A dissenting view from an anonymous TPM Reader …
I think you can push your logic a step further. Sadly, attacks on US bases, even in Kabul, are far from unusual, and rarely deemed newsworthy – there were 139 suicide bombings last year in Afghanistan, and the number has been rising rapidly. This attacker did nothing to suggest he was attempting to
strike a high-value target – he did not, for example, hurtle himself at a passing convoy or manage to infiltrate a secure area. It’s certainly plausible that, as you suggest, his handlers noticed heightened security or preparations, and decided to time their attack to coincide with whatever might be going on, but there’s not particular reason to believe that. But because a Taliban spokesman was clever enough to link the attack to Cheney, a fairly routine bombing is now a leading story around the world, and the
Taliban has been able to turn a partly thwarted attack (the bomber was forced to detonate his load outside the base) into an enormous propoganda coup. I’d note that coalition forces and Cheney’s security folks seem to have reached this conclusion – if they really thought that the attack was
based on a security breach, they likely would have scrapped the rest of the visit, or at least altered his scheduled itinerary.I actually think this is worth saying loudly. The public tends to rally around leaders, however unpopular, when they are attacked. It’s in the Taliban’s interest to convince the world that they’re well-organized enough to have targeted Cheney, and in Cheney’s interest not to expend too much effort rebutting that claim. But it’s in our national interest not to take the Taliban’s claim seriously in the absence of corroborating evidence – buying into this unsubstatiated claim undermines our efforts to reconstruct
the war-torn country, and bolsters Cheney’s reputation at the very moment he was becoming a laughingstock. Coalition forces were the apparent target this morning, and it is they who deserve our sympathy.
Solomon lands another lunker! Sen. Clinton failed to list charitable contributions on ethics report. Jon Chait picks it apart.
This of course comes on the heels of his bogus McCain story.
Basically, once you take the hocus pocus and disingenuousness out of his pieces, this is what they end up like. Doesn’t this stuff make the Post look a touch silly putting this on the front page? It’s barely worth a blog post.
Late Update: Here’s the shocking truth revealed — the Clinton Foundation’s publically available 990 forms with their donations listed on page 18 and 19.
Selling Mitt Romney, A How-To.
The Boston Globe gets its hands on internal strategy documents from his campaign.
I don’t know if it all get lost in the flurry of news about the bombing in Afghanistan or the massacre in Iraq. But the White House’s Iranian made weapons story seems to have collapsed. As Paul Kiel notes in this morning’s Must Read, stories in today’s Times and Journal detail a new raid on a makeshift weapons factory in southern Iraq. It turns out this makeshift factory in Iraq was making those super-IEDs that we were told could only be made in Iran. And the parts the Iraqis were using to make the bombs? Shipped from factories from around the Middle East, but not Iran.
Oh well.
Did The Politico publish a hit piece by Dan Gerstein on Lieberman-targeting liberal bloggers without mentioning that Gerstein appears to be a current, and even paid, adviser to Joe Lieberman?
Doesn’t look good…
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) isn’t happy that the administration fired “competent and successful” federal prosecutors in order to make way for “young politically-connected lawyers.”
Read her letter to Sens. Harry Reid (D-NV) and Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on the issue here.
Here’s a sort of revealing exchange from earlier today between Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and pro-surge Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC). Graham repeatedly tries to nudge McConnell into signing on to various GOP talking points about Iraq and the War on Terror. And McConnell keeps saying, well … no, not really. But Graham keeps pushing and eventually McConnell gets the message and signs on to the catechism.
It’s not hard to imagine a lot of behind-closed-doors exchanges along these lines …
And I thought we were withdrawing to Kurdistan, not Kuwait. Is that the new plan?
Visiting Ohio yesterday, Obama pulled a bigger crowd than a recent visit by Bill Clinton himself.
See this and other campaign updates here.
Canned New Mexico US Attorney calls his dismissal a “political fragging.” And tomorrow he’s holding a press conference.
So almost a 500 point drop on the Dow. And triggered by a selloff in China?