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Less than 24 hours after refusing to take hate radio host Rush Limbaugh to task for slandering Sandra Fluke , Mitt Romney reached a new low on Saturday. During an exchange with an Army mom in Ohio, Romney asked of the President who killed Osama Bin Laden, "How in the world can the commander in chief sleep at night?" That from a man who once brushed off the importance of even getting Bin Laden, opposed U.S. strikes to target Al Qaeda terrorists in Pakistan, flip-flopped on whether the Iraq war was mistake and declared his own five sons serve America by "helping me get elected."

How can Mitt Romney sleep at night?

As CBS reported, in Dayton this weekend an Army mother asked Governor Romney what he could do to speed her daughter back from Afghanistan. Romney, who has opposed President Obama's timeline for drawing down troops there, responded by blasting the Commander-in-Chief (around the 2:00 minute mark above):

[Mrs. Chura said] "There is no mission here. We have no definition of a mission."

Romney jumped on Chura's complaint and attacked Obama on the war. "If your daughter is not familiar with the mission that she's on, how in the world can the commander in chief sleep at night, knowing that we have soldiers in harm's way that don't know exactly, precisely, what it is that they're doing there?" he asked.

How in the world can Mitt Romney sleep at night, when during his first run for President he declared that Osama Bin Laden wasn't that important?

In a May 2007 diatribe conflating all Muslims into a single unified global threat, there was one Muslim he wasn't too worried about:

"But I don't want to buy into the Democratic pitch, that this is all about one person, Osama bin Laden. Because after we get him, there's going to be another and another. This is about Shia and Sunni. This is about Hezbollah and Hamas and al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood. This is the worldwide jihadist effort to try and cause the collapse of all moderate Islamic governments and replace them with a caliphate."

Even regarding that "one person, Osama Bin Laden," Romney struggled. After insisting in May 2007 that "It's not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person," Romney reversed course just three days later and declared of Bin Laden, "He's going to pay, and he will die."

He did, thanks to President Obama and no thanks to Mitt Romney.

How can Mitt Romney sleep at night, when he opposed the American strikes in Pakistan that killed Bin Laden and most of his lieutenants?

Repeatedly in 2007 and 2008, then candidate Barack Obama promised to unilaterally launch strikes against Bin Laden and other high-value targets in Pakistan and ramp up the U.S. effort in the under-resourced effort across the border in Afghanistan. In July 2008, Senator Obama pledged, "we must make it clear that if Pakistan cannot or will not act, we will take out high-level terrorist targets like bin Laden if we have them in our sights."

But Mitt Romney said no:

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Another "catastrophic success" for the Bush Regime. USA Today reports that while we've watched Iraq get blown to bits Afghanistan is slowing burning to the ground and stalemated and we've all but forgotten about it.

The adversary faced this year by the Desert Eagles and other American units fighting in Afghanistan has defied military predictions that the Taliban and al-Qaeda were fading. "It's absolutely true that the insurgency has become more effective and the insurgency has moved into more areas," says Peter Tomsen, a former special envoy who helped organize the anti-Soviet Afghan resistance in the 1980s. According to the Desert Eagles: • The insurgency never intended to disrupt Afghan parliamentary elections in September. The plan was to conserve military resources and wait for U.S. and Western allies to withdraw. "They had to deceive us that the elections were successful," Toolan said, "that we would be duped into a false sense of victory and leave earlier, so that they would have that ripe environment to move into open guerrilla warfare." • Candidates linked to the insurgency ran for parliament seats. "We took United Nations candidate lists and we took a list of (insurgent) targets, and we overlaid those," Toolan said. "There were matches."

Bush had the nation pretty much united behind the Afghanistan campaign and if the had stuck to actually completing that mission properly he would reap the political rewards. But nooooooooooooo! He had to launch an imbecilic invasion of a country not at all affiliated with Al Qaeda (until we invaded of course) at the cost of the Afghanistan campaign and the hunt for Bin Laden. Republicans can use the reptilian aspects of their brain for the next three years all they want; but history has already judged Bush over how he has handled the so-called "War on Terror". That judgment will have him fighting it out with James Buchanan for worst President ever. My money is on Buchanan, that crooked-necked boob packed a mean "cockpunch". Posted (hopefully properly "the Radio" is quite aggravating) by Attaturk of www.rising-hegemon.blogspot.com.

Quote of the Day American Blog Party    

"Nations, like men, often march to the beat of different drummers, and the precise solutions of the United States can neither be dictated nor transplanted to others."
Robert F. Kennedy

Making Up Stories    Rox Populi

Now that the gang at Powerline and Michelle Malkin have been proven again to be the the lying tools that they are (uh, and blaming Tom Harkin or looking for another scapegoat sorta goes against the whole Republican "personal responsibility" thing, doesn't it?), they'll need to find, as Atrios and Hilzoy suggest, a new scandalous untruth to spread to their drooling minions.

In the interest of bi-partisanship, I think we should help them brainstorm some ideas.

What shall it be, then? Illegal immigrants sneak into San Diego homes to drink the blood of unsuspecting white babies? Jimmy Carter performed a human sacrifice in the Lincoln Bedroom back in '78 and that's why he's not going to the Pope's funeral? Hillary Clinton conspired to have a guy murdered and then covered it up? John Kerry shot his entire squad in Vietnam and replaced them with hippie look-a-likes he found partying with Hanoi Jane in Ho Chi Min City?

"Nations, like men, often march to the beat of different drummers, and the precise solutions of the United States can neither be dictated nor transplanted to others."
Robert F. Kennedy

Making Up Stories Rox Populi

Now that the gang at Powerline and Michelle Malkin have been proven again to be the the lying tools that they are (uh, and blaming Tom Harkin or looking for another scapegoat sorta goes against the whole Republican "personal responsibility" thing, doesn't it?), they'll need to find, as Atrios and Hilzoy suggest, a new scandalous untruth to spread to their drooling minions.

In the interest of bi-partisanship, I think we should help them brainstorm some ideas.

What shall it be, then? Illegal immigrants sneak into San Diego homes to drink the blood of unsuspecting white babies? Jimmy Carter performed a human sacrifice in the Lincoln Bedroom back in '78 and that's why he's not going to the Pope's funeral? Hillary Clinton conspired to have a guy murdered and then covered it up? John Kerry shot his entire squad in Vietnam and replaced them with hippie look-a-likes he found partying with Hanoi Jane in Ho Chi Min City?
Obviously, I'm not in my best "creative zone" this morning. So, help me out by leaving your suggestions in comments below.
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Obviously, I'm not in my best "creative zone" this morning. So, help me out by leaving your suggestions in comments below.

Bush fell short on duty at Guard

Records show pledges unmet

By The Globe Spotlight Team | September 8, 2004

In February, when the White House made public hundreds of pages of President Bush's military records,

White House officials repeatedly insisted that the records prove that Bush fulfilled his military commitment in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War.

But Bush fell well short of meeting his military obligation, a Globe reexamination of the records shows: Twice during his Guard service -- first when he joined in May 1968, and again before he transferred out of his unit in mid-1973 to attend Harvard Business School -- Bush signed documents pledging to meet training commitments or face a punitive call-up to active duty.

Gordon at Alternative Brain reads an on-line article about Bill Moyers and agrees:

The Nation talks about a show I watched last Friday evening of LBJ's taped phone conversations and Bill Moyers' commentary. Highly recommended as a history lesson. And a warning.

One point of the program, he explained, was to offer viewers "an insight into the mind of one president facing the choice of whether or not to send more and more American soldiers to fight in a far-away and strange place."

But another point was to offer Obama and his aides a caution that only a few wise and worldly senators provided Johnson back in the mid-1960s -- chief among them Oregon's Wayne Morse, about whom Johnson says on one of the tapes: "outside Morse, everybody I talk to says you got to go in..."

Moyers was not making crude or casual analogies.

"Granted," he explained early on, "Barack Obama is not Lyndon Johnson, Afghanistan is not Vietnam and this is now, not then. But listen and you will hear echoes and refrains that resonate today."

Moyers:

Now in a different world, at a different time, and with a different president, we face the prospect of enlarging a different war. But once again we're fighting in remote provinces against an enemy who can bleed us slowly and wait us out, because he will still be there when we are gone.

Once again, we are caught between warring factions in a country where other foreign powers fail before us. Once again, every setback brings a call for more troops, although no one can say how long they will be there or what it means to win. Once again, the government we are trying to help is hopelessly corrupt and incompetent.

And once again, a President pushing for critical change at home is being pressured to stop dithering, be tough, show he's got the guts, by sending young people seven thousand miles from home to fight and die, while their own country is coming apart.

And once again, the loudest case for enlarging the war is being made by those who will not have to fight it, who will be safely in their beds while the war grinds on (my em). And once again, a small circle of advisers debates the course of action, but one man will make the decision.

We will never know what would have happened if Lyndon Johnson had said no to more war. We know what happened because he said yes.

Video here and transcript here.

Shorter: "You've got to get in or get out. Get in, you're gonna lose. Get out, you're a pussy."

It's kinda like losing a bet on a ball game and then losing it again on the replay. Stupid.

The man has a way with words... I liked it so much, had to reprint it in full.

[Ed. note: Please welcome to the C&L team our old friend Ian Welsh, whose work from the Agonist and FDL many of you many know. Ian will be writing whatever he chooses, but that usually means economics and international politics.]

It's Memorial Day. I gather for many it's just another long weekend, but I know that for many it's what Remembrance Day is for Canadians like myself: a day to remember those who have died in war. I won't say "died to protect our freedom" or any such trite BS, because with few exceptions, most wars had nothing to do with protecting anyone's freedom, but they did die, nonetheless, for us.

