Learning from the past, just in the wrong way

Those of you who're older might remember back in 1990, during our FIRST foray into Iraq, how Poppy Bush threw a bunch of justifications for that war at the wall (WMD programs, New World Order, "free sale of oil at market prices", threat to Saudis, Iraqi mistreatment of Kuwaitis, etc.) and it was the WMD justification that stuck, allowing his idiot son 13 years later to jump feet-first into the quagmire.

Well, evidently Junyer Bush isn't amiss to learn from his elders, as long as it's in the service of his dark satanic master (i.e. Cheney) - he's evidently decided that since the "Iran's nuclear program" justification for his next glorious war has pretty much fallen flat, he's going to sell it as anti-terrorism":

Hersh: You can also sell counter-terror, it’s much more logical. You can say to the American people, we’re only hitting these people that are trying to kill our boys and the coalition forces and so that seems to be more sensible, The White House think s they can actually pitch this, this would actually work…

Hersh's article in the New Yorker says that the new idea is to have a "limited" attack on the IRGC training camps, "surgical strikes" in the words of one former senior American intelligence official.

Furthermore, according to "a senior European official" Hersh spoke to:

The European official continued, “A major air strike against Iran could well lead to a rallying around the flag there, but a very careful targeting of terrorist training camps might not.” His view, he said, was that “once the Iranians get a bloody nose they rethink things.” For example, Ali Akbar Rafsanjani and Ali Larijani, two of Iran’s most influential political figures, “might go to the Supreme Leader and say, ‘The hard-line policies have got us into this mess. We must change our approach for the sake of the regime.’ ”

Um.... yeah. Everyone who believes THAT, please raise your hand.

Evidently the IRGC is perfectly willing to play tit-for-tat with the Pentagon, as well:

The adviser said that he had heard from a source in Iran that the Revolutionary Guards have been telling religious leaders that they can stand up to an American attack. “The Guards are claiming that they can infiltrate American security,” the adviser said. “They are bragging that they have spray-painted an American warship—to signal the Americans that they can get close to them.” (I was told by the former senior intelligence official that there was an unexplained incident, this spring, in which an American warship was spray-painted with a bull’s-eye while docked in Qatar, which may have been the source of the boasts.)

I'll say it again - there's NO WAY this will all turn out well.

These show every sign of not ending well

One:

Iran decides to play "Ours is bigger than yours" with the Bush misAdministration:

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran's parliament on Saturday approved a nonbinding resolution labeling the CIA and the U.S. Army "terrorist organizations," in apparent response to a Senate resolution seeking to give a similar designation to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Which, given the maturity we've come to expect of this White House, means the IRGC will HAVE to be declared a "terrorist organization", therefore freeing Bush to get his war on yet again under the 2001 AUMF, and giving Joe Lieberman reason to put off re-filling his Viagra prescription for another couple months. (Those things are EXPENSIVE, y'know!)

Two:

In a (possibly) ill-timed move, Taiwan decides to assert itself:

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party passed a resolution Sunday asserting the island's separate identity from rival China and calling for a referendum on Taiwan's sovereignty.

The resolution for a "normal country" — passed after heated debate at a boisterous party congress — calls for general use of "Taiwan" as the island's name, without specifically abolishing its current formal name, the Republic of China. It also calls for the enactment of a new constitution, but gives no specific deadline for either that or the referendum.

Moves by Taiwan towards independence would possibly provoke China into an attack on the island - which could easily escalate if the United States were to intervene.

Of course, intervention would be problematic at best, considering that the United States ground forces are, according to the Pentagon, stretched to breaking point and the Air Force appears likely to be tied down attacking Iran. But there's still all those nuclear weapons we have that are just gathering dust...

Zombie lies from the Right

...AAAAAAAnnnnnnd we're back to this classic, one I warned about before:

On Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to New York and the United Nations: isn’t it amazing that no one in Congress, the White House or the so-called mainstream media - or even talk radio or Fox, for that matter - ever mentions the fact that most of the remaining 52 American hostages from the 1979 illegal seizure by so-called Iranian 'students' are certain that Ahmadinejad was one of their captors?

Oh, christontoastwithasideoffries, we've BEEN here before, and there's nothing to it:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A CIA report has determined with "relative certainty" that Iran's new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was not involved in the taking of U.S. hostages 26 years ago, three government officials told CNN on Friday.

And there's this from Ray Takeyh, Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations:

What do you think, is President Ahmadinejad actually one of the captors during the 1979 hostage-taking at the U.S. embassy in Tehran?

There is no evidence to suggest that; the CIA itself has suggested he was not part of it. But here you get into a tricky position because the Bush administration is unwilling to contradict the American hostages.

It’s the hostages who’ve claimed it?

Five of the hostages have claimed that Ahmadinejad was one of their captors. The CIA, after a laborious investigation, has not accepted that claim. But politically, it’s difficult for the Bush administration to take a position different from those who suffered 444 days of captivity.

I told you back in 2005 they'd use the 1979 hostage crisis to help their case for war with Iran, and that's just what they're doing. (And is 5 really "most of the remaining"? Out of 52?)

Bonus points to the warfloggers for this line from the middle of the original article:

Ahmadinejad - and the radical mullahs who are his source of power in Tehran (and in Qum, the home of radical Islam) - is indeed an international war criminal who is operating with total impunity! [emphasis added]

How long until that becomes "Iran = al Qaeda = 9/11"?

Oh, and Mr. Leboutillier? FAUX News has indeed taken the bait; you can put them back on your Christmas card list now.

"Success" before the fact?

The Pentagon had a "successful" anti-missile test yesterday, and being the moonbat DFH that I am, I went searching the Great Gazoogle for details on it - wondering if, as has been done before, they rigged the test to ensure a successful result.

Nothing immediate one way or the other, but I did come across this interesting PR release from CNN Money:

TUCSON, Ariz., and TEWKSBURY, Mass., Sept. 28, 2007 /PRNewswire/ -- Raytheon Company components built under contract to The Boeing Company, the prime contractor for the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system, played key roles in the destruction of a ballistic missile target during GMD's latest successful flight test conducted Sept. XX by the U.S. Missile Defense Agency. [emphasis added]

Well! Isn't THAT interesting. Almost like they knew beforehand that the test would be "successful", even before the date of the actual test.

