Time for some dramatic pieces made up of these characters. The comedy channel should not get all the good stuff. What a bunch of horrible characters - the horror show of taking over our democracy.

Fred Hiatt's column this morning is in line with William Crystal's fantasy column in the WAPO entitled "Why Bush Will Succeed."

Two columns are not enough to restore credibility in the face of the track record of the attacks on the constitution by the administration which has been hidden in secrecy. The Tillman case of executive priviledge just might be the last straw in support by the the main stream media of Bush.

Why do they continue to be used as mouthpieces for the administration's propogand? Don't they have people on the staff with at least half the brains of Glenn so they could run the kind of analysis we see here?

Is the NYT doing these things to remain fair and balanced? Or are they just putting a lot of views on their pages?

Well, on the positive side, the right wing has been very clear about their strategies and published many of them. This looks like it is part of the strategy to say that everything is going well. The real problem will come if the right wing quotes the NYT as saying that the surge is going well.

From Juan Cole's daily report on Iraq we find today:

Skepticism on Gates-Rice Mission

The aid organization Oxfam estimates that a third of Iraqis, about 8 million persons, are in urgent need of aid, lacking potable water and in many instances even food to eat. The BBC summarizes:

' Nearly 30% of children are malnourished, a sharp increase on the situation four years ago. Some 15% of Iraqis regularly cannot afford to eat.

The report also said 92% of Iraq's children suffered from learning problems. . .

t suggests that 70% of Iraq's 26.5m population are without adequate water supplies, compared to 50% percent prior to the invasion. Only 20% have access to effective sanitation.

'

These statistics strike as similar to the ones for Palestinians in Gaza, which was under Israeli military occupation for decades, and which is still in a kind of Israeli penitentiary. The Iraqi statistics are worse, and were achieved more quickly. But foreign military occupation clearly isn't good for a people, and one of its by-products can be large numbers of malnourished children.

Keep up the great work Glenn.

There was a recent blog with the title "no one can stop him." Cheney wants to attack Iran and no one can stop him.

Time for us to send letters to all the people in congress to take a stand on this disasterous step. The Republicans used the first wars to win elections, now they are on the verge of taking the next step with an attack on Iran. Are the Democrats going to grow some backbone? Are they helpless to stop him? Can't they at least take a strong stand?

Back in the Vietnam war, the body count metrics were used to show progress. There was controversy about how the counts were made - e.g. was a 10 year old counted to be a viet cong, and whether the numbers were fudged. And in the end, the metric did not show progress at all.

This time around there is not just one big metric, but a set of metrics, which are changing all the time, without agreement about what these are, how to count them, and where the data is. One would think that after all the years, the great USA military would at least learn how to account for what is going on.

But, when the game is to keep the game going, such scientific efforts as valid measurements are not taken seriously.

By the way: what game are we playing in Iraq? what are the rules? who are the score keepers? who are the refs? who is the audience?

The news today says he will give a strong anti war speech. This has been an obvious position for months and is needed so the Democrats don't just look like enablers. The two speeches on the same day, Obama and Bush prolonging the war, will be an interesting contrast.

If it is a great speech, will the media cover it?

Another excellent column that shows how the press has become enablers of the take over of the means of power in our country. How much longer can the "journalist" keep their game going? When are the Democrats going to truly realize that following their lead plays right in to the hands of the right wing?

The Bush administration has taken over government institutions and ruined several of them. This article describes part of the take over of the military. The other item in the press is the takeover of the foreign service by sending diplomats into a war zone instead of closing the embassy. As Juan Cole points out, the issue of closing the embassy in Iraq should be a battle cry for progressives.

These are but 2 examples of take over of government institutions in the last couple of days which have also had stories about the FDA, etc. Running for 30 years on a platform that government doesn't work is completed by making it not work.

Glen,

You wrote

It's not our false

Should it be "not our fault"

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