So you've decided to bypass The Path to 9/11 and you're not into football -- or you ARE into football, but you realize that ESPN is owned by ABC/Disney. What are you going to watch instead?

Here, courtesy of Your Humble Blogger and Entertainment Weekly, are some suggestions:

SUNDAY

8-9 PM (ET): In the Footsteps of Bin Laden, CNN. A repeat of an August presentation, in which a Real Journalist, Christiane Amanpour, does an actual news analysis of Osama Bin Laden. This diary at Daily Kos by someone who saw this the first time is quite disconcerting.

9-9:30 (ET): Take a laugh break and watch Family Guy on =gak= Fox.

9:30-10 (ET): Pee and snack break

10-11 (ET): The Wire, HBO. I've never gotten into this series, but the advance reviews for this new season, which is practically a new story, are so good I may try again.


MONDAY

7-8:05 PM (ET): Brothers Lost: Stories of 9/11, HBO. A documentary by Sean McGinley profiling 31 men who lost a sibling on 9/11. Just a reminder amidst all the political bullshit that there are still real families out there who are still suffering from their loss that day.

8-9 PM (ET): To decompress a bit, catch The Miracle of Stairway B, a REAL documentary on The History Channel.

9-10 PM (ET): America Rebuilds, Part II: Return to Ground Zero, a REAL documentary on PBS.

10-11 PM (ET): Dust to Dust: The Health Effects of 9/11, a REAL documentary narrated by ex-NYC firefighter Steve Buscemi

Coming soon to the Hell Plaza Book Emporium:

According to one of the original neocons, Dinesh D'Souza, if the United States had only been more like Afghanistan under the Taliban, the World Trade Center might still be standing today:

In THE ENEMY AT HOME, bestselling author Dinesh D’Souza makes the startling claim that the 9/11 attacks and other terrorist acts around the world can be directly traced to the ideas and attitudes perpetrated by America’s cultural left.

D’Souza shows that liberals—people like Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy, Barney Frank, Bill Moyers, and Michael Moore—are responsible for fostering a culture that angers and repulses not just Muslim countries but also traditional and religious societies around the world. Their outspoken opposition to American foreign policy—including the way the Bush administration is conducting the war on terror—contributes to the growing hostility, encouraging people both at home and abroad to blame America for the problems of the world. He argues that it is not our exercise of freedom that enrages our enemies, but our abuse of that freedom—from the sexual liberty of women to the support of gay marriage, birth control, and no-fault divorce, to the aggressive exportation of our vulgar, licentious popular culture.

The cultural wars at home and the global war on terror are usually viewed as separate problems. In this groundbreaking book, D’Souza shows that they are one and the same. It is only by curtailing the left’s attacks on religion, family, and traditional values that we can persuade moderate Muslims and others around the world to cooperate with us and begin to shun the extremists in their own countries.

In other words, if we just do what the Islamofascists want, maybe they'll leave us alone. Ladies, get your burqas.

You know, back in the 1980's, I used to work at Simon & Schuster for the editor who brought authors like this clown to print. This guy published some of the most loathsome neocons, but the two editors and the assistant who reported to him were all progressives. We used to laugh while sending out galley proofs, saying we wanted to fake up blurbs that said "This book fills a much-needed void." It's now over 20 years later, and where books like this are concerned, it's still true.

The Republicans constitute an embarrassment of riches when it comes to loathsomeness. From Captain Codpiece to Cheney to Rumsfeld to Colin Powell lying through his teeth at the U.N. to Katherine Harris to Ken Blackwell, it's hard to decide which one is the most loathsome.

But for now, for this week, I'm settling on one person. Let's forget how this person demolished New Jersey's state budget lo unto eternity; let's focus on one of the most callous fucking Republicans ever to lie for this Administration. Let's talk about ninth-circle-of-hell loathsomeness.

Let's talk about Christine Todd Whitman, shall we?

Here's an EPA press release from September 18, 2001:

EPA Administrator Christie Whitman announced today that results from the Agency's air and drinking water monitoring near the World Trade Center and Pentagon disaster sites indicate that these vital resources are safe. Whitman also announced that EPA has been given up to $83 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to support EPA's involvement in cleanup activities and ongoing monitoring of environmental conditions in both the New York City and Washington metropolitan areas following last week's terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

"We are very encouraged that the results from our monitoring of air quality and drinking water conditions in both New York and near the Pentagon show that the public in these areas is not being exposed to excessive levels of asbestos or other harmful substances," Whitman said. "Given the scope of the tragedy from last week, I am glad to reassure the people of New York and Washington, D.C. that their air is safe to breath and their water is safe to drink," she added.

In the aftermath of last Tuesday's attacks, EPA has worked closely with state, federal and local authorities to provide expertise on cleanup methods for hazardous materials, as well as to detect whether any contaminants are found in ambient air quality monitoring, sampling of drinking water sources and sampling of runoff near the disaster sites.

At the request of FEMA, EPA has been involved in the cleanup and site monitoring efforts, working closely with the U.S. Coast Guard, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and state and local organizations.

EPA has conducted repeated monitoring of ambient air at the site of the World Trade Center and in the general Wall Street district of Manhattan, as well as in Brooklyn. The Agency is planning to perform air monitoring in the surrounding New York metropolitan area. EPA has established 10 continuous (stationary) air monitoring stations near the WTC site. Thus far, from 50 air samples taken, the vast majority of results are either non-detectable or below established levels of concern for asbestos, lead and volatile organic compounds. The highest levels of asbestos have been detected within one-half block of ground zero, where rescuers have been provided with appropriate protective equipment.

In lower Manhattan, the City of New York has also been involved in efforts to clean anything coated with debris dust resulting from Tuesday's destruction. This involves spraying water over buildings, streets and sidewalks to wash the accumulated dust off the building and eliminate the possibility that materials would become airborne. To complement this clean up effort, EPA has performed 62 dust sample analyses for the presence of asbestos and other substances. Most dust samples fall below EPA's definition of "asbestos containing material" (one percent asbestos). Where samples have shown greater than one percent asbestos, EPA has operated its 10 High Efficiency Particulate Arresting, HEPA, vacuum trucks to clean the area and then resample. EPA also used the 10 HEPA vac trucks to clean streets and sidewalks in the Financial District in preparation for Monday's return to business. The Agency plans to use HEPA vac trucks to clean the lobbies of the five federal buildings near the World Trade Center site, and to clean the streets outside of New York's City Hall.

Drinking water in Manhattan was tested at 13 sampling points, in addition to one test at the Newtown Sewage Treatment plant and pump station. Initial results of this drinking water sampling show that levels of asbestos are well below EPA's levels of concern.

While FEMA has provided EPA with a Total Project Ceiling cost of slightly more than $83 million for the Agency's cleanup efforts in New York City and in at the Pentagon site, EPA currently is working with emergency funding of $23.7 million. If costs exceed this level, FEMA will authorize EPA to tap additional funding in increments of $15 million. As part of the additional funding to be provided by FEMA, EPA will be responsible for any hazardous waste disposal, general site safety and providing sanitation facilities for many of the search and rescue workers to wash the dust off following their shifts. EPA is coordinating with both the U.S. Air Force Center for Environmental Excellence and the U.S. Coast Guard to quickly implement these additional responsibilities to ensure that search and rescue personnel are provided with the maximum support and protection from hazardous materials that may be found during their mission.

At the Pentagon explosion site in Arlington Va., EPA has also been involved in a variety of monitoring of air and water quality. All ambient air monitoring results, both close to the crash site and in the general vicinity, have shown either no detection of asbestos or levels that fall well below the Agency's level of concern. Testing of runoff water from the disaster site does not show elevated levels of contaminants. Given the large numbers of Department of Defense (DOD) employees returning to work this week, EPA has worked closely with officials from DOD and from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to evaluate air and drinking water quality and to be certain that the workplace environment will be safe.

While careful not to impede the search, rescue and cleanup efforts at either the World Trade Center or the Pentagon disaster sites, EPA's primary concern has been to ensure that rescue workers and the public are not being exposed to elevated levels of potentially hazardous contaminants in the dust and debris, especially where practical solutions are available to reduce exposure. EPA has assisted efforts to provide dust masks to rescue workers to minimize inhalation of dust. EPA also recommends that the blast site debris continue to be kept wet, which helps to significantly reduce the amount of airborne dust which can aggravate respiratory ailments such as asthma. On-site facilities are being made available for rescue workers to clean themselves, change their clothing and to have dust-laden clothes cleaned separately from normal household wash.

Meet Jim Zadroga. Zadroga died on January 6 of this year at the age of 34, from "respiratory disease, black lung disease, and mercury on the brain." Zadroga was a widower, who left behind a young daughter who is now orphaned and being reared by her paternal grandparents. One of those grandparents, Jim Zadroga's father Joe, testified at this week's House hearing.

And here's what that callous, craven, vile, heartless bitch Whitman has to say about people like Jim Zadroga, even while the EPA public statements from 2001 are available on the EPA's web site:

``We agreed then, and I reiterate now, that the air on the site was not clean -- the consequence of millions of tons of burned debris from the most horrific attack in our nation's history. We were emphatic that workers needed to wear respirators, a message I repeated frequently. But I did not have the jurisdiction to force workers to wear them -- that was up to their superiors,"

Whitman was supposed to represent the human face of the Republican party, a softer face than the "I've Got Mine and Fuck You" face of the rest of the party leadership. But now we see her true colors.

And if this story sticks, wait till they get hold of the OTHER Republican mask that they keep in front of the pus-filled repulsive gargoyle that is the REAL face of the Republican party, Rudy Giuliani.

