AP Photo

Intriguing that one of the bombing suspects from London was found in Rome -- he was caught after investigators traced his movements by tracking his cell phone signal. The suspect, identified as Osman Hussain, appears in the photo on the left.

Once again, it was good police work that tracked down the bombers. Apparently, when you're not busy trying to start a war in Iraq, you can find out a lot of about criminals who design bombs to terrorize cities.

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The Bush administration has found out a lot about designing prisons in Iraq to torture detainees -- incredibly, some say some say this has included children in Abu Ghraib.

I keep trying to figure out how these U.S. government activities help us find out more about terrorism in our own cities. Or why the Bush administration is trying to block legislation that limits torture of detainees.

Apparently when you strip a prisoner naked in Baghdad and intimidate him with dogs in a concrete holding area, you are finding out a lot about how people bring bombs onto subways.

Or not.

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Let's talk about it. Chew the fat: Fatspeak.

Summer Rules

I know you are avoiding the news. It's summer. Time to put on sunscreen and still get burnt. Time to walk and squint and chew gum all at the same time.

We went to the public pool yesterday. Many kids. Like ours, the kids move from one part of the pool to the other, like flipper looking for trouble. You can't keep up. In a way you don't have to.

Everything is blue. The deepest part of the pool is 3 feet. Nobody is trying to hurt themselves or anyone else. The creepiest thing I encountered was a little boy in goggles who repeatedly swam between my legs. I had no idea who he was. Then some other kid, who apparently did not know the first one, joined the between-the-legs game. I was just another obstacle for their underwater entertainment.

After two hours, we were all sunburned and fried. Our bodies felt like we'd been doing Yoga for several generations. Our daughter was so tired she couldn't nap, and so she spent the afternoon cutting pictures of flowers out of catalogues along with her friend from next door.

Some other friends dropped by. We ate Chinese food leftovers from the fridge -- cold, straight out of the carton. Then we dug into the chips and salsa and wine and beer. By 9:00 PM the sun was an orange glow at the ridge of the foothills. I was still feeling like that kid, looking for something challenging to swim under, just to make it to the other side.

How Many Deceptions Equal the Truth: this Administration has Lost All Credibility

The most recent "reversal" of information coming from the Bush administration is that, yes, after all, John Bolton did make an inaccurate claim in response to questions regarding his confirmation as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Yahoo reports that it was left up to poor Scottie McClellan (again) to admit a previous lie [my word] delivered from the podium, a lie that, like the others, he likely was not aware of delivering for his masters [my word]:

McClellan spoke a day after the State Department reversed itself and acknowledged that Bolton had given Congress inaccurate information when he written [sic] that he had not been questioned or provided information to jury or government investigations in the past five years.

At first, the State Department had insisted Bolton's answer was truthful.

But it later acknowledged that Bolton had he [sic] failed to tell lawmakers that he had been interviewed as part of a State Department- CIA joint investigation on intelligence lapses that led to the Bush administration's pre- Iraq war claim that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger.

"When Mr. Bolton completed his form during the Senate confirmation process he did not recall being interviewed by the State Department inspector general. Therefore his form as submitted was inaccurate in this regard and he will correct the form," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.

I keep wondering how many of these reversals it will take before the critical mass of deceptions just tips the whole perception of the American public, and we all (and I mean all) just look at each other and say, "Yeah, they're crooks and liars. What're you gonna do?"

Bush Sleeps Well at Night

Above is an official White House photo of Bush watching the shuttle launch on TV. This image remains on the White House website, while news reports today inform us that the shuttle program is once again being suspended do to safety issues similar to those that resulted in the deaths of the crew in the shuttle's last mission.

On the White House website, these words from Bush still appear:

On behalf of all Americans, I wish the crew of the Space Shuttle Discovery a safe and successful mission. Today's launch marks NASA's return to flight following the tragic loss of the Space Shuttle Columbia crew in February 2003. I thank the men and women of NASA who have dedicated themselves to putting our space program back on track. Our space program is a source of great national pride, and this flight is an essential step toward our goal of continuing to lead the world in space science, human space flight, and space exploration.

Of course, his speech was made before foam debris fell from the craft at take-off. But, so far, I see no update on the words posted above.

For all we know, Bush is still unaware of what happened shortly after the shuttle cleared the launch pad.

And so business as usual continues at the White House...

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Oh, and the website also reminds us of his visionary words on January 14, 2004, when he commited the U. S. to a long-term program exploring the solar system, including sending a man to Mars.

I can't think of a better way to celebrate our space scientists' greatest achievements, and to distract us all from the long, bloody, useless military occupation that was foremost in his oil hungry, neo-con brain.

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Let's chew the fat about being disconnected. Speak to Fatspeak.

