This is an unbelievable moment. Dick Cheney's PR offensive over the last month actually worked. Barack Obama just crumbled and will follow Cheney's command to not release the new set of detainee abuse pictures.

By the way, if you hadn't figured it out by now, that's why you saw every Cheney in the world on television arguing that torture works and that releasing more information would gravely harm the troops. They weren't worried about what was already released; they were worried about what was going to get released. They were trying to pre-empt the most damaging thing of all - the pictures that show the torture.

Just talk about torture doesn't really do it for the American people. But when they see pictures, they get it. That's why Bush had to apologize profusely and throw a few low-level soldiers under the bus when the Abu Ghraib pictures came out. You think there would have been anywhere near that level of controversy or accountability (such that it was) without the pictures?

How many Americans have heard of Bagram Air Base and how we tortured people to death there? A scant few. How many would have heard of it if there were pictures of detainees shackled from the ceiling in a Palestinian hanging or bleeding to death? Pictures are worth a billion words.

You know why? Television! If something isn't on television, it didn't happen. And television producers are obsessed with visuals (makes some sense since it's a visual medium, but their obsession winds up dumbing down the news if there aren't any pictures or video to go along with an important story).

[snip]

The news reports will tell you that Obama listened to his generals on this. Yes, who put Gen. David Petraeus and Gen. Ray Odierno in their current positions? Oh yes, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. Very fair and balanced advice you would get from them. This isn't about protecting the troops; it's about protecting their own behinds. They might have been in the chain of command that allowed this abuse to happen. Expecting unbiased advice from them is ridiculous.

Now, it looks to the rest of the world that we are trying to hide something, that we have not turned over a new leaf, that it is the same old lies and duplicity - and that Obama is on it. This was colossally stupid.

And to add insult to injury, we have to reconcile ourselves to the fact that Dick Cheney still runs DC no matter how unpopular and despicable he is. He still has the Democrats eating out of his hand. Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic.

n his new book, Hide and Seek: The Search for Truth in Iraq, and in an interview with The Daily Beast, Duelfer says he heard from “some in Washington at very senior levels (not in the CIA),” who thought Khudayr’s interrogation had been “too gentle” and suggested another route, one that they believed has proven effective elsewhere. “They asked if enhanced measures, such as waterboarding, should be used,” Duelfer writes. “The executive authorities addressing those measures made clear that such techniques could legally be applied only to terrorism cases, and our debriefings were not as yet terrorism-related. The debriefings were just debriefings, even for this creature.”

Duelfer will not disclose who in Washington had proposed the use of waterboarding, saying only: “The language I can use is what has been cleared.” In fact, two senior U.S. intelligence officials at the time tell The Daily Beast that the suggestion to waterboard came from the Office of Vice President Cheney. Cheney, of course, has vehemently defended waterboarding and other harsh techniques, insisting they elicited valuable intelligence and saved lives. He has also asked that several memoranda be declassified to prove his case. (The Daily Beast placed a call to Cheney’s office and will post a response if we get one.)

Without admitting where the suggestion came from, Duelfer revealed that he considered it reprehensible and understood the rationale as political—and ultimately counterproductive to the overall mission of the Iraq Survey Group, which was assigned the mission of finding Saddam Hussein’s WMD after the invasion.

“Everyone knew there would be more smiles in Washington if WMD stocks were found,” Duelfer said in the interview. “My only obligation was to find the truth. It would be interesting if there was WMD in May 2003, but what was more interesting to me was looking at the entire regime through the slice of WMD.”

But, Duelfer says, Khudayr in fact repeatedly denied knowing the location of WMD or links between Saddam’s regime and al Qaeda and was not subjected to any enhanced interrogation. Duelfer says the idea that he would have known of such links was “ludicrous".

[snip]

More than one-quarter of all footnotes in the 9/11 Report refer to CIA interrogations of al Qaeda operatives subjected to the now-controversial interrogation techniques. In fact, information derived from the interrogations was central to the 9/11 Report’s most critical chapters, those on the planning and execution of the attacks.

The NBC analysis also showed—and agency and commission staffers concur—there was a separate, second round of interrogations in early 2004, specifically conducted to answer new questions from the 9/11 Commission after its lawyers had been left unsatisfied by the agency’s internal interrogation reports.

Human-rights advocates, including Karen Greenberg of New York University Law School’s Center for Law and Security and Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights, have said that, at the least, the 9/11 Commission should have been more suspect of the information derived under such pressure.

