Friday, December 14, 2007

Various

The DC Madam: The new judge in Jeane Palfrey's case has temporarily quashed subpoenas levied by the old judge. Palfrey's lawyer had hoped to get records from the White House and "various federal intelligence agencies, law enforcement agencies and other individuals." Why? Obviously, to see whether those folks had engineered the targeting of Jeane Palfrey.

I hope those subpoenas come back on line...

Obama: The Senator has indicated that he will not sit back and watch election fraud take place. The great Brad Friedman tells the story: Obama wants the firing of John Tanner, the Chief of Bush's Department of Justice Civil Rights Division's voting section. Tanner is the fellow who made that notorious "minorites die first" comment. He received a job re-assignment. Not good enough, says Obama.

Obama, again... Am I the only liberal who thinks that now is indeed the time to consider how the Republicans will make use of his youthful drug experimentation?

Many believe that the GOPropagandists would never dare go there, given Dubya's own history of cocaine abuse (as revelaed by his spiritual advisor). But who would have thought that the Republicans would have dared to attack John Kerry on his military record?

Iowa: One poll has Obama at 33% in Iowa, with Edwards and Clinton tied at 24%. I think Edwards is going to come in second. I am unconvinced that a second-place finish will give him enough momentum to prevail in subsequent races. But look at it this way: If Hillary tanks (and she may be nose-diving at this very moment), Edwards will be the anti-Obama -- the go-to guy if you don't favor the front-runner.

I like both men, so this situation doesn't bother me at all.

Rudy: Is it too early to count him out? Things look awful for him in Florida right now. Personally, I quite enjoy the prospect of the Republican party committing Huckacide. Romney seems a more likely candidate, however.

The NIE report: Gary Hart takes down Alan Dershowitz. Hart demolishes Dershowitz' "rant that is not only hysterical but almost catatonic":
Sounds like the Cold War all over again. Intelligence is good when it tells you what you want to hear. Otherwise, it is dangerously flawed if not sinister.

Experience and common sense tells me that these sixteen agencies with hundreds of thousands of employees pursuing a secret agenda doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
JFK disinformation: Gary Buell has an excellent review of Programmed to Kill, a blame-the-commies view of the JFK assassination which has garnered an enthusiastic thumbs-up from Michael Ledeen. If Ledeen loves it, it's gotta be garbage.

The only actual evidence in the book is that he claims to know "for a fact" that Oswald's friend and mentor, George de Mohrenschildt, was an agent of Soviet bloc intelligence.
Oh yeah? Hmmm...

De Mohrenschidlt's friendship with George H. W. Bush was rather closer than most published accounts indicate. See here and here, as well as the Wikipedia entry here. I once saw a very friendly handwritten personal note from de Mohrenschildt to Poppy, written in the 1970s; it was released in the 1990s and, so far as I know, has never been published.

So are we to presume that the former CIA head (and father to the current disaster-in-chief) palled around with a Soviet agent? I don't think so.

Finally, this snippet: We have important new information about the ongoing search for the Holy Foreskin of Christ. (Thanks to the esteemed Professor Hex for the...uh...tip.)

5 comments:

gary said...

Thanks Joseph but how about providing a link to the review, as I doubt most of your readers know who "Gary Buell" is.

Joseph Cannon said...

I'm sorry; I'll fix it. I had meant to link to you, G

Hyperman said...

I agree that just the fact Ledeen agree is enough to discredit that book. Even if Ledeen is my preferred professional fabricator...

Remember that he wrote the book about the "Bulgarian connection" linking the KGB to the the pope assassination ? In those days (the 80's), he was peddling the conspiracy theory that the real "terror masters" were in Moscow (while it looks like he had relationships with some of the major players in P2 /Gladio ). It gives a lot of credibility to his new theory that the terror masters are now in Iran.

Anonymous said...

"Am I the only liberal who thinks that now is indeed the time to consider how the Republicans will make use of his youthful drug experimentation?"

No you're not, Joseph, but I think they'll only use it as a side dish to the main course. You know what their MO will be: Attack Obama on his strengths and/or assign to Obama the weaknesses of his opponent. Bush/Kerry 2004 campaigns were textbook. And it works.

Your site still in my first five stops every day - always a good read. I intend to hit the DONATE button this holiday season to send a little sumpin' sumpin' and I urge all readers to support this blog this way.

Joseph Cannon said...

A blessing upon you, Mark. I normally don't ask, but I'm trying to help a poor nearly homeless lady have a merrier Christmas...