'Stonewall' Bush Models and Encourages Avoidance

The common sense question was asked from the start: If Bush wanted to know if Karl Rove had leaked information about a CIA operative, why didn't he just call him into his office and ask him?

That Bush did not -- or that he did and was lied to, only to accept the lie -- illustrates a method of avoidance that amounts to stonewalling. Bush has not taken the matter into hand. He has not called anyone of any circumstance onto the carpet and demanded that the American people be given the full story.

Now, the Abu Ghraib materials remain out of public view. The American people have not been given the full story, as the Bush administration -- i.e. Rumsfeld -- knows it.

I reported earlier that the government refused to release all the materials. Now, apparently it is unclear what the government refused to do. Apparently, they have not yet blacked out necessary portions of the materials in order to prepare them for release.

Still, the fact remains that we have not seen all the evidence. The horrifying images we have seen of Abu Ghraib, it is said, were not the worst of what happened. But we don't know all that happened because that information has not been released.

In the absence of this information -- photos, video tapes, audio tapes -- we are left to make up our own versions. One version is that boys and women were raped. It could be that those stories are fabrications. How are we to know?

Again, by avoiding a direct engagement with the problem -- for instance, processing and releasing the material immediately (it's been over a year since Darby turned over the evidence) -- the Bush administration is showing a pattern of avoidance. Why isn't the release of this material more important that destroying Social Security or making permanent tax breaks for the rich? Why didn't the administration tell us two years ago precisely how involved Rove, Libby, and others were in distributing information about a CIA agent the press?

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Witholding information seems unfair, doesn't it? When someone is talking to me and trying to get my opinion on something and we disagree on certain points, there is nothing more disappointing than when my debate partner pulls out information he's been keeping to himself. I have to ask myself, why am I even in this conversation? The ground shifts every time I think I'm starting to understand.

This shifting story characterizes the whole run-up to the war -- and thus, the whole series of Bush actions taken in the wake of 9/11. We keep getting different claims of information -- weapons of mass destruction, mission accomplished, Iraq and 9/11, etc.

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How best to respond to such a pattern of avoidance? What strategies do you use to get the straight story? How do you operate in the absence of information? How do you read the codes so that you can guess at what the story really is?

Let's chew the fat. Speak to Fatspeak.

Soldiers are Professionals

I used to teach soldiers. I taught writing classes at the local Army base. One summer, I also taught at an Air Force base.

Everybody was very involved in their studies. I had some excellent writers in the class. About half were spouses of military. I really enjoyed the work.

I think of this now because our military is severely pressed into action and stretched beyond reasonable expectations. What does that do to the credibility of our armed forces?

The people back home clearly support the military, no matter how outlandish the Commander in Chief and his cronies get.

This is not the first time we have had a totally corrupt executive branch.

I hope everyone remembers that the Republican members of Congress and the Senate have backed this man without question. If they change their positions now, be aware: it is like a leopard changing his spots.

We have an election in November. Those who backed a corrupt President must take responsibility for their power -- and how they have squandered it.

We have respect for our military even if they do not.

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Let's chew the fat. Speak to Fatspeak. Click on "comments" (not the envelope).

Wondering about Bush Spin: Rove-gate, Prisoner Treatment, Abu Ghraib

In the upcoming week, I wonder if we can expect the following:

-- More comments from Rove's lawyer, explaining how it was reporters who told Rove, one of the highest placed officials in Washington, information about CIA operatives

-- An announcement of indictments -- or non-indictments -- from the special prosecutor in the leak case

-- A fight by McCain and others to insist on legislation that holds the U.S. responsible for proper treatment of detainees and other POWs

-- Outrage expressed over suppressed evidence of much more atrocious acts by guards at Abu Ghraib than were exposed last year

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If you can offer any credence to rumors that there exist in the Darby evidence recordings of boys being sodomized at Abu Ghraib, please send it along.

To be honest, such acts are beyond the scope of my comprehension. If evidence does exist, I feel a vague and elusive understanding of why it might be best not revealed. I find myself, as a father, keenly frightened of what it would mean to admit that a 21st century civilization would even be capable of such atrocities.

I am brushing up against the authenticity of the cliche: Maybe we don't want to know.

Are the stories of our lives best understood by what we leave out?

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Speak to Fatspeak. Comments link below.

Abu Ghraib Returns: Ends Justify Means Policies Continue to Haunt Bush Administration

Bush has effectively blocked release of the additional Darby photos of Abu Ghraib torture that were to be made available July 22 under the Freedom of Information Act.

The Daily Kos is tracking this story.

Along with Rove-gate, this news -- which, like Rove's leak, isn't news, is really just an exposure of information that many knew about -- appears strong enough to keep readers' focus.

