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Russia apparently isn't in a quagmire. They apparently did go to the UN and ask for permission first. They are not in an unnecessary act of aggression. I haven't seen any drive by reporters lament any unilateral actions, have you?

At long last, has the Associated Press lost all sense of decency? The AP's story (saved here for future reference in case the wire service is embarrassed into revising it; you might consider saving it too as Exhibit A on how far over the cliff the dinosaur media has driven itself) by Douglass K. Daniel, with Jennifer Loven contributing (I might have known), gets in at least three cheap, fundamentally untrue, and totally uncalled-for shots at Tony Snow, who died earlier this morning.

"Get Smart," which I saw Monday night, is a hodgepodge. The good news is, it’s not awful. It has somehow retained a little of the Brooks/Henry spirit. There is just enough of it, spread around thinly, to make you remember what real satire was like, since "Get Smart" was a take-off on everything from "The Man from UNCLE" to James Bond....James Caan also appears as a bumbling president of the U.S. who’s under the thumb of his evil VP.

The Virgin Mary on a grilled cheese and the Illinois-shaped corn flake appear to have new competition for webbies' fascination: Dick Cheney's mysterious sunglasses. An undated photo of the vice president on the White House Web site has caused a stir on the Internet, causing some people to wonder if he's in eyeshot of an unclad female. The White House says it's just someone holding an innocuous fishing rod (the veep -- allegedly -- is fly fishing in Idaho).

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba - The chief of the U.S. military said Sunday he favors closing the prison here as soon as possible because he believes negative publicity worldwide about treatment of terrorist suspects has been "pretty damaging" to the image of the United States. "I'd like to see it shut down," Adm. Mike Mullen said in an interview with three reporters who toured the detention center with him on his first visit since becoming chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff last October.

The first graders names have been omitted. This is an excerpt from a holiday letter of American family of academic liberals currently living off the government (of Australia, for now). ...other breakthroughs included the training wheels coming off the bike and an early grasp of American politics ... During the APEC meetings in Sydney, the father of his friend XXXXX, who was commander of the Australian troops in Iraq, had lunch with President Bush. XXXXX brought to the daily class 'news time' the official White House atlas given his dad. The teacher said "How special it was for your father...

**Under pressure from outraged viewers, NBC has reversed its decision not to air the Freedom's Watch ads thanking troops... Developing...

British Xmas card mocks Polish pope 06.12.2007 Poles in the UK protest against a Christmas card which features John Paul II and George W. Bush. The deceased John Paul II is lying on a catafalque. George Bush is standing over him. The speech bubble next to his face says: "What happened to Santa?". This Christmas card is selling like hot cakes in Britain, causing outrage amongst the Polish community. Poles have already informed they would organise street protests. "It's appalling. Using the image of the deceased Holy Father is a scandal. Muslims protested at the cartoons deriding Muhammad. Why should...

...But Bush hatred is different. It's not that this time members of the intellectual class have been swept away by passion and become votaries of anger and loathing. Alas, intellectuals have always been prone to employ their learning and fine words to whip up resentment and demonize the competition. Bush hatred, however, is distinguished by the pride intellectuals have taken in their hatred, openly endorsing it as a virtue and enthusiastically proclaiming that their hatred is not only a rational response to the president and his administration but a mark of good moral hygiene....On the contrary, they argued, Bush hatred...

Almost from the beginning, critics have attacked the Bush administration for the way it has dealt with science. In many areas - and emblematically in the case of climate change - well-qualified accusers have complained that the White House and its political appointees across the federal government have interfered with the work of scientists, misrepresented their findings and censored their public statements. Many of these cases are shocking - or at least they were, until people became inured to them. The administration's record on managing the government's own scientific efforts, and on respect for science more broadly, is awful.

President Bush, at podium, speaks to members of the media prior to the ribbon-cutting ceremony ... At this morning's ribbon-cutting for the newly renovated White House Briefing Room, President Bush dropped in just long enough to rub reporters' noses in his cheerful refusal to take them seriously. ... the president was in full frat-boy mode, clowning around during introductory remarks by C-SPAN's Steve Scully. ... Bush apparently felt Scully went on too long. "I like a good, short introduction," Bush jeered as soon as Scully gave up the podium. Here's the transcript. "We missed you -- sort of," Bush...

