Bill Clinton Attacks Vanity Fair and Author Purdum

Bill Clinton is obviously not getting any. That explains his out of control behavior. He is also upset that he was most responsible for losing the election that he and Hillary thought they had in the bag. Maybe now Ms.Clinton can end a marriage that was little more than a political arrangement. Then Bill could find someone who will meet his needs:

The same Huffington Post reporter who broke the Obama “bitter” story got a new scoop yesterday of Bill Clinton lashing out at Vanity Fair’s Todd Purdum and calling him “sleazy,” “dishonest” and “slimy” for his critical magazine article on Clinton. It’s worth noting that the HuffPo reporter didn’t identify herself as a reporter and said she disliked the article when asking for his reaction.

From the piece: “Tightly gripping this reporter's hand and refusing to let go, Clinton heatedly denounced the writer, who is currently married to his former White House Press Secretary, Dee Dee Myers. ‘[He's] sleazy,’ he said referring to Purdum. ‘He's a really dishonest reporter. And one of our guys talked to him… And I haven't read [the article]. There's just five or six blatant lies in there. But he's a real slimy guy,’ the former President said. When I reminded him that Purdum was married to his former press spokesperson Myers, Clinton was undeterred. ’That's all right-- he's still a scumbag,’ Clinton said. ‘Let me tell ya--he's one of the guys -- he's one of the guys that brought out all those lies about Whitewater to Kenneth Starr. He's just a dishonest guy-- can't help it.’”

Bill continued, “‘It's just slimy. It's part of the national media's attempt to nail Hillary for Obama. It's the most biased press coverage in history. It's another way of helping Obama. They had all these people standing up in this church cheering, calling Hillary a white racist, and he didn't do anything about it. The first day he said “Ah, ah, ah well.” Because that's what they do-- he gets other people to slime her. So then they saw the movie they thought this is a great ad for John McCain -- maybe I better quit the church. It's all politics. It's all about the bias of the media for Obama. Don't think anything about it.’”

“‘But I'm telling ya, all it's doing is driving her supporters further and further away-- because they know exactly what it is-- this has been the most rigged coverage in modern history-- and the guy ought to be ashamed of himself. But he has no shame. It isn't the first dishonest piece he's written about me or her.’”

It's Over After Tonight

Could it be the dragon will be slain tonight? If not tonight then in the next few days. Even Hillary's supporters are saying it's over. All the thug tactics has not worked. The Clinton mafia tried every dirty trick in the book to steal the nomination. Now the party will close ranks. Hillary has alienated most of the Democratic leadership. They are not buying her victimization line. She is where she is because of her campaign's miscalculations:

It's almost over, isn't it? That seems to be all anyone wants to know from Sen. Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, but the only person who truly knows isn't telling.

"I'm sort of a day-at-a-time person, and we'll see when Tuesday and the day after Tuesday comes," Clinton said on board a late-night flight to South Dakota, where she spent her last full day of campaigning.

The last two Democratic primaries are on Tuesday in South Dakota and Montana.

"My political obituary has yet to be written, and we're going forward," Clinton said. "It is not over 'til it's over."

By most accounts, it is over.

Barack Obama, who holds what experts call an insurmountable lead in delegates for the Democratic presidential nomination, plans a rally on Tuesday to launch his campaign for the November election against Republican John McCain.

Clinton's political obituary has been written many times. "The End" declared the online Drudge Report under a photograph of Clinton campaigning in Puerto Rico over the weekend.

The same campaign trip inspired a headline on the online magazine Salon.com saying: "Clinton seemed to be campaigning in an alternate reality."

[...]"She has more votes," spokesman Mo Elleithee insisted in Puerto Rico. "Hillary Clinton has received more votes than any other Democrat in this race for president."

That point is in dispute, since it includes vote totals in Michigan, where Obama's name was not on the ballot, and in Florida, where neither candidate campaigned. It also leaves out states won by Obama that used a caucus system where individual votes are not tallied.

In any case, the popular vote does not count in the nominating process. What counts are delegates to the national convention, and Obama leads both in elected delegates and superdelegates who are free to support whomever they like.

"One thing about superdelegates is that they can change their minds," Clinton reminded reporters after the Puerto Rico primary, which she won by a wide margin.

The Clinton campaign, which wants to convince superdelegates that she is the stronger candidate against McCain, hoped to use the Puerto Rico result to support its argument but lower-than-expected turnout weakened the case.

Richard Clarke: The Government is Still Failing to Protect us

Richard Clarke, was the terrorism expert who warned the Clinton and Bush administrations about the al Qaeda threat prior to 9-11. He sat in those meetings and listened while Bush and Cheney ignored his recommendations. He believes that the government, and Bush in particular, are still failing to protect us from future attacks:

McCain Reverend, Hagee: The Antichrist Will be a Gay Jew

While the press focuses on Obama's reverend problems, they ignore the just as outrageous comments by John McCain's supporter, John Hagee:

On March 16, 2003, on the eve of the United States' invasion of Iraq, Pastor John Hagee took to the pulpit to warn of the coming Antichrist. In his sermon, "The Final Dictator," Hagee described the Antichrist as a seductive figure with "fierce features." He will be "a blasphemer and a homosexual," the pastor announced. Then, Hagee boomed, "There's a phrase in Scripture used solely to identify the Jewish people. It suggests that this man [the Antichrist] is at least going to be partially Jewish, as was Adolph Hitler, as was Karl Marx."

