From Reuters...

In a response just issued by OpTruth.org, "the nation's first and largest organization for Veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan," their Executive Director Paul Rieckhoff expressed disappointment in George W. Bush's just-completed Veterans' Day speech to troops in Pennsylvania.

"Those of us who fought in Iraq deserve to know why we became Veterans in the first place," Reickhoff said in a statement that went on to call for a "real investigation into prewar intelligence."

In a speech staged in front of military gear to an audience of enlisted men and women at the Tobyhanna Army Depot in Pennsylvania, Bush took the opportunity to take a few swipes at his political opposition. "Some Democrats and anti-war critics are now claiming we manipulated the intelligence and mislead the American people about why we went to war," Bush said before taking the opportunity to manipulate those listening with the Administration's latest misleading talking point to deflect criticism of their use of prewar intelligence.

As reported by AP...

"More than 100 Democrats in the House and the Senate who had access to the same intelligence voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power," Bush went on to say. Leaving out the nuance that the intelligence those Democrats were allowed to see was gathered and selected by the Administration's own intelligence agencies. He further failed to mention that the vote by Congress to give Bush the power to wage war, was based on promises to exhaust all diplomatic options before doing so.

Recent investigations into prewar intelligence, indeed, has not shown that the Administration applied pressure to intelligence agencies. However, the investigations that led to those reports specifically avoided examining the Administration's use (and/or misuse) of the intelligence available to them. The Senate Intelligence Committee, chaired by Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KA) had promised to look into those matters two years ago but, to date, have failed to do so. That failure resulted last week in Senate Minority Leader Harry Ried's (D-NV) invoking of Senate Rule 21 to force the Senate into a closed session in order to pressure the committee to deliver their promised investigation.

Rieckhoff, who gave up his job on Wall Street after 9/11 to join the active army in the "War on Terror," expressed disappointment at Bush's failure in his speech to support veterans by calling for a thorough investigation into the way intelligence was used to sell Congress and the American people on the war that they are now stuck fighting. "It's unfortunate," he said, "that the President doesn't think he owes that to the people who have been unwavering in their bravery while carrying out his plans.”

The Iraq War veteran, who led troops into Baghdad at the start of the war, is dismayed at Bush's lack of support for those who still fight the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan. "On Veterans' Day, the President spoke a lot about the reasons for the war in Iraq, but very little about how he plans to take care of the people fighting that war, and what the future holds for them."

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

More and more scattered voting problems are being reported. Of course, almost all are being blamed on people and not the machines. In some locations where they are using op-scan but elections officials want to use DREs there are complaints about how slow op-scans are. It's also very strange that Ohio's SoS has announced what a great success the machines were in his state while counties are reporting wide-spread problems and his deputy is promising to investigate problems in Lucas County. Diebold and AccuPoll have both put out press releases bragging about successful elections on their machines...

The mind boggles at how Fox "News" and the rest of the Rightwing Echosphere would attempt to destroy the lives and livelihoods of any Non-Rightwing clergymen or TV commentators were they to invite the wrath of God and/or al-Qaeda on Republican voters who didn't vote the way they would have preferred, but that's exactly what wingnuts Bill O'Reilly and Pat Robertson have done today.

O'Reilly welcomed al-Qaeda destruction of San Francisco, because their citizens had the temerity to vote against military recruitment in public high schools and colleges.

Robertson may have topped him, however, by warning citizens of Dover, Pennsylvania, not to ask for God's help in the case of disaster there. All because the rather intelligent voters of Dover tossed out all eight school board members who were up for re-election last Tuesday after they'd tried to force the teaching of "Intelligent Design" in public school science classes.

On his radio show today, as reported by Media Matters, the smear merchant and media mogul O'Reilly spun last Tuesday's rejection by the voters of San Francisco of military recruiters in their public schools as worthy of denial of all federal funds, and even the destruction of the entire city by al-Qaeda [emphasis added]:

Meanwhile, as CNN reported today, man of God and "conservative" "Christian" Pat Robertson warned Dover, PA residents not to be surprised if disaster stikes them since they chose to express their will at the voting booth that Science classes should teach science, not religious theory. If disaster does strike, Robertson warned, the citizens of Dover shouldn't turn to God for any help:

We're reminded of all the wingnuts who declared Democrats "cry babies" after the Presidential Elections in 2000 (and again in 2004) simply because they felt that all the votes should actually be counted, and the winner of the election should be the candidate who ended up with the most votes. In contrast now, we've got elections with decisive losses to the wingnuts' initiatives and candidates and in return they order up hopes for destruction and annihilation for entire cities --- presumably even for the voters in those cities who voted the way they would have wanted them to.

