...the date of preference for an attack against Iran is in eight to 10 months - after the US presidential candidates for both the Democrats and the Republicans have been chosen, but before the major presidential campaign kicks off.

And do you know what the saddest, nastiest part of this is?

That it is so believable. So easily believable.

So in character. That these murderers would schedule an attack of this sort so that they could create the new reality of all new realities, the Reichstag fire to end all Reichstag fires.

When I see the complacent, calm, still basically unworried or undefeated mugs of insiders like Rove, Bush and Petraeus I KNOW that there is something of this sort in place.

I KNOW it.

Not the details. Just its existence.

Did you watch Petraeus during Obama's attempt to make even some timidly expressed political sense at those hearings?

Watch.

And weep for our country.

Petraeus has the look of a long-suffering school system supervisor who has to endure yet another tendentious and powerless lecture from a PTA President before he goes back to the office and continues to schedule exactly the same set of classes and tests that he was taught to schedule when he went to college.

LOOK AT HIS FACE!!! LOOK AT HIS MOUTH!!! Look at the way he "takes notes". He is not impressed. He is not even challenged or bothered.

I am telling you, I see military rule in the next major new reality that comes down the pike. He looks as if he cannot WAIT to get these weakling pols off of his back.

By any goddamned means necessary.

Did you know that Petraeus harbors Presidential aspirations?

Yup.

President Petraeus? Iraqi official recalls the day US general revealed ambition
By Patrick Cockburn
Published: 13 September 2007

The US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, expressed long-term interest in running for the US presidency when he was stationed in Baghdad, according to a senior Iraqi official who knew him at that time.

Sabah Khadim, then a senior adviser at Iraq's Interior Ministry, says General Petraeus discussed with him his ambition when the general was head of training and recruitment of the Iraqi army in 2004-05.

"I asked him if he was planning to run in 2008 and he said, 'No, that would be too soon'," Mr Khadim, who now lives in London, said.

General Petraeus has a reputation in the US Army for being a man of great ambition. If he succeeds in reversing America's apparent failure in Iraq, he would be a natural candidate for the White House in the presidential election in 2012.

A "man of great ambition?"

Hell, if he plays his cards right he won't even have to run.

And the Dimnocrats?

Doomed for stardom.

The second lead in this movie.

The good hearted loser who doesn't get it done.

Americans in general?

Replaceable extras in this movie, herded from set to set, costumed accordingly, given second rate catered food and overcrowded bathrooms and told to mutter "Peas and carrots, peas and carrots" over and over again in the background to simulate crowd thought.

America disgusts me these days.

It really does.

On a visceral level.

It makes me want to puke.

AG

Goodness had nothing to do with it, dearie.-Mae West

Where are the Senators? The Representatives? What's desperately needed right now is a near-unanimous statement of intent: "Nothing in the (authorization to attack Iraq) may be construed as an authorization to conduct pre-emptive attacks against any other sovereign nation without the constitutional advise and consent of the Congress."

Take back the government, and earn your salaries, ladies and gentlemen--NOW!

Michaela

Sounds like routinely poisonous neo-con spin to me: so those evil anonymous Germans are publicly blocking sanctions against Iran, but are privately pushing for bombardment. Laughable. Bottom line: now that the (reputedly, I personally doubt it's as simple as that) neo-con friendly Sarkozy and Kouchner run France's foreign policy, the neo-con PR people are smearing H. W. Steinmeier, who was Schröder's chief of staff and alter ego in the previous German government, and who is now foreign secretary. Yawn...

This is why impeachment was so necessary.  It looks like the horses are out of the barn now, though. Pilosi's taking it off the table was the beginning of the end as far as I was concerned, a blank check for Bush to do what he wanted.  I'm sure the champaigne corks were popping in Rove's office when she made that statement.

I'm afraid no one can ever beat the Right and the GOP at message discipline, and for that the Progressive Movement, Liberals and the Democratic Party will forever be taking the back seat.

No one in the Right Wing community would EVER think of calling one of their own a "shill" as BooMan did Matt Stoller, no matter how justified.  They just don't do it, and we do it at risk of our own demise.  Intelligent discourse confuses the general public, and that's one thing the Right knows how to avoid doing, even when they lie.

Too many of the A-List bloggers operate as though we actually have a functioning democracy and an operative Constitution in this country.  All the insightful diaries, essays and comments in the world aren't going to change the basic fact that money drives this process.  The blogs are important and necessary, but they're not sufficient.  Isolated protests aren't sufficient.  The election of a progressive here and there isn't sufficient.  
   There's been a radical revolution in this country and we know it but somehow think it can be reversed from within a system that is corrupted to the core and eventually corrupts whatever it touches.  If it weren't so sad it would be funny to watch people complain mightily about the lack of courage and commitment on the part of their elected representatives.  Perhaps, now that they're faced with the reality of the problem, they can recognize the options and make their choice:  Detached cynicism, more of the same (remember the definition of insanity) or "hit the streets."
   My money's on "detached cynicism".  It's easy and relatively painless. It also provides a ringside seat to watch the inevitable collapse. It's also an admission of defeat.

look at the source here...The Jerusalem Post and Faux News.

this is nothing more than a continuation of the same old AIPAC-NeoCon propaganda. scripted to follow right on the heels of Lieberman's BS from yesterday.

we might as well give up now and appoint Poderhertz, Kagin and Kristol to save us from the evil that is Iran by starting Normans' WW lV.

let's stop assuming a fetal position and frothing like pavlovian dogs every time they drag the carcass of Nixon's Madman Strategy out of the crypt, shall we.

there's only one way to end this, impeachment.

lTMF'sA

the revolution will not be televised...

Considering Israel has already attacked Syria, I'm betting the attacks may come before this summer.

Now, the good news is that we've been talking about Bush plotting to hit Iran for a couple of years now and various sane individuals have stopped him from doing so.  The bad news is that the rhetoric against Iran has reached an all time high as Iraq continues to fall apart at the seams.

If the Dems do not stop this now, and I mean now, the seventh anniversary of 9/11 we'll be talking about how we got lied into Iran, too.

More at Zandar vs. The Stupid.

You need to read the No Quarter blog by Larry Johnson.

Doubt it will be as long as next summer!