Commission executive director Philip Zelikow (later counselor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice) admitted, "We were not aware, but we guessed, that things like that were going on. We were wary…we tried to find different sources to enhance our credibility." (Zelikow testified before the Senate on Wednesday, May 13, that he had argued in a 2005 memo that some of the tactics used on suspected terrorists violated the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.)

A former senior U.S. intelligence official told me the Commission never expressed any concerns about techniques and even pushed for a second round of interrogations in early 2004, as the Commission was finishing up its work. The second round of interrogations sought by the Commission involved more than 30 separate interrogation sessions.

"Remember," the intelligence official said, "the Commission had access to the intelligence reports that came out of the interrogation. This didn't satisfy them. They demanded direct personal access to the detainees and the administration told them to go pound sand.”

"As a compromise, they were allowed to let us know what questions they would have liked to ask the detainees. At appropriate times in the interrogation cycle, agency questioners would go back and re-interview the detainees. Many of [those] questions were variants or follow-ups to stuff previously asked."

At least four operatives whose interrogation figured in the 9/11 Commission Report have claimed that they told interrogators critical information as a way to stop being "tortured." Those claims came during their hearings in the spring of 2007 at the U.S. military facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Labels: President Barack Obama, spinelessness, Wake Me Up When It's Over, war crimes

Labels: 2012 election, John McCain, President Barack Obama, Wake Me Up When It's Over

Labels: John McCain, Wake Me Up When It's Over, You can't make this shit up

GIBSON: Are you in favor of putting Georgia and Ukraine into NATO?

PALIN: (shrugs) Ukraine, definitely yes...and Georgia. Putin thinks otherwise, obviously he thinks otherwise, but --

GIBSON: But under the NATO treaty, wouldn't we then have to go to war if Russia went into Georgia?

PALIN: (Nods) P..perhaps so. I mean, if that is the agreement, when you are a NATO ally is that when another country is attacked, you're going to be expected to be called upon and help.

Labels: icepick meet forehead, insanity, Sarah Palin, Wake Me Up When It's Over, wingnuttia

Senator Barack Obama and two other prominent Democrats urged federal housing regulators on Tuesday to cut the golden parachutes of the ousted leaders of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, another sign that the government bailout of those mortgage giants could reverberate through the presidential campaign.

Mr. Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, asked that any “inappropriate windfall payments” to the chief executives and senior managers of those agencies be voided, in a letter to Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. and the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the new regulator for Fannie and Freddie.

Together, Daniel H. Mudd of Fannie Mae and Richard F. Syron of Freddie Mac are eligible for as much as $24 million in severance, retirement benefits and deferred compensation.

“Under no circumstances should the executives of these institutions earn a windfall at a time when the U.S. Treasury has taken unprecedented steps to rescue these companies with taxpayer resources,” Mr. Obama wrote.

Amid mounting worries about its viability, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. said it would unload a chunk of troubled assets, sell a majority stake in its money-management unit and slash its dividend 93 percent.

Its problems shook the rest of the financial sector.

The 158-year-old investment bank announced the moves as it reported a $3.9-billion fiscal third-quarter loss - far bigger than its $2.8 billion second-quarter hit.

The loss came after the Wall Street firm wrote down the assets on its books by $7.8 billion. That included a $5.3 billion reduction on investments tied to residential mortgages. The company, which has operations in Utah and 24,000 employees worldwide, also said it would shift up to $30 billion in commercial real estate assets to a new entity, which will be spun off to shareholders.

To conserve cash, Lehman is chopping its annual dividend to 5 cents a share from 68 cents.

''This is an extraordinary time for our industry and one of the toughest periods in the firm's history,'' CEO Richard Fuld said in a statement.

Fuld, 62, the longest-serving CEO on Wall Street, said the firm would examine all other options - including a total sale of the company he joined right out of college. Finding a buyer might pre-empt any hostile takeovers now that Lehman's stock has plunged from $67.73 a year ago to $7.25 Wednesday, down 54 cents.

The contagion spread to other financial companies. Washington Mutual Inc. plunged 74 cents, or 22.4 percent, to $2.56 after setting a multiyear low of $2.30 earlier. WaMu, among the banks hit hardest by the housing mess, has seen the value of its shares plunge 76 percent this year, as it battles rising mortgage delinquencies and defaults. The drop also signaled that the company's recent CEO shake-up may not have been enough to placate anxious investors.

Shares of Citigroup, JPMorgan, Bank of America Corp. and Wachovia Corp. also fell.