[...]Exposed here for the first time, Hagee's comments identifying the Antichrist as a partly Jewish homosexual arrive in the wake of a furor the pastor provoked by describing the Holocaust as an act of God. Hagee's chilling sermon about the Holocaust prompted Sen. John McCain to reject the preacher's support, an unexpected turnabout after McCain spent over a year soliciting his endorsement.

Days after McCain's rejection, I reported that a key McCain ally, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, planned to deliver the keynote speech at Hagee's upcoming Christians United For Israel (CUFI) summit. As the story exploded into the mainstream press, pressure mounted on Lieberman to withdraw.

But Lieberman stayed the course, declaring in a prepared statement, "Pastor Hagee has devoted much of his life to fighting anti-Semitism and building bridges between Christians and Jews... I will go to the CUFI Summit in July and speak to the people who have come to Washington from all over our country to express their support of America and Israel, based on our shared eternal values and our shared contemporary challenges in the war against terrorism."

Transcript FOX News Sunday: Hillary Clinton Fighting Over 2 Votes

The Clinton position is so ridiculous that it defies any norms of decency. The Clinton mafia literally wants to hold up the Obama nomination over 2 votes. You don't believe me? Listen to Clinton henchman, Howard Wolfson, make that very argument. We know what this is about. Bill and Hillary are fighting not on principle but opportunism. They want to destroy the Democrats chances of winning in the Fall so that Hillary can run in 2012. Why are so many of us unable or unwilling to see that:

WALLACE: She wanted 73 delegates. She got 69. That's a difference of four. And since they're only getting half votes, it's a difference of two votes.

You're telling me that she's going to keep this race open for three months over two votes in Michigan?

WOLFSON: Well, let's talk about what happened yesterday[...]

WALLACE: I understand. But we're talking about four delegates. She wanted 73. She believed she got 73. She got 69, in fact, from the rules committee. That's four delegates and two votes.

WOLFSON: Well, there's a principle at stake here, and it's a principle that is the bedrock principle...

WALLACE: And you're going to keep the whole Democratic fight going on for three months over two votes.

WOLFSON: It's not over two votes. It's over a principle. It's two votes that were taken away from us, and it's 55 votes that were given to Senator Obama that should have been uncommitted. But there's a principle at stake here.

Senator Clinton hasn't made a decision about whether to appeal this or not. She said she reserves the right to do that, and we do reserve the right, because if the Democratic Party doesn't stand for fairly apportioning votes that were cast in a primary, what's to prevent the next set of folks from taking more delegates away from a candidate?

WALLACE: I understand all the arguments that you've made about popular vote, about electability, about the kinds of states she's won in.

If you don't persuade the party, if you don't persuade the superdelegates, and Obama reaches that magic number of 2,118 Tuesday night, Wednesday morning, will she either suspend or end her campaign?

WOLFSON: We're going to be working hard to make sure that doesn't happen.

WALLACE: But if it does happen.

WOLFSON: We're going to be making sure — we're going to work hard to make sure that it doesn't.

WALLACE: Are you leaving open the possibility that even if he reaches the magic number she won't end her campaign?

WOLFSON: I'm not going to accept the premise of the question.

- Read the entire transcript

Transcript: Scott McClellan on Meet The Press

Scott McClellan has been interviewed on just about every news talk program. But no one does it better than Tim Russert. Some excerpts below. Read the entire transcript:

MR. RUSSERT: The president said at the time that "if someone committed a crime, they'd no longer work in my administration." Do you believe the president should have fired Karl Rove?

MR. McCLELLAN: That's a, that's a question that the president had to make, and he chose not to.

MR. RUSSERT: But what do you think?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I, I think he should have stood by his word. I think the president should have stood by the word that we said, which is if you were involved in this any way, then you would no longer be in this administration. And Karl was involved in it. That would be a tough decision. I don't know if, if there was any crime committed. I don't--I say I just don't know that in the book. But we had higher standards at the White House. The president said he was going to restore honor, integrity. He said we were going to set the highest of standards. We didn't live up to that. When it became known that his top adviser had been involved, then the bar was moved. And the bar was moved to "if anyone is indicted, they would no longer be here."

MR. RUSSERT: So you think they should've been dismissed.

MR. McCLELLAN: I think so. I mean, Scooter Libby was, and I, and I think that he should...

MR. RUSSERT: Well, he resigned. But you...

MR. McCLELLAN: Yes. But that was pushed out.

MR. RUSSERT: But you believe Rove--Rove should've, should've left?

MR. McCLELLAN: I think the president should've stood by his word, and that meant Karl should've left.

