A trip down memory lane

Fake News, Fake Reporter
By Eric Boehlert
Salon.com

Thursday 10 February 2005
When President Bush bypassed dozens of eager reporters from nationally and internationally recognized news outlets and selected Jeff Gannon to pose a question at his Jan. 26 news conference, Bush's recognition bestowed instant credibility on the apparently novice reporter, as well as the little-known conservative organization he worked for at the time, called Talon News. That attention only intensified when Gannon used his nationally televised press conference time to ask Bush a loaded, partisan question -- featuring a manufactured quote that mocked Democrats for being "divorced from reality."

Ah yes, remember James Guckert / Jeff Gannon, the gay male escort and conservative tool who gained press access (and much more), who made many visits to the White House, visits where the logs were incomplete and he may have stayed overnight? With whom and doing what, we still don't know.

Yes, THAT Jeff Gannon (pictured above from his no-longer-extant rent-boy website). The one who was on really good terms with Scott McClellan, presidential spokesliar at the time.

May we re-popularize the phrase "divorced from reality"? I think by now the American People have finally begun to realize the extent to which that phrase applies to the White House (though I am not going to give the Dems in Congress a pass and say they are married to reality).

We were also being all pissy with North Korea, refusing to have 1-on-1 talks about their nuclear weapons program.

And Naomi Klein had some comments about the much-vaunted purple-fingered Iraqi election:

Judging by the millions of votes already counted, Iraqis have voted overwhelmingly to throw out the US-installed Ayad Allawi, who refused to ask the United States to leave. A decisive majority voted for the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA); the second plank in the UIA platform called for "a timetable for the withdrawal of the multinational forces from Iraq".

[Emphasis mine. I had originally clipped that from Mahablog.]

Markos has a post about illegal domestic spying (who knew that was an issue?):
The American Bar Association sponsored a poll dealing with the issues surrounding the administration's illegal spying program.

The Harris Interactive telephone survey of 1,045 adults taken February 3-6 found that 77 percent have reservations about the fundamental issues raised by the eavesdropping controversy, the ABA said in releasing the survey.

Of that group, 52 percent agreed that a president should never be able to "suspend the constitutional freedoms of people like you." Another 25 percent said constitutional freedoms should never be suspended unless authorized by a court or Congress.

Only 18 percent said a president could lift constitutional guarantees any time if it was necessary to protect the country and another 5 percent said they did not know or declined to answer. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 points.

Street Prophets had a post up with this title:
Torture Is A Moral Issue: A Statement of the National Religious Campaign against Torture

I am going to reproduce the statement in full:
Torture violates the basic dignity of the human person that all religions hold dear. It degrades everyone involved --policy-makers, perpetrators and victims. It contradicts our nation's most cherished ideals. Any policies that permit torture and inhumane treatment are shocking and morally intolerable.

Torture and inhumane treatment have long been banned by U.S. treaty obligations, and are punishable by criminal statute. Recent developments, however, have created new uncertainties. By reaffirming the ban on cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment as well as torture, the McCain amendment, now signed into law, is a step in the right direction. Yet its implementation remains unclear.

The President's signing statement, which he issued when he signed the McCain Amendment into law, implies that the President does not believe he is bound by the amendment in his role as commander in chief. The possibility remains open that inhumane methods of interrogation will continue.

Furthermore, in a troubling development, for the first time in our nation's history, legislation has now been signed into law that effectively permits evidence obtained by torture to be used in a court of law. The military tribunals that are trying some terrorist suspects are now expressly permitted to consider information obtained under coercive interrogation techniques, including degrading and inhumane techniques and torture.

We urge Congress and the President to remove all ambiguities by prohibiting:

Exemptions from the human rights standards of international law for any arm of our government.
The practice of extraordinary rendition, whereby suspects are apprehended and flown to countries that use torture as a means of interrogation.
Any disconnection of "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment" from the ban against "torture" so as to permit inhumane interrogation.
The existence of secret U.S. prisons around the world. Any denial of Red Cross access to detainees held by our government overseas.
We also call for an independent investigation of the severe human rights abuses at U.S. installations like Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan.


Nothing less is at stake in the torture abuse crisis than the soul of our nation. What does it signify if torture is condemned in word but allowed in deed? Let America abolish torture now --without exceptions.
I know you will be surprised to re-read this:
As the Bush administration has dramatically accelerated the classification of information as "top secret" or "confidential," one office is refusing to report on its annual activity in classifying documents: the office of Vice President Dick Cheney.


Clammyc had an article titled "Trust" with these words:
We are now being told that Iran is meddling in Iraq and is "helping insurgents". While the government doesn’t know whether it should release the information, it wants us to trust them. Trust them about evidence that National Security Advisor Steven Hadley said is "overstated". That we should trust new Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, because he says the evidence is "pretty good".


This, from the same man who was under investigation for lying about the Iran-contra crimes.


We are being told that there is solid and credible evidence against Iran. Vice President Cheney says that he has seen proof. But the "proof" is coming from private briefings by the Pentagon’s Iranian directorate. A man named Abram Shulksy. Shulksy was the former head of the Office of Special Plans. The same Office of Special Plans that this week was found to have manipulated evidence about Iraq.
You may find the links in this excerpt if you click here.

Do you sometimes feel you are in a soap opera where nothing seems to change over the course of several years?

Do your part to make change happen!
--the BB