No headline can do this justice
Montana officially goes to Tester! Best the R’s can hope for is a tie but Webb has more votes in VA so!
AND . . . . . .
We are now officially authorized to do the happy dance!
November 8th, 2006 by Glenden Brown 
Glenden Brown
November 8th, 2006 at 1:03 pm
While Democrats are dancing in the streets they are joined by all the Jihad boys in the Middle East. I’m sure there is a whide smile on Osama Bin Ladens face today as well. Like they say you can judge a person by the company they keep.
November 8th, 2006 at 1:21 pm
And your point is, Ken?
Golly gee, what are Repugs going to do when Rove fades into the sunset and they have to start thinking for themselves, rather than spouting simple-minded Rovian rhetoric?
November 8th, 2006 at 1:38 pm
Ken– this is all Osama’s fault. Why didn’t he deliver a last-minute pre-election video to help the GOP like in 2004? Bush and his party have made use of terror for political gain as much as any nominal terrorist group.
November 8th, 2006 at 1:57 pm
Yo Ken,
I seem to recall a photo of Rummy chummin’ it up with Saddam circa 1983. Is that the kind of company to which you refer?
Or how’s about all those religio-nuts that mingled with Ted Haggard every week, guess they’re all meth users, huh?
And by the way, looks like Chimpus is going to be spendin’ losts of quality time with Dems over the next few years - good company, indeed.
The party is over, Ken! LOL LOL LOL!!!!!!! Your boys in Washington betrayed you, and if you had an ounce of respect for yourself, you would be mad as hell, rather than taking cheap sorry-ass pot shots at the WINNERS OF CONGRESS!!!!!!!!
November 8th, 2006 at 2:02 pm
Ken - I believe Rumsfeld’s departure is a good thing for US policy and security. He’s been a terrible SecDef. He has dictated to the military brass, he has run the Pentagon like his private fiefdom and it has immeasurably harmed the military. In the run up to the invasion of Iraq, when military leaders were asking for a much larger force, Rumsfeld overruled them and sent them in with enough soldiers to win the initial fighting but far too few for the occupation. Rumsfeld has been so instrumental in crafting the current policy that has landed our troops in the crosshairs of someone else’s civil war that he would not have been able to make changes to save American lives.
The Republican congress completely abandoned its duties as a co-equal branch of government and had become a rubber stamp for the Bush Administration’s policies - which have landed Americans troops in the crosshairs for someone else’s civil war. A change in parties should take us a long way toward the kind of vigorous public debate that will enrich and strengthen our democracy - the kind of public debate we have not had in the US since 2001.
I believe we will be better off - safer, more secure, more successful in confronting not just specific groups such as Al Qaeda, but the underlying causes that lead so many Muslims to embrace jihad as their form of political involvement.
November 8th, 2006 at 2:14 pm
Ken, we’re part of the company YOU keep. While we have been receptive to your tired crap, it has been my hope that you would pull your head out of your ass and begin to see that the bush crime family does not have our democracys best interest in mind. Or maybe their mostly stupid, and cruel. We had hopes for YOU. But there is a limit. Would you like your new moniker to be ‘commie-fag’? The company you keep…shees’. Keep your eyes open for another planet, K?
November 8th, 2006 at 2:16 pm
Maybe they’re mostly stupid. Sorry
November 8th, 2006 at 4:06 pm
Did you see Ken Melman on the talking heads this a.m talking about islamofacists. It was pretty funny … guess you had to see it.
November 8th, 2006 at 4:32 pm
Verily, I command, let the “Chimpeachment” begin!
November 8th, 2006 at 5:15 pm
“Chimpeachment”. That’s pretty funny. I wonder if the media will use your newly coined term.
November 8th, 2006 at 5:26 pm
In view of the fact that Robert Gates is being considered as Rumsfeld’s successor, I thought I would share this that came across my desk from a friend:
From John Gideon:
http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1991_cr/s911107-gates.htm
CONGRESSIONAL RECORD
GATES NOMINATION (Senate - November 07, 1991)
[Page: S16305]
Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the nomination of Robert Gates to be Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Mr. President, at the outset of the confirmation hearings, I had serious reservations about the nominee. The confirmation hearings only raised more questions and greater doubts. Questions and doubts about Mr. Gates’ past activities, managerial style, judgment, lapses in memory and analytical abilities. Questions and doubts about his role in the Iran-Contra Affair and in providing military intelligence to Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war; and questions and doubts about whether he will be able to remove the ideological blinders reflected in his writings and speeches or whether Mr. Gates is so rooted in the past, that he will not be able to lead the Agency into the post-cold war era. Because of these concerns, I have concluded that Mr. Gates is not the right person for the important job of overseeing our intelligence operations in this New World.
