speakingcorpse writes:

Dear shit-covered blood-thirsty corpse-fiend:

Let me make some brief and related points about your column.

Moqtada al-Sadr is, as you say, a dangerous and ill-mannered firebrand, whose message does not appeal to many Iraqis. And yet there are, and no one can doubt it, thousands and thousands of people who are marching in support of him. (Should the soldiers trying to control these enraged crowds just chill out and "get a grip," as you suggest?) Why are thousands of people supporting an insurrection led by someone they don't like? Because as much as they dislike al-Sadr, they like the racist, ignorant, baby-killer Paul Bremer a LOT LESS. So your point about al-Sadr actually reveals the extent to which Iraqis are enraged, quite understandably, about the attempt by your flesh-licking friends to impose by force a Republican kleptocracy on a population that is seen as nothing more than a bunch of wogs.

If I was living under a military occupation run by a blood-drinking corpse-eater as arrogant and ignorant about ME as Bremer is about Iraq, I would not take it lying down.

We need, you say, to get in touch with the Iraqis who "want what we want." What about the rest? Are they, like the rest of the brown-skinned turban-wearing wogs, "enemies of civilization"?

The policy of stopping al-Sadr, and the other popular insurrections, Shiite and Sunni, across Iraq, involves killing a lot more people than just the rebel leaders. How many people have died in Fallujah since last week? Hundred and hundreds. Do you think "most Iraqis" are in favor of this?

But Fallujah and the rest of the "Sunni Triangle," we know, is filled with corpse-desecrating savages; it's a town full of "enemies of civilization" that need to be exterminated. Kill the bloody wogs. Well if that's what "we want," then we're going to have a hard time finding Iraqis who "want what we want." Thus the resignations from the governing council.

That's all I have to say. I just want to make it clear to you that even though you seem pretty "chill" about things, your callous and demented (and obviously fake) myopia doesn't change the fact that you are advocating vicious mass murder in the pages of the New York Times. Your "chill" attitude only makes your bloodthirsty racist murder fantasies all the more disgusting.

Why don't you "take a deep breath," go to Iraq, wander around, and look for some Iraqis who "want what you want"?

You'll very quickly get what you deserve.

Sincerely,

speakingcorpse

P.S. If you take note of the realities described in this article--first-hand reporting and not dick-fiddling from the "exurbs"--you will see beyond any doubt that you are advocating not for the repression of a few bad terrorists, but for the racist mass murder of a justifiably enraged civilian population.

Just to be clear: you are soon going to have a lot more blood on your hands than you already do.

Also note: the Mahdi brigades were, it seems, keeping ORDER in Sadr city a month ago, because Bremer was too busy shoving money up his asshole to do anything about it.

Rot in hell.

P.P.S. In case there is any ambiguity: when Donald Rumsfeld pretends that the uprising involves just a few thugs and terrorists, he is not merely crazily wrong about what is going on. He is CREATING A PRETEXT FOR MASS MURDER. If the uprising involved just a few thugs and terrorists, then it could be put down with extreme prejudice. This is what Rumsfeld wishes he could do, even though the uprising involves much of the nation of Iraq. Putting down a national uprising with extreme prejudice is mass murder (especially when the uprising is the result of our own vicious and racist incompetence). To obscure the fact that mass murder is his devout wish, Rumsfeld pretends that the uprising does not involve a lot of people. Then he can go ahead and put it down brutally, and hope Americans don't notice how much blood he is pouring on their heads. So: you, David Brooks--father of a newly bar-mitzvahed 13-year-old and believer in the healthy nature and consequence of American fantasy--when you deceive yourself and others about the nature of the uprising, you are facilitating racist mass murder, and smearing yourself, your family, and your fellow-citizens with blood.

Blicero adds: Stick to writing about Hummers and fashion shows, shitbag.

Dawkins writes:

Big news. The Times describes Republican strategists doubting "whether New York is the best place for the Republicans to be gathering this summer" and saying things like:

"I would assume that it has turned from a win-win to a maybe not… I don't think that it is all negative at this point, but it has the potential to turn. It's eroding slowly, and that's a real problem for them."

