after swearing, walking off set.
Rick Santorum…Enemy?
Donald Rumsfeld, remarks to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council, 8/4/05:
How should we define the enemy? Well, Al Qaida is one face of the terrorists. And they deny women the opportunity to participate in society. One has to ask, How could any society hope to succeed while denying half of its population the opportunity to participate?
VERSUS
Rick Santorum, It Takes A Family:
In far too many families with young children, both parents are working, when, if they really took an honest look at the budget, they might find they don’t both need to What happened in America so that mothers and fathers who leave their children in the care of someone else – or worse yet, home alone after school between three and six in the afternoon – find themselves more affirmed by society. Here, we can thank the influence of radical feminism, one of the core philosophies of the village elders Sadly the propaganda campaign launched in the 1960s has taken root. The radical feminists succeeded in undermining the traditional family and convincing women that professional accomplishments are the key to happiness.
Breaking: Novak Explodes Live on CNN
Just now on CNN’s Inside Politics, in the midst of a ho-hum discussion about Katherine Harris’ Senate race:
Novak: Just let me finish what I’m going to say, James, please. I know you hate to hear me —
Carville: He’s got to show these right-wingers that he’s got a back bone, ya know? Wall Street Journal editorial page is watching. You show ‘em you’re tough…
Novak: You know I think that’s bullshit. And I hate that. Just let it go.
Novak removes his microphone and walks off the set.
Update I: Novak Was About to Be Asked About Leak The Inside Politics host ended the Carville/Novak segment saying, “Thanks, James Carville. And I’m sorry as well that Bob Novak left the set a little early. I had told him in advance that we were going to ask about the CIA leak case, he was not here for me to be able to ask him about that. Hopefully, we’ll be able to ask him about that in the future.”
Update II: Media Matters has the video.
Update III: Flashback to the first time Ed Henry challenged Novak to talk about the Plame leak, on June 29. Novak wasn’t very happy then, either: Read more
Columnist: Clinton is Responsible for Palmeiro’s Steriod Problem
Why did Rafael Palmerio take steroids? It’s Bill Clinton’s fault!
Emmett Tyrrell, editor of the right-wing American Spectator, explains:
President Bill Clinton executed his presidential tasks exuberantly day in and day out while retaining subpoenaed documents from prosecutors, coaching witnesses to deceive and lying brazenly to his staff and the public. He compartmentalized, and to this day, there are public figures who admire his sang-froid…
Palmeiro is one of Clinton’s finest students. Under oath before a Congressional Committee on March 17, he declared: “I have never used steroids. Period. I do not know how to say it more clearly than that. Never.” He too glared and pointed his finger emphatically. Now that he is suspended after that failed test, he argues with Clintonian indefatigability: “I have never intentionally used steroids. Never. Ever. Period.”
It’s odd that Tyrrell tries to connect Palmeiro to Clinton. After all, Palmeiro and his wife gave George W. Bush $8,000 for his 2004 campaign. And it’s Bush, who, even after Palmerio tested positive, still believes Palmerio never took steriods.
“Scooter” Libby was the source
on at least four occasions for Judith Miller’s pre-war Iraq WMD stories, Murray Waas says.
Attack In Iraq Underscores Need for Better Equipment
The deadly roadside attack by insurgents yesterday in Iraq leaving 14 U.S. Marines dead identified a persisting weakness in the Bush administration’s post-war Iraq efforts: the inability to provide up-armored vehicles to all our troops in Iraq.
The AP reports that the 14 Marines were riding in a “lightly armored vehicle.” This description indicates the Marines were not equipped with the many varieties of up-armored vehicles which were specifically designed to provide the best protection available against roadside bombs. The Marine Corps Inspector General recently concluded that “a quarter of the Second Marine Expeditionary Force’s Humvees lack sufficient armor to protect troops against roadside bombings.”
In June, the New York Times reported that one of the most heavily equipped humvees, the M1117 (the so-called “Rhino Runner”), lost its funding prior to the invasion of Iraq, and the Defense Department has been excruciatingly slow to reallocate the necessary funding. While Secretary Rumsfeld was equipped with the Rhino on a recent trip to Iraq, soldiers are still driving around in largely-unprotected vehicles. As proof of the Rhino’s abilities, the Times wrote:
Last fall, for instance, a Rhino traveling the treacherous airport road in Baghdad endured a bomb that left a six-foot-wide crater. The passengers walked away unscathed. “I have no doubt should I have been in any other vehicle,” wrote an Army captain, the lone military passenger, “the results would have been catastrophically different.“
Is Roberts Reluctant to Overturn Precedent?
In a recent New Yorker profile, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) takes heart in the responses that Supreme Court nominee John Roberts gave when asked about overturning Court precedent:
Roberts, in Reid’s view, left no doubt that he would be very reluctant to overturn precedents. To do so, Roberts had said, the Court would first have to consider a series of objective criteria, two of which stood out: whether a precedent fostered stability in the nation; and the extent to which society had come to rely on an earlier ruling, even a dubious one.
Unfortunately, Roberts’ responses are now being heralded as an indication of where he stands on Roe v Wade, the landmark Supreme Court case that ensured a woman’s right to privacy. However, according to conservatives, Roe v Wade actually meets the two criteria that jumped out at Reid: Read more
The Global Struggle Against a Consistent Message
Last week, there was a big buzz about a little name change. On Tuesday, the New York Times reported that, after lengthy consideration, the Bush administration would stop referring to the “global war on terror” (GWOT) and start talking about the much cuddlier “global struggle against violent extremism” (GSAVE):
In recent speeches and news conferences, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and the nation’s senior military officer have spoken of “a global struggle against violent extremism” rather than “the global war on terror,” which had been the catchphrase of choice. Administration officials say that phrase may have outlived its usefulness, because it focused attention solely, and incorrectly, on the military campaign.
But then there was this Monday’s Homeland Security Meeting, in which President Bush criticized the switch, going so far as to say that “no one had checked” with him before deciding on the change. (This admission reportedly led to a rather awkward silence.) And now, this morning’s papers report on a speech the president gave yesterday in which he publicly overruled his senior advisers, further distancing himself from the new slogan (he used it zero times) and referring to the GWOT five times. “Make no mistake about it,” Bush insisted; “we are at war.”
Glad to see that the administration is showing a unified front.
– Conor Clarke
