In an editorial on Monday, a group of military publications — the Army Times, Air Force Times, Navy Times, and Marine Corps Times — will call on Rumsfeld to resign: “It is one thing for the majority of Americans to think Rumsfeld has failed. But when the nation’s current military leaders start to break publicly with their defense secretary, then it is clear that he is losing control of the institution he ostensibly leads.”
Cheney on Iraq: “full speed ahead
…we’ve got the basic strategy right.” Cheney added, “It may not be popular with the public — it doesn’t matter…We’re not running for office.”
‘Vanishing’ Pelosi To Appear At Multiple Public Rallies Tomorrow
The right-wing media — including Matt Drudge, Rush Limbaugh, and Fox News — have launched a baseless campaign (already picked up by MSNBC) suggesting that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has gone into hiding before Tuesday’s election.
Here’s an image from Fox News moments ago:
In fact, as ThinkProgress has documented, Pelosi has been featured in numerous public and media appearances recently. Two days ago, she appeared at a public rally with former President Clinton, portions of which aired on television, and in a feature interview on CNN. She also appeared in interviews on CNBC’s Kudlow & Company on 10/24, ABC’s Good Morning America and ABC’s World News Tonight on 10/26, and conducted interviews for profiles in the New York Times (10/30), Newsweek (10/23), and the Baltimore Sun (10/27).
Nancy Pelosi will continue to be in “hiding” throughout the weekend, appearing at numerous public rallies (though Pelosi has indicated that if her daughter gives birth to her sixth grandchild this weekend, she will leave the campaign trail). Here’s where she’ll be tomorrow:
1:30 p.m. Rally with Leader Pelosi, candidate Joe Sestak, Vice President Gore, and Governor Rendell in Radnor, PA
3:00 p.m. Rally with Leader Pelosi, candidates Lois Murphy and Bob Casey, Senator Obama, and Governor Rendell in Norristown, PA
4:30 p.m. Rally with Leader Pelosi candidate Patrick Murphy, Senator Obama, and Governor Rendell in Glenside, PA
Prominent neocons say Iraq was a strategic blunder.
Former chairman of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee Richard Perle and former Pentagon insider Kenneth Adelman tell Vanity Fair that they blame the “dysfunctional” Bush administration for the “disaster” in Iraq and say that if they had it to do over again they would not advocate an invasion.
Incompetence Everywhere
Neocon war advocates including Kenneth “Cakewalk” Adelman concede the Iraq War is a disaster, blame Bush’s incompetence. This is what it comes to. We’re all supposed to believe that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Steven Hadley, Paul Wolfowitz, Doug Feith, etc., etc., etc., are just random freaks of nature. Nothing they or their other subordinates have done in office or the fact that everything they’ve done has worked out terribly is in any way supposed to reflect on the wider conservative movement.
Suffice it to say I find this all very unconvincing. These guys aren’t repentant hawks, they’re in denial.
AUDIO: Reynolds Criticizes ‘National Media People’ For Focus On Iraq
This morning in a taped interview on NPR, Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep repeatedly asked Rep. Tom Reynolds (R-NY) if “there needs to be some significant change in the way that the United States approaches Iraq.”
Each time, Reynolds refused to give a straight answer, stating only that “‘the commander in chief is the president,’ and that Congress has a responsibility for ‘oversight.’ Pressed for details of what should be done, he blamed ‘national media people like you’ for focusing on Iraq.”
After Inskeep’s fifth attempt to get Reynolds to comment on President Bush’s stay-the-course policy, Reynolds abruptly ended the conversation, stating, “Is there any more you have? Because I’m about to walk into another meeting.”
The Iraq war is not an issue that is important to just “national media people” in Washington. In the latest CBS/NYTimes poll, voters identified Iraq as the single-most important issue. It garnered four times as much interest as immigration, the second most important issue.
Full transcript below: Read more
Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) set to finally resign.
“Rep. Bob Ney, facing certain expulsion from the House after being convicted of two felonies in relation to the Jack Abramoff scandal, said on Friday he will resign by the end of the day,” CQ reports. “Ney, who pleaded guilty Oct. 13 to making false statements and conspiracy to commit fraud, is the first member of Congress to be convicted as part of the wide-ranging Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal.”
Mainstream media pick up Drudge fiction.
Media Matters has the details.
MSNBC:
NORA O’DONNELL: What about Nancy Pelosi? We were just showing pictures. She would be the speaker — likely be the speaker of the House if Democrats win control. Where’s she been the last week?
Fox News:
STEVE DOOCY: Have you noticed we really haven’t seen much of Nancy Pelosi?
BRIAN KILMEADE (co-host): Nowhere.
Feldman-bashing
Bob Wright and Henry Farrell eviscerate the Noah Feldman article on Iran that so upset me earlier. Thinking about this more, it’s worth saying that Feldman’s is far from the worst article that’s appeared on this issue. What makes it so troubling is that even though it doesn’t reach a Weekly Standard level of egregiousness, it appeared in The New York Times Magazine and seems to me to represent a kind of creepy hawk infiltration of mainstream opinion. As Farrell says, “he’s trying to establish a case not by argument, but by innuendo” and he’s doing it in a publication whose audience I imagine is mostly liberal and will probably regard the source as credible.
Haggard says he bought meth from male prostitute.
The right-wing evangelist also acknowledged that he received a massage from the prostitute, but denied that they had sex. Haggard said he never used the drugs.
[flv http://video.thinkprogress.org/2006/11/ted.320.240.flv]
