Larry,

I watched this piece last night, and you are right, Keith deserves an Emmy at the very least. Chris Matthews has turned into a MSM (and that wasn't a misprint)Whore, which leaves Keith the only real journalistic voice on that network.

Within the hour, I listened to the first part of Joe Scarborough's show, based on the teaser of "Is George Bush an idiot, or merely inarticulate?" John Fund said no, he's just inarticulate and incurious.

Does Bush even have a figleaf any longer?

Bushco delenda est.

I watched Olberman's piece as well. Funny but when I tell people about it the usual reaction isn't surprise. Instead most of the folks I have talked to respond with "that sounds about right."

The tragedy is that the Rovian phony terror threats are so common I don't think many people would pay attention to a real one if announced by the attorney general or the head of homeland security.

Ron Byers

Just like showing you anything on FOX News, you won't believe it.

"the lowest rated show on cable." Are you sure that is an accurate statement?

If you want credibility you have to make sure your facts are accurate.

Ron Byers

SFCWallace, you might be on firmer ground there if your President hadn't responded to the August 6, 2001, memo by masturbating. I'm not criticizing him for it, I'm just saying it don't do your case any good.

  But that isn't accurate...their policies should be described as "intentional and calculated negligence".

with malice and forethought.,,yes, indeed.

Don't believe anything on any network or the media in general. Always check it with other sources.

this is unfair. surely if the motivation behind the arrests was political impact they would have waited until September or October to roll up the plotters.

Andrew Sullivan questions and links to a memo from a British ambassador on how real and how imminent it was

From the Ambassador:

None of the alleged terrorists had made a bomb. None had bought a plane ticket. Many did not even have passports,

many of those arrested had been under surveillance for over a year ... Nothing from that surveillance had indicated the need for early arrests. Then an interrogation in Pakistan revealed the details of this amazing plot to blow up multiple planes - which, rather extraordinarily, had not turned up in a year of surveillance.

From Sullivan

I wonder if Lieberman's defeat, the resilience of Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the emergence of a Hezbollah-style government in Iraq had any bearing on the decision by Bush and Blair to pre-empt the British police and order this alleged plot disabled. I wish I didn't find these questions popping into my head. But the alternative is to trust the Bush administration.

Be patient, Architect. There are many, many more so-called terrorist plots that will be "uncovered" before November. Chances are 99.9 percent of them will go the way of the Miami 7. I'm guessing a really big "uncovered" plot will be all over the news sometime during the first week of October. In the meantime the MSM will dutifully sound the alarm, hour after nauseating hour that a "suspicious package" was found at a terminal or a "suspicious individual" forced a jet from London headed for Dulles to land at Logan. Sound familiar?

That interrogation in Pakistan involved the alleged ringleader, Rauf, whom British intellegence wanted to take into custody "in circumstances where there was due process" so he could be tried in British courts. (Someone should tell the fuddy-duddy Brits that "due process" has been declared null and void by the Decider.)As it is, given that the Decider prevailed the guy's been arrested and rendered to heaven knows where. Stripped and water-boarded he'll reveal nothing worth knowing. Properly interrogated by professionals, he'd probably have spilled his guts. Bush is a clear and present danger to our safety.

Fox has a pretty poor record of informing the public. The lowest actually.

Damn right I wouldn't believe anything I saw on faux News without Independent verification. As Oberman provided numerous sources for his, what exactly is your problem?

What has a notoriously unreliable NewsSource have to do with Larry's post or my point?

CSPAN junkies visit http://spannerbackup.ipbhost.com

"this is unfair. surely if the motivation behind the arrests was political impact they would have waited until September or October to roll up the plotters." (Sorry, not quite HTML literate yet)

If the motivation was political impact why not use it now to kick off the Republican talking points especially in the light of the Lieberman defeat.

Also, a scarier thought comes to mind. I've often thought that some of the scarier conspiracy theories' predictions of another major terrorist attack coming midway during the current election campaign were off base particularly because such an attack would highlighht how little Bushco has done to keep this country secure. However, if Bush can trumpet a series of successes in the GWOT (and it's obvious he can't name many as of now) but then another major attack were to occur he could argue that he needs even more powers, even more Republicans in office etc. etc.

