Say hello to Cursor's Bring It On, a great compilation of links for following the 2006 midterm elections.

(Guest Post by Big Tent Democrat)

UPDATE: Meeting was independently reported in a 2002 Time article, H/T commenter Croatoan, see extended update below.

Now Secretary of State and then National Security Advisor Condi Rice can't believe how incompetent she is and was:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she cannot recall then-CIA chief George Tenet warning her of an impending al-Qaida attack in the United States, as a new book claims he did two months before the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. "What I am quite certain of is that I would remember if I was told, as this account apparently says, that there was about to be an attack in the United States, and the idea that I would somehow have ignored that I find incomprehensible," Rice said.

It is incomprehensible. And sadly, completely believable. Remember the title of the August 6, 2001 PDB?

Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the US

Condi ignored that too. More on the flip.

Think Progess has the video of White House Press Secretary Tony Snow on CNN this morning:

This morning on CNN, Soledad O'Brien asked Tony Snow why "any communication between a 16-year-old and a congressman" didn't "raise red flags -- major, massive red flags" with Speaker Dennis Hastert and others who have known about the communications for months.

Snow responded, "I hate to tell you, but it's not always pretty up there on Capitol Hill. And there have been other scandals, as you know, that have been more than simply naughty e-mails."

Over at GMA, according to the Note, here's what George Stephanopolous had to say: If Republicans knew about the x-rated e-mails, Game Over.

Via Crooks and Liars, Rolling Stone has a very long feature article on Omar Khadr, who as I wrote here, here and here, comes from a long line of al Qaeda fighters and has been imprisoned at Guantanamo since he was 15.

As Jeanne of Body and Soul wrote a few years ago:

The problem is, Omar Khadr is as much a victim of these people as a member of the family. He's eighteen years old. When he was captured in Afghanistan, he was fifteen -- a child turned into a soldier by parents from hell. And our government's response to this victim of child abuse was to abuse him further.

(Guest Post by Big Tent Democrat)

Howard Dean is a controversial figure in our Democratic Party. I did not support his Presidential run - I think he was and would be a flawed Presidential candidate. I did support his run for DNC Chairman, I thought he could bring an energy and a grassroots following to our Party, which was sorely in need of it.

But I think Dean has brought a vision that is as valuable as that energy - and that vision is described thusly in Matt Bai's NYTimes Sunday Magazine piece:

the Democratic Party needed to be decentralized, so that grass-roots Democrats built relationships with their state parties but had little to do with Washington at all. "State parties are not the intermediaries," he said. "If I get them trained right, they're the principals."

In other words, I suggested, he was talking about "devolving" the national Democratic Party, in the same way that Reagan and other conservative ideologues had always talked about devolving the federal government and returning power to the states. "That's what I want to do," Dean said firmly.

Matt Bai misinterpets this vision as an attack on the national party structure - an attempt to "starve the beast" to irrelevance, Bai called it. I think it is quite the opposite. It is an attempt to renew the relevance of the Democratic Party as a whole, which is much more than the DNC headquarters in Washington, D.C., indeed the heart and soul of the Party is the millions of Democrats across the nation - our Big Tent. Let me explain why I think Dean's vision is the right one on the flip.

Mark your calendars. October 5 has been declared a day of "No Work. No School. Protest in the Streets."

On October 2 and 5, New York City will be the site of a protest against the military commissions/torture bill, organized by The World Can't Wait.

MONDAY October 2, 7:30PM Cooper Union Great Hall, 7th St and 3rd Ave.,
THURSDAY, October 5 - Rally at 12 noon to 47th & 1st Avenue, Dag Hammerskjold Plaza, March downtown on Second Ave, 4pm, RALLY at Union Square.

On Monday, Oct 2, there will be an emergency citywide meeting in NYC, responding to passage of the Military Commissions Bill. Speakers include OLYMPIA DUKAKIS, MARK RUFFALO (reading statement from SEAN PENN). RENO, MALACHY MCCOURT, CRAIG MURRAY, ex-British ambassador to Uzbekistan who exposed US and UK use torture, BILL GOODMAN, lawyer for Guantanamo prisoners will explain the dire implications of the passage the new TORTURE bill.

The meeting will prepare people for protests on Thursday, October 5 called by World Can't Wait--Drive Out the Bush Regime. On that day, in over 150 cities and towns across the country, people will walk out of school, take off work, gather in town squares, and MARCH, declaring their intention to bring the Bush program to a halt.

