More Shakeups at the Pentagon

Looks like more people may be vacating their desks at the Pentagon, and elsewhere in Bush’s administration:

The military experts met with Bush, Vice President Cheney and about a dozen aides for more than an hour. The visitors told the officials that the situation in Iraq is as dire as the study group had indicated but that alternative approaches must be considered, said one participant in the meeting. In addition, the experts agreed that the president should review his national security team, which several characterized as part of the problem.

[...]

The group suggested the president shake up his national security team. "All of us said they have failed, that you need a new team," said one participant. That recommendation is likely to fuel Pentagon rumors that Bush and his new defense secretary, Robert M. Gates, may decide to replace Marine Gen. Peter Pace as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Rove & Co Out of Touch

If true, Karl Rove and Bush & Co. are more out of touch than one suspected:

It’s an ugly rumor, but it’s spreading like wildfire: Karl Rove has lost his touch. In an amazing betrayal within a family where top political aide Rove is royalty, Bushies have been sneering at his pre-election happy talk that the gop would keep the Senate and take a slight hit in the House, both soon to be run by Democrats. And now we learn that President Bush really believed the GOP was safe, too. On the day before the elections, he asked embattled House gop leader Dennis Hastert to run for speaker again so he could guide the White House’s agenda in Congress.

Juan Williams: ‘Sometimes I Just Want To Scream’

As I watched FauxNews this Sunday I couldn’t help but to blurt, Juan, you’re my hero. Here’s what prompted my reaction, via ThinkProgress.com:

After enduring years of posturing on Iraq by Fox’s Brit Hume and the National Review’s Bill Kristol on the Fox News Sunday roundtable, Juan Williams reached his limit. This morning, Williams said, “Sometimes I just want to scream. You guys have been going on since this thing began.”

Williams noted that Hume and Kristol “don’t give credit to people…who said from the start this is a mistake.” Instead, “now it’s everybody’s a surrender monkey or impatient or squeamish or weak.”

[...]

Transcript:

WILLIAMS: Squishy, impatient, you know, they’ll be in the land of milk and honey? What do you imagine, an American administration is coming in, Republican or Democrat, after President Bush that’s just going to lay down and run away like scared little —

HUME: It will not be phrased that way. Listen, Juan, it’s very simple.

WILLIAMS: This is really — sometimes i just want to scream. You guys have been going on since this thing began. I mean, you don’t give credit to people, Nancy Pelosi, Howard Dean, Barbara Lee, people who said from the start this is a mistake. You put them down. Now it’s everybody’s a surrender monkey or impatient or squeamish or weak. Why can’t you say, hey, there’s a real problem in Iraq?

UPDATE: Crooks and Liars has a longer clip of the Fauxnews segment.

Iraq Civil War: The American Cost

Via BagNewsNotes.com… I’m speechless…

Katherine Cathey, 23, embraces the coffin of her husband James C. Cathey, 24, a Marine Second Lieutenant, after it was placed in a hearse at Reno Airport. He was killed by a booby-trap explosion in Al Karmah, Iraq. Before getting out of the car at the airport, she said "I wish it was daytime for the rest of my life. The night is just too hard."

When the coffin came down the luggage ramp on the tarmac, she had let out a series of screams, wails and moans that were, naturally, unanswered. She leaned in, clutching the coffin, not letting go until Major Steve Beck, right, offered to let her ride up front.

[...]

Shortly before the final inspection, Katherine Cathey, pregnant with their unborn son, rubs her belly against the coffin. Of all the photographs in the group, this is the most searing; it’s as impossible to forget as it is to imagine. Of all the memories, the sense of touch seems to be the first to fade, and here is the sense of a last touch. It cuts deeply as love, birth and death merge until our heads spin.

[...]

And finally, the night before her husband’s funeral, Katherine Cathey lies on an air mattress in front of the flag-draped coffin. Before he went to Iraq, they were married in a civil ceremony, and planned a church wedding when he returned. They hadn’t planned on a return like this, and now she listens to music they had picked for the wedding. She insisted on spending that final night next to his body.

The photographs were captured by Todd Heisler (be sure to visit his Website, http://www.toddheisler.com/, where you’ll find more of his amazing work).

Let Others Go to War

Like W did during the war of his generation, this generation of Bushes is following in the same vein… so, while others answer the burden that W placed on this generation of Americans, the Bushes let the call go unanswered. From Jesus General (aka Patriot Boy):

I created this tribute to the contribution the Bush children, nephews, and nieces are making to the war effort.