Maybe it's a mistake, maybe it's common procedure for PR releases - but it sure as hell looks like a case of "draw the curve then plot the data" to me.

Here's a question

If it was important to denounce Ahmadinejad during his trip to this country, thus showing our good decent patriotic disrespect for him as a thuggish dictator - why is it then proper for our news media to show respect to the thuggish dictators of Burma by using the name they chose for their country?

Okay, why can't we pull out of Iraq again?

Let's see -

The Prime Minister says there's no civil war impending:

Civil war has been averted in Iraq and Iranian intervention there has "ceased to exist," Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said yesterday.

"I can't say there is a picture of roses and flowers in Iraq," Maliki told the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. "However, I can say that the greatest victory, of which I am proud . . . is stopping the explosion of a sectarian war." That possibility, he said, "is now far away."

And the "terrorist insurgents" have all been killed or detained:

More than 19,000 militants have been killed in fighting with coalition forces since the insurgency began more than four years ago, according to military statistics released for the first time.

[snip]

Last year, Gen. John Abizaid, then commander of military forces in the region, estimated the Sunni insurgency to be 10,000 to 20,000 fighters. He said the Shiite militia members were in the "low thousands." The U.S. military hasn't publicly provided any recent estimates.

There are 25,000 detainees in U.S. military custody in Iraq, according to the military. The numbers of enemy killed and detained would exceed the estimate given last year of the size of the insurgency.

Whee! Iraq's a free, sovereign country, there's no chance of civil war, and there are no insurgents left. Mission accomplished; time to bring the troops home!

Ask a stupid question

Hey, kids!

Remember back four years or so ago when the study came out that said people who regularly watched FAUX News believed blatantly WRONG things about Iraq, such as we'd discovered WMD stockpiles after the invasion, and that Saddam had links to 9/11?

Well, gosharoonies, they're at it again:

Most Americans believe Iran’s nuclear program is for military purposes, and more voters would rather see the United States take a tougher line with Iran than a softer diplomatic path. In addition, three times as many people think the real reason the president of Iran wanted to visit ground zero was to honor the terrorists responsible for the attacks on the World Trade Center than to honor the victims killed there. These are just some of the findings from the latest FOX News poll.

Why, I wonder if it could be due to stories like this, or like this, or like this, or like this, or even like this:

Miguel Angel Toma, the former head of the Argentina's intelligence service, tells FOX News' Dan Senor that the Iranian government directly ordered a terror bombing on a Buenos Aires Jewish community center in 1994. The interview will air on Saturday at 9 p.m. ET on FOX News Channel.

Or maybe this FAUX News story explains everything we need to know...

Oh, how frickin' beautiful

We're in Iraq for the long haul, indeed:

HANOVER, New Hampshire (AP) -- The leading Democratic White House hopefuls conceded Wednesday night they cannot guarantee to pull all U.S. combat troops from Iraq by the end of the next presidential term in 2013.

"I think it's hard to project four years from now," said Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois in the opening moments of a campaign debate in the nation's first primary state.

"It is very difficult to know what we're going to be inheriting," added Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.

"I cannot make that commitment," said former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina.

Whee!

The cost of the Iraq war is looking to near $800 BILLION by the end of this year, alone. We're nearing 4000 dead and 28,000 injured on our side and about 78,000 civilian Iraqi dead. Almost 2 million Iraqis have fled the country, twice the number that had been predicted in pre-war warnings of "humanitarian disaster".

And none of the Dems will even so much as commit to making an Easily Broken Campaign Promise they'll get us out of this CF before the end of their (presumed) first term. Way to go, guys.

Dear Dubya

Your Incompetence:

Next time you decide to go in front of the United Nations and cite the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, you might want to try reading the damn thing first so's you don't look QUITE as much the hypocrite and idiot:

Article 5.

No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Article 9.

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

Article 10.

Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.

Article 12.

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

Article 16.

(1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.

Article 19.

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Article 21.

(3) The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.

Article 23.

(3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.

(4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

Article 26.

(2) Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.

Article 28.

Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.

Just my 9.11 cents on the subject

Anyone who in the future criticizes anyone left of center for "exploiting the tragedy of 9/11" should serve themselves a heaping helping of 'shut the hell up'.

Bush says "frog", Senate jumps

The Senate voted yesterday to censure MoveOn, the government's legislative branch pitifully choosing to waste its time and resources on denouncing free speech (Remember - "they hate us for our freedoms"!).

What to make of the comments, though?

"I felt like the ad was an attack, not only on Gen. Petraeus, but on the U.S. military," Bush said. "And I was disappointed that not more leaders in the Democratic Party spoke out strongly against that kind of ad."

Um, George? Strangely enough, in spite of the activities of you and Unca "Shooter" Dick, we still live in something resembling a democracy. With opposition parties, whose constituents will sometimes, you know, OPPOSE what the people in power are doing. And they'll even stoop (STOOP I SAY!) to criticizing the military on occasion.

'Cause the military, see, is there to protect the country, not to play imperial power games. And if we pay their goddamn bills, we're their ultimate employers, and what we as a nation feel should be done needs to be taken into account.

If we feel General Petraeus' authority as a military leader is being abused to prop up a failed Iraq strategy, we have a perfect right to say so. And if the General gets personally criticized in the process, all I can say is "AWWW, POO' BABY". How can we expect him to risk his troops' lives if a mere newspaper ad gives him the vapors, after all?

(And you know what? I bet he has to "squat on the Cosmic Utensil" every now and then and actually take a crap. OOOH! How DARE I suggest he's a mere human! Censure! Censure!)

And I love this line:

GOP Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said the amendment "gives our colleagues a chance to distance themselves from these despicable tactics, distance themselves from the notion that some group literally has them on a leash, like a puppet on a string."

Yay, we're back to those glorious HUAAC days of "Are you now or have you ever been". Why, if the Dems don't leap on the politically correct bandwagon and denounce MoveOn, we KNOW where their seditious sympathies lie, after all! Dolchstosslegend all around!

And the ever-popular Holy Joe Lieberman? How'd he vote?

why, take a frickin' guess.

Heckuva job, Dubya

Remember al-Qaeda? Not the franchisees in Iraq, the original guys - you know, the ones who gave us that Really Crappy Day in September a few years back?

