Rooftop Report

White House tries to strong arm Letterman

Last night David Letterman introduced a new segment called "George W. Bush - Invigorating America's Youth." As one would expect this segment is based on George W. Bush actually boring America's Youth. Letterman, I am told, is a comedian so this kind of sarcasm would be right up his alley.

Anyway, the first edition of this segment came in the form of this clip:

Invigorating America's Youth

Funny stuff in my opinion, maybe not as funny if you are a Republican, but nonetheless funny to me. Either way, no big deal right? Wrong, the White House (and CNN towing the White House line) decided to state that the kid was "edited" into the segment. After that was proven to be false, they claimed the kid was at the event, but not where the video depicted him. Here is Letterman's response (CNN coverage included):

Letterman responds

It is little things like this that make it hard for me to back the Bush White House. This is satire, sarcasm, humor (ya know, kind of like looking under your desk and not claiming WMD's are there). There is no reason to respond to it at all. What does the Bush White House do though? It responds with a lie. When that lie is proved to be such, they respond with a different version of the lie.

Just stupid.

Almost as stupid as this: Novak decides attacking Clarke hasn't gone far enough.

All links courtesy of Over/Spun.

By the way, if anybody knows how Over/Spun, and others, turn files from the Daily Show, Letterman, and such, into downloadable files please let me know.

[Update:] Looks like Over/Spun ran out of bandwith. Here is a mirror site: Brendan LeFebvre

[Update:] I fixed the above mirror site, and here is another one: l'hippopotame

Rice to testify

In response to Richard Clarke's testimony, and growing political pressure, the White House has agreed to let National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice testify in front of the 9/11 commission publicly:

In a reversal, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites) will testify in public under oath before the commission investigating the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks as long as the panel seeks no further public testimony from White House officials, the administration said Tuesday.

I understand the general principle behind her not wanting to testify, but this is needed and I hope it clears things up a bit. Regardless of the fact that Democrats were calling for this, you have to think this move will be better for Bush and crew in the long run.

White House to Let Rice Testify in Public [Yahoo]

Yeah, I'll have the double standard with cheese

I consider myself, as Clark Kent was oft described, to be a mild manner fellow. I spend a majority of my day working, reading, conversing with my peers, and hopefully watching a great deal of sports. Usually, save a fantastically close game (when involving the Cubs) or a tough loss to a roommate in a video game, my blood pressure stays constant. That being said, the recent hypocrisy being applied to the Clarke testimony by a usually, at least in my opinion, fair blogosphere is infuriating.

Most times I sit back and giggle at political screw-ups. I take them for what they are; fuck-ups. Innately hindsight is far better than foresight and regardless of a politicians party alliance I like to give our Washington brethren the benefit of the doubt. Deep in my heart I truly like to believe that Republicans and Democrats only differ in their views on how to change the country; that they both pledge a devout allegiance to this wonderful nation and honestly just want to help make it better. It is this belief that allows me to disagree with Bush's tax plan, but not say he is doing it just to help his buddies. It is this belief that allows me to disagree with Bush's attack of Iraq, but not say he is doing it because of the oil. It is this belief that allows me to look past a politicians (as long as it is not criminal) sexual misdeeds, assuming it bears little in how they run the country (see President Clinton). It is also this belief that allows me to look at Senator Kerry's record and assume his different votes are based on a clearer understanding of a subject, or a intricate detail of a bill that I don't know about, that helps change his mind and not special interests.

What this belief doesn't allow me to do is ignore blatant double standards and hypocrisy. I see it from both sides and abhor it, but usually don't allow it to affect me to such an extent that I become enraged. Well, this time I can't hold back. The character assassination of Richard Clarke is one that denies open debate, denies talking about issues, and goes straight to the heart of why most Amercians are disenfranchised voters instead of active participants in the electoral system.

Yes, as posted on Just One Minute, Clarke seems to have some small discrepancies in what he has said. For someone to ascertain that this is more than towing the company line and then speaking your feelings afterward though is a bit narrow sighted. We ALL have been in a position where we massage the facts to tell a story our boss, or significant other, or parents want to hear. Something we may not completely believe in, but semantically is not a lie and can be backed up by facts. That being said, we know that our true feelings lie somewhere to the left or right of the massaged information we have presented.