We'd love to call folks like O'Reilly and Robertson sore losers and cry-babies, but that seems rather trite given how morally loathesome and reprehensible in fact they actually seem to be.

UPDATE 11/12/05: Despite his cursing me, Joseph Cannon has, as usual, some worthwhile thoughts on all of the above.

Isikoff and Hosenball are reporting in NEWSWEEK today that the CIA had raised doubts about the information that the Bush Administration (and indeed Bush, himself) relied on to sell the War on Iraq to the American People and to Congress.

The newly uncovered CIA document seems to echo a DIA document previously released that similarly expressed doubts about the information received from Al Qaeda detainee, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi who recanted his claims that Iraq was training Al Qaeda members. That, however, didn't keep the Bush Administration from using the bad intelligence anway...

Lots of meat in the piece, but the following graf speaks to those wingnuts who still enjoy describing Harry Reid's invokation of Senate Rule 21 last week as "a stunt" after two years have passed without Sen. Pat Robert's (R-KA) promised investigation into the Administration's use and/or mis-use of prewar intel matters [emphasis added]:

They all sound like good questions to us and about which the American People and Congress deserve answers...as the wars...all of them...rage on.

This is a day or two old, but I'm in the mood for a bit of lighter fare at the moment after the last couple of days of various mayhem, so I thought I'd share it with you. From yesterday's LA Times account of Charles and Camilla's visit to San Francisco...

If the news was like this every day, I could retire.

(Hat tip to Desi, who just can't get enough of those lovable royals...and the Schultzes)

Arnold's personally-declared Special Election (only the fifth one ever in history of state) was a multi-million dollar disaster for the Governator. Fortunately, California has plenty of money to spend on such larks, so no harm done just because every measure on the ballot was rejected. Every. Single. One.

Busy day today otherwise, so I'll throw it open to your thoughts on yesterday's election.

And a request to you folks in Ohio: Why do you suppose the Election Reform Initiatives failed so soundly in your state, while anti-Republican candidates and measures did so well every where else in the country? Is it because Ohio really really likes the way their elections have been handled up until now by SoS J. Kenneth Blackwell? Also, did you vote on Ohio's brand-spanking new Diebold Accuvote TSx machines (the ones that California's Sec. of State rejected because they failed 20% of the time in a recent massive mock election test)?

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of Voters Unite.org

(NOTE FROM BRAD: I've asked John to post VotersUnite.org's excellent "Daily Voting News", a comprehensive list of the days major election and voting related stories, directly on BRAD BLOG each day. He's agreed to do so. And today's busy Election Day seems a great day to start. The articles that John chooses to include in the DVN are not necessarily opinions that we agree with, but rather, they're meant as a comprehensive listing of the each day's major Voting-related news, no matter which side of the political aisle they may fall on. I'd like to thank both John and Ellen Theissen, of VotersUnite.org for agreeing to share the listings each day with BRAD BLOG readers!)

Today has been a normally busy election day. There have been spotty problems reported in the media all over the country. Of course, almost every machine failure/error has been blamed on the voter or poll worker...

Due to a problem with Electronic Voting Machines in Los Angeles County, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was told he had already voted when he showed up at the polls today to cast his ballot in the Special Election that he himself declared for California today!

He was told he'd have to use a provisional ballot, but unlike most American voters, he was eventually allowed to use a regular ballot anyway.

Los Angeles County Registrar, Conny McCormack (a huge fan of Diebold machines, and a very good friend of their sales rep here in Southern California) is trying to mitigate the damage...big time...Though she admits that someone "breached protocol in advance of the election"

It should be further noted, that the Governator was attempting to vote in Brentwood (in Los Angeles County), but the "breach" --- which would have kept a normal non-Gubernatorial citizen from voting on anything but a provisional ballot --- occurred in Pasadena, about a 30 to 45 minute drive from Brentwood. Early voting, on paperless Diebold Touch-Screen Voting Machines, has been occurring in Los Angles County for the last several weeks.

