A new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq is scheduled to be completed this month. Yet intelligence officials are still debating whether or not to make the key judgments public, as they did with the most recent report on Iran.

During today’s White House press briefing, a reporter asked spokeswoman Dana Perino whether the White House supports keeping the new NIE classified. Perino said that the decision will ultimately be up to the intelligence community, but added, “Obviously, this White House has been very forthcoming in putting forward NIEs, as we’ve all been familiar with over the past several years.” Watch it:

In reality, however, the White House has been less than forthcoming with the NIEs. Some highlights:

– In an internal memo last October, DNI Mike McConnell said that he believes NIEs “should not be declassified.” [Link]

– Vice President Cheney’s office attempted to manipulate the last NIE on Iran. A draft was reportedly completed in 2006, but the White House rejected it because it contained dissenting views. A former intelligence officer said, “They refused to come out with a version that had dissenting views in it.” [Link]

– Regarding the most recent NIE on Iran, former CIA officer Philip Giraldi said that “intelligence analysts have had to review and rewrite their findings three times, because of pressure from the White House.” [Link]

– After the key judgments of the Iran NIE were declassified, the White House quickly attempted to discredit them. In meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Bush said that the NIE’s conclusions on Iran “didn’t reflect his own views.” [Link]

– Prior to the Iraq war, the Air Force, Energy Department, and State Department all issued dissenting views on the state of Iraq’s progress towards a nuclear program. The White House, however, ignored these views and pushed inaccurate stories about Iraq’s alleged WMD. [Link, Link, Link]

Transcript: Read more

Samantha Power is a Pulitzer Prize winning author, and a brilliant and original thinker and advocate for the intelligent deployment of American power in order to build a more just and humane world. But she’s supporting Barack Obama, she made a gaffe, she promptly and rightly apologized, and then she resigned. And now this afternoon, the Clinton campaign has continued to push out Power-bashing material in order to prove, I guess, that there’s nothing and nobody they won’t try to destroy if they think that will provide them with some slender additional shot at getting themselves and their clique back in power. It’s a bit disgusting.

Also on this point, I join Kriston Capps in puzzlement over Dana Goldstein’s view that “Power’s comments promoted an awful stereotype of a female leader as someone who is inhumanly calculating, with no core beliefs.” This strikes me as close to expressing the view that the feminist position is that criticism of Hillary Clinton is, as such, sexist. “Monster,” as Kriston says, isn’t a gendered term and accusing one’s political opponent of a lack of principle is incredibly common. On top of that, the Clintons have actually spent a fair amount of time promoting the idea that they have a ruthless approach to politics. Democratic primary voters are supposed to want a ruthless leader to take on John McCain. But they turn that same ruthlessness against progressive leaders (and, indeed, principles if we recall Ricky Ray Rector and 1995-98), too, when it suits their purposes.

Last month, hard-line conservative Pastor John Hagee, founder of Christians United for Israel, announced his support for Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) candidacy for president. Despite Hagee’s numerous bigoted remarks — including his claim that the Catholic church is “the Great Whore” and a “false cult system” — McCain said that he was “very honored” by the endorsement.

McCain is continuing his tradition of courting the bigoted right-wing fringe. This afternoon, McCain addressed the Council for National Policy (CNP) in New Orleans in a “make-or-break pitch” for support from the secretive, ultra-conservative group that describes itself as a “self-selected, conservative counterweight” against “liberal domination of the American agenda.” McCain advisor Charlie Black said McCain “was anxious to appear” in front of the group.

CNP was founded in 1981 by Rev. Tim LaHaye, “an early Christian conservative organizer and the best-selling author of the ‘Left Behind’ novels about an apocalyptic Second Coming,” and fellow Christian conservative Paul Weyrich. Like Hagee, the group and its members have at times expressed and encouraged radical and intolerant views:

– LeHaye once said that Catholicism is a “false religion” and called popes “antichrists.”

– Weyrich has claimed that CNP is a group of “radicals working to overturn the present power structure in this country.”

– A speaker received a standing ovation at one CNP meeting when he suggested that AIDS was a sign from God that homosexuality was an “abomination.”

Because the group is shrouded in secrecy, its official roster is unknown. However, in 1998, the Institute for First Amendment Studies obtained a CNP member list, which contained many right-wing Christian leaders who have a history of extremist remarks, including Pat Robertson, James Dobson and the late Jerry Falwell.

