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In detail...
By Brad Friedman on 9/21/2004 9:35pm PT  




By Brad Friedman on 9/21/2004 9:25pm PT  

According to The Charleston Post and Courier, 40 percent of Army reservists have failed to report to duty at Fort Jackson as ordered.

Those who have not reported or applied for a delay or exemption will be considered deserters if they do not show up within seven days of the date they were told to report for duty, [Lt. Col. Burton L. Masters, spokesman for the Army's Human Resources Command] said.

Hmmm...if the reservists don't show up where ordered they will be considered deserters? Interesting.

But here's where it gets really interesting as blogged by Digby:

Many people believe that the fact that the president went AWOL during his time in the National Guard has set a bad example for those he has called to serve in Iraq today. They fail to see why they should be forced to do something the president used his influence and connections to avoid.

One Republican has spoken out:

The President's actions have had an intangible and coercive impact upon military personnel. To turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to it would be shame on us. The question soldiers and sailors ask is: I took an oath to swear to tell the truth. And I also took an oath to uphold the Constitution. How can this President take the same oath and not be truthful and remain in office? If I were to have done what the President did, I would be court-martialed.

You see, we also have to recognize that each of the services are recruiting young people all across the Nation. At boot camp they infuse these young people with the moral values of honor, courage and commitment, and they're teaching self-restraint, discipline and self- sacrifice. Military leaders are required to provide a good example to those young recruits, yet when they look up the chain of command, all the way to the Commander in Chief, they see a double standard at the top. Again, it is the President that sets the tone and tenor in the military, just as he does for law enforcement.

I believe the President has violated this sacred trust between the leaders and those of whom he was entrusted to lead. I also spoke in my presentation that it was the President's self-inflicted wounds that have called his own credibility into question not only in his decision making process, but with regard to security policies.

Oh wait. Pardon me. That was House Manager Steven Buyers speaking before the Senate during president Clinton's impeachment trial. A president getting a blow job obviously sets a very bad example for the troops. But, running out on your own military committment and then sending men and women to fight in a useless war overseas is a perfectly fine example and nobody in the military should ever think otherwise. My bad.

No. You're good, Digby. Nicely done.




...Starting to see any patterns yet?
By Brad Friedman on 9/21/2004 8:50pm PT  

Kicking demonstrators, pulling their hair, punching them in the face, beating them up in the name of Jesus, and now burning and vandalizing their property...for the second time.

Is there nothing Bush Supporters won't do? Just "spreading freedom", I guess.




By Brad Friedman on 9/21/2004 8:14pm PT  

While I found John Kerry's appearance on Letterman last night less than impressive, and largely a wasted opportunity, he seems to have more than made up for it today at my alma mater, NYU.

Here's a couple of notable paragraphs in a speech that was entirely notable. Especially in light of the smoke blown by Bush at the U.N. (speaking of wasted opportunities!) where he received a predictably unimpressed...well, downright chilly reception.

I'd encourage you to check out Kerry's whole speech today. Particularly you Bush fans who have no idea what Kerry really says about anything. So here's just a few on-the-money thoughts from him today:

"Today, President Bush tells us that he would do everything all over again, the same way. How can he possibly be serious? Is he really saying that if we knew there were no imminent threat, no weapons of mass destruction, no ties to Al Qaeda, the United States should have invaded Iraq? My answer is no --- because a commander in chief's first responsibility is to make a wise and responsible decision to keep America safe."
...
"He failed to tell the truth about the rationale for going to war. And he failed to tell the truth about the burden this war would impose on our soldiers and our citizens. By one count, the president offered 23 different rationales for this war."
...
"This president was in denial. He hitched his wagon to the ideologues who surround him, filtering out those who disagreed, including leaders of his own party and the uniformed military. The result is a long litany of misjudgments with terrible consequences. The administration told us we'd be greeted as liberators. They were wrong. They told us not to worry about looting or the sorry state of Iraq's infrastructure. They were wrong. They told us we had enough troops to provide security and stability, defeat the insurgents, guard the borders and secure the arms depots. They were wrong. They told us we could rely on exiles like Ahmed Chalabi to build political legitimacy. They were wrong. They told us we would quickly restore an Iraqi civil service to run the country and a police force and army to secure it. They were wrong. In Iraq, this administration has consistently over-promised and under-performed. This policy has been plagued by a lack of planning, an absence of candor, arrogance and outright incompetence. And the president has held no one accountable, including himself."

Mr. Bush, you got served.




Bush is up to at least 27 so far!
By Brad Friedman on 9/21/2004 4:24pm PT  

Responding to Kerry's remarks about Bush's "colossal failures of judgment" today Bush told reporters at the U.N., "My opponent has taken so many different positions on Iraq that his statements are hardly credible at all."

