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I didn't realize it when I wrote the Bobblehead post this morning that today is the final airing of Late Edition. Host Wolf Blitzer signed off the program with a good-bye and thanks to his production team.

Now normally, I'd be happy as a clam over one less program and disingenuous "journalist" to deal with, but Blitzer and Late Edition are leaving to make room for John King and "State of the Union".

That's right, the same John King who said that Obama should worry about being too left. The same John King that played down CNN polls favorable to Obama during the election. The same John King that read a statement from Kissinger criticizing Obama without noting that it was based on a false statement. The same John King who blasted Glenn Greenwald for daring to suggest that King was a mite bit biased towards John McCain in his coverage.

So in our post-partisan afterglow of an election that decisively showed the country moving to the left and embracing our agenda, CNN gives up on Late Edition and brings us....John King?

That's a finger on the pulse of the nation.

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It's a oft-repeated maxim of the Bush administration: repeat the talking points over and over again and they become conventional wisdom, whether or not they bear any semblance of truth. As part of the Legacy Rehab Tour, Vice President Dick Cheney sits down with Wolf Blitzer and unleashes the standard White House talking points about torture.

What we were attempting to do, and what we did was to persuade these individuals who had a lot of intelligence and information about al Qaeda -- remember, we captured Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in, I think it was, spring, March of '03, in Karachi. At the time we didn't know a lot about al Qaeda. On 9/11 we didn't know a lot about al Qaeda. If Dick Clarke was such an expert, how come he didn't have all of this information about al Qaeda when he was running the counterterrorism program? The fact of the matter is that we were able to persuade them to cooperate, to give us the intelligence we needed, and to give us the base of understanding about al Qaeda, about personnel and operations and financing and geography and so forth that was essential in terms of defending our country against further attacks. Now you don't go in and pull out somebody's toenails in order to get them to talk. This is not torture. We don't do torture.

Hmmm....interesting revisionist history. Cheney throws Richard Clarke under, claiming even he did not know much about al Qaeda, which is manifestly untrue, given that Clarke warned the Bush administration again and again that al Qaeda was the number one threat the US faced and was summarily brushed off. Maybe if he had managed to give them something "actionable" (after all, "Bin Laden determined to strike in the US" doesn't tell them which flight to ground or which airport to put troops in, does it?), Cheney might have taken Clarke more seriously...or maybe they would have gone ahead with their cherry-picking intelligence and ignored him anyway. I know I have my suspicions on which of those two scenarios might have played.

Nevertheless, Cheney insists that they only 1) waterboarded three people; 2) they got actionable intelligence that saved American lives and prevented another attack; and 3) it's not torture anyway.

Again, given his pattern of candor and transparency, I'm not sure why Cheney thinks we should take his word for anything. Certainly, the CIA has admitted to waterboarding three people...but only after they denied it over and over. This report certainly questions that number:

Firstly, if it’s true that only three detainees were subjected to waterboarding, then why did a number of “former and current intelligence officers and supervisors” tell ABC News in November 2005 that “a dozen top al-Qaeda targets incarcerated in isolation at secret locations on military bases in regions from Asia to Eastern Europe” were subjected to six “Enhanced Interrogation Techniques,” instituted in mid-March 2002?

Given the careful rhetoric, Cheney might be weaseling past the fact that the CIA waterboarded only those three AQ suspects and leave out that we contracted out the rest of the torturing or that the CIA waterboarded other non-AQ suspects. As to the "actionable intelligence" received by such procedures:

According to the ABC News report, one other detainee who was waterboarded was Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, the director of the Khaldan training camp in Afghanistan, who was captured in November 2001. His current whereabouts are unknown, although there are suspicions that he was finally delivered to the Libyan government. Having slipped off the radar, the government clearly does not want his case revived, not only because it may have to explain what has happened to him, but also because, as a result of the application of “Enhanced Interrogation Techniques,” al-Libi claimed that Saddam Hussein had offered to train two al-Qaeda operatives in the use of chemical and biological weapons.

Al-Libi’s “confession” led to President Bush declaring, in October 2002, “Iraq has trained al-Qaeda members in bomb making and poisons and gases,” and his claims were, notoriously, included in Colin Powell’s speech to the UN Security Council on February 5, 2003. The claims were of course, groundless, and were recanted by al-Libi in January 2004, but it took Dan Cloonan, a veteran FBI interrogator, who was resolutely opposed to the use of torture, to explain why they should never have been believed in the first place. Cloonan told Jane Mayer, “It was ridiculous for interrogators to think Libi would have known anything about Iraq … The reason they got bad information is that they beat it out of him. You never get good information from someone that way.”