Right, because a historic document titled "Bin Laden Determined To Strike Inside America" was given such consideration by this administration before 9/11.

The current line is that this Administration will not trumpet their successes in the GWOT for the purpose of raising approval numbers.

Translated, they are trying to tell us that approval numbers are not important. Why would they say that? Because their approval numbers are so abyssmal.

They're trying to set up a win-win situation. Stop a terror plot, and its proof that Republican policies are working. Fail to stop a terror plot, and its proof that we are still vulnerable and need Republicans to protect us [which I guarantee you that most swing voters would see through].

Architect,

Permit me to share some of the influences on my opinion that "our leaders" are among those who "hate us for our freedom", and are "terrorizing" us!

Just as he was "working from Wyoming, last year, when Bush was playing guitar and delivering a birthday cake to John McCain, while Katrina was destroying New Orleans, Mr. Cheney was again on vacation, at the same time that Mr. Bush was....this year, when the first "red alert" terror warning in post 9/11, US history was issued:

www.whitehouse.gov
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
August 10, 2006

Press Gaggle by Tony Snow
Aboard Air Force One
En route Green Bay, Wisconsin

9:33 A.M. CDT

.........Q When did the President first learn about this plot and the investigation into it?

MR. SNOW: Again, we're being a little careful on operational details. I think it's safe to say to what I said before, which is he certainly has been extensively briefed over the last few days as the operation that took place became more and more imminent.

Q Was part of that during the teleconference on Sunday?

MR. SNOW: Let's see, what day was Sunday, that was the 6th? Yes. Yes. ....

.........Q Are there details about his talk with Blair overnight, you can give? What time it occurred?

MR. SNOW: There was no overnight. That report is false, so there are no details on the fallacious report.

Q But the President, himself, approved the red alert?

MR. SNOW: Correct. It was a recommendation by the Homeland Security Council, by Secretary Chertoff and others.

Q When did he approve it?

MR. SNOW: Yesterday..........

Q Can I ask you about timing again -- not to keep harping on this, but yesterday when you talked about raising the white -- you know, saying the Democrats might want to raise the white flag --

MR. SNOW: This was not done in anticipation. It was not said with the knowledge that this was coming.

Q So the Vice President, when he did his incredibly rare conference call with reporters, also didn't know about it at the time?

MR. SNOW: I don't think so. You'll have to ask, but I can say from our point of view at that point we didn't.

Q Can you say anything about the possible al Qaeda connection?

MR. SNOW: No.

Q Can I ask on a different topic? Can you clarify the Karl Rove call to Joe Lieberman and what that was all about?

MR. SNOW: It was a personal call. Yes, as I sent you -- in fact, I may get Karl back here, if you're interested.

Q Yes.

MR. SNOW: It's probably best to let him describe, because he was in on the call. But this was not a call after the polls closed; it was not a political offer; it was not a political conversation. It was a personal conversation. And, you know, he's expressed some willingness to do it, so maybe I'll just grab him -- yank his tie and make him come back here.

Q That would be great. .......

Consider the comments that Cheney and RNC Chair, Ken Mehlmen were making....supposedly in response to Ned Lamont's primary victory, after Bush has already authorized a "red alert", but before the world was told.....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2006/08/14/
By insinuating that the sizeable majority of American voters who oppose the war in Iraq are aiding and abetting the enemy, Vice President Cheney on Wednesday may have crossed the line that separates legitimate political discourse from hysteria.

Cheney's comments came in a highly unusual conference call with reporters, part of an extensively orchestrated and largely successful Republican effort to spin the obviously anti-Bush message of Ned Lamont's victory over presidential enabler Joe Lieberman in the Connecticut Democratic Senate primary.
In the transcript above, a White House reporter also described Cheney's "call" to reporters as, "incredibly rare conference call"....