Newsday, August 27:

On Oct. 6, 2001, while the city and the Environmental Protection Agency were repeatedly reassuring New Yorkers that the air at Ground Zero was safe, a top city Health Department official wrote a three-page memo raising "critical environmental issues" related to the disaster.

Associate Commissioner Kelly McKinney wrote that there were deep disagreements between the city's Office of Emergency Management and the Department of Environmental Protection over whether the air was safe enough to allow people back into the zone.

"The mayor's office is under pressure from building owners and business owners in the red zone to open more of the city to occupancy," McKinney wrote. "According to OEM, some city blocks north and south of Ground Zero are suitable for reoccupancy. DEP believes the air quality is not yet suitable for reoccupancy. I was told the mayor's office was directing OEM to open the target areas next week." McKinney, now with OEM, did not respond to a written request for comment.

'Strict standard'

In response to Newsday's questions, the city's law department issued a statement saying no area was reopened until testing had found it safe. "Areas were not reopened to the public until they were cleaned of dust and debris and testing demonstrated at least two consecutive days of asbestos levels below the strict standard for reoccupancy of schools," said Kenneth A. Becker, chief of the law department's World Trade Center unit.

Records reviewed by Newsday also indicate:

City, state and federal officials failed to enforce workplace safety laws -- for example, fining or expelling workers who did not wear respirators. Use of respirators remained below 45 percent for most of the recovery project, records show.

The city's Department of Environmental Protection, which conducted tests for asbestos in the days immediately after Sept. 11 that showed dangerously high levels of the fibers, did not reveal those test results to the public. The results were later disclosed by the state in response to a Freedom of Information request.

Within a few weeks of the attacks, the city -- aware that it probably would face massive litigation over the environmental hazards -- had begun preparing itself. One official expressed concern that environmental claims might "bankrupt" the city.

So what did they do? They declared it safe and moved on. More:

Kenneth Holden, the city official in charge of Ground Zero until June 2002, believed that the guidelines in place were sufficient. "We knew that the air quality was less than ideal, but I was also repeatedly and regularly informed that the protection those employees had was sufficient to protect their health," he said in a deposition in the pending class-action suit.

But Ground Zero workers routinely flouted rules requiring the use of respirators. An OSHA summary spanning Sept. 11 to March shows that respirator use among construction workers rarely exceeded 45 percent and was often much lower. The rate among police officers and firefighters was only slightly better.

Safety inspectors who roamed the site consistently reported the failure to use respirators. "We have observed very inconsistent compliance with our recommendations," the EPA's Bruce Sprague warned in an Oct. 5 memo.

On Oct. 15, Stew Burkhammer, an official with Bechtel, the firm initially in charge of safety, complained to city safety official Robert Adams: "They [contractors] are either refusing to take corrective action or are giving our team excuses as to why we have no authority to tell them anything. Our team members are not used to taking abuse like this and are getting very discouraged."

In January and February 2002, the failure to use respirators remained a serious problem. On Jan. 3, for example, DDC official Bruce Rottner wrote that just 20 percent of workers were wearing their respirators.

"Throughout the entire site tonight and last night use of respiratory protective equipment . . . was terrible," Rottner wrote.

There were several reasons for the problems. The masks were difficult to wear. It was hard to breathe and hard to talk in them. And it was a lot to ask workers, on exhausting 12-hour shifts, to wear them at all times, according to memos at the time.

Though OSHA said it had trained thousands of workers, some Ground Zero workers claimed that they either never received respirators or did not receive adequate training in using them.

I remember watching TV after work on 9/11 and being moved to tears by a parade of ironworkers heading downtown on foot from midtown, tears streaming down their faces, heading to the site to see what they could do to help. In those first days after the attacks, people streamed to the site to help with rescue, recovery, care of the workers, providing food, water, whatever could be done. Those ironworkers and the many others who worked at the site in the days and weeks following the attacks didn't think about their own safety. All they wanted to do was help. And just as Republican leaders have turned their backs on the veterans of the Iraq war, now they're telling these guys that their sickness is their own damn fault for not wearing respirators -- for putting their task ahead of thoughts of their own safety. This used to be called "heroism." Now, in the age of Republican rule, it's called "being a schmuck."

As the casualties of 9/11 and its aftermath continue to mount due to the lies, deceptions, and treachery of the Bush Administration and their toadies, I keep being reminded of that scene from Animal House, after Flounder's brother's Lincoln Continental is ruined by the Delta House guys, and Eric Stratton (Tim Matheson) gives Flounder a noogie and says, "You fucked up! You trusted us!"

Via Kevin Drum comes this astonishing piece not in the New York Times or Washington Post, but the Hampton Roads, VA Daily Press:

Months before the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld forbade military strategists from developing plans for securing a post-war Iraq, the retiring commander of the Army Transportation Corps said Thursday.

In fact, said Brig. Gen. Mark Scheid, Rumsfeld said "he would fire the next person" who talked about the need for a post-war plan.

Rumsfeld did replace Gen. Eric Shinseki, the Army chief of staff in 2003, after Shinseki told Congress that hundreds of thousands of troops would be needed to secure post-war Iraq.

Scheid, who is also the commander of Fort Eustis in Newport News, made his comments in an interview with the Daily Press. He retires in about three weeks.

Scheid doesn't go so far as calling for Rumsfeld to resign. He's listened as other retired generals have done so.

"Everybody has a right to their opinion," he said. "But what good did it do?"

Scheid's comments are further confirmation of the version of events reported in "Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq," the book by New York Times reporter Michael R. Gordon and retired Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Bernard E. Trainor.

In 2001, Scheid was a colonel with the Central Command, the unit that oversees U.S. military operations in the Mideast.

On Sept. 10, 2001, he was selected to be the chief of logistics war plans.

On Sept. 11, 2001, he said, "life just went to hell."

That day, Gen. Tommy Franks, the commander of Central Command, told his planners, including Scheid, to "get ready to go to war."

A day or two later, Rumsfeld was "telling us we were going to war in Afghanistan and to start building the war plan. We were going to go fast.

"Then, just as we were barely into Afghanistan ... Rumsfeld came and told us to get ready for Iraq."

Scheid said he remembers everyone thinking, "My gosh, we're in the middle of Afghanistan, how can we possibly be doing two at one time? How can we pull this off? It's just going to be too much."

Planning was kept very hush-hush in those early days.

"There was only a handful of people, maybe five or six, that were involved with that plan because it had to be kept very, very quiet."

There was already an offensive plan in place for Iraq, Scheid said. And in the beginning, the planners were just expanding on it.

"Whether we were going to execute it, we had no idea," Scheid said.

Eventually other military agencies - like the transportation and Army materiel commands - had to get involved.

They couldn't just "keep planning this in the dark," Scheid said.

"The secretary of defense continued to push on us ... that everything we write in our plan has to be the idea that we are going to go in, we're going to take out the regime, and then we're going to leave," Scheid said. "We won't stay."

Scheid said the planners continued to try "to write what was called Phase 4," or the piece of the plan that included post-invasion operations like occupation.

Even if the troops didn't stay, "at least we have to plan for it," Scheid said.

"I remember the secretary of defense saying that he would fire the next person that said that," Scheid said. "We would not do planning for Phase 4 operations, which would require all those additional troops that people talk about today.

"He said we will not do that because the American public will not back us if they think we are going over there for a long war."

And he was right. But this blows to smithereens, if you'll pardon the expression, the attempts by the Administration and those like Tom Friedman who are still trying to salvage some kind of justirication for invading Iraq to paint it as a force for democracy in the Middle East.

It was never about hoping that a successful democracy in the Middle East would be a beacon for the region. It was never about liberating the Iraqi people. If Scheid is right, then it really WAS all about George W. Bush's petty feud with Saddam Hussein. It was all about ridding George Bush of his own personal bête noir and getting out, leaving the three warring groups that constituted Iraq to fend for themselves. This is what happens when you have an incurious, ignorant president, with an irrational personal vendetta. And because George W. Bush didn't like someone, over 2600 American soldiers have died, over 20,000 have been maimed for life, tens to hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have died (it's hard to say how many because of the creative accounting used by the Bush Administration to count civilian casualties), and our prestige in the world lies in a shambles. And Osama Bin Laden has still not been captured.

Mother Jones, September/October 2000 issue:

Since 1996, federal spending on counterterrorism has nearly doubled to $11 billion a year. The fastest-growing share of that spending -- up 140 percent in just four years -- is aimed at countering the kind of scenario acted out in Portsmouth: terrorist use of chemical weapons, nuclear devices, and biological warfare agents known collectively as weapons of mass destruction. The anti-terrorism campaign has been led by President Clinton and Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen, who warn that terrorists might unleash a doomsday weapon that could kill hundreds of thousands of Americans.

The problem is, the threat of such an attack appears to be no more real than the mock terror in Portsmouth. According to data collected by the State Department and the FBI, terrorism worldwide (in all its forms, including old-fashioned bombs, guns, and airplane hijackings) has plummeted since the end of the Cold War -- and in the United States, it is virtually nonexistent. U.S. intelligence agencies and law enforcement officials have yet to document a single serious threat to the United States involving terrorist use of weapons of mass destruction. And many arms control officials and scientists say the chances of such an attack are close to zero -- because such weapons are so difficult to create and deploy.

[snip]


Like the farcical fallout-shelter drills that marked the height of Cold War hysteria in the 1950s, the antiterrorism mobilization may have more to do with fueling fears than safeguarding citizens. The effort is wasting enormous sums of federal dollars -- without any serious evidence that such programs are actually needed. "The United States holds little credible intelligence indicating that international or domestic terrorists are planning to attack United States interests domestically through the use of weapons of mass destruction," FBI Director Louis Freeh testified before Congress last year. In May, investigators with the General Accounting Office concluded that the government is preparing for terrorist disasters without regard to the likelihood that they might occur."Federal efforts to combat terrorism," the GAO found, "have been based on worst-case scenarios which are out of balance with the threat."

Those "worst-case scenarios" have provided the military and defense agencies with a much-needed rationale to sustain high levels of spending in the wake of the Cold War. With so much money being spread around, virtually every agency of the U.S. government is fast developing an antiterrorism program to cash in. And in an ominous move, the Clinton administration has given the Pentagon and the FBI sweeping new powers that threaten to erode civil liberties. Counterterrorism laws have allowed the FBI to expand surveillance of American dissidents and U.S. backers of Third World guerrilla groups, while U.S. armed forces have set up special commands that enable uniformed soldiers to erect domestic roadblocks, make arrests, and engage in house-to-house searches in response to an alleged terrorist act or threat.

In effect, the Clinton administration has used what it concedes is an unlikely threat of a terrorist attack to create an unprecedented partnership involving the military, intelligence agencies, and domestic law enforcement. "What you have is all of the agencies using the terrorism issue to augment their existing authority," says Jim Dempsey, senior staff counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology, a think tank focusing on civil liberties. "They've all learned to sing the terrorism song."

You can chide Mother Jones for being dead wrong, and I'll agree with you. You can even chide the left for underestimating the threat, and I'll say you're right. But then, I'd also say that so did a president who, when presented with a Presidential Daily Briefing on August 6, 2001, that said "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.", said "OK, you've covered your asses now."

The left blasted Clinton for spending money on a "phantom menace." The Republican Congress tried to thwart his anti-terrorism efforts.

They were ALL wrong.

But interestingly, the one person who DID get it was William Jefferson Clinton.

And he's the one being portrayed as a do-nothing by a major television network tomorrow night.

Go figure.

Like any whore, they were paid handsomely, so they are obligated to put out. Matt Stoller dug up the report which shows that Disney paid taxes at a -3.4% rate in 2003. That's no taxes on over $1.7 billion dollars in profits.

Still think corporations should pay less taxes?

This is who ABC/Disney is in bed with:

In fact, "The Path to 9/11" is produced and promoted by a well-honed propaganda operation consisting of a network of little-known right-wingers working from within Hollywood to counter its supposedly liberal bias. This is the network within the ABC network. Its godfather is far right activist David Horowitz, who has worked for more than a decade to establish a right-wing presence in Hollywood and to discredit mainstream film and TV production. On this project, he is working with a secretive evangelical religious right group founded by The Path to 9/11's director David Cunningham that proclaims its goal to "transform Hollywood" in line with its messianic vision.

Before The Path to 9/11 entered the production stage, Disney/ABC contracted David Cunningham as the film's director. Cunningham is no ordinary Hollywood journeyman. He is in fact the son of Loren Cunningham, founder of the right-wing evangelical group Youth With A Mission (YWAM). The young Cunningham helped found an auxiliary of his father's group called The Film Institute (TFI), which, according to its mission statement, is "dedicated to a Godly transformation and revolution TO and THROUGH the Film and Televisionindustry." As part of TFI's long-term strategy, Cunningham helped place interns from Youth With A Mission's "global training network" in film industry jobs "so that they can begin to impact and transform Hollywood from the inside out," according to a YWAM report.

Last June, Cunningham's TFI announced it was producing its first film, mysteriously titled "Untitled History Project." "TFI's first project is a doozy," a newsletter to YWAM members read. "Simply being referred to as: The Untitled History Project, it is already being called the television event of the decade and not one second has been put to film yet. Talk about great expectations!" (A web edition of the newsletter was mysteriously deleted yesterday but has been cached on Google at the link above).

The following month, on July 28, the New York Post reported that ABC was filming a mini-series "under a shroud of secrecy" about the 9/11 attacks. "At the moment, ABC officials are calling the miniseries 'Untitled Commission Report' and producers refer to it as the 'Untitled History Project,'" the Post noted.

Early on, Cunningham had recruited a young Iranian-American screenwriter named Cyrus Nowrasteh to write the script of his secretive "Untitled" film. Not only is Nowrasteh an outspoken conservative, he is also a fervent member of the emerging network of right-wing people burrowing into the film industry with ulterior sectarian political and religious agendas, like Cunningham.

Read the rest here.

And while you ponder how right-wing religious kooks have hijacked a major television network and entertainment company to spew their lies and revisionist history over the public airwaves that belong to YOU, take a minute to think about the telecommunications bill that would sell the internet to these same companies -- the one Ted Stevens wants to pass as soon as possible. Then call your Senators and demand that they support net neutrality. Because what we see with ABC/Disney today is what's coming to the internet tomorrow. And when it happens, you'll be able to visit Hugh Hewitt's and Michelle Malkin's blogs as often as you want -- but this one will disappear.

Our dear friend and blogbrother ModFab makes no secret of his long-standing adoration of Brad Pitt. In fact, it's arguable as to whether he's ever forgiven me for talking during Pitt's nude scene in the otherwise excreble Troy. But while Pitt has never floated my particular boat, when you combine his recent architectural contest for rebuilding New Orleans with environmentally conscious housing with this, I may just have to change my mind about him:

Brad Pitt, ever the social activist, says he won't be marrying Angelina Jolie until the restrictions on who can marry whom are dropped.

"Angie and I will consider tying the knot when everyone else in the country who wants to be married is legally able," the 42-year-old actor reveals in Esquire magazine's October issue, on newsstands Sept. 19.

All I can say is Amen.

Amazing. Even those usually known as die-hard defenders of everything Bush does are coming out against The Path to 9/11:

Fox News' Chris Wallace:

when you put somebody on the screen and say that’s Madeleine Albright and she said this in a specific conversation and she never did say it, I think it’s slanderous, I think it’s defamatory and I think that ABC and Disney should be held to account.—it better be what she said or I think she has a heck of a case…

William Bennett on CNN this morning:

The Path to 9/11 IS strewn with a lot of problems, and I think there WERE a lot of problems with the Clinton administration. But that's no reason to falsify the record, to falsify conversations of either the president or his leading people...and it just shouldn't happen. Conservatives have to be consistent, Soledad. When "The Reagans", that CBS show about the Reagans came out, and had all sorts of distortions and misstatements, conservatives went crazy, and had it relegated somewhere, I don't know, it never appeared on CBS. And I think they should be consistent. And when ABC comes out and has conversations taking place among cabinet members on recent history -- on matters that are still before us, I think they should correct those inaccuracies.

Even John freakin' Podhoretz weighs in:

Of course, the question obsessing everyone today is: Does the movie misrepresent events, conversations and policies of the Clinton administration?

Yes and no.

Ex-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's anger is unquestionably justified. The version that I saw has her self-righteously owning up to actions that effectively tipped off Osama bin Laden to a strike against his Afghan training camp. "We had to inform the Pakistanis," the movie's Albright insists.

The real Albright says she neither did nor said such a thing and that the meeting we see in the movie never took place. The 9/11 Commission report, on which the film is partly based, says it was a senior military official who told the Pakistanis.

The portrait of Albright is an unacceptable revision of recent history and an unfair mark on a public servant who, no matter her shortcomings, doesn't deserve to be remembered by millions of Americans as the inadvertent (and truculent) savior of Osama bin Laden.

Samuel Berger, Clinton's national security adviser, also seems to have just cause for complaint. The version of the film I saw portrays him as having ruined the CIA's one clear shot at bin Laden himself.

"Do we have clearance" to shoot, the CIA asks Berger, with Osama in their sights, and Berger responds, "I don't have that authority." That scene never took place in real life. The imputation that an actual living person named Sandy Berger refused to give a specific OK to an operation that would have put an end to Osama bin Laden three years before 9/11 is a libel.

If, as reported, ABC has revised that scene to conform more closely to reality, the network has done the right thing.

Of course Bennett and the Pod peson then go on to cite the usual litany of Clinton did nothing, Clinton was too busy getting a blowjob, Clinton never took Bin Laden seriously, yada yada. What these guys refuse to acknowledge is that while Bill Clinton was trying desperately to fight a war against Al Qaeda while dealing with a recalcitrant Congress that refused to cooperate with anything he wanted to do, a Congress that screamed "No war for Monica" and "Wag the Dog", George W. Bush did nothing about Al Qaeda for his first eight months in office, and when presented with the August 6, 2001 PDB, was so annoyed at having his much-earned vacation interrupted, that he told the CIA agents who delivered it by hand, "OK, you've covered your asses now."

This is somehow better?

Or will they continue to insist that the sky is green in the face of FACTS:

There's no evidence Saddam Hussein had ties with al-Qaida, according to a Senate report on prewar intelligence that Democrats say undercuts President Bush's justification for invading Iraq.

Bush administration officials have insisted on a link between the Iraqi regime and terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Intelligence agencies, however, concluded there was none.

Republicans countered that there was little new in the report and Democrats were trying to score election-year points with it.

The declassified document released Friday by the intelligence committee also explores the role that inaccurate information supplied by the anti-Saddam exile group the Iraqi National Congress had in the march to war.

It concludes that postwar findings do not support a 2002 intelligence community report that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear program, possessed biological weapons or ever developed mobile facilities for producing biological warfare agents.

