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Yesterday we had another act of violence by a right-wing extremist intent on attacking and harming the government, inflamed by far-right conspiracy theories about 9/11 and other supposed instances of government "tyranny":

Internet postings linked to the suspected gunman in a Pentagon subway shooting suggest long-held frustration with the government's reach into the private life of Americans.

The suspect, John Patrick Bedell, 36, died after exchanging gunfire with two police officers. He spent weeks driving to the Capital area from the West Coast, authorities said Friday.

A blog connected to him via the social networking site LinkedIn outlines a growing distrust of the federal government. The blog suggests a criminal enterprise run out of the government could have staged the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

It was the latest batch of conspiracy-laden Internet postings to surface since Thursday night's shooting.

Bedell died Thursday night from head wounds received in a volley of fire with police. Richard Keevill, chief of Pentagon police, said the two injured officers and another officer who came to their assistance fired upon Bedell at the subway entrance into the Pentagon building in Arlington, Va.

"He came here from California," Keevill said. "We were able to identify certain locations that he spent that last several weeks making his way from the West coast to the East coast."

Keevill described Bedell as "very well educated" and well-dressed, saying Bedell was wearing a suit, armed with two 9 millimeter semiautomatic weapons and carried "many magazines" of ammunition. There was more ammunition in Bedell's car, which authorities found in a local parking garage, Keevill said.

[UPDATE: Think Progress has more on Bedell's background as a right-wing extremist.]

NBC's Jim Miklaszewski assured us this morning that there was no indication this was "terrorism." Likewise, the Associated Press report had a similar assurance:

Investigators have found no immediate connection to terrorism. The attack that superficially wounded two officers guarding the massive Defense Department headquarters appears to be a case of "a single individual who had issues," Richard Keevill, chief of Pentagon police, said Friday.

Excuse me, but WTF?

It seems to be the new standard among journalists that terrorism is now defined only as conspiracy-based international terrorism. Lone-wolf domestic terrorism? That's now just "a single individual who had issues."

You remember when an anti-tax radical flew his plane into IRS offices in Austin a couple of weeks ago in an attempt to blow those offices up, the Foxite media were eager to proclaim that it was not an act of terrorism, too.

As we explained then:

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Ever notice how right-wingers seem to positively relish the prospect of Americans being attacked by terrorists? Mainly it's because they love to wrap themselves in the bloody flag of these national tragedies and claim them for their own, almost purely as a way to proclaim themselves more patriotic than everyone else.

That, and as G.W. Bush and Rudy Giuliani can tell you, it gives you long-lasting cover for pushing the rest of your agenda, and something to blame for all your problems.

Adam Shah at Media Matters observes the latest iteration from the wingnutosphere:

The right-wing media is in full freak-out mode over President Obama's reported statement that, while "[w]e'll do everything we can to prevent" another terror attack, but that if one comes "we can absorb" it. But no response may be able to match that of Warner Todd Huston, who says in a post on Jim Hoft's Gateway Pundit blog that "somehow I can't escape the feeling that this flippancy comes from Obama's envy that George W. Bush got a 'big event' to make his presidency."

Huston later adds:

I can just see him, green with envy that Bush got that big moment. If ONLY Hussein could get a big attack of his own, why THEN he'd show the world what a great president he could be! If only we could "absorb" a big one like 9/11, eh Barrack [sic]? And we'd take it.... and take it....

It's funny how conservatives see these tragedies as big political jackpots, isn't it? Because, hey -- for them, it was. Remember George W. Bush's little "joke," circa 2002?

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"You know, I was campaigning in Chicago and somebody asked me, is there ever any time where the budget might have to go into deficit? I said only if we were at war or had a national emergency or were in recession. Little did I realize we'd get the trifecta." —President George W. Bush, Charlotte, North Carolina, Feb. 27, 2002

Of course, it was also noteworthy that this joke was a complete lie:

Bush's story, moreover, is fundamentally false as a purely chronological matter: Bush was already facing the certainty of deficit spending at the end of the summer of 2001, well before the attacks of Sept. 11. Some $4 trillion worth of budget surplus vanished over the spring and summer that year, and budget experts sounded the alarm about looming deficits then. The Congressional Budget Office warned Bush on Aug. 29 that Social Security funds would be needed to balance the books, forcing him to abandon a campaign promise not to use the retirement fund for other government spending.