Also interviewed was Harold Ickes, a Clinton hatchet man:

MR. RUSSERT: Now, we had a briefing with the Clinton campaign in December, and you made we repeat after you, "Timothy, delegates nominate. Not states, not popular vote, delegates." So I want to look at the delegates. You need 2,118 to be nominated, and here they are. Obama, pledged delegates plus superdelegates 2,055.5; Clinton, 1880. If you assume that there are only 86 delegates left--Puerto Rico, Montana, South Dakota--for discussion's sake, because of portion allocation, they divide them. Each gets 43. Senator Clinton would then be 195 delegates short of the nomination. There are only 203 undeclared superdelegates. She'd have to get 195 out of the 203. Is that going to happen?

MR. ICKES: We continue to make our case that she is the more electable. Not that Senator Obama, who's run a strong and, and good campaign is not electable. We make the case, as you know, the superdelegates, not in the matchup in November, the person who can best assemble the swing or purple states, such as Florida or Ohio or a combination of smaller states, is Hillary Clinton. And I think she's, she's shown that in, time after time, in these primaries. And you look at her electoral base: women, Hispanics, Catholics, older Americans, and incomes under $50,000. She has a very strong general election electoral base and that's the case we make. Look, Tim, this is a--this is an extraordinary year. We both--Senator Daschle and I were talking about it earlier--it's an extraordinary year. We have two extraordinary candidates, and they're--these are difficult decisions that these remaining superdelegates will have to make. Hillary Clinton will be ahead in the popular vote on, on November--on the--on Tuesday.

MR. RUSSERT: If you're counting Michigan.

MR. ICKES: Neither, neither, neither--well, we're counting Michigan.

MR. RUSSERT: Right.

MR. ICKES: Michigan's in.

MR. RUSSERT: You...

MR. ICKES: It was seated by the, it was seated by the party rules.

MR. RUSSERT: You voted against seating it, according to the--and now you're counting the vote, even though you were against it?

MR. ICKES: Well, they're in there, and whether or not we go to the Credentials Committee. But, Tim, all I want to say is that she will be leading in the popular vote. He will be leading in delegates. Neither one will have enough delegates to clinch the nomination. The new number now is 2,118, as you specify. Not since 1972 has our party nominated a candidate who was not leading in the popular vote. That was, as you know, McGovern. That was the McGovern year.

MR. RUSSERT: Oh, so you're comparing Barack Obama to George McGovern.

MR. ICKES: No, I'm not. I'm not.

MR. RUSSERT: And you only...

MR. ICKES: That's not--Tim, no, no...

MR. RUSSERT: Well, but, but there are only 19...

MR. ICKES: No, wait. I was giving--no wait a minute. I was giving you a historical fact.

MR. RUSSERT: There were only 19 primaries back then, and it appears as if you're trying to put an asterisk on the nomination, saying, "You know, Obama may win this by delegates, but we really won the nomination."

Congressmen Sent Millions in Earmarks to Own Families

Why aren't there more stories about how "our" government uses our tax dollars to benefit their own families. And why isn't this crime:

A number of U.S. congressmen and their families — including former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert — have personally profited from congressional earmarks they slipped into federal legislation, a FOX News documentary reveals.

The documentary, “Porked: Earmarks for Profit,” hosted by Chris Wallace, premieres Sat., May 31, at 8 p.m. EDT on FOX News Channel.

Budget earmarks became a national scandal — and a national joke — after some wasteful schemes made headlines recently: a $223 million “bridge to nowhere” in Alaska, a $500,000 teapot museum in North Carolina, a $10 million extension to Coconut Road in Florida.

Many lawmakers earmark taxpayer money for projects supported by contributors to their campaigns.

But the FOX News investigation exposes a far more disturbing practice: federal lawmakers earmarking taxpayer dollars on projects that offer them not just political advantage, but personal financial gain.

The FOX documentary focuses on three current and former congressmen — two Republicans and one Democrat.

The most recognizable name is Illinois Republican Dennis Hastert, who stepped down as Speaker of the House in 2007.

Clinton Gang Declares War on the Democratic Party

Is there any doubt anymore that Bill and Hillary Clinton are trying to destroy Barack Obama's chances of winning? You have to be very naive to believe otherwise. There is no reason for Hillary to fight any further. Her only motivation is bring about Obama's defeat so she can run in 4 years. Unfortunately for the Democratic Party the "leadership" in the party do not have the courage to say as much. If you love your party why not defend it against someone who is out to get John McCain elected. If you don't know by now then I'm telling you: force Hillary (and Bill) out of the race. She's had her chance. My thinking is the Democrats are too inept to do the right thing. They've failed to run our country so why shouldn't they fail to run their own Party:

In a decision mirroring Florida’s fate, Michigan’s 128 pledged delegates will be heading to Denver, Colo., this August for the party’s national convention but with one half of one vote assigned to each delegate, the Democratic National Committee’s Rules and Bylaws Committee ruled this evening in a 19-8 decision.

The delegates of the contested Jan. 15 primary were given a 69-59 split in favor of Sen. Hillary Clinton, who won the contest. That split means 34.5 delegate votes for Clinton, and 29.5 delegate votes for Sen. Barack Obama.