The ones who've been hiding out in southeastern Afghanistan? The ones who Bush said "we'll get 'em dead or alive" then promptly forgot about so he could get us waist deep in the brand-new Big Muddy?

Well, they're at it again - only this time, Pakistan is in their sights:

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- Osama bin Laden will release a new message soon declaring war on Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, al Qaeda announced Thursday.

Remember how we had to invade and occupy Iraq because of Saddam's (supposed) ties to al-Qaeda and the danger of his (supposed) WMDs falling into the hands of terrorists? Well, now al-Qaeda's threatening the leader of a nation where there's no question of a successful nuclear program.

Will Bush bother actually DOING anything constructive about this? Or will he ignore it in favor of hyping the potential threat of Iran?

I know which I'm expecting.

He just won't stop, will he?

*sigh*

Bush once again waves the bloody shirt and demands further Big Brother powers... for our own good, of course:

FORT MEADE, Md. — President Bush said Wednesday he wants Congress to expand and make permanent a law that temporarily gives the government more power to eavesdrop without warrants on suspected foreign terrorists.

Without such action, Bush said, "our national security professionals will lose critical tools they need to protect our country."

[snip]

"The threat from Al Qaeda is not going to expire in 135 days," he said, "so I call on Congress to make the Protect America Act permanent."

He also urged lawmakers to expand the law, not restrict it.

and any guesses what the goddamn Dems will do - ?

All Bush has to do is, like last time, whine that there's an impending terrorist threat against D.C. but it can be avoided if this legislation is passed right NOW NOW NOW.

And they'll pass it. 'Cause looking TOUGH AND MACHO is evidently going to appeal more to the American public come Election Day than standing up for what few tattered rags of democracy and liberty still exist in this country, and patriotism is nothing anymore but a fig leaf for militarism.

Interplanetary terrorism

Suspected meteorite causes sickness

LIMA, Peru (AP) -- Officials are investigating unconfirmed reports that a meteorite crashed in southern Peru over the weekend and caused dozens of people to become sick.

Local media have reported eyewitness accounts of a fiery ball falling from the sky and smashing into the desolate Andean plain near the Bolivian border Saturday morning. Officials have said it was a meteorite.

OH NOES ITS TEH ANDROMEDA STRAIN!!!11!

I guess we now need to go to Mars after all... to fight them there so we don't have to fight them here!

In which I get taken to the woodshed

Well! Looks like my defense of the lovely Kathy GriffIN's (got her name wrong in the previous post!) comments about religion rubbed somebody the wrong way!

Commenter "anonymous" (wasn't that the name last time? why, yes it was) expresses regret, nay, EXTREME DISPLEASURE that I found Ms. Griffin's comments amusing:

Okah. So some of you feel she's your hero now because she slammed Jesus in a vulgar way on national television.

I never said she was my "hero"; she IS however cute and funny. Funnier than right-wingers, but then again that isn't difficult; I flush stuff down the toilet that's funnier than wingnuts. (She reminds me very much of a friend from college who was also an acerbic funny redhead critical of Christians.)

Just like keeping religion out of government I feel strongly about keeping religion out of comedy.

Hey, great idea, there, anon! While your analogy is flawed at best (there are good reasons to keep religion out of government in an ideally democratic system) I think you're onto something there. Let's keep religion out of comedy! And off of TV, while we're at it. And out of music, out of books, out of magazines, out of public life entirely. Believe whatever the hell you want, just keep it to yourself.

Oh? Is that not what you were suggesting?

It is nothing but disrespectful to a certain group of people no matter who/what is being 'rediculed.'

...and your point is? Should nobody ever be "rediculed"? Should comedy never offend anyone? Or should we only make an exception for thin-skinned Christians?

The only reason Ms. Griffin did this was to get publicity and she certainly got it. I find it very sad.

Oh, yeah, cripes, she couldn't POSSIBLY sincerely spoken her mind. No, it was "to get publicity"! Funny thing is, if certain people like Bill Donohue wouldn't have thrown such a hissy fit about it, would it really have been that newsworthy? So who's the one looking for the publicity here?

She didn't need to thank Jesus but to redicule Him was hurtful for many people.

That's nice. I'm sure there was plenty of rending of garments and sackcloth-and-ashes as a result. I'm sure her one comment has done irreparable damage to Christianity. God'll probably have to send a hurricane now to punish her.

I reiterate my point about double standards, though - if she had gotten up there and said something on the lines of "Suck it, Mohammed!" not only would there not have been any real controversy, at least from The Catholic League, but she WOULD be a hero among conservative bloggers.

Let me add another layer of tinfoil here

Oh, this Mukasey thing just keeps getting better and better.

Turns out the Honorable Judge is legal adviser to the Guliani campaign:

A graduate of Columbia College and Yale Law School, Mukasey currently serves as a legal adviser to the Giuliani campaign and was the judge who swore in Giuliani as mayor.

As scribe at TalkLeft points out, this would be a Very Bad Thing as far as the 2008 election would go:

Do you want the guy who is Giuliani's campaign legal adviser to be in charge of voting rights enforcement during the election when Giuliani will need all the help - legitimate or not - he can get to win, particularly in light of (a) the DoJ spending a whole bale of time, money and effort over the last six-plus years on disenfranchising Democratic voters and (b) given that New York City is also subject to the Voting Rights Act enforcement provisions because of its history of discrimination? Y'think Mukasey might know a bit about the ins and outs of the Voting Rights Act and how it was abused during his buddy Giuliani's terms as mayor?

Now let me get all crazy here for a moment.

Perhaps it's an effect of just having finished Mark Crispin Miller's Fooled Again: How the Right Stole the 2004 Election & Why They'll Steal the Next One Too (Unless We Stop Them), but St. Rudy of 9/11 IS the leading candidate for the nomination, and having an old friend of St. Rudy's as head of Justice would certainly make it SO much easier to re-play the 2000 election all over again. Particularly with so much lead time to creatively edit voting rolls and ensure the right people are disenfranchised this time around, too...

Naaaw. Must just be my paranoia kicking in, right?