The 400-page report comes at a time when Bush is emphasizing

Saddam Hussein, as loathsome as he is, had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. That's a FACT. And in chasing after Saddam Hussein, George W. Bush not only dropped the ball on the Al Qaeda presence in Afghanistan and allowed Osama Bin Laden to escape, but turned Iraq into an anarchic, chaotic mess that now IS a haven for terrorists. And for those few of you who read this who are still clinging to the notion that Iraq is somehow tied to 9/11, please write in the comments about the kind of logical hoops you are jumping through to get there. I'm all ears.

Josh Marshall:

So al Qaida -- or what's left of it -- releases a five-plus year old tape of bin Laden with two of the 9/11 hijackers as well as Ramzi Binalshibh, one of the baddies just transfered to Gitmo. Right in time for the president's big kangaroo court role out.

If you didn't know that bin Laden and Bush were the two polar opposites in the global battle between good and evil, you'd think the two were coordinating their media blitzes.

The Poor Man has it.

Now you don't have to watch.

The Rotting Cryptkeeper (™ Pam), a.k.a. the "Rev." Fred Phelps, the guy who sends protesters to the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq, gives a big old present to Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert in the form of this diatribe:



The writers for The Colbert Report and The Daily Show might as well take the day off, because could they possibly do better than this? I especially like the bouncing "You're going to Hell" in the opening graphic. Nice touch.

I hate when people in my generation do stuff like this. It makes us all look bad.

Take a look at Steve Jobs' campaign contributions from 1992 - 2004. He's been a pretty reliable face for our side of the aisle, hasn't he?

So why is he participating in the rewriting of history by making The Path to 9/11 available in its entirety, free, from iTunes?

John Aravosis is on the case. Check out Americablog later on today. I'm sure he'll dig up something interesting.

Who on earth ARE these people, anyway?

Five years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, better than 4 in 10 Americans still believe that former Iraq leader Saddam Hussein was personally involved in those attacks, according to two recent polls.

An Opinion Research Corporation on behalf of CNN released today on numerous issues surrounding the Iraq war, asked whether Hussein was personally involved in the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Fifty-two percent said he was not, but 43% said they believe he was.

This comes despite wide media debunking of this notion for years. At a news conference this past August 21, President Bush was asked if Iraq had anything to do with 9/11 and he said it had "nothing" to do with the attacks. Yet polls show that a majority of Republicans continue to state that Hussein was involved.

A Zogby poll released earlier this week found similar results, with 46% claiming that Iraq was connected to 9/11, again with 2 out of 3 (65%) of Republicans feeling this way.

The poll of 1,004 American adults for CNN was conducted Aug. 30 to Sept. 2. Zogby polled 1,014 from Sept. 1 to Sept. 5.

Is their need to NOT face reality about this Administration so deep that they are that willing to cling to a falsehood?

THIS is why holding Disney/ABC to account about The Path to 9/11 is so important, and THIS is why demanding that they NOT broadcast a miniseries that rewrites history isn't censorship. Americans really don't pay close attention, and when they see a dramatization of people they know are factual, they are going to assume that everything in that dramatization is true.

Disney knows this. ABC knows this. Cyrus Nowasteh, the creator of this travesty, certainly knows this. And that's the whole point -- to get Americans to believe an account of what they actually experienced that isn't true.

And what does it say about Americans that they are that susceptible to a lie, just because it's told by their so-called leaders?

I recently read a letter in an agony/advice column from a woman who admitted to taking out credit cards in her daughter's name and spending them up to the limit because her own credit was in such sad shape.

Imagine that -- stealing your child's credit rating AND making your child responsible for YOUR debts.

But that's exactly the position in which George W. Bush's profligate spending on the war and on tax cuts for his buddies has put YOU.

From Buzzflash:

Though the Bush Administration's official budget lists the national debt and deficit as being incredibly high, they are actually far worse than reported, according to Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN). But don’t just take his word for it, even if Cooper is a Rhodes Scholar and Harvard Law graduate. The following figures appear in the official U.S. Financial Report, released by the Treasury Department:

• The true 2005 deficit was $760 billion, not the $318.5 billion Bush reported
• This is 6.2% of the GDP, not 2.6%
• That's $156,000 for every citizen, or $375,000 for every working American
• The true national debt is $49 trillion, not the $8.3 trillion Bush reported
• This figure has more than doubled in the past five years
• We paid $327 billion last year on interest alone
• It's all getting worse

What accounts for the huge discrepancy? Unlike businesses, the government uses "cash" instead of "accrual" accounting. This means that the government does not report future spending promises like Medicare and Social Security, or even future spending guarantees like veterans' benefits and federal employee pensions.

"Cash accounting tells you what's in your bank account. Accrual accounting tells you what's in your bank account and what's on your credit card statement," Cooper told BuzzFlash in an interview. "Whether you're promising to buy a road or something at Target, you need to know what you promised to buy. That should be a binding obligation of the government. We've made a world of promises to folks that we need to keep."

But wait, there's more! The U.S. Financial Report does not mention that if Medicare and Social Security are factored into the equation (which the Treasury Department did not), the true deficit was actually a whopping $3.3 trillion last year, over ten times more than Bush claims. And when Social Security projections are adjusted to reflect current life expectancies instead of the old 75-year mark, Cooper said the true national debt is "probably closer to $65 trillion."

Worried that a new Democratic majority in the House would be blamed for the higher numbers in the future, Cooper has taken it upon himself to make it clear that the problem has already been created by Bush's failed economic policies. "This has to be announced on their watch, using their voice," he said. "There's a great urgency about this: we only have two months left to educate all Americans about how the Bush deficits are literally destroying America's credit."

"I think [the report] is the most powerful critique of the Bush Administration" because they produced it, Cooper added. "No Republican can deny this attack."

In order to get the word out, Cooper reprinted the entire U.S. Financial Report in a book with his own explanatory introduction and a warning on the cover reading, "The Official Report the White House Does Not Want You To Read." He said the measure was necessary because the Administration tried to hide the report by distributing it to fewer than 20 members of Congress in the midst of the Christmas holiday season with no accompanying press release or media announcement.

According to Cooper, conservatives won’t touch the issue because it would make Bush look bad, liberal newspapers think it's too confusing, and liberal politicians are worried the ensuing chaos from the higher numbers would limit social program spending. "The way we're going, we're going to have to eliminate programs," Cooper retorted. "Isn't it better to embarrass Bush while we can with his own words and to get Democrats in control?"

Cooper said he is determined to do everything he can to add honesty to the federal budget. He gave the first copy of his book to House Democrat Leader Nancy Pelosi and has introduced legislation directing the president to use accrual accounting in his reports. A similar measure was recently lost in the Senate after passing in the House.

The only compensation Cooper is receiving for the book are three complimentary copies.

Click here to order your own from Powell's Books.

Because of people who put up new blogs like this.

THIS is a great campaign ad:



There are worse things that could happen than for more people to want to channel Edward R. Murrow....especially now that Les Moonves has essentially laid a turd on the CBS anchor chair by putting Katie the Cupcake in it.

Aside from the fact that when I try to organize my thoughts about ABC's White House propaganda being given to schools as educational materials I just want to stand in the middle of the room screaming, there's a little voice inside of me that says ABC is reveling in all this free publicity. You already know how I feel, and others are covering the subject quite nicely, thank you very much.

However, in the interest of providing a public service to those who aren't blog junkies like me, here, via Steve Gilliard, are some contacts where you can weigh in:

ABC Television Network
Phone: 212-456-7777
77 West 66th Street, New York, NY 10023-6298

Robert Iger, President
Executive Offices: 818-560-1000

Kevin Brockman, VP for Publicity
Phone: 818-460-6655

ABC Audience Relations
Phone: 818-460-7477
[Must navigate phone tree, to leave a 30-second message
in their ‘specials’ voicemail box. Be sure to reference
‘the path to 9/11’ in your voicemail.]

ABC Media Relations (people assigned to this movie):
Patrick Preblick: 212-456-7819
Email: patrick.k.preblick@abc.com

Jonathan Hogan: 818-460-7016
Email: jonathan.hogan@abc.com

Erin Felentzer: 818-460-6642
Email: erin.felentzer@abc.com

Network News desk: 212-456-2700

Fax: 212-456-4866, 212-456-2795

Email: netaudr@abc.com

Link to webpage for contacting local ABC affiliates [a great tool!]
http://abc.go.com/...


mPRm Public Relations
Phone: 323-933-3399

Tom Chen
Email: tchen@mprm.com

Theresa Black
Email: tblack@mprm.com

Jennifer McIntosh
Email: jmcintosh@mprm.com


BBC Television [They are slated to show the "movie" as well on Sunday 9/10, on BBC 2]
Phone: 08700 100 222
BBC Complaints, PO Box 1922, Glasgow G2 3WT

BBC "Path to 9/11" page:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/...

BBC Complaints webform:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/...

Editor's Blog [commenting here is the same as making a complaint]
http://www.bbc.co.uk/...


Scholastic
Phone: 212-343-6741, 212-343-6100
557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012

Richard Robinson, CEO
Email: rrobinson@scholastic.com

Jeffrey Mathews, Vice President, Investor Relations, or Tonia Bellamy
Phone: 212-343-6741
Email: investor_relations@scholastic.com

Corporate Communications: 212-343-4563
newws@scholastic.com

Customer Service:
Phone: 212-343-6741, 800-724-6527 (toll-free)
M-F, 7:00 am to 9:00 pm and Sat., 8:00 am to 5:00 pm, CST
[Scholastic is promoting with teacher guides and letters to 100,000 high school teachers. Tell Scholastic that they are breaching the trust they have carefully built with a generation of teachers and parents. They lean heavily left and are not the enemy, so please be respectful.]