For the Bush administration to attack someone, who has dutifully served our country for 30 years, based on these small discrepancies in beyond comprehension to me. For an administration that has long argued that the past indiscretions (see Bush DUI, National Guard Service, drug habit, misstatements) of a person shouldn't matter and that current values and standards should, a character assassination of this sort is quite mind-boggling.

Should we attack all Bush has done for this country because he disagreed with himself here:

Bush vs Bush

Should we attack all Bush has done for this country because his administration disagreed with itself here:

Q Well, we went to war, didn't we, to find these -- because we said that these weapons were a direct and imminent threat to the United States? Isn't that true?

MR. FLEISCHER: Absolutely. One of the reasons that we went to war was because of their possession of weapons of mass destruction. And nothing has changed on that front at all. We said what we said because we meant it. We had the intelligence to report it. Secretary Powell said it. And I may point out to you, as you may know, there is a news conference at Department of Defense today at 2:00 p.m. to discuss one element in this.

Q. Does the President now believe that, in fact, while the threat was gathering, while the threat may have been grave, that, in fact, it was not imminent?

MR. McCLELLAN: I think we've said all along that it was a grave and gathering threat. And that in a post-September 11th world, you must confront gathering threats before it's too late.

I think some in the media have chosen to use the word "imminent." Those were not words --

Shoud we attack all Donald Rumsfield has done for this country because he disagreed with himself here:

Face the Nation Imminent Threat

Should we attack all the administration has done because the President and his staff did at least some misleading here:

Threat of Iraq

Should we attack all Condezella Rice has done because she apparently contradicts herself here:

Condoleezza Rice's Credibility Gap

The fact that people are questioning Clarke's testimony is not what enrages me. People have to take accountability for what they say, and others have to be able to complete due diligence to decide if what a person says is believable. What gets under my skin is that people who I thought to be right leaning, but fair and balanced, are giving no thought to what Clarke said. They instead are just going right to the task of finding ways to discredit him. Point being, you could do that with anybody. You could find inconsistencies with everybody's public statements (as shown above). To not give somebody a fair shake just because they say something that might be deemed as against the person you are going to vote for is amazingly disgusting to me, and unfair to yourself. If what people are doing to Clarke is just, "questioning what he said" then I ask you, why not do the same thing for everybody else?

By the way, for those of you out there attacking Clarke, tell me should we also disregard these statements:

Former Republican Sen. Slade Gorton asked Clarke if there was 'the remotest chance' that the attacks could have been prevented if the Bush administration had adopted his aggressive counterterrorism recommendations upon taking office in January 2001.

'No,' Clarke said.

"Had I known that the enemy was going to use airplanes to strike America, to attack us, I would have used every resource, every asset, every power of this government to protect the American people."

-- President Bush quoted today by the Associated Press.

On August 6, 2001, President Bush personally "received a one-and-a-half page briefing advising him that Osama bin Laden was capable of a major strike against the US, and that the plot could include the hijacking of an American airplane."

-- NBC News, 9/10/02, via the Center for American Progress

Clarke's response: I think its importance has been overblown...In response to the drumbeat day after day of intelligence that there was going to be an al-Qaida attack, the president apparently said, "Tell me what al-Qaida could do." And in response to that the CIA went off and wrote a paper that listed everything possible that al-Qaida could do. It didn't say we have intelligence that tells us the attack will be here or there, the attack method will be this or that. It was rather a laundry list of possible things they could do.

[Update:] This post is part of the Beltway Traffic Jam.
[Update:] Poliblog takes the opposite position.

Morning Bang

Short and sweet today because I am swamped.

- Just another reason to like Mark Cuban:

Passion in business demands passion. A byproduct of passion is saying exactly how you feel in a way that you know will get someone’s attention, and listening to exactly how someone else feels when they need to get your attention. All of this is my way of saying that I expect people who work for me to yell at me, and I expect them to know that at times I will do the same. If someone is pissed off, if they think I’m doing something wrong, or the wrong way, and I’m being too pigheaded to see it. Blast me.

Cuban Philosophy [Outside the Beltway]

- If you are just joining the 9/11 testimony craziness, here is a nice recap for ya:

Richard Clarke: I've seen their s*it. It was whack s*it.

America: Oh s*it!

Bush people: Oh, s*it. Here's some character assasination s*it.

