J's Cafe Nette

Archive for November 2nd, 2007

Just a few items from this past week which might be of interest if perhaps you missed them:

The Telegraph provides us with their opinion regarding the top 100 influential Conservatives in the US. See if you agree.

More on media bias at Texas Rainmaker. This piece includes not only print media but television also with some very interesting charts included. Here is just a sample:

For the top tier Democrats, the positive tilt was even more the case than for Democrats in general. Obama’s front page coverage in the sample was 70% positive and 9% negative and Clinton’s was similarly 61% positive and 13% negative.

Republican candidates, in contrast, were more likely to receive clearly negative stories in print than elsewhere: 40% negative vs. 26% positive and 34% neutral.

What would you think of disbanding the Air Force and giving their air craft to the Army and Navy? Follow the link at Danger Room-Wired Blogs to read why Robert Farley thinks this is a good idea.

The Buzz has an interesting interview with former Governor Jeb Bush. He speaks candidly on his opinion of the Republican candidates for President.

Check out Jonah Goldberg writing on Media Matters latest attempt to shill for Hillary. Sure they are a non biased, non-profit organization…..

Finally Dump Lindsey Graham provides a post on…well the name of the blog says it all:

Some tough reflection yields the following: If Lindsey Graham is the best that the South Carolina GOP can offer in 2008, then we’re in a world of hurt, friends. Strom Thurmond and Carroll Campbell must roll over in their graves when Mr. Graham bows to Ted Kennedy and plays footsies with Hillary Clinton.

The SC Democrat Party has made it clear that if it appears Graham is safe in 2008, they won’t pitch a strong Democrat candidate. That sounds good until you hear the reason: They love Lindsey Graham, and consider him a practicing Democrat!

I hope you found something of interest, but most of all I hope you have a terrific end of the week and great weekend!

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The title of this post would make it seem as though I’m an idiot who doesn’t know right from wrong, so please allow me to explain.

First of all, I have no idea what conclusions will be drawn by 60 Minutes on this report scheduled for Sunday evening.

If someone you trust comes to you and vouches for the truth of a report by a spy and you use that information as the basis of a claim of WMD held by Iraq, if you believe what was told and you repeat it only to find out later it was not reliable information, are you guilty of telling a lie? Or are you guilty of trusting your security people to tell you the straight facts?

He eventually wound up in the care of German intelligence officials to whom he continued to spin his tale of biological weapons. His plan succeeded partially because he had worked briefly at the plant outside Baghdad and his descriptions of it were mostly accurate. He embellished his account by saying 12 workers had been killed by biological agents in an accident at the plant.

More than a hundred summaries of his debriefings were sent to the CIA, which then became a pillar – along with the now-disproved Iraqi quest for uranium for nuclear weapons – for the U.S. decision to bomb and then invade Iraq. The CIA-director George Tenet gave Alwan’s information to Secretary of State Colin Powell to use at the U.N. in his speech justifying military action against Iraq.

Tenet gave the information to Powell despite a letter – a copy of which 60 Minutes obtained – addressed to him by the head of German intelligence stating that Alwan appeared to be believable, but there was no evidence to verify his story.

Through a spokesman, Tenet denies ever seeing the letter. “[Tenet] needs to talk to his special assistants if he didn’t see it,” says Tyler Drumheller, a former CIA senior official. “I am sure they showed it to him and I am sure … it wasn’t what they wanted to see,” he tells Simon.

Other CIA officials doubted Curve Ball’s authenticity, including former Central Group Chief Margaret Henoch, who speaks publicly for the first time, telling Simon she openly refuted Alwan’s story. “And it was like ‘Whack a Mole.’ He just popped right back up. It was unbelievable.”

Alwan was caught when CIA interrogators were finally allowed to question him and confronted him with evidence that his story could not be as he described it. Weapons inspectors had examined the plant at Djerf al Nadaf before the fall of Baghdad and found no evidence of biological agents.

Obviously someone lied, but was it the President of the United States or the CIA Director at the time, Bill Clinton’s appointee George Tenet, who said the information was a “slam dunk”?

Whatever the case, I hope 60 Minutes can be fair and objective in this story and point the finger of blame where it belongs. Wherever it may point.

I do not normally watch 60 Minutes but I will set my TiVo to record it this week to see this report.

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We’ve all seen it happen at least since Nixon tried to get Clement Haynsworth appointed to the Supreme Court. The Senate committee refused to pass his nomination on to the full Senate.

The appointee has to go to a Senate hearing in front of the cameras and answer any and all questions put to him by those Senators to their satisfaction.

After the show they take a committee vote to either send the nomination to the floor so the full Senate can vote on the nominee or they don’t pass the nominee and the president (either party) has to find someone else.

Is this what the constitution means by “advise and consent”? Or did they mean the nominees should possibly stand in the well of the Senate and be questioned by all the Senators (the advice part) and then vote the nominee up or down? (The consent part.)