Sharpton puppeteer and Florida recount riot-inciter Roger Stone adds: "The premise for coming to New York is no longer valid… Karl Rove's master stroke idea may turn out to be an unmitigated disaster. It has the potential to highlight an issue that may be a negative by the time he gets to the convention."

But here comes Bush turd-chugger Peter T. King, Long Island Republican, to set us all straight:

"This will be good for the president politically… It reminds us vividly how dangerous the world is."

He said having the convention in New York will drive home a point that seems to have been obscured by recent headlines: why American forces are in Iraq. "This all began on Sept. 11."

Indeed, the point that there is a connection between the plotting of 9/11 and Iraq certainly "seems to have been obscured by recent headlines," such as "recent headlines" that scream that there is and never was a connection between Saddam and Osama, not to mention "recent headlines" that tell us that Iraq is a disaster, or that Bush and his cronies negligently allowed 9/11 happen, or that Bush and his New York convention are doomed to utter repudiation and failure.

From Billmon:

Canary in the Mine

Howard Fineman wasn't too impressed with Condi Rice's testimony yesterday, and he sounds dangerously close to turning on flight suit boy himself:

Remember the picture of the president in the classroom being told by Andy Card of the attack? The American people thought they were seeing a man suddenly thrust into a grave challenge no one could have anticipated. That won him enormous sympathy and patience from the voters. But what if he was literally on vacation — at the ranch in Crawford — when he should have been making sure that someone was ringing alarm bells throughout the bureaucracy?

Already on the defensive for his leadership in the post 9/11 world — the war in Iraq grows less popular by the day — Bush now finds himself with questions to answer about his pre-9/11 leadership. He says he's running for re-election as a "war president." But by Rice's own standards, the war was well under way by the time he took office. He was a "war president" the moment he took the oath. But did he act like one? The election may hinge on the answer.

When Walter Cronkite made his famous post-Tet declaration that the Vietnam War couldn't be won, LBJ supposedly was heard to mutter, "if I've lost Cronkite I've lost the country." I certainly wouldn't go that far here -- it's just Howard Fineman, after all.

But Fineman really is the proverbial canary in the mine. If he's turning, then Bush has probably lost the media whores. And if he's loses the media whores, then he will have finally burned through the toughest part of his teflon coating.

I would only add that a) Johnson was capable of saying something like that--and feeling its implications--because he was a human being, whereas Bush is a shit-filled puppet; and b) Fineman is mainly like a "canary" in that he flits from thing to thing, airy and without substance, occasionally eating insects and dropping globs of shit onto the citizenry below.

Marshall from yesterday:

Department of troubling juxtapositions ...

At the center of a storm brewing for more than two weeks, Rice on Thursday consistently stressed before the packed hearing room on Capitol Hill that the Bush White House was fully engaged against al-Qaida.

She also repeatedly suggested the administration was hampered because it had been in office for only 233 days before the attacks.

April 9, 2004
Chicago Tribune

U.S. soldiers in Baghdad evacuated police stations and the town hall in Baghdad's Shiite Muslim district of Sadr City after five days of fighting with supporters of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, Agence France-Presse reported.

April 9, 2004
Bloomberg News

On Saturday, Bush and his father were to go fishing at the ranch's bass pond with a crew from the Outdoor Life Network's "Fishing with Roland Martin."

The White House approached the network about coming to film Bush, who is eager to cultivate an image as a sportsman with the millions of voters who hunt and fish. The crew was to bring its own boat for the shoot on the small pond.

April 9, 2004
Associated Press

What will we tell the children?

-- Josh Marshall

FAIR invites you to a New York City event:

THE PROBLEM OF THE MEDIA:
U.S. COMMUNICATION POLITICS IN THE 21ST CENTURY
Friday, April 16, 6:30pm, Free admission
The New School, 66 West 12th Street, Wollman Hall

With Robert W. McChesney and Mark Crispin Miller

The symptoms of the crisis of the U.S. media are well-known: a decline in hard news, the growth of info-tainment and advertorials, staff cuts and concentration of ownership, increasing conformity of viewpoint and suppression of genuine debate. McChesney's new book, The Problem of the Media (Monthly Review Press), gets to the roots of this crisis, explains it, and points a way forward for the growing media reform movement.