Vatican City - US President George W Bush drew gasps at the Vatican on Saturday by referring to Pope Benedict XVI as "sir" instead of the expected "His Holiness", pool reporters said. They could clearly hear the US leader say "Yes, sir" when the pope asked him if he was going to meet with officials of the lay Catholic Sant'Egidio community at the US embassy later during his visit. A handful of pool reporters were on hand as Benedict greeted Bush at the door of his private library ahead of a private audience of about half an hour. On his...

June 4, 2007 issue - The United States Department of Justice has not always been above politics. John F. Kennedy, after all, appointed his brother and consigliere Robert to be attorney general. But the Justice Department is supposed to stand for the rule of law—to be the enforcer of the laws of the United States, not the place presidents go to get around the law. Independence is an important tradition in the columned limestone building on Constitution Avenue. It is worth remembering that before Richard Nixon could find someone at the Justice Department willing to fire the Watergate special prosecutor...

DISILLUSIONED supporters of President George W Bush are defecting to Barack Obama, the Democratic senator for Illinois, as the White House candidate with the best chance of uniting a divided nation. Tom Bernstein went to Yale University with Bush and co-owned the Texas Rangers baseball team with him. In 2004 he donated the maximum $2,000 to the president’s reelection campaign and gave $50,000 to the Republican National Committee. This year he is switching his support to Obama. He is one of many former Bush admirers who find the Democrat newcomer appealing. Matthew Dowd, Bush’s chief campaign strategist in 2004, announced...

BAGHDAD (AP) -- An Iraqi military spokesman says the leader of the al-Qaida-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, has been captured in a raid west of Baghdad. U.S. officials had no confirmation

Ministers: No Bush library at SMU By ANGELA K. BROWN, Associated Press Writer 27 minutes ago A group of Methodist ministers from across the nation launched an online petition drive Thursday urging Southern Methodist University to stop trying to land George W. Bush's presidential library. The petition, on a newly created Web site, http://www.protectsmu.org, says that "as United Methodists, we believe that the linking of his presidency with a university bearing the Methodist name is utterly inappropriate." "Methodists have a long history of social conscience, so questions about the conduct of this president are very concerning," said one of the...

Press Gaggle by Tony Snow 11/06/2006 Aboard Air Force One En Route Pensacola, Florida 12:09 P.M. CST MR. SNOW: All right, I'm at your disposal. What's up? Q Not much. (Laughter.) Just a little election coming up. MR. SNOW: Thank you, thank you very much. Q What about Crist? Is that -- do you regard that as a snub? MR. SNOW: No. Look, he says he wants to go around and go for votes around the state. The President is going to be campaigning for Charlie Crist today. He will mention him in the speech, and he's also going...

Correcting The Record Myths V. Facts: Debunking Newsweek's Article on Afghanistan: “The Rise of Jihadistan” (October 2, 2006) INCORRECT NEWSWEEK CLAIM: “The 2003 invasion of Iraq did more than divert essential resources from Afghanistan; it created a test lab for new insurgent weapons and tactics that have since been adopted by the Taliban.” RESPONSE: The assertion that the Iraq invasion “diverted” resources from Afghanistan is a talking point of critics of the Bush administration. It is an opinion, not a fact.

Finally, a Republican scandal that may stick Usually when the Republican chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children instant-messages an underage boy and asks him to get out a ruler to measure his... Well. Ahem. Let's just say: Usually when a congressman is involved in a scandal, he doesn't bring the whole party down with him. This time could be different. The Mark Foley affair is so simple and so human, it's like a Cliffs.Notes version of all the other Republican scandals: Rampant corruption. Leadership? Ha. No one cares till the klieg lights get turned on. THE...

Do scandals involving Rep. Foley and others affect your attitude toward all parties? * 2419 responses Yes. I'm fed up with both Republicans and Democrats. Both parties are equally corrupt. 29% In general, the Republican party is the most corrupt. 54% Generally, Democrats are the most corrupt party. 5.8% There are alternatives to both parties- that's why I vote independent! 3.8% Scandals pass... and it's a shame a few bad politicans give Capitol Hill a bad image. 7.4%

WASHINGTON -- The last time the Dow Jones industrial average closed at a record high, America was living in a giddy economic era when good times and budget surpluses seemed as if they might continue indefinitely. It was Jan. 14, 2000, the start of another year, another century and another millennium. The economy was roaring along. The jobless rate was a low 4 percent. The "new economy" of young entrepreneurs energized markets with new tech companies that didn't turn a profit. Nobody seemed to care, and excesses piled on top of excesses.

