Losing the War on Terra

Winnin' the War on Terra Watch

As you've probably heard by now, the State department made a "mistake" and undercounted terrorism in 2003, then declared that as evidence that we were winning the war on "terrorism". Nevermind the futility of waging war against a technique, it was then revealed that the actual numbers were way up. Thank you to Gary for this link about the "mistake". Does this mean we are "losing" the "war"? That would be an obvious conclusion from their earlier logic.

Funny how the "mistakes" they make are always in their political favor, huh?

Bob Somerby has discovered how it is they managed to undercount. They stopped counting attacks on Nov. 11th of 2003. His account of how this little fact keeps getting slipped by on various talk shows is amazing. The second half of this report highlights the not surprisingly crappy coverage Kerry has been receiving.

Liberal Oasis does a good job of taking apart Colin Powell's pathetic public response to this latest lie.

George Will Watch

And speaking of presstitutes, and things down the memory hole, Atrios recalls for us the story of George Will, how he used a purloined Carter briefing book to prepare Reagan for a debate against Carter, and then that very night declared on national TV how well Reagan had done. You'd think extraordinarily rotten ethics like that would be at least remembered by our powdered media class, but instead First Class Empty Talking Head Cokie Roberts proceeds in this way, according to Atrios:

So, Cokie's sitting there praising Reagan's debate performance, knowing full well that some of that performance was due to the fact that her colleague, on the same roundtable, had coached Reagan using stolen materials from the Carter campaign. Without mentioning it.

Krugman Watch

Paul Krugman has been on fire lately. Thank you to David for this essay, where he just comes right out and says what needs to be said about John Ashcroft:

No question: John Ashcroft is the worst attorney general in history.

For this column, let's just focus on Mr. Ashcroft's role in the fight against terror. Before 9/11 he was aggressively uninterested in the terrorist threat. He didn't even mention counterterrorism in a May 2001 memo outlining strategic priorities for the Justice Department. When the 9/11 commission asked him why, he responded by blaming the Clinton administration, with a personal attack on one of the commission members thrown in for good measure.

It gets better from there.

Thank you also to Paul for this link, another Krugman's take on the Gipper's economic legacy, where he calls for a little rare honesty.

Torture Watch

Finally today, if you missed this, is the Washington Post's editorial from last week on our policy of torturing people. Once in a while, even the major newspapers are disgusted with this administration. An excerpt:

Perhaps the president's lawyers have no interest in the global impact of their policies -- but they should be concerned about the treatment of American servicemen and civilians in foreign countries. Before the Bush administration took office, the Army's interrogation procedures -- which were unclassified -- established this simple and sensible test: No technique should be used that, if used by an enemy on an American, would be regarded as a violation of U.S. or international law. Now, imagine that a hostile government were to force an American to take drugs or endure severe mental stress that fell just short of producing irreversible damage; or pain a little milder than that of "organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death." What if the foreign interrogator of an American "knows that severe pain will result from his actions" but proceeds because causing such pain is not his main objective? What if a foreign leader were to decide that the torture of an American was needed to protect his country's security? Would Americans regard that as legal, or morally acceptable? According to the Bush administration, they should.