From Los Angeles Times... [emphasis added]

(Thanks to John Gideon of www.votersunite.org for alerting us about this one!)

CORRECTION: The original version of this article had said that Schwarzenegger had voted in Sacramento. Schwarzenegger had, in fact, voted at his Brentwood precinct, which is in Los Angeles County. The BRAD BLOG regrets the error.

From Dayton Daily News... [emphasis added]

From WDBJ7... (video report included at link):

From the Toledo Blade...

Over the last 48 hours or so, the newest front of attack by the Republican Attack Dogs on behalf of the Bush Administration has become quite clear.

To defend against the indefensible leaking of the identify of a covert CIA operative in the TreasonGate affair, it is now clear that the Rightwing has begun an offensive to try and attack the CIA in order to define them as a "rogue agency" who was out to get the Bushies from the get-go.

The insinuation has been made quite clear over the last few days with coordinated lock-step efforts via newspapers, blogs, talk radio and congressional action to attempt to discredit the CIA. The latest strategy is now seen dropping unsupported accusations across the media spectrum to the effect that the intelligence agency's assignment of Ambassador Joseph Wilson to look into the now-discredited Iraq/Niger/uranium claims were all part of a long-term insidious scheme to try and discredit the Bush Administration.

Yesterday, I wrote about Carol Platt Liebau's recent efforts at HuffPo to fight back on behalf of the Bushies by attacking the CIA's motives in both sending Wilson on the mission and in releasing the information that they had requested a DoJ investigation into the outting of his wife Valerie's identify as a covert CIA op.

Liebau did little more in a blog item yesterday at HuffPo, titled "A 'Rogue Agency'" than copy and paste directly from an op/ed by Deborah Orin on these matters from the Rupert Murdoch-owned NY Post.

My reply to Liebau's article has yet to be posted on HuffPo. I'll update this item with the link once it's posted over there.

Today, Liebau is at it again. This time, she copies and pastes from an article from the wingnut Powerline blog, with further questions about the CIA's motives for the Wilson assignment and the recent information revealed by Washington Post concerning secret CIA prisons overseas.

Meanwhile, both talk radio and congress has also joined in the rightwing fatwa against the CIA.

Editor & Publisher is reporting today that Senator Bill Frist and House Speaker Dennis Hastert have requested a congressional inquiry into "the leaking of classified information" which led to the article about secret al-Qaeda prisons run by the CIA in Europe. RAW STORY has obtained the actual letter requesting the inquiry by Frist and Hastert.

This morning, Rush Limbaugh continued the lockstepped new front in the war to salvage the Bush Administration by spending the first several hours of his radio show blasting the CIA for the exact same issues discussed by Liebau, Orin, Powerline Blog, Frist and Hastert.

He also let slip that "you won't be hearing George W. Bush speak about this directly," as if to indicate that this is "a war" to be carried out by Bush's advocates in the media so that Bush himself can remain above "the fray" while his sycophants carry out his dirty work for him.

What the effectiveness of this new P.R. effort will be remains to be seen. But when the wingnuts all get together and march from the same page of the same rulebook, the propoganda effect on the nation has proven to be very effective. Unfortunately, the Left simply doesn't have the same kind of organized media network that the Right does in order to effectively and quickly rebut such a coordinated all-out attack.

But at least you now know about it. Make no mistake: The effort to fight back by directly attacking the messengers --- in this case, the CIA (along with those of us who dare point out what really occurred in the TreasonGate matter) has now become very clear. It will be yet another phony war. This time, the CIA vs The Bush Administration.

UPDATE: Inquiry into who leaked info on secret prisons may bite Republicans in the ass. Trent Lott reports that it was a leak by a Republican after a meeting held recently with Dick Cheney and Republican Senators. Says Lott, "He was up here last week and talked up here in that room right there in a roomful of nothing but senators and every word that was said in there went right to the newspaper." RAW STORY has more...

Catching up on a few items from over the weekend that I didn't get to as I took the opportunity to take a few hours off here and there... (what was I thinking?!)...

Much more to come this week, of course. Especially with elections set for tomorrow in various states around the country, including a "Special Election" that Arnold has called out here to push through a bunch of initiatives to consolidate his power, and by-pass the Democratic state house in California...