Hillary's Curious Campaign Loan

By Nat Parry
February 9, 2008

Only days before the make-or-break “Super Tuesday” primaries, Hillary Clinton dipped into her personal finances to lend her campaign $5 million, a move she kept secret until the day after she had battled Barack Obama to a standstill in the coast-to-coast voting.

If she had disclosed the loan before Super Tuesday, it might not only have generated troubling questions about the financial health of her campaign; it might have focused unwanted attention on the sources of the Clintons’ money.

Read on.

Waterboarding for God

By Ray McGovern
February 8, 2008

After one spends 45 years in Washington, high farce does not normally throw one off balance. But I found the events of Thursday to be an acid test of my equilibrium.

I missed the National Prayer Breakfast—for the 45th time in a row. But, as I drove to work I listened with rapt attention as President George W. Bush gave his insights on prayer:

Read on.

Injecting 'Terror' into Campaign 2008

By Robert Parry
February 6, 2008

As Campaign 2008 reaches a critical point, George W. Bush’s top intelligence officials are raising new alarms about a revitalized al-Qaeda recruiting Westerners, possibly including Americans, to carry out terror attacks inside the United States.

At a Feb. 5 hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Bush’s Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell said al-Qaeda was refining “the last key aspect of its ability to attack the U.S.” by training Western recruits, who could blend in with American society and carry out attacks on U.S. targets.

Read on.

Five Years for Powell -- and VIPS

By Ray McGovern
February 5, 2008

It is a difficult anniversary to “celebrate” – Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity’s first publication, a same-day critique of Colin Powell’s Feb. 5, 2003, UN address – since what he said helped grease the skids for incalculable death and destruction in Iraq and brought shame on our country.

A handful of former CIA intelligence officers formed VIPS in January 2003, after we could no longer avoid concluding that our profession had been corrupted to “justify” what was, pure and simple, a war of aggression.

Read on.

Colin Powell's Fateful Lies

By Robert, Sam and Nat Parry
February 5, 2008

To make his case before the U.N., Bush dispatched the most credible official in his administration, Secretary of State Colin Powell.

By the time Powell was assigned to make the case for war, he counted himself among the growing list of officials nervous about the quality of the WMD intelligence. Indeed, Powell may have been one of the best positioned officials to know that the threat from Iraq was being exaggerated.

Read on.

Where Would Obama Take the Nation?

By Robert Parry
February 4, 2008

Among the recent flood of celebrity endorsements, one that has received little attention came in a Washington Post op-ed by President Dwight Eisenhower’s granddaughter, Susan Eisenhower, explaining why she’s backing Barack Obama.

Her principal argument was that she believed Obama could help this generation of Americans pull together to address worsening problems and “leave America a better, stronger place than the one it found,” like her grandfather’s generation did.

Read on.

'Stepford Republicans' Caught on Tape

By Jeff Cohen
February 3, 2008

“The Stepford Wives” tells the chilling story of once smart, independent women who get abducted and turned into tamed, mindless robots.

I have a theory about a similarly subversive process that turns grown men once capable of independent and reasoned thought into robotic extremists. Call them Stepford Republicans.

Read on.