Conspiracy

As Brad Friedman noted a couple of days ago, Rush Limbaugh has promoted an ultra bizarre Plamegate scenario.

The "theory" that Rush has been pummelling his Ditto Heads with all day: Joe Wilson has been a part of a double super secret background conspiracy with the DNC since day one, well before he was sent by the CIA to Niger.

Yes, that's right. According to Rush, the entire plan to send George W. Bush's own father's Man in Iraq -- a decades-long expert in African and Middle-Eastern affairs to Niger -- was all just a ploy by Democrats "to undermine the War in Iraq and the Bush Presidency," as Rush repeatedly described it.

We suppose then, that Bush 41's letter sent to Wilson saying that he concurred with much of the article that Wilson wrote prior to the war in the San Jose Mercury News was also part of that conspiracy.

Why is Dubya's own father trying to destroy Dubya's own "Presidency", dammit?!

Even by plot-spotter standards, Rush's latest is particularly inane.

Comparison is instructive. Remember the "Bush bulge"? Remember the many damning indications that W wore a wire to the debate?

This blog devoted much attention to that controversy. At that time, rightists continually derided the bulge-spotters -- including Your Friend and Humble Narrator -- as dreadful conspiracy theorists. My fellow researchers and I were all lumped alongside the Dale Gribble-esque fear-junkies -- the kind of people who believe in crashed flying saucers and pass out copies of Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Our critics even made oh-so-clever references to tin foil hats.

At that time, conservative pundits reminded their readers that conspiracy is a very, very bad thing to allege. Good citizens must never allow themselves even a moment's speculation along those verboten lines.

Unless you are Rush Limbaugh. Unless you are defending Karl Rove.

Then you are allowed to spew evidence-free conspiratorial hogwash all day long. Such are the double standards now afflicting our nation.

The bulge, of course, was at least partially vindicated by both a NASA photo analyst (who nearly lost his gig for confirming that something was definitely there) and the Secret Service (which said that it was a security device -- a claim you are free to believe if you choose).

Will Limbaugh's theory receive similar vindication? I doubt it.

Face it: The entire right-wing propaganda machine rests on conspiracy theory. During the Clinton years, reactionary propagandists peddled one paranoid scenario after another. Remember "Hillary killed Vincent Foster"? Remember "Bill killed Ron Brown"? Remember "Bill Clinton was KGB"? Remember "Bill Clinton was CIA"? Remember "Bill Clinton killed 17 little children just because he enjoyed seeing 'em fry"?

The far right would have nearly disappeared in the 1990s if not for conspiracy theories. Even now, the entire conservative power structure depends on certain carefully-cultivated red-state conspiratorial beliefs -- specifically, the belief that any journalist who publishes a truth inconvenient to Bush must be the malign marionette of a mythical liberal cabal.

No left-wing site known to me links to the Protocols. Plenty of "Christian" and right-wing sites do just that.

Real "complots" (to use a European term) do exist, of course. Just ask Karl Rove, the master manipulator. Conspiracy is what he does, day after day, right there in the White House.

Such is the paradox: The actual conspiracies in this world are perpetrated by the very people who benefit from keeping their easily-gulled constituents in a perpetual state of paranoia. Unfortunately, the Rovians make sure that the paranoia is directed against the wrong targets.

Best line of the day...

From Randi Rhodes:

"If Karl Rove is a whistleblower, then Jeff Gannon is a whistle!"

Turdblossom triumphant?

I probably ought not say much about Rovegate right now, since my net time is limited and I haven't completed today's reading. So far, the best summary of events I've found would be Billmon's:

So suddenly Plamegate -- which no one at the White House will talk about on the record, because it might get them indicted . . . I mean, because it might compromise Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation -- has sprung a whole shitload of leaks.

And whaddya know! They've all appeared on the same day (document dump Friday, no less), they all help shore up Karl Rove's alibi, and they all seem to have come from either Justice Department officials who've been "briefed" on case, or from attorneys who are very familiar with Karl Rove's defense.

Funny how that works.

In terms of the GOP's propaganda offensive, this is what the generals call "committing the reserves." But the leaks have also revealed the White House's line of legal defense -- which appears to be that Rove and his fellow choir boys were led astray by those nasty media whores in their fishnet stockings and pushup bras. They're the ones who outed Valerie Plame, not poor little innocent Karl.

In short: Rove now says that the reporters leaked to him, and not vice-versa. And where would a reporter get the info? A good question -- but don't hold your breath waiting for an answer. A good journalist is supposed to go to jail before revealing his source. Or rather: Her source.

And now we know why Judy keeps silent, even though she has burned sources in the past, and even though Rove has already been named.

After she spends a few months in the pokey waiting out the Grand Jury, she can emerge to receive her nice fat reward. Protecting Turdblossom's brobdinagian rectum should fetch her a cool million or two, which she will no doubt receive via the usual mechanism of a pseudo-bestseller. You know the drill: bulk purchases of advance copies. No-one dare call it a pay-off.

She may even get a movie or television deal. I doubt if the tale of Courageous Judy and her epic struggle against Darth Fitzgerald will actually make the big screen. Still...one never knows...

Bloody effing genius. Sometimes I think these diabolical manipulators deserve to win.

Will the public buy into the numerous false "blame Plame" stories now being spread by the usual propagandists? So far, they haven't. But never underestimate the power of sheer repetition.

Speaking of repetition, I'd like to note once more an important factoid I've pointed out in previous columns: On September 17, 2001, a CBS News poll revealed that only three percent of the American public believed Saddam Hussein to be the mastermind behind the World Trade Center attack. As you know, this tiny percentage eventually turned into a majority.

Such things do not happen by accident.

Staying on message works. As Muhammed Ali understood, if you can't knock out an opponent in the first round, you may still be able to tire him out.

Where's the film version of "Ghost Soldiers"?

Over a year ago, I saw a preview screening of a WWII film titled The Great Raid , which is derived from the acclaimed book Ghost Soldiers. The story focuses on a mission undertaken by the 6th Ranger Battalion to liberate a American POWs -- survivors of the Bataan death march -- held in a Japanese camp in the Philippines. Few movies detail the atrocious behavior of the Japanese fascists, but this film (the version I saw, at least) pulls no punches.

Those attending preview screenings are asked not to publish anything about the film, which is one reason why I've never mentioned The Great Raid on this site. I doubt that its makers will mind my saying I considered the movie excellent, and that I overheard nothing but positive comments from other members of the audience.

Yet the film remains unseen.

The official website says only that the film is due in "2004." They're running late.