Indeed, that is just what Bush proceeded to do in his actual budget, presented in January. According to the CBO, Bush’s budget plan would drain every dollar of the $527 billion surplus from the Social Security Trust Fund for the next two fiscal years even while creating a deficit. It would continue to raid the fund for varying amounts each year through 2012. Even with the fund’s help, the federal budget is expected to be in deficits through at least 2005.

Most economists peg the source of these nagging deficits on Bush's tax-cut plan, the deepest portions of which loom ahead. The administration sternly denies this. Yet it’s clear that while Sept. 11 may have deepened and broadened the budget-deficit problem, the administration was faced with chronic budget deficits no matter what.

I'm also reminded of Michael Scheuer's ardent wish from early in the Obama administration:

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It's Sunday. Sick of talking heads? Waiting for football games to start? Here's some reading to pass the time.

One of the best letters to the editor ever. Obviously the writer has a clue. Meanwhile, a , who worries that the Park 51 project sends the message that "we're going to increase religious tolerance and understanding whether you like it or not." Because tolerance and understanding are such bad things, aren't they?

Over in Washington, Ralph Reed is back, and Columbia Journalism Review sees Alan Simpson heading down a collision course with the AARP, an organization he would love to destroy. Not to be left out of the stampede, Newt Gingrich has a revelation about Barack Obama, while mainstream media completely ignores the real terrorists.

Meanwhile, Fox News' Neil Cavuto succumbed to his mean gene in the middle of Michele Obama's speech yesterday, when he interrupted it to remind the audience that President Obama was once a nobody, and Pam Geller tells her adoring Islamophobe fans to "listen to Mommy".

Howie Klein's post on how Alan Greenspan destroyed the US economy has some warnings about what Speaker Boehner will have in story for us too. (Plus, the picture is not to be missed). HP is holding the Navy hostage due to some outdated EDS contracts acquired during the Bush administration.

In the compassion and understanding department (for real, this time), Chris Hayes' essay written shortly after 9-11 but not published until now is a must-read. Also this Kristof column. Digby reminds of what we've really lost. Finally, another reminder that it's just us, not us and them.

Mad Men fans (of which I am definitely one), this Miss Blankenship backgrounder is a fun read. My newest passion is mountain biking (when I'm not reading, twittering, or serving The Pug). I'm lucky enough to live near enough to Pacific Coast Highway and ride trails like this. What are you doing today?

Happy trails, reading, football, Sunday...whatever it is for you today.

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Credit: karoli

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Credit: Karoli

September 11, 2010. Nine years later, and still more fearmongering, shrilly voices and downright hateful words than I ever imagined possible. Evidently the old reassurance that time heals all wounds applies to everything but this day.

I remember standing at a candlelight vigil with others in my community two days after it happened. Now most of those same people are teabaggers getting ready to have a rally a block away from my house on Sunday.

I remember wondering how my husband would get home from Iowa where he'd gone for his grandmother's funeral earlier that week. He drove back, in a somber, reflective tour of the midwest.

I remember thinking that it would be like an earthquake -- devastating for awhile but ultimately we'd all move on with our lives, rebuild the damage and hope nothing like that happens again in our lifetime. And slowly, slowly, we'd heal. We'd get some perspective.

Nine years later the crazy is worse, not better. I can't recall a year where the public insanity has been driven to such a fever pitch since the day it happened. I can't remember less respect being given to as many people as this year.

If someone looked into their crystal ball eight years ago and predicted this week's news cycle, I'd have laughed them out the door. Being an optimist isn't always a good thing, I guess. The whipping and stirring of anger, fear and hate this week has bordered on the hysterical, and a hysterical nation is something we just don't need. At least, it's not working for me.

But here, a breath of fresh air from yesterday's presser with President Obama, where he gave a serious and refreshing answer to a stupid question from a Fox News reporter:

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Bad Intel, Bad Policy democracy arsenal

We should all pay more attention to the recent report of the bipartisan presidential commission chaired by Laurence Silberman and Chuck Robb regarding U.S. intelligence and WMD threats. It got a couple of days of buzz when it was released a few weeks ago -- especially for its no-nonsense conclusion that all the pre-war judgments about Iraq's WMD were "dead wrong" – but has pretty much dropped out of sight since. At over 600 pages, it’s not exactly bedtime reading.