Introduced by Mark Crispin Miller, Robert W. McChesney will discuss his new book, followed by a question and answer session and book signing. This event is co-sponsored by Monthly Review Press, FAIR, Seven Stories Press, The New Press, and the Wolfson Center for National Affairs at The New School. For further information, call Monthly Review Press: 212.691.2555 or visit www.mediaproblem.org.

From: Dawkins65@aol.com
To: rush@eibnet.com

Hi Rush,

Quick question on your statement:

“Only in Washington when the girl is a Republican and a black can you beat up on her. Couldn't do this if she were representing a Democrat administration regardless of her color, but especially given that she's black.”

Am I remembering incorrectly that Janet Reno, Hillary Clinton, Sheila Jackson Lee, and Anita Hill (to name a few) have been beaten up pretty soundly in the recent past by your good self and other critics of Democrats?

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Thanks for your insight.

Dawkins

Blicero adds: Or as Trent Lott said: "Three men, four women, a minority ...all blocked by this filibuster."

Or rather as Trent said shortly thereafter: "But don't use a procedural vote to defeat these men, women and children ..."

If you haven't had enough yet, check out this very thorough parsing of Rice's testimony by the Center for American Progress:

Claim vs. Fact: Rice's Q&A Testimony Before the 9/11 Commission

It contains items such as:

August 6 PDB

CLAIM: There was "nothing about the threat of attack in the U.S." in the Presidential Daily Briefing the President received on August 6th. [responding to Ben Veniste]

FACT: Rice herself confirmed that "the title [of the PDB] was, 'Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.'" [Source: Condoleezza Rice, 4/8/04 ]

The Washington Post
May 16, 2002

Bush Was Told of Hijacking Dangers; Aug. Report Had No Details on Sept. Plot

The intelligence briefing on al Qaeda hijackings, first reported last night by CBS News, marks the most detailed disclosure of what [Bush] was told about the possibility of terror attacks before Sept. 11. It also represents a shift in the official version of events surrounding the attacks on New York and Washington, which Bush and other administration officials have generally characterized as a sneak attack ...

[Amnesia/Blackout...Saddam Hussein...WMD...]

The Washington Post
April 9, 2004

Zeroing In on One Classified Document

But while the hotly anticipated hearing...did not end the scouring of the Bush administration, it helped to narrow the focus to this: What did President Bush and his senior advisers know in the summer of 2001 about a flurry of terrorist threats picked up by intelligence services, and what did they do about it?

That piece of the puzzle remained in dispute in part because of questions about a key classified document that detailed terror threats to Bush about a month before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Round and round she goes; where she stops...

The lead editorial in today's Times contains statements that would have seemed extraordinary (in the mainstream press) a couple of months ago:

Warnings were issued, meetings were held. But Ms. Rice was utterly unconvincing when she tried to portray Al Qaeda as anything approaching a top concern for the White House.

If President Bush were not making 9/11 the center of his re-election campaign, it might be possible for the country to settle on a realistic vision of how the White House handled the threat posed by Al Qaeda before the terrible attacks on New York and Washington occurred. The administration tried to behave responsibly, but it missed the boat.

Ms. Rice was at her weakest in her testimony before the independent commission investigating the 9/11 attacks when she attempted to portray Mr. Bush himself as a hands-on administrator with a particular concern about terror threats.
-----
If Ms. Rice were not set on burnishing the commander in chief's image as the hero of 9/11, she might have been able to admit that Mr. Bush is a hierarchical manager who expects his immediate underlings to run things, and who guessed wrong about what deserved the administration's most immediate and intense attention.
-----
The real challenge came after the Afghan invasion, when Mr. Bush had to decide what to do next — rethink the outdated world view his advisers had brought into office, or snap back into old reflexes and go after Iraq, the enemy of the last generation. It was then that he chose the wrong path.