America: Damn. That's some cold s*it.

Bill Frist: Dick Clarke's full of s*it. Time to pull some perjury accusation s*it.

America: We're starting not to believe your s*it, but we think a lot of it smells like s*it.

John Kerry: Enough of your s*it.

Bush people: S*it storm's coming, biatch...

Richard Clarke: Bring the s*it on, biznatches!

9.11 Testimony Recap [Oliver Willis]

- Overt racism 101:

O'REILLY: All right. Now, Doctor, the Census Bureau really doesn't tell us how this is going to affect the country. Do you have any theories on it?

WILLIAM FREY, PH.D., BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: Well, I really think what's happening is going to be this phasing out or fading out of the white baby boom population. It is a 50-year time period we're talking about...

O'REILLY: Yes. We'll all be dead. Thank God, right?

The thing is, since Bill O'Reilly is the one that said this it probably won't get much play. Now, if someone had said it on, ya know, Monday Night Football there would be hell to pay. Problem is, a majority of people that watch O'Reilly's show already agree with him so their reaction probably was a chuckle and a nod.

O'Reilly, 3/23/04 [Atrios]

More later hopefully - - as well as a new riddle for those of you that care.

Um, wow!!

Are you kidding me? This couldn't have possibly happened:

A 2-year-old girl fell three stories from a resort walkway and safely into the arms of a man who had been reading a book by the pool and raced to save her.

Man catches girl as she falls 3 floors [Seattle Post-Intelligencer]

That is a hell of a water cooler story to bring to work with you on Monday.

Yahoo!

You want to know what is great about Yahoo? They allow both sides to get their shots in. Currently the lead news stories at Yahoo.com are as follows:

• 9/11 families praise Clarke for apology
• Thousands illegally mine uranium in Congo
• Rescuers enter Mexico cave seeking divers
• N.Y. Fed warns of potential deficit fallout
• NASA to attempt to fly jet at 5,000 mph
• Danish artist paints Greenland iceberg red

Now, a couple of those stories are just regular news, but two of them are undoubtedly favorable to the Democratic Party. The piece on the rising deficit and the piece on Clarke being showered with praise being the ones I am referring to, if it wasn't painfully obvious. Now, I don't know this for sure, and I am only stating it now based on past precedent, but within a couple hours I am willing to bet that there will be a story about Clarke's credibility and a story about some sort of economic gain in the slots currently taken by the aforementioned articles.

Let's wait and see...

Update:

Well, that took about five minutes. Here are two of the six articles now on the front page of Yahoo.com

• Poll: Most Americans oppose gay marriages
• Corporate Profits Rise in 2003

Being only 23, and not having paid vigorous attention to the news in my late teen years, when I first saw episodes of The West Wing focusing on the "news cycle" it was hard for me to comprehend how the exact timing during the day a story was released could affect how the story was portrayed.

Yahoo helped be put all of that in perspective. They are the news cycle kings. Kind of makes me wonder how they select what goes on the front page. If anybody knows please give me a shout.

The Lighter Side of Bush

It is stories like this that make people want to vote for Bush. From all accounts it appears that he was geniunely funny last night at the Radio & Television Correspondents' Association dinner and I can't say that I am surprised.

Though my allegiance is firmly for the Democratic Party candidate (Hillary out of the wood work at the convention?), I just can't see anybody being as good with the average man as Bush. Kerry making jokes is like watching that William Hung guy attempt to sing Ricky Martin on American Idol. Yeah, you like the effort, but you end up either laughing at him or feeling sorry for him.

Here are some of Bush's best bits from the night:

There was Bush looking under furniture in a fruitless, frustrating search. "Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere," he said.

President Bush opened his 10-minute remarks to the gathering with a reference to what he referred to as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's "favorite show" on television. Those anticipating an "Apprentice" punch line -- the Donald, after all, was only a few yards away -- guessed wrong.

"Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," Bush said, generating a roomful of laughter. "My Cabinet could take some pointers from watching that show. In fact, I'm going to have the Fab Five do a makeover on [Attorney General John] Ashcroft."

Hat Tip: Dean's World - - apparently every post must contain this site from now on.

Morning Bang

- For my "Morning Bang", a title I realize is not unique or funny, I usually round up my story ideas by scanning the blog world and picking up on what people are talking about. My little spin is then added to the story and voila, a Morning Bang is made.

