WILLIAM KRISTOL (DECEMBER 2008 ISSUE, WEEKLY STANDARD): The CIA agents who waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and the NSA officials who listened in on phone calls from Pakistan, should not have to worry about legal bills or public defamation. 

ASSOCIATED PRESS (11-17-08): Barack Obama's incoming administration is unlikely to bring criminal charges against government workers who authorized or used harsh interrogation techniques during the George W. Bush presidency. Obama, who has criticized the use of torture, is being urged by some constitutional scholars and humans rights groups to investigate possible war crimes by the Bush administration.

But they are just advisers! I can already hear some scream. Sure. Obama could have contradicted the advisers via his spokesman, but the latter had no comments for AP (see article). 

On November 21st the Huffington Post reported that alarmed "Obama supporters" were exhorting president-elect Barack Obama not to name torture-loving warmonger John Brennan as CIA chief. And it worked. A few days later Brennan withdrew his name from the competition and blamed the liberal blogosphere. 

But Josh Marshall, who yesterday defended Obama's decision to keep Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense, did not show a similar level of enthusiasm when it came to opposing the more controversial Brennan, who had been so close to being awarded the spot that he had begun recruiting his own team.

In fact, I looked in the archives and found that Marshall did not even type the word "Brennan" once in the whole month of November, at least before Brennan's withdrawal.

I have no major beef against Gates, but in light of Marshall's silence, is it fair to say that he is so deep in the tank that his bias prevents him from joining the likes of Glen Greenwald, Anonymous Liberal, etc., in exerting pressure on Obama when needed?

Marshall's posts:
November 23-29:
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2008_11_23.php

November 16-22:
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2008_11_16.php

November 9-15:
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2008_11_09.php

November 2-8:
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2008_11_02.php

One who is not ready to forgive Joe Klein for having cheered hard for Bush when it was cool to do so is Glen Greenwald, top progressive blogger at Salon.com, at least until the Time pundit shows remorse and apologizes for his Bush-enabling misdeeds.

Today, Greenwald presents an example that illustrates what he calls Klein's "extreme revisionism":

Joe Klein, this week's Time Magazine, on George Bush's legacy:

  Bush has that forlorn what-the-hell-happened? expression on his face, the one that has marked his presidency at difficult times. You never want to see the President of the United States looking like that.

  So I've been searching for valedictory encomiums. . . . I'd add the bracing moment of Bush with the bullhorn in the ruins of the World Trade Center, but that was neutered in my memory by his ridiculous, preening appearance in a flight suit on the deck of the aircraft carrier beneath the "Mission Accomplished" sign. The flight-suit image is one of the two defining moments of the Bush failure.

Joe Klein, Face the Nation, May 4, 2003, with Bob Schieffer -- 3 days after Bush's Mission Accomplished speech:

  BOB SCHIEFFER: How does [the Democratic presidential primary debate] play off against the pictures we saw this week of President Bush landing on the aircraft -- aircraft carrier and appearing before these screaming, adoring groups of military people?  As far as I'm concerned, that was one of the great pictures of all time. And if you're a political consultant, you can just see campaign commercial written all over the pictures of George Bush.

  JOE KLEIN: Well, that was probably the coolest presidential image since Bill Pullman played the jet fighter pilot in the movie Independence Day. That was the first thing that came to mind for me. And it just shows you how high a mountain these Democrats are going to have to climb. You compare that image, which everybody across the world saw, with this debate last night where you have nine people on a stage and it doesn't air until 11:30 at night, up against Saturday Night Live, and you see what a major, major struggle the Democrats are going to have to try and beat a popular incumbent president.

Klein has been a TPM hero ever since he switched tanks. Take this post written last July by TPM Cafe's M. J. Rosenberg, for instance, wherein the author praises Klein for condemning the neocons who campaigned hard for the Iraq war, and attacks those in the media who acted as accomplices, without once mentioning that Klein himself made it clear one month before the invasion that he believed the war was justified, as reported by Arianna Huffington:

KLEIN ON MEET THE PRESS (FEBRUARY, 2003): "This is a really tough decision. War may well be the right decision at this point. In fact, I think it--it's--it-it probably is." When Tim Russert presses Klein on why he thinks Iraq is "the right war," Klein responds, "Because sooner or later, this guy has to be taken out. Saddam has -- Saddam Hussein has to be taken out... The message has to be sent because if it isn't sent now, if we don't do this now, it empowers every would-be Saddam out there and every would-be terrorist out there."

I agree with Greenwald and call on Klein and any other remorseless war apologists to admit guilt and ask for forgiveness to the American people and the families of the dead and injured in Iraq.

A new report in the Washington Note, owned by Josh Marshall's good friend, the left-leaning Steve Clemons, states the following:

"A senior Obama campaign official shared with The Washington Note that in July 2008, the McCain and Obama camps began to work secretly behind the scenes to assemble large rosters of potential personnel for the administration that only one of the candidates would lead.

Lists comprised of Democrats and Republicans were assembled, sorted into areas of policy expertise, so that the roster could be called on after the election by either the Obama or McCain transition teams."

Top progressive blogger Glen Greenwald of Salon.com is linking to the story (update #2), adding:

Those who believe that ideology is irrelevant and that only competence and expertise matter should find this report to be a cause for celebration.  Those who believe that ideology matters would likely find it to be quite bothersome.

Poor Harvey Oswald. Virtually no one ever remembers the anniversary of his death and this is understandable, since a much more important and charismatic figure passed two days earlier.
But I have sympathy for the guy because millions of children are told in school every year that Oswald committed the worst or one of the worst crimes in American history, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Some of you might disagree with me, specially those who believe Jack Ruby's excuse that he murdered Oswald in order to save Jackie, a woman he never met, from the inconvenience of witnessing a painful trial.


Two LHO-related snippets

Hoover to LBJ (11-23-63):
We have up here the tape and the photograph of the man who was at the Soviet Embassy, using Oswald's name. The picture and the tape do not correspond to this man's voice, nor to his appearance. In other words, it appears that there is a second person who was at the Soviet Embassy down there."

See also what autopsy doctor and serial liar James Humes did as soon as he learned of Oswald's death: