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In his eight decades on this planet, Zbigniew Brzezinski has seen his share of would-be and actual world leaders. His father was a diplomat posted to Germany in the '30s, so he actually watched first hand the rise of the Nazis as a boy. As Jimmy Carter's National Security Advisor, he dealt with such delicate political situations as Solidarity in Poland, the ouster of the Shah of Iran, the Cold War, the Soviet-Afghanistan war and all other matters of social/political upheaval. So this is not a man easily flustered or inexperienced with dealing with grandiose political personalities.

So what does the man who has consulted with almost every American president since Eisenhower think of our current crop of GOP presidential candidates? In a word: Embarrassing.

Look at those Republican debates. I must say, I’m literally, literally feeling embarrassed as an American when I see those people all right. One of them sounds like a medieval Savanarola, another one is trying to explain why he has some of his wealth hidden in the Cayman Islands, and someone else would go back to 1780 and then there is someone who is using his credentials as a repudiated Speaker of the Congress to be president. I mean, this is just…embarrassing.

I had to look up the Savonarola reference, but it's an apt one for Rick Santorum. And Brzezinski is absolutely right, they are embarrassing.

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(Blast from the past, but this video explains a lot about Liz Cheney)

Time for another blogger ethics panel. Liz Cheney pals around with terrorists! OK, that's not true. She's allowed to say it about anyone mind you. She actually pals around with the media that's supposed to cover her politics.

Digby:

Susan G at Dkos caught a brilliant illustration of the Village mentality in this New York magazine profile of Liz Cheney:

Fox is a regular pulpit, of course, but Liz is also all over NBC, where she happens to be social friends with Meet the Press host David Gregory (whose wife worked with Liz ’s husband at the law firm Latham & Watkins), family friends with Justice Department reporter Pete Williams (Dick Cheney’s press aide when he was secretary of Defense), and neighborhood friends with Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski, daughter of Carter-administration national-security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski. When Mika criticized Dick Cheney on her show last year, the former vice-president sent her a box of chocolate cupcakes.

[...]

Liz’s friends say she sets the bar for all-American normality: She watches Mad Men and 24 on TV, drives an SUV, attends Girl Scout meetings, and is frequently spotted on the sidelines of soccer fields, trading gossip with people like Terry McAuliffe, Washington Post reporter Glenn Kessler, and other power players whose kids go to the Country Day School or the Potomac School.

The fact that these All American folks are also millionaire celebrities with the most powerful people in the world on their speed dials shouldn't be taken as signs that they aren't just like you and me. In fact, they are Real Americans in ways that the frou-frou coastal liberal elites will never understand.

And as Susan rightly notes, there is another teensy problem with this comfortable arrangement:

This idea that the national press corps can cozy up to sources or people in power they cover during afternoon soccer games or over Saturday night dinners, then turn around and hold their feet to the fire is ridiculous. You know it. I know it. Everyone outside of Beltway zip codes knows that. Hell, anyone who's ever tried to challenge a neighbor at a local meeting knows it.

But the Village? Meh. They have their own rules. And cupcakes.

Liz certainly has been trained well by her parents. I'm waiting for the day Liz rips David Gregory and asks him if he wants the terrorists to win too. This reminded me of the time Lynne Cheney went on CNN in 2006 and attacked her Villager buddy Wolf Blitzer over Dick's love of waterboarding in such a way that his poor itty-bitty feelings were hurt. You see, Lynne suggested to Wolf that he wanted the terrorists to win.

CHENEY: Well, right, but what is CNN doing running terrorist tapes of terrorists shooting Americans? I mean, I saw Duncan Hunter ask you a very good question and you didn't answer it. Do you want us to win?

BLITZER: The answer is, of course, we want the United States to win. We are Americans. There's no doubt about that. Do you think we want terrorists to win?

CHENEY: Then why are you running terrorist propaganda?

BLITZER: With all due respect -- with all due respect, this is not terrorist propaganda.

CHENEY: Oh, Wolf.

Read the rest of the transcript. It's quite enlightening.