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As weekend news, this story will take some time to develop. Directly related to the 11th hour super secret reasons for backing out of a court ordered release of the materials is Bush's threat to veto legislation that calls for investigation into methods used to interrogate prisoners.

White House Distractions and London Resolve

In contrast to the White House way to deal with terrorism -- take the world to war -- London is treating its transit bombing case as a police matter. Their police work has been swift, effective, and productive. After the 7/7 bombing, they had located the suspects' family homes within hours. Shortly after yesterday's bombs, they had collected enough evidence to identify suspects and later produce images of them. Today they shot a suspect in the Tube.

Their homeland security seems fast and domestic, while ours seems political and spread too thin.

For Karl Rove in 2003, apparently terrorism was something that urgently needed to be dealt with not at home but "over there." The CIA leak is about efforts to discredit a source that contradicted the Bush efforts to justify starting a war. Rove would not be in trouble if he had not become preoccupied with proving that Joseph Wilson was wrong about Africa.

Notice the focus here: For Rove, politics means making certain that people are frightened, rather than making sure people are safe. Because Bush had declared in a State of the Union address that Saddam Hussein had gone to Africa seeking materials for nuclear weapons, the White House had to expend great energy by its most powerful players -- Libby, Rove -- to discredit anyone who may tell a different story.

They still are expending energy as they try to mop up this messy game of smear.

In effect, the Bush policy has been to forsake homeland security so that we can send soldiers to Iraq. The CIA leak is such a critical story because it demonstrates how much attention the White House pays to guaranteeing its own PR, and not guaranteeing the interests and safety of citizens.

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My city's U.S. Postal Service is slow, as I suspect is most of California's. How is the mail in New Mexico?

The slow mail means I get magazines and journals after everyone else.

I only now am finding out how great the July 25 edition of the New Yorker is. Tobias Wolff's story, "Awaiting Orders," is the first instance of a gay military character I've seen appear in such a mainstream periodical. What's more, the story is classic Tobias Wolff in its wry and restrained look at basic human interactions. I love his take on families, his sense of timing, and a use of point-of-view that I think he can rightly call his own.

Seymour Hersh offers his usual top-notch reporting in "Get Out the Vote: Did Washington Campaign in Iraq's Election?" Hersh has an uncanny ability to find sources who are very inside and willing to open up. This story, about the State Department peddling of influence in Iraq's election, has already been discussed in the blogosphere and elsewhere.

William Finnegan's report on "The Terrorism Beat: The City's Defense Command Centers" paints a vivid portrait of the effort of the NYPD to monitor terrorism. Finnegan does a remarkable job of weaving in how the NYPD was on the scene to gather information in the wake of the 7/7 London bombings (the issue was released, of course, before yesterday's bombing), as well as at the Madrid bombs.

I was struck, in particular, by one case Finnegan discusses in which the NYPD followed a young Pakistani immigrant who recruited a teen-ager from Staten Island for a plan to bomb the subway station at 34th St. and Herald Square. The police found no evidence that the two had any connection with any other organization. They were, "Lone wolves...Homegrown, but inspired globally."

Certainly many wannabe bombers have no connection to any organization or state. Such examples illustrate again the weaknesses in Bush arguments that fighting terrorism is best done in Iraq.

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Let's chew the fat. Tell me what you read and what you know. Click on "comments" below and post away.

London's Return Call

More bombings in London -- I found out when I turned on the TV so our daughter could watch Dragon Tales.

Tony Blair was saying no one was killed, but clearly someone could have been killed.

Four bombs, just like before. I would say it sounds like a copycat. It sounds like people are jonesin' for bombs or any other way to make a mark. It's fairly common after a high profile mass killing for the lunatic in the wannabe's to get triggered.

I couldn't watch for more than a few seconds. Our daughter was sitting right there. All she knew was someone was talking; it was the news stuff that Daddy likes.

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The news stuff that Daddy likes: that's what it's come to, huh?

Watching the news makes me feel like I'm participating, even when I know I'm not. Yesterday, over 800 blogs posted comments about the SCOTUS nomination.

Are we all participating?

I think so.

Keep it up. But how do we avoid scaring the kids?

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Let's chew the fat. I'll tell you if you tell me.

Court Nom Will Fly -- Focus on Quagmire

Civilian deaths in Iraq now total nearly 25,000, according to a group in London called Iraq Body Count.

The NYT reports today on this latest stunning statistic:

The figures were compiled from more than 10,000 news media reports of civilian deaths. The deaths were painstakingly cross-referenced and reconfirmed across various news media, researchers said. They asserted that the results offered the first full picture of the civilian death toll in the country, down to the number of deaths caused by various weapons.

Only the least responsible would call reporting on this data a partisan attack (and Republicans are all so giddy over the slam dunk SCOTUS nom and the attention being taken off of Rove they don't even care about partisan attacks anyway).