For how much longer will U.S. citizens be obliged to withstand this barrage of truth? Won't there be rending of garments in the streets, tearing of hair, gnashing of teeth?

speakingcorpse writes:

This is un-fucking-believable. I am referring to Kerry's unforgivably weak statements as quoted in this article. And they are really--not just apparently--WEAK. I am not saying that Kerry is not sending the right message, not appearing the right away. I am saying that he is actually betraying a truly callous inability to respond to reality. Kerry has obviously been told by his advisers simply to let all of the flak for Iraq fall on Bush, and to say nothing. And so Kerry actually SAYS that he does not want to be blamed for Iraq. He is dementedly repeating his strategic campaign goals as if these are responses to questions about mass death. "I hope not to be blamed for Iraq." That really and truly is a pathetic and disgraceful thing for a would-be president to say about the ongoing disaster.

Battles in Iraq Bring Troubles for Bush and Kerry as Well

February 20, 1967 - April 5, 1994

Out of the ground
Into the sky
Out of the sky
Into the dirt

Dawkins writes:

After hearing Condi Rice dodge all responsibility for any national security lapses that occured during her tenure as national security advisor, and after hearing her deny again and again that the Clinton administration provided Bush with any warning on the dangers posed by bin Laden, it's interesting to remember that:

1. Condi Rice bears great responsibility for the national security lapses that occured during her tenure in large part because

2. during the transition Bill Clinton personally warned George W. Bush that bin Laden was "the biggest security threat the United States faced."

From Thurs, Oct 16, 2003:

Clinton warned Bush of bin Laden threat

This has gotta be the thirty-seventh time I've heard this story--but ya know, for some reason it just never seems to get old!

Clinton warned Bush of bin Laden threat

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former President Bill Clinton says he warned President George W. Bush before he left office in 2001 that Osama bin Laden was the biggest security threat the United States faced.

Speaking at a luncheon sponsored by the History Channel on Wednesday, Clinton said he discussed security issues with Bush in his "exit interview," a formal and often candid meeting between a sitting president and the president-elect.

"In his campaign, Bush had said he thought the biggest security issue was Iraq and a national missile defence," Clinton said. "I told him that in my opinion, the biggest security problem was Osama bin Laden."

The U.S. government has blamed bin Laden's Al Qaeda network for the September 11 attacks.

Time magazine reported last year that a plan for the United States to launch attacks against the al-Qaeda network languished for eight months because of the change in presidents and was approved only a week before the September 11 attacks.

The "news" from the Times?

Partisanship Seeps Through

Richard Ben-Veniste, a former Watergate prosecutor, was one of two Democrats who were forceful in their pursuit of information.

Thanks, Times, for that news information!

A Call for an Exit Door from Iraq

by Senator Robert Byrd
Senate Floor Remarks
April 7, 2004

I have watched with heavy heart and mounting dread as the ever-precarious battle to bring security to post-war Iraq has taken a desperate turn for the worse in recent days and hours. Along with so many Americans, I have been shaken by the hellish carnage in Fallujah and the violent uprisings in Baghdad and elsewhere. The pictures have been the stuff of nightmares, with bodies charred beyond recognition and dragged through the streets of cheering citizens. And in the face of such daunting images and ominous developments, I have wondered anew at the President's stubborn refusal to admit mistakes or express any misgivings over America's unwarranted intervention in Iraq.

During the past weekend, the death toll among America's military personnel in Iraq topped 600 -- including as many as 20 American soldiers killed in one three-day period of fierce fighting. Many of the dead, most perhaps, were mere youngsters, just starting out on the great adventure of life. But before they could realize their dreams, they were called into battle by their Commander in Chief, a battle that we now know was predicated on faulty intelligence and wildly exaggerated claims of looming danger.

As I watch events unfold in Iraq, I cannot help but be reminded of another battle at another place and another time that hurtled more than 600 soldiers into the maws of death because of a foolish decision on the part of their commander. The occasion was the Battle of Balaclava on October 25, 1864, during the Crimean War, a battle that was immortalized by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, in his poem, "The Charge of the Light Brigade."

Full text.

Barrage of Fire, Trail of Death in the Capital

AT THE INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, near Baghdad, April 5 - Lt. Col. Eric C. Schwartz did not see much of Baghdad this morning as his battalion of roughly 60 tanks, Bradleys and other armored vehicles churned along Highway 8, rumbling through first an industrial then a residential zone not far from the city's center.

