Palin Can't Name Any Man-Made Causes of Global Warming
Posted by Ben Armbruster, Think Progress on October 22, 2008 at 11:27 AM.

Shortly after Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) chose Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) as his running mate, Palin said she is not one to attribute global warming to being man-made. Since then, she has walked that statement back slightly, saying that indeed, man’s activities have contributed to climate change but adding the caveat that “weather patterns are cyclical.”

When asked to name some specific man-made causes of global warming yesterday during an interview with a local NBC affiliate in Las Vegas, Palin couldn’t name one, and instead reverted back to her new talking point that it doesn’t really matter:

Q: I’ve also heard you hint that you do think there might be some man-made causes that are contributing to this. Can you describe what those are?

PALIN: Right, well what I have said about this is really the debate at some point, had better shift to, no matter the cause, whether it all be attributed to man’s activities or just the natural cycle of climate changes in our earth’s history. We have seen this before.

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McCain and Palin Off Message in Response to North Korea Diplomacy
Posted by Ben Armbruster, Think Progress on October 13, 2008 at 7:18 AM.

Yesterday, the Bush administration announced that the United States was removing North Korea from the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism. The decision was made after North Korea "agreed to resume disabling a plutonium plant and to allow some inspections to verify that it had halted its nuclear program."

The administration’s move quickly split the McCain-Palin ticket. John McCain issued a preemptive statement on Friday expressing his displeasure with the agreement:

I have previously said that I would not support the easing of sanctions North Korea unless the United States is able to fully verify the nuclear declaration Pyongyang submitted on June 26. […] I expect the administration to explain exactly how this new verification agreement advances American interests and those of our allies before I will be able to support any decision to remove North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism.

When asked about the deal on Saturday, McCain’s running mate Sarah Palin — trying desperately to demonstrate her own foreign policy competence — offered a contradictory response:

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McCain: 'I Always Aspire to Be a Dictator'
Posted by Ben Armbruster, Think Progress on October 1, 2008 at 8:36 AM.

Discussing the Wall Street bailout yesterday during an interview with the Des Moines Register editorial board, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said the failure of Congress to act is "just not acceptable." Then -- presumably making an attempt at humor -- McCain added that, if only he were a dictator, then the bill would be just right:

MCCAIN: I just want to make a comment about the obvious issue and that is the failure of Congress to act yesterday. Its just not acceptable. […] This is just a not acceptable situation. I’m not saying this is the perfect answer. If I were dictator, which I always aspire to be, I would write it a little bit differently.

Watch it:

McCain also complained that "people can’t reach across the aisle, you know we give poison speeches" -- a seeming reference to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) so-called "partisan" floor speech on Monday that House Republicans cited for the bailout bill’s failure. Many of his House GOP colleagues, however, have since walked away from blaming Pelosi’s speech.

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Woodward: Bush Doesn't Get Why Iraqis Aren't Appreciative of Liberation
Posted by Ben Armbruster, Think Progress on September 9, 2008 at 8:49 AM.

Sunday night on 60 Minutes, host Scott Pelley interviewed Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward to discuss his new book “The War Within: A Secret White House History, 2006-2008.” Pelley noted that one part of the story Woodward tells is President Bush’s “frustration with the attitude of the Iraqi people”:

WOODWARD: He has a meeting at the Pentagon with a bunch of experts and he just said, ‘I don’t understand that the Iraqis are not appreciative of what we’ve done for them,’ namely liberated them.

PELLEY: But tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis have been killed in the invasion and through the occupation. He didn’t understand why they might be a little ungrateful about what had occurred to them?

WOODWARD: His beacon is liberation. He thinks we’ve done this magnificent thing for them. I think he still holds to that position.

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Media Blindly Accept That Russia-Georgia Conflict Is Good For McCain
Posted by Ben Armbruster, Think Progress on August 14, 2008 at 6:01 AM.

