a timetable.

And you don't seem to be willing to, A, admit a mistake, or give any indication of what you're going to do to forcefully involve others. As a matter of fact, you've said more misstatements; that the territory of the terrorists has been shrinking when your own administration says it's now expanded to 60 countries. So I am deeply troubled.

"The sad thing is we have created what the administration claimed we were intervening to prevent: an Iraq/al-Qaida linkage," -- a Senior U.S. intelligence official

Gunmen shot and killed three candidates running in Iraq’s Jan. 30 elections, officials said Tuesday, as a suicide bombing killed two people outside the offices of a leading Shiite political party.

With insurgents trying to ruin the election, officials announced that Iraq will seal its borders, extend a curfew and restrict movement to protect voters during the balloting. President Bush spoke Tuesday morning with Iraqi interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, the latest in a series of conversations between the two leaders on Iraq’s efforts to ensure maximum participation in the election.

Two of the slain candidates belonged to Allawi’s political coalition, the Iraqi National Accord, a member of the group said.

Alaa Hamid, who was running for the 275-member National Assembly, was shot dead Monday in the southern port city of Basra in front of his family, the official said on condition of anonymity. Hamid was also the deputy chairman of the Iraqi Olympic Committee in Basra.

Riad Radi, who was running in the local race for Basra’s provincial council on a list supported by Allawi’s INC, was killed Sunday when masked gunmen fired on his car as he was driving with his family, the official said.

Basra, a predominantly Shiite Muslim city, has been relatively calm in recent weeks, though insurgents fired four mortar rounds Sunday at schools slated to serve as polling centers.

In Baghdad on Monday, masked gunmen shot dead another candidate, Shaker Jabbar Sahla, a Shiite Muslim who was running in the National Assembly election for the Constitutional Monarchy Movement. The party is headed by Sharif Ali bin Hussein, a cousin of Iraq’s last king.

Boxer (referring to Condi reciting the Bush Talking Points about Saddam being a Very Bad Man): You should read what we voted on when we voted on war - we voted on WMDs

Boxer:If you can't admit to this mistake...

Condi: I hope that you will not impugn my integrity...

Boxer: I am not, I am just quoting to you what you have said.

President Bush said on Monday he would not rule out military action against Iran if that country was not more forthcoming about its suspected nuclear weapons program.

"I hope we can solve it diplomatically, but I will never take any option off the table," Bush said in an interview with NBC News when asked if he would rule out the potential for military action against Iran "if it continues to stonewall the international community about the existence of its nuclear weapons program."

Iran denies it has been trying to make nuclear weapons and says its nuclear program is geared solely to producing electricity.

[Joe] Biden (D-Eunuch): "Do you think we had adequate forces?"

Condi: "I wouldn't presume to give the President advice."

Here is what Boxkar has to say about itself on their own website:

Their songs have an appeal and realness of a Matchbox Twenty with a swagger of an Aerosmith.

Wanting to have the "appeal and realness" of Matchbox Twenty is like wanting to be funny like Bob Saget. After the inauguration I suggest a new name: A Flock of Wankers.

Sen. John Kerry, in some of his most pointed public comments yet about the presidential election, invoked Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy on Monday as he criticized President Bush (news - web sites) and decried reports of voter disenfranchisement.

The Massachusetts Democrat, Bush's challenger in November, spoke at Boston's annual Martin Luther King Day Breakfast. He reiterated that he decided not to challenge the election results, but "thousands of people were suppressed in the effort to vote."

"Voting machines were distributed in uneven ways. In Democratic districts, it took people four, five, eleven hours to vote, while Republicans (went) through in 10 minutes — same voting machines, same process, our America," he said.

In his comments, Kerry also compared the democracy-building efforts in Iraq with voting in the U.S., saying that Americans had their names purged from voting lists and were kept from casting ballots.

"In a nation which is willing to spend several hundred million dollars in Iraq to bring them democracy, we cannot tolerate that too many people here in America were denied that democracy," Kerry said.

...there are two main views—that of a country full of opportunities for control and power concentrated in the hands of a few, or that of a country full of opportunities for individual freedom, from which a collective strength can be drawn.

The Conservative view ultimately benefits a very small minority; the Liberal view benefits us all. That’s why Liberals are right, and as soon as we learn to effectively communicate that message, it’s why Liberals will save America.

"...my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators."