How reassuring... not

CNN.com interrupts their breathless coverage of O. J. Simpson's latest "oopsie!" for the news that Judge Mukasey does indeed want to be our next Attorney General:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Former federal judge Michael Mukasey has accepted President Bush's offer to replace Alberto Gonzales as U.S. attorney general, two government sources familiar with the president's selection said Sunday.

The White House would not comment on the report Sunday night. But Mukasey's nomination as head of the Justice Department is likely to be announced Monday, the sources said.

And Senator Schumer, for one, wants us all to know that the Honorable Judge is indeed a Very Serious Person:

A leading Gonzales critic, Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, said Sunday that Mukasey is "a lot better than some of the other names mentioned" as potential replacements.

"While he is certainly conservative, Judge Mukasey seems to be the kind of nominee who would put rule of law first and show independence from the White House, our most important criteria," said Schumer, a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Schumer said Mukasey will face questions about "important and sensitive issues," such as the controversy over the Bush administration's warrantless electronic surveillance program and the appointments of U.S. attorneys.

But he said the former judge "has the potential to become a consensus nominee."

I assume the phrase "consensus nominee" means he is indeed going to be presented to us as a liberal, when I've shown he's far from it.

And yes, "a lot better than some of the other names mentioned", which when you consider Ted Olson to be one of the other names is rather like saying having your skin flayed from your body with a sharp knife while conscious is "a lot better than" having it done with a dull knife.

UPDATE:

Pat Robertson's ACLJ thinks Judge Mukasey is just dreamy:

He brings a steady hand of leadership to the Department of Justice. And his handling of some of the most important cases involving terrorism underscores his respect for the Constitution and the rule of law. As the nation’s chief law enforcement officer, Judge Mukasey will serve the Department of Justice and the nation well.

George Bush won't attack Iran!

I'm hearing that phrase right now from a lot of Very Serious People - Bush can't/won't attack Iran because of A/B/C/whatever. It's too risky, or we don't have the troops, or it would ruin the economy, or it's all just saber-rattling to get the Iranians to THINK he'd attack and therefore oblige his wishes.

Let's do something stupid and look back a few years, shall we?

(Note: all these references are from sources AFTER the timeframe of the Downing Street Memo in which it was stated "Military action was now seen as inevitable.")

Senators urge caution on plans for Iraq war

WASHINGTON: U.S. senators of both political parties urged the Bush administration Wednesday to move slowly in contemplating an attack to oust President Saddam Hussein of Iraq, saying that the stakes were high, costs would be great and much work was needed to secure support at home and abroad for such a move. -- August 1, 2002

Attack Iraq and save the world? Bush is dreaming

The optimists around Rumsfeld seem to think that relatively small forces mounting an Afghanistan-style campaign can remove Saddam and his regime quickly, and install a new pro-US government without much trouble.

The pessimists, including those in the US Army who might have to make it happen on the ground, are not so sure.

For Bush it would be a huge gamble. After September 11 he apparently has a blank cheque from voters to do whatever it takes to make sure such attacks do not happen again. But the voters might not be so keen to honour their cheque if the gamble goes bad. I'd still guess that Bush will not risk his presidency on such a bold but uncertain vision. -- August 6, 2002

"Don't Attack Saddam" By Brent Scowcroft

Our nation is presently engaged in a debate about whether to launch a war against Iraq. Leaks of various strategies for an attack on Iraq appear with regularity. The Bush administration vows regime change, but states that no decision has been made whether, much less when, to launch an invasion. -- August 15, 2002

Political reality : Despite the war talk, Bush is unlikely to attack Iraq

A war begun in 2003 and continuing without clear victory for a year or more — as is possible if not probable — would invoke the Korean and Vietnamese precedents. Perhaps that is why in recent days the president has backed off his earlier rhetoric, remarking that he might not make a decision this year, and that he is still listening to the debate. -- August 21, 2002

Can Saddam Be Contained? History Says Yes

In this case, however, the truth points the other way. Both logic and historical evidence suggest that a policy of vigilant containment would work, both now and in the event that Iraq acquired a nuclear arsenal. Why? Because the United States and its regional allies are far stronger than Iraq, and because it does not take a genius to figure out what would happen if Iraq tried to use its arsenal to blackmail its neighbors, to expand its territory, or to attack another state directly. It only takes a leader who wants to remain alive, and who wants to remain in power. Throughout his lengthy and brutal career, Saddam Hussein has repeatedly shown that these two goals are absolutely paramount. That is why deterrence and containment would work, and that is why preventive war is unnecessary. -- November, 2002

Why We Won't Go to War

The unanimous Security Council resolution ordering Iraqi compliance with United Nations inspections--and the credible threat of war should Iraq not comply--make it very likely that Saddam will cooperate with UN inspections. The early inspections have gone well enough and Iraq will likely provide volumes of information on December 8, as required by the UN resolution. The declaration will not be full or complete, but it may reveal information Saddam believes the US already knows, such as secret imports or caches of old chemical weapons. It will not be obvious any time soon that Saddam is not cooperating. It will be very difficult, even for the most bellicose in the U.S., to initiate a war if Saddam does not blatantly obstruct inspections.

This is the very trap that hard-liners in the administration feared and why they did not want the president to go to the United Nations at all. But after the president’s powerful September 12 speech to the General Assembly, after months of work to unite the Security Council, President Bush cannot simply walk away from diplomacy. As he has said, war is neither inevitable nor unavoidable as long as Saddam agrees to disarm. -- December 13, 2002

Mukasey addendum

Seems the elfin Andrew McCarthy over at National Review Online thinks Judge Mukasey would be a damn fine AG:

Later, in accepting the Federal Bar Council’s prestigious Learned Hand Medal for excellence in federal jurisprudence, Judge Mukasey spoke eloquently of the need to maintain the Patriot Act’s reasonable national security protections. More recently, he has written compellingly as a private citizen with unique insight about the profound challenges radical Islam presents for our judicial system.

McCarthy's first reference here is to the article I linked to in my last post - the one where the good Judge sees nothing wrong with the Patriot Act except maybe its name, and tells us to shut up and give our Dear Leaders the benefit of the doubt.

The second one refers to an article here, in which Judge Mukasey, who presided over the Jose Padilla trial, decides that the criminal trial system is just too unsuited for prosecuting terror suspects and there should probably be a separate court system just for them (which would not degenerate into a kangaroo/vigilante court, nossir, Judge Mukasey is A Very Serious Person and you can trust him just like you trust the Department of Justice).