Mr. President, Robert Gates is a career Soviet analyst and former Deputy Director of the CIA who was wrong about what CIA analyst Harold Ford described as `the central analytic target of the past few years: the probable fortunes of the USSR and the Soviet European bloc.’ And I believe that the committee report points out one possible reason why the CIA failed to predict the collapse of the Soviet Union. According to testimony, Mr. Gates was busy pursuing hypotheses and making unsubstantiated arguments attempting to show Soviet expansion in the Third World, instead of looking for or paying attention to facts that pointed in the opposite direction. Why? Why, as Mentor Moynihan has pointed out, was the CIA able to tell Presidents everything about the Soviet Union except the fact that it was falling apart?
Mr. Gates was also wrong about the Soviet threat to Iran in 1985. The 1985 Special National Intelligence Estimate on Iran stressed possible Soviet inroads into Iran. Gates admits that the analysis was an anomaly. It was a clear departure from previous analyses and almost immediately proven wrong by subsequent events. Gates was involved in preparing that analysis. According to Hal Ford, whose testimony the nominee never refuted, Gates leaned heavily on the Iran Estimate, in effect, `insisting on his own views and discouraging dissent.’ What was the result? The 1985 estimate was skewed and contributed to the biggest foreign policy debacle of the Reagan administration, the sale of arms to Iran.
Mr. President, Graham Fuller, the CIA’s National Intelligence Officer for the Near East, suggested that the 1985 SNIE estimate was based on intuition in the absence of hard evidence. I agree there is nothing wrong with preparing worse case scenarios or using `intuition’ as opposed to hard evidence in the preparation of analysis, provided it is made clear to policymakers that the finished analysis is based on intuition and not hard evidence. It is the job of the CIA to sort out fact from fiction, not convert one into the other.
Mr. President, I also have doubts and questions about Mr. Gates’ role in the secret intelligence sharing operation with Iraq. Robert Gates served as assistant to the Director of the CIA in 1981 and as Deputy Director for Intelligence for 1982 to 1986. In that capacity he helped develop options in dealing with the Iran-Iraq war, which eventually involved into a secret intelligence liaison relationship with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Gates was in charge of the directorate that prepared the intelligence information that was passed on to Iraq. He testified that he was also an active participant in the operation during 1986. The secret intelligence sharing operation with Iraq was not only a highly questionable and possibly illegal operation, but also may have jeopardized American lives and our national interests. The photo reconnaissance, highly sensitive electronic eavesdropping and narrative texts provided to Saddam, may not only have helped him in Iraq’s war against Iran but also in the recent gulf war. Saddam Hussein may have discovered the value of underground land lines as opposed to radio communications after he was give our intelligence information. That made it more difficult for the allied coalition to get quick and accurate intelligence during the gulf war. Further, after
the Persian Gulf war, our intelligence community was surprised at the extent of Iraq’s nuclear program. One reason Saddam may have hidden his nuclear program so effectively from detection was because of his knowledge of our satellite photos. What also concerns me about that operation is that we spend millions of dollars keeping secrets from the Soviets and then we give it to Saddam who sells them to the Soviets. In short, the coddling of Saddam was a mistake of the first order.
Mr. President, I’ve stated a very simple case for rejecting the nomination of Robert Gates to be Director of the CIA. The fact that he was wrong on major issues which in some instances led to foreign policy debacles. I haven’t addressed concerns about the allegations of his politicization of intelligence analysis, his apparently poor managerial style or still unanswered questions about his role in the Iran-Contra affair. Regarding the Iran-Contra affair, I should mention that I was quite disturbed to hear testimony that portrayed Robert Gates as someone concerned about Agency’s role and not sufficiently concerned about pursuing possible illegal Government activities. In his opening statement before the Intelligence Committee, Mr. Gates said that he should have taken more seriously `the possibility of impropriety or possible wrongdoing in the Government and pursued this possibility more aggressively.’ I agree.
I should also mention, Mr. President, that aside from Mr. Gates’ poor judgment in not pursuing the possibility of Government wrongdoing more aggressively, I still find it incredible that the Deputy Director of CIA was not aware of that major covert operation. How could such a high ranking official not know about the CIA’s efforts to support the Contras? Did he purposely avoid trying to find out what was happening? The testimony seemed to indicate he did. Gates’ selective lapses in recall about the affair by a man with a photographic memory raises serious doubts.
