Very bad people who have a history of blowing up commuter trains, weddings, and churches

Trent Duffy, a b-list White House spokesmodel subbing for the lovely and talented Scottie McClellan, says that the “limited program” of warrantless surveillance was “designed to monitor calls from very bad people to very bad people who have a history of blowing up commuter trains, weddings, and churches.” He knows that’s who they are because they use MCI’s Very Bad People and Family program.

Arlen Specter has gone to Iraq to tell the judges in Saddam Hussein’s trial that they are being too lenient on him. For example, the chief judge says “if the deposed president is sentenced to death in the Dujail case and is executed, all other cases against him would be dropped.”

Israel “pulled out” of Gaza, and now declares that everyone must pull out of a stretch of it. Some rockets (which is a glorified name for the Qassams, which practically have to fly down your throat to do any damage) have been fired into Israel, harmlessly, so Israel declared a free-fire zone inside Gaza, dropped leaflets with the charming message, “Know that the terrorists have made you hostages and human shields and safeguard your interests.”

Augusto Pinochet was booked today, fingerprinted and photographed, and there are no pictures of it happening, goddammit! And where are the mug shots? If we’re denied a perp walk, I wanna see the mug shots.

The UN commissioner for elections in Iraq, Craig Jenness, proclaims, “You cannot but conclude that these were transparent, credible and good elections.” Only 1,500 complaints alleging irregularities were filed, which Jenness considers a low number. One of the reasons for that – and I wish I’d noted down the source when I read this a couple of days ago but I sorta expected someone to follow it up, which hasn’t happened – was that the Iraqi election monitors included many partisans, who failed to pass on complaints.

Bush quietly over the holiday weekend (which should send off warning signals) changed the “doomsday” line of succession in the Pentagon, bumping the secretaries of the army, air force and navy further down, after political appointees such as the undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics. Since this relates to what happens in the event of a major terrorist/nuclear decapitation of American leadership, it would be nice if someone looked into this a little. #3 is Stephen Cambone, who has held the newly created post of undersecretary of defense for intelligence since spring 2003. If you know the Bush modus operandi, you know that this means that Cambone’s involvement with intelligence goes back to spring 2003 (but I’m sure he’s doing a heckuva job). He is a Rummy loyalist, pushing for Star Wars and the weaponization of space, and was last seen in public during the Abu Ghraib hearings (he’s the one behind sending the commandant of Guantanamo to Abu Ghraib to ramp up the process of intelligence-extraction).