Interestingly enough, and I may be reading too much into this, but the second article is hosted at the web site of Benador Associates.

You remember Benador, don't you? PR firm, employers of David Gelernter, Victor Davis Hanson, Charles Krauthammer, Michael A. Ledeen, Laurie Mylroie, Richard Perle, Richard Pipes, Natan Sharansky, AND our old friend Arnaud de Borchgrave, he of the "Iraqi people shredders" story that helped get us into the Mess O'Potamia and which was quickly forgotten by everybody except the wingnuts when aforementioned shredders proved to be as non-existent as Saddam's stockpiles of nerve gas.

Just further proof, as far as I'm concerned, that whatever CNN may claim about Judge Mukasey and his acceptability with liberals, he shows every sign of continuing the trend the White House has shown so far in its choices for head of the increasingly mis-named Department of Justice.

Read Or Die

The White House, seeing as Ted Olson appears to be a non-starter as far as a choice for the new Attorney General (and rightly so), has come up with a new candidate:

Michael B. Mukasey, 66, was nominated to the bench in 1988 by President Ronald Reagan, and was chief judge until September 2006 for the Southern District of New York -- a high-profile U.S. court district that's one of the nation's busiest.

[snip]

Ironically, nominating Mukasey could cause Bush trouble from the conservative right.

In 2005, the liberal group Alliance for Justice listed Mukasey among those it considered "consensus" choices for possible Bush Supreme Court picks.

In 2003, liberal Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, a leading liberal voice on judicial nominations, listed Mukasey as an acceptable Supreme Court choice in a letter he sent to Bush.

Those endorsements raise suspicions among conservative groups, a dynamic made worse by fears that Bush is wary of risking a confirmation battle over a conservative like Olson, because of the president's low political standing.

Looks like we've scored a victory, eh? Bush forced to compromise on a liberal AG.

Maybe not - insert Judge Mukasey's name into TEH GREAT GAZOOGLE and here's one of the first results you get:

'The Spirit of Liberty'
Before attacking the Patriot Act, try reading it.

BY MICHAEL B. MUKASEY
Monday, May 10, 2004 12:01 a.m. EDT

[snip]

No doubt there were people taken into custody, whether on immigration warrants or material witness warrants, who in retrospect should not have been. If those people have grievances redressable under the law, those grievances can be redressed. But we should keep in mind that any investigation conducted by fallible human beings in the aftermath of an attack is bound to be either overinclusive or underinclusive. There are consequences both ways. The consequences of overinclusiveness include condemnations. The consequences of underinclusiveness include condolences.

[snip]

Like any other act of Congress, the Patriot Act should be scrutinized, criticized and, if necessary, amended. But in order to scrutinize and criticize it, it helps to read what is actually in it. It helps not to conduct the debate in terms that suggest it gives the government the power to investigate us based on what we read, or that people who work for the government actually have the inclination to do such a thing, not to mention the spare time.

[snip}

So, as the historian Walter Berns has argued, the built-in message--the hidden message in the structure of the Constitution--is that the government it establishes is entitled, at least in the first instance, to receive from its citizens the benefit of the doubt. If we keep that in mind, then the spirit of liberty will be the spirit which, if it is not too sure that it is right, is at least sure enough to keep itself--and us--alive.

Naaaah, I don't think the conservatives have anything to worry about here, if this article's any indication.

(And the "read the Patriot Act before you criticize it" bit - why, what a capital idea, Judge! Would that the members of Congress had had a chance to do just that before voting on the damn thing in the first place:

The Senate version of the Patriot Act, which closely resembled the legislation requested by Attorney General John Ashcroft, was sent straight to the floor with no discussion, debate, or hearings. Many Senators complained that they had little chance to read it, much less analyze it, before having to vote. In the House, hearings were held, and a carefully constructed compromise bill emerged from the Judiciary Committee. But then, with no debate or consultation with rank-and-file members, the House leadership threw out the compromise bill and replaced it with legislation that mirrored the Senate version. Neither discussion nor amendments were permitted, and once again members barely had time to read the thick bill before they were forced to cast an up-or-down vote on it. The Bush Administration implied that members who voted against it would be blamed for any further attacks - a powerful threat at a time when the nation was expecting a second attack to come any moment and when reports of new anthrax letters were appearing daily. )

A strange kind of disgrace

Oh, look.

FAUX is at it again:

ROME — A senior U.S. nuclear official said Friday that North Koreans were in Syria and that Damascus may have had contacts with "secret suppliers" to obtain nuclear equipment.

Andrew Semmel, acting deputy assistant secretary of state for nuclear nonproliferation policy, did not identify the suppliers, but said North Koreans were in the country and that he could not exclude that the network run by the disgraced Pakistan nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan may have been involved.

That would, of course, be this A. Q. Khan:

Pakistan's nuclear weapons program is a source of extreme national pride, and, as its father, A.Q. Khan -- who headed Pakistan's nuclear program for some 25 years -- is considered a national hero.

[snip]

A.Q. Khan's official career came to an abrupt end in March 2001, when he was suddenly was forced out as director of the nuclear lab by order of President Pervez Musharraf. Though Kahn was made a special adviser to the government, the reason for his dismissal reportedly coincided with concerns about financial improprieties at the lab as well as general warnings from the United States to the Musharraf about Khan’s proliferation activities.

Here's how "disgraced" and fallen the man is:

Islamabad: Detained nuclear scientist Abdul Qader Khan was “elected” president of Pakistan, defeating the incumbent head of state General Pervez Musharraf in a mock poll held by lawyers.

Gen. Musharraf received only one vote, while Dr. Khan, who has been placed under detention by the General since January 2004, managed 2,103 votes in the “presidential referendum” organised by the Save Judiciary Committee of the Lahore High Court Bar Association (LHCBA). - source

On February 5, 2004, the day after Khan's televised confession, he was pardoned by Pakistani President Musharraf. However, Khan remained under house arrest.

