From Media Matters’ Jamison Foser:

During a speech to the Israeli parliament yesterday morning, President Bush attacked Barack Obama, comparing him to Nazi appeasers for the Illinois senator’s willingness to hold discussions with Iran.

One problem: Bush’s speech came just hours after The Washington Post reported that Bush’s defense secretary, Robert Gates, said that the United States needs to “sit down and talk with” Iran. Not only that, Gates added, “We can’t go to a discussion and be completely the demander.”

Oops.

Naturally, then, a media firestorm erupted, with the Bush administration and its political allies questioned all day about whether Bush has any idea what he is talking about, whether he has lost control over the Pentagon, whether Gates will be fired, what Gates thinks about Bush’s comparison of those (like Gates) who advocate dialogue between the United States and Iran to appeasers of Adolf Hitler, and whether the fiasco will remind voters that the Bush administration’s foreign policy has been marked by incompetence and dishonesty, thus doing irreparable electoral damage to John McCain and other Republican candidates.

Sorry — what was I thinking? That didn’t happen.

Instead, much of the news media got busy pretending the Post article didn’t exist and that Gates had not undermined Bush’s political attack on Obama. Instead, many news outlets simply rushed to repeat Bush’s assault over and over again, as though it had merit.

In response to Bush’s comparison of Democrats to those who appeased the Nazis, Atrios reminds us how Bush’s grandfather helped Hitler’s rise to power.

The UK’s about to get its first bioenergy plant.

Speaking of Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh and Braddock are in the midst of one heck of a re-greening that is already benefitting the local business community.

Lady Lightfoot, queen of all she surveys.

One of the stories we have followed is the attempt of the US government to destabilize the left-wing government of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. One of the more recent developments had to do with the assassination of Colombian FARC rebels by military incursion across the border of Ecuador , which led to the call-up of the Venezuelan army, a lot of manly chest-pounding, and an eventual diplomatic resolution.

In the course of this, the Colombians claimed to have captured three laptop computers and associated hardware with information that proved, they said, that Hugo Chavez was funding and collaborating with the FARCies. This is a big deal, since FARC is designated by the US as a terrorist group, even though they are the heirs to a generations-old civil war. The Busheviks have reserved the right to invade any country aiding terrorists, which would give them the right to invade Venezuela if it weren’t completely illegal under international law.

If the allegations of FARC-Venezuelan collaboration are true, it wouldn’t be the first time that a head of state used a terrorist group (or, depending on who you ask, freedom fighters) to harass a neighbor. We seem to be doing much the same with the MEK in Iran. But since Venezuela is not the United States, it has to play under a different set of rules.

There have been serious questions about the provenance of the computers. Interpol has answered one of those questions. Rory Carroll and Sybilla Brodzinksi, The Guardian:

The international police organisation announced that a two-month forensic investigation of laptops seized in a raid by Colombian security forces concluded they belonged to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc)….

Ronald Noble, Interpol secretary general, said his experts had found “no alteration of the data by Colombian officials”. Internationally accepted methods for handling computers were not always followed, he said, but Bogotá had not modified, altered or created files. Interpol said the amount of information - 37,872 word documents and 210,880 photographs - was much greater than previously thought.

“Internationally accepted methods for handling computers” turns out to be an understatement. According to Gregory Wilpert of Venezuela Analysis:

However, between March 1 and March 3, when the material was in the hands of Colombia’s anti-terrorist unit accessed the data 48,555 times …

More as it comes available. Comments from the computer-astute on what Interpol’s investigation does and does not show would be appreciated.

Jerome Starkey, London Independent:

Secret Afghan death squads are acting on the orders of foreign spies and killing civilians inside Afghanistan with impunity, a senior UN envoy has claimed. Professor Philip Alston, the UN special rapporteur on illegal killings, said “foreign intelligence agencies” had used illegal groups of heavily armed Afghans in raids against suspected insurgents.

He said the attacks were beyond the legitimate military chains of command, and they were “completely unacceptable” and “outside the law”….

A British embassy spokesman in Kabul said UK officials were “examining the independent expert’s report closely”. But they refused to comment on whether MI6 was involved.

Without knowing how these killings are being conducted, it’s difficult to know whether it’s a good or a bad thing. If the victims truly are civilians, then it’s probably a bad thing, especially since civilian insurgents are potentially such good sources of intelligence. But tactics of this kind are what would have been used in a successful war. They avoid large-scale combat that results in “collateral damage” and rely on indigenous forces who actually know what’s going on.

He makes the Iran-Contra scandal disappear!

Of course, that is a big fat lie, as anyone who was around for the Iran-Contra scandal — not to mention the earlier October Surprise — knows full well.

That wasn’t the specific ruling. But it’s the message of the Court’s ruling [PDF file] on the issue of same-sex marriage:

There are signs, however, that people all over the country are recognizing that the rightwing agenda has seriously damaged our country, and these signs encourage me to hope that the laws and constitutional amendments defining same-sex couples as unworthy of legal protection may be overturned. Let it be sooner rather than later.

Good Gawd Almighty Jeebus, but this is hilarious (h/t Minnesota Monitor):

That’s right, folks: Admitting reality where climate change is concerned is a BAD thing for these people. So who do they like for McCain’s running mate? Rhode Island’s governor Don Carcieri, whose anti-immigrant stance alarms the local clergy of most denominations. Somehow that doesn’t surprise me.

Via Firedoglake, Laura Flanders site GritTV is well worth watching. One can skip through the program. On the May 14th segment, for example, I wanted to watch only the Kevin Phillips and the Moseley/Raab/Hertzberg segment. I ended up watching many more, including one in which Jane Hamsher appears.

Laura Flanders is one of the brightest talents in the new media. AAR is crazy not to make her full-time.