This tardiness has me a tad concerned. Did someone pressure the producers?

The Japanese -- who fund a large portion of our deficit -- despise any honest recollection of their wartime atrocities. When Iris Chang wrote about the Rape of Nanking (a holocaust the Japanese usually refuse to acknowledge), she received death threats and other forms of harassment, which may well have played a role in her suicide. Some observers have even argued that her opponents engineered her death. Those looking for new reasons to feel paranoid may want to check out this page, which summarizes a radio program about Chang's work and untimely end.

Well, I don't want to be paranoid. I do want you to see The Great Raid. Will this important movie remain on the shelf forever?

Did the Bush-men fund vote fraud with money earmarked for rebuilding Iraq?

A poster to Democratic Underground offers a intriguing glimpse of a possible conspiracy to fund the G.O.P.'s 2004 election shennanigans. The scenario remains unproven and hypothetical. Still, we should tug on this thread to see how it unravels.

In essence: As coincidence -- and I think it is coincidence -- would have it, the lawyer for Matt Cooper (of Plame fame) not long ago had another interesting client: Custer Battles, a now-infamous firm accused of defrauding the U.S. taxpayers of $50 million earmarked for Iraq.

The firm was co-founded be a former CIA agent with the too-good-to-be-true name of Michael Battles. One report (which I have yet to verify) holds that he has also functioned as a talking head on -- but of course! -- Fox News. The "Custer" part of the name derives from Scott Custer, who also seems to be a "spooked up" sort of fellow. The sketchy accounts so far available to me indicate that both men served in the Special Forces.

For the meat of the matter, I cannot improve on the wording of the afore-cited D.U. poster:

...Custer Battles allegedly used offshore accounts in the Cayman Islands and other "tax haven" countries.

...Bush refused to pursue the prosecution of Custer Battles.

...Michael Battles also coordinated fundraising for the Republican Party!

Wayne Madsen also mentioned Cayman Island accounts in his controversial and unverified (and, to a certain degree, debunked) pieces on the funding of vote fraud.

A site inspired by Madsen's work quotes a "Legal Times" piece on Custer Battles and its deft ways of separating the taxpayers from their dollars:

Documents unearthed as part of a whistleblower suit against Fairfax, Va.'s Custer Battles reveal for the first time the extent to which the defense contractor is accused of gouging the Coalition Provisional Authority, which governed Iraq following the U.S. invasion of the country in 2003.

Among those documents is a spreadsheet that appears to show the company billing the government nearly $10 million for dozens of items, including food, vehicles, and cooking pots. The total cost to Custer Battles, according to the spreadsheet, was less than $4 million -- a profit margin of 150 percent, far higher than the 25 percent margin allowed under its contract.

For critics of the Bush administration's handling of postwar Iraq, Custer Battles has become something of a symbol of contractor excess during the 14-month period that the Coalition Provisional Authority governed Iraq. The company was able to secure tens of millions of dollars' worth of security and logistical contracts from the CPA -- despite the fact that it didn't even exist until just months before the invasion of Iraq.

Last fall, Custer Battles was suspended from government contracting after Pentagon investigators documented evidence indicating that the company had defrauded the CPA by inflating its costs. The scheme, according to the investigation, involved a series of "sham" companies that were used to produce false invoices and hide the actual costs of items.

An excellent expose (complete with explanatory cartoon!) of the ways Custer Battles conducted its chicanery can be found here.

(Incidentally, some aver that Custer Battles' profiteering led to the death of four employees of the company.)

As noted above, Custer Battles (run by Rob Roy Trumble, another fellow with a name straight out of Thomas Pynchon novel) seems to have begun life as the "Talon News" of the security services field. That is to say, it was a "Potemkin Village" corporation which somehow prospered through powerful connections:

Founded by two Army veterans, Scott Custer and Michael Battles -- a former Republican candidate for Congress in Rhode Island -- the firm had little experience in private security and employed only a handful of people at the time. The two entrepreneurs, both in their mid-30s, made their first payroll with credit cards and personal loans. Since then, Custer Battles has landed security contracts totaling an estimated $100 million that include protecting IraqÂ’s new currency and training the Iraqi army.

But during those early months in Iraq, the company resorted to using crooked accounting and "sham" companies in far-flung countries including the Cayman Islands, Cyprus and Lebanon, to dramatically pump up charges on contracts by as much as 162 percent on equipment, construction supplies and services, claim plaintiffsÂ’ Robert Isakson and W.D."Pete" Baldwin, both of who worked for Custer Battles.

"When I see crooks come into a war zone where people are fighting and dying, I just turn them in," Isakson says. "In my opinion they were cheating the government and taxpayers and just being rewarded with more contracts."

We know fromm a Washington Post account that Battles speaks with certain unnamed individuals in the White House "almost daily."

Some of you may already be smelling a rat named Karl skulking in the shadows of this story...

Obviously, the most problematic aspect of the D.U. posting concerns the nature of the "fundraising" conducted by Michael Battles. I see no evidence suggesting that this fundraising had any direct connection to vote fraud. But before you dismiss the idea out of hand, ask yourself a few questions about Custer Battles and its Iraq adventures:

Where did the pilfered millions go? Obviously, wallets were fattened -- but the matter must go deeper than that.

Why did important Iraq contracts go to an untried start-up company? No doubt because Michael Battles had friends in the White House.

And why did those friends decide to do Battles so grand a favor? We may fairly surmise that they expected a favor in return.

Those hoping to research the matter further may want to concentrate their energies in two areas: 1. Possible links between Rove or his compatriots and Battles. 2. The exact nature of the "fundraising" conducted by Michael Battles. Where did he get the money, and where did it go?

Say what you will about Wayne Madsen, I think his instincts are correct in one regard: Nationwide election fraud requires cash -- lots of it -- for pay-offs. Follow the money, as Mr. Felt used to say.

Don't forget about vote fraud

Let's take a small break from Plamegate. After all, we wouldn't have to worry about Karl Rove if vote fraud were not a reality in this country. The scandal of the day should not divert all attention away from the scandal of the century.

One story in particular should have had me shouting long ago...

Andy Stephenson, one of this nation's bravest fighters for clean elections, did much to publicize the many problems besetting the 2004 election. I recommend his essay "What is a ballot?" He died of cancer on July 7.

In the months before his passing, fellow progressives made a valiant an effort to raise money for his medical expenses. Unfortunately, a cabal of right wing wackos -- mostly Freepers, it seems -- despised this activist so thoroughly that they cobbled together a web site denigrating him and the efforts to save his life. The attack dogs spent enormous energy spreading the rumor that he faked his own illness in order to raise money for his personal use.

