"I'll take the new guy or the one party fascists 100 out of 100 times.

"

I'm with you on the Cockburns (Patrick and Alexander). Counterpunch is an interesting counterpoint to the US media garbage as well. On the same topic of alternative media coverage, if you can believe it there is actually a show on CNN I like -- GPS with Fareed Zakariah.

While it doesn't take quite the contra stance as the Cockburns, it is nice to watch a show that reminds me what the media used to be in this country. Yesterday he intereviewed the Iranian foreign minister, and he had a panel of real foreign affairs experts dissect the interview afterwards. Fascinating stuff, and it shows the lie to the rest of the establishment media's hawkish bullsh_t on Iran.

The upshot of the convo was that Iran is not now, nor in the foreseeable future, interested in a war with Israel or the US, despite all the playing to his base of Ahmadinejad.

Within some undetermined limits, I do believe that the American people will accept deviation based upon a new assessment of the facts on the ground, that they will not demand absolute adherence to Obama's 16 month promise. See my 09:08 AM response to sinjan for one example. If Obama were to try to pull of a Nixonian multi-year delay in ending the war, or were to try to shift to McCain's policy of permanent basing, then I think President Obama would be in deep political trouble.

You really have to stretch and contort Liasson's words to make her say that the American people don't want to withdraw from Iraq within 16 months;

You can spend all day writing this same statement another 100 times and it won't obscure how completely you're distorting the point.

Neither I nor anyone claimed that Liasson's point was that "the American people don't want to withdraw from Iraq within 16 months." So stop saying that.

Her point is that "the American people" want to withdraw in 16 months only if conditions on the ground warrant that.

That is exactly the opposite of what all those polls show -- all of them -- that the American people want to withdraw regardless of conditions on the ground.

It isn't just that her claim lacks evidentiary support (although that's reason enough to criticize it for a rational person).

It's that her claim is squarely negated by the evidence.

All you're doing is misstating what her claim was.

I heard that NPR report this morning also. The exact wording was “spying on suspected terrorists.” I noted it because I had been expecting the reporter to say, “spying on Americans.”

Maybe the Washington elite now consider us, the great unwashed masses, to all be suspected terrorists?

You lay it out nice and clear, man. It really is baffling. All these gleeful idiots doing their part to gut the truth from our public dialogue, doing their part to mire us in blood hoping it will transform to oil, nicecheap oil, guilt-free oil.

previous message by you, in full:

That's ALLEGED crimes....

It's why crimes committed by the Washington elite go uninvestigated and unpunished

One would think that a lawyer intent on preserving rights for unlawful combatants would do the same for the President. Sadly, no. Tsk.

I'm not a judge, a lawyer, or even a law student. But even I can figure out that crimes don't get due process- defendants do. You can dispute whether or not a given action is a crime- but that doesn't require anyone else to grant the action the "benefit of the doubt". Especially not as a Constiutional protection.

And Glenn's comments did NOT single out anyone by name in the statement you excerpted. It was you who brought up George W. Bush (aka "the President.)

Passive-aggresive whine overruled, shooter.

I simply do not find Liasson's assertion that the American people would prefer their commander in chief to choose policy guided by the best current assessment of the facts over policy locked-in by campaign promises to be all that unreasonable, even if the current polling data neither unequivocally support or contradict that assertion.

-- Foodle

(my emphasis)

There is no such thing as a commander and chief of the American people.

"@casual_observer

Within some undetermined limits, I do believe that the American people will accept deviation based upon a new assessment of the facts on the ground, that they will not demand absolute adherence to Obama's 16 month promise. See my 09:08 AM response to sinjan for one example. If Obama were to try to pull of a Nixonian multi-year delay in ending the war, or were to try to shift to McCain's policy of permanent basing, then I think President Obama would be in deep political trouble.

-- Foodle "

"IRAQ MAY SET TIMETABLE FOR WITHDRAWAL "

"By Dean Yates and Ahmed Rasheed

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki raised the prospect on Monday of setting a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops as part of negotiations over a new security agreement with Washington.

It was the first time the U.S.-backed Shi'ite-led government has floated the idea of a timetable for the removal of American forces from Iraq. The Bush administration has always opposed such a move, saying it would give militant groups an advantage.

The security deal under negotiation will replace a U.N. mandate for the presence of U.S. troops that expires on December 31.

"Today, we are looking at the necessity of terminating the foreign presence on Iraqi lands and restoring full sovereignty," Maliki told Arab ambassadors in blunt remarks during an official visit to Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates.

"One of the two basic topics is either to have a memorandum of understanding for the departure of forces or a memorandum of understanding to set a timetable for the presence of the forces, so that we know (their presence) will end in a specific time."

"

so either your a gop propogandists, OR you have no idea what your talking about. either way you lose. If iraq calls for us to leave, does that then relesase obama from taking the fall from gop propogandists? Or course not, it's all they got. I'm just glad they show their lying party loyalist red coat faces.