on KO Dana Milbank just said:

[Quakerfriend]

With ref to KO saying that the admin would have 'egg on it's face' if they pulled out of Iraq right now- Milbank said "Well, we could always bomb AlJazeera"...

Did everyone hear that??

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Yup. And he had this sort of ironic look on his face.

Just a nice, subtle little dig at the Bushter...

[Cha]

13. Complete turnabout for

dana milbank. 180 degrees.. does this mean he's through carrying water for the bushshites?

[Eric J in MN]

18. No. Dana Milbank goes back-and-forth, like Chris Mathews (nt)

nt

[Rick Myers]

2. Yup!!!

Everyone smells the blood in the water. I mean, today the DoJ announced that the Abramoff scandal might be the 'biggest in the nation's history!'

[Quakerfriend]

3. Wow! I had not heard that!

To tell you the truth, I have not watched MSM for ~ a week, and I am shocked at the change in what I am hearing!

[Up2Late]

4. Well, at least they (the WH and friends) will be remembered for something.

:spray: :rofl:

[tulsakatz]

5. they've all been paranoid over the Abramoff thing.......

....for quite some time.

And now that they've got Scanlon's plea deal, it's just a matter of time before all of the corruption is exposed!!

[OldLeftieLawyer]

6. Does everyone realize that

Jack Murtha turned the whole country around with his courageous statement - and that was not even one week ago?

Man Of The Year: Jack Murtha.

And, yes, the Abramoff case is going to make history. It will put Fitzgerald - who won't get any more indictments, I predict - in the second chair with no effort. This is going to be on a par with Watergate - if not bigger.

Write that down.

[Roland99]

7. And the GOP is trying to make hay off of Murtha's comments by Reframing...

Just as I predicted they would. They're going to try and frame a "victory" position shortly after next month's elections that will allow for more troops to come home.

Don't be surprised to hear of Zarqawi's death either.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

10. I hope they catch that sonofabitch Zarqawi

again.

Ah, do you realize we peaceniks are going to become fashionable again?

HAHAHAHAHAHA!

[welshTerrier2]

8. the "tipping point"

it's really amazing to look back a year or even just a few months and realize how the mood of the country has turned ...

Murtha for Man of the Year? ... yeah, that works for me ...

but i've been thinking about what really caused the big changes we're seeing ... i've come up with the following:
1. bush's total failure on every issue and his plummeting poll numbers
2. the American people finally turning against the war
3. Reid's "closed session" in the Senate ... the backbone he showed put the republicans on notice that the Democrats were back on the field and "we weren't going to take it anymore" and
4. Murtha's loud and clear message to get out of Iraq

I think the big change in the mood of the country should be credited to these four factors ...

the disturbing part of this analysis, if it's correct, is that the tide against the war doesn't really translate into particularly good news for Democrats ... Democrats will undoubtedly benefit from some of the anti-bush sentiment, but there's not exactly a big push for the Democratic vision ...

[OldLeftieLawyer]

11. What? WHAT?

There's a "Democratic vision"?????

No one tells me anything.

All of Bush's failures were in place, his numbers were going down faster than Barbara Bush on Karl Rove (oh, god, I just made my own self nauseous), but we'll never know but that it all would have just slogged along if not for Jack Murtha.

I'd love to know what Murtha's tipping point was. Why did he do it on that day? What precipitated it? Was that the day he visited Walter Reed and offered one of his Purple Hearts to the soldier who'd lost his hands but been denied that medal because he lost them to "friendly fire"?

Maybe some interviewer will have the insight to ask Murtha someday.

For now, it's just nice to have a hero. It's been a long time since Joe DiMaggio ..............

[justabob]

15. Federal response to Katrina woke a lot of people up too nt

[Thirtieschild]

25. Agree

Katrina was the turning point. The whole country - make that the whole world - watchd the misery in nOLA and saw no help, no concern, just the president flying over and looking out the window on, what?, Thursday? It was disgusting. Clinton would have been there, hands on, from day one.

[stillcool]

9. Actually i think Cindy provided ...

the first clear look at * to the American public...Terry Schiavo didn't hurt either. There is a very long line of incidents, and Plame, New Orleans, white phospherous, and bombing AlJazeera along with one hundred soldiers dying in less than a month...i mean damn, how much more do you need?

[OldLeftieLawyer]

12. Yeah, but it all turned around

in less than a week, even with all those things you so accurately mentioned.

It was all perfectly still, even with Bush's numbers sliding down, until Murtha spoke.

I am absolutely fascinated by this particular event. It seems to have galvanized America, but, as Murtha himself pointed out, he was simply reflecting what the people were saying.

And, still, the Democrats have done nothing except distance themselves immediately from Murtha and embarrass themselves.

I'm not real hopeful about the Dems, to tell you the truth.