Architect, the press "gaggle" with Tony Snow, is time stamped at 10:33 am EDT, on Aug. 10. Snow answered that Bush had made the decision to issue the first red "terror alert", of his presidency....yesterday, and that Cheney was not involved in that decision.....how credible does that sound, to you? If Snow had said that Cheney was involved, it would have been an admission that Cheney's comments were made with the knowledge that there would be a "red alert" following his "vote for democrats, and we'll get hit again", message. IMO, that is orchestrated terrorist propaganda.....

Would the following be reported about a US administration that was committed to fighting a "long war", on terror?

www.team4news.com
While terror plot unfolded, Bush administration tried to cut funds for explosives detection

WASHINGTON The Bush administration quietly tried to cut six (m) million dollars that earmarked for developing new explosives detection technology even as the British terror plot was unfolding.
Officials wanted to use the money instead on federal building protection. Congressional leaders rejected the idea.

It's one in a series of Homeland Security Department steps that have left lawmakers and some of the department's own experts questioning the administration's commitment to create better anti-terror technologies.

An investigation by The Associated Press shows the department failed to spend 200 (m) million dollars in research and development money from past years, forcing lawmakers this summer to rescind the money.

The Bush administration has also been slow to start testing a new liquid explosives detector that the Japanese government provided to the United States earlier this year. The terrorist plot to blow up trans-Atlantic passenger jets would have involved liquid explosives.
....and....it's not like liquid explosives is a recent threat scenario, either:

http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2006Aug10
Mishap Foils First Plot to Blow Up Jets
Thursday, August 10, 2006
By ROBERT H. REID, Associated Press Writer

A mysterious chemical fire in a seedy Philippine hotel in January 1995 foiled the first plot to blow American airliners out of the sky with liquid bombs _ a grisly scenario allegedly planned by extremists arrested in Britain.

British authorities said Thursday they had thwarted a terrorist plot to simultaneously blow up 10 aircraft heading to the U.S. using explosives smuggled in hand luggage in a plan that police described as"mass murder on an unimaginable scale."

The alleged plot was grimly reminiscent of a plan developed in late 1994 and early 1995 by Ramzi Yousef, who is serving a life sentence without parole in the United States for masterminding the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993.

Yousef planned to blow up a dozen U.S. airliners over the Pacific and even carried out a test bombing in December 1994, smuggling nitroglycerine onto aPhilippine Airlines jet in a contact lens solution bottle.

The explosive detonated near Okinawa, killing a Japanese man after Yousef had gotten off the plane in Cebu, Philippines. The plane managed to land safely in Okinawa.

At the time, however, authorities had no idea of the link between the blast and Yousef. That would come later after an intensive investigation of the strange events that unfolded on the night of Jan. 6, 1995, in Suite 603 of the Dona Josefa apartment-hotel, located near Manila's raucous red-light district.

........Under intensive interrogration over time, Murad gave up a plot _ to kill the pope and blow up American planes. Corraborating evidence was found on a laptop and diskettes found in Suite 603.

Three days after Murad's arrest, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration issued a security alert for all American airliners flying over the Pacific, including a ban on hand-carried liquids, aerosols and shaving cream.

Yousef slipped out of the country and made his way to Pakistan, where he was arrested a month later and sent to the United States. Murad was extradited to the United States the following April and testified against Yousef.

Both are serving sentences of life without parole at the Florence Super-Max federal prison in Colorado.

Robert H. Reid, correspondent-at-large for The Associated Press, was chief of bureau in Manila in January 1995.
Let's see...the US Justice Dept. has had these f**kers in custody for more than ten years.....and only this past week, after deliberately not funding research to detect the type of terrorist threat that they planned nearly 12 years ago, and killed an airline passenger as they tested their method....have US and UK passengers been banned from carrying liquids and gels onto airliners, and no technology was developed in all that time.....funding was actually blocked recently.....to bring screening machines "on line" at airports.

