An interview with Gen. Time Horizon

Q.: General, recently you changed your name from "Artificial Timetable" (or Timetable for short, or Art for real short) to "Time Horizon". What gives?

G.T.H.: Well, the surge is workin', it don't look like we're goan hafta fight 'em over here instead of over there, here meanin' home, the good ol' US of A that is, and we dam shore ain't goan cut n' run.

Q.: What does that have to do with you suddenly changing your name, General?

G.T.H.: Well it don't got nuthin' ta do with that liberal socialist Hussein Obama, that's fer shore too.

Q. Mr. Obama is supposed to meet with you in Baghdad sometime this weekend, according to John McCain yesterday. Most American officials have visited Iraq without public announcement in order to avoid alerting terrorists to their arrival. Why did McCain announce his political rival's trip ahead of time to the media?

G.T.H.: Well hell, he wants to win the election. This is war and we can't let the terrists win.

Q. Obama has been in favor of a timetable for withdrawal all along. Hasn't the Bush administration, under pressure as well from Iraqi prime minister al-Maliki, simply decided to face reality?

G.T.H.: What reality you talkin' 'bout, Willis? This is an asspirational goal, to draw down troop strength in Iraq so we can send 'em to Afghanistan to get killed and maimed. And we're also goan need fresh meat for the coming battle with Iran.

Uh, forget I said that last part.

NYT Op-ed: Israel will attack Iran

Sometime between November and January -- which presumably means with George Bush's approval and the assistance of United States military forces. So overlook, for a moment, the horror of handing off another war to President Obama, this one could very likely go nuclear:

Israel will almost surely attack Iran’s nuclear sites in the next four to seven months — and the leaders in Washington and even Tehran should hope that the attack will be successful enough to cause at least a significant delay in the Iranian production schedule, if not complete destruction, of that country’s nuclear program. Because if the attack fails, the Middle East will almost certainly face a nuclear war — either through a subsequent pre-emptive Israeli nuclear strike or a nuclear exchange shortly after Iran gets the bomb.

Gee. What do you suppose that will do to gasoline prices?

It's that stormy time of year again

And T.S. Cristobal has caught the attention of the best hurricane tracker around. By the middle of next week it could potentially be Category 1 or 2 and on a collision course with Texas. It's not too early to have gas in the car, a few supplies stocked in just in case you need to shelter in place, and an evac plan.

You don't want to get stuck in the world's worst traffic jam like last time, do you?

Not NN'ing

One long weekend at the hottest time of the year in Austin was enough for me.

Vince is doing duty at KXAN and has a nice Watergate-across-the-generations post up, with John Dean and Joe Jaworski photo'd together.

Karen Brooks is doing a good almost-live-blog -- here she is with the Obama Grrl -- Eileen is too, and BOR is taking the point, as usual. Last night's parties here, some aggre-posting from Phillip here. Pictures here.

The Godfather is pulling his weight as well.

Update: Non-Texans have some things to read; Todd Beeton from MyDD has Wesley Clark and Howard Dean's keynote live-blogged. Booman says it's hot.

Scenes from last night

and the final All-Star clash at Yankee Stadium:

New Jib-Jabbery

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"A near universal lack of recall"

Must be the Ambien:

A "striking lack of recollection" by White House and military officials prevented congressional investigators from determining who was responsible for misinformation spread after the friendly fire death of Army Ranger Pat Tillman, a House committee said Monday.

Although military investigators determined within days that the onetime NFL player was killed by his own troops in Afghanistan following an enemy ambush, five weeks passed before the circumstances of his death were made public. During that time, the Army claimed Tillman was killed by enemy fire.

Also:

The committee says that in their quest to find out when officials first knew about the possibility that Tillman's death was not due to enemy fire, they were "frustrated by a near universal lack of recall," according to the report.

The committee interviewed several senior White House officials including former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, communications director Dan Bartlett, former Press Secretary Scott McClellan, and chief speech writer Michael Gerson.

"Not a single one could recall when he learned about the fratricide or what he did in response," says the report.

Perhaps a large public outcry could result in their firings. Oh, right.

Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard Myers told the committee that he learned by the end of April that Tillman's death was possibly due to friendly fire, but that he could not remember whether or not he passed that information to Rumsfeld.

Members of Tillman's platoon, however, knew "almost immediately" that Tillman had been killed accidentally by fellow Rangers, according to the report. Within days of his death, Colonel Craig Nixon, a top officer in Tillman's battalion, passed on that information to the commander of the joint task force in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChyrstal, who in turn sent a message to top generals, including General John Abizaid, commander of CENTCOM. ...

"I felt that it was essential that you received this information as soon as we detected it in order to preclude any unknowing statements by our country's leaders which might cause public embarrassment if the circumstances of Corporal Tillman's death become public," McChrystal wrote on April 29th, 2004.

A deputy commander of SOCOM told the committee that as soon as McChrystal's message was received, Tillman's family should have been notified.

Yet on the same day that McChrystal sent his memo warning that officials may be making erroneous statements, Tillman was posthumously awarded the Silver Star medal for "gallantry in action against an enemy of the United States".

Damned erroneous statements. Not just Tillman, either:

The committee also examined the circumstances surrounding the misinformation that was released following the capture and rescue of Private Jessica Lynch in Iraq in 2003. Sensational media reports attributed to military officials erroneously said that Private Lynch had engaged insurgents before her capture, firing until she ran out of ammunition. But as in the Tillman investigation, the committee said that it was hampered due to a "pervasive lack of recollection" about how that misleading information got released.

This is that "fog of war" thing, isn't it?

Person Jessica Lynch

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