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Juan Williams while making some very good arguments about why we should not be torturing anyone gets punked by Chris Wallace at the commercial break and plays the "we haven't been attacked since 9-11" card. I guess those anthrax attacks don't count, huh Chris?

Williams: But let me just if I could say quickly, two quick things. One is, in a democracy you don't torture people. It's against the law. We're having this discussion here like oh well, you know if it works, it's okay. No. It's not okay. You don't torture people.

And the second thing is, did it make America safer? No, in fact it led to our reputation in the world being diminished, and people not sending forces to fight with us in Iraq and else where. That doesn't help America.

Wallace: Alright. We have to take a break here, but I just want to point out to the audience that it is purely coincidental that this country has not been attacked again since 9-11.

h/t Think Progress

John Amato:
Here we go. Cheney's new BFF, Chris Wallace does what a good doggie always does for his master. I wrote this yesterday to Cheney, but it applies to the Village apologists as well.

You see, 9/11 doesn't count. Cheney and his ilk make it sound as if America was being attacked every week after 9/11 and once he started torturing they all magically stopped. Why was the US safe from 1993-2001, without using torture or the Patriot act? And the Trade Center bombers were all caught and brought to justice, but using Cheney's method Bin Laden is still free.

Mohammed told America that any plot after 9/11 would be virtually impossible anyway without the medieval methods Cheney adapted.:

Mohammed told interrogators that after the Sept. 11 attacks, his "overriding priority" was to strike the United States, but that he "realized that a follow-on attack would be difficult because of security measures." Most of the plots, as a result, were "opportunistic and limited," according to the summary.

Dick Cheney should never be believed, ever. That's why he goes on FOX every chance he gets.

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It looks like Mary Matalin, Chris Wallace and Bill Kristol all got their talking points from the same place for the Sunday shows this week. Matalin, like Wallace claims that we haven't been attacked since 9-11 and then names anthrax attacks as something that was prevented by the CIA after they tortured prisoners.

Uuummmm.... Mary, I hate to break this to you, but we were attacked by anthrax. But then you're fully aware of that already, aren't you? I doubt there's a single person in the Bush administration that has forgotten the event that was enough to scare some Democrats into voting for the invasion of Iraq.

I'm also wondering how many of the "attacks" she rattled off are on the list from Keith Olbermann's The Nexus of Politics and Terror? My guess is more than a few if she was forced to give specifics and maybe had someone besides her DINO husband and that hack John King sitting across the table from her.

As our own Jon Perr pointed out to me, Matalin is doing a good job of carrying water for Dick Cheney and his strategy to assure that torture is never investigated.

Transcript below the fold.

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You know, I've often wondered if Tony Blair became a Catholic so he could go to confession. There's a lot more to David Kelly's story than we're ever going to find out. But officially, he's a suicide and no one's talking.

Let's review: The day after he died, a reporter asked Tony Blair, ”Have you got blood on your hands, prime minister?” Whether it was David Kelly's or all those killed in the Iraqi war, the answer seems to be yes, no matter how many judges rule otherwise.

Ah yes, Lord Hutton! One MP questioned the findings:

The MP reveals that the Oxfordshire coroner held an 'unusual' meeting with Home Office officials before he determined the cause of Dr Kelly's death.

And he claims that a 'cosy cabal' of Mr Blair's friends, including Peter Mandelson and Lord Falconer, the Lord Chancellor, hand-picked Lord Hutton, a retired Law Lord from Northern Ireland, to lead the official investigation in 2003.

And then there's his relationship with Judith Miller. Remember?

There's so much more than we'll ever know - unless someone gets religion and decides to unburden their soul.

Weapons inspector David Kelly was writing a book exposing highly damaging government secrets before his ­mysterious death.

He was intending to reveal that he warned Prime Minister Tony Blair there were no weapons of mass destruction anywhere in Iraq weeks before the ­British and American invasion.

He had several discussions with a publisher in Oxford and was seeking advice on how far he could go without breaking the law on secrets.