When I first saw this article this morning, I asked my daughter to pinch me. But, it was still there. I then asked her to slap me. No change. Finally, smelling salts. Alas, it was still on my computer screen, and from the Washington Post no less: “The Redder They Are, The Harder They Fall; Republicans More Damaged by Scandals.”

YOU WOULD think that a consensus report from all 16 U.S. intelligence services concluding that he has blown the "war on terror" would be a really big deal to the president. But that assumes that George W. Bush values intelligence. Clearly, he does not. So the news that a 2006 National Intelligence Estimate concludes the threat of terror against the United States has increased since 9/11, largely thanks to his irrational invasion of Iraq, has not disturbed Bush's branded "what, me worry'' countenance. Instead, predictably, the administration's response to the leaked conclusions of the shared assessments of both civilian and...

On his radio show yesterday (Thursday, September 21, 2006), host Hugh Hewitt interviewed Thomas B. Edsall, who up until recently was a senior political reporter for the Washington Post. He had been with the paper for 25 years. Through precise and direct questioning by Hewitt, Edsall admitted something that is rarely heard from a liberal these days. In a shocking admission, Edsall articulated that the biases of the mainstream media are "overwhelmingly to the left." He also proposed that Democratic reporters outnumber Republicans "in the range of 15-25 to 1"!In the interview, as Hewitt and Edsall discussed the rise of...

Just About the Dumbest Thing I’ve Ever Read smalldeadanimals.com 21 September 2006 In its attempt to sway, manipulate, and form world opinion to fit with editorial boards, the MSM now has a new tool: World Opinion Polls. In case you missed that, I’ll rephrase it. The MSM now conducts WORLD opinion polls so that we can be enlightened by knowing what the world thinks. The concept is so flawed that I won’t insult the intelligence of readers here by even bothering to debunk it, but I will say this. What does it say of news media editorial boards, when...

Things have actually been going a bit better in Iraq these days.  Fewer American soldiers are dying and the Iraqis are slowly taking on more power and responsibilities.  This presents a quandary for the media.  You see, as part of their Bush-bashing template, they need to continue to push the war in Iraq as an un-winnable failure.  The Democrats are counting on failure in Iraq to carry them to victory this fall. That's right...the Democrats are actually invested in American failure in Iraq.  They need more American troop deaths to put them over the top at the polls in November. ...

I called Tim Russert to ask if Dick Cheney had washed his hands after their interview on Sunday. "No-o-o," he replied, sounding confused. Any sort of scrubbing, I wondered? Antiseptic wipe, Purell, quick shower on the way out? No, Tim assured me, the vice president did not stop at the basement shower at NBC, or even drop by the men's room you pass on the right as you head out to the parking lot. According to The New York Times' health section on Tuesday, Lady Macbeth and Pontius Pilate were not alone in wanting that "damned spot" out. "People who...

In recent years, The New Republic, one of the nation's leading magazines of political and cultural commentary, has been embarrassed by scandals involving two of journalism's original sins: fabrication of stories and plagiarism. But the latest scandal, involving the magazine's cultural critic Lee Siegel, has to do with a transgression peculiar to the Internet age: sock puppetry. A sock puppet, in Internet parlance, is a false Internet identity created for deceptive purposes. Siegel, who had been writing a culture blog for The New Republic, had started using the pseudonym "sprezzatura" on the blog's forums to praise himself and savage his...

Arrested Pulitzer Prize winning Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein, who took the infamous pictures of a terrorist execution on Haifa Street in Baghdad, and is notorious in the blogosphere for his collusion with jihadis as they tried to kill Americans, is the subject of a very lengthy attempt by the AP to whitewash his acts: U.S. holds AP photographer in Iraq 5 mos. (Hat tip: Michelle Malkin.) The AP spins furiously and buries it in the middle, but here’s some interesting information from the US Army: The military said Hussein was captured with two insurgents, including Hamid Hamad Motib, an...