Their blood is on our hands, sticky and wet, and it will never dry. Why?

Because we live in democracies. Because we elected the leaders who sent them to war. Whether you think those wars are justified, or not, at the end of the day, we bear the collective guilt of their deaths. They died due to the decisions we made, the society we live in.

Oh, we can say "I did everything I could to oppose the war", whether that's Iraq or Vietnam, or some other war. But even if that's true, well, you failed, didn't you? (Didn't I?) And so off went the young men and women, and they died, or they were maimed, or their brain case got knocked around and they came back shaking, and they wake up screaming at night, and they can't control their emotions and they'll never be the same again.

It's one of the ironies of democracy that we're all responsible, collectively, and yet each of us, individually, can say "but not me, I voted against him" or "I protested against that policy". And because it's true, each of us can feel, in the end, that the deaths and suffering caused by our society, whether in war, or through a horrific medical system, or through abuses in the penal system, aren't our fault.

But is it true? Or is it true instead, that we failed, that we support the system with both our consent and our tax dollars, and that we are therefor complicit in what it does?

I don't know. But I do know this, on this Memorial day, even if it's not a Canadian holiday, I'm thinking of those who died, both soldiers and civilian.

And at the very least, I know I failed.

[Update: Sinclair's Last Chance via

Josh Marshall's right, Sinclair is beginning to crack. But, as he notes, their new plan to force a "news show" that juxtaposes parts of "Stolen Honor" with the shameful lib'ral media's behavior in this matter just ain't gonna cut it. Luckily, Sinclair has a way out.

I was on a conference call this morning with Deborah Rappaport, a California-based philanthropist who is offering Sinclair quite the face-saver. She's bought rights to the excellent, accurate and extremely well-reviewed documentary Going Upriver, which follows John Kerry through his war heroism and anti-war activism, and is offering an edited version (42 minutes long, exactly the timespan of Sinclair's proposed program) for broadcast before the election. Not only is she offering it, she's willing to pay $1 million dollar sabove the ad revenue the time slot would normally generate and cover all the fines and fees incurred from preempting stations. So long as Sinclair shows the documentary before the election, in a time slot with comparable viewership to Stolen Honor's, and with a similar amount of advance work (publicizing it, running ads, etc), the offer is valid. This would allow them to show both sides of the controversy and demonstrate the balance they feel is lacking from other media outlets. The offer was delivered this morning and Sinclair has been asked to respond within 24 hours. This is as good as it's gonna get for them, and it's the final test of whether or not they're a business who simply wants to show both side or an arm of BC04 that's wasting shareholder dollars.

For more on "Going Upriver", check out Kevin Drum's review here.

[Update ll: Despite the assertions made in "Stolen Honors," NBC's David Shuster reports that "dozens" of former Vietnam War POW's say that John Kerry's name was never even mentioned once by their Vietnamese captors

Sinclair Says Won't Show Entire Anti-Kerry Film
By Martha Graybow

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc., the nation's largest owner of TV stations, said on Tuesday it would only air part of a documentary critical of Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites)'s Vietnam war record, as critics demanded it cancel the broadcast altogether or face legal action.

Sinclair has drawn fire over its plans to air the 42-minute documentary "Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal," about the Democratic presidential candidate on its more than 60 TV stations on Friday, less than two weeks before the Nov. 2 election....

Meanwhile, a group called Media Matters for America said it was underwriting costs for a Sinclair shareholder, the investment firm Glickenhaus & Co., to demand the broadcaster provide an opportunity for a response to the "Stolen Honor" show. Glickenhaus holds about 6,100 Sinclair shares, according to Media Matters.

FCC Chief Says Cannot Block Anti-Kerry Show
By Jeremy Pelofsky

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (news - web sites) cannot stop the broadcast of a show critical of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites)'s anti-war comments after returning from Vietnam, the agency's head said on Thursday

Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. plans to air the "Stolen Honor" documentary which accuses Kerry of betraying fellow veterans of the Vietnam War by testifying to Congress in 1971 about atrocities he said were committed by U.S. forces in that conflict.

"Don't look to us to block the airing of the program," FCC (news - web sites) Chairman Michael Powell told reporters. "There is no rule that I'm aware of that would allow the commission, nor would it be prudent, to prevent the airing of programing."

One former prisoner of war interviewed for the program said Kerry's remarks were used by the Vietnamese to undermine their morale, according to his video account on the Web site for the documentary.

Democrats say the documentary is a political statement masquerading as news and have demanded the FCC and the Federal Election Commission (news - web sites) determine whether its broadcast would violate any regulations.

The American public, which owns the airwaves that Sinclair would use for its partisan political purposes, expects the FCC to uphold the basic principle of fairness which is at the root of our democracy," said a letter to Powell from 85 House of Representatives' Democrats sent on Wednesday.