I'll see your J_HN M_ _ AIN and raise you a CH_CK H_GEL in return.

Truth is not relative. Truth is not exclusive. Truth can be known by the individual.

What that means, is that even though liberals think otherwise, we can all know the truth.

Such is demonstrated by Tubino's supply - although we might understand it as yet another attack on a conservative - in his mind.

I think the rest of us see McCain as a lib-in-disguise. Applause to Tubino for uncovering a deceitful liberal and telling the truth about it.

I bet it was Trent Lott.

It's the crucial double bluff.

Smoke screen.

Distraction from Bush's failure in France!

Hat tip to Tubino

Daily Kos this ain't.

Something doesn't make sense. Ed Henry states that Trent Lott "stunned reporterS", yet ONLY Ed Henry is reporting the story...

Hey, is L_NC_LN CH_F_E on the intel committee?

Let's go for the entire 'Gang of 14'.

If they all had bits attached to a Grizzly, all that would be left is conservatives and wingnuts.

Better get a grip: if this is CNN reporting, we must await independent confirmation from two sources.

Cordially...

I can't abide Trent Lott, ever since I saw him on CSPAN presiding at the Senate phase of Clinton's impeachment. The smug smile on his face told me the "collegial atmosphere" of the Senate mattered to him far more than the hoi polloi and our shabby aspirations. He's had his panties in a bunch with his own party (and us, the grassroots winger blogosphere) ever since he had to relinquish the leadership of that august body. I recently heard him flogging his book on NPR and, in response to a question, said if it were him he "likes to think" he would've met with Cindy Sheehan again. A shallow, oily man.

That said, this has to be pursued, wherever it leads.

Can't get trackback to work, so here's the link to my post

Hat tip to Tubino.

Isn't it time to consider a pardon for Cedarford?

Now that I've seen Tubino hat-tipped I've realized what My Truth is:

that I think the phrase "hat-tip" is amazingly gay.

You kids are so gullable.
I guarantee you that Lott was misquoted or taken out of context.

I guaran-fucking-tee it.

yeah, where's cnn on this thing?

How about we quit dicking around and finally get everything out on the table. Big-mouthed Republicans, the game-playing fucks in our national media, Wilson/Plame, the back-East Commie-symp-turned-terror-symp permanent CIA infrastructure that fucked up the intel in the first place, the role of the U.N. and our so-called allies around the world -- all of it.

Let's find out what the fuck has really been going on here, clean house (whether by firing, indicting or expelling from the country) everyone who needs to go, and then get serious about the emerging threat of militant Islam before something even worse than 9/11 happens to us or someone else.

It's all fine and good to say "hope it happens to France or Spain" or whatever, but it's not fine. The people of France and Spain aren't responsible for the terror threat -- which is real, and which is worsening -- anymore than it was the fault of New Yorkers and Washingtonians on 9/11.

Or is any of that even possible anymore? Is the left so filled with hate that they're literally incapable of rationally thinking about what's best for the country instead of themselves? Because straight up: I'm questioning their patriotism. I don't think they support the troops, I know for a fact that they cheer when our soldiers die b/c I've seen them do it, and I sincerely believe they'd rather see the war on terror go poorly than Bush receive an ounce of credit for having the balls to stand up and do what three decades worth of cowardly politicians have failed to do before him, i.e., confront radical Islam at its roots and stomp those motherfuckers back to the stone age, which is the only course of action that's going to get the job done. Our enemies are maniacs, and anything short of flat-out stomping their asses is just pissing in the wind.

And how about our side? Is the GOP capable of dropping its guard and exposing its ass for just one critically important investigation, so that we can really figure out once and for all just what the scope of the problem is and what we can and should do about it? My contempt for Frist, Lott and the rest of the GOP weasels caught up in their continuous game of CYA is every bit as great as my contempt for the Dems -- and maybe more so, because they ought to fucking know better.

There. I said it. I just thought someone should.

This is the perfect excuse to go after the spineless Rinos. Like that scene in The Untouchables: Ness has just found out that Capone has bought the jury. He has a little pow-wow with the judge. The Judge looks shaken. The jury is switched. The DA goes to Ness, "What did you say" "I told him his name was in the book" "His name wasn't in the book" "He doesn't know that." We do the same thing to the Rinos. "Sen X. we need your vote." "Sorry no can do" "WAPO says you were one of the sources for the leak" "I meant of course I'll vote for it."
There's potential here guys.

Very well said, Blacksheep. I have been a lifelong conservative, and it is the Republicans that piss me off far more than the Democrats. Oh, don't get me wrong, I think the Dems are totally batshit crazy.