McCain is no stranger to pandering to the extreme religious right when it suits his political needs. In a 2000 speech, he referred to Falwell and Robertson as “agents of intolerance.” Yet he repudiated that remark in 2006 and later delivered a commencement address at Falwell’s Liberty University.

UPDATE: McCain has now “repudiate[d]” Hagee’s past remarks about Catholics but still seemingly accepts his endorsement.

On his radio show today, conservative talker Glenn Beck mocked ThinkProgress for noting the fact that he asked controversial pastor John Hagee this week if Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) “might be the Anti-Christ.” Beck says it was not “a serious question” because he was “laughing all the way through it,” but it was “so very predictable” that he would be criticized for it:

Well, here’s the best part, because what picked this up originally was, I don’t even know, ThinkProgress. It’s a blog. ThinkProgress, yes. Let’s ThinkProgress. Do you know Progressive has “Progress” in it? It must be good. ThinkProgress is the first that picked this up on the blogs. They’re like, Glenn Beck thinks that maybe…

Watch it:

Beck may think he was telling a joke, but we doubt that Obama was “laughing all the way through it.”

New York Times reporter Philip Shenon’s new book — The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation — paints a damning portrait of Condoleezza Rice. Shenon argues that Rice was “uninterested in actually advising the President,” but was instead more concerned with being his “closest confidante — specifically on foreign policy — and to simply translate his words into action.”

Today’s Sydney Morning Herald prints an extract from Shenon’s book which provides further details about Rice’s incompetence. “Emails from the National Security Council’s counter-terrorism director, Richard Clarke, showed that he had bombarded Rice with messages about terrorist threats” before 9/11, Shenon writes. Some examples:

“Bin Ladin Public Profile May Presage Attack” (May 3)

“Terrorist Groups Said Co-operating on US Hostage Plot” (May 23)

“Bin Ladin’s Networks’ Plans Advancing” (May 26)

“Bin Ladin Attacks May Be Imminent” (June 23)

“Bin Ladin and Associates Making Near-Term Threats” (June 25)

“Bin Ladin Planning High-Profile Attacks” (June 30)

“Planning for Bin Ladin Attacks Continues, Despite Delays” (July 2)

But 9/11 Commission staff director Philip Zelikow was not interested in pursuing criticisms against Rice. Zelikow — who had worked closely with Rice on the Bush transition team in 2000 and 2001 — “made it clear to the team’s investigators that Clarke should not be believed, that his testimony would be suspect.”

When 9/11 Commission historian Warren Bass uncovered a smoking gun email from Clarke to Rice written on September 4, 2001, which asked, “Are we serious about dealing with the al-Qaeda threat?,” Zelikow reverted to defending Condi.

Months later, Bass threatened to resign over what Shenon calls Zelikow’s repeated “attempts at interference”:

“I cannot do this,” Bass declared… “Zelikow is making me crazy.”

He was outraged by Zelikow and the White House; Bass felt the White House was trying to sabotage his work by its efforts to limit his ability to see certain documents from the NSC files and take useful notes from them. … Bass made it clear to colleagues that he believed Zelikow was interfering in his work for reasons that were overtly political – intended to shield the White House, and Rice in particular, from the commission’s criticism.

The former weapons inspector in Iraq — David Kay — passed word to the 9/11 Commission that he believed Rice was the “worst national security adviser” in the history of the job.

UPDATE: This post has been corrected to note that Bass’ resignation threat came “months” after discovering the Sept. 4 memo.

Republican nominee John McCain gets really pissed off when asked questions about his flirtations with running as John Kerry’s VP:

Very strange for him to get so huffy. Everyone knows he was close to accepting the offer, everyone knows he was close to switching parties in 2001, and everyone knows that he spent a lot of time in between thinking about an independent bid for the White House. Heck, the essence of the guy’s appeal is precisely that he’s not much of a GOP loyalist.

The AP reports:

The Federal Reserve reported Friday that consumer credit increased at an annual rate of 3.3 percent in January. That was up from a 1.8 percent growth rate in December and marked the fastest pace since November.

The pickup in January pushed up total consumer debt by $6.9 billion to $2.52 trillion. That was on target with economists’ expectations.

The increase in borrowing was led by heavier use of revolving credit, primarily credit cards. Demand for revolving credit rose at a 7 percent pace in January. That was up from a 2.8 percent growth rate in December.

More on the credit crisis here.