News Roundup for 12/17/08

'Whose country does a guy have to invade to get a drink around here?'

-Headline of the day-
"Book: Tenet drunkenly mocked Bush neocons, right-wing Israelis."

Before you say, "Yay for George!" consider the facts. George Tenet, former head of the CIA and recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom for screwing up the intel on WMD and Iraq, got himself a little wasted on scotch beside the pool of a Saudi prince, according to a new book/ Patrick Tyler's A World of Trouble describes the scene at the home of Prince Bandar bin Sultan (AKA "Bandar Bush"). It ain't pretty.

Tenet complained that the Bush administration "were just then trying to pin the Iraq WMD fiasco on him" and said, "They're setting me up. The bastards are setting me up, [but] I am not going to take the hit." For the record, meaningless medal aside, Tenet took the hit.

According to one witness, Tenet "mocked the neoconservatives in the Bush administration and their alignment with the right wing of Israel's political establishment, referring to them with exasperation as, 'the Jews.'"

That's right George, you didn't do anything wrong. All you did was call the case to invade Iraq a "slam dunk." And now the Jews are out to git ya. Have you met Heath and Deborah Campbell, by any chance? They really seem like your kind of folks. (Raw Story)


-Neocons have never heard of WWII-
I don't remember who the first moron was to use the excuse (was it Condoleezza Rice?), but the Bush administration has argued for a long time that 9/11 was unavoidable because "no one could've anticipated that they would fly airplanes into buildings." My response to this argument has always been the same; "Look up kamikaze, dumbass."

It's such an idiotic claim that they stopped using it for awhile. But now, with the president desperate to make any case at all that he doesn't really suck as badly as he seems to, they've apparently decided to add it back to the talking points. Maybe they think everyone's forgotten why it's stupid.

It reemerged on (surprise!) FOX News, where White House spokesliar Tony Fratto was speaking with foxbot Jon Scott. "[N]obody was thinking that there’d be terrorists flying 767s into buildings at that point," Scott said and Fratto agreed.

"That’s true, he said. "I mean, no one could have anticipated that kind of attack -- or very few people." I guess that by "very few people," Fratto means the Clinton Administration, the intelligence community, and the Federal Aviation Administration. See, they all anticipated exactly that -- mostly because it's really not much a stretch.

The Bush administration, failing to learn the lessons of history since 2001. (Think Progress)


-WTF?-
When I visited the White House website to research my morning post, I noticed this:



What the hell? Has Santa been drafted or something? This whole War on Christmas thing has gotten completely out of hand. (White House)