The Fitzpatrick Plame investigation has spurred the New York Times into examining how their reporters conduct themselves. Apparently, the Gray Lady wants her staff to act more like terrorists and drug dealers. Reporters are being told to delete emails, destroy notes, and use disposable cell phones in order to stymie future investigations.

NEWSWEEK “Isikoffed” the Gonzales Memo Since Christopher Hitchens is correcting old Dowdified quotes, I thought I’d correct one myself. This one, from a 2004 NEWSWEEK article, is a major Dowdification — in my view, every bit as egregious as Dowd’s original. What’s more, it’s still influencing lefties even today. Worse, unlike Dowd’s alteration of a Bush quote, the NEWSWEEK story didn’t even use an ellipsis to indicate what was missing. By altering an Alberto Gonzales quote in this way, NEWSWEEK managed to make Gonzales and the Bush Administration appear unreasonably dismissive of the Geneva Convention. The story was co-authored by...

TORONTO -- Five years after 9-11, it's apparent that we all aren't getting along. And the political left is throwing plenty of mean punches. A case in point is that new Bush snuff movie, "Death of a President." Some might say that "snuff movie" is too strong a term -- but how else to describe a movie that clearly revels in the prospect of George W. Bush's being assassinated? Anyone who doubts that movies still have the power to stir up passions ought to come here, to the Toronto International Film Festival, which rates as the most important movie conclave...

The percentage of Americans who blame the Bush administration for the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington has risen from almost a third to almost half over the past four years, a CNN poll released Monday found. Asked whether they blame the Bush administration for the attacks, 45 percent said either a "great deal" or a "moderate amount," up from 32 percent in a June 2002 CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll. But the Clinton administration did not get off lightly either. The latest poll, conducted by Opinion Research Corporation for CNN, found that 41 percent of respondents blamed his...

A new film depicts President Bush being assassinated. Should it be shown? * 55345 responses Yes, it's a good display of free speech. 52% No, the filmmakers have gone too far. 43% Perhaps -- but not in the United States. 5.2%

<p>WE'RE RELUCTANT to return to the subject of former CIA employee Valerie Plame because of our oft-stated belief that far too much attention and debate in Washington has been devoted to her story and that of her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, over the past three years. But all those who have opined on this affair ought to take note of the not-so-surprising disclosure that the primary source of the newspaper column in which Ms. Plame's cover as an agent was purportedly blown in 2003 was former deputy secretary of state Richard L. Armitage.</p>

Poll about whether or not Islamofacism is a 'real' threat.

A book suggesting the September 11 attacks were engineered by the U.S. government is raising hackles among the faithful because its publisher is an agency of the Presbyterian Church (USA), the largest of several Presbyterian denominations. The book has attracted volumes of criticism, boycott threats and attempted clarifications by various church officials. The book represents the latest conflict within a denomination that in June voted that local congregations could decide to ordain homosexual clergy and that the Trinity, described for centuries as "Father, Son and Holy Ghost," could also be called "Mother, Child and Womb." Yesterday the book, listed under...

Aug. 7, 2006 — - Last week President Bush underwent his annual physical. It revealed he was in pretty good health, except for one thing. According to his body mass index, he's overweight. His BMI was 26, putting him in the lower range of the overweight category. He weighs 196 pounds, meaning he has gained 5 pounds since last year and his percentage of body fat has increased to 16.8 percent, which is, overall, pretty good for a man who just turned 60. (To calculate your BMI, go here). Still, the appropriate body weight range is 157 to 192 pounds...

The forward suite aboard Air Force One is a hushed and dimly lit space, a private sanctuary where the president can sleep, exercise and lead the free world from 30,000 feet. At the start of an eight-hour flight en route to Germany and a world summit in Russia, President Bush is deep inside his own head as he paces up and down the long hallway that leads from his study to his conference room. While Washington was sleeping the night before, yet another corner of the Middle East had erupted into violence, after Hizbullah launched a deadly ambush on an...