The Seattle Weekly took note of this ugliness:

Then came the backlash. The origins of the rumors are murky, but the basic theme was Stephenson was a scam artist who didn't have cancer. The rumor spread like a computer virus across the Internet, and soon vitriolic postings were popping up all over the place.

The backlash falls into a couple of general categories. One group appears ideological in nature: Conservatives are attacking Stephenson because he's a progressive activist. "The right wing just went crazy," says Air America's Malloy. "This is one of the sickest things I've ever seen."

The fact that the rightists are keeping the site up even after Stephenson's death reveals much about their psychopathology.

For fuller details, read Paul Lehto's piece here. I wonder whether Stephenson's family has grounds for a lawsuit -- after all, the libellous claim that Stephenson faked the disease may have impeded his efforts to save his life.

This ghastly affair teaches four lessons -- three of them harsh, one of them hopeful. The harsh lessons: 1. Vote fraud is real. 2. The Republicans have engaged in a conspiracy (let us not shrink from the word) to keep power. 3. They will use any tactic to destroy their enemies.

The hopeful lesson: Activists have more power than cynics may believe. If truth-tellers did not pose a threat, why would the conspirators bother to go after a man like Andy Stephenson?

Ten thousand voter registrations documents shredded in Hocking County. The latest investigative piece by Bob Fitrakis deserves the widest possible publicity.

Sherole Eaton, the unfairly fired election official in Hocking County, Ohio, claims that Elections Director Lisa Schwartze (a Republican activist accused of using her office for partisan fundraising) has illegally shredded as many as ten thousand voter registrations documents.

I suspect that the shredded documents were not chosen at random...

The exits. A poster at Democratic Underground sent me a somewhat lengthy summary of the exit poll controversy, with an emphasis on the work of the semi-mysterious "Truth is All," a DU regular. I don't think the original author if I published it here:

THE UNANSWERED QUESTION: WHO REALLY WON IN 2004?

According to the vote tabulators, in the 2004 presidential election George W. Bush won a stunning victory that defied all odds, particularly those applied by unbiased statisticians. He won despite trailing in most state and national polls. He won despite an approval rating of less than 50%, usually the death knell for an incumbent presidential candidate. He won despite trailing in the three National Exit Polls three timelines from 4pm to 12:22 am (13047 respondents) by a steady 48%-51%, miraculously winning the final exit poll (with only 613 additional respondents, totaling 13,660). This poll was "weighted" (altered) to meet the reported election result on the assumption that the reported result was accurate -- quite an assumption. The final poll showed a stunning reversal of the Kerry 51%-48% poll margin, which had been measured consistently all day by the same polling group: major news/networks and polling firm Edison-Mitofsky.

The analysis of exit polls and documented fraud in this election began on the Internet. A number of academics posted detailed work showing the near-impossible odds of Bush overcoming deficits in the state exit polls and the National Exit Polls. Much of this analysis comes from "TruthIsAll" (TIA), a poster on DemocraticUnderground.Com. TIA has a background and several degrees in applied mathematics. Using various elements of the national and state exit polls and other data sources, he produces results that are thorough, detailed, sober and compelling. He shows ALL data and calculations, while encouraging others to check his math. Only once did he make a minor math error, after asking DUers to check his calculation of probability that at least 16 states would deviate beyond their exit poll margin of error and go for Bush. The answer turned out to be one in 19 trillion! The debates on DemocraticUndergroun's "2004: Election Results and Discussion" forum are legendary and have attracted observers from all over the Net.

Before the election, TIA produced a daily update of his Election Model site. On 11/1/04, based on extensive statistical analysis, he projected a Kerry win of 51.63% to 48.38% using a combined average of national polls, and of 51.80% to 48.2% using a Monte Carlo simulation of individual state polls. After the polls closed, data from the Edison Mitofsky NEP survey (sponsored by the major television networks and CNN) was unintentionally released over the Internet. This was internal network data, embargoed from public use, data with statements like "Estimates not for on-air use" and "This page cannot be displayed." The networks had locked down this data for their own use in an "electronic cover-up" that was offensive to those who knew the story. Luckily for all of us, Jonathan Simon downloaded the exit poll data and saved the CNN screen shots! The Edison-Mitofsky (EM)-Corporate Media (CM) "embargoed data" was available for anyone with eyes to see it and a mind to review it.

TruthIsAll immediately began analyzing and publishing analyses on the forbidden data. Looking at the demographics on the second to last E-M major network poll, He laid out the set of improbable circumstances needed for Bush to win: "To believe Bush won the election, you must also believe...." This post was cited by Will Pitt in a major blog, which gave it wide visibility on the Net. "KERRY WON THE FEMALE VOTE BY A HIGHER PERCENTAGE THAN BUSH WON THE MALE VOTE...AND MORE WOMEN (54%) VOTED THAN MEN (46%)." It was all right there, polling results that we were never intended to see. But this was only the beginning. There are over 100 individual analytical postings that demonstrate the tremendous odds against a Bush win. This high-level analysis dovetailed with and was confirmed by on-the-ground stories of voting rights violations all over the country, particularly in Ohio.

The key data sources for TIA's analysis are the four EM National Exit Polls and the 50 state exit polls. For those who doubt the reliability of exit polling, there has been a trend toward accuracy within 0.4% since 1998. These Exit polls are endorsed heartily by international voting rights activists -- the Carter Center, for example -- and even the Bush administration, which used them, ironically, in the Ukraine elections to demonstrate fraud and call for a new election. There has been a trend toward accuracy within 0.4% since 1998.

At 12:22 am on November 3, the national exit poll of 13,047 respondents showed Kerry to be the winner by 51% to 48%, matching TIA's pre-election projection. The poll was "un-weighted," meaning the EM and CM had yet to apply weighting "adjustments": percentages and weights applied to all the demographic categories to match the poll results to the reported vote count! Imagine if this technique had been applied by exit pollsters in the first Ukrainian election to show victory for the incumbent, who had committed gross election fraud. Yet this odd technique of turning a poll into a ratification of the actual voting results was applied in the American election. The final exit poll, with 13,660 respondents, showed a stunning reversal of fortune for Bush. The poll results were "re-weighted" to create a Bush "victory margin."

The odds against the deviations from the state and national exit polls to the final vote count are astronomical. In addition, there is the consistency of the "pristine" exit poll timeline from 4 pm (8349 respondents) to 7:30 pm (11,027) to 12:22 am (13,047).

