This is why it's hard to take the right wing seriously. Via The Politico:

GOP strategist Rick Wilson recently asked a focus group of Republican voters whether they would rather “kill Obamacare” or have killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden:

If Democrats suffered through “Bush Derangement Syndrome” during the last decade, Republican primary voters view the current president with near-contempt, thanks to the lousy economy and a liberal governing agenda. Obama’s unpopular health care law still is driving much of that anger. Wilson said he recently conducted a focus group where Republicans were asked whether, if they had a choice, they would rather “kill Obamacare” or have killed Osama bin Laden.

“They would have killed Obamacare and waited for the actuarial tables [to] play out for bin Laden,” Wilson said.

Of course, what they don't acknowledge is the number of Americans that would also die as a result of a lack of access to health coverage. I guess those people are right on par with Bin Laden in the eyes of the right.

As usual, many discrepancies between the first "official" version of the attack on Osama bin Laden and reality. In this, Al-Jazeera shows the "Osama was living in a mansion" story has no foundation. It's a large compound, but the interior was actually strewn with garbage:

Al Jazeera has obtained new footage of the compound where Osama bin Laden was killed.

The pictures show the interiors of the house where the al-Qaeda leader is thought to have been hiding for up to six years.

Filmed during daylight hours, there is no doubt that this is the house where bin Laden was shot and killed by US forces, Al Jazeera's Imtiaz Tyab said, reporting from the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

It was not immediately clear how long after the raid that the footage was taken.

"We can see the exteriors of the house; we see a garden where vegetables were grown. We see an area where animals were being raised - possible clues of how the people who lived within the high walls of this compound managed to sustain themselves with very little interaction with the outside world," our correspondent said.

"These pictures ... give a sense of just how Osama bin Laden - the world's most wanted fugitive - lived relatively undetected right here in Abbottabad."

US forces raided the compound in a covert operation on Sunday, killing bin Laden and four others. The US team then quickly swept the compound for useful intelligence, making off with a cache of computer equipment and documents.

Our correspondent said Pakistani forces have been in charge of the house since the US operation.

"They, presumably, have taken with them what they deemed important as well," Tyab said.

recovering liberal
Support for suicide bombings and other acts of violence in defense of Islam has dropped since 2002 by 34 percentage points in Lebanon, 12 points in Indonesia and 8 points in Pakistan, according to the latest survey from Pew Global Attitudes Project.

In the poll released last Thursday, about half of Muslims in Lebanon, Jordan and Morocco said that attacks against Americans and their allies are justified.

On a positive note, the poll also showed that confidence in bin Laden has fallen by double-digit margins in Indonesia, Morocco and Lebanon since 2003. In Lebanon, only 2% now express confidence in him. Sadly, this is offset by Jordan and Pakistan, where more than 50% say they that have confidence in him.

Most importantly, in the nine Western nations polled, fears about radical Islam are tied to perceptions of Muslim communities within those countries. Resident Muslims were seen as having a strong and growing sense of Islamic identity, which most of those surveyed see as a bad thing.

In conclusion, while most of those polled in the United States and other Western Nations claim to have favorable views of Muslims, those in predominantly Muslim countries had mixed views of Christians and very negative views of Jews.

Support for suicide bombings and other acts of violence in defense of Islam has dropped since 2002 by 34 percentage points in Lebanon, 12 points in Indonesia and 8 points in Pakistan, according to the latest survey from Pew Global Attitudes Project.

In the poll released last Thursday, about half of Muslims in Lebanon, Jordan and Morocco said that attacks against Americans and their allies are justified.

On a positive note, the poll also showed that confidence in bin Laden has fallen by double-digit margins in Indonesia, Morocco and Lebanon since 2003. In Lebanon, only 2% now express confidence in him. Sadly, this is offset by Jordan and Pakistan, where more than 50% say they that have confidence in him.

Most importantly, in the nine Western nations polled, fears about radical Islam are tied to perceptions of Muslim communities within those countries. Resident Muslims were seen as having a strong and growing sense of Islamic identity, which most of those surveyed see as a bad thing.

In conclusion, while most of those polled in the United States and other Western Nations claim to have favorable views of Muslims, those in predominantly Muslim countries had mixed views of Christians and very negative views of Jews.

Moment of Zen: Condi Rice testifies about the famous Bin Laden PDA

Video

It's a short clip, but shows that Ms. Rice didn't take the memo seriously.

60 Minutes Video

Ex-CIA agent, Bin Laden expert and author of "Imperial Hubris", Michael Scheuer speaks out!

Video

FOX News at it again!

