A friend of mine sent me this press release from Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee from September of 2002. 

It is haunting how clearly Congressman Skelton perceived the dangers of the Bush administration strategy for Iraq.

In the midst of a vitriol-filled attack on Democrats during a Monday appearance on Fox News, Senator Orrin Hatch accidentally revealed more of his own thinking that he might have liked:

 "The Democratic Party seems to be taken over by the Michael Moore contingent in their attitude toward Vietnam, and they continually call for a withdrawal of troops at a time when we haven't finished the job,"

Hat tip to Raw Story.

As an aside, I have noticed that in recent weeks it has become the practice of Republicans, from the White House on down, to attribute the views of Michael Moore on Iraq to every Democrat, no matter what their actual thoughts might be. 

Given that logic,  I suspect to hear the GOP acknowledge any day that every single Republican shares the ethical and moral values of Duke Cunningham, Tom DeLay, Jack Abramoff, and Bill Frist.

This stunning piece from the LA Times just adds further proof to the argument that the Bush administration misled us into the Iraq war by manipulating intelligence.  And the "Curveball" moniker appears that it will apply to this fiasco on several levels.

It's also the first time I remember Colin Powell speaking out directly.  Maybe since he's now done it once, it will get easier for him.  The time for him to be a loyal soldier is passed.  He needs to do what is right for the country and speak the truth about what his former colleagues are doing to the country. 

The WaPo reports that Bob "I have a man crush on W" Woodward has suddenly remembered that he is a central figure in the Plame matter.  Somehow, until now, he had previously overlooked that fact. 

Perhaps his close ties to the Bush administration have enabled him to skirt FDA regulations and he has gotten his hands on some memory enhancing drugs.  Not that you can believe what he says, but here is Woodward's statement.

Apparently, David Limbaugh believes the truth is like a well trained dog.  If you play around enough with it, you can teach it to stand on its head.

The fear among the opinion elite of the right is so palpable, you can almost see David sweating as he banged out his latest column.  In it, David attempts to turn virtue into vice and truth into fiction.

Here's a fascinating piece from tomorrow's Washington Post in which John Edwards utters the hardest words for any politician to utter, "I was wrong."

In the last few days, the President and his administration have continued to misrepresent the circumstances surrounding the War in Iraq and their manipulation of intelligence in the runup to the war.

I started to do a post on Bush's Veterans Day Speech this morning and then stumbled across a post over at Kos that summed up the whole debate, all within the headline: Lying about Lying.

I think Lipris nails Bush.  Go take a look.

 

This is a lift from Think Progress:

McClellan: They’ve Already Had Phase Two

McClellan at during today’s gaggle on the Senate Intelligence Committees investigation of pre-war intelligence:

Q. Why did they finally agree to a bipartisan group, then, to look into this whole business?

Senator Harry Reid has taken the extraordinary step of calling the U.S. Senate into closed session, in an attempt to force the GOP controlled Congress to recognize and face the grave risks posed to the nation by the Bush administration's reckless abuse of intelligence data.

Here is Senator Reid's statement from the closed session and here is a backgrounder on closed sessions.

Republicans will complain and whine and gnash their teeth, all in an attempt to change the subject from the underlying issue.

Check out this story from today's NY Times.  This is the first evidence we have that Vice President Cheney was directly involved in the effort to discredit Joe Wilson, merely because he spoke the truth about the Bush administration's handling of the runup to the Iraq war.