From the latest Salon.com, Sidney Blumenthal confirms what we've all known these last five years:

On Sept. 18, 2002, CIA director George Tenet briefed President Bush in the Oval Office on top-secret intelligence that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction, according to two former senior CIA officers. Bush dismissed as worthless this information from the Iraqi foreign minister, a member of Saddam's inner circle, although it turned out to be accurate in every detail. Tenet never brought it up again.

Nor was the intelligence included in the National Intelligence Estimate of October 2002, which stated categorically that Iraq possessed WMD. No one in Congress was aware of the secret intelligence that Saddam had no WMD as the House of Representatives and the Senate voted, a week after the submission of the NIE, on the Authorization for Use of Military Force in Iraq. The information, moreover, was not circulated within the CIA among those agents involved in operations to prove whether Saddam had WMD.

UPDATE: Title of diary amended to avoid implication of criminal charge...

Here's the nitty-gritty about Deryk Schlessinger's Internet escapades:

Bill Bennett's meditations on Iraq Study Group

From National Review Online (h/t James Woclott's blog)

Smug, Arrogant, Insufferable [Bill Bennett]

I’ve now read the report, and I can’t add much beyond what Andy McCarthy and Rich Lowry have written about its contents and internal contradictions.  For a report to identify the outside agitators (which happen to also be the worst terrorist-sponsoring states in the world — Iran & Syria) as "provid[ing] arms, financial support, and training for Shiite militias within Iraq," i.e., fomenting war, and then say we should negotiate and offer incentives to those countries is simply too much to bear.  Insult is added to injury with the absurdity that Iran and Syria then become members of something called the Iraq Support Group.  Committeeism simply got out of control here. (...)

Hoo-boy. From Thursday's radio show:

LIMBAUGH: My cat -- here's how you can get fooled. My cat comes to me when she wants to be fed. I have learned this. I accept it for what it is. Many people in my position would think my cat's coming to me because she loves me. Well, she likes me, and she is attached, but she comes to me when she wants to be fed. And after I feed her -- guess what -- she's off to wherever she wants to be in the house, until the next time she gets hungry. She's smart enough to know she can't feed herself. She's actually a very smart cat. She gets loved. She gets adoration. She gets petted. She gets fed. And she doesn't have to do anything for it, which is why I say this cat's taught me more about women, than anything my whole life. But we put voices in their mouths.

A grim milestone to head into the weekend:

Now the death toll is 9/11 times two. U.S. military deaths from Iraq and Afghanistan now match those of the most devastating terrorist attack in America's history, the trigger for what came next. Add casualties from chasing terrorists elsewhere in the world, and the total has passed the Sept. 11 figure.

The latest milestone for a country at war came Friday without commemoration. It came without the precision of knowing who was the 2,973rd man or woman of arms to die in conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan. The terrorist attacks killed 2,973 victims in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

The Pentagon's report Friday night of the latest death from Iraq, an as-yet unidentified soldier killed a day earlier after his vehicle was hit by a roadside bombing in eastern Baghdad, brought the U.S. death toll in Iraq to 2,695. Combined with 278 U.S. deaths in and around Afghanistan, the 9/11 toll was reached.

Here's a news item about our Crepitator-in-Chief...

Animal House in the West Wing

He loves to cuss, gets a jolly when a mountain biker wipes out trying to keep up with him, and now we're learning that the first frat boy loves flatulence jokes. A top insider let that slip when explaining why President Bush is paranoid around women, always worried about his behavior. But he's still a funny, earthy guy who, for example, can't get enough of fart jokes. He's also known to cut a few for laughs, especially when greeting new young aides, but forget about getting people to gas about that.

She's baaaa-ack! Here's what Annie tells Time magazine about her comments on the 9/11 widows:

Here's what George S. said on This Week this AM:

Definitely a political problem but I wonder, George Will, do you think it?s a manageable one for the White House especially if we don?t know whether Fitzgerald is going to write a report or have indictments but if he is able to show as a source close to this told me this week, that President Bush and Vice President Cheney were actually involved in some of these discussions.

Here's William Bennett on his radio show this morning  talking to a caller abour reducing crime:

I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could -- if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down. That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down.

Somebody refresh my memory -- Why are liberals supposed to be so deferential towards Bill Bennett?

So it ain't Tom Cruise behaving like an insular, spoiled movie star on national TV, but you might still find this of interest...

