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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...

BOSTON - Jill Carroll, the U.S. journalist held hostage for 82 days in Iraq, returned to the United States on Sunday aboard a commercial flight to Boston. The 28-year-old was accompanied on the Lufthansa flight by a colleague from her employer, the Boston-based Christian Science Monitor, according to reporters on the plane. Carroll declined to comment while on the flight. She left the airport in a black limousine escorted by state police. Her destination was unknown. She was released Thursday after nearly three months in captivity. She was seized Jan. 7 in western Baghdad by gunmen who killed her Iraqi...

The Washington Post: "President Bush should hold more news conferences. ... In his sometimes blunt, sometimes joking and sometimes unpolished way, he sounded authentic ..." (Editorial, "Mr. Bush Unvarnished," The Washington Post, 3/22/06) The Washington Post: "[T]he president clearly has not lost sight of the enormous importance of the Iraqi mission ..." (Editorial, "Mr. Bush Unvarnished," The Washington Post, 3/22/06) The Washington Post: "Mr. Bush ... hasn't lost sight of the stakes." (Editorial, "Mr. Bush Unvarnished," The Washington Post, 3/22/06) ABC's Elizabeth Vargas: "The President, really striking, though George, a balancing act in this news conference today. Realism on the...

U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney speaks during his keynote address to the U.S. Labor Department's 2006 National Summit on Retirement Savings at the Willard Hotel in Washington March 2, 2006. REUTERS/Larry Downing

March 02, 2006 Katrina Tape Transcripts Show Media Hack Job For those who want to see the transcripts themselves of the video conferences, the New York Times has them for the August 28th and August 29th briefings. The transcript for the 29th makes one garbled mention of the levees around New Orleans (page 6). After making the point that the storm surge would cause the greatest devastation in the Gulfport area of Mississippi, going as high as 21 feet, Max Mayfield then turns to New Orleans: MAX MAYFIELD: ... The rest of the track we have 10 to 15 feet,...

For all of us at this "small newspaper in South Texas" or as the host of MSNBC's "The Situation" Tucker Carlson says "podunk paper," it's enlightening — and sometimes embarrassing — to look at our big brothers and sisters in the national media on a story we each are covering. The first step we could all see coming. Someone should have given White House press secretary Scott McClellan a blindfold as he stood at the podium Monday afternoon. The White House press corps spent the previous day stewing about how the White House had failed to deliver a press conference...

The press has spent so much time this week obsessing over Dick Cheney's hunting accident that some reporters have been rendered completely oblivious to other important news developments. After delivering yet another breathless report on Cheneygate Thursday morning, usually reliable ABC Radio News reporter Ann Compton was caught clueless about the takeover of six major U.S. ports by a Dubai company based in the United Arab Emirates - a country said to have ties to terrorism. Compton's exchange with WABC Radio's John Gambling went like this: GAMBLNG: What else [besides Cheneygate] is being talked about in the White House? COMPTON:...

No room for a laughingstock It is humor that often drives the final nail in the political coffin. The images of Gerald Ford falling on his face and hitting spectators with golf balls outlived his presidency. Jimmy Carter endured the Iranian hostage crisis and the misery index, but he had no comeback to the million yuks that followed his battle with an attacking rabbit. All of which is to say that Deadeye Dick Cheney is history. He is the Dead Veep Walking, whether he knows it or not. Ridicule is fatal. It's not just late-night comedians declaring open season on...

President Bush concentrated on broad themes Tuesday night in his fifth State of the Union address, offering few new initiatives and instead reiterating many of his administration's recurring themes on domestic and security issues. In the 51-minute speech before an audience that included newly seated Supreme Court associate justice Samuel Alito, Bush argued against isolationism, stated his oft-repeated determination to stay the course in Iraq, defended his ordering of secret wiretaps and raised the specter of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks in arguing for the spread of democracy across the Middle East. "Every step toward freedom in the world...

Think this might be manipulated by Duers? Naaahh... http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2006/state.union/results.html Add your vote...submit and check out the vote averages... LOL