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L.W.M.

Published Letters: 6225
Editor's Choice: 5

Saturday, May 12, 2007 05:08 PM

I guess you could include

Romanesko at Poynter on Line

And Jay Rosen at Press Think

Rasmussen reports:

22% Believe Bush Knew About 9/11 Attacks in Advance

Democrats in America are evenly divided on the question of whether George W. Bush knew about the 9/11 terrorist attacks in advance. Thirty-five percent (35%) of Democrats believe he did know, 39% say he did not know, and 26% are not sure.

Republicans reject that view and, by a 7-to-1 margin, say the President did not know in advance about the attacks. Among those not affiliated with either major party, 18% believe the President knew and 57% take the opposite view.

Overall, 22% of all voters believe the President knew about the attacks in advance. A slightly larger number, 29%, believe the CIA knew about the attacks in advance. White Americans are less likely than others to believe that either the President or the CIA knew about the attacks in advance. Young Americans are more likely than their elders to believe the President or the CIA knew about the attacks in advance.

However, just 8% of voters say the CIA was Very Truthful before the War in Iraq. Another 33% believe the CIA was Somewhat Truthful. Most, 52%, believe the CIA was Not Very Truthful or Not at All Truthful before the War.

Still, 57% have a favorable opinion of the CIA. Thirty-six percent (36%) have an unfavorable view.

Former CIA Director George Tenet doesn’t fare so well. He is viewed favorably by 29% of voters and unfavorably by 49%.

Just 12% have followed news stories about Tenet’s new book Very Closely. Another 29% have followed the stories Somewhat Closely. Fifty-six percent (56%) have not been following the news stories about Tenet.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/22_believe_bush_knew_about_9_11_attacks_in_advance

I guess that's pretty damn close to the 28% that think Bushie is doing a helluva job. And it make Rosie seem a little less extreme in her views.

Saturday, May 12, 2007 05:33 PM

Billmon...

Has dropped by to comment at various places in the recent past. TBogg, even Col. Lang's...

I haven't visited Moon of Alabama lately, but I wouldn't be surprised if he pops in there from time to time...

http://www.moonofalabama.org/

Saturday, May 12, 2007 07:09 PM

Thanks, Paul.

Good points. I'm in favor of cutting to the chase and doing away with the electoral college.

Sunday, May 13, 2007 10:30 AM

Real Inane...

What an inidiot!

There are plenty of smart people in the south but their votes will never count until we do away with the electoral college.

The real possibilities are in the plains states... or that's what Thomas Frank said in "What's The Matter with Kansas?"

http://www.henryholt.com/holt/whatsthematter.htm

TPM is reporting that the MSM is finally picking up on the Rudy snubbs middle-class Iowa farmer story

Sunday, May 13, 2007 10:35 AM

All you need to know about Broder

He's for keeping the electoral college...

Sunday, May 13, 2007 10:44 AM

Blabbity blabbity ?

Blah blah We are so important that we have changed exactly nothing.

-- RealName

No, you are very important. You have changed (destroyed) everything... mostly your own party:

Corruption has ruined the Republican brand.

By my rough, conservative calculation -- feel free to add -- there have been corruption, incompetence, and contracting or cronyism scandals in these cabinet departments: Defense, Education, Justice, Interior, Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, Health and Human Services, and Housing and Urban Development. I am not counting State, whose deputy secretary, a champion of abstinence-based international AIDS funding, resigned last month in a prostitution scandal, or the General Services Administration, now being investigated for possibly steering federal favors to Republican Congressional candidates in 2006. Or the Office of Management and Budget, whose chief procurement officer was sentenced to prison in the Abramoff fallout. I will, however, toss in a figure that reveals the sheer depth of the overall malfeasance: no fewer than four inspectors general, the official watchdogs charged with investigating improprieties in each department, are themselves under investigation simultaneously -- an all-time record.

Wrongdoing of this magnitude does not happen by accident, but it is not necessarily instigated by a Watergate-style criminal conspiracy. When corruption is this pervasive, it can also be a byproduct of a governing philosophy. That's the case here. That Bush-Rove style of governance, the common denominator of all the administration scandals, is the Frankenstein creature that stalks the G.O.P. as it faces 2008. It has become the Republican brand and will remain so, even after this president goes, until courageous Republicans disown it and eradicate it.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/014107.php

Even the libertarians at Cato know it. You are history now, but you did change everything...

Invasion of the Party Snatchers: How the Holy-Rollers and the Neo-Cons Destroyed the GOP

Vic Gold was deputy press secretary for Barry Goldwater's 1964 presidential campaign, which launched the conservative revolution in the Republican Party. He went on to collaborate with President George H. W. Bush on his autobiography and to coauthor a satirical novel with Lynne Cheney. But today, he says, the Republican Party is run by people Barry Goldwater wouldn't recognize—some of whom are identified in his polemical subtitle. His new book is a lively jeremiad against "a fiscally irresponsible, ever-expanding federal government," a messianic foreign policy, a theocratic view of church and state, and a Republican Party that has accepted all those unconservative ideas...

http://www.cato.org/event.php?eventid=3763

Now it's our turn. Get the fuck outta the way, asshole.

Sunday, May 13, 2007 10:53 AM

Ondolette

I'm actually in favor of changing a lot more, even the Constitution... You can read Prof. Levinson's book:

Our Undemocratic Constitution: Where the Constitution Goes Wrong (And How We the People Can Correct It)

Or follow the various posts and ensuing debates on the topic over at Balkanization.

http://balkin.blogspot.com/

The last one was by Prof. Graber, (it's a popular topic there)

Thursday, May 10, 2007

"Operating an Eighteenth Century Constitution in a Twenty-First Century World"

http://balkin.blogspot.com/2007/05/operating-eighteenth-century.html

I used to agree with you. It's a risky proposition and I think the compromise necessary was a near impossibility and still is but in the near future, there is a good possibility the nation can pull it off.

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