Catching up

I sometimes forget to post all the politcally-related stuff I've been
thinking of on this blog. There are tons of new items arising everyday,
but the lanscape changes so quickly, it's not really worth posting here
unless I can get to it daily.

To catch up...

Matt Lauer rakes Bush over the coals on live TV. Crooks and Liars has the video.


The Washington Post chimes in too...

Photo Op Bites Back
By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Tuesday, October 11, 2005; 1:15 PM

It was such a lovely photo op -- President Bush and his wife joining
the volunteers building a house in Louisiana. The perfect backdrop
for an upbeat interview, live on NBC's Today Show.

But then Matt Lauer had to go and pull back the curtain and ask: Isn't
this all just an empty photo op?

What ensued was an unusually testy interview, with Bush waving off more questions than he answered, chiding Lauer for quoting too many Democrats in his windups and making it clear that he would have been much happier fielding questions about the charitable nature of the American people than about politics.

Continued here with transcript and video.

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Huffington Post:

"The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg are working on stories that point to Vice President Dick Cheney as the target of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation into the leaking of CIA operative Valerie Plame's name. "

USA Today on prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald:

Friends and critics agree that his integrity is unassailable and that he is
relentless. The list of people he has prosecuted -- including al-Qaeda
leader Osama bin Laden, former Illinois governor George Ryan and New
York mobsters -- shows he has no qualms about going after the powerful.

Fitzgerald's politics, motivations and style have prompted debate.

He has no agenda," says David Kelley, former U.S. attorney in New
York and a longtime friend. "He looks at the facts, uncovers
the facts and goes where the facts lead him.

Mary Jo White, who was Fitzgerald's boss when she was U.S. attorney in
Manhattan, says she knows nothing about his political views if he has any, and he may not.

Fitzgerald, who declined interview requests, is registered to vote with no party affiliation.

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From Reuters:

"President George W. Bush vowed on Saturday that the United States "will not run" from Iraq as it did from Vietnam, as he welcomed voting on a new Iraqi constitution and called it step forward for democracy."

The fact that Bush thinks we should have stayed and continue fighting in Vietnam shows exactly HOW out of touch he is with the feelings of Americans. Most people think that war was a waste of American lives.

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A friend just e-mailed me and is taking bets. He thinks Bush is going to withdraw Miers from SCOTUS running on a Friday afternoon so it will
disappear into a weekend news cycle. Maybe not this week, but next.

Any takers?