The only "criticism" that Williams cites is a hawkish one: they should have sent more troops in. The fact that there were not more troops to be sent in is somehow irrelevant. Williams does not even begin to fathom the criticism that the generals were engaged in paid propaganda. Like most of today's TV anchors, Williams is simply not smart enough to understand the issues that are associated with the power of the position he's in.

That's not a coincidence. Most TV anchors are selected for their intellectual malleability and their ability to adhere to the corporate viewpoint. Any pretense of putting journalistic responsibilities ahead of their obligations to their employer went out the window decades ago.

because they wanted to. It's pretty much that simple. When White House employees are told to use RNC email accounts to avoid public scrutiny, it's pretty clear what's going on. Do we really have to report the official explanation as if it is credible?

That is the point I was making in my earlier comment. Propagandists like Electro Robot always claim that their religious base is growing, regardless of what the numbers are. When pressed on the point, he merely cited what the percentage of self-identified Christians is now. That is like asking a person whether a car is accelerating or decelerating and being told the speed.

As a historical fact, the number of self-identified is growing by leaps and bounds. Furthermore, the difficulties with measuring this kind of question bias any result towards the religious, since many people who have stopped attending mass are not willing to say such a point to a pollster. Also, when a question is phrased vaguely, like "do you attend mass regularly?" the answer could be "yes" even for a person who only attends twice per year.

People who look at church attendance numbers see a decline.

As for the question of religious instruction in school, that is definitely a non-starter. That issue was settled by the courts a long time ago. It is sad that Electro Robot favors pandering towards unconstitutional educational attitudes. When people say they are open to religious instruction in school, they are invariably thinking about their own religion. The lessons of history suggest that, in a society with as many different stripes of religion as the US, it is a practical impossibility to have religious instruction in school without conveying an official endorsement of one type of religion or another. And unless you want to live in a theocratic state (and most Americans, believe it or not, don't), you have to take great pains to keep religion in churches and temples and synagogues and mosques and out of government.

The idea that "secularist" is a philosophy equivalent to atheism is itself misleading. The Americans United for the Separation of Church and State is a group comprised not only of atheists but also of believers of a large number of different creeds. All of these people believe that religion must be an enterprise freely entered into by its adherents, and that using the power of the state to advance religion inevitably corrupts both the religion and the government.

Anybody with even a passing awareness of European history should know this already.

The ultrasound procedure does not come cheap. So the government is mandating that an expensive procedure be done, even if the patient and the doctor deem it unnecessary? And if they both feel that way, I am certain that any insurance company would feel the same way.

And to think conservatives always accuse liberals of forcing people to waste money.

It implies the notion that the same basic operation could have been done successfully, had only the planning been a little better.

It also avoids the question of why the war is being fought at all. That's the 800 lb. elephant that most of Washington and the political media have tried to bury.

No good comes from the sexualization of politics, no matter what direction is involved. Equating moral fortitude or personal strength with the presence of testicles is a Neanderthal way of viewing the world. It's the kind of nonsense that gets reporters drooling over a President in a flight suit while in pursuit of a foreign policy that is utterly detached from reality.

"Two candidates who are virtually, though not entirely, identical in their policies..."

Uh, right. If you cannot tell the difference between Obama and Clinton you really are not trying very hard. Perhaps you might, say, consider their positions regarding the Iraq war, the biggest foreign policy debacle in decades?

you haven't watched much women's basketball. Or soccer. Or really much of any women in sports.

Push-back from the left against traitors in the Democratic party?

This is hard to recognize. Why shouldn't the party be run by a tiny minority of Blue Dogs?

This woman is on record saying

(a) there might be a murder arranged to look like a suicide and

(b) she was made of sterner stuff than the other woman who had allegedly killed herself.

It seems very strange to me that the word 'alleged', which is used all the time when newspapers report any kind of crime, is not being used with this 'suicide'.

Yes, rich and powerful people can get away with all sorts of things. That doesn't mean that are obliged to play along with official explanations. There is a massive difference between a person defiantly saying she isn't going to go to prison and a person contemplating suicide.

Well, I guess it must be serious research. After all, some reporter somewhere talked to a handful of teenage girls. That certainly sounds like it merits publication both in the NY Times and Salon!