Clinton Foundation
Phone: 212-348-8882
Fax: 212-348-9245
Website contact form
http://tinyurl.com/... [sorry, but this is a long one]
http://www.clintonfoundation.org/


Democratic National Committee
Phone: 202-863-8000
430 S. Capitol St. SE, Washington, DC 20003
Website contact form:
http://www.democrats.org/...


Your Local School Board
[Parents of highschoolers: Consider contacting your school board to let them know you are not pleased to see propaganda pushed to your children--a "captive" audience. I can't list that info obviously, but the action is well worth the time.]


Unions - AFL-CIO and Change to Win
[Union members--use the webform or email to contact the right site and tell them to use the threat of those big pension plan investments on the fund managers listed below to help pressure ABC]

AFL-CIO, 815 16th St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006
Contact webform:
http://www.aflcio.org/...

Change to Win, 1900 L Street, NW Suite 900, Washington, DC 20036
Phone: (202) 721-0660
Fax: (202) 721-0661
Email: info@changetowin.org


Apple
Main phone: 408-996-1010
1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino, CA 95014
http://apple.com

Steve Jobs, CEO
Email: steve@apple.com, stevej@apple.com, sjobs@apple.com

Public Relations:
Katie Cotton, Vice President of Worldwide Corporate Communications
Email: katiec@apple.com

Steve Dowling, Corporate PR: 408-974-1896
Email: dowling@apple.com

Media Helpline: 408-974-2042

Apple investor relations: investor_relations@apple.com


iTunes
http://www.apple.com/...
Simon Pope, Public Relations: 408-974-0457
Email: simonp@apple.com


Pixar
Main phone 510-752-3000
Fax: 510 752-3151

Steve Jobs
Email: steve@pixar.com

Public Relations
Email: publicity@pixar.com

Pixar Animation Studios Press Contacts:
Steven Argula 510-752-3947
Email: SArgula@Pixar.com

Angie Bliss 510-752-4123
Email: bliss@pixar.com

Investor Relations:
Phone: 510-752-3720
Fax: 510-752-3442
Email: ir@pixar.com


The Walt Disney Company
Phone: 818-560-1000
Fax: 818-560-1930
500 S. Buena Vista St. Burbank, CA 91521-0931
http://disney.go.com/

Robert A. Iger, President and CEO

Zenia Mucha, Senior Vice President, Corporate Communications
Asst. Anne Wolanski & Elisa Chacon
Phone: 818-560-5300 CA, 212-456-7255 NY
Fax: 818-846-7319 CA, 212-456-1424 NY


Disney Board of Directors
George Mitchell, Chairman (contact info at DLA Piper)
Phone: 212-335-4600
Fax: 212-335-4605
1251 Avenue of the Americas, 29th Floor, New York, NY 10020-1104
Email: george.mitchell@dlapiper.com

John E. Bryson
John S. Chen
Judith L. Estrin
Fred H. Langhammer
Robert Iger (President, CEO)
Steve Jobs (see Pixar and Apple)
Fred Langhammer
Aylwin Lewis Monica C. Lozano
Robert W. Matschullat
Leo J. O’Donovan, S.J.
John E. Pepper, Jr
Orin C. Smith


TOP DISNEY INSTITUTIONAL SHAREHOLDERS

FMR Corp. (Fidelity Management & Research Corp)
Phone: 800-343-3548, 617-563-7000
Fax: 617-476-6150
82 Devonshire St., Boston, MA 02109
http://www.fidelity.com
Edward C. Johnson III, Chairman and CEO

State Street Corporation
Phone: 617-786-3000
225 Franklin St., Boston, MA
http://www.statestreet.com/
Ronald E. Logue,Chairman and CEO
Investor Relations - S. Kelley MacDonald, Senior Vice President
Email: ir@statestreet.com

Barclays Global Investors UK Holdings Ltd
Phone: (+44) (0)20 7116 1000
1 Churchill Place, London E14 5HP
http://www.barclays.com
John S. Varley, Group Chief Executive and Executive Director
Investor Relations Email: irsec@barclays.com
Press contact info: (+44) (0)20 7116 4755

Wellington Management Company, LLP
Phone: 617-951-5000
Fax: 617-951-5250
75 State St., Boston, MA 02109
http://www.wellington.com
Perry Traquina, CEO

Legg Mason Inc
Phone: 410-539-0000, 877-534-4627
Fax: (410) 454-4923
100 Light St., Baltimore, MD 21202
http://www.leggmason.com
Raymond A. Mason, Chairman & CEO
Corporate Communications: 410-454-2616
Email: webinquiries@leggmason.com
Web form for PR: http://www.leggmason.com/...

Vanguard Group, Inc.
Phone: 610-648-6000, 877-662-7447
Fax: 610-669-6605
100 Vanguard Blvd., Malvern, PA 19355
John J. Brennan, Chairman and CEO

Southeastern Asset Management, Inc
AKA Longleaf Partners Funds
Phone: 800-445-9469
6410 Poplar Ave., Suite 900, Memphis, TN 38119
http://www.longleafpartners.com/...
O. Mason Hawkins, Chairman/CEO

Morgan Stanley
Phone: 212-761-4000
Fax: 212-762-0575
1585 Broadway, New York, NY 10036
http://www.morganstanley.com
John J. Mack, Chairman and CEO
Media Inquiries: mediainquiries@morganstanley.com
General Info: genlfeedback@morganstanley.com
Institutional Services: instfeed@ms.com

State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co.
Phone: 309-766-2311
Fax: 309-766-3621
1 State Farm Plaza, Bloomington, IL 61710-0001
http://www.statefarm.com
Edward B. Rust Jr., Chairman and CEO
Media: home.pa-newsroom.168d00@statefarm.com

Capital Research and Management Company
Phone: 213-486-9200
Fax: 213-486-9217
333 South Hope St., Los Angeles, CA 90071
http://www.capgroup.com/
Larry P. Clemmensen, President
Media Relations: mediarelations@capgroup.com
Chuck Freadhoff, 213-486-9988
Kelly Malarky, 212-641-1721


TOP MUTUAL FUND HOLDERS


Longleaf Partners Fund
[see Southeastern Asset Management above]

Vanguard 500 Index Fund
[see Vanguard Group above]

College Retirement Equities Fund-stock Account
Administered by TIAA-CREF Investment Management, LLC
Phone: 212-490-9000
Fax: 212-916-4840
730 Third Ave., New York, NY 10017
http://www.tiaa-cref.org/
Herbert M. Allison, Chairman, President, and CEO
[NOTE: This company prides itself on being socially responsible]

American Balanced Fund
http://www.americanfunds.com/
[see Capital Research and Management above]

Fidelity Magellan Fund Inc.
[see FMR Corp. above]

Van Kampen Comstock Fund
Administered by Van Kampen Funds
Phone: 713-993-0500, 800-421-5666, 800-847-2424
221 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
Michael Kiley, Managing Director, President and CEO
http://www.vankampen.com/

Hartford Capital Appreciation Hls Fund, Inc.
Phone: 877-836-5854
Fax: 860-843-5775
200 Hopmeadow Street, C1W, Simsbury, CT 06089
Email: investmentonly@hartfordlife.com
http://ilf.hartfordlife.com/...

Vanguard Institutional Index Fund-institutional Index Fd
[see Vanguard Group above]

Fidelity Capital Appreciation Fund
[see FMR Corp. above]

Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund
[see Vanguard Group above]


MAJOR DIRECT HOLDERS


Michael D. Eisner
Robert Iger
Thomas O. Staggs
Peter E. Murphy
George Mitchel

And out there in Blogtopia (™ Skippy) and elsewhere:

• John reprints a letter from the Executive Director of the DNC slamming Disney/ABC for this slanderous miniseries
  
• Howie Kurtz, of all people, outlines much of the so-called "facts" that the makers of this miniseries pulled out of their asses, and again, John weighs in.
  
• E&P on more made-up shit.
  
• Wingnut Hugh Hewitt reprints an e-mail in which a Disney executive admits that the purpose of the miniseries is to focus on "Clinton Administration failures."
  
• Digby decides it's time to go all out and pull out the book on Disney's founder, Walt Disney's participation in the McCarthyite witchhunt of the 1950's.
  
• Pam notes that the seven minutes of Bush sitting like a cigar store Indian reading My Pet Goat have been wiped from the record in this miniseries as well.
  
• John Amato at Crooks and Liars has video of Richard Ben-Veniste on Countdown last night, notes how Tom Kean Sr. (are you listening, NJ voters?) approved the falsehoods in the script.
  

That ought to get you started.

For the last four years, we've been told that it's inappropriate to question the president at a time of war, even though this president STARTED that war. For the last four years, we've been expected to take this Administration's lies at face value. For the last SIX years, we've watched this Administration blame everyone else for its own failings -- liberals, Democrats, the media, and of course, the right's favorite whipping boy, Bill Clinton.

If you look at the FACTS, you see in Bill Clinton a man trying mightily to address as ever-growing threat while Congressional Republicans and the Washington press hacks were obsessed with removing from office a man who wasn't part of their club, impeaching him for "lying" about sex -- a lie that wasn't one, because "sex" in the Paula Jones case had already been defined as "intercourse."

Here is what the president they claim was busy getting blown while Osama Bin Laden was gathering strength was actually doing:

CNN, July 30, 1996:

President Clinton urged Congress Tuesday to act swiftly in developing anti-terrorism legislation before its August recess.

"We need to keep this country together right now. We need to focus on this terrorism issue," Clinton said during a White House news conference.