Opponents of the decision, including Clinton senior advisor and committee member Harold Ickes, condemned the move because Obama was awarded delegates he did not earn outright because his name did not appear on the ballot.

“This is not a good way to start down the path of party unity,” Ickes said, who admonished the committee for their “gall and chutzpah” in the ruling. Ickes also warned that this may not be over yet. “Sen. Clinton has asked me to reserve her right to take this to the credentials committee,” Ickes said, to cheers from Clinton supporters in the hotel ballroom.

The credentials committee is the next procedural step in the DNC rule-making process that leads up to the convention. Even if Clinton continues the fight, she still has little or no chance to win the nomination. Months of intra-party bickering and disputes between the rival presidential campaigns resulted in a no more than a net gain of 24 delegates for Clinton.

The decision was met with some uproar from Clinton supporters in the crowd, many were heard shouting “McCain in ‘08!” in frustration.

UPDATE: The Florida and Michigan decisions made this evening by the committee have also shifted the goal post for the number of delegates needed to secure the party’s nomination. Set at 2,026 delegates up until today, the new number needed to secure the nomination, according to the DNC, is 2,118.

Adding in the delegates awarded in today’s process, Obama still maintains a significant delegate lead over Clinton: 2,052-1,877.5, according to the Associated Press count. Obama is now 66 delegates away from the nomination, while Clinton has a much steeper climb of 240.5 delegates.

McCain Gets it Wrong on Troop Levels in Iraq

John McCain claims to vastly superior to Barack Obama when it comes to foreign policy. But he can't get his facts straight on the simplest on issues surrounding the Iraq war:

At a press conference today in Milwaukee, McCain defended himself from Democratic accusations that he misspoke Thursday, when he incorrectly said that the US had "drawn down to pre-surge levels" in Iraq.

Asked in the media avail if he got his facts wrong, McCain replied by stating that US troops levels are down -- but said nothing of pre-surge levels. "We have drawn down three of the five brigades. They’re home. The marines [inaudible] are home. By the end of July, [inaudible] are back. That’s just facts, those are just facts. The surge, we have drawn down from the surge and we will complete that drawdown to the end -- at the end of July. That’s just a factual statement."

He added, "The important thing here is not that three of the five brigades are back, which they are and the others are coming back in July. It’s whether they would have been sent in the first place and succeeded or failed. Sen. Obama said that the effect would be the reverse. So, he has no fundamental understanding of the entire situation that warranted the surge, which led to the success."

But according to NBC's Jim Miklaszewski and Courtney Kube, the US has NOT drawn down to "pre-surge levels" in Iraq -- and they will NOT be at those levels even after the five surge brigades finish redeploying later this summer. The math is a bit fuzzy, but here are the facts: The US now has 155,000 troops on the ground in Iraq, and that is 17 brigade combat teams plus combat support forces. The baseline number of troops, now commonly called the "pre-surge level," was about 132,000 troops, or 15 brigade combat teams, plus the support forces (engineers, medics, cooks, etc).

Three of the five surge brigades are fully redeployed back to the US. The fourth has already begun to redeploy now (heading back to Fort Lewis). All five brigades will be back in the US by the end of July. When all five surge brigades are out of Iraq, the US will still have between 140,000 and 144,000 troops on the ground -- about 10,000 more than the "pre-surge level." Why? Most of the combat support and logistics troops will stay behind. So will the additional MPs, aviation forces, and other individual battalions sent over in bits and pieces as the surge forces arrived last year.

US Shrugs Off Cluster Bomb Treaty

Our government behaves like the worst dictatorships in the world. It opposes just ever international treaty. Why doesn't someone take a poll on whether the American people would support a treaty that puts restraints on a horrible weapon system. And this renegade behaviour isn't limited to the Bush/neocon thugs:

Chief negotiators of a landmark treaty banning cluster bombs predicted Friday that the United States will never again use the weapons, a critical component of American air and artillery power.

The treaty formally adopted Friday by 111 nations, including many of America's major NATO partners, would outlaw all current designs of cluster munitions and require destruction of stockpiles within eight years. It also opens the possibility that European allies could order U.S. bases located in their countries to remove cluster bombs from their stocks.

The United States and other leading cluster bomb makers - Russia, China, Israel, India and Pakistan - boycotted the talks, emphasized they would not sign the treaty and publicly shrugged off its value. All defended the overriding military value of cluster bombs, which carpet a battlefield with dozens to hundreds of explosions.

But treaty backers - who long have sought a ban because cluster bombs leave behind "duds" that later maim or kill civilians - insisted they had made it too politically painful for any country to use the weapons again.

"The country that thinks of using cluster munitions next week should think twice, because it would look very bad," said Espen Barth Eide, Deputy Defense Minister of Norway, which began the negotiations last year and will host a treaty-signing ceremony Dec. 3.

"We're certain that nations thinking of using cluster munitions won't want to face the international condemnation that will rain down upon them, because the weapons have been stigmatized now," said Steve Goose, arms control director of New York-based Human Rights Watch, who was involved in the talks.