But like the 9-11 commission, this group has produced a rare kind of government report: compelling, hard-hitting, clear, provocative, and actually pretty entertaining. But it is also really scary. The commissioners conclude that there is no greater threat than the spread of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons (placing special emphasis on the threat from biological weapons, which they describe as the “greatest intelligence challenge”). Yet they show with great detail that our intelligence community is not sufficiently trained, motivated, equipped, or organized to deal with these threats. Even if we had an Administration intensely focused on the WMD threat, the limits of our intelligence capabilities would leave still leave us fighting with one hand tied behind our backs.

Right now, we have the worst of both worlds: an intelligence community that is not up to the challenge, and an Administration that talks a good game but is still not making counter-proliferation the priority it needs to be.  As Ash Carter points out, until we get the policy right, it really doesn’t matter if intelligence is imperfect.   Folks, I gotta tell you, we should be genuinely worried about getting hit with some sort of WMD device (for a very scary illustration of what this might be like, everyone should watch the recent HBO/BBC film “Dirty War”).  The American people understand the problem – according to the recent SPI/Marttila poll, 3 of the top 5 concerns most American have about the world have something to do with the spread of nuclear weapons.  So where's the outrage?  There’s a lot I really don’t understand about the Bush Administration, but not doing more to address the WMD threat – especially when we know what to do about it – is the most perplexing, and I think its greatest long-term failure. 

Dean leads the troops    Thoughts from Kansas 

Right Wing Talk show hosts admits being wrong about Bush

C&L reader Kevin caught this last night on KABC AM-Los Angeles. Talk Show host Doug McIntyre, has turned on Bush. Will this start to become a trend?

full transcript:

"So, I’m saying today, I was wrong to have voted for George W. Bush. In historic terms, I believe George W. Bush is the worst two-term President in the history of the country. Worse than Grant. I also believe a case can be made that he’s the worst President, period. After five years of carefully watching George W. Bush I’ve reached the conclusion he’s either grossly incompetent, or a hand puppet for a gaggle of detached theorists with their own private view of how the world works.
Listen here. (or click here.)
"Or both. I thought the connection to 9-11 was sketchy at best. But Colin Powell impressed me at the UN, and Tony Blair was in, and after all, he was a Clinton guy, not a Bush guy, so I thought the case had to be strong. I was worried though, because I had read the Wolfowitz paper, “The Project for the New American Century.” It’s been around since ‘92, and it raised alarm bells because it was based on a theory, “Democratizing the Middle East” and I prefer pragmatism over theory. I was worried because Iraq was being justified on a radical new basis, “pre-emptive war.” Any time we do something without historical precedent I get nervous...read on

"CNN's Headline News has signed conservative radio host Glenn Beck for an hourlong talkshow...read on"

Read some of the many wonderful statements:

"And that's all we're hearing about, are the people in New Orleans. Those are the only ones that we're seeing on television are the scumbags -- T]his is horrible to say, and I wonder if I'm alone in this -- you know, it took me about a year to start hating the 9-11 victims' families? "

..that earned him the right to get his own show.

Craig’s Thoughts, Theories and Tantrums: Exxon will post a $10 billion profit this quarter.

Syndicated Clear Channel radio host Glenn Beck referred to survivors of Hurricane Katrina who remained in New Orleans as ''scumbags.'' He also attacked the families of victims of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, saying: "I didn't think I could hate victims faster than the 9-11 victims."

d r i f t g l a s s: "Before the body count is even reasonably guesstimated, or New Orleans pumped even half dry, the awarding contracts on the backs of the dead, dying and displaced to the same fucking group of Bush/Cheney Usual Crony Suspects has begun in earnest and in broad daylight."

~ News Hounds: Bush Cohorts Profiteering at all levels. Bush crony hired to collect dead bodies in New Orleans.

",0]);D(["ce"]);D(["ms","d053"]);//--> "Before the body count is even reasonably guesstimated, or New Orleans pumped even half dry, the awarding contracts on the backs of the dead, dying and displaced to the same fucking group of Bush/Cheney Usual Crony Suspects has begun in earnest and in broad daylight."

Topeka protesters show up in Cleveland

Shirley Phelps-Roper held a bright neon painted sign that read "Thank God for 9-11" and claimed "You've got a bunch of lying false prophets that are running the churches around here and being paid to tell people that God loves them," Roper said.

Another protester, Katherine Hockenbarger,claimed the 9-11 attack was divine retribution.

"That was but a small sign of the doom of this nation," she said. "You can't live your life anyway you want to and expect to go to heaven."

Yet another sickening display by WBC. Will Bill O'Reilly do a week worth of segments on them?

(Hat tip TLC via DU)