Situation in Iraq

This morning, Time columnist Joe Klein was interviewed on MSNBC and heaped praise on President Bush’s response to the Iran NIE. Klein told Joe Scarborough:

The Bush reaction to [the NIE] — he didn’t try to block it. He didn’t try to postpone it. He didn’t spend weeks, he didn’t ask the intelligence community ‘give me a couple of weeks, let’s see if we can figure out some kind of negotiating initiative or some way to respond to this.’ He didn’t try to spin it to our advantage. This is an amazing moment of candor by the United States.blockquote> ThinkProgress criticized Klein for his comment that Bush’s reaction to the NIE was “an amazing moment of candor by the United States.” In a post titled “Misinterpreted,” Klein responds to our criticism:

This is wrong. OBviously, I was referring to the NIE itself as a remarkable moment of candor for the United States. I thought that Bush’s reaction to it was, literally, incredible. As in, not to be believed–which was made completely clear in my cover story.

In just a few short hours, Klein has gone from saying Bush engaged in an “amazing moment of candor,” to saying Bush is “not to be believed.” We appreciate the conversion, but we don’t appreciate the disingenuousness of it.

We weren’t “wrong” or “misinterpreted.” TV pundit Joe Klein explicitly said that an “amazing moment of candor” occurred in the context of “the Bush reaction” to the NIE; he marveled that Bush “didn’t try to block it” and “didn’t try to spin it.” But Time magazine blogger Joe Klein says, “I thought that Bush’s reaction to it was, literally, incredible. As in, not to be believed.” So what was it? Was Bush’s reaction part of America’s “moment of candor,” or was it “not to be believed”? The two Joe Kleins should interpret one another, sort it out, and get on the same page. And maybe one of the Joe Kleins should apologize to the other. As Atrios stated, “Is it possible for Joe Klein to admit error at all? He could just say: I misspoke, which is easy to do on live radio or television.”

UPDATE: BarbinMD recalls Joe Klein’s classic response to his FISA distortions: “I have neither the time nor legal background to figure out who’s right.”

During his speech today announcing his plan “to ease the mortgage crisis for consumers, President Bush accidentally gave out the wrong number for his new “Hope Now Hotline” that worried homeowners are encouraged to call for assistance. CNN reports:

President Bush accidentally gave out the wrong phone number for the new “Hope Now Hotline” set up by his administration.

“And I have a message for every homeowner worried about rising mortgage payments: The best you can do for your family is to call 1-800-995-HOPE. That is 1-800-995-H-O-P-E,” he said.

Anyone who dialed 1-800-995-HOPE was greeted by just a busy signal.

Watch it:

The correct “Hope Now Hotline” number is 1-888-995-HOPE.

In a 235-181 vote, the House approved the Energy Independence and Security Act today.

The bill would raise the corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) level for cars and light trucks to 35 miles per gallon by 2020, require utilities to generate 15 percent of their energy from renewable sources, and increase funding for biofuels like “cellulosic” ethanol. The White House has threatened to veto the bill.

Like Karl Rove, Dick Cheney seems to have forgotten how the Iraq War got started. In an exclusive interview with Mike Allen, Jim Vandehei and John Harris of Politico.com, he said he’d have to do a little research to figure out just who was pushing whom to war:

Q Speaking of the history in Iraq, there’s been a debate recently on the buildup to the vote for us to go to war, and you obviously were very intimately involved in that. Karl Rove has talked about, listen, Democrats — and Daschle — they wanted a speedy vote, before the elections, for the war. And Daschle has said, well, it’s nonsense, they’re trying to rewrite history. What is your recollection of what was happening? Were they — were Democrats pushing for a quick vote on the war before the election?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I don’t want to get into that. I, frankly, I’ve heard a little bit of the argument and I don’t understand it. (Laughter.)

Q I’m sorry, what do you mean by that?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I mean, I thought we proceeded in an orderly fashion. But I have not gone back and looked at that. I don’t — it’s not clear to me what the issue is that’s being debated there.

Q The issue is whether the White House was pushing, or Democrats were pushing.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I thought we had approached it on a fairly bipartisan basis, and that was reflected in the vote. And we also went through a process with respect to intelligence matters, work at the United Nations seeking resolutions from the U.N. Security Council that applied to the situation. But in terms of, you know, we were pushing, or the Democrats were pushing, that’s not — I’d have to go back and do a lot of research to have an opinion on that.

Q Mr. Vice President, this was so nice of you. Speaking of 2009, is this it for public service for you…?

In the spirit of bipartisanship, ThinkProgress provides this jumpstart to help the Vice President’s research.

Right before the 2002 election, Cheney conceded that there was an option “to wait till January or February” of the next year, but he argued, “we’re to the point where we think time is not on our side.” Here’s Cheney telling Russert that Democrats should vote before the 2002 election:

MR. RUSSERT: So you want a vote in Congress in October?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: Our preference would be to have a vote in Congress before they go home. And when they go home is up to them ordinarily. Now, they’ve scheduled an early October adjournment. I don’t think they’ll ever make that ’cause they’ve got all the appropriation bills to do yet, too, but this is not-I mean, the suggestion that I find reprehensible is the notion that somehow, you know, we saved this and now we’ve sprung it on them for political reasons. The president and I have talked about this for months. And now we’ve asked them to engage on it, not because it’s a campaign year. As I say every other year is a campaign year anyway. We’ve asked them to engage in it because they have a constitutional responsibility to do so. They need to stand up and be counted.