Well, alright Mr. "President", I guess we'll now have to take another look at the many wild and various positions you have dreamt up so far throughout this misadventure to justify your illegal, immoral, and wholly misguided war on Iraq.

Each time one justification became inoperative, you simply made up a new one! So here's John Aravosis' compiled list of 27 such reasons (so far) that you guys have offered to try and justify this foolish war.




Bias for their candidate hastily reworded moments later.
By Brad Friedman on 9/21/2004 1:07pm PT  

Perhaps it was the uncomfortable juxtaposition of the adjacent report about another American hostage killed today in Iraq. Or perhaps it was just one of those rare moments when Fox News realized the irony of one of their own front page headlines.

Either way, their website's original front page headline for their report on Bush's U.N. speech today was "A New Definition of Security" before it was hastily changed to the more on-message "Freedom Will Find a Way".

A new definition of security, indeed. Hopefully nobody noticed.

(Thanks to the sharp eye of home sick BRAD BLOG regular, Jaime, who did notice! Get well soon, Jaime!)




Watch out Iran!
By Brad Friedman on 9/21/2004 12:26pm PT  

Uh, oh. Looks like the Bush Administration may have learned all they need to know to start another new war. This time in Iran:

NEWSWEEK has learned that the CIA and DIA have war-gamed the likely consequences of a U.S. pre-emptive strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. No one liked the outcome. As an Air Force source tells it, "The war games were unsuccessful at preventing the conflict from escalating."

By this administration's standards, that's almost a guarantee that we're goin' in!

If things get much worse in Iraq or Bush's poll numbers start to slide, I'd say "Watch out, Mullahs! More 'Freedom' is on it's way!"

Bush/Cheney '04: Why change horsemen mid-apocalypse?




And his Lying Loyal Subjects Who Don't Seem to Mind.
By Brad Friedman on 9/21/2004 10:42am PT  

It's much easier to run for the White House when you have neither scruples, morals, or a conscience. The Right proves that every day.

The hypocrites that support George W. Bush have been breathless in their sycophantic rush to say "see I told ya so!" about the potential errors in part of Dan Rather's report. Predictably they go so far as to say that those errors somehow "prove what we've been saying all along" that somehow this demonstrates a "liberal bias" at CBS, and oh, while we're at it, the rest of the "mainstream media".

Happily, of course, they ignore the year long series of acknowledged incorrect and faulty reports of The New York Times who, under the byline of Judith Miller and others, and with the help of the Bush Administration and their discredited allies in the name of Ahmad Chalabi and friends, frightened the United States into an entire war over completely wrong and wholly disproven premises.

The New York Times was hardly alone, of course, who can ever forget the "accurate" reporting in The Washington Post like their Dec. 12, 2002 story, errantly aiding the run-up to war in their story headlined "U.S. Suspects Al Qaeda Got Nerve Agent From Iraqis; Analysts: Chemical May Be VX, And Was Smuggled Via Turkey"?

In other words, when the bias (accidental or otherwise) and faulty reporting ends up serving the desires of the Right --- and in the cases mentioned above, ironically, via the Right's other favorite whipping boys, the supposedly "liberal" New York Times and Washington Post --- you'll hear not a peep from the same folks who are simply "outraged" when an error occurs in a report whose information (true or otherwise) they don't like.

Need more proof? Where is the "outrage" and armchair amateur typographer's when it came to demonstrating that George W. Bush had used forged documents to make a case for war in his own State of the Union Address? The documents Bush used to suggest that Saddam was attempting to purchase uranium in Niger were long ago discovered to have been forgeries, and even acknowledged as such by the 9/11 Commission.

And yet, not a single amateur document specialist slash rightwing blogger seemed outraged over that mistake, by the "Commander-in-Chief", and one that also sent us on a path towards a mistaken war.

What, no self-righteous indignation over that one either?

And what of the story from just two days ago, screamed by Drudge and dutifully picked up and reported by both Rush and Sean that Drudge headlined "GIRL CRIES AFTER BUSH/CHENEY SIGN RIPPED BY THUGS..." The one with the picture of the poor little girl in tears on her father's shoulders after thugs in union t-shirts tore up her Bush/Cheney sign. The father, it turns out, who, in addition to happily making his six-year-old daughter cry so pictures could be taken, astoundingly, for the third election year in a row, was harrassed by "thugs" from the opposition party.

As it turns out those "thugs" were the father's other children. His sons. The story, which once run on Drudge will run everywhere else, was a fake.

None the less, the Rightwing D.C. rag The Washington Times picked it up and ran their own breathless and outraged feature on this fake story.

