Everyone go say congrats to BlackFive. You will see why when you get there.
Then and Now
I have to take issue with Roger Simon on this one:
Ultimately, I don’t care what a man did thirtysome years ago. I have to allow him to grow and change, if I am to allow that for myself. I care about where the man is today… and this man seems nowhere.
That seems fair on the surface, but his analysis has no bearing on Kerry’s viability as a candidate. In fact, the essence of the Kerry campaign is that he is the same man he was 30 years ago, otherwise voters would know more about the man other than he has a second rich wife and served in Vietnam.
Not to mention, as Jay Caruso and Jay Reding, Kerry isn’t helping us know who he is or what he intends to do, because he refuses to divulge his intentions or plans for Iraq or for the economy.
In short, John Kerry’s platform to date reminds me of the old joke:
Q: “How do you say ‘F— You’ in Los Angeles?”
A: “Trust Me.”
Lies, Damned Lies
This Yglesias post reminded me, once again, how little most people know about statistics (and this is not a dig at Matt- his explanation is about as clear as it comes).
All the News That is Fit to Misrepresent
It is Thursday, so Atrios is once again spinning good economic news as- well, bad news:
Congratulations to the 336K new lucky duckies.
But, more importantly, tomorrow the monthly jobs report comes out. The usual reminder – anything under 150K or so is a “bad” number and anything under 300K or so is less than the average monthly job creation number Bush used to justify his most recent tax cut…
Now, that would be a question for a press conference. “Mr. Preznit, in Februrary of 2004, your Council of Economic Advisers predicted that if your tax plan passed, that 3,672,000 new jobs would be created. What went wrong?”
As you can clearly see- the employment situation is improving, at a rather decent clip:
As Atrios was a loud opponent of the tax cuts and is clearly claiming the tax cuts did not do ENOUGH, a better question might be- why are the Democrats in favor of widespread unemployment? Also note- initial claims are very close to where they were during the ‘miracle economy.’
BTW- Props to anyone who can tell me what the number 357,000 means and who came up with the figure.
The Big Lie
One of my favorite mantras from the loony left is being re-packaged by Atrios and delivered to us for our consumption today:
There is a lot that makes me angry… but, I have to say that the lost opportunities post-9/11 really make me sad.
There may have been a brief hiatus from public partisan sniping, but the Democrats only piped down their rhetoric temporarilybecause the public demanded it. They found unity in much the same way that death row inmates find Jesus.
At any rate, it appears unity was dead by the time Atrios started his weblog in April of 2002:
Hey Ashcroft, did you catch Eric Rudolph yet?
The Anthrax mailer?
Osama Bin Laden?
Anybody?
Didn’t think so. – 20 April 2002
I can respect that, but anyone who uses the term Bush Doctrine without collapsing into a serious case of the giggles is not someone to be taken seriously. – 20 April 2002
Brad Delong makes the obvious point that it actually matters if our president is a drooling imbecile. I think the fact that someone even has to make this point speaks volumes. – 18 April 2002.
Bush sure did kill that unity quick.
Progress
Looks like we got a few more:
Al-Hindi was among 13 men, ages 19 to 32, arrested in raids late Tuesday in London, the nearby towns of Watford and Luton, and Blackburn in northwestern England. One man was freed Wednesday without charge. The others were being questioned at a London police station “on suspicion of being concerned in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism,” police said, according to the Associated Press.
The arrests in Pakistan that led investigators to al-Hindi began in June with the apprehension by Pakistani paramilitary forces of Mussad Aruchi, an al Qaeda operative. The operation was supervised by the CIA, officials said. Aruchi, described as a nephew of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the architect of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, told interrogators he “was sure that al Qaeda would hit New York or Washington pretty soon.” He is also a cousin of Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, who was convicted of planning and carrying out an attack on the World Trade Center in 1993.
Aruchi’s capture led to the arrest of Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, a Pakistani, in the city of Lahore on July 13, and to the apprehension last week of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian wanted in connection with the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
Bush administration officials said the terror alert for financial sectors in Washington, New York and Newark was based in part on the contents of a laptop computer, disks and other materials seized during an arrest of an al Qaeda fugitive in Pakistan in late July showing that al Qaeda operatives had conducted detailed surveillance of the five buildings. U.S. officials did not make clear until Tuesday that the surveillance was conducted three to four years ago and that authorities were not sure whether it had continued.
I wonder if someone has told the wingnuts, who as recently as yesterday were stating that the terror warnings were elevated only for political reasons.
Loose Lips
Damnit, Shelby:
Federal investigators concluded that Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.) divulged classified intercepted messages to the media when he was on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, according to sources familiar with the probe.
Specifically, Fox News chief political correspondent Carl Cameron confirmed to FBI investigators that Shelby verbally divulged the information to him during a June 19, 2002, interview, minutes after Shelby’s committee had been given the information in a classified briefing, according to the sources, who declined to be identified because of the sensitive nature of the case.
Cameron did not air the material. Moments after Shelby spoke with Cameron, he met with CNN reporter Dana Bash, and about half an hour after that, CNN broadcast the material, the sources said. CNN cited “two congressional sources” in its report.
Just so irresponsible.