Labels: 2008 election, economic death watch, Wake Me Up When It's Over

Labels: cynicism, despair, icepick meet forehead, John McCain, racism, Sarah Palin, sleaze, Wake Me Up When It's Over

State records show that Palin submitted a travel authorization for a quick round-trip visit to attend the June 8 graduation of the Master's Commission program at the Wasilla Assembly of God, the church where she was baptized at age 12. The only other item on the agenda for that trip was a "One Lord Sunday" service involving a network of Mat-Su Christian churches earlier that morning at the Wasilla sports complex.

The records show Palin flew from Juneau to Anchorage on Saturday, June 7. She returned to Juneau that Monday afternoon. The plane tickets cost the state $519.50, and she claimed an additional $120 for meals and other expenses.

Palin couldn't be reached for comment Friday as she campaigned for vice president. Her spokeswoman at the McCain campaign said she wouldn't grant an interview.

Labels: Sarah Palin, theocracy, Wake Me Up When It's Over

According to Nicole Wallace of the McCain campaign, the American people don't care whether Sarah Palin can answer specific questions about foreign and domestic policy. According to Wallace -- in an appearance I did with her this morning on Joe Scarborough's show -- the American people will learn all they need to know (and all they deserve to know) from Palin's scripted speeches and choreographed appearances on the campaign trail and in campaign ads.

Labels: John McCain, sexism, Wake Me Up When It's Over

Labels: 2008 election, bloggers, Wake Me Up When It's Over

Labels: faux feminism, icepick meet forehead, idiocy, Wake Me Up When It's Over

Labels: Joe Biden, Joe Scarborough, Wake Me Up When It's Over

Labels: icepick meet forehead, idiocy, Joe Scarborough, Wake Me Up When It's Over

Barack Obama has decided upon a vice-presidential running mate. And while I don’t know who it is as I write, for the good of the country, I hope he picked Joe Biden.

Biden’s weaknesses are on the surface. He has said a number of idiotic things over the years and, in the days following his selection, those snippets would be aired again and again.

But that won’t hurt all that much because voters are smart enough to forgive the genuine flaws of genuine people. And over the long haul, Biden provides what Obama needs:

Labels: David Brooks, Joe Biden, Wake Me Up When It's Over

The Senate Majority Leader, Democrat Harry Reid of Nevada, was chatting with the folks over at the Las Vegas Review-Journal the other day. Reid's not up for reelection until 2010, but it never hurts to schmooze with journalists as if they matter.

Naturally, Reid was asked about the ongoing presidential race that will send only the third sitting senator in American history to the White House. Reid's son was a big booster of Sen. Hillary Clinton. So he hoped to get something out of that. Oops, hitched to the wrong star.

And now all the polls seem to be tightening between Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama. Reid can be a little testy. He's the one who once told a group of visiting high school students that President Bush was "a loser."

Now if McCain pulls off yet another comeback and wins the White House, it looks like he'll have a similar relationship as Bush with Reid.

In his newspaper chat Reid didn't call McCain a loser, but he made clear that he doesn't have much use for the senator from next-door Arizona.

Reid was describing a recent conversation he had with Sen. Joe Lieberman, the former Connecticut Democrat who got dumped by his party in 2006 and got elected as an independent but caucuses with Democrats to protect their slim majority while hanging around a lot with Republicans like McCain anyway.

Lieberman, who was also the Democrats' VP nominee in 2000 with what's-his-name who invented the Internet and global warming, is even going to have a prominent speaking role at the GOP convention in St. Paul in 11 days. As a courtesy, Lieberman called the Democratic caucus boss in advance to alert him about the speech.

Reid explained: "He has a close personal relationship with John McCain. I don't fully understand why he does."

Reid added: "I told him last night, 'You know, Joe, I can't stand John McCain.' He said, 'I know you feel that way.' "

In the Las Vegas News-Journal story by Molly Ball, Reid said McCain was wrong on the issues and has the wrong temperament for a president.

All of which goes against what the Congressional Record recorded Reid saying about McCain on Sept. 20 last year: "I respect the senior Senator from Arizona because he doesn't hide what he stands for. I admire him. He stands for what he thinks is the right thing to do.”

Then asked about his benevolent treatment of Lieberman despite the former Democrat's traitorous political activities, Reid said: "All my close votes, he's always with me...Why would I want to throw away a good vote?"

Labels: Harry Reid, icepick meet forehead, Joe Lieberman, Wake Me Up When It's Over

Labels: Certain Doom, John McCain, Wake Me Up When It's Over

Labels: Barack Obama, Certain Doom, icepick meet forehead, Wake Me Up When It's Over