However, the treaty envisions their future use - and offers legal protection to any signatory nation that finds itself operating alongside U.S. forces deploying cluster bombs, shells and rockets.

The treaty specifies - in what backers immediately dubbed "the American clause" - that members "may engage in military cooperation and operations" with a nation that rejects the treaty and "engages in activities prohibited" by the treaty.

It suggests that a treaty member could call in support from U.S. air power or artillery using cluster munitions, so long as the caller does not "expressly request the use of cluster munitions."

In Washington, State Department spokesman Tom Casey said the treaty would not change U.S. policy and cluster munitions remain "absolutely critical and essential" to U.S. military operations.

He said U.S. officials in the State and Defense departments were studying whether the treaty would eventually oblige American bases in Europe to withdraw cluster munitions.

Goose said this decision would be up to individual U.S. allies. The treaty, he noted, requires nations that ratify it to eliminate all cluster weapons within their "jurisdiction or control."

Did Musharraf Give North Korea, Iran Nuclear Technology

Pervez Musharraf, we are told, is America's ally in the war on terror. But it could turn out that the Pakistani military ruler has been double-dealing the U.S. for years. It might be that Musharraf is an enemy not an ally:

The Pakistani scientist blamed for running a rogue network that sold nuclear secrets to North Korea, Iran and Libya has recanted his confession, telling ABC News the Pakistani government and President Perez Musharraf forced him to be a "scapegoat" for the "national interest."

"I don't stand by that," Dr. A.Q. Khan told ABC News in a 35-minute phone interview from his home in Islamabad, where he has been detained since "confessing" that he ran the nuclear network on his own, without the knowledge of the Pakistani government. The interview will be broadcast Friday on "World News With Charles Gibson."

It was his first interview with an American journalist in a series of telephone interviews he has granted this week, marking the 10th anniversary of Pakistan's first test of a nuclear bomb.

"People were asking a lot of questions, so I said, 'OK. Let me give an answer,'" Khan told ABC News early Friday, Pakistan time.

As to his widely publicized confession, Khan said he was told by Musharraf that it would get the United States "off our backs" and that he was promised he would be quickly pardoned. "Those people who were supposed to know knew it," Khan said about his activities.

If true, it would mean Pakistan lied to the U.S. and the international community about its role in providing nuclear weapons technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya.

The Bush administration isn't concerned about the whether Pakistan is unreliable. They like their boy Musharraf. They are more concerned about the consequences would be if the Pakistani strongman were forced to step down. The Bush gang are worried about real democracy taking place in Pakistan:

Pressed by a swirl of rumors that he was about to be ousted, President Pervez Musharraf insisted this week that he was staying, and President Bush on Friday confirmed his continued support with a reassuring phone call to Mr. Musharraf, the White House said.

Mr. Musharraf was forced at an official dinner Thursday night to deny rumors of his imminent departure, speaking after a Pakistani newspaper reported that the chief of army staff, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, met with him on Wednesday to persuade him to resign.

At the same time, the Pakistani military confirmed that General Kayani had removed a loyalist to Mr. Musharraf from one of the army’s most significant posts.

[...]In his telephone conversation with the Pakistani president, Mr. Bush “reiterated the United States’ strong support for Pakistan, and he indicated that he looked forward to President Musharraf’s continuing role in further strengthening United States-Pakistani relations,” said the White House spokeswoman, Dana Perino.

Transcript: Scott McClellan Interviewed by Keith Olbermann

McClellan took his bombshell book tour to Countdown to be interviewed by Keith Olbermann. Read the complete Transcript:

OLBERMANN: That's a good way to start.

That phrase, “you have since come to realize that some of those statements were badly misguided.” Not to put words in your mouth or insult you, but did you lie as White House press secretary at any point?

MCCLELLAN: Well, I did when it came to the issue of the Valerie Plame leak episode when I—unknowingly did so. I passed along false information. I had been given assurances by Karl Rove and Scooter Libby that they were not involved in the leak. And it turned out later that they were, but they both unequivocally told me, when I asked them, were you involved in this is any way? They said, no.

[...]OLBERMANN: I want to get, as I was saying, back to the entire Plamegate or Plame/Libby story, or Plame/Libby/Cheney story. But as I suggested in the opening here, this—to me, in reading, so far, about half of this book, it seems it is the Rosetta Stone for understanding the last seven years of American history.

I would like to drop you in and out of key moments in that time.

And—tell me what really happened and what you saw.

And I want to start more or less chronologically on 9/11, not 9/11 per se but 9/12, the day afterwards, the days afterwards. Did the president see this as much as a disaster? Did he see it as an opportunity do you think?

MCCLELLAN: The September 11 attacks?

OLBERMANN: Yes.

MCCLELLAN: Well certainly he saw it as an opportunity to look at the war on terror in broad way and to try to implement this idealistic vision that he had of spreading democracy throughout the Middle East. I think that's what you're getting to.