Unfortunately for me, it appears my most trust worthy sources are now racing to see who can get on the Bush bandwagon faster. Though I am not the biggest Kerry fan in the world (last time I checked I was at about #52,003,265) I still would take him over Bush any day of the week and, as the cliche goes, twice on Sunday. So, it routinely baffles me to see some other bloggers steadily drift the wrong way from center.

Dean's World, a remarkable blog done by Dean and Rosemary, recently made a post that is just mind boggling to me. I implore you to read the whole thing, but here is a snippet:

Then, the very last two lines, buried at the very bottom of the story where most people will never read to the end of:

Former Republican Sen. Slade Gorton asked Clarke if there was "the remotest chance" that the attacks could have been prevented if the Bush administration had adopted his aggressive counterterrorism recommendations upon taking office in January 2001.

"No," Clarke said.

"No," Clarke said.

That's the very last line of the story. "No," Clarke said.

Mind you, we know now that Clarke's credibility is irredeemably compromised. But that's barely mentioned at all in the story. It's there in a glancing manner, but you have to squint real hard and concentrate to find it.

Wonder why Dean's World is now a Blog For Bush? Crap like this is a big part of it.

Okay, so this story most definitely has a liberal bias. Why a person would be annoyed by this is obvious, I have long wished that somehow the media as a whole could be seen as less partisan instead of having rival networks apparently take opposing sides (see CNN v Fox News). That being said though, it doesn't look like it is going to happen, so can we please move on? Dean states it is "crap like this" that plays a big part in deciding who he supports. Excuse me? How about, ya know, the issues. So the media F'ed it up, they always do. For every liberal leaning article someone finds I can find a republican toned one to counter, so please don't tell me that people are actually out there making decisions to spite the media.

In regards to Clarke, a note in the comment section of the above referenced post captures almost exactly how I feel on the subject. Here is a taste, go to the link to read the whole thing:

Sorry, I watched C-span instead of through the filters of the Commie-CNN or Nazi-Fox News. Three things struck me.

1. How gratified the 9/11 families seemed that someone in government actually admitted that the government failed them, and apologised. Clark seemed to take personal responsibility for the failure of his counter-terrorism efforts. Ironically it seems that this is something he would not have been able to do when he still held the position of Counter-terrorism Csar.

Anyway, I digress...

- Mark Kleiman ponders how much sense a post by Brad DeLong makes. The subject matter you ask? The President's jet route after 9/11 and how Cheney kept him away from Washington. In all honesty, I don't think DeLong's assumption is correct, but even if it is, I am not too inclined to get riled up by it.

Mary Matalin in the Presidential Emergency Operations Center directly after 9/11 though, that is something that peeves me.

- Pandagon has a cute post displaying a letter from an "elementary school student." Wait, did I just say cute? Man, I need to up the steroid usage, words like that cannot be uttered anymore.

Riddle Update:

Yesterday's Riddle:

What question cannot be answered by yes?

Yesterday's Answer:

Are you asleep?

For only the second time the answer to the daily riddle has escaped the readership as a whole. I can't say I am not disappointed.

Today's Riddle:

An Arab sheikh tells his two sons to race their camels to a distant city to see who will inherit his fortune. The one whose camel is slower will win. The brothers, after wandering aimlessly for days, ask a wise man for advice. After hearing the advice they jump on the camels and race as fast as they can to the city. What does the wise man say?

Liar Liar Pants on Fire

I know this is a little bit old, but I think it is hilarious. Seriously, I could watch it all day. Backtrack Mr. Rumsfield, backtrack.

Rumsfield Caught in a lie

Wouldn't that be something

What can make every Democrat in the nation cross their fingers all at once (no, not a Bush DUI - - it didn't work anyway), how about this:

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) has begun quiet discussions with a handful of colleagues about the possibility that he will have to step down from his leadership post temporarily if he is indicted by a Texas grand jury investigating alleged campaign finance abuses.

...Republican Conference rules state that a member of the elected leadership who has been indicted on a felony carrying a penalty of at least two years in prison must temporarily step down from the post.

Kevin Drum says please four times in his request for this to actually happen, and the second comment on the post makes it it a pretty please; if only that was how politics worked.

Well, just in case: Please?