But while the president pushed for quick legislation, Republican lawmakers hardened their stance against some of the proposed anti-terrorism measures.

Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Mississippi, doubted that the Senate would rush to action before they recess this weekend. The Senate needs to study all the options, he said, and trying to get it done in the next three days would be tough.

One key GOP senator was more critical, calling a proposed study of chemical markers in explosives "a phony issue."

Clinton said he knew there was Republican opposition to his proposal on explosive taggants, but it should not be allowed to block the provisions on which both parties agree.

"What I urge them to do is to be explicit about their disagreement, but don't let it overcome the areas of agreement," he said.

The president emphasized coming to terms on specific areas of disagreement would help move the legislation along. The president stressed it's important to get the legislation out before the weekend's recess, especially following the bombing of Centennial Olympic Park and the crash of TWA Flight 800.

"The most important thing right now is that they get the best, strongest bill they can out -- that they give us as much help as they can," he said.

Republican leaders earlier met with White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta for about an hour in response to the president's call for "the very best ideas" for fighting terrorism.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, emerged from the meeting and said, "These are very controversial provisions that the White House wants. Some they're not going to get."

Hatch called Clinton's proposed study of taggants -- chemical markers in explosives that could help track terrorists -- "a phony issue."

Washington Post, October 3, 2001:

The government of Sudan, employing a back channel direct from its president to the Central Intelligence Agency, offered in the early spring of 1996 to arrest Osama bin Laden and place him in Saudi custody, according to officials and former officials in all three countries.

The Clinton administration struggled to find a way to accept the offer in secret contacts that stretched from a meeting at a Rosslyn hotel on March 3, 1996, to a fax that closed the door on the effort 10 weeks later. Unable to persuade the Saudis to accept bin Laden, and lacking a case to indict him in U.S. courts at the time, the Clinton administration finally gave up on the capture.

Does anyone actually believe that Congressional Republicans would have given Bill Clinton the cover he would have needed to bring Bin Laden to the U.S. at that time?

How about the millennium plot to blow up the L.A. airport?

Ahmed Ressam, 23, had illegally immigrated to Canada in 1994. Using a falsified passport and a bogus story about persecution in Algeria, Ressam entered Montreal and claimed political asylum. For the next few years he supported himself with petty crime. Recruited by an alumnus of Abu Zubaydah’s Khaldan camp, Ressam trained in Afghanistan in 1998, learning, among other things, how to place cyanide near the air intake of a building to achieve maximum lethality at minimum personal risk. Having joined other Algerians in planning a possible attack on a U.S. airport or consulate, Ressam left Afghanistan in early 1999 carrying precursor chemicals for explosives disguised in toiletry bottles, a notebook containing bomb assembly instructions, and $12,000. Back in Canada, he went about procuring weapons, chemicals, and false papers.

In early summer 1999, having learned that not all of his colleagues could get the travel documents to enter Canada, Ressam decided to carry out the plan alone. By the end of the summer he had chosen three Los Angeles–area airports as potential targets, ultimately fixing on Los Angeles International (LAX) as the largest and easiest to operate in surreptitiously. He bought or stole chemicals and equipment for his bomb, obtaining advice from three Algerian friends, all of whom were wanted by authorities in France for their roles in past terrorist attacks there. Ressam also acquired new confederates. He promised to help a New York–based partner, Abdelghani Meskini, get training in Afghanistan if Meskini would help him maneuver in the United States. In December 1999, Ressam began his final preparations. He called an Afghanistan-based facilitator to inquire into whether Bin Ladin wanted to take credit for the attack, but he did not get a reply. He spent a week in Vancouver preparing the explosive components with a close friend.

On December 14, 1999, Ressam drove his rental car onto the ferry from Victoria, Canada, to Port Angeles,Washington. Ressam planned to drive to Seattle and meet Meskini, with whom he would travel to Los Angeles and case LAX. They planned to detonate the bomb on or around January 1, 2000. At the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) preinspection station in Victoria, Ressam presented officials with his genuine but fraudulently obtained Canadian passport, from which he had torn the Afghanistan entry and exit stamps.The INS agent on duty ran the passport through a variety of databases but, since it was not in Ressam’s name, he did not pick up the pending Canadian arrest warrants. After a cursory examination of Ressam’s car, the INS agents allowed Ressam to board the ferry. Late in the afternoon of December 14, Ressam arrived in Port Angeles. He waited for all the other cars to depart the ferry, assuming (incorrectly) that the last car off would draw less scrutiny. Customs officers assigned to the port, noticing Ressam’s nervousness, referred him to secondary inspection. When asked for additional identification, Ressam handed the Customs agent a Price Costco membership card in the same false name as his passport. As that agent began an initial pat-down, Ressam panicked and tried to run away.

Inspectors examining Ressam’s rental car found the explosives concealed in the spare tire well, but at first they assumed the white powder and viscous liquid were drug-related—until an inspector pried apart and identified one of the four timing devices concealed within black boxes. Ressam was placed under arrest.

Fox News reports on Ressam's 2005 sentencing:

SEATTLE — The man convicted of plotting to blow up the Los Angeles airport on the eve of the millennium was sentenced Wednesday to 22 years in prison.

Ahmed Ressam's (search) sentence reflected his cooperation in telling international investigators about the workings of terror camps in Afghanistan (search).

But Ressam, 38, could have received a shorter sentence had he not stopped talking to investigators in early 2003. Prosecutors argued that his recalcitrance has jeopardized cases against two of his co-conspirators.

In sentencing Ressam, U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour (search) said he hoped to balance U.S. resolve to punish potential terrorist acts with Ressam's cooperation. Coughenour also said he hoped to send a message that the U.S. court system works in terrorism cases.

"We did not need to use a secret military tribunal, detain the defendant indefinitely or deny the defendant the right to counsel. ... Our courts have not abandoned the commitment to the ideals that set this nation apart," he said.

The 1993 World Trade Center bombing occurred thirty-eight days after Bill Clinton took office. I didn't hear him blaming George Herbert Walker Bush, did you? You know where the bombers are now? In prison. For the rest of their lives. Without military tribunals, wiretaps of ordinary Americans, surveillance of library reading, or monitoring of Google searches.

Perhaps Disney's executives should take a look at Bill Clinton's Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996.

Remember the 1998 Sudan bombing? The one that wingnuts now deride as "bombing an aspirin factory" to distract from the Lewinsky scandal? They sang a different tune then:

President Clinton won warm support for ordering anti-terrorist bombing attacks in Afghanistan and Sudan yesterday from many of the same lawmakers who have criticized him harshly as a leader critically weakened by poor judgment and reckless behavior in the Monica S. Lewinsky scandal.

A few senators, however, noted that the timing of the attack raised the question of whether Clinton had ordered it to deflect attention from his personal affairs. Others suggested the scandal may be preventing the president from paying attention to critical international problems.

But most lawmakers from both parties were quick to rally behind Clinton in a deluge of public statements and appearances yesterday, a marked contrast to the relatively sparse and chilly reception that greeted his Monday statement on the Lewinsky matter.

"I think the president did exactly the right thing," House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) said of the bombing attacks. "By doing this we're sending the signal there are no sanctuaries for terrorists."

Gingrich said he was told "very precise details" of the attack before it occurred, and praised Clinton's aides for being "sensitive to making sure we were not blindsided in this." Other congressional leaders, several of whom were on vacation or difficult to locate, said the White House had made an effort to notify them before the attacks.

Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) called the attacks "appropriate and just," and House Majority Leader Richard K. Armey (R-Tex.) said "the American people stand united in the face of terrorism."

Senate Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) praised Clinton for doing "the right thing at the right time to protect vital U.S. interests against terrorist attacks," and House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) said the United States "should respond forcefully when U.S. lives are at stake."

It was clear from several lawmakers' statements that support for Clinton was not just a knee-jerk reaction, but also a response made easier because of former GOP senator and current Defense Secretary William S. Cohen. "I have enough confidence in [Cohen] to believe that he would not be involved in anything orchestrated for domestic political purposes," Sen. Robert F. Bennett (R-Utah) said.

Gingrich dismissed any possibility that Clinton may have ordered the attacks to divert attention from the scandal. Instead, he said, there was an urgent need for a reprisal following the Aug. 7 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

"Anyone who watched the film of the bombings, anyone who saw the coffins come home knows better than to question this timing," Gingrich said. "It was done as early as possible to send a message to terrorists across the globe that killing Americans has a cost. It has no relationship with any other activity of any kind."

To underscore this view, Rich Galen, one of Gingrich's top advisers, sent an e-mail to conservative radio talk show hosts entitled "Wag the Dog," after a recent movie of the same name in which White House spin doctors concoct an international crisis to draw attention away from a president's sexual indiscretions.

"Speaker Newt Gingrich has made it clear to me" that the attacks were necessary and appropriate, Galen said. "This is a time to put our nation's interests ahead of our political concerns. I am asking you to help your listeners, your friends, and your associates to look at this situation with the sober eyes it deserves."

Gingrich made the same point himself during a conference call with House Republicans late yesterday, telling colleagues that while none of them has to mute criticism about the Lewinsky matter, "on this topic I think it's very useful and I think it sends a powerful signal to the world" that the GOP stand with Clinton.

But Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), one of Clinton's severest critics earlier in the week, said, "There's an obvious issue that will be raised internationally as to whether there is any diversionary motivation." Sen. John D. Ashcroft (R-Mo.), a possible presidential candidate in 2000, noted "there is a cloud over this presidency."

And Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.), who called on Clinton to resign after his speech Monday, said: "The president has been consumed with matters regarding his personal life. It raises questions about whether or not he had the time to devote to this issue, or give the kind of judgment that needed to be given to this issue to call for military action."

Told of these criticisms, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (Del.), ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, branded them "preposterous," and noted that Osama bin Laden, suspected of bankrolling the installations that were bombed, "is one bad mother."

"Even if that [a diversion] were an element, what in the hell does it do to us around the world for leading American officials to even suggest that?" Biden asked. "It is not very sound judgment to speak in terms of motivation other than national security at this moment."

Here's more on Clinton's anti-terrorism efforts. I found these in a 30-second Google search.

Meanwhile, Sam Seder reminded us last night of what a bang-up job George W. Bush has done in apprehending Bin Laden. Here it is, in Captain Codpiece's own words:



Given the Bush Administration's dismal record even AFTER the devastating 9/11 attacks, it's understandable that his toadies would want to rewrite history. However, it's beyond reprehensible for a major television network to attempt to influence an election by rewriting history, and it's doubly reprehensible for said network to distribute it to public schools as educational material.

George W. Bush, March 13, 2002:

And, again, I don't know where he is. I -- I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him.

George W. Bush, yesterday:

Bin Laden and his terrorist allies have made their intentions as clear as Lenin and Hitler before them. The question is: Will we listen? Will we pay attention to what these evil men say?

So at which time was he full of shit? Then or now?

Keith Olbermann does it again.

Transcript:

It is to our deep national shame—and ultimately it will be to the President’s deep personal regret—that he has followed his Secretary of Defense down the path of trying to tie those loyal Americans who disagree with his policies—or even question their effectiveness or execution—to the Nazis of the past, and the al Qaeda of the present.

Today, in the same subtle terms in which Mr. Bush and his colleagues muddied the clear line separating Iraq and 9/11 -- without ever actually saying so—the President quoted a purported Osama Bin Laden letter that spoke of launching, “a media campaign to create a wedge between the American people and their government.”

Make no mistake here—the intent of that is to get us to confuse the psychotic scheming of an international terrorist, with that familiar bogeyman of the right, the “media.”

The President and the Vice President and others have often attacked freedom of speech, and freedom of dissent, and freedom of the press.

Now, Mr. Bush has signaled that his unparalleled and unprincipled attack on reporting has a new and venomous side angle:

The attempt to link, by the simple expediency of one word—“media”—the honest, patriotic, and indeed vital questions and questioning from American reporters, with the evil of Al-Qaeda propaganda.

That linkage is more than just indefensible. It is un-American.

Mr. Bush and his colleagues have led us before to such waters.

We will not drink again.

And the President’s re-writing and sanitizing of history, so it fits the expediencies of domestic politics, is just as false, and just as scurrilous.

“In the 1920’s a failed Austrian painter published a book in which he explained his intention to build an Aryan super-state in Germany and take revenge on Europe and eradicate the Jews,” President Bush said today, “the world ignored Hitler’s words, and paid a terrible price.”

Whatever the true nature of al Qaeda and other international terrorist threats, to ceaselessly compare them to the Nazi State of Germany serves only to embolden them.

More over, Mr. Bush, you are accomplishing in part what Osama Bin Laden and others seek—a fearful American populace, easily manipulated, and willing to throw away any measure of restraint, any loyalty to our own ideals and freedoms, for the comforting illusion of safety.

It thus becomes necessary to remind the President that his administration’s recent Nazi “kick” is an awful and cynical thing.

And it becomes necessary to reach back into our history, for yet another quote, from yet another time and to ask it of Mr. Bush:

“Have you no sense of decency, sir?”

The answer to that question is, as it always has been, "No." This president HAS no sense of decency.

For the last few days, I've been thinking that I really have to blog on the upcoming "docudrama" by a conservative activist, allegedly based on the 9/11 Commission Report, to be broadcast on ABC television, that places the blame for the attacks solely on the shoulders of Bill Clinton. But every time I sit down to do it, I get so angry that I go into a kind of paralysis and I just sit here spluttering helplessly.

So I'm going to cop out on this one, and let the King of all Media Activism, John Aravosis, do the heavy lifting here, here, here, and here.

And Jennifer Nix tells of trying to be recognized as a member of the press even though she isn't a right-wing blogger here and here.

And Digby reminds us to "consider the source(es)."

It's ironic that ABC, the network owned by a company that has been the target of boycotts by Christofascist zombies disturbed over their gay policies, and which pulled the plug on the Mel Gibson-helmed Holocaust film, is not just broadcasting, but promoting, wingnut propaganda about 9/11 in an attempt to rescue George W. Bush's failed presidency and disastrous Iraq war. Why would ABC pull the plug on Mel Gibson and let this project go ahead? Perhaps it has more to do with what Sam Seder revealed last night, which is a Wall Street Journal Washington Wire blog entry from June 1, 2006:

Lobbyists for Walt Disney Co. seek to avoid fallout from a controversial story by its ABC News unit stating that House Speaker Hastert is under Justice Department investigation.

Disney and other movie studios are seeking Republican support for repealing a provision in last month’s tax bill that costs the industry $181 million over a decade. The provision narrowed the benefits of a manufacturing tax break to companies with wage earners; since movie stars work as independent contractors, Hollywood would lose much of the benefit.

Industry lobbyists were once confident that they could repeal the provision as part of a follow up tax bill planned for June. But ABC’s Hastert story has made the parent company’s lobbying task more difficult

This isn't the first time that a drama based on the events of 9/11 sought to burnish the image of a man who, when presented with the now-infamous August 6 PDB, snapped at the CIA analysts who brought it to him, "All right, you’ve covered your ass." This isn't the first time that a drama based on the events on 9/11 sought to burnish the image of a man who sat in a classroom for seven minutes after the second plane hit the World Trade Center and then spent the day flying around the country. Instead, the Showtime docudrama DC 9/11: Time of Crisis portrayed instead a president who had a "Come and get me, coppers!" moment.

If the morons who still believe and trust this president feel a deep-seated need to believe in and trust and love the daddy figure who beats them and then tells them it's for their own good want to watch this swill because it helps repair the cracks that appear in their worldview when reality intrudes, it's their business. And I'm wondering if all the attention we are paying to this piece of swill is just doing ABC's bidding, providing it with free publicity. The problem is that Americans have become so incurious that many can no longer tell the difference between fiction and reality. When 65% of Republican and even almost a third of Democrats still believe that there was a connection between Saddam Hussein and 9/11, something is very, very wrong with the way Americans are processing information.

But amidst all the hoopla surrounding the fifth anniversary of the attacks, with televised repeats of every program that dealt even tangentially with the attacks running in a seemingly endless loop, one has to wonder what it must be like to have lost your husband, or your brother, or your father, or your son on that day and have to sit by while your president's supporters use the corpse of your loved one as a political tool.

Jill McGovern of Wyckoff, NJ, a mother of two daughters who lost her husband in the World Trade Center, doesn't have to wonder, because she's living it:

Jill wants people to remember Sept. 11. She appreciates the memorial services and candlelight vigils and cannot thank people enough for the generosity they have shown toward her family.

But she also hates the heightened coverage of the attacks this time of year. She dreads turning on her television. She has no need to relive Scott's death through the umpteenth replay of the plane slamming into his building or the tower collapsing in a horrendous implosion of dust and debris.

"When it starts to be those days leading up to the [anniversary], I feel like it's happening all over again," Jill said. "I feel like Scott's going to die all over again, and I can't stop it."

Nor does Jill want to see commercials for Hollywood and made-for-television movies related to Sept. 11.

"It's absolutely capitalizing on the event and the anniversary," she said. "I don't think it's respectful to the families."

No, it isn't. But after all, what are the feelings of a young widow from Jersey and her daughters, who were four and two years old when their father died in the attacks, compared to the need to put lipstick on this pig of a president?

How long do you think Republicans would be supporting a war started by Bill Clinton if this happened:

Pakistan signs peace deal with pro-Taliban militants
Agence France-Presse, The Associated Press

Published: September 5, 2006

MIRAN SHAH, Pakistan The Pakistani government and pro-Taliban militants announced that they signed a peace accord Tuesday aimed at ending five years of violent unrest in a tribal region bordering Afghanistan.

The agreement came as a NATO-led offensive in southern Afghanistan continued for a fourth day, with U.S. artillery and airstrikes killing 50 to 60 suspected Taliban militants Tuesday, a NATO spokesman said.

Under the peace deal, the militants are to halt attacks on Pakistani forces in the semiautonomous North Waziristan region and stop crossing into nearby eastern Afghanistan to attack U.S. and Afghan forces hunting Qaeda and Taliban forces. It came as Pakistan's president, General Pervez Musharraf, was set to visit Kabul on Wednesday in a move aimed at improving strained relations between the United States' two key allies in the fight against terrorism.

The accord calls for Pakistani troops to stop their hugely unpopular military campaign in the restive Pakistani region, in which more than 350 soldiers have died, along with hundreds of militants and scores of civilians.

But the agreement, which one official said offered an "implicit amnesty" to foreign and local militants, highlights the Pakistani military's inability to crush a violent pro-Taliban insurgency on its own soil.

Pakistani forces had no alternative but to reconcile with the militants, whose knowledge of the terrain and determination to protect their region would have forced the conflict to continue, said Rusul Basksh Rais, a Pakistani political analyst.

"The military was not in a position to defeat the tribes," Rais said. "But Pakistan can't afford to - and I believe won't - let this area become a sanctuary for the terrorists."

Meanwhile, just how much control does Pervez Musharraf have over his own military?