Following his death, his computers were seized and it is still not known if any rough draft was discovered by investigators and, if so, what happened to the material.

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Keith interviewed investigative journalist Gerald Posner last night, who did a great job of shattering all of the inconsistencies and improbabilities in the FBI's official case against alleged anthrax killer Bruce Ivins.

The strongest evidence they have going for them is also their Achilles‘ heel and that he‘s psychological profile.  That fact that he‘s very unstable, that he was someone who was an alcoholic, that he might wanted to have the vaccine continue to go along, but that‘s also the fact that he could have been set up as a cutout or puppet or used by a group of people who wanted the anthrax out there.

They also knew about his weak psychological profile.  How was he employed with the most secret biological warfare lab in the United States with this type of background that we now hear about?  That they should have known about from day one.  The Defense Department should hang its head in shame.

For even more on this story, see Glenn Greenwald's extensive coverage:

Vital unresolved anthrax questions and ABC News

Additional key facts re: the anthrax investigation

Journalists, their lying sources, and the anthrax investigation

The FBI's emerging, leaking case against Ivins

The FBI's selective release of documents in the anthrax case

Full transcript below the fold:

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    I'd love for somebody to explain this one to me. I know he was working on the anthrax vaccine, but who nominated Ivins for this award? This item has not been picked up by the press like it should have. C&L's Mark Groubert tells me via email:

On March 14th, 2003 Bruce Ivins, the alleged anthrax killer and anthrax vaccine inventor, was awarded the highest civilian honor of the Pentagon by Army Secretary Thomas White. Exceptional Civilian Service Award

The LA Times:

At a Pentagon ceremony on March 14, 2003, Ivins and two colleagues from USAMRIID were bestowed the Decoration of Exceptional Civilian Service, the highest honor given to nonmilitary employees of the Defense Department. "Awards are nice," Ivins said in accepting the honor. "But the real satisfaction is knowing the vaccine is back on line.

As David Willman reports:

Bruce E. Ivins, the government biodefense scientist linked to the deadly anthrax mailings of 2001, stood to gain financially from massive federal spending in the fear-filled aftermath of those killings, the Los Angeles Times has learned.

Ivins is listed as a co-inventor on two patents for a genetically engineered anthrax vaccine, federal records show. Separately, Ivins also is listed as a co-inventor on an application to patent an additive for various biodefense vaccines...read on

On April 26th, 2003, almost a month after White gave Ivins the award, the Army Secretary was fired by Donald Rumsfeld supposedly for this:

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This whole story concocted by the FBI smells really, really bad. Are we supposed to believe this yarn? I'll try to do a bunch of posts on this because it is a completely insane story. Did it really take seven years for the FBI to finally catch Bruce Ivins, a scientist who was working with anthrax and then helping the FBI to finger Steven J. Hatfill---who just so happens was wrongly accused and smeared until he happened to fight back?

June 27: The federal government awards Hatfill $5.8 million to settle his violation of privacy lawsuit against the Justice Department.

Have you ever seen a huge settlement like that right before they catch the real killer?

Did you watch the press conference yesterday? It absolutely made no sense. The feebs made it sound like there were millions of people that could have had access to anthrax. When they were asked why it took so many years to come up with Army scientist Bruce Ivins---they looked to the universe. 

Q:When did you get around to him as a suspect from March 31st in 2005?

A: It's important to remember how complex and complicated this investigation was. At the outset we had to identify the universe of persons and labs that might have access to this type of anthrax. Once we identified what type of anthrax it was, then over the years there were efforts to shrink the size of the pool...

What the hell is he talking about? I'd say the FBI was drowning in a pool of lies. Are there 8 million people and labs to check out to see who actually had anthrax? I want to see the FBI logs on this case. The day to day activity. Really, there needs to be a full investigation of this. How many hours did they spend on this case? What did they know and when did they know it? Ivins was actually helping the FBI with their own case! It's right out a serial killer novel. I'll have more later. There are so many layers to this story.

Read this NY Times story for some information...

Emptywheel has a good time line.

And Glenn Greenwald is on top of it too.