In addition to the gender-based evidence cited above, TIA has shown that some weightings for the question "How did you vote in 2000" are mathematically impossible. For example, the final poll claims that 43% of all 2004 voters were former Bush 2000 voters. But 43% of 122.3 million, the number of votes in the 2004 presidential election, is 52.59 million, and Bush only got 50.46 million votes in 2000, approximately 1.75 million of them from voters who have since died. Therefore, BushÂ’s final poll exit poll numbers, WHICH WERE MATCHED TO THE VOTE, had to be off by 4 million votes.

The analysis also demonstrated that other voter statistics make it impossible for Bush to have won. Even if all Bush voters from 2000 showed up and voted for him, he still needed an additional 13 million votes. He didn't get them from new voters and those who did not vote in 2000; those voters preferred Kerry by an almost 3-to-2 margin. Because of this, a Bush victory required that he must win a whopping 14% of Gore 2000 voters, all of whom had to return to vote in 2004. But Gore voters were angry; they came back to defeat Bush once again after having the election stolen from them.

Logical absurdities and inconsistencies in Election 2004 abound...

This work is just part of a comprehensive set of election fraud work and analysis provided by the dedicated voting rights activists in DemocraticUnderground.Com's "2004: Election Results and Discussion" forum, a unique Net resource.

Roving lunatics

The G.O.P. response to the Rove scandal should astonish even those who think they've seen and heard everything.

My favorite jaw-hits-floor moment occurred when RNC chieftain Ken Mehlman (one of Rove's Sithian minions) announced on a cable news show that the Republicans would have responded in a very different fashion if such a scandal had cropped up under Clinton. According to Mehlman, conservatives would not have "pre-judged" and would not have used the controversy in fundraising letters!

Good freaking Lord, is he kidding? Does he really expect even the most robotic Republican to accept that outrageous historical rewrite? Does he really think that even the dimmest dimwits will believe that conservatives did not use Whitewater as a fundraising mechanism?

The Republican talking points on Rove-gate have been made public. You can find them -- along with an invaluable point-by-point response -- on the LeftCoaster.

Even so, Fox News continues to repeat the talking points, providing further indication that Murdoch's "news" channel is nothing more than a Republican marionette. According to Fox antireporter Carl Cameron, Bush never actually stated that he would fire any staffer involved with Plame leak, In fact, Dubya made that very statement, on tape. (Al Franken played it this morning.)

The lies keep piling up. The rightists allege that Joe Wilson was a hard-core left-winger; he wasn't. They say that Valerie Plame was not an undercover officer; she was. They say that Joe Wilson falsely claimed that Cheney had sent him to Niger; Wilson said no such thing.

Unsurprisingly, this last whopper made the Wall Street Journal:

For Mr. Rove is turning out to be the real "whistleblower" in this whole sorry pseudo-scandal. He's the one who warned Time's Matthew Cooper and other reporters to be wary of Mr. Wilson's credibility. He's the one who told the press the truth that Mr. Wilson had been recommended for the CIA consulting gig by his wife, not by Vice President Dick Cheney as Mr. Wilson was asserting on the airwaves.

As usual, the WSJ editorialists are peddling the purest elephant shit. Talking Points Memo proves the point handily.

The most amusing RNC spin point holds that Rove did not divulge the name of Valerie Plame during his meeting with Cooper. Instead, His Satanic Majesty simply referred to "Wilson's wife" -- a distinction without a difference. But even this exercise in casuistry is undone by the fact that a Novak quote holds that his source offered up Plame by name -- and did so without prompting.

Lies, lies, lies. We should hold a contest to determine which falsehood is the most brazen.

But the most important question is: Will the lies stick? Will the RNC disinformation campaign succeed?

I fear so. Frankly, many of our fellow Americans aren't just brainwashed -- they've had their brains scooped out with a melon baller. Karl's minions can probably get away with any damn claim, however untrue. Hell, they could say that Plame's identity was leaked by Joe Wilson. Reality no longer matters. Half of our citizenry will swallow whatever pachyderm piss Fox chooses to squirt down their throats.

(Update: When I wrote the above -- "Hell, they could say that Plame's identity was leaked by Joe Wilson" -- I thought I was being humorously outrageous. Turns out that Fox News has made that very assertion! So, at least, I have learned from Billmon. What will Fox claim next? Will they say that Joe Wilson is the son of Aleister Crowley? That Valerie Wilson is Jimmy Hoffa in disguise? How can they top themselves?)

Miller time. The comparison is striking: The reporter for the New York Times -- that bete noir of the right -- went to jail rather than divulge her sources. Meanwhile, right-winger Robert Novak apparently sang like Caruso on speed (or so claims Murray Waas). Any doctor examining Novak's balls would need a microscope.

But why does Judith Miller remain imprisoned, if Rove's the source? After all, he's as out as out can be by this point.

Perhaps she had a source other than Rove. Novak specified that he had more than one source. Who might be the other leaker or leakers? Fitzgerald has interviewed both Ari Fleischer and Bush himself.

It has also been alleged that Miller -- rarely considered a paragon of journalistic virtue -- has exposed her sources before. So why is she going to the mat now?

More Power to you

The tale of Peter Power has taken a couple of interesting turns. Power, you will recall, is the British security consultant who -- according to a story on Alex Jones' conspiratorially-hued site -- had been part of a "Vigilant Guardian" style terrorism exercise in London on the very same day that the real thing struck. Another blog called Wag News took Jones to task, arguing that the author had misrepresented his source material.

Now Jones' site has a new offering, in which Peter Power responds. This piece is written by Jon Rappoport, an author known to me. (He wrote the granddaddy of all "alternate theories of AIDS" pieces, pubished in the L.A Weekly back in the 1980s.)

Rappoport received the following message from Power. (Since this letter seems to be a generalized response to all media inquiries, I feel justified in reprinting it here.)

"Thank you for your message. Given the volume of emails about events on 7 July and a commonly expressed misguided belief that our exercise revealed prescient behaviour, or was somehow a conspiracy (noting that several websites interpreted our work that day in an inaccurate / naive / ignorant / hostile manner) it has been decided to issue a single email response as follows: It is confirmed that a short number of 'walk through' scenarios planed [sic] well in advance had commenced that morning for a private company in London (as part of a wider project that remains confidential) and that two scenarios related directly to terrorist bombs at the same time as the ones that actually detonated with such tragic results. One scenario in particular, was very similar to real time events.