All he recalled, when it was over, were the Iraqi soldiers, the artillery batteries, the trucks mounted with machine guns, the wisp and blast of rocket-propelled grenades, the whiz of bullets, the fiery explosions of cars packed, he assumed, with explosives.

"It was three hours of organized chaos," he said.

The colonel's battalion, part of the Army's Third Infantry Division, rolled into the heart of Baghdad in what, on the Iraqi side, must have seemed like the beginning of the invasion of the city itself.

The casualty count was unknowable, because the American soldiers moved virtually without stopping, but in the estimate of the Second Brigade's commander, Col. David Perkins, more than 1,000 Iraqi fighters died today.
---
For the soldiers - members of the Second Brigade's First Battalion, 64th Armored Regiment - it was a blistering gantlet of death and destruction that, they said, engulfed civilians as well as Iraqi fighters. It began just after dawn and ended when they arrived here at the airport, already occupied by the division's First Brigade.

A tank commander, sitting exposed in his open hatch, was killed when a grenade or mortar exploded in his face, soldiers and officers said. At least six American soldiers were wounded, some of them seriously.

One tank was destroyed, apparently by a rocket-propelled grenade, and had to be left behind in southern Baghdad after the crew was rescued. Other tanks and Bradleys were damaged, some pocked with the splash of rocket-propelled grenades and others charred by explosives.

A grenade hit Specialist Joseph A. Aiello's tank. "We were just riding along and all of a sudden you could hear a pow," he said. "The tank didn't really shake, but you could feel the vibration."

Sgt. Daniel R. Thompson, riding two tanks behind, saw the Iraqi who fired the grenade. He had fallen backward. "He had no legs," he said, but somehow managed to fire.
---
Specialist Aiello, a gunner, said he simply never stopped firing, despite the grenade's blast. The Iraqi fighters, he said, fired from streets, from groves of trees, from highway overpasses. Many mingled with civilians caught up in the unexpected armored thrust. Some people ran. Others waved white clothes or held up their hands.

"It was hard to shoot, because you don't want to shoot the civilians," he said. "It was hard to pick out the threat."

The four tanks of their platoon, part of Company A, bear the names of the four airliners that were hijacked on Sept. 11, 2001. Sgt. First Class Eric R. Olson said the men had stenciled them on the cannons as a way to motivate themselves, even though he was not sure there was a direct connection between that attack and the one this morning.
---
A family in a car stopped on Highway 8's median, evidently hoping to endure the sudden eruption of fighting they had driven into. A large truck, mounted with an antiaircraft gun, hurtled toward the column and was shot. It careered onto the median and struck the car, bursting into flames. As the American column passed, a man, a woman and three children - the youngest an infant - struggled with their injuries and burns. The man, presumably the father, was on his back. One child's fingers were virtually severed.

"Being a dad myself, that's the hardest part," said Sergeant Cassady, who manned a .50-caliber machine gun on the roof of an armored command vehicle. "I've got six kids at home, and I can't imagine it. I'd just as soon die than see that happen to my kids.

CBS News Poll. March 30-April 1, 2004.

3/30 - 4/1/04

43 Bush
48 Kerry

3/10-14/04

46 Bush
43 Kerry

Zogby International Poll. April 1-4, 2004

4/1-4/04

45 Bush
47 Kerry

3/17-19/04

46 Bush
48 Kerry

Dear "Cap'n,"

Your recent NY Times column hilariously parodies our nation's current partisan divide via the allegory of "liberal" and "right-wing" commercial airlines--but you failed to mention a third carrier, "Air Brooks."

The passenger on Air Brooks is led to his seat by a charming, friendly stewardess and buckled in for the ride. The pilot, in his pre-flight address, greets the travelers in a manner which gains their trust by establishing himself as a competent, seasoned, world-savvy, adventurous but safety-minded man. He throws in a few gags about the airline food and the all-too-familiar airport security hassles as a way of loosening up the passengers and making them comfortable for the ride.

But as soon as the plane takes off, the pilot comes bursting out of the cockpit, pulls off his man-mask, and reveals himself to be Satan, announcing that he is going to carry all the passengers off to hell. Meanwhile the stewardess returns with a steaming meal-cart, from which she scoops an enormous pile of reeking shit onto each customer's tray. The video consoles show a re-run of a popular sit-com while mechanical robots forcibly assist the passengers in cleaning their plates.

