More Myths and Random Thoughts

Tony Snow didn't waste a bit of time denying that President Bush never really meant to say that there was a connection between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. There he was on the Today Show lying like a puppy dog! (more about puppys later). We all know he never really said that! Ahem. Bill Moyers only identified more than 50 instances where the President or his spokesmen made that connection in the days leading up to and after the War. Ahem. Dick Cheney STILL insists that al Qaeda was in Iraq and in cahoots with Saddam. Never mind that al Qaeda and Saddam were mortal enemies... Way to go Tony! I don't believe anything you say even more!

Richard Clarke is my hero today. He's been able to effectively kill the myth of terrorists following us home. It's hilarious! He calls it the "puppy dog terror theory." In the New York Daily News on April 25 he lays to rest this Republican talking point/myth. Of course the terrorists will only follow us home if we "lose."

"The puppy dog theory is the corollary to earlier sloganeering that proved the President had never studied logic: "We are fighting terrorists in Iraq so that we will not have to face them and fight them in the streets of our own cities."

Clarke points out the absurdity of the logic that there is only one killing ground and simply points out that NOTHING we are doing in Iraq is keeping the terrorists at bay. As is so often pointed out, the reverse is true. Terrorism has increased, al Qaeda is stronger, the likelihood for a terrorist attack is just as great or greater now, as it was in the past, and as it will be in the future.

U.S. military raids in Iraq have uncovered evidence that Iraqis are planning attacks in America, perhaps to be carried out by terrorists with European Union passports that require no U.S. visas. But such attacks here over the next several years are likely now no matter what happens next in Iraq - and that is because of what Bush has already done, not because of any future course we choose in Iraq.

But we can be sure that when the next attacks come in the U.S., if Bush is down on the ranch cutting trees, he and whatever few followers he retains by then will blame his successor. You can almost hear them now: If only his successor had left enough U.S. troops in the Iraqi shooting gallery to satisfy the blood lust of the enemy, as Bush did, then they wouldn't have come here.

Next time you hear anyone say "the terrorists will follow us home" just tell them to explain that "puppy dog theory of terrorism" again. Just how is that supposed to work?

"Oh my goodness" Department.

The scandal of the week is (gasp) a SEX scandal! The first victim is Randall Tobias a good conservative and foreign aid dispenser. ABC is playing it for all its worth, teasing us all week to hype ratings for some news show at the end of the week.

"Randall Tobias isn't the last John likely to be outed by ABC, says the D.C. Madam -- after all, she's looking for possible defense witnesses for her trial.

Meanwhile, ABC teases some of the forthcoming revelations."

Quote of the Day

"Sen. Webb (D-VA) on the president's veto: "We won this war four years ago. The question is when we end the occupation." Thanks Josh Marshall!

From the And Yet Another Department

Another Bush appointee has resigned rather than face an oversight hearing.

(Julie) "MacDonald resigned a week before a House congressional oversight committee was to hold a hearing on accusations that she violated the Endangered Species Act, censored science and mistreated staff of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service."

The depth and breadth of the politicization of the government is breath taking! In only 4 months the oversight committees of Congress have uncovered scandal after scandal and only make us think that it is just the tip of the iceberg!

And finally this from a Baltimore Sun editorial via Dan Froomkin this morning:

"In the four years since President Bush put on that Navy flight suit and headed out on his mission before the cameras, his administration has accomplished almost nothing in Iraq, and now argues that that is the very reason U.S. soldiers and Marines must stay there and keep fighting and dying. . . .

"Enough is enough."