I am most interested in the following observation:

Children were disproportionately affected by explosive devices, most severely by airstrikes and unexploded ordnance like cluster bombs.

Notable is the 37.3 percent of civilian deaths that came from American fire. Insurgent attacks accounted for 9.5 percent, and terrorist attacks accounted for 11.0 percent.

Almost 35.9 percent was a result of the crime wave that has hit Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

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Can someone write and tell us: How does this rate of civilian death compare with civilian death under Saddam Hussein?

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I wonder how long the Supreme Court nomination will distract from the quagmire. Or the Rovemire. Probably pretty long.

My hope? That the Democrats don’t put up a showy resistance to Roberts just for the drama of it. I sense that he will go through pretty readily, unless some very stinky skeleton emerges from his closet.

If we go through a long, symbolic fight over the SCOTUS nom, we will simply be distracting from the problems in the Bush administration.

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I rode my bike all the way to Palo Alto today. It's a suburban town about half way between San Francisco and San Jose, plugged into the heart of Silicon Valley. I read in the local paper, the San Jose Mercury News, that the median price for a house in the Valley is now $750,000. Mind blowing.

I must admit the streets were pretty. The bike lanes were excellent. The houses were elegant.

But I got that same feeling I always get in suburbs: what is driving this place? What purpose does this community see in life? What winds people up in the morning?

I understand that Palo Alto is generally a liberal community. It's home to Stanford, so there are a lot of brains there. I know that much. But $750,000 for a house? Can anybody explain that one?

With that much concern about money, how could you think about anything else? Like the civilians killed in Iraq? Like the next generation of Americans who have to live with the country Bush is shaping for them: in debt, regulated by civil rights-crushing laws, steeped in toxic residue from irresponsible industry.

I felt guilty being on my bike. Who can relax now? Who can exercise?

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I still feel something in the pit of my stomach. What can a citizen do right now to get that feeling out of their stomach? Fatspeak wonders: what are the top five things citizens can do right now to make themselves better inside?

Post your list in the comments section below.

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Let's chew the fat. Let me know what you know.

Bush Decisions -- the Next Generation

Bush appears more on guard than usual. He is not comfortable answering direct questions. Perhaps the Rove thing has shaken him up. If it hasn't, well, Bush is unreal. Which could be the case.

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Bush's decision to share nuke knowledge with India, even for domestic use, is pretty radical. His actions remain unwise, although his cocky demeanor seems shaken. Or maybe that shaken part is my imaginination.

Humiliation rolls off his back like Texas sweat. When Bush is revealed as wrong, he seems to interpret such criticism to mean that he's misunderstood, not delusional and dangerous.

The world political situation, especially in the neighborhood of Pakistan (in heated disputes with India for generations), is already unstable enough. Just what we need now: to reverse decades of U.S. policy of not giving nukes to countries who refuse to be monitored.

India has not signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

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I do not know the person in the photo. I just like the picture.

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The new standard of Presidential ethics: if someone in your employ is found guilty of a crime, then you should fire them. If someone's lawyer has told the world that his client did something very close to a crime, ignore it, and let a bunch of other people figure it out.

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My daughter is well now. Her stomach virus lasted only a couple of days. Now my wife and I are both sick to our stomachs.

Wait, we've felt that way for years.

Sometimes you just have that bad feeling in the pit of your stomach.

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Get it off your chest. Chew the fat. Tell the world what you know: speak to Fatspeak.

Click on "comments" and register a complaint.

Rove will Unravel -- Time to Move on to New Ideas

WHEN I REALIZED YESTERDAY HOW MUCH I WAS REPEATING MYSELF, I knew it was time to back off from SecretAgentgate, AKA Rove-out.

In fact, my daughter was sick with a stomach virus this weekend, and I had written a whole entry on that before I knee-jerked it back to Rove. Rove is good stuff. Rove seems souless and overly jolly. Rove got Bush into the White House. We like to imagine that Rove may suffer.

Problem is, he will not suffer -- not over a making an all-star political move. Just because he was caught two years later (two years, BTW, marks a successful stonewall), he will weep no tears over executing a political strategy that included outing a secret agent to help start a war under false pretenses and then riding the fear into a presidential re-election while the country reluctantly kept the commander-in-chief on board.

As fascinating as it is to speculate on Rove (truth be told, I'm addicted at this point), the horrors of the Bush administration go far beyond a single slimy act by a man who, apparently, contains multitudes -- of slimy acts (apologies Walt Whitman).

Hillary Rosen suggests a new direction in her posting today on HuffPost. She is recently back from vacation, and apparently the Rove burnout that some of us are feeling smacked her right in the face upon her return.

She suggests that we engage the country in thinking about our kids and what Bush is doing to them.

I say, excellent idea.

