Got $9 bn. to burn?

• No, you probably don't, but Paul Bremer did. And, um, oops, apparently he did a whoopsy wiff da $8 billion (yes, with a b). Indeed, $2 million was moved around in a bag. Imagine what he would would have got if he had looked after that money. But this is a family blog, we don't talk about that sort of thing here. You can read about it after hours I'm sure somewhere on the Internets, or just visit one of those "adult" stores with no windows.....I'm sure you could see what ol' Pauly might have gotten if he'd actually held onto that money. Even though Wolfowitz said the war would pay for itself. Remember that? Maybe $2
  trillion (yes, with a t), perhaps we'll be clear of that cost. And that estimate was made assuming the US wouldn't escalate the saber-rattling on Iran. Really, the escalation of the war effort is so similar to what happened with Iraq. And as the Raw Story link two links above notes, the NY Times report is completely outside their usual standards of journalism in that they have standards for anonymous citation. They supposedly require verified sources for controversial stories but, as was the case four years ago (it was the same reporter who co-wrote the WMD stories with Judith Miller...coincidence?), and in spite of the responsibility that the Ol' Grey Lady took for her fawning coverage of the propaganda served up in '02, here it goes again. The usual suspects are citing anonymous sources, using misleading evidence and making claims that are just flat-out lies. And yet the Government Public Relations Dept. networks continue to peddle the same tired, BS stories to promote.....what? Death for poor and middle class people in Iraq and Iran. Fantastic.


• Juan Cole notes that if Iranians had been killing Americans to the extent that the Tired Grey Lady says, they would essentially have been solely responsible for American deaths in Baghdad. And really does the NYT reporter not think Iraqis have enough reason to want to kill Americans by themselves? I would think so. As people noted Iran wanted to co-operate in handling Saddam, but we rejected them out of hand-not that the Iraq War was ever a good idea but at this point we're looking for the best of many bad options. It seems, however, that Monkey Boy wanted chaos in the Middle East. More criticism of the NY Times from Glenn Greenwald who points out that the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times seem to have learnt from their stenography sessions for the Cheney administration in 2002 and early '03. The NYT though, as he notes, remains the fair hand-maiden for Dear Leader.Think Progress also criticizes the NYT for their stenography. This article mentions a National Journal article which says that it was the intelligence community and not Stephen Hadley (as he claims in an Los Angeles Times article cited by Think Progress) which demanded that the overstatements about Iranian involvement in Iraq were removed. Yeesh, haven't we been down this road before?


• Yet another reason Clint Eastwood rules. Neil Cavuto tries to lead him to pander to right-wing talking points but Clint's having none of it. He's frank and to the point and won't be led down the fanciful path Cavuto walks. Dickhead