Bush has said in the past that while Iraq may not be going to swimmingly right now, history will ultimately vindicate his decision to go to war. However, now he’s admitting that his own rhetoric poisoned the well. From Times of London: President Bush has admitted to The Times that his gun-slinging rhetoric made the [...]

Apparently, the BBC has been able to find where some of it went… The search for the missing billions also led the programme to a house in Acton in West London where Hazem Shalaan lived until he was appointed to the new Iraqi government as minister of defence in 2004. He and his associates siphoned [...]

I can’t believe I haven’t seen this until now. He just flat out admits it. Of course many people don’t see Fox as an objective news organization, but for Murdoch to confirm exactly that is stunning. My question: what are the grounds for getting a broadcast license revoked? Isn’t there some sort of rule that [...]

Folks, $4 gas isn’t going away any time soon. From the AP: NEW YORK (AP) – Oil prices made their biggest single-day leap ever Friday—clearing $139, dragging the Dow Jones industrials down nearly 400 points and raising the once-unthinkable prospect of $150 oil and even higher gas prices by the Fourth of July. The meteoric [...]

What are Americans thinking when it comes to our foreign policy strategy for the future? Pubilc Agenda, a non-partisan research company, has the numbers [pdf] and they’re consistent with what we’ve been seeing for the past couple years as we’ve seen more terrorists pop up and no discernible political progress being made in Iraq. Why [...]

This is very good news, but what about the billions we continue to spend over there with no discernible gain? Remember, lowered troop deaths doesn’t mean political progress, it just means there’s more security and fewer families devastated stateside. From Reuters: U.S. troop deaths in Iraq fell to their lowest level last month since the [...]

On the President’s tendency to lie to himself… On misleading the American people… On being part of the propaganda campaign to sell the war… On knowing that the book would have an impact… Frankly, this doesn’t sound like a guy who’s afraid of speaking his mind. I wonder if he will indeed testify, especially about [...]

A new Rasmussen Poll shows that John McCain is more trusted than Barack Obama on the economy. 47% trust McCain compared to 41% trusting Obama. McCain also edges Obama on Iraq (49% to 37%) and on general national security 53% to 31%. So, what does this tell us? Well, as we already know, McCain’s strength [...]

First this… Obviously this is a really bad call on McCain’s part, especially since the Joint Chiefs have recently said, very explicitly, that members of the military should not be involved with these political campaigns… WASHINGTON — The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has written an unusual open letter to all those in [...]

The full 15 minute interview. I’m watching it now, and I’ll post thoughts when I’m done. Part 1: Part 2 (after Dan Bartlett): I don’t know about you, but this seems like the same Scott McClellan I saw for years behind that podium. So apparently, two things set him off. First, when he found out [...]

So, former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan has written a book accusing the Bush Administration of numerous misdeeds including relying on propaganda in the lead up to the Iraq invasion. I have no doubt that Bush and his team utilized propaganda techniques in the “selling” of the Iraq War. After all, this administration has [...]

After the administration threw Scott McClellan under the bus in the Plame affair, you knew this had to be coming. But most revealing is his inside info about the Iraq war. Politico details some of his assertions: • McClellan charges that Bush relied on “propaganda” to sell the war. • He says the White House [...]

He apparently thinks diplomacy with Iran is the best option, and as the following suggests, he’s right in line with Defense Secretary Robert Gates. From Wash Post: Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, President Bush’s nominee to lead U.S. forces in the Middle East and Central Asia, supports continued U.S. engagement with international and regional partners [...]

How exactly does Bush explain his speech when his own defense secretary’s opinions seems to place him in the “appeasement” camp with Obama? Here’s what Gates said… The United States should construct a combination of incentives and pressure to engage Iran, and may have missed earlier opportunities to begin a useful dialogue with Tehran, Defense [...]

Here’s the transcript from MSNBC via ThinkProgress: “President Bush got it exactly right today when he warned about the threat of Iran and its terrorist proxies like Hamas and Hezbollah. It is imperative that we reject the flawed and naïve thinking that denies or dismisses the words of extremists and terrorists when they shout “Death [...]

Feith is famous for being the guy who formed the “Office of Special Plans”, a group that cherry-picked the intelligence for the administration so they could justify going into Iraq because of WMDs and ties to al Qaeda. And now he’s out on the talk show circuit hawking his book which claims that their was [...]

The title says it all. USA Today has the details: More than 43,000 U.S. troops listed as medically unfit for combat in the weeks before their scheduled deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan since 2003 were sent anyway, Pentagon records show. This reliance on troops found medically “non-deployable” is another sign of stress placed on a [...]

Some sobering news about how many of our young men and women are dying from wounds they suffered on the battlefield that nobody could see until it’s too late. From Bloomberg: The number of suicides among veterans of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may exceed the combat death toll because of inadequate mental health care, [...]

“My friends, I will have an energy policy that we will be talking about, which will eliminate our dependence on oil from the Middle East that will prevent us from having ever to send our young men and women into conflict again in the Middle East.” – John McCain in a town hall meeting earlier [...]