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Addict's speculation: Maybe Ari Fleischer is more likely to be indicted than Scooter Libby. Scooter is Cheney's guy. Ari checked out and left it to Scottie -- which suggests that Ari was in trouble.

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Stop me before I speculate again.



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Tired of hearing the fat cats say we should leave no child behind (only to watch them kick them while they're down)?

Engage in Fatspeak. Let's chew the fat. Click on "comments" and post an idea.

White House Credibility, Not Wilson's, at Issue

As I suggested yesterday, the position that John Tierney so reasonably argues in the NYT is really not so reasonable. Like others, Tierney points out that Joseph Wilson was bending the truth when he said to reporters things like that his mission to Niger was initiated by the Vice President. Well, that's a lame thing to claim if it isn't true. But Joseph Wilson's lameness is really not the issue here.

An analysis by Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen in today's Washinton Post reviews the timeline of the Wilson work in Niger and casts this timeline against the political challenges unfolding for the Bush administration at the same time, events that included a serious credibility problem with their trumped-up charge of Saddam Hussein's pursuit of nuclear weapons of mass destruction.

What is at issue now is a White House political operative -- Karl Rove -- who systematically smeared a CIA intelligence source working on gathering information about weapons of mass destruction -- Wilson. In smearing Wilson to discredit information that undermined Bush's trumped up charges against Saddam Hussein, Rove exposed a covert CIA operative, Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame.

The special prosecutor is not pursuing this case because Wilson is lame; he is pursuing it because it is illegal to expose covert CIA operatives. In fact, exposing agents seriously damages national security. The leaks that Rove and others in the White House strategically engineered are evidence of an administration that operates on all levels using the most suspect and dangerous of rationales: the ends justify the means.

Here's another example of the Bush administration using "ends justify means" rationale: to justify going to war it lied and told the American people that there was evidence that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, and then later said that fighting in Iraq was a way to spread democracy and freedom to the Middle East. The means -- deceptive information and shifting reasons -- are meant to lead to an end which includes a democratized Iraq. And flowers in the streets. And grateful men, women, and children. And George Bush as the visionary maverick who led the world to drink at the bountiful waters of democracy -- and maybe even Christianity, if it works out that way.

In fact, it is the administration's credibility that is at issue here, not Joseph Wilson's.

And as calmer heads prevail, and we discover more information that supports claims on both sides of the issue, the picture that is developing continues to reinforce the sense that the Bush administration has been operating under some dangerously corrupt assumptions for quite some time. The White House policy of justifying questionable political practices by pointing to a future in which results will justify the means is now exposed through the example of Karl Rove, a man who clearly was deceptive and who likely will have to resign. He will have to resign in order to save Bush from further embarrassment and to save his own politically dark strategies from further exposure to the light of a now assertive mainstream press.

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As I said in my July 11 post, I believe it is a second source, not Rove, who the special prosecutor is going after.

On today's Meet the Press, Matt Cooper identifies Scooter Libby as a second source.

I do not know if Libby is the target of the investigation, but I am speculating that he may be. Call it a hunch, but I think it is more likely that he will be indicted than will Rove.

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Tired of the fat cats doing all the talking? Engage in Fatspeak.

Let's chew the fat. Click on "comments" below, and post a thought.

Yoga, Meet the Press, Rove Apologists

Apparently one of my favorite political writers and analysts, Arianna Huffington, does Yoga as she watches Tim Russert on Meet the Press.

To me, this sounds like a busy mother and professional writer practicing some excellent time management.

To others, it may appear to be an example of the underlying sexual tension that informs American politics.

I like both interpretations.

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In today's NYT, John Tierney argues for one rather apologetic way of looking at Karl Rove's exposure of a secret CIA operative. He claims that much is being made about nothing. Tierney discredits Joseph Wilson and discounts how undercover Valerie Plame really was; however, as Tierney himself must know, his is a very limited way of looking at the broader issues at stake.

I question why he focuses mainly on the targets -- Wilson, Plame -- of Rove's leak in order to clarify its significance. Focusing on the targets of the smear instead of the person who is doing the smearing (a person who is far more powerful than they) is a misplaced focus.

Even if Rove's outing of Plame was not illegal -- and it probably wasn't -- and even if news of such action means "nada" (Tierney's characterization) to most readers, who is to judge in retrospect whether or not discussing a CIA operative with a reporter would endanger her or her associates?

Rove behaved irresponsibly as he worked to discredit a political liability.

If we were focusing only on the legality of Rove's actions -- as the White House is doing by refusing to discuss anything about Rove because, they claim, such discussion would be in reference to an ongoing criminal investigation -- then Tierney's insights on the legality would start to resolve the issue. But this story remains alive because it is outrageous that such dangerous handling of information, back stabbing, and deception -- even when discovered by a special prosecutor -- are discounted by powerful White House political operatives and their representatives.

