Here’s the rub: JFK was assassinated by the mob/cia off-the-books crew. (I’d bet RFK was taken out by the same crew).

Combine jesusfreak-taliban mercs with privatized CIA connections swimming in a sea of unraceable money…..

Well, it makes ME uncomfortable. I’m not overly worried about some wingnut retard going at Obama, but experienced, connected pros afraid of exposure, prosecution, or having their gravy-trains eliminated are entirely another matter.

(Btw, no one really informed truly believes that the 9/11 commission answered all questions. Except for the simple-minded, treasonous, dolchstab Weimar-American partei. Obama, Holder, or congress should just appoint a special prosecutor and order all records revealed).

And let the chips fall where they may…

(ot/- what WAS Sandy Berger trying to remove from the national archives…?)

In 2006 our beloved Ned Lamont had just beaten Joe Lieberman in the CT Dem primary, with Iraq the main point of disagreement.

To steal Lamont’s thunder, and prop up Lieberman, Homeland Security prematurely released the very next day details of an vague plot by British Muslims to hijack passenger aircraft, and declared an alert that snarled airports and stranded passengers. In what should have been a triumphant interview, Lamont had to face suggestions from his 60 Minutes Steve Croft that his candidacy was now irrelevant.

This was exacerbated by the treatment of Sarah Palin and Chuck Grassley as legitimate sources because there are “official” representatives of the Republican Party, when any assessment of what they were saying ought to disqualify them as legitimate voices (though admittedly, Obama bears a ton of responsibility for Grassley’s centrality in the debate).

This. Just as “if your source screws you over, burn your source” apparently no longer applies in the Village, so is the concept that a public figure who repeatedly and obviously lies about an issue becomes valueless or detrimental to a story, and should be treated merely as background noise.

For instance I well remember Osama’s declaration of war, and the thought that since it was obvious that he took it seriously, I hoped someone in the government would.

[FWIW, I remember an evening news feature in, I guess, 1979 or ‘80, on a young Egyptian firebrand, a professional man with a Western-style education, who had just been arrested in connection with plots against the government; not sure now whether this was before or after the agreement mediated by Carter, but around then.

I remarked at the time that the pathos of seeing a man in a cage, as he was, and facing an uncertain future at the hands of a government that we knew very well treated its prisoners harshly didn’t do a thing to ease the offensiveness of the man’s rant —for he was shouting death and destruction through the bars at the top of his lungs. It would be an understatement to say that I instantly disliked him. I mentally bookmarked the moment and went on my way.

Not long ago I read someone else’s recollection somewhere on-line or maybe in a book of the same event somewhere —it was a riveting moment, and probably on ABC News or something that well-disseminated— and realized that the man that had momentarily stopped disparately located people dead in their tracks was Ayman al-Zawahiri.

So I think anyone or at least small collective who was half awake and charged with keeping abreast of who were our potential enemies in that part of the world must have known about him and his associates from that far back.]

Ambinder clings to the notion that journalists are passionless, objective, Brooksian automatons who assess factual data.

He’s from some alternate universe where all journamalists are robots?
Because otherwise that’s some really fine BS.

Uncannily colon-like. Looks like it’s about to empty into the rectum….Ambinder’s comments make so much more sense now.

First — the declaration of war on the US by bin Laden in an interview with then ABC reporter, John Miller, May 28, 1998 in the mountains of Afghanistan. Miller’s interview was the core of a two part Nightline program, broadcast about a month after the interview. Peter Bergen had a similar interview, and used it for his book. Ted Koppel included in the Nightline Program, additional materials from British and American intelligence. This “declaration of war” predated the attacks on the US Embassies in E. Africa, but they forshadow those attacks.

The response of Congressional Republicans to the Embassy bombings in the wake of the interviews which were televised, was to talk about a comic film, “Wag the Dog”, and then dispute the Clinton reading of the intelligence when Clinton responded with Tomahawk Missiles directed at al-Qaeda Camps. And oh yea, it was an effort to take the focus off Monica Lewinsky. All this, even though FBI and CIA successfuly arrested most of the perpertrators, brought them to NYC, indicted and tried them — Pat Fitzgerald, trial attorney.

During the same summer as the “declaration of war” and the Embassy Attacks, CIA discovered a plot to overthrow the Government of Albania by al-Qaeda. CIA along with others, rounded up the perp’s, and rendered them to Egypt and in a few cases to Algeria. The intelligence for understanding the Coup plans included Kosovo emerged from this — and the decision to engage with the Kosovo Independence group against Milosevic and the Serbs then in Kosovo was the result. Clinton was bright enough not to get pushed into the waiting arms of Milosevic…which was where al-Qaeda thought they could push Clinton and the west. Instead Clinton worked to involve NATO, and eventually make NATO and then the UN the sponsor of Kosovo’s eventual independence or at least autonomy.

The response of the Republicans in Congress? Well first off, call it Madeline’s war, and then try to cut off funding for US Troops in the Field, which they successfully did in one House. Are we to assume that during the Clinton Administration the House and Senate Intelligence Committees were not briefed on the work of CIA’s “Alex Station” which was tracking bin Laden and al-Qaeda? Did they not understand the implications of al-Qaeda trying to make a base of Albania? Tenet and Michael Scheur both say the Intelligence Committees were thoroughly briefed.

Third, due to a bit of luck on the border between Washington State and Canada, the FBI was able to take apart the Millinneal Plot, and avoid serious bombings at the century change. Jordan was able to crack a related plot on the Jordan/Israeli Border. Canada was able to arrest many supporters of the plot. Sadly, they did not catch the plan to blow up the US Navy ship, ‘The Sullivans’ in Yemen, so the plot survived to later blow up the Cole in October, 2000.

The Republicans ignored the Millinneal Plot. Again, the Intelligence Committees were briefed on its dimensions but for reasons unknown, the whole issue of responding to terrorist attacks was ignored during the Bush-Gore Campaign of 2000.

Following the Embassy bombings in 1998, a Blue-Ribbon Committee led by former Senators Hart and Rudman was established, and it issued its report just after George W. Bush took office in 2001. The Report predicted many future terrorist attacks on the US and US facilities abroad. Bush handed it off to Cheney to read and contend with, and both Hart and Rudman contend it never got any attention. It was featured on the news when it was first issued, and then ignored. It would only be dusted off after 9/11 and reviewed.

I suspect Clinton’s comment on first briefing George Bush after the 2000 election is appropriate at this point. “He doesn’t know much, He doesn’t want to know much, but he ain’t dumb”

There are many more items one could include in this list of how Republicans Politicized Intelligence during the Clinton Administration as a political tactic designed to deny Clinton and his Administration any credit for accomplishment or insight on this front. But for now, this is enough. The point should be fairly clear.