Since the violence broke out last week between Russian and Georgian military forces, pundits and media figures have been trying to determine how the conflict will affect the U.S. presidential election. Many in the media, however, have blindly asserted -- seemingly without examining any evidence -- that the war in Georgia helps Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). Some recent examples:

- Jill Zuckman, Chicago Tribune: "It's just sort of a perfect thing for him."

- Jeff Birnbaum, Washington Post: "This is McCain's advantage here, advantage McCain. This is right in his sweet spot in foreign policy national security."

- Mark Halperin, Time Magazine: "I think McCain benefits...this is good politically for John McCain"

Watch the compilation:

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Fox News Distorted Photographs of New York Times Reporters
Posted by Ben Armbruster, Think Progress on July 3, 2008 at 6:55 AM.

This morning on Fox & Friends, co-hosts Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade called Jacques Steinberg’s June 28 New York Times article on Fox News’s declining ratings a “hit piece,” adding that Steinberg and Times editor Steven Reddicliffe are “attack dogs.” During the segment, Fox aired blatantly distorted photos of Steinberg and Reddicliffe with their teeth yellowed, eyes blackened, and facial features exaggerated:

Media Matters has the video.

Update: The Times' Culture Editor Sam Sifton said, "It wasn't a hit piece. It was straight news. This was a hit piece by Fox News. It is beneath comment." Asked if the paper planned to respond to Fox's actions, he said no: "It is fighting with a pig, everyone gets dirty and the pig likes it."

Straight Talk Express Has Special Comfy Chairs for Well-Behaved Reporters
Posted by Ben Armbruster, Think Progress on June 30, 2008 at 1:43 PM.

The Washington Post reports that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is now traveling in a new “Straight Talk Express” campaign airplane. It “features a special area” with “a couch and two captain’s chairs” where “McCain will conduct group interviews with the press.” But not all reporters covering McCain can enjoy this new lap of luxury. Top McCain aide Mark Salter said “‘only the good reporters’ would get to sit in the specially-configured section for interviews. ‘You’ll have to earn it,’he said.” So how can these reporters “earn” a seat? Never challenge the Senator, as McCain biographer Matt Welch explained in a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times:

[McCain is] very open to people. You can come on the bus, everything is great but if he knows or if his team knows that you have a hostile line of questioning or you have a long and well documented critique, they’re not going to talk to you. […]

As a human, he’s haunted by the notion of honesty and about honor and truth. He wishes that he could speak the truth all the time. He doesn’t. I don’t think he speaks the truth any more than any other politician really, no more, no less.

Rice Admits She Didn’t Think Iraq "Would Be This Tough", Blames Iraqis for Violence
Posted by Ben Armbruster, Think Progress on March 28, 2008 at 10:29 AM.

Speaking to a group of journalists yesterday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice admitted that she didn’t think the war in Iraq would be as “this tough“:

Looking back on the last five years and the war in Iraq, Rice admitted: “I thought it would be tough, but I didn’t think it would be this tough.” She added, “It’s a society that’s only now beginning to emerge.”

But just like any other good Iraq war supporter, Rice deflected blame for the “long, hard slog” in Iraq away from the Bush administration and onto other pre-war factors. Rice said the United Nations sanctions killed Iraq’s agricultural sector and the “structural problem” of Saddam Hussein’s regime is dissuading Iraqis from making political progress:

– On the continuing struggle in Iraq Rice said she thought it was more of a “structural problem.” […] The secretary warned that “authoritarian regimes are not going to create the condition for the emergence of moderate parties [in the Middle East].”

– “What we didn’t know was how truly broken the society was,” she said. Although Saddam Hussein’s regime was mostly to blame for that, she said that U.N. sanctions contributed as well, because as a result of them, “agriculture is virtually dead in Iraq.”

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Bush Falsely Claims Iran "Declared" It Wants Nukes "to Destroy People"
Posted by Ben Armbruster, Think Progress on March 21, 2008 at 12:11 PM.

During a recent interview with Radio Farda, a U.S. government-run radio service that broadcasts into Iran in the Farsi language, President Bush falsely claimed that Iran “declared they want to have a nuclear weapon to destroy people.”