We deserve a higher ethical standard in play in the White House, and this story is nada only if we accept that Rove's behavior and the ensuing obfuscation of it are ethical.

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Partial listing of Fatspeak Weekend Talking Points

-- Rove Engaged in Political Behavior that Outed a Covert Operative
-- Bush Is Either Unaware that Rove Engages in Such Behvior OR
-- Rove Lied to Bush OR
-- Bush Doesn't Care if Rove Acts Like This OR
-- Bush is Engaged in a Cover-Up for Rove

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Let's Chew The Fat; Let Me Know What You Know

Rove Recipient of Calmer Heads

I'm already nostalgic for the days when bloggers were screaming at the world to notice that Karl Rove had threatened national security by outing a secret agent. Now that everybody knows it -- and Republicans have already compiled their sleight-of-hand talking points to distract from the truth -- we are in the "calmer heads will prevail" period of looking at the story.

The Washington Post ran an editorial today that will quickly be selectively cannibalized by Republicans and run up flagpoles all over D.C. throughout the afternoon. The editorial goes a far way in discounting some of Joseph Wilson's credibility while at the same time retelling the simple truth that Karl Rove did, um, actually reveal the identity of a secret agent to a reporter. It is a sort of summary statement on the whole Karl-the-back-stabber affair that lands gently on the doorstep on Friday morning to assure us all that the weekend will survive the winds of Washington politics.

Of course, it is a very intelligent take on things, but it just lacks the energizing outrage of a good blogspeak.

Frightened to Feel Human

[The image above, taken from today's New York Times, is of a suspect in last week's bomb attacks in London, caught on video as he entered the Tube carrying a backpack.]


I KEEP THINKING about the suspected suicide bombers' parents, and I am frightened by my feelings for the pain they must be going through.

Or maybe frightened is the wrong word. Confused?

It's confusing to think that several families over in the suburbs in England are gnashing their teeth trying to figure out where they went wrong. Not only have they lost their sons -- is it trite to bring up the "losing a child is the worst loss" truism? -- they also must review what led up to the loss. They must consider whether or not they had anything to do with directing their sons toward their alleged brutal acts.

If I were one of those parents, I would still be waiting for my son to show up at the front door and say, "You won't believe how lost I got last Wednesday night."

I would go on waiting for a long time. Better that than other options.

And that pain is connected to the fear/confusion I'm feeling when I realize I have empathy for those parents. Are the parents of my enemies my enemies?

I do not, for instance, consider George H. W. Bush my enemy (nor his son, to be fully honest; a person who is making a lot of dumb mistakes is not necessarily my enemy).

I do not consider Karl Rove's parents my enemies (how do you suppose they feel about all this?).

But I do empathize with these British boys' parents.

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Am I a traitor?
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Let's chew the fat. Let me know what you know. And vice versa.

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Rove Update: Toast
(see archive for previous comments on the Rover)

A Soldier, a Suicide Bomber, a Rove

A 23-year-old U.S. woman stationed in Iraq, a 22-year-old British suicide bomber in London, a powerful Karl Rove revealing the name of a covert CIA operative to a reporter in Washington D.C. -- these people are all wrapped up together in a very messy historical moment right now.

You know about Rove. Unless the Democrats get snobbish and try to overly explain the obvious (he's a two-bit back-stabber), Rove has already set in place his own demise, along with the lame duckness of his fair lady. Rove wanted to use Bush to change the world, and now his mastermind techniques are being shown the light of front page news.

We know little about the young man in London. It is only a theory -- but a very reasonable one -- that Shehzad Tanweer, from the northern city of Leeds, is one of the main figures in the tragic bombings last week. Why he signed on remains unclear. His friends and relatives say he was not political. But it is easy for a young man to want to change the world, and now maybe he has masterminded terror.

You've probably never heard of the U.S. soldier in Iraq (pictured in her collage above). Lainey Poche hosts an excellent website in which she shows what her life is like in Iraq. I don't know her. She tells her readers that she is stationed in Iraq with the Army National Guard out of Louisiana, HHC 256 Inf Bde. She has formed a community with her fellow Guards, and she shows the world over a thousand photographs of her life in Iraq and at home.

Had Karl Rove listened to experts like Joseph Wilson, instead of treating him as a political liability and thus outing his wife's secret identity to hurt him, we may not have gone to war in Iraq. Therefore, Lainey -- who obviously has many friends and family who miss her dearly -- would not be spending time with a gun and a flak jacket in Iraq. And an impressionable young British man would not have been made extraordinarily aware of, and fatally obsessed with, westerners who were attacking the homeland of his newly awakened belief.