An op-ed at USA Today revisits the bloggers' lunch with Bill Clinton, suggesting that Hillary may be using Bill as a blog Ambassador and positing three options for Hillary vis a vis blogs: Ignore them, attack them or co-opt them.

It's not that simple. The first and second suggested options would be fruitless. The third is not possible. Politicans as astute as the Clintons surely know this.

Is it so hard for non-bloggers to believe that commencing a dialogue between politicans and bloggers is a worthwhile endeavor? Talk to us, bring us into the fold, let us know your values and your beliefs. We'll listen. We may or may not agree, but we'll appreciate the overture and respond. Now, is that so hard to fathom?

Update: The author's full article, before being edited and shortened by USA Today is here.

What is it with members of Congress that they think entering alcohol rehab is an appropriate response to whatever misdeeds they are accused of? Mark Foley is the latest:

Foley has said nothing since announcing his resignation. Yesterday, a statement purportedly sent by Foley to news organizations, including The Washington Post, said he has entered an alcohol-treatment facility in Florida.

Republicans continue to justify their inaction:

Republican leaders continued to insist yesterday that it was understandable that the "over-friendly" Internet e-mails they had seen did not set off alarm bells. But one House GOP leadership aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of losing his job, conceded that Republicans had erred in not notifying the three-member, bipartisan panel that oversees the page system. Instead, they left it to the panel chairman, Rep. John M. Shimkus (R-Ill.), to confront Foley.

Also yesterday, a former House page said that at a 2003 page reunion, he saw sexually suggestive e-mails Foley had sent to another former page. Patrick McDonald, 21, now a senior at Ohio State University, said he eventually learned of "three or four" pages from his 2001-2002 class who were sent such messages.

He said he remembered saying at the reunion, "If this gets out, it will destroy him."

Can anyone think of a pot-smoker who blamed pot for inappropriate sexual contact with juveniles? I can't.

(Guest Post by Big Tent Democrat)

In my obsession continuing look at Democratic political strategy and countering the Republican Paranoid Style, I present evidence of why Mark Halperin and Beltway Dems are wrong. Halperin says:

Mr. Bush and Mr. Rove fired up the base on national security, taxes and social issues and found a way to win a majority of the electorate, even as they lost the allegiance of a majority of the country over all. The national security debate, the visibility of the Clintons and the momentum the Republicans gain from Mr. Bush's rising poll numbers -- all of these echo previous election cycles.

Critics of the Bush administration assert that the politics of the base has run its course, and that the Iraq war, the partisan zealousness and the conservative social policies of the administration have made voters yearn for a more centrist, bipartisan government. But Mr. Bush's opponents may be imprudently lulled by the current storyline and broad national polls, both of which miss the power and consequence of a Republican base that may have one more victory to give.

Jon Tester proves that Halperin is absolutely wrong. I'll explain on the flip.

Yom Kippur begins at sunset -- an hour or so from now, Denver Time. Arianna gets a head start with a list of people who most need to atone. Chief among them: George Allen, Mark Foley and congressional Republicans and Democrats who voted for the torture/denial of habeas bill.

Looks like it's not going to happen. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld today said he is not thinking of resigning and Bush has reiterated his support of him in recent days. He also addressed Bob Woodward's book allegations.

He said he had spoken to Bush since the book's contents were made public. Bush "called me personally," said Rumsfeld, to voice support.

(Guest Post by Big Tent Democrat)

To a topic discussed here and here, now, ironically MYDD brings more evidence:

Among registered voters, President Bush's approval rating stands at 40 percent, with 50 percent disapproving. Among likely voters, his approval rating is the same but his disapproval rating is four points higher. But among the most likely voters, the President's approval rating is 47 percent, with 47 percent disapproving.

. . . If we are to glean anything from this poll it is this: If only the voters who go to the polls on November 7 are those who essentially need no prompting from either party, then the Democrats should be able to pull off a narrow victory in overall balloting. If, however, Democrats can turn out the category of voters who are highly interested but will need at least some cajoling, then they have the potential of scoring a profound victory in five and a half weeks.

These numbers just underscore the fact that we need to do everything we can to ensure that our voters get to the polls this year. . . . Because if we do, we could really upend Washington and begin to institute the change so desperately needed in the country today.

This post is ironic to me. On Thursday, the rogue Democrats did as much of a disservice to GOTV efforts as one could. An accountability project would note this. MYDD seems oblivious.