We now have an advance copy of the full speech Rahm Emanuel will deliver later this morning excoriating the Bush administration on everything from Katrina to Iraq.
âRudy Giuliani today has taken the politics of fear to a new low.”
Obama blasts Rudy’s claim that Americans would be safer under GOP President.
Update: We’ve now added Hillary’s statement, too.
House Judiciary Committee authorizes immunity for Monica Goodling.
Update: We’ve added details about the Republicans who objected, and when Goodling is likely to be interviewed by investigators.
Yesterday we showed you Karl Rove’s speech about the ‘hotspots’ of ‘vote fraud’ around the country. See it here if you didn’t catch it yesterday. Today we look at just where Rove was getting his information. Hint: it has something to do with sock-puppeteer John Lott …
Update: We’ve got a side-by-side comparison of Rove’s words and Lott’s words over at TPMmuckraker.
Ouch. Sens. Pat Leahy (D-VT) and Arlen Specter (R-PA) to Gonzales: maybe if you try a little harder, you might be able to remember something.
This should be a fun contest. White House spokesperson Dana Perino just said no one in the White House has ever ‘played the patriotism’ card in the Iraq debate. We’ll have video shortly.
Can you think of any examples? We’ll make a contest out of it.
Late Update: Here’s a little White House ridiculousness update. You’ll see in the video that Perino claims that yesterday Harry Reid called Dick Cheney a “dog” and used this as an example of the reckless attack rhetoric being used by the Democrats. I must confess that sounded a bit rough to me too. But we looked into it and what Reid said was that Cheney was an “attack dog” for the White House.
Extraordinary. Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post completely rewrites Associated Press story to slime Harry Reid and the Dems’ Iraq plan.
John Edwards to Rudy: A Democratic President, not a Republican one, will keep us safer.
The Abramoff investigation continues to move forward. Next up: Tom DeLay’s former bag man, Ed Buckham.
Below we posted a clip of White House spokesperson Dana Perino claiming that no one at the White House has ever ‘played the patriotism card’ against the Democrats in the Iraq debate. We’re looking for examples from TPM Readers that show Perino is pretty much lying through her teeth. If you can think of examples, please send them in.
But that’s not how Democrats themselves should be responding. Make no mistake: complaining that the other side is questioning your patriotism telegraphs weakness.
Democrats should just hit right back on how President Bush has been helping Osama bin Laden for almost six years. Sounds harsh. But it’s true. Consider the facts. President Bush had bin Laden trapped in the mountains of Tora Bora. But he let bin Laden get away because Bush wanted to focus on Saddam Hussein instead. The president and the White House tried to lie about this during the 2004 election. But since then the evidence has become overwhelming. President Bush decided to let bin Laden get away so he could get ready to attack Saddam Hussein. So pretty much anything bin Laden does from here on out is on President Bush. And how about Iraq? President Bush has screwed things up so badly that he’s created a whole new generation of recruits for bin Laden. He’s created a whole new army for bin Laden. Not by being tough but by being stupid. And by being too much of a coward to admit his mistakes once it was obvious that the occupation of Iraq was helping bin Laden specifically and the jihadist agenda in general.
After half a decade, the verdict is pretty clear: President Bush has been the biggest ally Osama bin Laden has. He’s helped bin Laden at pretty much every turn — even if only by his own stupidity, incompetence and cowardice. And when the next big terrorist attack comes, we can thank President Bush for helping make it happen.