[calimary]

14. I think it started with Social Security and what bush was trying to shove

down people's throats. They didn't like what they heard, and yet he just kept on shoving. It was a little off-putting. Then came Terri Schiavo. More off-putting - people didn't like that Big Brother government ramming itself down a family's throats, or the shameless spectacle some in and around that family stirred up - none of their business. THEN came Cindy Sheehan. Put a human face on the dreadfulness of this war. And even if you disagreed, you could NOT get around the phrase ALWAYS used when referring to her: "grieving mother." You CANNOT get around "grieving mother." You CANNOT touch or spin that. That's the first time bush and company actually had to start verbally and openly conceding that people have every right to dissent. THEN came KATRINA. Pointed out the ineptitude and incompetence of the bush white house and a knife to the jugular of the "he's keeping us safe!" argument. Well, he didn't. They had four years since the 9/11 they keep yapping about to get some decent homeland security together and they just fucked it up. TOTALLY FUCKED UP BEYOND ALL REASON. Plus, the Katrina calamity also showed America its own seamy underbelly - the poor and neglected who fell through the cracks when those nice "I hate big government" conservatives did away with their safety net, gave some of 'em a dollar-nintey-eight tax cut and sent some of the rest of 'em off to get killed in Iraq. By that time, the 2000th casualty mark had been hit. Not pretty. By then, thanks to Cindy Sheehan, more Americans were souring on the war already and took THIS statistic hard, as they should have. In with that swirling harmonic convergence, you can't forget Plamegate and Patrick Fitzgerald, and the run-up to the indictment of fibby libby. And meanwhile, Iraq just kept on getting messier and messier. And all the purported "good things" and "progress" we still are repeatedly told is there to see - just keeps getting blown away in violence, mayhem, and suicide/roadside bombings.

So NOW, all of that has converged into a humdinger of a perfect storm. And bush's boat is taking on water. And when you have a nasty, ratfaced witch publicly insulting a longtime, hugely-respected WAR VETERAN and calling him a coward, simply because he's spoken out about something he KNOWS, painfully well, and FIRST-HAND, it all contributes to some rawther bad times for bushco. Well deserved. The dominoes have been stacked up for several years now, more being added by the week. Murtha may have been the first one to get knocked over.

I hope so. I'm sick of these assholes. I want them OUT of power and IN prison - where they belong!!!

OUT of the White House. INTO the Big House.
Visualize IMPEACHMENT!!!
Then go DO something about it.

[Canuckistanian]

16. OT, but, interesting avatar you have there

ON-topic, Fitz IS going to be in the news again AS WELL as the Abramoff case.

A two-pronged attack is always more effective to keep the enemy off-message...

[OldLeftieLawyer]

17. Well, actually,

the two investigations are not at all related.

Fitzgerald's investigation is going to get stalled, go nowhere, and when the time is right, the discovery portion of the Libby case will explode in a series of "national security" withholdings, thereby setting the stage for Fuckface to issue as many Presidential pardons as he pleases, and that is where Fitzgerald will end.

It's been done before, by Fuckface, Sr., and it's all perfectly legal.

Fitzgerald's task was always uphill, simply because proving that that particular law had been broken is well-nigh unto impossible. Badly-drawn laws have that about them, and this is a very badly-drawn law.

[Canuckistanian]

19. Ah, but in the court of public opinion, FF is screwed if he does that

I sense a discomfort in Fuckface Jr. that wasn't present during daddy's reign.

There's too much background noise to dismiss this as "just another political fight"

Besides, there's a war on. And people are noticing the numbers.....

[OldLeftieLawyer]

20. It's hardly a political fight

Fuckface, Sr. was a lame duck, having lost to Bill Clinton in 1992 elections when he made his Christmas pardons.

Fuckface, Jr. is also a lame duck, and will have no compunction about the damage his actions will have on potential Republican candidates.

There's nothing anyone can do about it. The Constitution specifically gives the President this power.

Watch the Abramoff matter. Fitzgerald is, in my humble opinion. already over.

I do hope I'm wrong, because we've got a serious stash of popcorn here.

[Canuckistanian]

22. OK, let's see

If this is the end of Fitz, so be it. All the signs I'm seeing (including Talkingpointsmemo) say that the Congressional scandals are the ones worth watching.

I have my doubts, but i defer to the experts.

[KoKo]

21. I think Fitz will get another indictment...what is your reasoning that he

won't? Although I agree that Abramoff should be huge...(if Bushies don't find way to kill it or obstruct).

[Quakerfriend]

23. I think Fitz may get a chance to play the conspiracy card

and perhaps put a few fat cats away by using the Espionage Act (that they created) against them.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

24. The law he's charged with investigating,

the one drafted by that twit woman who's always on rightwing news talk shows and whose name (thankfully) escapes me right now - that law? It's hideously written and almost impossible to prove its violation. From the start, Fitzgerald was charged with a Sisyphean task, but my personal hope was that, like Watergate, he'd find something ancillary that would lead him to a treasure trove of illegal activity.

Now, I'm not at all certain that he'll ever be able to do anything. The indictment of Libby is historical, and I'm quite satisfied with that, though.

Abramoff, as I've been saying all along, is the small fissure in the big wall. Scanlon's plea, and his reputation as a wily weasel, is the bigger crack, and the rest of it - well, as I said, I've got this stash of popcorn.

Remember that line in "The Godfather"? It's true, but you might add one other word:

"Follow the money (power)."