Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

...that I have transferred. Here are two comments from that thread, that I've deleted:

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Tomorrow's round of Sunday talk

Should be considerably enlivened by this piece.

With Spector agreenting to hold off the Alito hearings until January, we have a two month window to drive home the distortions, exagerations, and outright lies involved in taking us to Iraq.  If the dam continues to crack the way it has over the last few weeks, and Harry Reid keeps the pressure on, Bush is going to be serving crow instead of turkey this Thanksgiving.

by Devilstower on 11/05/2005 06:12:48 PM EST

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Boy, do I feel silly

who'd a thunk it that there was a need for MORE information than we already had to justify closing the Senate doors due to the lies that started the Iraq war?

by causa on 11/05/2005 06:13:26 PM EST

The Albany Project. The best damned blog about New York State politics.

by NYBri on 11/05/2005 06:28:26 PM EST

This is what I was pondering reading the E&P story, waiting for the NYT to post. Having read it, I don't  think so. At least not on the basis of this one story alone. Levin handed them the stuff.

Anyway, that's only background to the real stuff. But I can't help but think that had they been doing their job in the run-up to this debacle and not actually had forwarded it all with goddamned July Miller peddling the big lies, we wouldn't be where we are right now. Including in the middle of a second Bush term.

I'm just a little bit bitter.

by mcjoan on 11/05/2005 06:43:57 PM EST

So, in the same week, we get liars named "Libi" and "Libby."  Should we expect more variants?  Perhaps "Lieby?"

I wonder if Bush gave this guy a cute nickname before they hid him down at Guantánamo.

by Devilstower on 11/05/2005 07:54:11 PM EST

Al Qaeda-Iraq Link Recanted

also see Wikipedia

In fact, see Wiki first, then WaPo.  That's how I connected.

All it takes to fly is to hurl yourself at the ground... and miss. (Douglas Adams)

by scoophound on 11/05/2005 08:13:47 PM EST

Now, wonder if the NYT has connected Libi to Judy?  Wonder if they'll connect any dots for us, or we'll have to do it?

You're right about this. I'm sure Durbin and Reid have more. Given a closed session and all, they'll have to be careful about what comes to light.

But I've got some extra batteries for your flashlight, if you need any.

Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle. FDR

by btyarbro on 11/05/2005 08:25:36 PM EST

First of all, NBC first had the story 1/4/02 (not 1994)

This is NYT on 1/6/02.

NATION CHALLENGED: THE HUNTED; U.S. Takes Custody Of a Qaeda Trainer Seized by Pakistan
By  ERIC SCHMITT with ERIK ECKHOLM

The United States has taken custody of one of Osama bin Laden's top paramilitary trainers, the most senior member of Al Qaeda seized in the three-month war in Afghanistan, American officials said today.

The capture marks a potential intelligence boon for American officials in their hunt for Mr. bin Laden and their quest to thwart future terrorist activities.
Officials identified the man as Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, who was captured by Pakistani officials as he tried to flee from Afghanistan. He was turned over to the American military in the last few days, an American official said.

Mr. Libi, a Libyan, is being held at a military detention center at the Kandahar airport and could soon be flown to the amphibious ship Bataan in the northern Arabian Sea, military officials said. The Bataan is holding eight other high-profile prisoners, including John Walker Lindh, the 20-year-old Californian found fighting with the Taliban.

Mr. Libi was responsible for paramilitary training at a bin Laden camp in Afghanistan known as Al Khaldan, one of Al Qaeda's largest.

The United States has also taken custody of the former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef. He was flown to the Bataan today for questioning, and he will be detained there.

The two seizures represent a rare success in gaining control of senior Al Qaeda or Taliban leaders.

But American officials are expressing increasing confidence that they are homing in on terrorist leaders after interrogating thousands of Taliban and Al Qaeda prisoners, and recovering reams of documents and computer disks from terrorist safe houses across the country.

Military and other government investigators are interrogating a total of 307 Taliban and Al Qaeda prisoners at three sites in Afghanistan and on the Bataan. The first group of detainees is scheduled to be flown under heavy guard later this month to a secure jail being built at the United States Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

''The information we have gotten has been very fruitful in many cases, and we think we have thwarted attacks, and has led to, if not arrests, to surveillance of terrorist leadership,'' Gen. Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said this week.

[In Berlin, German authorities said they arrested a suspected member of al Qaeda in a raid late on Saturday night at a central hotel in Moenchengladbach, near Duesseldorf, Reuters reported early Sunday. The unarmed man, who had an Italian name, was charged with membership in an illegal organization, the authorities said, adding that the police questioned a number of people in the same hotel.]

Mr. Libi, whose capture was first reported by NBC News on Friday evening, is a close associate of Abu Zubaydah, one of Mr. bin Laden's confidants. Mr. Zubaydah is believed to have taken over as Al Qaeda's top military strategist after the death of Muhammad Atef in an American airstrike in Afghanistan in November.

Federal and military investigators in Kandahar and aboard the Bataan are expected to question Mullah Zaeef and Mr. Libi, who was one of 12 Al Qaeda figures on the original list of individuals and organizations whose assets were frozen by President Bush on Sept. 26 in the aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Mullah Zaeef had become the international face of the Taliban in recent months through his defiant, televised news conferences. He was detained in Pakistan after his request for asylum was denied. Apparently out of political sensitivity, the Pakistanis did not state that the ambassador was being turned over to the Americans. Instead, a spokesman said, he was returned to Afghanistan because ''he didn't any longer have a valid visa to stay.''

The spokesman, Aziz Ahmed Khan, would not say when or where Mullah Zaeef crossed the border or who received him on the other side.

The spokesman's remarks were a sign of the delicate position of the Pakistani government as it joined the American-led campaign to crush an Islamic movement that Pakistan had helped to create, and which many Pakistanis supported.

Even though I linked the story, I used my account at the university (ez proxy) to get it. Just wanted something to be legit tonight, I guess.

All it takes to fly is to hurl yourself at the ground... and miss. (Douglas Adams)

by scoophound on 11/05/2005 09:02:32 PM EST

It seems there is a likely investigation of Blair.  The thought that occurred to me is that with GOP majorities in House and Senate perhaps a Blair investigation will be helpful in showing some of the illegal stuff Bushco has been up to on this side of the ocean.  Now comes this information!  It seems like there could be investigations going on in both places.  I am hoping that they will feed each other and this will become a volcano of information that is so hot that neither Bush nor Blair can keep the fires dampened down.  

It is about time!

Thank you.  

by macmcd on 11/06/2005 06:43:29 AM EST