However, the the U.S. intelligence community disagrees. A National Intelligence Estimate on Iran released last December stated unequivocally that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003. But also, Iran has never “declared” its intention to acquire nuclear weapons and in fact, it has publicly stated the opposite:

–”Iran has repeatedly denied seeking nuclear warheads, and its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued a religious edict in 2005 forbidding the production, stockpiling and use of such weapons.”

–Iran expert and former Bush administration official Suzanne Maloney: “The Iranian government is on the record across the board as saying it does not want a nuclear weapon."

–Non-proliferation expert Joe Cirincione: “Iran has never said it wanted a nuclear weapon for any reason. It’s just not true.“

The experts added that Bush’s claim is “troubling,” “as uninformed as [Sen. John] McCain’s [R-AZ] statement that Iran is training al-Qaeda” and “only produces” such rhetoric from Iran.

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Perino Defends "So?" Remark from Cheney, Claims Americans Had Input on War in '04
Posted by Ben Armbruster, Think Progress on March 21, 2008 at 5:01 AM.

In an interview with Vice President Dick Cheney yesterday, ABC News’ Martha Raddatz noted that “two-thirds of Americans say” the Iraq war “is not worth fighting.” “So?” Cheney caustically replied. Referring to Cheney’s comment during today’s White House press briefing, a reporter asked Press Secretary Dana Perino: “So is the vice president saying it really doesn’t matter what the American public thinks about the war?”

“No, I don’t think that’s what he’s saying,” Perino responded. But later, she echoed Cheney, saying that the 2004 presidential election was the last time American public opinion on the war really mattered:

HELEN THOMAS: The American people are being asked to die and pay for this. And you’re saying they have no say in this war?

PERINO: No, I didn’t say that Helen. But Helen, this president was elected…

THOMAS: But it amounts to it. You’re saying we have no input at all.

PERINO: You had input. The American people have input every four years, and that’s the way our system is set up.

Like Cheney, Perino is clearly suggesting that current opposition to the Iraq war is inconsequential. But in claiming that American attitudes only matter every four years, Perino leaves out one inconvenient fact: the 2006 mid-term elections.

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The Right Wing Is Jubilant Over Admiral Fallon's Resignation
Posted by Ben Armbruster, Think Progress on March 12, 2008 at 1:22 PM.

Yesterday, CentCom commander Adm. William Fallon submitted his resignation on the heels of an Esquire article reporting that he has been “brazenly challenging” President Bush’s Middle East policy. Fallon opposed the “surge” in Iraq and has consistently battled the Bush administration to avoid a confrontation with Iran, calling officials’ war-mongering “not helpful.”

Right-wing war hawks are glad to see Fallon go. The Wall Street Journal Editoral board wrote today that Fallon’s resignation is “good news” because it will allow Bush to begin “to pay attention to the internal Pentagon dispute” over Iraq withdrawal. That, in turn, will relieve “pressure” on Gen. David Petraeus so he can fight “a frontal war against Islamist militants, not a rearguard action with Pentagon officials.”

The New York Sun ed board followed suit, arguing the “real news” of Fallon’s resignation is that Petraeus might get to take over as CentCom commander, which would be “far better for the man who cracked Al Qaeda in Iraq to be given the broader command in the Middle East and Southwest Asia.”

But most excited by Fallon’s departure is Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow Max Boot. Writing an op-ed titled “Fallon didn’t get it” in the LA Times today, Boot cited the Esquire article’s notation that Fallon wanted to banish the phrase “long war” against al Qaeda. But acccording to Boot, its “good news” that Fallon is leaving because Esquire did not offer “any hint of how Fallon intends to defeat our enemies overnight.”

Boot seems most upset that Fallon — who he ridiculed as one of the “guys who think they’re smart” — has been “undermining” Bush’s Iran strategy:

Fallon’s very public assurances that America has no plans to use force against Iran embolden the mullahs. […]

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