Of course there's also Murat Kurnaz:

Kurnaz said he was also subjected to waterboarding and electric shock. And that beatings were routine and constant. He theorizes that much of the torture was a result of the failure of the American soldiers and agents to capture any real terrorists in the initial sweeps. (He was told that he was sold to the Americans for $3,000 by Pakistani police, who identified him as a terrorist). ‘They didn’t have any big fish. And they thought that by torture they could get one of us to say something. “I know Osama” or something like that. Then they could say they had a big fish.

And as for the notion of waterboarding not being torture...really? How many sentient beings actually believe that? Let me let Chris Hitchens (who has historically little to argue with the Bush administration when it comes to the War on Terror), who experienced waterboarding himself, say it:

Well, then, if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture.

And finally, there was one thing that really threw me. At the end of the interview, Blitzer asks if Cheney would order waterboarding again, and Cheney demurs that he wasn't in the chain of command. What's that again? I could have sworn that Mr. Fourth Branch of Government just placed any and all blame for waterboarding on George W. Bush solely. Funny, that's not what he said to the Washington Times last week.

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On Late Edition, host Wolf Blitzer asks UAW President Ron Gettlefinger for his take on Mitt Romney's heartless and callously Republican "solution" to the auto industry crisis: take away health benefits and pensions for the laborers, otherwise known as "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt."

It's curious to me that CNN, the NY Times or basically, anyone cares what Romney thinks on the Detroit bailout. His apparent bona fides being that he was the son of George Romney, while completely ignoring George's legacy at AMC, which was to successfully compete against the Big 3 by making more economic and efficient cars to their larger gas guzzlers. Does Romney urge the Big 3 to innovate and stop making cars Americans don't want to buy? Of course not. Does he urge them to make sensible changes to their lending arms? Uh uh. No, this is all the fault of those pesky blue collar employees who have the nerve to expect the auto industry to uphold their pension and healthcare commitments. The nerve!

Gettlefinger deftly charges that it's not surprising that the Republican would point the finger at workers, and it, like most Republican tenets, is not based in reality. But when he tries to bring up that this is a worldwide economic issue (because the lending arms of these automakers do have tentacles all over the globe), and it bears little difference from the financial bailout for which the Republicans were only too happy to pony up funds, Blitzer interrupts him to bring up yet another inane and irrelevant talking point: whether the CEOs will arrive in Washington DC via personal jet again.

I forget, was this an issue for BearStearns and AIG when they put their hand out? Way to get to the heart of such a critical issue for so many Americans, Wolfie.

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FSM bless Sarah Palin; she is the gift that keeps on giving to progressive America. Now that she is no longer kept sequestered by the McCain campaign, she bursting out into the media, showing us exactly the results of 25 years of conservative rule. All I can say, is that I think the McCain campaign was smart to keep her away from the cameras as much as they did.

Wolf Blitzer asks Palin to comment on the historic occasion of our first African American presidency (why? Does Palin have some special insight into the African American experience? Hell, I'm pretty sure that she's only vaguely aware of history) and Palin trots out the rote talking points that she's looking forward to working with him, especially on energy independence (she keeps using that phrase, but I'm not sure she knows what it means. Energy independence doesn't mean more checks for Alaskans solely, does it?). But Blitzer points out that Palin's campaign rhetoric (oh Wolf, let's not play the blame game) and Palin unapologetically reiterates the Ayers smear.

PALIN: It would be my honor to assist and support our new president and the new administration, yes. And I speak for other Republicans, other Republican governors also. They being willing, also, to, again, seize this opportunity that we have to progress this nation together, a united front.

BLITZER: Because, you know, during a campaign, every presidential campaign, things are said that's tough. As you well know, it gets sometimes pretty fierce out there.

And during the campaign, you said this. You said, This is not a man who sees America as you see it and how I see America. And then you went on to say, Someone who sees America, it seems as being so imperfect that he's palling around with terrorists who would target their own country.

PALIN: Well, I still am concerned about that association with Bill Ayers. And if anybody still wants to talk about it, I will, because this is an unrepentant domestic terrorist who had campaigned to blow up, to destroy our Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol. That's an association that still bothers me, and I think it's still fair to talk about it.

Yup, there's your united Republican front all right.