I honestly don’t know if the constitution says how it should be done or how it was done in the past. Perhaps David or Big Mo or someone else who knows our history better than I can answer this question, because it seems if 19 Senators can make a decision for the entire Senate, that’s not the intent of the constitution.

Then again, I could be all wet on this one.

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While speaking at the Heritage Foundation on Thursday President Bush said if the Senate blocks the nomination of Michael Mukasey for AG no one would be able to meet the new standards set by the Senate.

“If the Senate Judiciary Committee were to block Judge Mukasey on these grounds, they would set a new standard for confirmation that could not be met by any responsible nominee for attorney general,” Bush said in a speech at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

“That would guarantee that America would have no attorney general during this time of war,” the president said.

The comment raised questions about whether Bush would nominate anyone else to succeed Alberto Gonzales as the nation’s top law enforcer. Bush could bypass Congress by filling the job with someone serving in an acting capacity over the last 14 months of his administration.

Asked whether Bush was saying he would not nominate anyone if Mukasey were to be rejected, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said, “We don’t believe it would come to that. No nominee could meet the test they’ve presented.”

He could make Ted Olsen Acting AG for the rest of his term. I wonder how the Senate Democrats would like that?

Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., became the fourth of 10 Democrats on the 19-member committee to say he will vote against advancing the nomination to the full Senate.

It seems ironic to me that Ted Kennedy, of all people, would even speak out on the topic of waterboarding, which simulates drowning, given his previous history of not trying to rescue a woman who actually drowned.

No one in the government has said we do or do not participate in waterboarding, so the question seems foolish until the candidate is sworn in and actually finds out so he can give a legal opinion.

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It seems there were more feathers flying during a damage control conference call with the Clinton people than from the NBC peacock Wednesday.

You see, Sen. Clinton didn’t give a good performance at Tuesday’s debate. She had six male candidates and two moderators who ganged up on her and that’s not faaaaaiiiiirrrrrr!

Now the campaign with the most money (legally or illegally, it doesn’t matter now, does it?) is asking for more money to combat these six meanie old male candidates.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s (D-N.Y.) top advisers, doing damage control after the candidate’s debate performance Tuesday, told supporters on a conference call Wednesday that the campaign needed more money to fight back.

Mark Penn, Clinton’s senior strategist and pollster, and Jonathan Mantz, the campaign’s finance director, told the supporters on the call, which The Hill listened to in its entirety, that they expect attacks from Clinton’s rivals to continue, and she will need the financial resources to deflect their attacks.

Clinton came under withering assault in the Philadelphia debate, and some supporters on the call agreed with analysts that she stumbled.

“I wouldn’t say she lost her cool,” one caller said. “But I would say she lost her footing.”

The caller addded that Clinton’s response to questions about records from her time in the White House that have been sealed by the National Archives “made me roll my eyes.”

The criticisms followed Penn’s assertion that Clinton was “unflappable.” He also said criticisms from Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) would backfire and that he was already “detecting some backlash,” particularly among female voters.

Criticism abounded for poor Tim Russert because he didn’t ask her if she’d seen a UFO. @-)

One woman on the call even said Russert should be shot:

He, Mantz and several supporters hinted repeatedly on the call that Clinton was unfairly targeted by Tim Russert, debate moderator and host of NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“Russert made it appear that President Clinton had done something new or unusual,” Penn said, before adding that it “is, in fact, an extremely confusing situation … I think there will be further clarification.”

“I hope so,” a female caller responded. “To me, it was the most uncomfortable part of the debate.”

Penn turned again to Russert. “The other candidates were asked questions like, ‘Is there life in outer space?’ ”

The object of the call, and a follow-up breakfast Thursday morning with campaign chairman and former chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) Terry McAuliffe, was apparently to stop whatever bleeding the senator might have sustained during a debate in which Clinton wore a bull’s-eye on her back throughout the evening.

Penn and Mantz said “a new phase” in the campaign had begun with about 65 days to go before the Iowa caucuses. They expect Obama and Edwards to go “negative on TV, and we’re going to need the resources to fight that front.”

While one supporter voiced his concern that the Clinton campaign is not devoting enough money and staff to Iowa, lagging behind Obama, most supporters who commented on the call expressed their displeasure with what they saw as the moderators’ focus on Clinton.

One caller from Oklahoma City said that “the questions … were designed to incite a brawl,” and that Russert’s and Brian Williams’s moderating was “an abdication of journalistic responsibility.”

Another said Russert “should be shot,” before quickly adding that she shouldn’t say that on a conference call.

She has more money than Carter has liver pills and they want more to combat this negative campaigning?

Personally, instead of the Q&A for soundbites at every “debate” I’d like to see a real brawl. Not the physical kind, mind you, but one in which the candidates do all the question asking and the moderators are there simply to keep time.

As for all the negative campaign ads expected and the lack of money to counter them (if you believe that I have a bridge to sell you in the Arizona desert), it’s not negative if it’s the truth.

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