One of the things that never gets mentioned in the endless praise of military tribunals is that their actual record is really bad. And now comes word that Najibullah Zazi, the Afghan immigrant arrested last year for planning a bombing campaign in the US, began spilling the beans over the last month about the plot, his accomplices and more.
Zazi is expected to plead guilty as part of a plea deal this afternoon in Federal District Court in Brooklyn.
Which is funnier, this correction on the New York Times‘ site today — or the thought of the New Yorker‘s David Remnick slinging a term like “pimped out”?
An earlier version of this post misquoted Mr. Remnick on his comparison between the book and a New Yorker article he had previously written. He said the book would not be a “pumped up” version of the article; he did not say that it would not be a “pimped out” version of the article.
One for the ages.
From TPM Reader JB …
Quick point. Democrats have a hard time attacking Republicans personally. Whereas Republicans will call people out by name, Democrats (with the exception of the last President) generally will just use aggregating pronouns to complain the “other side” won’t do this or that. In trying to provide a crutch to our boys, I think it can be easily said that many things that the Republicans want to do are “bad for America and bad for you.” In fact, I think an entire campaign can be made out of this and, more than that, a long series of one-liners that could be repeated by large crowds. For example:
Democrats may have pulled health care reform out of the ditch and put it back on the road to passage, but it won’t get a final vote for several weeks.
Meet Jennifer Hardy, the torture memo author you’ve never heard of.
The adult daughter of the guy who flew his plane into that IRS building in Austin last week killing himself and an IRS employee says her dad is a “hero” for standing up to the government, though she concedes his suicidal last act was “inappropriate” and “wrong.”
We’ve posted the White House proposal on health care reform released this morning. Read it here.
In a little noticed portion of the big torture report released by the DOJ on Friday, an interviewer asked John Yoo whether the president could legally order the massacre of a village of civilians.
Yoo’s answer: Totally.
Mike Huckabee, who finished sixth out of 11 candidates in CPAC’s presidential straw poll: CPAC has become just a bunch of Libertarians.
Are they taking a new approach?
From our write-up of the White House’s just released Health Care Reform proposal …
“The president expects and believes the American people deserve an up or down vote on health care reform,” Pfeiffer said, calling the potential of a blockage from Republicans an “extraordinary step of filibustering health care reform.”
Read the whole thing here.