When the plane has reached the midpoint of its flight path, Jesus Christ comes running out into the aisle. Cackling hysterically and visibly intoxicated, he performs a parody of his own crucifixion, utilizing an oxygen mask, a fire-extinguisher, and an in-flight magazine. He then kicks open the emergency hatch and dives out of the plane, trailed by a team of heretical rabbi-parachutists praising him as the Mosiach.

The pilot (Satan) then announces the beginning of the descent, and the passengers are encouraged to look for a special treat inside their vomit-sacks; the treat turns out to be a burning spike, which the passengers are invited to drive through their own eye.

As the plane, rocked by a self-igniting explosive device, plummets toward an "exurb" in Idaho, the local temperature and weather forecast is reported over the P.A. As the plane (designated the Eagle of the Future) crashes into Utopia, the residents there wave flags and hail the arrival of the American Kingdom.

I thought you might want to add "Air Brooks" to your parodic column, since some of your readers might think it is funny.

Thanks,

Blicero

i am a ram alerts us to this story from the Independent from last Friday:

Whistleblower the White House wants to silence speaks to The Independent

A former translator for the FBI with top-secret security clearance says she has provided information to the panel investigating the 11 September attacks which proves senior officials knew of al-Qa'ida's plans to attack the US with aircraft months before the strikes happened.

She said the claim by the National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, that there was no such information was "an outrageous lie".

Sibel Edmonds said she spent more than three hours in a closed session with the commission's investigators providing information that was circulating within the FBI in the spring and summer of 2001 suggesting that an attack using aircraft was just months away and the terrorists were in place. The Bush administration, meanwhile, has sought to silence her and has obtained a gagging order from a court by citing the rarely used "state secrets privilege".

She told The Independent yesterday: "I gave [the commission] details of specific investigation files, the specific dates, specific target information, specific managers in charge of the investigation. I gave them everything so that they could go back and follow up. This is not hearsay. These are things that are documented. These things can be established very easily."

She added: "There was general information about the time-frame, about methods to be used-- but not specifically about how they would be used-- and about people being in place and who was ordering these sorts of terror attacks. There were other cities that were mentioned. Major cities ­ with skyscrapers."

The Mercury Scandal
By PAUL KRUGMAN

If you want a single example that captures why so many people no longer believe in the good intentions of the Bush administration, look at the case of mercury pollution.

Story.

Bush at 43% approval:

Public support for war in Iraq has been unaffected by the murders and desecration of the corpses of American citizens in Falluja. However, continued turmoil and violence in Iraq may be taking a toll on President Bush's approval ratings. More Americans now disapprove of the way he is doing his job than approve, though by only a slight margin (47% disapprove vs. 43% approve). Just four-in-ten approve of the way Bush is handling the situation in Iraq, his lowest rating ever and down from 59% in January. Bush's evaluations on other issues – the economy, energy and even terrorism – have fallen as well. And by a wide margin (57% to 32%) the public does not think he has a clear plan for bringing the situation in Iraq to a successful conclusion.

Batten down the hatches, folks.

To: info@johnkerry.com
From: speakingcorpse

THIS IS A CRY FOR HELP!

Can someone please, PLEASE tell me why Kerry is not saying anything--AT ALL--about foreign policy? He is not just avoiding stepping into the Clarke fray or interfering with the work of the 9/11 commission. He is saying NOTHING AT ALL! WHY? And don't tell me it's because he is "focusing on the economy, which, according to polls, is the issue of greatest concern to the majority of Americans." The poll numbers may be true, but Americans WILL NOT EVEN LISTEN to Kerry's ideas about the economy if it appears--as it certainly does--that he is rigidly unwilling to SAY ANYTHING ABOUT FOREIGN POLICY!

I will vote for Kerry. But I know a lot of people who are still making up their minds. And I know that Kerry's silence--not diffidence, not caution, but silence--on foreign policy is losing him voters. I'm not saying you shouldn't focus on what matters to voters, or shift the debate to favorable topics. You SHOULD do this, when you CAN. But sometimes you can't. INSISTENTLY talking about something OTHER than the burning issue of the day is a sign of either stupidity or fear.