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From Late Edition Nov. 9, 2008.

Reid: Joe Lieberman told me yesterday "We got a big job to do. I'm going to do everything I can to help Barack Obama."

King: Does he owe him an apology?

Reid: Well I don't know, you know this is not a high school deal where you say okay you embarrassed me in front of my girlfriend therefore you apologize.

King: But you made peace with Sen. McCain. Should they do something like that?

Reid: Maybe they already have. I think a lot of this is very private stuff but Joe Lieberman has done something that I think was improper, wrong and I'd like that we weren't on television I'd use a stronger word of describing what he did. But, ah...Joe Lieberman votes with me a lot more than a lot of my senators. He didn't support us on military stuff and he didn't support us on Iraq stuff. But you look at his record, he's good. He comes from one of the most liberal states in the country. He is, Joe Lieberman is not some right wing nut case. Joe Lieberman is one of the most progressive people ever to come from the state of CT.

Considering how often Democrats have caved to Holy Joe's Machiavellian games in the past, these kinds of words aren't exactly heartening.

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Bless my soul, they actually talked about the Georgian/Russian conflict on Late Edition this morning!  ** Nobody can claim that CNN is not on top of the issues of the day.  As Jerome a Paris, who wrote this great article, put it in an email to me:

Neocons are people that see danger everywhere and seem to crave military solutions in all cases. They endlessly blather about how we need to stand firm against bullies or other threats (Russia being near the top of the list), and protect our brave allies on the front lines, and along with them, democracy, freedom and our honor. They mock cowardly Europeans who think appeasement (read - any diplomacy) might have a chance. They fuel conflicts and perpetually tout military options.

And yet, whenever given the opportunity to stand up to their words (and sent other people to fight, of course, they don't do that themselves), the results are surprisingly poor.

Case in point, Sen John Cornyn, who had to wrestle with some serious pretzel logic on McCain's position to kick Russia out of the G8.

BLITZER: Do you agree with Sen. McCain, Sen. Cornyn, that Russia should be kicked out of the G8?

CORNYN: Well, I think, you know, we're not at that point, uh, yet. I think certainly - not over this incident, but I do think we need to recognize Russia for what it is and of course it was the Soviet Union that invaded Afghanistan back in the late 70s that has created so much hardship for the Afghan people, so much lack of stability in that area, so I think, you know, Russia is a superpower. They have the responsibilities of a superpower and they cannot claim that they are on any kind of equal basis or really legitimately threatened by Georgia from a military standpoint. But we do need to...we do need a resolution here, and lest this thing spin out of control.

Um, Sen. Cornyn? Have you heard of Iraq?   I hate to be pedantic about this, but by your standards, the US should be kicked out of the G8.   You really want to go down this road?

For more about the Georgian/Russian conflict, see this article: The warmongers have lost yet another war.

** Correction: I initially lambasted CNN for their coverage of the conflict, but it has been brought to my attention that they did spend a significant portion of their program on it this morning.  My apologies to CNN for the incorrect characterization.

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You gotta love the predictability of the framing from McCain's Media.  John McCain challenges Barack Obama to go to Iraq, and so he goes.  Then he makes the exact same courtesy calls with other heads of state with whom he would be in close contact should he win the presidency that John McCain made just a couple of months ago, but according to Suzanne Malveaux on CNN's Late Edition, "some people" are worried that Obama is just a little audacious for making this trip.  Riiiiigggghhhhttt.  Just who would be these people, Malveaux?  Would they be those same GOP/RNC types that have been whispering these ridiculous slurs because Obama's trip was so successful and made their candidate look like an intemperate, ill-prepared and out of touch amateur?

Senator, I want to use a word that you love to use, "audacity." A lot of people looked at the trip and they saw the palaces, the world leaders, the 200,000 that were gathered in Berlin, and they said, "The audacity of this trip, it looks like he is running for president of the world."

Are we quoting Krauthammer and Brooks again on another media outlet?  It appears so.  The question goes out to McCain's Media yet again: by what standard have these two chuckleheads--who have yet to be right on anything, mind you--earned the privilege of framing the debate of this race?

Kudos to Obama for responding the only way you should to these intelligence-insulting media narratives.

OBAMA: Well, let me make a couple points. First of all, I basically met with the same folks that John McCain met with after he won the nomination. He met with all these leaders. He also added a trip to Mexico, a trip to Canada, a trip to Colombia, and nobody suggested that that was "audacious."

