"african american" judges

* digby:

"And is it common to immediately put up a picture and discuss the race and gender of judges who ruled in major cases? I don't think I've seen it before. Usually they indicate whether or not a judge is a treasonous activist liberal by just indicating who appointed them. This time, we've got the designation "african american" every time the judge is mentioned. Now why would that be?"

* digby:

"In that sense, this war makes Vietnam a moment of foreign policy clarity. It was certainly a mistake to put so much importance on the idea that the US could not afford to fail in a small proxy war or risk communism taking over the far east. But at least everyone understood the premise and could either agree or disagree with it. This war in Iraq is totally incomprehensible to everyone. We invaded for dozens of disparate reasons none of which were entirely compelling and all of which have been proven to be mistaken. "

* from the DrKelly blog:

"Two lies were pivotal to the invasion of Iraq: one was that the mobile laboratories found in Iraq were evidence of WMD, and the other was that WMD could be launched from Iraq at British bases in Cyprus within 45 minutes. Kelly demolished them both. It was he who had leaked to the Observer that the mobile laboratories were not for WMD, and it was he who had expressed deep unhappiness with the claim that WMD could be launched from Iraq in 45 minutes. Kelly was one of the most senior and highly-respected weapons inspectors. His return to Iraq on 26 July 2003, a date that was confirmed by the MoD the day before he disappeared, would have risked his being able to demonstrate conclusively that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq."

* here's a thought, ya know that oft-flung statistic comparing the $100m that Ken Starr spent on Clinton vs the $3m (later upped to $14m) on the 911 Commission - perhaps the more appropriate comparison to the 911comm spend is the $1.2bn the IRaq Survey Group spent 'looking' for wmd. that was surely the greatest boondoggle of all time. I wonder where all that money went.