OLBERMANN: Yes. In the sense that it was to some degree used—

MCCLELLAN: 9/11?

OLBERMANN: What happened after 9/11 was used in this country?

MCCLELLAN: Well certainly it was to advance the Iraq policy.

Transcript: Scott McClellan Interview on Today Show

Read the complete transcript of Scott McClellan's interview Thursday on the Today Show as he discusses his bombshell book:

VIEIRA: But you had to know this was going to create a firestorm.

Mr. McCLELLAN: Well, I think I expected some of the reaction that was going to come out. You know, the White House would prefer that I not talk openly about my experiences. But I think there's a larger purpose to this book and that is the message I just talked about. It's really about looking at this permanent campaign culture in Washington, DC, and talking about how can we move beyond it? When I went to work for President Bush back in 1999, then Governor Bush, I had all this great hope that we were going to come to Washington and change it. He talked about being a uniter, not a divider. This was a president that had a--had a record as governor of Texas of being a bipartisan leader, of someone who brought people together to get things done, an approval rating well into the 70s. And then we got to Washington and I think we got caught up in playing the Washington game the way it's played today. And I think a lot of Americans like me would like to see us move beyond that bitter partiness--partisanship that exists today.

VIEIRA: So he let you down then, this man that you believed in?

Mr. McCLELLAN: Well, you know, I think I'm disappointed that things didn't turn out the way that we all hoped they would turn out. We all had high hopes coming in. And I think this is sharing my personal experience of going through that, coming into Washington, DC, as deputy press secretary, then becoming the White House spokesman, the White House press secretary. And by the last 10 months or so of my time at the White House, I grew--I grew increasingly disillusioned by things, when the first revelation came out that what I had been told by Karl Rove and Scooter Libby, that they were in no way involved in the leaking of Valerie Plame's identity, which we now know is not true, when I--and despite the fact that I went to the podium and said these people assured me they were not involved, you know, I started--I started to become a little more disillusioned about things.

Disinformation Campaign to Coverup Hillary's Lesbianism

This article in Today's NY Daily News is very curious. It has been long rumored that Hillary Clinton is a lesbian. And her rumored love interest--Huma Abedin. So it is somewhat mysterious when a NY politician, who is a Clinton supporter, claims to be in love with the presidential candidate's "body woman." We know for a fact that Bill and Hillary have a cynical power arrangement that does not extend to romance. They are never intimate in public. And Bill's tirades can be explained to sexual frustration. He has obviously been put on a leash to prevent a scandal from breaking out and destroying his and her chance to get back to the White House:

Rep. Anthony Weiner, a likely 2009 mayoral candidate, is pouring his heart into Hillary Clinton's White House bid - literally.

Weiner, whose district includes parts of Queens and Brooklyn, finally 'fessed that he is romancing Clinton's glamorous "body woman," Huma Abedin.

Asked by The Associated Press about all the time he's spending on the road campaigning for Clinton, the 43-year-old bachelor said, "It's largely because I'm dating Huma."

The whispers have been around for months, but until yesterday Weiner ducked questions about Abedin, saying his personal life was off limits.

Though she posed recently for a glamorous photo spread in Vogue, Abedin, 32, is famously press-shy.

Oh, by the way, Weiner is Jewish and Abedin comes from a Muslim background:

Abedin was born in Michigan to a Pakistani mother and an Indian father and was raised in Saudi Arabia.

She landed an internship in the First Lady's office in 1996 and quickly become her indispensable right hand.

These days, she rarely leaves the senator's side - and Weiner rarely leaves hers.

As to the hectic pace of a presidential campaign, he conceded, "It's not a great environment to forge a relationship."

In the comments to the Daily News article readers made reference to Hillary and Abedin relationship and this being an attempt to cover up that fact.

McClellan on Today Show: Bush "Manipulated" Public Opinion

McClellan gives a sincere and heartfelt description of why he wrote the book on the Today Show this morning. Read the complete transcript of McClellans interview:

The former Bush administration pitchman making explosive election-year charges about how the White House handled the Valerie Plame case and built the case for invading Iraq said Thursday that he went to Washington to change it and became “disillusioned” when he realized he was just a pawn in the never-ending political game.

“The larger message has been sort of lost in the mix. ... The White House would prefer I not speak out openly and honestly about my experiences, but I believe there is a larger purpose,” Scott McClellan, the chief spokesman for the White House from 2003 to 2006, told TODAY co-host Meredith Vieira exclusively during his first interview since excerpts of his new memoir hit the Internet on Tuesday.

“I had all this great hope that we were going to come to Washington and change it. ... Then we got to Washington, and I think we got caught up in playing the Washington game the way it is being played today,” said McClellan, who made only passing references to Bush himself.

[...]McClellan said that it wasn't until he realized that he may have been led to deliver false information to the media about two senior administration officials’ roles in outing Valerie Plame as a CIA operative that he knew he would someday have to tell his story.

“My hope is that by writing this book and sharing openly and honestly what I learned is that in some small way it might help us move beyond the partisan warfare of the past 15 years. There’s a larger purpose to this book. It’s about looking at the permanent campaign culture in Washington, D.C., and how we can move beyond it,” he said.