I think people assumed that what he was doing was to talk to world leaders who we may have deal with should we become president. That's part of the job that I'm applying for.

And so -- so I was puzzled by this notion that somehow what we were doing was in any way different from what Senator McCain or a lot of presidential candidates have done in the past.

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Seymour Hersh has been writing about the Bush administration's aggressive stance against Iran for years now.  His latest article for The New Yorker, "Preparing the Battlefield", Hersh claims that the Bush administration has been carrying out clandestine operations in Iran for some time now, with the funding and cooperation of the Democratic leadership in Congress. 

HERSH:  I think this is another example of putting an awful lot of pressure on the Iranian government. There's been a dramatic increase in kinetic events and chaos inside of Iran. Almost every other day, there's another story in the Iranian press -- I write about this in the article, too -- about things blowing up, et cetera, et cetera. It looks like things are falling apart, a little bit. And the central government certainly has more trouble.

And I think the goal of this operation, this incredible operation, with all this money -- and, by the way, it's the Democrats in Congress who basically looked the other way and said, take the money and run. They did not stop this money, the leadership that I'm talking about, the Democratic leadership.

So, basically, my guess is that -- I don't think we can safely say that any military action is off the table, no matter what happens. And that's -- as I say, I wish I'm going to be wrong about all that, but this is really, sort of, an amazing development.

CROWLEY: Absolutely. I want to read a graph out of your book because it goes to the oversight of the Democrats you just mentioned. [snip] "'The oversight process has not kept pace -- it's been co-opted by the administration,' the person familiar with the contents of the findings said. 'The process is broken and this is dangerous stuff we're authorizing.'"

Tell me, first, what your sources say is so dangerous about this?

HERSH: The president has to give a finding on covert action, any action that's covert. In other words, when CIA goes in some place, if they get caught, there could be spies.

So he has to tell the Congress about it. And the military simply is -- the president, since 9/11, has decided anything we do militarily, we don't have to tell anybody in Congress about.

Guest host Candy Crowley brings on Iraq Ambassador Ryan Crocker to officially deny that any cross border operations have taken place, but Hersh points out that Crocker may not be in the loop--plausible deniability being the operative word.

That is simply a reality, that when you run secret operations, if you're not telling the commander, the military commander of the Central Command, who is supposedly running the country -- you may not tell the ambassador everything. Sometimes it's better not to have the ambassador know. 

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 The NY Times has the latest from the ever changing Iraq narrative from BushCo. So, what are we fighting for?

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With American military successes outpacing political gains in Iraq, the Bush administration has lowered its expectation of quickly achieving major steps toward unifying the country, including passage of a long-stymied plan to share oil revenues and holding regional elections.

There have been signs that American influence over Iraqi politics is dwindling after the recent improvements in Will the US then stage a coup and oust Maliki to put in a Chalabi type puppet in his place? This war and their supporters represent the term "absurd" in the extreme. security — which remain incomplete, as shown by a deadly bombing Friday in Baghdad. While Bush officials once said they aimed to secure “reconciliation” among Iraq’s deeply divided religious, ethnic and sectarian groups, some officials now refer to their goal as “accommodation.”...read on

So now their goals have changed to one of accommodation. It's CRAZY TALK@! Bush wants this war to continue so that when he leaves leave office he can hope that Michael Gerson writes the official version for all our history books. It's all about his legacy, you see. What a joke.

I've been saving the above clip for a few weeks now and I think this is the right time to post it. On 10/14/07, Lindsey Graham (CNN's Late Edition) said that if by the end of the year---the elected government of Iraq, run by Maliki---doesn't get the job done he should be removed. WTF?

BLITZER: ...But what happens if they fail to divide up the oil, if they fail to get those elections, they don't disband all the various militias by the end of the year? Then what does the United States do?

GRAHAM: ...So I am hopeful that some of these people at the local level will have a stronger voice. And I'm hopeful that Talabani, Maliki, and Hashemi and all the major players can have a breakthrough.

I'm asking them to do things they say are important for their country. The conditions are right now and, quite honestly, if they can't do it by the end of the year, I have real doubts that this group will ever do it so we need a new political strategy to find a group that can.

Find a group that can? Ladies and Gentlemen this is a major clusterf*&k and the scaled down violence is only an excuse to perpetuate this atrocity. Will the US then stage a coup and oust Maliki to put in a Chalabi type puppet in his place? This war and their supporters represent the term "absurd" in the extreme.