The Dish

So the dead ringer for Mr Burns has been all over the media touting new body-scanning machines, and his point is a completely valid one. It would have been nice, though, for him to have acknowledged the following a little sooner, don't you think:

What he has made little mention of is that the Chertoff Group, his security consulting agency, includes a client that manufactures the machines. The relationship drew attention after Chertoff disclosed it on a CNN program Wednesday, in response to a question.

An airport passengers' rights group on Thursday criticized Chertoff, who left office less than a year ago, for using his former government credentials to advocate for a product that benefits his clients.

That's from the news section of the WaPo. Fred Hiatt's section ran an op-ed by Chertoff making the case today. It includes a disclosure.

Where the president of the United States will  

(Hat tip: Rumproast commenter Kevin).

Fraud, fraud and fraud.

How much worse can it get? The neocons want a big, breast-beating, emotionally satisfying display of righteousness, as usual. Some sanity from Gary Sick and Kelly Niknejad. AIPAC, as usual, is at the center of it, although why the pro-Israel lobby should be the central organization for tackling Iran is beyond me. This is America:

As the Dish enters its second full decade, best wishes from me, Chris, and Patrick. (And Aaron, Dusty and Eddy.) We're taking it easy tomorrow and this weekend.

A shout-out to two media stars: Gretchen Carlson and Mike Allen. Both are tools. Carlson is exposed so totally here as a chilling, hollow, hologram of a human being by Jon Stewart:

Allen, meanwhile, earns a living as a journalist while moonlighting as a spokesman for Dick Cheney's spittle-flecked attacks on the president as a traitor to his country for not torturing prisoners. The most recent excrescence was a classic. If Cheney had issued a press release from his own office and Mike Allen had to report it, would his story have been any different? Sure, he tacks on a few credentializing critiques on the second page of his piece – while reprinting the statement in full on the first – but the entire gist of this exercise is clear. Allen is a cherished outlet for Cheney. Take it away, Alex Pareene!

He has used him before – not because Allen has called him up and asked him tough questions (Allen likes his pampered perch in the DC media bench too much to ask any tough questions of war criminals), but because Cheney called him up and asked him to publish a statement. In the previous instance, Cheney was on background. Now Allen is such a tool he doesn't even bother with this charade.

Why doesn't Allen just go work for Cheney as a spokesman and be done with it? It would be more lucrative. And more honest.

A reader writes:

This was a very good post. I would urge though, while grieving for all that went wrong in Iraq, and all the needless loss of life, to not give up hoping, and keeping others hoping and working, for a decent outcome there.

The Arab world is not Iran. It lacks the natural political dynamism of Persia. That is why a popular revolution there is so hard. And when you empower autocrats with oil, it becomes nearly impossible. We will see this in Iran as well. Oil-funded autocracies are the worst. But now that we have paid this huge price to open a political space in the heart of the Arab world, in Iraq, it is hugely important, for all the reasons you cited in your post, that something decent emerge there.

Why? Because if something reasonably decent and democratizing can emerge in Iraq — and have the resources of that oil state — and something decent and democratizing can emerge in Iran — and have the resources of that oil state — it will fundamentally tip the whole Arab-Muslim world. Instead of oil funding the worst Sunni Arab dictator and the worst Shiite theocrats, oil — for the first time in the modern history of the Middle East — will funding reasonably decent, freely-elected, modernizers in Iraq and Iran.

It would turn that world upside down. As you said: Know hope.

The more we hear the clearer it is that profound incompetence allowed the trust-fund Nigerian to get on that flight to Detroit. I mean: the fundamentalist's dad all but begged the CIA to keep tabs on his son.

Many on the Cheney right complain that moderate Muslims do not expose the radicals in their midst. But here we had a moderate Muslim prepared to hand over his own son to prevent Jihadism and the CIA dropped the ball.

We need a thorough investigation so that every single person in the chain of command who failed to connect the dots is fired.

Videogum splices together the best viral videos of 2009:

A surprisingly candid December 31 document dump from the CIA.