The United States government imposed no penalties on the Pakistani government following the confession and pardon. U.S. government officials said that in the War on Terrorism, it was not their goal to denounce or imprison people but "to get results." Sanctions on Pakistan or demands for an independent investigation of the Pakistani military might have lead to restrictions on or the loss of use of Pakistan military bases needed by US and NATO troops in Afghanistan. - source

Hell, if it was America he'd be a commentator on FAUX News, have his own radio show and be thinking about a Senate position. "Disgraced" my ass.

Ask and ye shall receive, whether ye like it ot not

Welp, at the end of my Iran roundup the other day, I pointed to the latest from Fun Guy Ahmadinejad and his comment about Israel, predicting that it'd become another "wiped off the map" distortion.

Here's a comment from this story on the CNN.com Political Ticker about how The Very Unserious Person Sen. Obama suggested to the clown in the White House that attacking Iran just might, you know, be a dumb idea:

Um Earth to Barack, Earth to Barack. The President of Iran just avered that Israelis shouldn't "have life. " Sounds like the little man is planning on something akin to genocide. Oh, let's just pretend that's not really happening.
Posted By Cary - Lowell, IN : September 12, 2007 11:41 pm

Yup.

(I realize the Political Ticker is hardly a scientific source, and the level of discourse is usually pretty low, but I see at least one person's made the incorrect conclusion I was hinting at, and that means that others, with more influence over our national policy than this person, may very well do the same.)

Speaking of opening your ignorant piehole

I can't believe I left this off my list of Leading Stupidity Indicators yesterday, 'cause it's just too typical:

Lieberman has warned for some time of the Iranian threat to U.S. forces in Iraq, and noted Tuesday, that "military spokespeople in Baghdad have made very clear that we have evidence that Iran is taking Iraqi extremists to three training camps outside of Tehran, training them in the use of explosives, sophisticated weapons, sending them back into Iraq, where they are responsible for the murder of American soldiers."

So the senator pressed Petraeus, "Is it time to give you authority, in pursuit of your mission in Iraq, to pursue those Iranian Qods Force operations in Iranian territory, in order to protect America's troops in Iraq?"

Holy CHRIST with spicy brown mustard and Monterey Jack on toast, Holy Joe (? - CT) didn't take time out day-before-yesterday to encourage Petraeus to attack Iran, did he? I have GOT to be hallucinating that he actually sat there in front of Congress and the American people and asked to make an already bad situation a thousand times worse, but there it is.

Jeezul, did he do a little hop up'n'down in his chair while asking it, like a spoiled brat who's waited a whole five minutes for ice cream? ("Oh, Mr. GENERAL! MR. GENERAL! When do we getta attack Tehran, huh? Huh? Can we NOOOOWWWW? Oh please oh please oh please? I'll be good and go to bed early and eat all my veg'ebles and take the trash out without even being asked! PLEEEEEEEZE!")

Remember, this is the Very Serious Legislator who a few years back went all ballistic over the video game industry and Sega in particular for corrupting the mushy lil' minds of America's youth with ultraviolence. And here we have him, not content merely to see those kids he was so determined to save from the horrors of Mortal Kombat sent off to witness real-life Fatalities in Iraq, the kind you DON'T get to put in two quarters and re-play, wanting to expand the slaughter to yet ANOTHER country. What a sorry excuse for a human being.

What am I supposed to think?

Let's see what the last couple days have brought in my crazy DFH BDS moonbat assertions that we're heading for war with Iran:

• FAUX News reports that because the Germans are being big doody heads we now have no choice but to abandon diplomacy:
  
  WASHINGTON — A recent decision by German officials to withhold support for any new sanctions against Iran has pushed a broad spectrum of officials in Washington to develop potential scenarios for a military attack on the Islamic regime, FOX News confirmed Tuesday.
  
  
• Ken Silverstein hears from an ex-CIA friend that those ships in the Persian Gulf aren't just for show:
  
  The only part of the military that’s not stretched to the limits in Iraq is the Air Force. It will be a multi-day, multi-target air campaign–not ‘Shock and Awe,’ which wasn’t shocking and didn’t awe anyone, but a savage blow struck against President Ahmadinejad. We shouldn’t hit Iran’s Navy or Air Force but target the nuclear sites and the Revolutionary Guard.
  
  
• Things are heating up on the Iranian border:
  
  British forces have been sent from Basra to the volatile border with Iran amid warnings from the senior US commander in Iraq that Tehran is fomenting a "proxy war".
  
  In signs of a fast-developing confrontation, the Iranians have threatened military action in response to attacks launched from Iraqi territory while the Pentagon has announced the building of a US base and fortified checkpoints at the frontier.
  
  
• Michael Ledeen releases a new book in which he changes his mind and decides IRAN was attacking us all along, not Iraq:
  
  But Ledeen’s effort to lay virtually every attack by Muslims against Americans at Tehran’s feet takes him into rather bizarre territory. He says the 1998 bombings of the United States Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania “were in large part Iranian operations,” which would come as news to the 9/11 Commission, which attributed them solely to Al Qaeda. He says Shiite Iran was largely behind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a man famous for his genocidal hatred of Shiites. He claims that “most” Iraqi insurgents are “under Iranian guidance and/or control,” not just Shiite warlords like Moktada al-Sadr, but Sunni militants as well — the very people who say they are fighting to prevent Iranian domination. In Ledeen’s view, in fact, Sunni-Shiite conflict — the very thing that most observers think is tearing Iraq apart — is largely a mirage, because Iran controls both sides. And Al Qaeda is a mirage too, a mere front for the regime in Tehran. “When you hear ‘Al Qaeda,’ ” Ledeen writes, “it’s probably wise to think ‘Iran.’ ” Not surprisingly, he thinks the mullahs were probably behind 9/11. [emphasis added]
  
  
• ABC News does its part to reinforce the "Iran is already attacking us anyway" meme:
  
  A fatal attack launched two days ago against the headquarters garrison of the American military in Iraq was carried out using a 240 mm rocket a type of weapon provided to Shiite extremists by Iran, a U.S. general said Thursday.
  
  
• And, finally, the ever-helpful Ahmadinejad opens his ignorant piehole and helps things along once again:
  
  However, his hard-line rhetoric resurfaced when Ahmadinejad said Israel "cannot continue its life."
  
