The account posted at Huffington Post:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/laurie-david-and-sheryl-crow/karl-rove-gets-thrown-und_b_46501.html

was reminiscent of Politically Incorrect at its best. I was never a regular watcher, but I did tune in from time to time. On a couple of occassions, I recall seeing Alexandra Paul just decimate the rightwing think tank clones that were on.

What most so-called "political junkies" never seem to realize is that feeding on trivia makes you trivial. You are what you eat. And so it's no big feat for ordinary people to have a better grasp of issues than they do. What set Alexandra Paul apart was not simply that she knew more, but that she was totally in command, totally centered in her role as citizen. She was not there to entertain.

Ditto Crow and David trying to talk to Karl Rove about global warminig:

In his attempt to dismiss us, Mr. Rove turned to head toward his table, but as soon as he did so, Sheryl reached out to touch his arm. Karl swung around and spat, "Don't touch me." How hardened and removed from reality must a person be to refuse to be touched by Sheryl Crow? Unfazed, Sheryl abruptly responded, "You can't speak to us like that, you work for us." Karl then quipped, "I don't work for you, I work for the American people." To which Sheryl promptly reminded him, "We are the American people."

....

Ultimately, we were left wondering what on Earth Mr. Rove was talking about when he said "the American people." If more than 60% of American voters, the Supreme Court, over 400 cities, the US National Academy of Sciences, numerous major US corporations, and others don't constitute the American people, then what does?

The primary purpose of the press these days is to maintain Karl Rove's bubble, so that Versailles can keep on believing that they are America. And when they play farmer and milkmaid, they are the American farmer and milkmaid.

How wonderfully rude of Crow and David to remind Rove otherwise.

The risk to this strategy is it could make the candidates look like, well, weenies.

...who uses the Secret Service to keep ordinary citizens out of his audience if they aren't approved members of his party.

No weenie there! More like a marshmallow.

Just another guy who can't get laid doin the sour grapes routine.

Bored now.

The morning his PBS documentary airs, Bill Moyers will be interviewed by Amy Goodman on Pacifica's Democracy Now (democracynow.org). If you don't have a local Pacifica station or affiliate, you can stream it at kpfk.org or kpfa.org at 6AM and again at 9AM PST.

Should be a very nice warm-up.

The term "conspiracy theory" is ambiguous and potentially misleading. In an obvious sense, any hypothesis about a conspiracy is a "conspiracy theory."

But that's not what's usually meant, given the social history of conspiricism, which dates back in modern form to two main streams--European anti-Semetic myths dating back more than a thousand years, and secret society mythology dating from around the time of the Crusades, but vastly heightened with the French Revolution, which reactionaries blamed on the Bavarian Illuminati, among other groups.

A "conspiracy theory" in this second sense is part of a belief system that is highly--if not completely--resistent to empirical disproof. It functions as a quasi-ideological overarching explanatory mechanism, and posits a diabolically clever, though relatively small coterie of hidden conspirators whose power is wildly disproporationate to their numbers.

Now, it's entirely possible for the Ledeen/Niger story to be assimilated into a conspiracy theory of type two, and many have surely done so. But as a matter of historical record, it began as a conspiracy theory of type one, with rather strong pedigree.

It came from an interview that BBC-trained radio journalist Ian Masters conducted with Vincent Cannistraro, a former head of counterterrorism operations at the CIA in April, 2005. Masters asked what Cannistraro would say to the assertion that Ledeen was the source of the forgery. Cannistraro said, "you'd be very close."

More information can be found here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowcake_forgery#Origin

I'm completely agnostic about this explantion. But I damn sure think we're way overdue having a serious investigation into the matter.

Don't you?

nabalzbbfr:

The point is that he [Edwards] is a vacuous airhead, who thinks he can be elected to the presidency purely based on his (supposedly) pretty boy looks. This is a perfectly legitimate point. Tough luck if the truth hurts.

An "airhead" lawyer who made tens of millions of dollars thinking on his feet. That's a good one!

Better send it back to the shop for retooling.

The real point is that Edwards reminds some folks of the Kennedys too much. And Rove's tryin' like mad to make that a bad thing.

(JFK was an airhead, too: he wanted to go to the Moon!)