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Some readers may have mistaken this site for a diet site. Sorry. That makes sense to me, though. "Fat," etc. But here the diet consists of the human side of politics, family life, and topics that you might want to bite into.

If you came here looking for diet tips and you found some off-the-cuff remarks about world politics, my bad.

Let's chew the fat. Let me know what you know.

McClellan Will Crack, Resign, or Both

Scott McClellan is taking such a beating from the press for claiming two years ago that Karl Rove "assured me [he was] not involved in this" that Mclellan will likely go to his superiors and beg that he be allowed to say something, anything, revelatory about this case. Out of fairness, Rove owes it to McClellan for setting him up.

It is unlikely, however, that Rove is thinking anything at all about fairness.

I would love it if McClellan suddenly went dramatic on us and told everybody what he knows. That also is unlikely.

If McClellan does have a conscience, he will resign, and then he will start to spill what he knows -- based on the advice of his lawyer.

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Of course, the blogosphere has been aware of this story for weeks, and only now is the press checking in. It is, in any case, exciting to watch how the press folds itself into the information bloggers have been exchanging. The blog info is all there, ready for the media to take it out to the wider audience.

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The drama of this even has my wife interested in the news again. As I revealed a few posts back, she has avoided news since 9/11. Our daughter was born shortly after that, and, at the time, the news just seemed like bringing poison into the house. Now that we are on the other side of the big run-up to war -- a plan well under way, with Rove's strategies driving the plan, long before 9/11 -- watching the follies of Rove finally come under fire is less like poison and more like reading the funny papers.

Heard any good jokes?

Let's chew the fat. Let me know what you know.

Rove Identified, but It's Second Source Fitzgerald is After

While the Newsweek article now makes clear that Karl Rove identified Joseph Wilson's wife as a CIA agent, that in itself is not a crime. The crime is to name a covert operative. Therefore, after Rove, in his perfect Rovean way, tipped off Cooper, it must have been a second source that more explicity identified Plame as a covert agent. Only by cross referencing Rove with a second source could an ethical reporter publish an exposition of Plame.

If Rove, or anyone else in the White House, was in the habit of letting it slip to reporters that Wilson's wife worked at "the agency," the logical next step would have that reporter find out what she does at the CIA.

A reporter would immediately call the agency and ask, "What does Valerie Plame [or Mrs. Joseph Wilson, or whatever] do there?"

Since Plame was undercover at the time, they would say, "No one named Valerie Plame [or married name] works here."

Now that reporter has something.

Karl Rove, White House official, says she does work at the CIA. The agency says she does not. What does that mean? She is undercover. It is simple math.

Therefore, Patrick Fitzgerald -- the Special Prosecutor assigned to investigate the White House leak that outed Valerie Plame -- is not going after Rove. He is going after the source that confirmed that Plame was a covert agent for the CIA. Rove tipped Cooper (and perhaps others) off, setting them on the trail. The source along the trail, the second source, is who Fitzgerald is trying to nail.

And yes, of course, Rove knew that his tiny tip off, thrown in unsolicited at the end of a longer conversation with Cooper about something else, would send a reporter on a quick trail to find out what Valeria Plame did. That is why the story quickly became, in Cooper's words, "double super secret," according to Newsweek.

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As I said before (see Fat Speak posting from July 6, 2005), it is only a matter of time before Scott McClellan opens up and tells us what he really knows. Rove set McClellan up on October 10, 2003. And today, McClellan took a beating because of it.

You can just tell from the transcript that McClellan is itching to come clean.

Despite very direct and persistent questioning in today's briefing, McClellan would not talk about Rove and the case. But McClellan did say the following:

Now, I remember very well what was previously said. And, at some point, I will be glad to talk about it, but not until after the investigation is complete.

So, "at some point" McClellan "will be glad to talk about it."

I can hardly wait.

What about you?

Let's chew the fat; let me know what you know.

London's Smoke and Terrors; Bush's Smoke and Mirrors

Who's surprised that Bush used the bombs in London to promote more war on terror?

He's fond of saying that the war on terror is being fought on the front lines in Iraq.

How far is Baghdad from London? What constitutes a front line?

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Like Sarah Vowell in today’s NYT, when people get blown up I think about the people I love. She points out that when it’s not people we love who are being blown up, it’s people that other people love.

When people get blown up, I also think about whether Homeland Insecurity is doing anything to help anybody I love. I don’t think about giving George Bush more money to blow up people in a land far, far away. People that other people love.

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My wife refuses to follow the news anymore. When planes hit buildings on 9/11/01, her first thought was, “Is this my fault?”

Bush has been yanking our “Is this my fault?” funny bones ever since. Feeling guilty is a form of paralysis. If somebody – no matter how goonish – stands up and tells us what to do, we’re all too amazed to object. He’s actually talking and making decisions? Oooh, let’s follow him.