Haven't yet heard the wingnuts wailing and crying about the "outrageous" bias of Drudge and The Washington Times on the matter. How very strange.

Yesterday, Fox's "Campaign" Carl Cameron said that John Kerry, in a speech yesterday, called Bush "a warmonger who wants a perpetual state of war around the world". Well, Bush may be a proven warmonger, and he has suggested that we will now be in a perpetual state of war around the world. But the trouble is, John Kerry never said it. I wish he would. But he didn't.

Again, not so curiously perhaps, no outrage about the bias of Fox News from the Right.

I could, of course, go on and on pointing out one biased news report after another, based on fake information or simply out and out lies from the Right, in both Conservative media and the supposed (yet non-existant) "Liberal" media. From CNN's Bill Schneider who baselessly claimed on Sunday, with absolutely no evidence whatsoever, that Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda "would very much like to defeat President Bush" (an absurd suggestion if ever there was one) to newspaper after newspaper which, to this day, continue to quote "information" from the discredited "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" even now after nearly every one of their allegations has been proven false and/or baseless by official contemperaneous documents from the Military themselves.

No cries of "See! Look how biased the media is!" from the Right in regard to such every day occurences. Stop by Media Matters for America for an endless cataloging of such blatant anti-liberal, pro-conservative bias in every quarter of the media, not just the expected culprits, as updated every five minutes or so.

But, like the evidence of a mistaken War, waged for no good reason, or the 25 or so different and ever-changing ones that Bush has continually created to justify his actions once each previous justification became "inoperable", hard evidence is no match for an immoral, power-hungry group of rabid partisans willing to lie their way across the consciousness of the good, but largely too-busy-to-keep-up-with-this-bullshit American people.

Yes, there are a few Republicans and/or Conservatives who still have a conscience. Even the thinly disguised Conservative Bill O'Reilly has the decency to point out that CBS was most likely the victim of shabby reporting rather than any sort of malicious bias. But for the most part, for the winning-is-everything crowd on the Right, such honest admissions are a rarity, and rather off-message for the Bush worshipping, zombified opportunists.

So, on they press, lying their way to the White House. "Things are improving in Iraq", "Freedom is on the march", "America is safer" and "the Mainstream Media has a Liberal Bias". All without the blink of an eye or the blush of a conscience.

Meanwhile, the lies and or misleads of factually challenged Rightwingers have directly lead to the deaths of thousands of innocents across this globe during George W. Bush's Reign of Error. Far more than the number that perished on September 11th, 2001. And there is little doubt that thousands more will die via such lies before the cycle can balance itself out. All the while, Drudge, Rush, Sean, the Fox "News" team and all of their immoral admirers likely sleep well at night, albeit with a loaded pistol beneath their pillows to keep them safe should any God-loathing, America-hating "Liberals" break into their house at night and threaten the only thing they actually care about; Themselves.




Deadlines coming shortly!
By Brad Friedman on 9/20/2004 3:45pm PT  

Though the Pentagon has just made it much more difficult for U.S. Citizens overseas to register to vote this year (not military personnel mind you, just U.S. ex-patriots living overseas who are likely to vote againt Bush!), you can still get it done in time!

In 2000, six different states were decided by fewer than 8000 votes! Two of those states were deciced by less than 600 votes!

If you're living in the United States and you haven't registered yet, what are you waiting for?! The Republicans hope that you don't vote! Don't help them out!

The following links should take care of all registration needs! Click one of them NOW! Deadlines are now just days away! Bush will be defeated by turnout! But only if you do your civic duty this year!

Living overseas?
Click here to register to vote NOW via www.OverseasVote2004.com

Living in the US?
Click here to register to vote NOW via 'Rock the Vote'!

Living in the US in a "solid state" but going to school in a "swing state"?
Do what Dick Cheney did!
Register where your vote will count the most!
Click here to register to vote NOW via SwingStateVoter.com




...as of 9/20/04:
By Brad Friedman on 9/20/2004 3:26pm PT  

Attacks by Insurgents per day:
80 avg.

Cities and Towns in Hostile Hands:
36

U.S. Military Dead:
1,033

U.S. Military Amputees, Wounded, Injured & Psychologically Disabled,
All now evacuated from Iraq:
27,450 est.

Iraqi Civilians Killed:
20,600 est.

Iraqi Military Killed (by end of "major hostilities"):
28,000 est.

Total Iraqis Killed (Civilian and Military):
48,600 est.

