Bush is awful busy wrapping himself in the “leadership” he showed following 9/11, and doing his level best to make it look like his administration was caught flat-footed by the ineptness of the Clinton folks.

Trouble is, it’s just not true:

Richard Clarke was Director of Counter-Terrorism in the National Security Council [under Clinton]. He has since left. Clarke urgently tried to draw the attention of the Bush administration to the threat of al Qaeda. Richard Clarke was panicked about the alarms he was hearing regarding potential attacks. Clarke is at the center of what has since become a burning controversy: What happened on August 6, 2001? It was on this day that George W. Bush received his last, and one of the few, briefings on terrorism. According to reports, the briefing stated bluntly that Osama bin Laden intended to attack America soon, and contained the word “hijacking.” Bush responded to the warning by heading to Texas for a month-long vacation. It is this briefing that the Bush administration has refused to divulge to the committee investigating the attacks. There was not a single Republican member of Congress who ever raised a single question or put a query to the Clinton National Security Council about its efforts against terrorism before the attacks. When the Clinton team left office, their National Security group conducted three extensive briefings of the incoming Bush people. The attitude of the Bush people was, essentially, dismissive, that it was a “Clinton thing.” Condoleezza Rice has admitted that the massive file on al Qaeda and bin Laden left for her by outgoing National Security Advisor Sandy Berger went completely unread until the attacks had taken place. This happened despite the fact that Berger told her during one such briefing, “I believe that the Bush Administration will spend more time on terrorism generally, and on al-Qaeda specifically, than any other subject.”

Now, I’d like to see the source for the August 6 anecdote, but the balance — that the outgoing terrorism czar warned Bush’s people in January, and that warning went unheeded — isn’t even contested by Bush’s own administration. THAT is what Kerry should be saying to Rove’s ads about Bush’s 9/11 “leadership.”

(Via Tbogg.)

Many sources point us to this piece by Timothy Noah at Slate discussing the ongoing pattern of dogma over empiricism promulgated by this administration. If you think facts have a place in policymaking, you disagree with the folks in charge.

Fortunately, at least where “facts” and “Iraq” intersect, someone’s been keeping track of what they said.

MoveOn has a great little clip of Rummy lying his ass off, and then getting called on it.

According to newly-appointed Special Counsel Scott Bloch, gays and lesbians can now be fired from Federal jobs for their orientation.

This story — that a senior expert on Medicare was told he’d be fired if he released his cost estimates for the drug plan to Congress — is all over the Net, but as usual our friends over at Slacktivist have it well in hand.

That the religious right holds terrible sway over the GOP isn’t news. The extent of this influence, though, is pretty damn scary, so before you consider voting for one of these people, make sure you understand what they actually support, and what they think of notions like Constitutional privacy.

Anti-gay bigots love to quote Paul Cameron, a rather odd bird who nevertheless has some impressive hard-right credentials, not the least of which may be his expulsion from the American Psychological Association. Of course, he’s also infamous for this:

“Untrammeled homosexuality can take over and destroy a social system,” says Cameron. “If you isolate sexuality as something solely for one’s own personal amusement, and all you want is the most satisfying orgasm you can get- and that is what homosexuality seems to be-then homosexuality seems too powerful to resist. The evidence is that men do a better job on men and women on women, if all you are looking for is orgasm.” So powerful is the allure of gays, Cameron believes, that if society approves that gay people, more and more heterosexuals will be inexorably drawn into homosexuality. “I’m convinced that lesbians are particularly good seducers,” says Cameron. “People in homosexuality are incredibly evangelical,” he adds, sounding evangelical himself. “It’s pure sexuality. It’s almost like pure heroin. It’s such a rush. They are committed in almost a religious way. And they’ll take enormous risks, do anything.” He says that for married men and women, gay sex would be irresistible. “Martial sex tends toward the boring end,” he points out. “Generally, it doesn’t deliver the kind of sheer sexual pleasure that homosexual sex does” So, Cameron believes, within a few generations homosexuality would be come the dominant form of sexual behavior. Quote from Tbogg via Atrios

Er, right. That’s the ticket. Can you say “closet case?”