As Bush's press secretary, McClellan defended the war to the media. But in his book he accused the White House of shading the truth and conducting a political propaganda campaign in making the case to go to war in Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein.

“I gave them the benefit of the doubt just like a lot of Americans,” McClellan said. “Looking back and reflecting on it now, I don’t think I should have.”

[...]McClellan writes that the Bush White House decided “to turn away from candor and honesty when those qualities were most needed” during the period when sentiment was being marshaled to invade Iraq and depose Saddam Hussein.

McClellan said that the White House never shifted from campaign mode to governing mode, an approach that “almost guaranteed that the use of force would become the only feasible option. … In the permanent campaign era, it was all about manipulating sources of public opinion to the president’s advantage.”

The mainstream media also came under fire from McClellan, who charged that reporters accepted what they were told and didn’t ask the hard questions that might have exposed the bad intelligence used to justify the invasion of Iraq.

McClellan: Bush WH "Shaded the Truth" in Going to War with Iraq

The press has chosen to focus on the motivation of Scott McClellan for writing his book so negative of the Bush White House. What they should be considering is whether engaged in impeachable offenses for starting a war that had no legitimacy:

Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan, whose new memoir has sparked controversy about the Bush administration's plans before the Iraq war, said Thursday he is "disappointed that things didn't turn out the way we had hoped they would turn out" at the beginning of the administration.

McClellan, whose memoir claims the administration manipulated facts to "sell" the Iraq war, told NBC's Today Show that he became "increasingly disillusioned with things" during his time in the White House.

"My hope is that by writing this book and sharing openly and honestly what I lived and what I learned during my time at the White House that in some small way it might help us move beyond the destructive partisan warfare of the last 15 years," he said of the memoir, excerpts of which were first disclosed earlier this week.

Let's hear from those who should be defending McClellan:

McClellan's sharp critique drew the wrath of administration officials, past and present, on Wednesday.

"This is a wholesale jumping-ship, using the language of the other side in a very harsh, accusatory manner," said Ari Fleischer, who preceded McClellan as press secretary.

"It is sad," said current press secretary Dana Perino, who was hired by McClellan. "This is not the Scott we knew."

"I'm just flabbergasted," says Trent Duffy, a deputy press secretary to McClellan. "Scott never hinted, whispered, breathed any shred of this when we worked together 2½ years."

Perino said President Bush does not plan to comment, saying he "has more pressing matters than to spend time commenting on books by former staffers." But she said he was "puzzled, and he doesn't recognize this as the Scott McClellan that he hired and confided in and worked with for so many years."

As an original member of Bush's political entourage from Texas, McClellan, 40, wasn't expected to follow in the line of presidential loyalists-turned-critics who date back at least to Franklin Roosevelt's administration. Nor was he considered likely to accuse colleagues of confusing "the political propaganda campaign with the realities of the war-making campaign."

McClellan, who declined to comment Wednesday, also is scheduled to appear National Public Radio's Morning Edition and liberal commentator Keith Olbermann's Countdown show on MSNBC this week, to be followed by a book tour starting Wednesday in New York.

Perhaps McClellan's most important claims have to do with the decision he says "pushed Bush's presidency off course" — the decision to invade Iraq.

In his book, McClellan says the administration did not employ "out-and-out deception" but engaged in "shading the truth." That included efforts to make evidence that Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction and Iraq's connections to terrorism "just a little more certain, a little less questionable, than they were."

Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., a White House aide during the Clinton administration and a critic of the Iraq war, said that if McClellan's book is accurate, "the price to America for this presidency is beyond what we actually have calculated."

Leon Panetta, a White House chief of staff to Clinton, joined Bush aides in wondering why McClellan had not expressed his views earlier.

Clinton Supporters Cannot Defend Hillary Candidacy

Read the transcript of James Carville trying to make the case for Hillary. This comes from his appearance on The Situation Room. It's quite pathetic:

Is there a realistic scenario that Hillary Clinton wins the Democratic nomination?

JAMES CARVILLE, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, there's a scenario. I mean there's a chance. And I -- look, there's nobody...

BLITZER: Wait a second. You say there's a scenario. You're talking a little too fast.

You say there's a scenario...

CARVILLE: A scenario.

BLITZER: But?

CARVILLE: Well, I don't -- again, there is a -- I don't know if there's a 20 percent chance, a 15 percent chance -- I don't know, a 25. First of all, she is probably going to win the popular vote. Now, one can say -- you can make an argument, secondly, she would probably carry Florida. We seem to be seeing that. So she's going to make her argument and she's going to continue to make her argument, as she should make her argument.

BLITZER: Well, let's get back to the question -- you see a realistic scenario that she could still get the nomination?

CARVILLE: I see a scenario that she could win the nomination. I don't know what -- what is a realistic scenario?

BLITZER: Well, what is a realistic scenario?

CARVILLE: I don't know. But I think she's going to be the popular -- I think there's a good chance that's she's going to be the popular vote winner. I think, in spite of -- I think she would be a -- I think there's a good case that she can make that she'd be a stronger general election candidate.