CBS/AP) An Iraqi man who was one of the first people on the scene of the U.S. airstrike targeting Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said he saw American troops beating a man who had a beard like the al Qaeda leader. The witness, who lives near the house where al-Zarqawi spent his last days, said he saw the man lying on the ground near an irrigation canal. He was badly wounded but still alive, the man told Associated Press Television News. U.S. troops arriving on the scene wrapped the man's head in an Arab robe and began beating him, said the local...

Through his presidency, George W. Bush has worked hard to avoid repeating the mistakes of his father. He has done almost everything differently, yet now finds himself in the same hole despite trumping his dad by winning a second term. He is roughly at the same place in the polls where the elder Bush was at the low point of his presidency, with only about three of every 10 Americans registering approval. Like his father before him, this president faces a rebellion among conservatives, an uncertain economic outlook and the prospect of Republican losses in November. The first President Bush...

The White House on Thursday disputed an account of President George W. Bush singing the U.S. national anthem in Spanish during the 2000 presidential campaign, saying his Spanish is not that good. Critics have accused Bush of hypocrisy for opposing a Spanish language version of the anthem. They pointed to a book called "American Dynasty" by Kevin Phillips, who wrote that Bush "would drop in at Hispanic festivals and parties, sometimes joining in singing 'The Star-Spangled Banner' in Spanish." White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the assertion did not ring true to him because, "The president speaks Spanish, but not...

Public expects Booming Economy to get even worse The U.S. economy grew at its strongest rate in 2-1/2 years during the first three months of this year, a Commerce Department report on Friday showed. Gross domestic product grew at a 4.8 percent annual rate in the January-March first quarter. Senators Ted Kennedy, Harry Reid and Hillary Rodham Clinton said on Friday the economy was too strong for the little guy to catch up. When it comes to public perception regarding the state of the economy, the perception couldn't be much gloomier. So says "right-wing" Fox News Channel, citing its latest...

The original mega-thread: CIA Fires Officer For Leaking Classified Information to Media I think this is as big as rathergate.   Dana Priest's Pulitzer has just turned to dust. Not only that,  the Pulitzer's are finally dust themselves...it is up to us and others to find out, because  the Drive-By Media will ignore the story. Let's Play Connect the Dots Let’s connect some dots in the Mary McCarthy CIA leak tale, shall we? (Hat tip: WordWarp).Mary McCarthy leaks the secret CIA prisons story to Dana Priest, in what may have been a sting operation.Mary McCarthy and Joe Wilson served at the...

<p>No details, but the agent was caught dead to rights leaking....</p>

Did anyone watch last night's Sopranos? Tony's daughter Meadow went on a Bush rant, claiming his Administration was rounding up Muslims for no reason...Bush is taking over the world, blah, blah. Tony Soprano made a crack about Rick "Sanitorium". I couldn't make heads or tails over whatever Christopher was talking about. Carmella stated that she voted for Bush. I read in an interview that the actress Edie Falco hated reciting that line. The DUmmies are celebrating the Bush bashing.

WASHINGTON, April 7 — That President Bush authorized an aide to disclose classified intelligence on Iraqi weapons, as asserted in court papers, comes as no shock to official Washington. The leaking of secrets has long been a favored tool of policy debate, political combat and diplomatic one-upmanship. "We've had leaking of this kind since the administration of George Washington," said Rick Shenkman, a presidential historian at George Mason University.

Good Morning America weekend producer John Green has been suspended by ABC News for one month without pay following the release of years-old emails that he sent in which he remarked that President Bush "makes me sick" and that former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright "has Jew shame." After the emails were posted on the Drudge Report, Green promptly apologized, saying in a message to ABC News staff, "I want all of you to know how much I regret the embarrassment this story causes ABC. It was an inappropriate thing to say and I'm deeply sorry." The Washington Post reported...

Page 28, 32 and 33 of this April/1/2003 document IISP-2003-00026588 discuss how the Iraqis are going to treat the dead American and British soldiers as well as the Coalition POW to serve their regime propaganda. It is infuriating to read such a thing, but it is important to reveal how evil this Saddam regime had been. Partial translation of page 28 which a meeting of the Military Sector Commanders of the Iraqi Army where they discussed the issue of dead Coalition troops and POWs Beginning of partial translation of page 28 F. Study the subject of the dead criminals Americans...