The world is on fire, or will be soon. To say nothing makes Kerry look like an idiot, an incompetent idiot--at best. At worst, it makes him look like someone afraid to say anything about critical issues--an incompetent weakling. Do you think Americans don't notice that Kerry says NOTHING about yesterday's rebellion, or about the Fallujah atrocities? Do you think that they hear Kerry talk about the price of gas and then FORGET about grisly televised massacres? Do you think that Kerry's eloquence is powerful enough to make Americans forget about the impending collapse of Iraq? Are you fucking CRAZY? Are you saying to yourselves, "Well, as long as Americans think about Iraq, they support Bush, but if we can just remind them of the economy, then they'll stop thinking about Iraq, and then they'll vote for Kerry"?

Have you decided, for the good of our country and the Republican party, to lose?

I am being driven mad by my efforts to understand your recent failures. It's gotten to the point where the frustration may explode in a frenzy of masochistic violence. Please help me. If you have decided to lose, just let me know so I don't keep on writing you letters explaining what you MUST already know.

Leaders of 9/11 Panel Say Attacks Were Probably Preventable

Amazing:

WASHINGTON, April 4 — The leaders of the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks agreed Sunday that evidence gathered by their panel showed the attacks could probably have been prevented.

Farcical:

Also appearing on "Meet the Press," Karen P. Hughes, one of Mr. Bush's closest political advisers and an important strategist for his re-election campaign, rejected the suggestion that the attacks could have been prevented.

"I just don't think, based on everything I know, and I was there, that there was anything that anyone in government could have done to have put together the pieces before the horror of that day," Ms. Hughes said. "If we could have in either administration, either in the eight years of the Clinton administration or the seven and a half months of the Bush administration, I'm convinced we would have done so."

I love this. On one side, you have Thomas H. Kean, a former Republican governor of New Jersey, and Lee H. Hamilton, a former Democratic House member from Indiana. One the other side, you have



Does anyone seem to care that the major Bush administration figure heading up their national security argument is the freaking campaign advisor?

Deeply Troubling:

The commission has said it intends to make its final report public on July 26, which Congress has set as the commission's deadline, although Mr. Kean and Mr. Hamilton said there could be a struggle with the White House over whether the full document can be declassified. Large portions of the Congressional report on the Sept. 11 attacks remain secret at the insistence of the White House.

Mr. Kean said Andrew H. Card Jr., President Bush's chief of staff, had set up a special declassification team to "look at the report in an expedited manner and try to get it out just as fast as possible — nobody has an interest in this thing coming out in September or October in the middle of the election."

But hey, November or December might not be so bad, right?

Editor:

David Brooks's attempt to pass off exurban living as a daring Utopian experiment is specious nonsense ("Our Sprawling, Supersize Utopia," April 4). I was born and raised in exurbia. Never did I see a biker community, or an Indian video shop, or a Korean temple. I wish I had. My high school of 3,000 had one Jewish kid and one black kid.

What mainly happens in the exurbs is you drive to empty construction sites and drink beer. Is this Utopian? Is this the successor to the restive spirit of Jonathan Edwards and Ralph Waldo Emerson? Please.

It seems that Mr. Brooks read too many bad novels about suburbia and then somehow got it in his head that those books were the products of liberalism. So now exurbanites are his kind of guys. They're the real multi-ethnic American searchers, not those you-know-whos sipping lattes in Chelsea. Not long ago, red-state military men were Mr. Brooks's kind of guys. He said in the Atlantic Monthly that they could identify soybeans growing in a field. Could a liberal do that? And could the political views of some charlatan who didn't know from soybeans really be taken seriously? Now the bar has been raised, and true Americans must be exurban golf buffs, too.

What's sad about Mr. Brooks's amateur sociology is not simply that it is so obviously false, but that hidden within it is the basest form of demagoguery. In conclusion, I can only thank you, Editor. By printing this excerpt from his forthcoming book, which I now know not to buy, you have saved me and thousands of others from any further exposure to this clumsy brand of hate speech.

Yours,

Giuseppe Abote