Lee Stranahan Videos!

Where have I been? Lee Stranahan has been putting together some great videos. Here's one on the latest National Intelligence Estimate spin. You can visit his blog at Stranahan dot com. He'll be an instant favorite.

Holy Huckabee!

How is it possible that EVERYONE, including us plebians and groundlings, knew what the latest National Intelligence Estimate... that thing we call the NIE (see how that works?; cute little acronyms for long ass phrases), said regarding Iran's nuclear capability - or lack of it - and a Republican presidential candidate didn't know about it?

Kuhn: I don’t know to what extent you have been briefed or been able to take a look at the NIE report that came out yesterday ...

Huckabee: I’m sorry?

Kuhn: The NIE report, the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran. Have you been briefed or been able to take a look at it —

Huckabee: No.

Kuhn: Have you heard of the finding?

Huckabee: No.

What the hell?!... It boggles the mind. Thanks for playing, Mike. Please leave your resumé and your endorsement at the door.

Here Comes The Spin

NY TIMES: President Bush said today that a new intelligence finding that Iran halted its nuclear weapons work in 2003 had not altered his sense that Iran remained a danger.

...“I have said Iran is dangerous,” Bush said a day after the release of the National Intelligence Estimate, representing the consensus of all 16 American spy agencies, “and the N.I.E. doesn’t do anything to change my opinion about the danger Iran poses to the world — quite the contrary.”

So just disregard that 16 separate intelligence agencies report that Iran has not constituted nukes and had actually stopped its program in 2003. Asshole. Sometimes the Decider really makes me go nuke-u-lur!

Reporters pressed the president to explain why as recently as October, he was saying that a nuclear-armed Iran could pose a risk of a “World War III.” But Bush said he had learned of the new intelligence findings on Iran, which have been in the works for months, only last week. When a reporter asked whether anyone in the intelligence community had urged him to step back from his tough warnings about Iran, he said, “No.”

UPDATE: Norman Podhoretz, who is Rudy Giuliani's national security advisor by the way, thinks the latest NIE is a plot against Bush. This is the same cadaverous son of a bitch that "prayed" the US would bomb the crap out of Iran a couple of months ago. Great pick, Rudy.

UPDATE II: Bob Cesca in his new Huffington Post article:

Knowledge has been the president's enemy ever since his skull failed to completely fuse, leaving him with a spongy head and a brain that's susceptible to bruising. His other lifelong enemy, by the way, is a fork without a protective wine cork pressed onto its dangerous, eye-poking tines. I'm joking about the skull thing.

...Why else would President Bush cite knowledge as the qualifier? Knowledge is also the simplest justification to lie about due to the fact that it's so insanely difficult disprove. Oh, and it's a perfect fit for rallying the president's dingus base --they hate anything that has to do with knownin' shit.