Feel free to help Mr. Cheney with his memory by adding your own reminders in the comments.

– t-dub

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Variety reports:

The latest National Intelligence Estimate concluding that Iran discontinued its nuclear weapons program four years ago has claimed one casualty: CNN has postponed speculative documentary “We Were Warned — Iran Goes Nuclear.”

The two-hour spec, which was slated for Dec. 12 under the “CNN Presents” banner, was “set partially in the future,” featuring a what-if scenario as former government officials — playing fictional cabinet members — debate how to deal with the Iranian threat.

That special was “based on a different set of rules and a different set of conditions,” said CNN veep-senior exec producer Mark Nelson, noting that the surprising NIE report “changed everything.”

(HT: Atrios)

Digg It!

During the White House press briefing today, Press Secretary Dana Perino attempted to defend President Bush’s lie about when he first learned that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program.

Recall, Bush originally stated that Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell came to him in August “and said, ‘We have some new information.’ He didn’t tell me what the information was.” But last night, Perino conceded he was told that Iran’s program “may be suspended.”

White House reporters repeatedly confronted Perino about this discrepancy in the press briefing this afternoon. Perino tried to claim that when Bush said he didn’t know what the information was, he actually meant, “he didn’t get any of the details of what — what the information was, in terms of what the actual raw intelligence was.” When reporters pressed her on this, an exasperated Perino said:

OK, look. I can see where you could see that the president could have been more precise in that language. But the president was being truthful.

Watch it:

During the briefing, Perino was also asked about the timeline of when Bush was briefed on the NIE. As ThinkProgress reported earlier this week, The New Yorker’s Seymour Hersh said that Bush spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert about the NIE on Monday, Nov. 26.

CNN’s Ed Henry asked Perino: “How could he brief Olmert on Monday about a report that he found out about on Wednesday?” Perino responded, “I don’t — I will check. I mean, it’s possible that he knew that there was information coming.”

Digg It!

Transcript: (more…)

Former White House adviser Karl Rove is “shopping a memoir in an auction that will kick off today and likely result in a seven-figure payday. How much Rove’s memoir will go for is still unclear, but one publisher predicted $3 million. Ashbel Green, a senior editor at Alfred A Knopf, said that Rove lacks the “personality” to fetch “the multimillion-dollar contracts of former Federal Reserve chair Alan Greenspan or former President Bill Clinton.”

On Tuesday night, when former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) was asked what he thought of the new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran, he said that he had neither “been briefed” on nor “heard of the finding” that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003.

Not much has changed apparently. On MSNBC’s Morning Joe this morning, Huckabee tried to dismiss criticism of his “ignorance of the news of the day” with a joke, but only managed to compound his cluelessness:

SHUSTER: But it gets to the idea that being governor of Arkansas is not necessarily best sort of foreign policy experience and that something that I think a lot of your critics are aiming at your direction. How do you respond to them?

HUCKABEE: Well, I don’t blame my staff. It is a situation where a report was released at 10:00 in the morning, the president hadn’t seen it in four years and I’m supposed to see it four hours later.

Huckabee then called it “a gotcha question” at a dinner full of reporters. Watch it:

In his attempt at a humor-driven dismissal, Huckabee revealed he still doesn’t know much about the NIE.

1) The NIE was released the previous day, not that morning. The NIE was released to the public in the early afternoon on Monday, December 3rd. The dinner where Huckabee was asked about the NIE took place on the evening of Tuesday, Decemeber 4th.

2) Huckabee had more than “four hours.” According to the timeline above, Huckabee could have learned about the NIE anytime overnight or during the course of the next day if he had picked up a newspaper. Hotline notes, on the same day Huckabee said he hadn’t heard of it, the Iran NIE “not only dominated the Democrats’ debate here in town but also prompted a presidential press conference in response.”

3) Bush couldn’t have seen the report “four years” ago. The NIE was initially completed only a year ago, thus Bush couldn’t have had “four years” to see the report. While the intelligence community did eventually learn that Iran shut down its nuclear program four years ago, that knowledge didn’t come to the intelligence community until this past summer.

So, in one sentence, a confused Huckabee managed to compound his cluelessness over the NIE and confirmed once again his “ignorance of the news of the day.”

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Transcript: (more…)

Following an objection by Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), a vote has been postponed on “contempt resolutions against White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and former presidential political guru Karl Rove for failing to respond to subpoenas” regarding the U.S. attorney scandal. Specter, who asked Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) for a chance to “revise the draft resoltions, warned that the whole matter could end in federal court.”

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According to Haaretz, Israel has known about the Iran NIE “for more than a month. The first information on it was passed on to Defense Minister Ehud Barak, and to Shaul Mofaz, who is the minister responsible for the strategic dialog with the Americans. The issue was also discussed at the Annapolis summit by Barak and U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and it seems also between Bush and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.” But Bush claims he didn’t get briefed on the NIE until last Wednesday.