Population of Iraq:
25 million

Killed in the US on 9/11:
2,973

Population of US:
293 million

Stockpiles of WMD's found in Iraq so far:
0

Sources: Iraq Coalition Casuality Count, U.S. Dept. of Defense, McLaughlin Group




By Brad Friedman on 9/20/2004 12:33pm PT  


CNN Admits It Cannot Prove Authenticity of Wolf Blitzer

In a shock announcement that will reverberate through broadcast journalism, CNN has acknowledged that it can no longer vouch for the authenticity of host Wolf Blitzer.

After months of being buffeted by accusations and speculation, CNN subjected Blitzer to a series of forensic tests over the weekend and determined that his beard is a polyfiber synthetic and his lack of affect was attributable to a defective chip insecurely fitted into his fliptop head.

"Though we regret learning Wolf Blitzer is animatronic," said CNN chief Bip Peterson, "this in no way undermines the integrity of the journalism he did for the network, or CNN's commitment to the reelection of George Bush."

Speculation now turns to CNN's Judy Woodruff, rumored for years to be a stick-figure pictogram, despite fierce denials from colleagues who claim to have ridden the elevator with her.

"Judy, Wolf, Larry King--none of them are real," says a former intern at the network who still has nightmares.

(From James Wolcott via BRAD BLOG tipster Bryan)




Another new BRAD BLOG Campaign Video Ad!
By Brad Friedman on 9/19/2004 3:26pm PT  

Yes, another Rightwingnut has pissed me off. This time the honor goes to that great American Christian, Jimmy Swaggert who was kind enough recently to remind us why the hell we've got to take our country back from the fundamentalist extremist goons that are turning America into everything it was designed NOT to be.

And so, another new BRAD BLOG video for you. Keep spreading the word, gang! And thanks for supporting the BRAD BLOG!

(If the downloads are slow, please check back soon, should be getting more hosts on board by tomorrow! Feel free to let me know if you are also able to host this video to spread the bandwidth demands! These things are getting very popular!)




By Brad Friedman on 9/19/2004 1:11pm PT  




By Brad Friedman on 9/19/2004 12:55pm PT  




Disaster in Iraq.
By Brad Friedman on 9/19/2004 12:34pm PT  

A few other pieces excerpted via today's "Today in Iraq", apparently one of the few places that bothers to deliver daily war news anymore.

In sum, listen to the experts. Those commanders on the ground, in the theater, or in the know, and who aren't running for anything...

Officer who rallied UK troops condemns 'cynical' Iraq war

British officer sounds off. “Colonel Tim Collins, the British commander whose stirring speech to his troops on the eve of the Iraq invasion was reportedly hung on a wall in the Oval Office by George Bush, has criticised the British and US governments over the war. The officer, who has now left the Army, condemned the lack of planning for the aftermath of the conflict and questioned the motives for attacking Iraq. He said abuses against Iraqi civilians were partly the result of ‘leaders of a country, leaders of an alliance' constantly referring to them as the ‘enemy ... rather than treating them as people.' This attitude was inevitably adopted by some soldiers on the ground, he said.”

Most senior US military officers now believe the war on Iraq has turned into a disaster on an unprecedented scale

No good options.

[A]ccording to the US military's leading strategists and prominent retired generals, Bush's war is already lost. Retired general William Odom, former head of the National Security Agency, told me: "Bush hasn't found the WMD. Al-Qaida, it's worse, he's lost on that front. That he's going to achieve a democracy there? That goal is lost, too. It's lost." He adds: "Right now, the course we're on, we're achieving Bin Laden's ends."

Retired general Joseph Hoare, the former marine commandant and head of US Central Command, told me: "The idea that this is going to go the way these guys planned is ludicrous. There are no good options. We're conducting a campaign as though it were being conducted in Iowa, no sense of the realities on the ground. It's so unrealistic for anyone who knows that part of the world. The priorities are just all wrong."

Jeffrey Record, professor of strategy at the Air War College, said: "I see no ray of light on the horizon at all. The worst case has become true. There's no analogy whatsoever between the situation in Iraq and the advantages we had after the second world war in Germany and Japan."

W Andrew Terrill, professor at the Army War College's strategic studies institute - and the top expert on Iraq there - said: "I don't think that you can kill the insurgency". According to Terrill, the anti-US insurgency, centred in the Sunni triangle, and holding several cities and towns - including Fallujah - is expanding and becoming more capable as a consequence of US policy.

"We have a growing, maturing insurgency group," he told me. "We see larger and more coordinated military attacks. They are getting better and they can self-regenerate. The idea there are x number of insurgents, and that when they're all dead we can get out is wrong. The insurgency has shown an ability to regenerate itself because there are people willing to fill the ranks of those who are killed. The political culture is more hostile to the US presence. The longer we stay, the more they are confirmed in that view."

As Josh Marshall said yesterday, "Bush on Iraq: Who you gonna believe? Me, or your lyin' eyes?"




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