Yesterday, a Pakistani military spokesman, Major General Shaukat Sultan, had this exchange with ABC News:

Q. ABC News: If bin Laden or Zawahiri were there, they could stay?

A. Gen. Sultan: No one of that kind can stay. If someone is there he will have to surrender, he will have to live like a good citizen, his whereabouts, exit travel would be known to the authorities.

Q. ABC News: So, he wouldn't be taken into custody? He would stay there?

A. Gen. Sultan: No, as long as one is staying like a peaceful citizen, one would not be taken into custody. One has to stay like a peaceful citizen and not allowed to participate in any kind of terrorist activity.

Obviously Musharraf got a phone call from his good friend George W. Bush, perhaps threatening to expose the dirty pictures, because today the Pakistan government vehemently denies that it would allow Bin Laden to avoid capture:

"If he is in Pakistan, today or any time later, he will be taken into custody and brought to justice," the Pakistani ambassador to the United States, Mahmud Ali Durrani, said in a statement.

The ambassador said a Pakistani military spokesman, Major General Shaukat Sultan, had been "grossly misquoted" when he told ABC News Tuesday that bin Laden would not be taken into custody "as long as one is being like a peaceful citizen."

"Grossly misquoted." The ambassador has studied his Tony Snow well.

There is no link to the op-ed I've reprinted below. For some reason, the Bergen Record decided not to make this op-ed available online. But it's worth my time to type, and worth your time to read. This is one family's grief; one military family's experience. There are over 2600 others.

In the four months since the death of my son, Sgt. Matthew J. Fenton, from injuries suffered in Iraq, I h ave stated many times the horror of what I saw in the National Naval Medical Center, Bethesda Md.

I believe that the time has arrived to tell the whole story of his death and the carnage that was inflicted on some of his fellow Marines. I do not find this easy to do, but as the Death toll and injured number continues to climb, I cannot sit silently.

On April 26, Matthew, 24, was the gunner on a Humvee protecting a Marine convoy on the outskirts of Fallujah. A suicide car bomber attempted to ram his Humvee, and he got off a few shots at the vehicle. From what I have been told it is common practice for these bombers to detonate their bomb if they come under fire. Matthew was the only Marine injured in the attack. Later that same day I received a phone call telling me that Matt was seriously wounded and that it was a head injury.

The next day we were informed that Matt had been flown to Germany. Matt's mother, Diane, and I prepared to go to Germany. But in the middle of trying to get a flight, we received another call saying that he had stabilized and they were going to fly him to the United States. We were all lifted by this seemingly good news.

Diane and I flew to Washington the next day and were met by a uniformed Marine and driven to Bethesda. What awaited us there is still shocking to me now. We met with two doctors who laid everything out for us. Matthew's injury was a devastating one. Shrapnel had entered his head just above his left eye and traveled diagonally through his brain and exited the right rear.

'A nightmare'

Surgeons in Baghdad had removed two plates from his skull to help relieve the pressure from the swelling of his brain. The frontal lobe was destroyed, so they had removed it. It was explained that the frontal lobe is the center of personality and the place where someone is aware of themselves. The Matthew that we knew and loved was gone, and would never come back.

As we struggled with that staggering news there was more to come. The shrapnel had done severe damage to both sides of Matt's brain because of the angle that it traveled through. The brain can figure a way to control functions when one side is damaged, like in a stroke. But this was devastating news. The doctors told us that if this had happened in Vietnam, there would have been no surgery. If this happened in front of the best hospital in New York City, there would have been no surgery. His chances of ever having meaningful movement were less than slim.

Why, we asked, was the surgery done in Baghdad? The answer, surgeons do whatever they can to keep a soldier alive. They do not decide life or death.

We were then led down a long hospital corridor toward my son's room. This is the moment that I will never forget until the day I die. Just outside his room we were instructed that we had to don gowns, masks, and gloves every time we entered the room. This was to prevent us from picking up bacteria that Matt may have brought back from Iraq and spreading it to other patients in the ward.

My shock was doubled upon seeing Matthew. He was unrecognizable. His head was completely swollen, like some cartoon character. There were maybe hundreds of metal staples in his head. There were of course tubes coming and going everywhere. There were drains running from the site of the surgery. And there was the ventilator. I immediatelly snapped at the doctors. Somewhere along the line I had been informed that Matt was breathing on his own. Nine years ago I watched my father die after having cancer surgery. He never got off the vendilator and I flashed back to that time.

Matthew was able to breathe on his own, the doctors explained. The ventilator was only assisting. His heart and lungs were perfect. There had been no damage to his brain stem, which controls involuntary actions like breathing and the heart beating. So there we were looking at our son, not recognizing him, not a scratch on him below his eyes. But his face and head mangled and inflated. This must be a nightmare, one that we will never wake up from.

What war leaves behind

For days we made that walk down that long hallway. It took some time but I was finally able to look at some of the other Marines on the ward with Matthew. I wish to this moment that I hadn't. Kids with horrible injuries.

One had bene in the ward for 11 months, after seven different brain surgeries. His wife refused to let him go. She was praying for a miracle. He had parts of his skull removed also, but all the swelling was gone now and his head had sunken in where they had been removed. He did not move at all.

Across the ward another Marine was in his third month, and his head was all sunken in. This is what lay ahead for Matthew also. Also across the ward was another Marine who was there only a few days before Matt. He was lucky, damage to only one side of his brain. I became friendly with his father, Jim, from Tennessee. One day there was an uproar from his son's room and I looked over and made eye contact with Jim. Maybe an hour later we met in the hallway and he apologized to me. His son had opened his eyes for the first time and his family just responded. There was no need for an apology as I would have jumped for joy if Matthew were to open his eyes.

All that was left was to decide when the life support would be removed. That final decision rested in the hands of his mother. There was no disagreement on what course to follow, just when.

On May 3, the Marine Corps commandant presented Matthew with his Purple Heart. On May 4, I noticed that the swelling of Matthew's head was going down. By the end of the day, the indentations where pieces of his skull were missing were becoming noticeable. The next morning I was dreading what he might be looking like. And yes, there was his head becoming very odd shaped.

Letting go

I prayed that Diane would find the strength to let her son go today. I did not want to see him decline another day. . Another day of watching his head sink into his skull. And neither did she.

Sometime around noon on May 5, Matthew was moved from the ward to a private room. Behind some curtains they removed the ventilator and most of the tubes. He was kept on the morphine, and we were assured he would not feel any pain. Now he was breathing all on his own. Diane got into the hospital bed with her son, and I held his hand and we all waited and watched for Matthew to pass.

But he would not go easily. After three hours of labored breathing, I asked the nurse if there was anything that she could do. No. I asked God to take him now. No. His mother told him to go. I asked him to go. Go to some peace. A half-hour later, he finally took his last breath.

This is the real story of the war in Iraq. We all know the numbers, and we all know the reasons that are claimed that we have to be there. But this is the reality: young brave, patriotic men losing their lives for a cause that keeps shifting.

Every politician who supports the war should go to Bethesda or Walter Reed and see what their support is costing in human life and suffering. And to everyone who opposes the war, don't sit back any longer. Someday you may be touched personally by some tragedy from this disastrous war, and it will be too late, like it is for me.

-- Matthew Fenton, Little Ferry, NJ

THIS is why we oppose a war based on lies.

THIS is why we oppose a war without strategy.

THIS is why we oppose an occupation with no plan for when we can leave.

THIS is why we cannot let George W. Bush send any more young Americans to die so he can save face and once AGAIN not have to account for his crimes.

THIS is why we cannot allow George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld call us "appeasers".

THIS is why we cannot "stay the course."

THIS is why every fucking Senator and Congressperson up for election this year who supported this war and who continues to support this war (Mrs. Clinton, I'm talking to you too) must be removed from office in November.

THIS is why we cannot allow the evil men who run this country to frighten us any longer.

Over 2600 families have had to endure what the Fenton family of Little Ferry has endured. Does anyone believe that if 26,000 or 260,000 American families had this story to tell, we would still be in Iraq?

No one who supports this war has been asked to sacrifice. Jonah Goldberg and the other 101st Fighting Keyboarders sit snugly in their nice, warm homes, while young men like Matthew Fenton have their brains blown out -- and they say that what they're doing for the war effort is just as important.

We have an election coming in two months. Between now and then, we are going to hear this president and his henchmen continue to use the rhetoric that has been so successful for them up to this point -- the rhetoric of fear. They will tell us that the boogeyman is coming to get us, assuming that we will not think about the five years during which they have done nothing but make the world a more dangerous place. They will tell you only they can keep you safe, at the same time as you are more vulnerable than ever before as a result of their bungling. And they will continue to feed American kids into a meatgrinder to satisfy their bloodlust. And they will continue to swiftboat men like Jack Murtha, who today threw down the gauntlet and said that "If we are to fight this war with the same sense of dedication and vigor as we did prior wars, we cannot do it without a surge in force" -- a military draft.

Matthew Fenton's father hasn't been on TV. He will never be invited to appear on "Hannity and Colmes." He will never be invited to the White House for a face-to-face with a president who cares so deeply about the sanctity of stem cells and yet feels nothing for the young men and women he is sending to die -- kids lying unseeing and unknowing in hospital beds with their heads caving in around their shattered skulls.

Those in Washington who voted for this war and now regret it have a lifetime of penance in front of them. Those who voted for this war and persist in supporting it deserve their own place in the hell these military families will live in for the rest of their lives -- because a lifelong fuckup of a man stole an election in 2000, ignored threats against this country, and then cynically used the attack that took place ON HIS WATCH to settle a grudge.