Angry over on-air remark, adviser threatens a ban

By Patrick Healy, Globe Staff | October 31, 2004

The lengths (and lies) some will go to get what they want...

Conservative Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld writes at Huffington Post:

Osama Bin Laden is in Iran, asserts Alan Howell Parrot, the director of The Union for the Conservation of Raptors (UCR), who for many years served as a Falconer for the rulers of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and members of Saudi Royal family. In that capacity he was a regular guest in the seasonal Falconry-hunting camps and had access to all participants. Parrot has been offering evidence of Bin Laden's sighting in Iran since November 2004 to a great number of U.S. government officials at the Department of Defense, the FBI, Senators and even to the former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Gen. Michael V. Hayden. Government officials who asked to remain nameless confirmed Parrot's contact with the government. Still, no one responded.

So let me get this straight: A guy named Parrot, who works with the Saudi royal family's falcons, wants us to believe that Bin Laden is playing around with falcons in Iran and even though Parrot negotiated with Iranian officials to bring Bin Laden to the Saudis (why? the best person for this job was a guy in charge of falcons?), no one in the US cared about his story. Ehrenfeld doesn't bother to explain why a Iranian-Saudi extradition would require US intervention nor why Parrot himself might have a wee bit of a credibility problem. My buddy Cernig did a little basic internet searching and discovered that Parrot has posted on a right wing site that not only has the Saudi royal family unsuccessfully tried to have him killed several times, he also holds some fairly bizarre Islamophobic notions:

Muslims are extraordinarily averse to admitting self-fault, and accepting blame. This is a UNIVERSAL feature among devout Muslims. Why?

For many years I have watched the cultural phenomenon of “Majelis”, where strict protocol governs how a person publicly relates to the sheikh or the prince, and everyone’s actions are more controlled than in Louis IV palace of Versailles. There are many, many subtle things that have to be done just right, to qualify as an honored guest in Majelis. Westerners always offend Majelis protocol, even when the Westerners think they know the system backwards and forwards; their Arab hosts forgive these Westerners, with a smug deductive conclusion that their Western guest is an uncivilized “barbarian”.[..]

Certainly that perception among Muslim leaders (that Westerners are simple and naïve), is behind their ability to manipulate our media and some of our political leaders. When they succeed in manipulating us to achieve their own Islamic agendas, at the same time these Islamic colonialists spit on the ground and revile us even more than before.

Oh, that sounds REALLY credible. Gosh, can't imagine why he wasn't taken more seriously at the CIA. Isn't it convenient that the number one bogeyman is located in the enemy country du jour for the Neocon/Netanyahu group?

Obviously, they subscribe to the notion of the BIG lie being more believable. It's just a shame to see it go unchallenged at Huffington Post.

Islamofascists are so passe. I guess Russia is the big bad evil now. Bush and McCain never did catch Bin Laden though. I think they know where Putin is...

March 13, 2002

So I don't know where he is. You know, I just don't spend that much time on him, Kelly, to be honest with you. I'm more worried about making sure that our soldiers are well-supplied; that the strategy is clear; that the coalition is strong; that when we find enemy bunched up like we did in Shahikot Mountains, that the military has all the support it needs to go in and do the job, which they did.

Q But don't you believe that the threat that bin Laden posed won't truly be eliminated until he is found either dead or alive?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, as I say, we haven't heard much from him. And I wouldn't necessarily say he's at the center of any command structure. And, again, I don't know where he is. I -- I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him. I know he is on the run. I was concerned about him, when he had taken over a country. I was concerned about the fact that he was basically running Afghanistan and calling the shots for the Taliban. (h/t Joe)

Occasionally, we’ll hear that Joe Lieberman is generally in line with Democrats, but makes an exception on the war in Iraq and a neocon worldview of foreign policy. When it comes to values and domestic policy, the argument usually goes, Lieberman is generally reliable.

Let’s just erase that thought from our minds now, shall we?

Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman reluctantly acknowledged Thursday that he does not believe waterboarding is torture, but believes the interrogation technique should be available only under the most extreme circumstances.

Lieberman was one of 45 senators who voted Wednesday in opposition to a bill that would limit the CIA to the 19 interrogation techniques outlined in the Army field manual. That manual prohibits waterboarding, a method where detainees typically are strapped to a bench and have water poured into their mouth and nose making them feel as if they will drown.

“We are at war,” Lieberman said. “I know enough from public statements made by Osama bin Laden and others as well as classified information I see to know the terrorists are actively planning, plotting to attack us again. I want our government to be able to gather information again within both the law and Geneva Convention.”

All of this is spectacularly and breathtakingly wrong.