"However, anyone with knowledge about such ongoing threats to our capital city will be aware that (a) the emergency services have already practiced several of their own exercises based on bombs in the underground system (also reported by the main news channels) and (b) a few months ago the BBC broadcast a similar documentary on the same theme, although with much worse consequences [??]. It is hardly surprising therefore, that we chose a feasible scenario - but the timing and script was nonetheless, a little disconcerting.

"In short, our exercise (which involved just a few people as crisis managers actually responding to a simulated series of activities involving, on paper, 1000 staff) quickly became the real thing and the players that morning responded very well indeed to the sudden reality of events.

"Beyond this no further comment will be made and based on the extraordinary number of messages from ill informed people, no replies will henceforth be given to anyone unable to demonstrate a bona fide reason for asking (e.g. accredited journalist/academic).

Peter Power"

This confirms in part the original Jones piece, although not his most spectacular assertions:

The exercise fulfils several different goals. It acts as a cover for the small compartamentalized government terrorists to carry out their operation without the larger security services becoming aware of what they're doing, and, more importantly, if they get caught during the attack or after with any incriminating evidence they can just claim that they were just taking part in the exercise.

This is presumption -- speculation derived from the facts provided by Mr. Power. As noted in previous posts, I have little problem with speculation, as long as it comes clearly labeled as such. Arguably, the label went missing in this instance.

Also, Jones was clearly in the wrong when he said that 1000 people took part in the exercise. We all make mistakes, of course. I have made my share.

Wag News has also decided to take another look at Peter Power. By an odd coincidence, he possesses professional ties to former New York mayor Rudi Guliani -- who, by another odd coincidence, happened to be on the scene when the bombs went off in London.

Jon Rappoport makes a couple of further claims about the London attack. The first one is a shocker:

I have received and seen several reports from people who were in and about in London as the bombings were taking place. One person, unnamed, states that he saw underground stations along one line shut down by many police BEFORE the bombings occurred. Another observer notes that additional bombs were reported by the press, early on, as DIFFUSED before they went off. And as I've written, the story of how many bombs there were and when they went off was changed several times in press reports---7-8 explosions were reduced to 4.

Is this true? Obviously, we cannot blindly accept a report from a single unnamed witness.

The allegation that police shut down stations before the bombs went off should (if true) be fairly easy to verify. The location was a heavily traveled public place. Other witnesses should be able to confirm or deny.

Born again hard

If you can tear yourself away from the Rove scandal, Max Blumenthal has a must-read book (and life) review in the Washington Monthly. The subject is Charles Colson, the Karl Rove of Nixon's day. Blumenthal reminds readers of some very salient factoids that even I did not know or had forgotten.

For example: Colson pioneered the technique of buying bulk copies of a propaganda book to place it on the bestseller lists. Quite a few folks (including yours truly) have erroneously credited L. Ron Hubbard with originating this gimmick. I suspect that a diligent researcher could find far earlier examples.

Colson's conversion only made him more dangerous. As Blumenthal notes, the former Nixon hatchet man became a key figure in The Family, the frightening cult at the center of Jeffrey Sharlet's instant-classic expose in Harpers. Wayne Madsen has taken Sharlet's work further in articles which paint the Family cult as a conspiratorial powerhouse. I'm never quite sure what to make of Madsen's work -- he's a rather controversial figure, even within lefty circles -- but at the very least, his words are worth reading and his allegations are worth double-checking, to the extent that they can be double-checked..

A Rovian sidelight

No doubt you are relishing, as I am, the many stories about Rove's perfidy now making the rounds. The right-wing response has been entertainingly lunatic. I wonder if their lunacy will convert the masses, as has occurred so often in the past?

One of the most delicious sidelights of the Rove affair is the strange history of his lawyer, Robert D. Luskin. According to Joshua Marshall, Luskin was paid off in gold bars (!!) to defend a criminal wheeler-dealer convicted of laundering drug money via the precious metals market. Rove revealed much about himself when he chose such a counselor. Don't miss this one!

New nuke report

Now that Rove has been confirmed as the villain of Plame-gate, and now that the news media has finally decided to bare some fang, some wags expect to see a major new terror incident in America. Only a big boom -- of the non-economic sort -- can have the overnight effect of saving Rove, justifying the Iraq misadventure and doubling Dubya's horrendous poll numbers.

A very big boom is predicted by Joseph Farah's G2 bulletin. He confidently scries a new Hiroshima -- or rather several Hiroshimas -- all courtesy of Osama Bin Laden. Farah runs a subscription site; you can get the guts of his piece here.

I'll quote this article in pertinent part -- but before doing so, let's make one thing very clear: I ain't buying Farah's story. Not, at least, as he tells it.

Nevertheless, it deserves some attention, for reasons discussed below:

According to captured al-Qaida leaders and documents, the plan is called the "American Hiroshima" and involves the multiple detonation of nuclear weapons already smuggled into the U.S. over the Mexican border with the help of the MS-13 street gang and other organized crime groups.

Al-Qaida has obtained at least 40 nuclear weapons from the former Soviet Union – including suitcase nukes, nuclear mines, artillery shells and even some missile warheads. In addition, documents captured in Afghanistan show al-Qaida had plans to assemble its own nuclear weapons with fissile material it purchased on the black market.

In addition to detonating its own nuclear weapons already planted in the U.S., military sources also say there is evidence to suggest al-Qaida is paying former Russian special forces Spetznaz to assist the terrorist group in locating nuclear weapons formerly concealed inside the U.S. by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Osama bin Laden's group is also paying nuclear scientists from Russia and Pakistan to maintain its existing nuclear arsenal and assemble additional weapons with the materials it has invested hundreds of millions in procuring over a period of 10 years.

Again, let me stress: I'm skeptical. Very skeptical.

As long-time readers know, I believe that a mini-nuke attack is likely. (Of course, I hope history will prove me wrong.) That's one reason we should note of any new scraps of information concerning this possibility.

But this particular tale has the odor of what my ladyfriend likes to call "bunky-doody."

One tip-off is the Spetznaz motif. (Spetznaz -- a word variously transliterated -- refers to the Russian Special Forces.) Those who recall the "winter of hate" -- 1994-1995 -- may find this theme familiar. At that time, a number of right-wing fear-mongers did the lecture-and-late-night-radio circuit, telling audiences that those dastardly Soviets had poised Speznaz troops at the Mexican border. All they needed was the "go" signal from comrade Clinton, who would herald the Red Dawn as soon as he finished destroying our military.

Soviet troops? In 1994? Yep! Y'see, those red bastards faked the fall of the USSR, just to catch us off-guard! That just shows you how sneaky them gol-durned Rooskies can be.

