link A Liberal Shock Doctrine by Rick Perlstein Progressive political change in American history is rarely incremental. With important exceptions, most of the reforms that have advanced our nation’s status as a modern, liberalizing social democracy were pushed through during narrow windows of progressive opportunity — which subsequently slammed shut with the work not yet complete. The post–Civil [...]

When you read the New York Times, it’s often hard to tell whether we’re living in 2008 or during the Chester Arthur administration. For instance, Michiko Kakutani’s review of Thomas Frank’s book The Wrecking Crew apparently was xeroxed from reviews the Times was giving of similar books during the mid-Gilded Age: …hectoring…highly partisan, Manichaean-minded…screed…comes across as [...]

Bill Kristol, in the print edition of this morning’s New York Times: NBC’s Andrea Mitchell reported on “Meet the Press” that “the Obama people must feel that he didn’t do quite as well as they might have wanted to in that context. … What they’re putting out privately is that McCain may not have been [...]

Sure, America’s intelligence agencies concluded last year December that Iran no longer has a nuclear weapons program. But what do they know? Surely the Democratic Party is far more informed about the situation than them, which is why the Democrats refer to Iran’s “nuclear weapons program” in their just-finalized 2008 platform: Prevent Iran from Acquiring Nuclear [...]

Over at the Village Voice this week: – my friend Tony Ortega has a pretty amazing story about John Steinbeck, mobsters, labor organizers, and how his graduate studies became unexpectedly personal. – Jules Feiffer makes his second return appearance in the Voice after a ten year absence, here. – In case you hadn’t noticed, Roy Edroso (of alicublog) [...]

So some things that I didn’t think would work out suddenly did work out, and it looks like I’ll be going to Denver in a week. I’ll actually be blogging it at the New Haven Advocate’s site — they’re footing the bill for this one — but I’ll post links from here to there. Blogging [...]

Just want to add a thought to Greg’s post — he’s absolutely right about the abhorrent mindset typified by the “Got Ammo” and “Rope, Tree, Journalist” t-shirts you see advertised on so many right wing sites. But as he also notes, it’s too soon to jump to any definite conclusions at this point, [...]

Earlier today, I just got around to commenting on the recent shooting at a Unitarian church, noting : I don’t think it’s fair to say that people like Limbaugh and O’Reilly are directly or even indirectly responsible for the shooting, but it’s pretty obvious to anyone who’s been paying attention that the limits of what’s considered [...]

This movie may literally redefine what is meant by the word “comedy”: I’m holding a palm card that was just given out at the Heritage Foundation to promote the new David Zucker film An American Carol. If I fill out the card, I can take one of four pledges, such as “Yes, I will send the [...]

Tonight on O’Reilly: Tuesday, August 12: Obama bombarded by personal attacks. Are they legit? Ann Coulter comments

Matt Stoller makes some extremely important points about how Al Gore’s DC-centric, centrist instincts cause him to continue to suck at creating any progress on global warming. Meanwhile, it looks like the summer melt in the arctic may meet or exceed last year’s, putting us on path to an ice-free summer arctic within five years. Not [...]

With Ron Suskind’s revelation about the CIA apparently forging a December, 2003 letter from Iraqi intelligence’s Tahir Jalil Habbush, Emptywheel wonders: were there any other forged Habbush letters? The answer appears to be yes. Interestingly, there’s some suggestive material about this in the transcript Suskind released of one of his interviews with CIA Near East Division [...]

Dean Baker: is there anything he doesn’t know? Here’s email Baker sent out on August 10, 2006, talking about the UK Airline Bomber Plot: So, do you think the British airplane plot is the response to Lieberman’s defeat? It certainly is conveniently timed, and we know that we are dealing with people who would have no qualms [...]

Jeff Stein at Congressional Quarterly: Author Ron Suskind says he will release transcripts of his interviews with a top CIA official that will confirm his story that in 2003 the White House ordered the agency to fabricate a phony document linking Iraq to the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, D.C… But in [...]

Has Krugman been reading Tomorrow?

Here’s Ron Suskind on NPR’s Fresh Air today, starting at about 29:00: SUSKIND: Ultimately you feel a kind of humbleness as a reporter. There are some things books can take you up to the gates of, the precipice of, but can’t go all the way, just in terms of these issues of people having to testify [...]

Philip Giraldi: An extremely reliable and well placed source in the intelligence community has informed me that Ron Suskind’s revelation that the White House ordered the preparation of a forged letter linking Saddam Hussein to al-Qaeda and also to attempts made to obtain yellowcake uranium is correct but that a number of details are wrong. The [...]

Last night Countdown read statements from Ron Suskind’s two main named sources for the charge in his new book that the White House ordered the CIA to forge a letter from Iraq’s intelligence chief to Saddam Hussein. Rob Richer, the former head of the CIA’s Near East Division, spoke for both himself and John Maguire: “I [...]

In Ron Suskind’s interview on NPR today (and also in his new book), he names CIA operative John Maguire as one of the people allegedly involved in the Iraq letter forging. This is from Suskind’s NPR appearance: SUSKIND: In the fall [of 2003]…the White House, they decide that a letter should be fabricated, dated July 2001, [...]

Ron Suskind was on NPR this morning to discuss his new book The Way of the World, which alleges Iraq’s intelligence chief Tahir Jalil Habbush told the US before the war that Iraq had no WMD. NPR asked George Tenet and the White House for comment, and, remarkably enough, they both essentially admitted this was true. SUSKIND: [...]