BLITZER: It made it sound -- and there's been interpretation to this effect -- that he was in effect confirming that the United States used this waterboarding, this technique that has been rejected by the international community that simulates a prisoner being drowned, if you will, and he was in effect, supposedly, confirming that the United States has been using that.

CHENEY: No, Wolf -- that is a mighty house you're building on top of that mole hill there, a mighty mountain. This is complete distortion; he didn't say anything of the kind.

BLITZER: Because of the dunking of -- you know, using the water and the dunking.

CHENEY: Well, you know, I understand your point. It's kind of the point of a lot of people right now, to try to distort the administration's position, and if you really want to talk about that, I watched the program on CNN last night, which I though -- it's your 2006 voter program, which I thought was a terrible distortion of both the president and the vice president's position on many issues. It seemed almost straight out of Democratic talking points using phrasing like "domestic surveillance" when it's not domestic surveillance that anyone has talked about or ever done. It's surveillance of terrorists. It's people who have al Qaeda connections calling into the United States. So I think we're in the season of distortion, and this is just one more.

BLITZER: But there have been some cases where innocent people have been picked up, interrogated, held for long periods of time then simply said never mind, let go -- they're let go.

CHENEY: Well, are you sure these people are innocent?

BLITZER: They're walking around free right now and nobody has arrested them.

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I've always had a tremendous amount of respect and admiration for Zbigniew Brzezinski. And after this epic smackdown of the eminently ignorant and simple-minded Joe Scarborough, I know that affection was well-placed.

Scarborough: "You cannot blame what's going on in Israel on the Bush administration."

Brzezinski: "You know, you have such a stunningly superficial knowledge of what went on that it's almost embarrassing to listen to you."

Ouch. Make sure to watch the entire clip because the intellectual beat down continues to the very end.

Pakistan calls bullshit on Bush's Speech . Could it be that the so-called Global War On Terror is in actuality little more than a scheme to bilk the taxpayer and loot the resources of those we claim to liberate? Today, brazen war profiteers flood the battlefields in unprecedented numbers. Former National Security Chief, Zbigniew Brzezinski says the Muslim Terrorist apparatus was created by US Intelligence as a geopoliticaal weapon....(hat tip The Existentialist Cowboy)

Secrecy News : In the Name of National Security

Jason over at Just Plain Bother is struck by the similarities between our nuts and their nuts. I'm certain that fundies of any stripe would agree with the spiritual truths contained in this song .

The Vanity Press : Yearning for oblivion...

TPMmuckraker : Plame worked Iraq pre-war WMD

JAZZ from HELL : Why is Neil Bush hanging out with a Russian mobster?

Mike's Blog Round Up

First Draft: Tweety...a Republican talking points magnet wherever he goes

Ari Melber: Joe Klein plays the Conyers card.

David E’s Fablog: Sheiks Nix Chick Pix

DoubleSpeak with Matthew and Peter Slutsky: Mark Brzezinski--son of Zbigniew Brzezinski--a national security expert who worked in the Clinton administration, discusses the NSA and other matters in this episode.

The Brad Blog: All voting hell is breaking loose in Pennsylvania primaries

What's in your FBI file? We gotta pal who knows how to find out...

Zbigniew Brzezinski:

"Iran's announcement that it has enriched a minute amount of uranium has unleashed urgent calls for a preventive U.S. air strike by the same sources that earlier urged war on Iraq. If there is another terrorist attack in the United States, you can bet your bottom dollar that there will be also immediate charges that Iran was responsible in order to generate public hysteria in favor of military action. But there are four compelling reasons against a preventive air attack on Iranian nuclear facilities:...

1. In the absence of an imminent threat (with the Iranians at least several years away from having a nuclear arsenal), the attack would be a unilateral act of war.

If undertaken without formal Congressional declaration, it would be unconstitutional and merit the impeachment of the President. Similarly, if undertaken without the sanction of the UN Security Council either alone by the United States or in complicity with Israel, it would stamp the perpetrator(s) as an international outlaw(s).read on"