  Probably an imprecise translation, and the original was something along the lines of "Israel cannot continue to live the way it's been living", in the same way you'd gently suggest to an associate at work that he might want to cut out the double bacon and lard sandwiches for breakfast every morning, but how long until that line's twisted, as was the "wiped off the map" comment, into "Ahmadinejad said he wants to kill Israel"?
  

Freedom to criticize religion UNDER ATTACK!

Medievalist religious fanatics are, at this very moment, infringing on the sacred free speech rights found at the very roots of Western Civilization! People joking about religious figures censored, CENSORED I SAY, by the gutless MSM which refuses to defend our secular democracy from these fundimentalist thugs.

I'm sure we can expect the same people who stood up for "freedom to criticize religious figures" so recently will be quickly re-posting Ms. Griffith's words to show their solidarity.

Or does it only count when we're pissing off Muslims?


"I want you to know that no one had less to do with this award than Jesus. So, all I can say is, 'suck it, Jesus.' This award is my god now."

And knowing is half one-eighth one thirty-second some undefined fraction of the battle

FAUX News (mirable dictu!) whines about Paramount's new GI Joe movie:

In the politically correct new millennium, G.I. Joe bears no resemblance to the original.

Paramount has confirmed that in the movie, the name G.I. Joe will become an acronym for "Global Integrated Joint Operating Entity" — an international, coed task force charged with defeating bad guys. It will no longer stand for government issued, as in issued by the American government.

As they might have put it on Batman, "What's THIS? Our manly Marine to be 'masculated of his military macho!?"

The word is that in the current political climate, they're afraid that a heroic U.S. soldier won't fly.

Or, maybe, since Hollywood increasingly banks on foreign sales of movies, they'd rather have a international-friendly version of the character, seeing as the American military ain't too popular with the rest of the world as of late and they might wish to tread lightly with images of American militarism if they want overseas box-office. (I wonder why THAT could be?)

Naturally, the lil' green Army men set is huffing and puffing their displeasure:

"I find it outrageous that they'd want to drop everything American" from the character, said conservative blogger Warner Todd Huston, who wrote about the rumors this week on Newsbusters.org and his own blog. "That's nuts."

[snip]

For blogger Huston, who played with G.I. Joe as a boy, transforming the entire character into an amorphous task force in the movie feels like a hit to his childhood memories.

"I certainly understand that it's for international audiences, but these things are American icons," he said. "Why even pretend it's G.I. Joe then? I am a little bit upset about the whole thing."

Huston believes it's the latest example of Hollywood's hostility toward all things American, and he said he probably won't go to see the film if the existing plans are executed.

"It's the last spit in the face of our military," Huston said. "The doll was G.I. Joe, the government-issued guy who was a hero and American. It was celebrating this one heroic soldier. They want to take even that away."

Well, migod, I'm sure Paramount is trembling at the thought of Huston and his Cheeto-stained warrior buddies staying home. Kinda like they've stayed home in other cases. Not as if the military isn't spitting in its own face a bit lately, either.

Don't crush that wingnut, hand me the pliers

(No, I have no idea what I mean by that title, either. Sometimes TEH MUSE just strikes me.)

ANYWAY -

The Kahlil Gibrain school in NYC, which I blogged about back in July, finally opened last week in spite of the efforts of nativists and Atlas Juggs-types to shut it down.

Remarkably, the New York City, and the Republic as a whole, continue to function just fine.


Cursor's Media Patrol featured a couple articles on the school's opening last week, including:

• Bill Donohue of the Catholic League (this guy) is all sour grapes over the existence of the school:
  
  [. . .]the Islamic religious symbol, namely the crescent and star, is permitted in all New York City public schools. However, the Department of Education bars the display of nativity scenes.
  
  and questions
  
  [t]he paucity of information about the Association of Muslim American Lawyers, a group that is slated to play an integral role
  
  (which shadowy group has an e-mail link, well, right here)
  
  
• Unsurprisingly Daniel Pipes has come out against the 'madrasa', and points to a 1995 article in the Middle East Quarterly which suggests that my "Ebola" theory about Arabic is indeed true - you can't have average people messing around with something so dangerous:
  
  Arabized students show decidedly greater support for the Islamist movement and greater mistrust of the West.
  
  Well, I asked myself, what IS the innocently named "Middle East Quarterly"?
  
  Oh, it's a A publication of the Middle East Forum (MEF) founded by Daniel Pipes. How convenient. Would this article have been published if it didn't draw the conclusion that the Arabic language is inherently linked to Islamist philosophy?
  
  The Board of Editors of the Middle East Quarterly includes Dr. Fouad Ajami, notable cheerleader for the "liberation" of Iraq; Dr. Martin Kramer, who also writes for The National Review and has articles posted at the website of Frontpage Magazine; James Phillips from the Heritage Foundation, who is also a member of the revived Committee on the Present Danger (which group pressed the White House back in the 80's to over-estimate the threat from the Soviet Union, while the Soviet bloc was in fact nearing collapse); and Dr. Khalid Duran, possible originator or at least popularizer of the noxious term "Islamofascism".
  
  
• Interesting article at The Jewish Week about the school and the ouster of its former to-be principal Debbie Almontaser (or "Dhabah" Almontaser - not sure if that's her preferred name or just another "LOOK A SCARY ARAB NAME" from the wingnuts), who was being defended by the Anti-Defamation League, of all people, until her "controversial" defense of a T-shirt with the words "Intifada-NYC".
  
  Even AFTER her political incorrectness, the ADL still thought highly of her:
  
  Asked if ADL could still work with her on other projects, the group’s national director Abraham Foxman replied, “Absolutely. She gave herself a body blow making her unacceptable as principal of Khalil Gibran, but she continues to be an important person in interfaith relations. She still has her credentials.”
  
  Oddly enough (or maybe not), this was a controversy that need never have happened, but for a FAUX-esque interview Almontaser gave to the NY Daily News:
  
  According to two sources who spoke to her, Almontaser had been declining media requests for interviews all summer at the Department of Education’s advice. But the department urged her to talk to New York Post reporter Chuck Bennett after he submitted his questions in advance as requested. All of them related directly to the school.
  
  At the very end of the interview, Almontaser told one of these sources, Bennett, without bringing up the t-shirts, asked her almost incidentally what the word “intifada” meant. She consulted an Arabic dictionary and told him:
  
  'The word basically means 'shaking off.' That is the root word if you look it up in Arabic.”
  
