Think Progress

Larry King mocks conservatives for claiming 9/11 was Clinton’s fault.»

Larry King — CNN’s usually mild-mannered and non-confrontational host — took umbrage last night when his guest, conservative radio talker Larry Elder, tried to blame Bill Clinton for 9/11. “It’s Bill’s fault? … George Bush had nothing to do with this, then?” King asked. When Elder and King’s other conservative guest — Ben Stein — persisted in blaming Clinton, King said, “It happened on the Republicans’ watch. … It didn’t happen on Clinton’s watch.” King then began to mock the conservative guests, saying, “I’m totally lost — your history’s better than mine. I’m lost. I thought it was during the Bush administration.” He concluded by directing this sarcastic comment at Elder:

KING: You know something? You’re better than me. You know when it was planned. All the guys who planned it are dead. They’re dead on a plane, you know when. You interviewed them during the flight.

Watch it:

Palin didn’t like Hillary Clinton’s ‘perceived whine.’»

During a Newsweek Women & Leadership Event in Los Angeles last March, Sarah Palin said this about Hillary Clinton:

I say this with all due respect to Hillary Clinton…but when I hear a statement like that coming from a woman candidate with any kind of perceived whine about that excess criticism or you know maybe a sharper microscope put on her, I think you know that doesn’t do us any good – women in politics, women in general wanting to progress this country.

Watch it:

Newsweek writes that Palin “felt kind of bad she couldn’t support a woman, but she didn’t like Clinton’s ‘whining.’” More from Greg Sargent.

Poll: 55 percent of Americans support Israeli strike on Iran.»

A recent poll released by the Israel Project claims that 55 percent of Americans would approve of the “United States and its allies making targeted conventional military strikes against Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities.” That number rises to 63 percent if economic and diplomatic sanctions fail and Iran acquires nuclear capability. The Israel Project released the findings at a press conference this week with pollster Frank Luntz, who suggested that the reason for the high numbers was simply that “Iran scares people.” Still, there was a great deal of support for diplomacy, “with 62 percent saying an ‘opportunity for a diplomatic solution still exists.’”

‘I Have A Dream’»

Forty-five years ago, Martin Luther King Jr. inspired a nation with these famous words: “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’ … I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” Watch it:

Forty-five years later, though still incomplete, America has moved gradually towards realizing King’s dream. In Denver tonight, Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) will become the first African-American to accept the presidential nomination of a major party.

Day three of Democratic convention drew more than 24 million viewers.»

Neilsen reports, “More than 24 million people watched the third night of the 2008 Democratic National Convention — a 7.5% decrease from 26 million viewers on day two of the convention. … In comparison to day three of the 2004 convention, which drew almost 18 million viewers, the audience for day three of the 2008 convention was still significantly larger (up by a third to 24 million viewers).”

Amnesty International brings Gitmo to St. Paul.»

“Guantanamo Bay is coming to St. Paul,” courtesy of Amnesty International. The human rights group is bringing their “live-size model of a maximum security Guantanamo Bay cell” to the Twin Cities. Visitors will be encouraged to experience the cell and push the Bush administration to shut down Guantanamo. Some details about the exhibit:

The cell is a replica of a Camp 5 cell. It brings to life the harsh realities of illegal detention to concerned citizens and highlights the human rights violations that Guantanamo symbolizes. The cell includes a steel toilet, florescent lights and a sliding metal door. Detainees reported being held in isolation in similar cells for as long as 23 hours.

2008 GOP platform calls for total ban on embryonic stem cell research.»

The 2008 Republican platform calls for “a ban on all embryonic stem-cell research, public or private.” The 2004 platform followed Bush’s policy of limiting federal funding for a restricted number of stem cell lines. The National Review’s Stephen Spruiell writes that the new platform language will read: “We call for a ban on human cloning and a ban on the creation of or experimentation on human embryos for research purposes.”

Flashback: Biden on 9/10/01 warned the ‘real threat’ may come in ‘the belly of a plane’»

Before 9/11, the Bush administration’s national security focus was on missile defense, not terrorism. In fact, on 9/11, then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice was set to deliver a speech that focused “largely on missile defense.” Writing at the Huffington Post, Joe Cirincione — president of the Ploughshares Fund — recalls this quote from Sen. Joseph Biden (D-DE) on Sept. 10, 2001, warning against the Bush administration’s approach:

We will have diverted all that money to address the least likely threat while the real threats come into this country in the hold of a ship, or the belly of a plane, or are smuggled into a city in the middle of the night in a vial in a backpack.

Cirincione writes, “If George Bush had listened to Joe Biden instead of Donald Rumsfeld, the history of the past seven years would have been very different. We might have prevented 9/11.”