Gets it right:

Bill Clinton did what almost none of us have done in five years.

He has spoken the truth about 9/11, and the current presidential administration....

The Bush Administration did not try to get Osama bin Laden before 9/11.

The Bush Administration ignored all the evidence gathered by its predecessors.

The Bush Administration did not understand the Daily Briefing entitled "Bin Laden Determined To Strike in U.S."

The Bush Administration did not try.

Moreover, for the last five years one month and two weeks, the current administration, and in particular the President, has been given the greatest “pass” for incompetence and malfeasance in American history!

President Roosevelt was rightly blamed for ignoring the warning signs—some of them, 17 years old—before Pearl Harbor.

President Hoover was correctly blamed for—if not the Great Depression itself—then the disastrous economic steps he took in the immediate aftermath of the Stock Market Crash.

Even President Lincoln assumed some measure of responsibility for the Civil War—though talk of Southern secession had begun as early as 1832.

But not this president.

To hear him bleat and whine and bully at nearly every opportunity, one would think someone else had been president on September 11th, 2001 -- or the nearly eight months that preceded it.

That hardly reflects the honesty nor manliness we expect of the executive.

Even as the Bush administration insists that we must hand our intelligence agencies the tools to torture and a get-out-of-jail free card -- in short, that we must give our secret services greater authority to act with impunity in their effort to gather intelligence -- the Bush administration has been ignoring (and, indeed, contradicting) the very intelligence that those agencies have compiled:

The war in Iraq has become a primary recruitment vehicle for violent Islamic extremists, motivating a new generation of potential terrorists around the world whose numbers may be increasing faster than the United States and its allies can reduce the threat, U.S. intelligence analysts have concluded.

A 30-page National Intelligence Estimate completed in April cites the "centrality" of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and the insurgency that has followed, as the leading inspiration for new Islamic extremist networks and cells that are united by little more than an anti-Western agenda. It concludes that, rather than contributing to eventual victory in the global counterterrorism struggle, the situation in Iraq has worsened the U.S. position, according to officials familiar with the classified document.

"It's a very candid assessment," one intelligence official said yesterday of the estimate, the first formal examination of global terrorist trends written by the National Intelligence Council since the March 2003 invasion. "It's stating the obvious."

Obvious indeed.

Digby:

What in the hell are the Dems going to do if McCain makes a deal and this [torture bill] gets to the floor? Are they actually going to vote for a bill that eliminates habeas corpus for terrorist suspects? Because if they don't, you know what the Republicans are going to be saying, don't you? After all, the saviors of the republic and guardian kinghts of the constitution say this bill is ok. The only reason the Dems can possibly have for opposing it now is that they are terrorist loving cowards.

I have to assume the Dems have good reasons for letting McCain run with this. But they are certainly placing a lot of trust in a man who is running for president from the opposing party. If Democrats in 2006 end up voting for this McCain/Warner/Graham monstrosity based on nothing but McCain's word they have learned nothing. Unless they are willing to filibuster a month before the election, which I seriously doubt, the Republicans will have backed them into exactly the same corner they did with the Iraq war resolution and the Homeland security bills in 2002. I'm not going to believe it until I see it with my own eyes, but I'm worried.

Me too. I'll never again underestimate the ability of some leaders of a certain party to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. And 49 days is just enough time to lose control.

You know it when you see it -- or when you don't.

WaPo:

While it is not clear exactly what techniques the White House wishes to keep, sources have said those previously used include nakedness, prolonged sensory assault and deprivation, the imposition of "stress" positions, and water submersion to the verge of drowning. Bush has said none of those amounts to torture.

We are on the threshhold of an entire world change. All these things we see in the news have been foretold many many years ago. The book of Revelation and the book of Daniel speak greatly of these times. There will be many killed for their belief in Christ in these times. All that has happened is just the tip of the iceberg. We as Americans have been a bit sheltered; living on day by day in our normal routine. Once terror cells here in the US have been activated, I suspect that all will change. They are already here, but they lie in wait. There has been an estimated 20 - 50,000 non-Mexican immigrants crossing the Texas border every year for the past 10 years. Ranchers in the south have reported that many appeared to be middle eastern crossing as if they were Mexican illegals. We talk a lot and point a lot of fingers when it comes to funding terrorists; but we are all funding terrorism when we pull up to the gas pumps. Who do we think is making all the money in foreign oil? We are all stuck in the catch 22 of all times. We cannot stay in Iraq, but we cannot leave. We cannot do anything in Iran because we are spread so thin, but we really need to do something there. It is apparent Iran my already have a nuclear device, which they may have recieved through Soviet channels.And I will not even go into the problems arising out of North Korea. In all this I keep a close eye on the world, seeking those so called signs of the times, and I am sure many of you can see where the world is heading. I will do as Christ taught, follow the road less traveled and do unto others as I would have them do unto me. I find balance in the middle.

Billmon:

It is a stunning testament to the political devolution of this country that the most effective anti-war movement in America is inside the walls of the Pentagon or buried deep in the bowels of the CIA! But that is the reality, thanks in no small part to the Dems and the Israel lobby.

I had hopes once that the Democratic Party could be reformed, that progressives could burrow back in or build their own parallel organizations (like MoveOn.org or even Left Blogistan) and eventually gain control of the party and its agenda -- much as the conservatives took over the GOP in the 1980s and '90s.

But I think we've run out of time. Events -- from 9/11 on -- have moved too fast and pushed us too far towards the clash of civilizations that most sane people dread but the neocons desperately want. The Dems are now just the cadet branch of the War Party. While the party nomenklatura is finally, after three bloody years, making dovish noises about the Iraq fiasco, I think their loyalty to Israel will almost certainly snap them back into line during the coming "debate" over war with Iran.

I hope like hell I'm wrong about this, but I don't think I am. So I guess I'll just have to accept being labeled a traitor to the cause -- or whatever the hardcore partisans are calling it. Sure, why not. They're certainly free to follow their party over the cliff (we're all going over it anyway) but I'd at least prefer to do it with my eyes open.

So this is America:

U.S. citizens suspected of terror ties might be detained indefinitely and barred from access to civilian courts under legislation proposed by the Bush administration, say legal experts reviewing an early version of the bill.....

Scott L. Silliman, a retired Air Force Judge Advocate, said the broad definition of enemy combatants is alarming because a U.S. citizen loosely suspected of terror ties would lose access to a civilian court — and all the rights that come with it. Administration officials have said they want to establish a secret court to try enemy combatants that factor in realities of the battlefield and would protect classified information.

The administration's proposal, as considered at one point during discussions, would toss out several legal rights common in civilian and military courts, including barring hearsay evidence, guaranteeing "speedy trials" and granting a defendant access to evidence. The proposal also would allow defendants to be barred from their own trial and likely allow the submission of coerced testimony.

These people have absolutely no understanding of what once made this country great.

Kevin Drum points to one of my longtime favorites-- Thomas P.M. Barnett-- on the proxy war in Lebanon and concludes thusly:

Iran has always been central to the region, it has genuine interests that can be leveraged, and that means it's not impossible to negotiate with them. It's hard — and getting harder — but not impossible. And without them, stability in both Iraq and the broader Middle East will probably be forever unattainable. It's time to talk.

A geography lesson.