But if you are at war you understand that it is the enemy's job to shoot at you. But when the guy next to you in the foxhole is shooting at you also, then we have a problem.

Interestingly enough this story appears neither on CNN's site nor on CNN's.

How about we keep our hats on our heads until we get to see this reported somewhere other than a left wing blog.

This story is still so new and shapeless that it might not even be a story, so until I hear more I'm treating it as a hypothetical. But hypothetically, it's pretty depressing to realize how few senators in either party I'd be surprised to hear identified as the source of a leak like this, and how little I'd miss them if they went down as a result.

By all means, follow this wherever it leads and nail the responsible party, whoever it might be. But a major leak from Congress shouldn't be a distraction from Ace's original point, which is that Langley itself is a pretty leaky place full of tools that are quite prepared to compromise national security to advance their own agendas.

There are times when I definitely sympathize with Blacksheep: it seems like our people in government--Congresscritters, bureaucrats, the whole sick crew--just can't get f'in serious.

opps...should have been Washington Post or CNN.

Ok, so reading the story, it seems that Lott is saying a bunch of GOP senators heard about these prisons the night before the info was leaked.

Now, this does not necessarily mean that one of those senators was the source (though they certainly had the opportunity, and a few in particular would have the motive to leak the info). Heck, if I were a peon who wanted to leak the info, I'd wait until I knew it was going to be disclosed to a bunch of high-profile people.... but then, maybe Lott does know who leaked.

Yeah, I can't find the story either, other than the blog.

It's the crucial double bluff.

It's an XK-Red-27 technique!! (Quote #27)

Here's the video; it's in a Quicktime format. Sorry.

I'm with Blacksheep and DB on this one. I don't think I've seen Wolfe Blitzer so excited. Even if it wasn't a Republican, Lott's done a lot of damage.

Sorry, forgot to post the url:

streaming.americanprogress.org/ThinkProgress/2005/cnn_lott_leak.320.240.mov.html

Senior moment.

I would love for it to be McCain. I even think he's stupid enough to actually leak it given he's been riding this "torture horse" so hard recently.

It would sink his presidential aspirations permanently. Who in their right mind would elect a president who can't keep the nation's secrets?

Isn't it time to consider a pardon for Cedarford?

There is nothing stopping you from going to whatever blog he's violating these days. No need to involve us in your man-love fantasies.

You know what's really, REALLY starting to get up my nose? The way every single issue -- particulary but not exclusively for Republicans -- is reported entirely in the context of politics and poll numbers. Yeah, I know this is not a new complaint, but I honestly think it's far more blatant and exclusive than it once was. Maybe because I don't watch TV news any more.

I followed jack's video link, and it was all, like, "this could boomerang on the Republican leadership!" Well, okay...but is that really the most important fact to come away with? Is there no other sense in which betraying American interests is important?

I'm skeptical that it could be McCain or Hagel (or Hatch for that matter--see my comment in previous post... bastard). None of these media whores would make such a bold move without a camera documenting each "heroic" moment.

CIA referred it to Justice. Byron York has the story here.

None of these media whores would make such a bold move without a camera documenting each "heroic" moment.

They just blab mindlessly. It doesn't necessarily need to be a planned thing.

Joan Mqbain would never do that!

Kind of depressing that it takes a Republican leak to get Dems serious about national security issues.

Without this rumor, the existence of these secret prisons would still be the subject of outraged complaints from the left, not the leak that revealed them.
I wouldn't be surprised if some on the left had recently been praising this leak as brave 'whistleblowing.'

So? Whatever works to get them focused on the real problem. Loose lips sink ships.

No need to involve us in your man-love fantasies.

Brewfan:

People need to be able to count on their friends.

So, feel free to give me call if you need a ride home from the truck stop after you have been repeatedly violated and are too spent to move.

Well, Michael, I'll have you know I just wasted precious minutes of my life just to listen to you on HTBF. But guess what? No Michael! Were you so boring they snipped you out of the replay? lol!

Hey thanks for the hat-tip! You didn't have to do that.
--------------------
lauraw went way out on a limb: I wouldn't be surprised if some on the left had recently been praising this leak as brave 'whistleblowing.'

According to Atrios, on CNN this AM:
S. O'BRIEN: There was a report last week in the "Washington Post" that talked about these secret prisons in Europe.

MCCAIN: Yes.

S. O'BRIEN: Are you aware of these prisons?

MCCAIN: No.

S. O'BRIEN: Not at all?

MCCAIN: I did not know anything about it.

S. O'BRIEN: Which means what, then? I mean if other senators -- are you going to start hearings on this? Obviously you would like to be aware, yes?

