MSNBC’s Race for the White House, April 29, 2008
Rachel Maddow: "I find it incredible that we‘re all sitting her going, why won‘t the Jeremiah Wright controversy go away. You know what, today, John McCain unveiled his health care plan. We got three different statements, three different policies on gas prices. We got the president of the United States making a huge economic speech and speaking to reporters for 40 minutes. We have got four U.S. soldiers who are announced to have been killed in Iraq yesterday.
What else has to happen in the news to push Jeremiah Wright out of the headlines before we do it for six straight headlines on every politics show in the country? This is all we‘re capable of talking about."
MSNBC’s Race for the White House, April 30, 2012
(Rachel Maddow still conspicuously absent from the panel since 4/30/08)
David Gregory: "Pat Buchanan, President Obama has just brokered a peace treaty between Israel, Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Russia, China, and Venezuela. With universal health care, full employment, and 100+ miles per gallon vehicles just the beginning of his many accomplishments in these first four years, what does Obama have to do to beat Hillary Clinton in the 2012 race for the White House in these last few primaries?"
Pat Buchanon: "First of all, she’s got to ask, why did it take so long for Obama to speak out against Jeremiah Wright? This goes to the heart of his credibility – are you telling me he didn’t know what this guy was about after sitting in his church for 20 years?"
David Gregory: "Pat, Reverend Wright has been dead for over three years. What does Obama have to do to get this behind him?"
Tonight on MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews, Tweety cut off Chuck Todd in mid-sentence, redirected his salivary rhetoric and asked, without a hint of irony, "John Harwood, "You’re very good at analyzing these [things] quite coldly – This [the Reverend Wright controversy] doesn’t seem to be going away for the weekend, does it?"
Jeremiah was a bullfrog, he was good friend of mine.
I never understood a single word he said but I helped him drink
his whine. He always had some mighty fine wine.
- Hoyt Axton
"The west shall shake the east awake.../while ye have the night for morn..."
-James Joyce, Finnegan’s Wake
CSMonitor, 03/03
Polling data show that right after Sept. 11, 2001, when Americans were asked open-ended questions about who was behind the attacks, only 3 percent mentioned Iraq or Hussein. But by January of this year, attitudes had been transformed. In a Knight Ridder poll, 44 percent of Americans reported that either "most" or "some" of the Sept. 11 hijackers were Iraqi citizens. The answer is zero.
WaPo, 06/04
While not explicitly declaring Iraqi culpability in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, administration officials did, at various times, imply a link. In late 2001, Cheney said it was "pretty well confirmed" that attack mastermind Mohamed Atta had met with a senior Iraqi intelligence official. Later, Cheney called Iraq the "geographic base of the terrorists who had us under assault now for many years, but most especially on 9/11."...
Bush, in 2003, said "the battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September the 11th, 2001."
President's Address to the Nation, 9/11/06
Since the horror of 9/11, we've learned a great deal about the enemy. We have learned that they are evil and kill without mercy -- but not without purpose. We have learned that they form a global network of extremists who are driven by a perverted vision of Islam -- a totalitarian ideology that hates freedom, rejects tolerance, and despises all dissent. And we have learned that their goal is to build a radical Islamic empire where women are prisoners in their homes, men are beaten for missing prayer meetings, and terrorists have a safe haven to plan and launch attacks on America and other civilized nations. The war against this enemy is more than a military conflict. It is the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century, and the calling of our generation.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
President Denies Seeking Pretext for War with Tehran.
President Bush bluntly accused Iranian agents yesterday of providing sophisticated explosives to kill U.S. troops in Iraq but said he did not know whether they were acting on orders of the Islamic republic's leaders and denied using the allegations as a pretext to go to war with Tehran.
Major General Bill Caldwell presented the evidence to the Baghdad press corps this morning.
"Iran is involved in supplying explosively formed projectiles or EFPs and other material," such as "explosive charges, booby traps, mortar shells of different calibers and remote controls" to detonate IEDs to "multiple" insurgent groups."
"We have evidence that Iran provided insurgents with explosive devices and trained them to use these weapons, produced between 2004 and 2006,"
Said MG Caldwell...
"The Iranian suspects detained in Irbil have confirmed these reports and we have found with them maps and explosives-related material. Those Iranians were trying to get rid of these documents in the lavatories... the Iraqi government has notified us that (the Iranians detained in Irbil) were not diplomats and had no passports."
All Things Considered, February 11, 2007
• U.S. officials say they have evidence that Iran is supplying weapons to Iraqi extremist groups. They also say they have proof showing that orders to these militant groups come from the highest levels in Iran's government.
"What the Iranians are doing is killing American servicemen and women inside Iraq," said Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.
"I have reserve capability, in particular our Navy and our Air Force so it would be a mistake to think that we are out of combat capability," (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mike) Mullen said.
In any war the foe studies the resources and characteristics of his attacker as earnestly as the attacker tries to understand the foe in depth. The generals and their staffs discuss and meditate on every aspect of the enemies’ psychology, studying their cultural histories and resources and technologies, so that today war, as it were, has become the little red schoolhouse of the global village. It’s a gory little schoolhouse at that. - Marshall McCluhan, from War and Peace in the Global Village (1968)
"Repetition is an important part of advertising. Repetition is an important part of advertising. Why? Because, it is through repetition that you establish your credibility, establish brand familiarity, become the first thought when a need for your type of product or service arises, etc." -from The Importance of Repetition in Advertising
HeadOn, apply directly to the forehead. HeadOn, apply directly to the forehead. HeadOn, apply directly to the forehead.
Sometimes repetition can lead to to exposition and beauty and come to a comforting point of repose, as in J.S. Bach's Fugue no. 2 in C minor, BWV 847, from the Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1
Sadly, too many things are not repeated or even reported:
US troop deaths push monthly toll to 7-month high in Iraq
US troop deaths in Iraq push monthly toll to 47 in deadliest month since September.
Sadr City bloodshed kills 925 Iraqis.
In 1962 John Coltrane (with his quartet, McCoy Tyner on piano, Jimmy Garrison on the bass, and Elvin Jones on drums) released Ballads on Impulse records. The first tune on the album was Say It (Over and Over Again)(1940 by Frank Loesser, Jimmy McHugh) You can here the original version, from the film Buck Benny Rides Again here.
But for now, forget the, forget, forget the, forget the insanity for a moment and enjoy, and enjoy: