PEOPLE News:

- 

- 

"Norquist dropped by The [Los Angeles] Times’ Washington bureau today and, as part of his negative critique of Obama’s liberal stances on economic issues and other matters, he termed the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee “John Kerry with a tan.”" ... "Since Norquist isn’t running for anything, he can get away with such remarks; we doubt McCain will be incorporating the line into his speeches anytime soon."

- 

Del - Nev

"CLARKE: Well, there may be some other kind of remedy. There may be some sort of truth and reconciliation commission process that’s been tried in other countries, South Africa, Salvador and what not, where if you come forward and admit that you were in error or admit that you lied, admit that you did something, then you’re forgiven. Otherwise, you are censured in some way."

"Now, I just don’t think we can let these people back into polite society and give them jobs on university boards and corporate boards and just let them pretend that nothing ever happened when there are 4,000 Americans dead and 25,000 Americans grieviously wounded, and they’ll carry those wounds and suffer all the rest of their lives"
WATCH VIDEO: "Clarke on Iraq War Architects."

"- Last fall, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was named a “distinguished visiting fellow” at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, where he focuses on “issues pertaining to ideology and terror.”"

"- After a controversial tenure as the president of the World Bank, former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz is a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank."

 "- Richard Perle, the chairman of Defense Policy Board during the run up to the Iraq war, also landed on the payroll of the American Enterprise Institute, where he is a resident fellow."

Barack Obama - John McCain - Accounting - People - Families - US - Iraq - Military - Book - MT - Arizona - Wisconsin - 2008 Election - "Obama slams McCain on Iraq facts." ... "[2008 Election Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack] Obama isn't expected to speak until 7:45 pm ET at a rally in Great Falls, MT [Montana]. But his campaign has released excerpts of his remarks, which go right after [2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate John] McCain's "pre-surge levels" misstatement yesterday. They also invoke Scott McClellan's new book." ... "[Barack Obama:] "There are honest differences about how to move forward in Iraq, just like there were honest differences about whether or not we should go to war," Obama is supposed to say. "John McCain was for the invasion of Iraq; I opposed it. John McCain wants to continue George Bush’s war in Iraq indefinitely; I want to end it. So there’s going to be a clear choice for the American people this November."" ... ""But that’s not what John McCain’s been talking about the last few days. He’s been proposing a joint trip to Iraq that’s nothing more than a political stunt. He’s even been using it to raise a few dollars for his campaign. But it seems like [Arizona Senator] Sen. McCain’s a lot more interested in my travel plans than the facts, because yesterday – in his continued effort to put the best light on a failed policy – he stood up in Wisconsin and said, 'We have drawn down to pre-surge levels' in Iraq."" ... ""That’s not true, and anyone running for commander-in-chief should know better. As the saying goes, you’re entitled to your own view, but not your own facts. We’ve got around 150,000 troops in Iraq -- 20,000 more than we had before the surge. We have plans to get down to around 140,000 later this summer -- that’s still more troops than we had in Iraq before the surge. And today, Sen. McCain refused to correct his mistake. Just like George Bush, when he was presented with the truth, he just dug in and refused to admit his mistake. His campaign said it amounts to 'nitpicking.'"" ... ""Well, I don’t think tens of thousands of American troops amounts to nitpicking. Tell that to the young men and women who are serving bravely and brilliantly under our flag. Tell that to the families who have seen their loved ones fight tour after tour after tour of duty in a war that should’ve never been authorized and never been waged."" ... ""It’s time for a debate that’s based on the truth, and I can’t think of anything more important than how many Americans are in harm’s way. It’s time for a debate that’s based on how we’re going to end this war -- not a debate that’s based on raising a few dollars for John McCain’s campaign."" ... ""The American people have had enough spin. Just this week, we were reminded by President Bush’s own former spokesman of how it was deception -- not straight talk -- that misled the American people into war. It’s time to cut through the tough talk so that we can be straight with the American people about a war that’s cost us thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars without making us safer. It’s time to end the political game-playing so that we can finally end this war. That’s what I’ll do in this campaign. And that’s what I’ll do when I’m President of the United States."" -From Mark Murray and Athena Jones -MSNBC