MCCAIN: Well, I think the Intelligence Committee chairman and ranking member were told -- at least that's the media reports that I have -- but I think the American people ought to know if we're doing that kind of thing.
---------------
Yes, I happen to share that view at the end there. And basically concur with Digby here.

What's kind of weird is... isn't this really kinda old news? I mean after the Amnesty International statement about GULAGs, it was easy to find some pretty lurid descriptions of what kind of off-the-books prison system was being built. I actually thought it was kinda ho-hum at this point. But I hear that Harry Reid is already out with a statement wondering what Dick Cheney was doing sharing classified information:

1) solely with GOP Senators

and

2) in an unsecure location

Interesting, no?

"Isn't it time to consider a pardon for Cedarford?"
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Were you so boring they snipped you out of the replay? lol!

No kidding? Cuz, I took the afternoon off, and I spent the time to research AOSHQ and Tim's blog and come up with a really good question about the EU that both Ace and Tim had posted on (quality of question acknowledged by Ace, who I actually got to chat with during the commercial break, about my Batman quotes and such). My question was directed at Tim (I mean, who cares what Ace thinks) and it was the best part of the show.

And now it's getting clipped? Damn!

I should have asked Tim the question I really had in mind: What do you think about the ethics of a blogger who hosts a bad poetry contest and never announces a winner?

If the info is classified, it's classified. Breach of the classification needs to be punished, and if it violates true national security, needs to be punished according to the severity (not as judged by WaPo or NYT, but by a judge).

If, however, the classified material is meaningless, why the heck is it classified? Some system of classifying needs to be implemented to ensure classifying isn't being done simply to classify. My guess is there's a lot of meaningless garbage that's classified as highly secret that, when all put together would give the answer to what the islamofascists need to know: what size bra does Madonna wear when she wears one?

Could be wrong.

" My guess is there's a lot of meaningless garbage that's classified as highly secret..."

I followed this a little.

Post-9-11, the classification is more baroque, and overused, than ever. Used inconsistently, used more, abused more.

The terrible joke is that the way docs are classified now makes us less safe, by building more silos and reducing sharability.

It's seriously messed-up. Cheneyworld.

Help me understand why all you who think national security matters don't seem to care one whit about the Larry Franklin/AIPAC intel case, or Ahmed Chalabi, who may well have given US intel to IRAN, and who many in the CIA think tipped off Saddam to a coup in the works.

We're talking about people giving HIGHLY classified, even CRITICAL info, to foreign countries.

But Joe Wilson is more important?!?

Chalabi is in the US the next couple of days, hosted by his neocon buddies at AEI and elsewhere.

Ok, someone needs to start checking Leaky Leahy's cell phone records. He could have been listening outside the door during the Cheney briefing. I mean, Leahy does have a long and ...urm... varied history in these matters.

I'm just saying.

J O _ N M_ _ A I N

Joan McLain, Shirley McLain's previously unknown sister-in-law?

Not John McClane from Die Hard?

JO_N M__AIN?
JOIN MYPAIN...Oh wait wrong site, that was the answer for S&M.com

No. Not J_HN MC_AIN.

Rather, TR_NT L_TT.

That turd's been looking for a way to screw the WH ever since he got caught with a woody for Strom Thurmond's Dixiecrat Days and was forced to step down from the Speakership.

I'd hardly call sayin nice things about a retiring colleague at his retirement party having a woody for the Dixiecrat days. Its not like appointing a Klansman as the "conscience of the Senate"

Not sure if I give a lot of credence to Trent Lott, but...

Let me finish that sentence for you, Ace:

...I'll post this phony story given to me by an asshat.

I hope tubino is still reading this thread. Why does it have to be "Cheneyworld"? Most of the cretins leaking from the CIA are appointees from the 90's, 80's and 70's, or were hired by said appointees. They have a dog in this fight, and that is to let anyone who will listen (like the NYT or WaPo) know just what kind of evil things we do worldwide, like try to keep abreast of peoples who are out to hurt us, the U.S.

Again I have to say, the leakers should be punished according to the severity of the leak (as determined by a judge, not the MSM), and those who broadcast the secrets (NYT, WaPo, CBS, CNBC, CNN, etc., etc.), should be held to a higher standard (according to them, they are at a higher standard than shlubs like me). They should not even be given a sliding scale punishment like the leaker - the publisher, the editor, and the writer need to play Monopoly - go to jail, go directly to jail, do not pass Go and do not collect $200. After about the second occurance (it always takes these genii more than once) my guess is we'd hear a howl not heard from them in a long time, but our classified material would be safe.