"Homeland" - vaguely reminiscent of "Fatherland" and "Motherland" (Fascist and Communist terms, respectively).

More obscure was a miniseries in the 80's where the US was partitioned into communist puppet states, including the Midwest as the "Heartland."

All very creepy indeed.

Nice piece, Digby! Biogirl wrote...

What's with referring to the US as "the Homeland"? Does that sound vaguely sinister, or is just me?

I have the same reaction to it -- it IS creepy. Way too close to "The Fatherland" -- I always want to say "The Homeland" with a German accent, to get the right vibe and spirit behind it.

And speaking of vibes, what's up with the NIE and the Bush League's handling of it, anyway? They're trying to have it all ways. Let's see if I can sum it up:

The War in Iraq (and, by extension, the War on Terror at large) is keeping the Homeland safe from an enemy that is, unfortunately, a lot stronger and seemingly unaffected by our War on Terror, to the extent that they are apparently able to threaten the Homeland despite the War in Iraq, which must continue to be waged without hesitation, even as the effort fails to meet the majority of benchmarks, so that we can keep the Enemy(tm) from coming back home to attack us, which...err...they are apparently already able to do...and...uhhh...are supposedly imminently preparing to...do, despite our best efforts. In that holy spirit, we must be unwavering in our commitment to embrace the politics of failure, so we may then not experience the...uh...failure of politics to deliver us from evil, for Thine is the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory, Amen.

What next, are they going to assault our precious bodily fluids? We really need Dr. Strangelove to roll on in, sieg heiling, to properly capture the absurdity of this rogue administration's stance on, well, everything. I'm shocked and awed.

It’s a sad commentary on the unfortunate state of today’s MSM (including the WaPo) when simply reporting the correct interpretation and accurately identifying White House spin on the NIE report is deemed noteworthy.

The real truth of the matter is that the NIE report, at best, merely documents facts that have been apparent to anyone willing to pay unbiased attention to what has happened since this shell game described as the Iraq war was initiated. The sycophantic participation by the MSM from the beginning has been an ongoing disgrace to the profession of journalism.

Michael Abramowitz is doing his job. It’s pathetic and frightening that today this is seen as commendable.

Six years ago saner people came to the same conclusions. I can't for the life of me understand how I can be smarter than those running our country, our intelligence agencies, our military, and our media. I'm just a commoner looking for answers. Come on fellas, belly-up! Tell it like it is. Inform the public and let them draw their own conclusions for Christ's sake. Given the six year learning curve of most of them, and Bushit streams of misinformation polluting the air waives on Fox, publishing the bare-boned truth shouldn't hurt the neo cons too much. Oh, I forgot about their need to not have oversight. Maybe the truth, or at very least, alternative information will hurt a little....

What's with referring to the US as "the Homeland"? Does that sound vaguely sinister, or is just me?

Let's face it. If Bush hadn't been half asleep in 2001, 9/11 would not have happened. Al Qai-duh was incredibly lucky in many ways that are not likely to align again. Bush's line is no attacks means he is doing a good job, any attack means we need him to keep his job. Impeach now.

might have done some good, say, 5 years ago.

As Glenn Greenwald noted earlier this week in Salon:

Senior Washington Bush spokesman Fred Hiatt -- who also works as the Editorial Page Editor of The Washington Post -- shatters conventional wisdom this morning by defending the Bush administration's mild, balanced, and restrained use of government secrecy. Government secrecy, you see, is a complex and serious issue -- we desperately need our leaders to act in secret, but they should try to balance that with a concern for civil liberties. And, decrees Hiatt, let us all be grateful that we have a Government that is so sensitive about this need for balance and is so fair and judicious in its use of secrecy privileges:

A PRESIDENT'S prerogative to protect national security secrets needs to be respected, but it should not unconditionally trump the rights of those harmed by the very programs the president means to shield from public view.

Such is the tension in several cases involving Bush administration antiterrorism policies, including the use of "extraordinary rendition" to seize terror suspects and most recently the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping program. In defending against court challenges, the administration has invoked the state secrets privilege, which evolved from a series of cases dating to the 1950s and which allows it to hold back material that it claims if released would compromise national security.

. . . . The Bush administration appears thus far to have used the privilege sparingly, at about the same rate as predecessors, according to a forthcoming law review article by Professor Robert M. Chesney of Wake Forest University School of Law.

Because the law review article which Hiatt cites is "forthcoming," neither I nor, presumably, most other people have yet seen it. But what I do know is that virtually all other long-available evidence -- which Hiatt studiously ignores -- demonstrates exactly the opposite.

* * *

Greenwald goes on to observe that the author of the law review article that serves as the basis of Hiatt's ludicrous assertions is himself basically nothing more than another neocon-artist apologist for BushCo.

So, the only conclusion I can draw from the fact that this "straight up" report on the NIE appeared in the Washington Post is that Hiatt is either on vacation, or else was out drinking more White House Kool-Aid when the decision to print this article was made.