The Iranians -- the reformers in Iran are, I suspect, very hopeful that the United States government is firm in our belief that democracy ought to spread.

[Dawn] Scott and her husband, Gene, were ordered by a judge to turn the boy, Evan, over to his natural mother, Amanda Hopkins. The exchange occurred Saturday in the midst of a phalanx of media.

‘How can they do this to a little boy?’
After handing the boy to Hopkins, Dawn Scott dropped to the ground and repeatedly screamed, “How can they do this to a little boy?”

On Monday, she said that Evan was frightened as she carried him to the car.

"He told me as I was walking out the door with him, 'Mommy I’m scared. Mommy, I’m scared’ … And I said it’s going to be OK. Mommy and daddy will do everything they can to bring you back home."

Evan, who could be heard wailing inside the home, appeared calm after he was placed in a car seat in a van driven by Hopkins’ husband, Michael. Amanda Hopkins scolded photographers taking pictures of the child: “Leave him alone. He’s just a little boy.”

The child’s biological father and grandfather pushed a television cameraman out of the way during the transfer.

The Scotts had appealed Friday to the 1st District Court of Appeal in Tallahassee, asking the court to let them keep the child. But their attorney, Susan Pniewski, said Monday on the “Today” show that the court had not yet ruled on the request for an emergency intervention.

In the meantime, she said, the court that ordered the transfer made no provision for the Scotts to be allowed to visit Evan.

“They’ve just been completely dismissed,” she said. “It’s as if they’re nobody.”

The United States has been conducting secret reconnaissance missions inside Iran to help identify potential nuclear, chemical and missile targets, The New Yorker magazine reported Sunday.
The article, by award-winning reporter Seymour Hersh, said the secret missions have been going on at least since last summer with the goal of identifying target information for three dozen or more suspected sites.

Hersh quotes one government consultant with close ties to the Pentagon as saying, "The civilians in the Pentagon want to go into Iran and destroy as much of the military infrastructure as possible."

[snip]

Hersh quotes one government consultant with close ties to the Pentagon as saying, "The civilians in the Pentagon want to go into Iran and destroy as much of the military infrastructure as possible."

A much as it pains me to say this, I think that Kos and company are not being treated fairly regarding this Dean payment nonsense, and that the Instapundit (*** Update *** I misinterpreted Glenn- his point was that Kos is being treated more favorably than kos et. al would treat conservative bloggers if they were in his position, something I tend to agree with) and others are not getting it right.

Let me first state that I would be the first to bash Kos if I thought he had done something unseemly, but in this case, he is simply getting a bad rap. Let's review:

- Armstrong Williams is secretly paid $240,000 to be an advocate for administration policies, informing no one of the payment.

- The DasvhlevThune blog is secretly paid by the Thune campaign, all the while representing itself as mere partisan supporters.

- Kos and his associate are paid to do political work for the Dean campaign, disclose their relationship repeatedly, and make sure that people know that they are working for Dean and support Dean.

How anyone can confuse this issue and think it is the same thing is simply beyond me. While the Armstrong Williams and DaschlevThune cases are clear conflicts of interest, with no disclosure, there is no such ethical issue or appearance of impropriety from the MArkos and the folks at the Daily Kos.

Kos was an early supporter for Dean, disclosed early and often that he was traveling to coordinate with Dean and other Democrat forces, and he was completely open about his relationship. In fact, the only thing Kos did not disclose was the amount that he was paid for his services, and, quite frankly, IMHO, that is none of our damned business anyway.

Kos has done nothing wrong here, has nothing to apologize for, and shouldn't have to put up with these false accusations, as he was open, honest, and operating under no false pretenses. You may, as I do, find his political positions abhorrent, as well as some of his anti-war anti-administration rhetoric, but to question his integrity on this account is nothing more than theatre of the absurd. Kos may be a lot of things, but he is not a paid shill who would sell himself to the highest bidder. You can question his sanity, as I often do, but I would never question his passion for his ideas.

That Zephyr Treachout and some cynical operators within the Dean campaign may believe they 'bought' Kos says a lot about them and their utter lack of integrity, but as far as I am concerned Kos was acting in good faith, providing services for a cause he believed in and being paid fairly for those services. If you have a problem with that, then your problem is not with ethics or conflicts of interest, but with people earning a living. Kos has done nothing wrong, and anyone who says otherwise simply doesn't understand what he/she is talking about.