The U.S. Congress and the American people depend on accurate and reliable intelligence information. Our expenditures on defense and other areas are often decided on the basis of that information. We cannot afford to waste billion of dollars in the future. After reviewing the record, I do not believe that the Central Intelligence Agency under the directorship of Robert Gates will provide the clear intelligence assessments necessary for Congress to make decisions to deal with the future threats confronting our nation.
Mr. President, I do not believe that Robert Gates is the right person to lead the CIA at this time. The cold war is over and it’s time for some of the old warriors to rest. Now we must take a fresh new look at the world, think new thoughts and reassess the future role of the intelligence community. I urge my colleagues to vote against Robert Gates.
November 8th, 2006 at 5:27 pm
Even if the Democrats do conduct their inquisition against the Administration, and even if they impeach Bush it takes 2/3 of the Senate to remove a President. The Senate will be nearly 50/50 whom ever side controls it. Unless you can get mass defections of Republicans, and that will be harder now that Lincoln Chaffee is gone, then Bush’s Presidency is safe.
To be honest I am not shedding a tear for Rumsfeld. I think he should have gone a while ago. We need someone new who can take a different view of the war in Iraq. We need to do what it takes to stabilize the region and then let Iraq take care of themselves. Until they can we must stay there or it will be Pol Pots killing fields all over again with vastly greater consequences for the world.
November 8th, 2006 at 6:42 pm
please my frends of america. Do not let joy of happiness cloud duty to those who have suffered so much in the land of the believing monotheists.
We hope you can investigation to this:
1. Who start this war? How originate? In Waziristan in the madrassa they tell us of the neocon group of shatan people. We hope you them all stoned at your local soccer stadium.
2. whence came from the false stories called as the faked WMD intel? To let these planters of disinformation escape would be unjust to the memory of your Dr. Benjamin Franklin. What nation statelet provide middle east intel to u.s.a. of america ? Nek Mohammed say israeli. Please let us know yuor true answer.
3. Is true neocon group are 99% jhovah witness church? Or maybe a different church but we are told they come from one group of evil doing persons. Please find this out and punish the guilty.
Please send navy seal team 7 to pakistan so that they may continue their torture technique on our traitor president mursharaff. In Urdu “musharaff” to mean eater of dung of white man.
Please also prepare registery of u.s.a. torturers so that these soul may receive treatment and medicine to cure their brains of these evil acts. What if they returned to your nation and became police or gym teachers. This is too dangerous in truth for amreika. Pls set up computer list and make have chips implanted in head so they can be tracked and treated.
November 8th, 2006 at 7:23 pm
Mullah Cimoc, if you’re for real, I applaud you. I would also like to introduce you to ‘Hurricane Anne’ and Ken ‘the nearly mindless republican mouth-breather’ Bingham. They’ll help you get your feet on the ground, here in the ‘new’ world. Buckle-up and hold on tight!
November 8th, 2006 at 7:51 pm
happy happy joy joy happy happy joy!
Now the Republicans will get to do what they’re best at — smearing people who actually know how to govern.
November 8th, 2006 at 8:46 pm
I see no reason for the resignation of Rumsfeld to be greeted with excitement. Rumsfeld is not the one who made the decision for us to invade Iraq under false pretenses. That came from his boss. He may have been eagerly complicit, but the fact remains that he was nothing more than an accessory to the crime. The buck stops at the president’s desk. Until “The Decider” is removed, there will be no meaningful change in policy. Any such resignations are merely smoke and mirrors.
November 8th, 2006 at 8:54 pm
I love the underhanded way conservatives make their smear tactics. They posit a connection between liberals and some boogieman with absolutely no evidence whatsoever (such as liberals and the Soviet Union in the McCarthy era, and between liberals and Al Qaeda now), and then disparage the liberals for that spurious connection. Anybody, ANYBODY, please give ONE datum that the “Jihad boys” are happy the Democrats won the election. ONE bit which is not based on supposition.
Spreading such untruth is unbecoming of those who want to stand for moral values.
November 8th, 2006 at 9:43 pm
Ken,
Wake the F*** up man!
Do you want to know who Al-Qaeda really is?
Follow this simple link:
http://www.pakistanidefence.com/Info/Intelligence.html
November 8th, 2006 at 10:01 pm
Nate,
We’ve been proding Ken to wake up for months, without success. Maybe the hammering Bushco just received will help. Let’s be kind and gentle, however, as the hangover Ken will experience when he does awake is going to be very, very painful.
November 9th, 2006 at 12:15 am
I see no reason for the resignation of Rumsfeld to be greeted with excitement.
Derek -
I see your point, but the fall of any one of those who most made this war possible is reason for at least a small celebration. It’s a bit of hope, you know.
Ruble