Doesn't President Bush seems more like the "terrorist" "in chief", or at the very least, incompetent and "clueless", than he does, the "commander in chief", now that we see what has transpired, in the fullness of time? The following was written before Bush and Cheney, caught on tandom vacations last year, during the "long war on terror", had their asses handed to them over their collective, delayed, and incompetent, crony sabotaged, disaster relief response:

www.washingtonpost.com
Vacationing Bush Poised to Set a Record
With Long Sojourn at Ranch, President on His Way to Surpassing Reagan's Total

By Jim VandeHei and Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, August 3, 2005; Page A04

WACO, Tex., Aug. 2 -- President Bush is getting the kind of break most Americans can only dream of -- nearly five weeks away from the office, loaded with vacation time.

The president departed Tuesday for his longest stretch yet away from the White House, arriving at his Crawford ranch in the evening to clear brush, visit with family and friends, and tend to some outside-the-Beltway politics. By historical standards, it is the longest presidential retreat in at least 36 years.

The August getaway is Bush's 49th trip to his cherished ranch since taking office and Tuesday was the 319th day that Bush has spent, entirely or partially, in Crawford -- roughly 20 percent of his presidency to date, according to Mark Knoller, a CBS Radio reporter known for keeping better records of the president's travel than the White House itself. Weekends and holidays at Camp David or at his parents' compound in Kennebunkport, Maine, bump up the proportion of Bush's time away from Washington even further....
Bush made sure that the press reported that he had ended his 5 week vacation, last year, "2 days early", to do his much criticized, "fly over" of the devastated Gulf coast, in AF-1, on his flight back to DC that ended his vacation.

The only time I recall Bush interrupting a trip to Crawford, in "mid-stream", was his middle of the weekend flight to DC to sign the law that transferred Michael Schiavo's spousal guardianship over his brain dead wife, Terri's, long term medical care issues. Would a benevolent POTUS, during a "lomg war" that he himself declared, choose this record for his legacy? The vacation reputation is something he could have controlled, if he was benevolent, and if he gave a sh*t. When you observe what "they" do, their words take on new meaning, or are rendered meaningless.....

....but another year has passed.....and "here they go again"....the first code red "terror alert" in the 4 years and 11 months since 9/11 is issued, concerning a "real" threat that has been known about for a dozen years, but ignored by the administration's TSA and DHS, but not before Cheney, once again on vacation at the same time as Bush is....is afforded an opportunity to make a rare telephone conference call to reporters to spew some partisan crap designed to put more fear in us, if we make the bad decision that Connecticut democrats had made the day before....and vote the "wrong way" !. Mehlman of the RNC picked up Cheney's terroristic talking points and spewed them further, that afternoon.

Architect, so how do you call it? Are "our leaders" engaged in a "vote control", domestic terror propaganda campaign, or are the just the most lazy and incompetent executives to lead us in a "WoT", and just the beneficiaries of an incredible string of lucky coincidences, as to the timing of what they say about "terror", vs. the background of current events and competing news stories that are either muted because of the timing of their alerts, or take on unintended prominence, as Cheney's Aug. 9 comments did, after the Aug. 10, "red alert"?

I'd rate this post a "5" if I could. Great job!

...f the motivation behind the arrests was political impact they would have waited until September or October...

Oh, never fear, architect.  There is plenty of scarey stuff planned for September.  And just wait for it:  The October Surprise!  This British thing was just foreplay.  It was a test.  Now that they know they didn't get the bump they wanted to from it, they will have to ramp up the fear factor to show that the Cheney administration is keeping us safe?

I've never really understood how the facts fly in the face of their proclaimations, but it has worked for them up to now.  How, exactly are they keeping us safe?  Um, how is that?

Jan Knaus

BushCo fear mongering is the companion to the shibboleth "Democrats are weak on national security and defense.

If you go to the Mahablog you will find among many other worthy things a reference to Kevin Baker's essay in Harper's magazine, "Stabbed in the Back".

Here is link to Harper Magazine and Kevin Baker's "Stabbed in the Back", wherein the author traces the Republican Party's design, construction and delivery of the "Democrats are soft on national security" label to which they attach all the "terror alerts" that Host has so well documented.