BLITZER: But just...

CARVILLE: I think she ought to be allowed to make her case.

BLITZER: But just like Al Gore won the popular vote in 2000, it was the Electoral College that mattered...

CARVILLE: Well, again, but you know what?

BLITZER: The popular vote...

CARVILLE: Democrats... BLITZER: Does it really matter?

Isn't it the delegate count that matters?

CARVILLE: Again, she's not going to go -- she's not going to get -- the point is, what's more important, voters or delegates?

If you say delegates are more important, it's one thing. And, by the way, Al Gore actually -- I don't want to re-fight the 2000 campaign right now...

BLITZER: Well, we're not going to (INAUDIBLE).

CARVILLE: ...in the Democratic Party, but that's hardly a convincing argument for Democrats.

I'm saying that she is going to see this thing through the 3rd of June. She may see it further. She's going to make her case to the super-delegates. You know, people change their minds all the time. I think she's going to continue pressing her case. And she has a good chance. Let's wait and see how the vote comes out. She probably will have more people vote for her than Senator Obama will.

BLITZER: How big is this meeting that the DNC is having on Saturday to determine Michigan and Florida?

Will that really make much of a difference?

CARVILLE: I don't know. But I know that -- and I think we've got -- if Senator Obama is the nominee, we have a lot of work to do in Florida. As you know, right on this set here, I offered to split the cost with the Obama people, with David Rohan. They refused that. Then myself and Governor Rendell and Governor Corzine offered to pick up the entire cost to have a primary in Florida and Michigan. And the Obama people refused that.

I think we made a great decision -- not -- I think it was a bad decision not to go forward, because if you look at what's happened in Florida, I think it hurt us a little bit in the general. I think we can come back for it and I think Senator Obama can still take Florida, but we've got our work cut out for us there if he's the nominee.

BLITZER: James, thanks for coming in.

This explains why some of her supporters are forced to admit the obvious. Or are they just trying to destroy Obama's chances:

ABC News' Rick Klein Reports: Staunch Clinton campaign supporter Gov. Ed Rendell said Wednesday that his favored candidate is "very unlikely" to capture the Democratic nomination, and said that will mean the Democratic Party will nominate the weaker candidate for the fall campaign against Sen. John McCain.

Rendell, D-Pa., told Bloomberg Television that he believes polls that suggest that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is a "far better candidate" than Sen. Barack Obama in swing states. But he added that he's a "realist" who recognizes that superdelegates are likely to continue to flock to Obama until he clinches the nomination.

"I'm a realist, and I think most likely the superdelegates will give Sen. Obama the votes he needs," Rendell said. "I don't think the DNC is going to fairly adjust what happened in Florida. . . . I don't think they’re going to fairly adjust it. So I think it's very unlikely that Senator Clinton can prevail. I think that means we're not going to field our strongest candidate."

Transcript: Karl Rove Denies McClellan Charges on FOX

The chickens are coming home to roost, Mr.Rove. Your lies and criminality are catching up with you and your boss. Read the complete Hannity and Colmes interview with Rove from yesterday:

COLMES: What about this specific charge that he's claiming that you misled him about your level of involvement in the Valerie Plame case?

ROVE: That's, that's simply not true. I'm not going to add to the public record on this because there's a civil lawsuit that the Wilsons have, and until that is resolved — they lost at the district court level, it's on appeal, pretty confident that it's going to be tossed out — but until that's resolved, I can't add to the public record.

But the fact of the matter is Scott's questions to me were: did I leak Valerie Plame's name, and the answer is no. In fact, we know today that the name of Valerie Plame was leaked to Robert Novak by Richard Armitage, the number two guy at the State Department, and not by me and not by Scooter Libby.

Amnesty International: U.S. Sends "Wrong Message Around the World"

The criticism is mostly the result of a fascist administration that does not respect international law or human rights:

Human rights group Amnesty International has told leading nations to get their own house in order if they want to restore moral authority in the world.

Amnesty secretary general Irene Khan told Sky News that there was a "burning imperative for action" after the will to apply human rights had "evaporated" among leaders.

Releasing a report 60 years after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the group singled out the US, China, Burma and Israel over abuses - and Britain did not escape unscathed.

Speaking of the US, Ms Khan said Guantanamo Bay "sent the wrong message around the world".

"Other governments look to the US as a role model; that's why we think it's very important that the US should lead by example," she said.

She insisted that the US "close Guantanamo and either release people or try them fairly".

Childhood Lead Exposure Linked to Adult Crime

Exciting breakthrough. The government should get going and act on this information:

In what may be the strongest link yet between lead exposure and crime rates, researchers at the University of Cincinnati on Tuesday released new evidence, spanning more than 20 years, that draws a direct relationship between the amount of lead in a child's blood and the likelihood he or she will commit crimes as an adult.

Research has shown before that lead has harmful effects on judgment, cognitive function and the ability to regulate behavior. But until now the best research focused on juveniles, not adults.