---

Scott McClellan - Books - Counterterrorism - US - Iraq - Military - Intelligence - Politics - Marketing - "Scott McClellan Apologizes for Bashing Richard Clarke." ... "In an encounter last night in the lobby of a New York hotel, former [Republican President Bush] White House press secretary Scott McClellan apologized for denouncing a former White House colleague, Richard Clarke, the former counterterrorism adviser, after Clarke wrote a book ["Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror"] highly critical of the Bush administration in 2004." ... "Now McClellan is facing a similar denunciation from the White House for his own highly critical book." ... "In 2004, McClellan said Clarke's book, asserting the Bush administration failed to take timely action against al Qaeda, was "flat-out wrong." He told reporters at a March 22, 2004 briefing, "Ask yourself why, one and a half years later, after he left the administration, he's all of a sudden, coming forward with these grave concerns? If he had such grave concerns, why didn't he come out with them sooner?"" ... "Now White House aides are saying much the same thing about McClellan's assertions, in his book "What Happened," that President Bush waged a deceitful propaganda campaign to promote the war in Iraq. " ... "Clarke appeared Thursday night on "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" to talk about his new book, "Your Government Failed You," and was asked about McClellan's criticism of him in 2004. "I think there is a box in the White House that, if anyone escapes and tells the truth, they break open for talking points about what to say," Clarke told Stewart." (1, 2) -By Brian Ross with contributions by Mark Mooney -ABCNEWS.com 

---

John McCain - Randy Scheunemann - Political - Semantics - People - Accounting - US - Iraq - Military - Terrorism - 2008 Election - "McCain, the Surge, and 'verb tenses'." ... "[2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate] John McCain got ahead of events this week in claiming that the United States military has gone down to "pre-surge levels" in Iraq. That will not happen until later this year, even by the most optimistic scenario. He is also wrong about the city of Mosul [Iraq] being "quiet", unless you exclude car bombs and other mayhem. His advisers attempted to spin his remarks as a simple matter of "verb tense." But there is a big difference between "Mission Accomplished" and "We expect the mission to be accomplished soon."" ... "The Facts:" ... "The McCain campaign organized a rapid-response conference call with reporters in an attempt to limit the fallout from the senator's erroneous claim that "we have drawn down to pre-surge levels" in Iraq. The Obama folks pointed out that there are at present around 155,000 troops in Iraq, compared to a January 2007 force level of 128,569. The Pentagon is planning to get down to 140,000 by the end of July." ... "In a conference call with reporters, McCain foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann said the issue was a "question of semantics," and that McCain would have been right if he had said that the Pentagon had "taken a decision" to draw down the troops or was in the process of drawing them down." ... "But verb tenses matter, particularly in the case of Iraq, where it is very difficult to predict what is going to happen next week, let alone next month. By the Scheunemann standard of linguistic analysis, there was absolutely nothing wrong with the Bush administration's claim of "Mission Accomplished" back in May 2003. As we now know, a few things happened after that date to make the claim somewhat premature." ... "Taking a decision to do something and actually implementing it are two very different matters. To claim the contrary reminds me of the motto from the Ministry of Information in George Orwell's 1984: "He who controls the past controls the future; and he who controls the present controls the past."" ... "Similarly Orwellian is McCain's claim that all is "quiet" in the northern Iraqi town of Mosul, despite two car bomb attacks yesterday in the Mosul area that killed at least 20 people. News reports depict the town as the "last urban bastion of al-Qaeda" in Iraq. In the conference call, Scheunemann acknowledged that al Qaeda was still active in the area." [The Washington Post gives McCain's accounting numbers three Pinochio's out of a possible four, calling the statements by Candidate McCain "Significant factual error[s] and/or obvious contradictions."] -By Michael Dobbs with contributions by Alice Crites -WashingtonPost

---

WATCH "John McCain Misrepresents The Facts On The Ground," where he made the false assertion: "I can tell you that it [the Surge] is succeeding. I can look you in the eye and tell you it's succeeding. We have drawn down to pre-surge levels. Basra, Mosul and now Sadr City are quiet." --John McCain, Town Hall meeting, May 28, 2008.

---