During the "winter of hate," a surprising number of people fell for this particular piece of bunky-doody. (If memory serves, Soldier of Fortune helped to spread the tale.) I guess if a fable hypnotized listeners once, right-wing conspiracy-peddlers will trot out the same nonsense again and again. A certain type of audience never grows weary of hokum, and never holds a grudge when history proves a prediction wrong.

The "MS-13" motif is just as laughable. Members of that very unlovable gang possess no motive to collude with Osama. No evidence known to me connects the group to Al Qaida. (By contrast, plenty of evidence links the Bush family to the Bin Ladens.)

So why did Farah mention MS-13? Probably because the gang has threatened to stage retaliatory strikes against the Minutemen vigilantes patrolling the border in California and Arizona. Farah supports the Minutemen.

Who is Joseph Farah? He's yet another rightist agitator who has, in the past, taken positions so extreme as to make Ann Coulter look like Molly Ivins. For example, he has advocated the return of the Hollywood blacklist, as well as the murder of adulterers. This site portrays him as a "Christian Arab-American" with a penchant for seeing everything from Israel's point of view. His World Net Daily is another far-right cyber-rag.

In short: He's an unusual man. Not the sort of person I'd normally consider a valid source.

So why have I asked you to pay attention to his tale? Two reasons:

1. If a nuke does go off in an American city, Farah will appear to be a prophet. Although his views may have negligible impact now, they may impact national thinking after the event.

2. Farah fingers Osama Bin Laden as the criminal mastermind behind this projected nuke attack. This surprises me. If a nuke does detonate within our borders, most neocon propagandists will surely blame Iran, regardless of the actual culprit.

Egg meets face: One bizarro bomb story goes "poof"

Yesterday, we discussed the strange assertions attributed to one Peter Power. No, that's not the name of a porn actor -- he's a crisis management consultant in Britain. According to a story on the Alex Jones website, Power

...was running a 1,000 person strong exercise which drilled the London Underground being bombed at the exact same locations, at the exact same times, as happened in real life.

Moreover, the Jones account alleged that Power's firm functioned as a cover for "government terrorists."

Rather large claims. Jones backed them up with links to BBC interviews.

An interesting blog named Wagnews (a site previously unknown to me, until Xymphora linked to it) sets the record straight. To put the matter very briefly, Alex Jones seems to have misrepresented his source material. What happened in London did not recapitulate the "Vigilant Guardian" exercise on 9/11.

A reader has already slapped my wrist -- correctly -- for placing even momentary faith in an article co-written by the conspiracy-minded Jones. That man's love of a good scare seems to have overcome his common sense. And not for the first time.

How (you may ask) could I possibly be guilty of such a lapse in judgment? And will such lapses occur in the future?

I'd love to answer those questions. Unfortunately, these inquiries arise in the context of an ongoing investigation. Since I am doing everything possible to cooperate with the investigators, it would be inappropriate for me to comment further at this time.

Bizarro bomb stories

As you've probably heard, Kos is censoring what he considers off-the-wall conspiracy theories about the London bomb attacks. Some have decried this apparent bowdlerization of political thought. If the internet existed in 1963, would Kos have censored unconventional stories about the JFK assassination?

Other Kossacks high-fived this decision. As one poster put it, "Who wants Kos to become the Little Green Footballs or FreeRepublic of the left? Time to shun the crazies."

God knows I don't want a rep as a left-wing version of those Green Football creepazoids. Politically, I'm a middle-of the road Democrat -- which means you'll see me as either a godless Bolshie (if you're Ann Coulter) or an Eisenhower Republican (if you're a time-traveler from 1974). Although my views are conventional when it comes to the fundamental questions of how-I'd-run-the-zoo, I do allow myself to entertain unconventional thoughts about what the bad guys might be up to.

About eight years ago, the purveyors of '90s-style "paranoid chic" really started to bug the hell out of me, and I decided to shun the company of those mad folk who collect conspiracy theories the way other people collect beer bottles. Even so, I don't mind indulging in speculation (as long as it comes clearly labeled as such), and I find value in contemplating ideas which other Democrats might consider uncomfortable or unthinkable.

As Teddy Roosevelt once said: "My mind is open, but that doesn't mean I'll let geese fly around in there."

All of which means that I do not have a full-fledged, or even a half-fledged, conspiracy theory of the London bombings. The folks who reflexively shouted "Bush did it!" or "Blair did it!" accomplished nothing.

Even so, the event has given rise to a few odd news accounts which we should not quickly shunt aside. Those stories include the following:

The Bush family connection to an Al Qaida site. Shortly after the bombing, a statement taking credit for the attack appeared on a jihadist website, www.al-qal3ah.com. The issuer of the statement was the previously-unknown "Secret Organisation of the al-Qaida Jihad in Europe." Oddly -- tellingly? -- their message misquotes the Koran.

According to a London Guardian investigation, the mysterious U.K.-based owner of this site chose a server located in Houston, Texas -- a server with links to the Bush family.

The server in Houston has intriguing connections. Everyone's Internet was founded by brothers Robert and Roy Marsh in 1998 and by 2002 had an income of more than $30m (now about £17m).

Renowned for his charitable work, Roy Marsh counts among his friends President George Bush's former sister-in-law, Sharon Bush, and the president's navy secretary.

The Guardian does note that the message appeared on a bulletin board. Since these boards are often a free-for-all, one can hardly ask the server to take responsibility for all such messages.

But one can ask why any Al Qaida-linked groups would bother with such a site. Wouldn't criminals of this sort prefer a forum which might better protect technical information about the poster?

Incidentally, the Bushite links to this server were first noted in the British press months ago. This latter story mentions that Marsh's circle of friends also includes fashion model Lauren Bush.

The Guardian notes that the company "cooperates with US law enforcement agencies." The Mail on Sunday reports that "an internet expert who advises the US Government on terrorism said the site will enable them eventually to find the terrorists."

Again: Of all the web sites in the world, why would any member (or would-be member) of Al Qaida choose that one?

Sharon Bush, you will recall, was named as Kitty Kelly's source for the story that George W. Bush did cocaine at Camp David. Sharon, formerly married to the vile Neil, later denied telling the tale; Kelly provided evidence that her account was accurate.

Not another conveniently-timed exercise! In the past, we have discussed Vigilant Guardiann, the anti-terrorism exercise which -- coincidentally -- took place on the very day of the 9/11 attacks. Some have speculated that this training scenario, which tested readiness for an attack, may have provided cover for the real thing.

