(the Democracy Now! interview) are excellent.

I heartily recommend the second of the two, if you don't have time for both. Excerpt:

AMY GOODMAN: I want to ask you about the presidential candidates and the Iraq occupation. Speaking on the fifth anniversary of the invasion, Senator Clinton seemed to sum up the view of the Democratic leadership, that Iraqis should take responsibility for themselves now that the US has given them what she called, quote, “the precious gift of freedom.”

SEN. HILLARY CLINTON: I have been outlining plans as to what we can and must do to begin bringing our sons and daughters home. I am convinced that we can start within sixty days and do it in a responsible and careful manner, recognizing that the Iraqi government has to take responsibility for its own future, that we have given them the precious gift of freedom, and it is up to them to decide whether or not they will use it. But we cannot win their civil war.

AMY GOODMAN: Hillary Clinton, Senator Barack Obama and John McCain—you’ve been in Baghdad. Have you been following? And what have you observed?

NIR ROSEN: I haven’t seen the “precious gift of freedom” in Iraq. I mean, she’s just utterly contemptible. The Democrats in general are, because they’ve been blaming the Iraqis. I mean, we know that the Republicans are despicable, that this is their war, but the Democrats have also been blaming the Iraqis: “The Iraqis have to choose freedom. The Iraqis have to step up to the plate.”

The Iraqis were demonstrating for elections in April 2003. I was there, and many other journalists saw this, as well. We denied them freedom. We denied them sovereignty. We denied them their own government. We imposed a series of dictators on them: Garner, Bremer, Allawi. We created a civil war in Iraq, or at least we caused it. Iraq, a country that had never experienced a civil war, we did that to them. This isn’t like Rwanda, where we can just say these Hutus and Tutsis were killing each other, we had nothing to do with it. We did this to Iraq.

“Precious gift of freedom”—there’s freedom to kill whoever you want, there’s freedom for militias. The Americans certainly aren’t agents of freedom in Iraq. They’ve arrested tens of thousands of Iraqis. They’ve killed thousands of Iraqis. They’ve empowered militias in Iraq. There’s no Iraqi government. When she says that the Iraqi government has to step up, there is no Iraqi state. It provides no services. You have various militias in charge of various ministries. They’re weak. No electricity, no power, no security, no health services. It’s a failed state. It’s Somalia, with different militias controlling different areas.

Is Electrobot AKA Sugarman?

Meanwhile, FOOKIN' HRC...

http://www.americablog.com/2008/05/hillary-just-torpedoed-dncs-100-years.html

or click sig for linky

HRC's OK w/ "50 years in Iraq"

WTF? Here's more

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/5/5/143339/5685/3/509508

How does HRC not = McWorse at this point?

Somebody drive a stake through her heart!

"Herb" didn't appreciate GG's rebuttal of Herb's early disparaging comment. Go figure.

This is one of those posts I have to keep in the back of my mind for the time when (oh, my cloudy crystal ball says two weeks or so) Ledeen and the AEI "experts" are all making the corporate media rounds, even more obviously ginning up support for the military "intervention".

BTW, is this sentence missing a "be"?

An intense email campaign over his Iraq comments to AEI and National Review's Editor Rich Lowry demanding a retraction or some comment from them on Ledeen's blatant falsehoods over his Iraq stance was simply ignored, as will this episode concerning the article by McCarthy and Levin smearing Bamford due to Ledeen's alleged opposition to attacking Iran.

N/T

I'm still laughing at this

http://letters.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/05/08/ledeen/permalink/a602926bace23f5973650f80480a0b54.html

But for a good laugh, head on over to AmericaBlog and check out the "Hillary's Downfall" vid.

I can't bring myself to post the link here, but I laughed like a sunofagun.

"The voters have stolen my nomination!"

Did you hear this?

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90256903

or click the sig

Not all directly on point for your "favorite" topic, but close enough. Worth the 25 min.

Clicked your tinyurl. Not enough time right now.

What's up w/ Ruppert lately?

Is he back from Venezuela or wherever the heck he was?

Glenn, I know you're all over this

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/05/10/i-dont-think-exclusivity-means-what-john-yoo-thinks-it-does/#more-2123

but did you see KO interview Harry Reid in Countdown last night? KO's questions were actually pretty good, but HR's "answers", especially his mewlings about FISA, made me extremely uneasy.

Where are the pressure points?

W/ a media blackout, the whole goddam situation goes down the memory hole. The Networks don't deign to respond to the classic sternly worded Congressional letter.

What now? Is there ANYBODY in Congress who cares?

I thought it was "all y'all". The "of" in there makes it a bit more (too?) refined soundin' to my ears. But I grew up in upstate NY so what the hell do I know?

New post up, BTW.

For any other RWA eedjits who might be inclined to regurgitate the "what did you expect from military analysts" talking point, HERE

http://www.prwatch.org/node/7261

is where the link in Glenn's post leads.

It's a brief and simple explanation of the fact that, even if certain asshats don't have any problem w/ being propogandized, it is in fact, patently ILLEGAL.

But, for some, obviously, IOKIYAR (Administration).