US suspected of keeping secret prisoners on warships: UN official

The UN has learned of "very, very serious" allegations that the United States is secretly detaining terrorism suspects in various locations around the world, notably aboard prison ships, the UN's special rapporteur on terrorism said.

While the accusations were rumours, rapporteur Manfred Nowak said the situation was sufficiently serious to merit an official inquiry.

More after break...

...Or is an op/ed headline DEMOCRATS BUYING ELECTORAL SNAKE OIL merely a term of endearment?

There are Democrats across the country, in City Halls and statehouses and township committees, who understand how to win elections. And yet, in their hour of need, top national Democrats feel the need to consult a Berkeley professor who, I'll bet, has yet to carry his first nominating petition, work a phone bank or count heads at a county convention.

Your thoughts?

Hope you're enjoying this holiday weekend. I thought I'd pose a stumper for you...

In 1993, Joe McGinnis published The Last Brother, an unauthorized biography of Ted Kennedy. McGinnis quickly came under fire for lifting, without credit, material from other Kennedy-related books. Shoddy journalism, in other words.

During the brouhaha, a national newspaper ran this quote from a veteran media figure/political observer:

It's important to remember who the scoundrel is. There's not a lot to be proud of in Ted Kennedy's life.

Question: Who offered the above quote?  

Good luck!

I don't agree with much in this anti-Stewart screed from the house organ of The Manhattan Institute, though I kind of admit that Stewart's press has been a bit over the top.

The writer, Harry Stein, wrote an over-the-top endorsement of Michael Medved's mediocre memoir in the NYT Sunday Book Review. He also used to write for Esquire and TV Guide...

Your thoughts?

I want to give a shout out to Eric A. at Altercation for recommending this exquisite pimp-slapping of Christopher Hitchens by George Scialabba.

A choice quote:

Even when all the provocations Hitchens has endured are acknowledged (especially the not-infrequent hint that booze has befogged his brain), they don't excuse his zeal not merely to correct his former comrades but to bait, ridicule, and occasionally slander them, caricaturing their arguments and questioning their good faith. Not having recognized a truth formerly ought to make you more patient, not less, with people who do not recognize it now; and less certain, not more, that whomever you currently disagree with is contemptibly benighted. Besides, if you must discharge such large quantities of remonstrance and sarcasm, shouldn't you consider saving a bit more of them for your disagreements--he must still have some, though they're less and less frequently voiced, these days--with those who control the three branches of government and own the media and other means of production?

Update [2005-4-17 13:22:43 by Armando]: From the diaries by Armando. The love affair between the SCLM and the extreme Right Wing continues apace.

is Ann Coulter.

She's perky! She's cute! She makes fun of Arabs!

The officialdom of punditry, so full of phonies and dullards, would suffer without her humor and fire. Which is not to say you don't want to shut her up occasionally. Not long ago, I went to church with Coulter--Redeemer Presbyterian, an evangelical congregation in Manhattan. The actor Ron Silver had also tagged along--Coulter brings lots of people to church, including, at one time, an ex who is Muslim. Pastor Timothy Keller spoke of the importance of allowing one's heart to be "melted by the sense of God's grace because of what he did on the cross for you." After he finished, I asked Coulter whether she had managed to convert her Muslim boyfriend. "No," she answered, her heart apparently not melted: "I was just happy he wasn't killing anyone." With that, she threw her head back and laughed.

"It's a program to control every aspect of Colgate life," said David Horowitz, an author and free-speech advocate, from the steps of the Delta Kappa Epsilon house. "This isn't a battle just about this house or the houses along this row. It's a battle for independence of every student at this school."

Horowitz said this Tuesday at a rally at Colgate University in upstate New York. University officials have announced that the school will purchase the fraternity and sorority houses, and around 300 students (on a campus of around 2700) protested.

Horowitz is trying to frame this as noble college students in search of free expression in one corner, the evil PC campus administration invading student privacy in the other. Animal House vs. Dean Wormer, if you will.  I'll tell you why he's wrong after the break.

We've heard from the brilliant and the near-brilliant on Jeff Gannon and his saga.

Now, it's talent spotting time at Daily Kos -- See if you can spot any talent in this bit of repartee by pillar of stability Ann Coulter:

"Press passes can't be that hard to come by if the White House allows that old Arab Helen Thomas to sit within yards of the president."