Now we learn that the very same problem beset the Brits on the day of their terrorist incident. Perhaps the best discussion of this odd "coincidence" can be found on Alex Jones' site. Some will question my reliance on this source -- Jones is one of those conspiracy-theory collectors -- but his article provides solid links to BBC interviews and other mainstream reports.

The key revelation comes via a BBC interview with Peter Power, formerly of Scotland Yard, now the manager of a "crisis management" team involved with British national security:

POWER: At half past nine this morning we were actually running an exercise for a company of over a thousand people in London based on simultaneous bombs going off precisely at the railway stations where it happened this morning, so I still have the hairs on the back of my neck standing up right now.

HOST: To get this quite straight, you were running an exercise to see how you would cope with this and it happened while you were running the exercise?

POWER: Precisely, and it was about half past nine this morning, we planned this for a company and for obvious reasons I don't want to reveal their name but they're listening and they'll know it. And we had a room full of crisis managers for the first time they'd met and so within five minutes we made a pretty rapid decision that this is the real one and so we went through the correct drills of activating crisis management procedures to jump from slow time to quick time thinking and so on.

I believe it was Fox Mulder who said: "If coincidence is just coincidence, why does it feel so contrived?"

(If the conspiracy-minded Jones still makes you uncomfortable and you want another source for this story, try here.)

Precedent? Alex Jones also reminds us that "Members of Vladimir Putin's FSB were caught planting bombs in a Russian apartment building in 1999 by the Moscow police." This bit of history is quite accurate; I've noted the incident in a previous column.

But does the Russian example provide us with a relevant precedent, or is it completely unrelated to current events? Skeleton key -- or red herring?

You decide.

"Ready when you are, C.B.!" From the Mirror:

But the investigation received a serious setback when it was discovered the CCTV cameras on the bus that blew up were not working so detectives will not get vital images of the bomber.

One senior Yard source said: "It's a big blow and a disappointment. If the cameras had been running we would have had pin-sharp close-up pictures of the person who carried out this atrocity.

"We don't know if the driver forgot to switch them on or if there was a technical problem but there are no images."

The bus had four cameras - one covering people getting on, the second at the exit doors and one on each deck scanning the length of the vehicle.

I'm not among those who has ever agreed with (or even easily tolerated) the theory that a missile hit the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. Even so, I've always wondered why only one video security camera covered the actual strike.

And now we have four -- count 'em: four -- cameras coming down with a mysterious case of the "flu"? Strange days indeed!

Did Israel know? The question has become hopelessly confused. Initial news stories were quite specific: Israeli intelligence did learn of the imminent attacks just before they occurred, and they warned Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who thus stayed clear of harm's way. Several stories mentioned that the Israelis had also passed along a warning to Scotland Yard.

Then we were told that no such warning had occurred, and that the attacks caught Scotland Yard entirely by surprise.

On July 8, I watched cable television coverage of various British officials (including the Mayor of London), and they all seemed quite nervous -- to my eyes, at least -- when fielding questions about the Israeli connection.

Some Israeli accounts confirm the warning (see here). Yet Haaretz denies it.

Stratfor, the intelligence consulting agency widely considered a Mossad asset (or cut-out), now confirms that Israeli spooks had gained advance knowledge, which they shared with the boys at the Yard. Stratfor further claims that the Israelis learned of the plot days -- not minutes -- before the event!

There has been massive confusion over a denial made by the Israelis that the Scotland Yard had warned the Israeli Embassy in London of possible terrorist attacks "minutes before" the first bomb went off July 7. Israel warned London of the attacks a "couple of days ago," but British authorities failed to respond accordingly to deter the attacks, according to an unconfirmed rumor circulating in intelligence circles. While Israel is keeping quiet for the time-being, British Prime Minister Tony Blair soon will be facing the heat for his failure to take action.

Xymphora argues that if Israeli intelligence knew of plans to attack London, the Israeli response would not have been so contradictory and ill-prepared. I consider this argument interesting, but unpersuasive. This amount of smoke indicates fire.

Here's one possible scenario: Israel did offer a warning, but when the Brits could (or would) not prevent the attack, the Israelis decided to "play dumb" in order to help Blair's government save face.

Of course, there are a dozen or so other explanatory scenarios. I'd be delighted to hear yours.

Plame-gate

It's impossible to follow -- or even to summarize -- all of the theories and informed speculations regarding Karl Rove, Plame-gate, and the apparent get-out-of-jail-free card handed to Bob Novak. Those following the controversy should take a look at:

1. David Corn argues that Novak has "squealed." This suggestion makes sense: One cannot really picture Novak going to jail as a matter of honor -- or indeed, doing much of anything out of honor.

But, says Corn, Novak may have transformed his squealing session into a method of helping his sources. Specifically, Corn suggests that Novak may have told Fitzgerald that the sources did not specify Plame as an undercover operative.

Voila. No crime. A thuggish act of political retribution that destroyed a CIA officer's career and undermined national security, yes. But no crime. The relevant law -- the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 -- says that an offender has to "intentionally" disclose information "knowing that the information disclosed so identifies [a] covert agent and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent's intelligence relationship to the United States." Ignorance can be a defense under this act.

Not everyone buys this....

2. Josh Marshall, countering Corn, offers some thoughts as to why the "Novak cooperated" theory may be inadequate:

Perhaps Novak tried to pass off on him the convenient lie that the persons in question didn't know or didn't tell him that Plame was covert. But some careful research we did almost two years ago on this point should pretty clearly I think that Novak has been fibbing through his teeth when he says this.

For more on this careful research, see this Kos diary.

3. The Talking Points Memo Cafe offers a number of intriguing views. One poster suggests that Novak did not know who the identity of the original leaker, having received the info from a cut-out.

Another contributor argues that Novak may have taken the Fifth. Why? Because he is, in fact, a government employee, and therefore subject to the afore-cited law. If this suggestion proves true, I would be very startled -- not to learn that Novak has taken money, but that he did so officially. At any rate, if Novak pled the Fifth, I see no reason for prosecutor Fitzgerald to keep the fact secret.

Still another poster reminds us that the charge against Novak would be conspiracy -- and not, as many suppose, leaking the name of an undercover CIA operative. Even though the law applies to government employees, not to journalists, some charge must hang over Novak's head -- after all, he is not talking on advice of counsel, and counsel would not so advise if the possibility of jail were remote.

Visitors to this site will also find intriguing ideas about Judith Miller and her possible interactions with "Scooter" Libby, who has handed out waivers of confidentiality to other reporters. Did he give one to Miller as well? Presuming that he did, might she nevertheless have good reason to continue holding her tongue, even if prison be the price of discretion?