  Bennett then told her about the t-shirts, adding that they were produced by a group that shares space with another group on whose board she sits. She replied: 'I understand it is developing a negative connotation due to the uprising in the Palestinian-Israeli areas. I don't believe the intention is to have any of that kind of [violence] in New York City. I think it's pretty much an opportunity for girls to express that they are part of New York City society . . . and shaking off oppression.'
  
  Notice she had nothing to do with the production or distribution of the shirts. If it hadn't been for the interviewer's "GOTCHA!" question at the very end of the interview, nobody would have associated the two.
  
  The article also features more of Daniel "The Only Good Arab is One Speaking English" Pipes' views on the inherent threat of Muslims in the U.S.:
  
  “I believe such a school requires scrutiny beyond that of any other group’s school, he said. “It fits into a larger pattern in which Muslim officials require greater scrutiny, whether they be chaplains [or] law enforcement officers. There is a tendency to sympathize with Islamism that we ignore at our peril. ... When law enforcement is looking for a rapist, it looks at men, not men and women. If you’re looking for terrorism you must give special scrutiny to this community.”
  
  Yeah, ETA, FARC, IRA, Tamil Tigers, Michigan Militia, Aum Shinrikyo, Front de libération du Québec, the Red Army, ANC... I guess they were/are all secretly Muslim! Who knew?
  

"Gift" means "poison" in German, you know

Thursday afternoon the cable "news" web sites were all in a fine froth about suggestions from an Islamic web site that there was an imminent "gift" to be released soon. Seems to be it's a new video from Osama.

SITE Intelligence Group said an Internet announcement of the plan included a photo of the al-Qaeda leader from the upcoming video — his beard, which in previous messages had been streaked with gray, was entirely dark.

[snip]

Another group that monitors Islamic Web sites said the video could come within the next 72 hours, or by Sunday. The prediction by Intelcenter, based in Alexandria, Va., would make the release of the video before the sixth anniversary of the terrorist attacks in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania.

Well, like we did last time, let's spend a lil' quality time with The Great Gazoogle ((c) Sadly, No! 2007) and see just who CNN, MSNBC and FAUX rely on.

First is the SITE Institute, "SITE" standing for "Search for International Terrorist Entities". Kind of cheesy, but not really actionable. The home page is VERY link- and graphic-intensive, and loads sluggishly, but maybe that's just me.

From the "Mission" page:

The SITE Institute is guided by the principle that everyone must understand our enemy in order to prevail in the war on terrorism. In addition to its research and investigative activities, SITE seeks to educate the public about the history, ideology, tactics, and methods of Islamic terrorists.

Well, seeing as terrorism has never been a phenomenon outside Islam...

Sourcewatch has this to say about the "Institute":

Accessed May 22, 2005:
The listed staff consists of two individuals, and the website seems to be an aggregator of publicly-available data on the internet, mostly consisting of current news items.
The Terrorism Library, on cusory investigation, looks to be a straight data scrape from the U.S. Department of State's Patterns of Global Terrorism - 2003, Appendix B.
The list of Terrorist Organisation websites consists of 5 groups:
Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade [3]; HAMAS (Islamic Resistance Movement) [4]; Hizballah (Party of God) [5]; and Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ) [6], all "confirmed" September 8, 2004, and Hamas military wing, Izza Deen al-Qassam [7], "confirmed" October 16, 2004.
The list of Publications often provides a very short synopsis of a news item, with a reference given for a translation from their premium service, other times they offer full mirrors of news items, poorly marked-up.

The there's IntelCenter. Once again a high graphic front page, complete with little flags to represent countries in lists of bombings and terror alert status. Once again, as with SITE, the situations listed are geared exclusively to Islamic terrorism. They'll even sell you DVDs of stock "Islamic terrorist" footage and al-Qaeda/Islamist videos. And official IntelCenter coffee mugs, suitable for drinking your morning java from while watching FAUX.

Here's the Sourcewatch info on IntelCenter:

Provider of Intelligence information and terrorist stock footage by subscription.

Searching among the many services offered one will find a vast array of "Jihadi" and "Al-Qaeda" videos along with a IntelCenter Database (ICD). For one easy payment of $995 US, you too can have the benefit of an "Incident Component," and "Identity Component," containing "profile data on individuals associated with terrorist and other threat actor groups." Not to mention, "The Group Component," focusing "on terrorist, rebel, and other similar organizations."

And that's maybe my problem with these kinds of sites. They're making money off helping the clowns at FAUX and CNN to promote the Islamic boogedyman (the "CORPORATE TERRORISM THREAT INTEL PACKAGE" at IntelCenter costs $3,299 per user per year). One would think maybe it would ultimately be cheaper to send a news staffer to college to learn Arabic so CNN, say, could do its own in-house translations. After all, as Sourcewatch points out, SITE is using nothing more than readily available news stories. Why the need for the outsourcing?

Are we really well served by the news media when they're evidently either paying over 3000 dollars a year for a linkpage, or relying on the friends of Michelle Malkin, Debbie Schlussel and LGF to "inform" us?

Let me guess -

When Sen. Craig announces his resignation today, it will feature something along the lines of "I could no longer do my job with the attention the media drew to me" or some such. It's not his fault he was arrested, after all - it was the media's fault for drawing attention to it.

UPDATE: Called it, pretty much:

“I am not gay. I never have been gay,” Craig said defiantly after a news conference Tuesday. He said he had kept the incident from aides, friends and family and pleaded guilty “in hopes of making it go away.”

He said Saturday he will pursue legal options to clear his name, but added that the effort “would be an unwanted and unfair distraction from my job and for my Senate colleagues.

“The people of Idaho deserve a senator who can devote 100 percent of his time and effort to the critical issues of our state and of our nation,” Craig said. “I have little control over what people choose to believe. But clearly my name is important to me, and my family is so very important also.”

Here's a guy who's elevated TEH GHEY into, in his own mind, being the worst, worst possible thing a human being could possibly be. And he knows he isn't the worst human being, ergo he can't POSSIBLY be TEH GHEY Q.E.D.

But, you know, people are always "overeacting" and pleading guilty to things they didn't do. Yup.