I don't know about others, but I 'm feeling pretty guilty about London. I look at myself and my family, and I think we are very lucky. But all the smoke and the missing people of London -- I wish I could do something.

Out of the smoke, Bush swoops on the guilt.

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There’s a reason they call it smoke and mirrors when somebody is trying to trick you.

Where there’s smoke, there’s terror. And where there’s mirrors, there’s – um, terror.



Chew the fat. Don't eschew the fat. Let us know what you know.

"Terror War" Combatants Violate Rules, Play Outside of Iraq

Summer is here -- and with it come the bombs.

As HuffPo and others have noted, with the bombing of London, Bush's motto -- Let's fight the terrorists over there in some hell hole, so we don't have to fight them at home in God's chosen land (or something) -- has again been proven to make no sense. Bombs in Madrid one year, London the next. Shall we avoid Copenhagen next autumn?

Apparently, the people of London drank a few extra pints and went on. As sane a response as any. All along, that city has protested passionately against the war. It has done its part to show the world where it stands. It is not now grandstanding about victimhood. London is used to terrorism and war and mad dogs. London goes on.

While I feel safe here near the bay, and I trust my daughter is safe at her day camp, and I know that my wife will kick anybody's ass that threatens any of us, I can't help feeling that I am missing something very important. I'm forgetting something. I am disconnected. Call it a "Defense MechaBushism."

Meanwhile, I have not yet read a connection between the bombs and Karl Rove's little inconvenience. Fire, bombs, racist bombshells -- diversions have an uncanny way of materializing just when Karl needs them. Of course, in this case, no such connection exists. None.

The Bush crowd makes a point of staying disconnected.

Let's chew the fat on it; let me know what you know.

London Calling: But Will It Distract from Rove?

The explosions on public transit in London are part of a global tragedy. Well-organized groups continue to attack civilians, killing and injuring dozens. Our post-traumatic stress (read 9/11) nerves are activiated.

The explosions take attention away from an all-star line-up of current events: the G-8 meeting, spiking awareness of poverty in the African continent, Karl Rove's connection to an ongoing investigation of the illegal exposure of a CIA operative.

Of course this tragedy will distract us from Rove -- as it well should. The residents of Washington D.C. certainly are on alert. Our current Homeland Guy (who is it now?) has upped the color nationwide. London is calling and the world is watching.

What is valuable about blogs and reporters who keep their beats is the ability to stay focused and stay with a story. I am so glad that people will keep chewing the fat on Rove and others who are threatening are national security with policy that distances us from reality and follows ideology uninformed by practical politics.

Please keep chewing the fat: we want to know what you know.

Let Us Read

The shiny forehead. The subtle golf course sunburn. The well-fed twinkle behind the wire rims. The smile expressed in the shadows of the jowls and the dimpled chin.

Karl Rove is happy.

Scoreboard:

Judith Miller goes to jail for keeping her sources confidential. Indeed, some believe this is karmic justice; nevertheless, a writer is in jail, and I sympathize.

Matthew Cooper's source apparently contacted him and let him know that he could reveal his/her name. Karl, can you hear me? Contact everyone, and let them know what happened. You'll feel better.

Robert Novak keeps on writing as if nothing is happening.

Oh, and let's not forget Valerie Plame, whose distinguished and significant work with the CIA helped check the proliferation of weapons, is now outed and so can no longer do the covert work that, in part, made her so valuable.

Karl Rove has us all talking to each other. We are outraged that two writers have been put through the ringer, and we suspect Rove had something to do with the predicament they find themselves in. Who knows, maybe even Scott McClellan will go public with Rove's deception, seeing as Rove may have set Scotty up by telling him that he did not talk to Cooper, when, in fact, he had.

McClellan had trouble when he was asked directly if anyone in the White House told any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA.

David Corn, summarizes it this way:

On October 10, 2003, White House press secretary Scott McClellan was asked if Rove and two other White House aides had ever discussed Valerie Plame with reporters. McClellan said he had spoken to Rove and the others and that they had "assured me they were not involved in this."

Therefore, Corn and others have raised the question: if Rove was "not involved" how is it that he spoke with Cooper previous to the outing of Plame? Did McClellan know Rove had spoken to Cooper? I am not trying to go Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc on you, but the questions may be asked, and are being asked: How involved is "involved"? Or, as Lawrence O'Donnell keeps asking, how knowlingly is "knowlingly"?

Mr. Rove and his machinations have everybody talking.

And, at Fat Speak, everybody talking is a good thing.

As a matter of fact, that's what Fat Speak is all about -- getting people to pipe up in fat voices that sound through the corridors and connect us together.

Karl Rove has got us talking. Problem is, no one is sure what else he is doing.

Let's chew the fat: Let me know what you know.

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