Miller has functioned as a Bush administration mouthpiece in the past, which is why some of the people speaking on her behalf have done so only after applying a clothespin to the nostrils. Who knows? She may still be serving as a "soldier" in the world's most powerful mafia.

If this scenario proves true, then -- presumably -- her current pains will fetch a later reward.

4. Another important response to Corn's piece comes from TalkLeft. This fine column makes many important points, including these:

There are are six pages of blanked out information in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals concurring opinion by Judge Tatel. It doesn't take six pages to say X got a phone call from Y who said Z. It does take 6 pages to say Y called X and said the information disclosed during the call (the Z here) appears to make a case for perjury against Y and others because Y and others told the grand jury something different...

Miller went to jail not to protect the identity of her source, which is known by Fitzgerald, but what her source told her, because she knows it would make a criminal case against the source and others and she doesn't want to be the cause of that.

If this is so, then Judith Miller is not so much protecting a source (whose identity is already known to the prosecutor) but functioning as a co-conspirator.

Which brings us to this strange tableau...

5. We now face an unprecedented spectacle: A growing number of progressives and moderates are asking journalists to divulge the identity of their sources. Kos does so here, and -- more strikingly -- Bill Israel of Editor and Publisher does so here.

In 99.9 percent of cases I know, journalists must not break the bonds of appropriate confidentiality, to protect their ability to report, and to defend the First Amendment. I've testified in court to that end, and would do so again.

But the Valerie Plame-CIA case that threatens jail time for reporters from Time and The New York Times this week is the exception that shatters the rule. In this case, journalists as a community have been played for patsies by the president's chief strategist, Karl Rove, and are enabling him to abuse the First Amendment, by their invoking it.

And what can I add to the foregoing? Have I a scenario of my own?

Not really. At least, I have yet to devise a fully-formed hypothesis.

For now, I'll note that Rove has already toyed with the defense that Plame's identity was already well-known when he (Rove) discussed it with reporters. If that assertion is true, then Rove's "get-Wilson" campaign stayed within the law, at least technically.

Even if we take this argument at face value (and I do not), note the admission here: Rove has as much as confessed that his trade consists of brutish vengeance and the smearing of opponents. Of course, everyone knew all along that revenge is, has been, and always will be Rove's forte. But the outright confession of his modus operandi remains extraordinary.

We should also consider the possibility that prosecutor Fitzgerald is not the honest player we hope him to be. So far, he hasn't touched anyone in the administration. Bob Novak, switchblade at the ready, remains free to stalk the criminal byways.

True trouble has hit only a reporter for the New York Times, the right's least-favorite publication. Consider this scenario: Perhaps Miller is no longer a neocon "soldier." Perhaps, after her own paper editorialized against her, she acquired a conscience and refused to relay further propaganda for the administration. Since no good deed goes unrewarded, she now must reap the consequences of that refusal.

Having considered several competing theories, I honestly don't know which of them will prove correct. The cynic in me leans toward the image of Fitzgerald as a sheep-jacketed lobo. But even I cannot be cynical all the damn time.

Thoughts on the London attacks

The proper first response to such an atrocity is, of course, outrage. Brutality of this sort tempts me to a belief in Hell, because I'd like to see the perpetrators end up there.

An act of war? In the wake of the London outrage, we will no doubt hear an updated version of one of the key propaganda points offered by apologists for the Bush administration's "war on terror." Radio reactionaries convinced their disciples that liberals wanted to respond to 9/11 legalistically rather than militarily. In the alternative reality created by GOP propagandists, wimpy Dems said "Call the cops" instead of "Tell it to the Marines."

Democrats deny the charge. They insist that they would never shrink from a war, if that war targeted the correct foe.

But the time has come to ask ourselves whether declaring "war" on terrorism has become as pointless an exercise as declaring "war" on cancer or drugs. War is fought between states. (Civil war, fought within a state, provides the sole exception to this rule.) Terrorists are not state actors.

Rightists may scoff at those who those who (in their imaginative propaganda) would reduce anti-terrorism to a matter of making arrests. But what have the Bushites accomplished by insisting on war-for-war's-sake -- by invading a country unresponsible for the World Trade Center attacks?

More calendar pages separate this date from September 11, 2002 than stood between VJ-day and attack on Pearl Harbor, yet Osama Bin Laden remains free. Perhaps we would have nabbed the mastermind by now, if Bush had not misled us into the Iraq quagmire. Without Iraq, our forces might have had more mobility within Pakistan. They certainly would have had more sheer numbers within Afghanistan.

Propagandists will now claim that the London attack justifies Bush's war. But -- unless a state actor is discovered -- the attack on that city's transportation system should be classified as a crime against humanity, not as a casus belli.

Britons do no injury to their national pride if they invoke Justitia instead of Mars. We Americans were so mad to follow Shakespeare's advice -- "imitate the tiger" -- that we fell into a tiger-trap. Britons will prove themselves our betters if they insist on taking the fight to the enemy, as opposed to settling for any enemy. They should call upon the spirit of Holmes, not Hotspur.

Cooked evidence?. Xymphora has already suggested that the Bush administration will find evidence blaming the attacks on a state actor. The only question (in Mr. X's mind) is which state -- Iran or Syria?

Advance warning. Intriguingly, the Israelis received advanced warning of the attack:

The Israeli Embassy in London was notified in advance, resulting in Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu remaining in his hotel room rather than make his way to the hotel adjacent to the site of the first explosion, a Liverpool Street train station, where he was to address and economic summit.

Should we take this to me mean that the Israelis knew not only that an attack was imminent, but also where the attack would take place? Was Netanyahu himself targeted?

A striking thought, that. How could a terrorist leaving a bomb-laden package behind on a train be absolutely sure where that train would be at the time of detonation?

Fox News responds characteristically. Fox News host Brian Kilmeade, in an on-air exchange with fellow-Foxer Stuart Varney, opined that this outrage "works to our advantage." Nobody ever accused Fox News of good taste.

Varney responded:

It puts the Number 1 issue right back on the front burner right at the point where all these world leaders are meeting. It takes global warming off the front burner. It takes African aid off the front burner.

I'm not at all persuaded that taking attention away from global warming or Africa's miseries off will prove advantageous to anyone except Bush, Cheney and Rove.

Perhaps Fox should have thought twice before reminding us to ask "Cui bono?"

Tony Blair: Say what you like about him, he met crisis with dignity. When our country came under attack in 2001, our leader spent long minutes staring into space like a confused Stan Laurel. At least the Brits were spared that sight.