Ned Lamont
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08.14.06
Discussing the wingnut-championed Reuters photograph controversy on CNN’s Reliable Sources, Arrianna Huffington shows us how it’s done (via Atrios):
KURTZ: Arianna Huffington, you’re obviously on a different side of the political fence than Charles Johnson, but do you think this is another example of bloggers, you know, holding the mainstream media accountable?
HUFFINGTON: Absolutely. In fact, I want to congratulate Charles. That is exactly what bloggers should be doing. It was outrageous what Reuters allowed to appear. And the fact that they fired the photographer, it was the only legitimate response.
And I want to take this a step further and say that we should hold all journalists accountable, whether they are photojournalists or not, for deceptive statements, whether they’re images or words.
I mean, you had your own headline anchorman, Chuck Roberts, describe Lamont as the al Qaeda candidate. This is an equally deceitful, fraudulent, fabricated statement. There should be zero tolerance for all those deceits, whether in images or words.
KURTZ: Well, what Chuck Roberts said, according to the transcript, was that some are calling Ned Lamont the al Qaeda candidate. But it’s certainly not a formulation I would have used.
HUFFINGTON: Right — nobody, see you cannot found a single person who called Lamont the al Qaeda candidate, except Chuck Roberts. And what has been the consequences when it comes to Chuck Roberts? Has he been demoted to be covering Paris Hilton or entertainment news where the truth doesn’t matter? It’s about time that there is that same kind of accountability that Charles is demanding from photojournalists from journalists, as well.
(transcript)
There. Read that again and again, Democratic leaders. Commit the rhetorical moves to memory. Practice them until they become your basic reflexes. Then, and only then, head back out onto the pitch.
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08.13.06
A new report from NBC News claims that Bush Administration officials pressured the British to arrest the London terrorists a week before British surveillance work was complete (via TPM via commenter Suzy). The attack, according to the report, was not imminent.
This is explosive news:
LONDON - NBC News has learned that U.S. and British authorities had a significant disagreement over when to move in on the suspects in the alleged plot to bring down trans-Atlantic airliners bound for the United States.
A senior British official knowledgeable about the case said British police were planning to continue to run surveillance for at least another week to try to obtain more evidence, while American officials pressured them to arrest the suspects sooner. The official spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the case.
In contrast to previous reports, the official suggested an attack was not imminent, saying the suspects had not yet purchased any airline tickets. In fact, some did not even have passports.
[. . .]
At the White House, a top aide to President Bush denied the account.
[. . .]
The British official said the Americans also argued over the timing of the arrest of suspected ringleader Rashid Rauf in Pakistan, warning that if he was not taken into custody immediately, the U.S. would “render” him or pressure the Pakistani government to arrest him.
British security was concerned that Rauf be taken into custody “in circumstances where there was due process,” according to the official, so that he could be tried in British courts. Ultimately, this official says, Rauf was arrested over the objections of the British.
This goes way beyond what we understood previously — that the Bush Administration knew about the arrests ahead of time, and timed a PR offensive against the Democrats around it.
It turns out that it was the other way around: the Bush Administration orchestrated the timing of the arrests to coordinate them with the PR offensive, which attacked Democrats after Ned Lamont’s victory in the Connecticut primary.
For the GOP, the short term political importance of getting the Lamont victory, and the developing sense that America had fully turned against the Iraq War, off the news was reason enough to disrupt an active terror investigation. The disruption hurt the legal case against the terrorists — it will be much harder to convict them without passports or airline tickets. The GOP was so insistent on the timing that they threatened to “render” the lead suspect if the British did not comply with their wishes.
The Republicans, in other words, once again played politics with national security, and hurt anti-terrorism efforts as they did so.
They cannot be trusted to protect us from the threat of terrorism because — to paraphrase The Downing Street Memo — they fix terror investigations around smear campaigns.
Update: The All-Spin Zone, The Heretik, The Next Hurrah, Suburban Guerrilla, Sysyphus Shrugged, Brilliant at Breakfast, Shakespeare’s Sister (crossposted on Ezra Klein, ksh01 @ Daily Kos, MoJo Blog, Cursor, and Memeorandom have more. See Technorati for a full list of blogs commenting on this story.
Update II (8/14/06): Dan Rubin, who writes the blog Blinq for the Philadelphia Inquirer, is skeptical of what he calls “this conspiracy theory,” but he has written a nice summary of the conflicting reports on the timing of the arrests. As I noted in his comment section, however, his claim that the report came from a single source is not exactly right. Parts of the report (the claim, for instance, that “the attack was not imminent”) did come from a single UK source, but the most important revelation — that Bush Administration officials rushed the arrests — has been confirmed by multiple sources in both America and the UK.
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08.09.06
“As I see it, in this campaign, we’ve just finished the first half, and the Lamont team is ahead, but in the second half, our team, Team Connecticut, is going to surge forward to victory in November,” Mr. Lieberman told cheering supporters last night.
– Lieberman Begins Race as Independent, The New York Times, August 9, 2006
Ahab is for ever Ahab, man. This whole act’s immutably decreed. ‘Twas rehearsed by thee and me a billion years before this ocean rolled. Fool! I am the Fates’ lieutenant; I act under orders. Look thou, underling! that thou obeyest mine. –Stand round me, men. Ye see an old man cut down to the stump; leaning on a shivered lance; propped up on a lonely foot. ‘Tis Ahab — his body’s part; but Ahab’s soul’s a centipede, that moves upon a hundred legs. I feel strained, half stranded, as ropes that tow dismasted frigates in a gale; and I may look so. But ere I break, ye’ll hear me crack; and till ye hear that, know that Ahab’s hawser tows his purpose yet. Believe ye, men, in the things called omens? Then laugh aloud, and cry encore! For ere they drown, drowning things will twice rise to the surface; then rise again, to sink for evermore.
– Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, 1851
(inspired by Billmon’s collages)
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08.09.06
Lieberman concedes. This is nothing short of amazing.
Let the valedictories begin. How will you remember him?
Of course, the remembrances we give him depend entirely upon whether or not he can accept this defeat with grace, or whether he will choose to ruin his legacy by running as an Independent.
Update: D’oh:
“As I see it in this campaign, we just finished the first half and the Lamont team is ahead,’’ he said. “But in the second half, our team — Team Connecticut — is going to surge forward to victory in November.”
Oy, vey. Face it, Joe: you lost. The Lamont team has finished the race and won it. Let it go.
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08.08.06
I haven’t written nearly enough about the Lamont-Lieberman primary, but I have been following it closely (rooting for Lamont, of course). I’m much inspired by the work that Atrios, Kos, Chris Bowers, Matt Stoller, FDL, and others have done in support of Lamont: it is a fine example of the A-list blogs really putting themselves out there for the cause. Having criticized them in the past for not getting behind the Downing Street Memo campaign, it’s only fair to praise them now for their hard work.
But, as Tom Hughes from Democracy for America reminds us today, this election is not about the power of the netroots: it’s about George W. Bush’s failed foreign policies, and the dangers faced by Democrats who have supported them:
This race has changed the political landscape.
It boils down to this: We have a powerful three-term incumbent Senator on the ropes because he won’t question the Republican mess in Iraq. We’ve shown that Democrats can’t be a rubber stamp for President Bush’s “stay the course” approach.
The Iraq war is the defining issue of this year’s elections. It’s that simple.
Indeed. Go, Ned! If you live in Connecticut, don’t forget to cast your vote for change.
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