Charlie Rose (PBS) tonight (just finished) - Sorry if you missed it!

For a change, it was really interesting. Discussions about Saudi Arabia and its possible link to terrorism with
RICHARD MURPHY, Former US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia
&
SEYMOUR HERSH, The New Yorker
A discussion on the Democratic party and the Bush administration with
RON BROWNSTEIN, The Los Angeles Times
SEN. EVAN BAYH (D-IN)
I cannot summarize everything they said but if interested I think he has the sound archives a few days later.
Bayh insists that only a centrist has any chance for the white house, and Brownstein said that centrist democratic politicians don't know the depth of the disgust of the democratic public. Discussed Dean very intelligently.

Maybe we won't hear as much snoring now.

I missed the Murphy part. Seymour Hersh had some things to say that Rose as a lionizer of the neocons was unhappy with but couldn't refute, but Hersh didn't push it too hard (presumably knowing Charlie) and Rose quickly asked other questions when things suggested tough going for his faith-based neocon worldview.

Evan Bayh talked too much, lives up to the Republican stereotype of what a Democrat is and should be, and needs a time machine to take him back to the '70s where he would be relevant. I put it on Mute when he talked after a few minutes. The man is a sorry excuse for a human being and I'm beginning to appreciate how tough Tom Daschle's job is. Brownstein didn't get much time but said some good things; translating things into terms slow Republicans (that's redundant, I know) can understand was what further decreased the information flow. But nothing of real news to DUers.

Quotes from Hersh:

"Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld have been very, very, wrong."

"If we had waited another month we would have had the U.N, we would have done it with the U.N just as easily, now we'll have to eat crow" and get them to come in 'cause we're in deep shit.

"Army is in a state of controlled panic, peoples' terms are up and they won't re-enlist" and said the problem for the forces is "there's alot of uncertainty about who the enemy is".

Said that while the 9/11 report was "a devastating account" on the ineptitude of FBI, CIA and NSA, Hertz said his contacts within the intelligence agencies said "conditions and coodinations are even worse than they were before" 9/11, thanks to the war in Iraq. Said that we completely fubarred our relationship with Syria because of not going with the U.N and now the so-called war on terror is much weaker because we've dissapated our energies in Iraq, that the Iraq war hurt the "war on terror", "the Taliban has come back", and that the Syrians, who gave the U.S. more info on al qaeda than anyone else, won't help us.

Maybe it's stuff we already knew but it's nice to hear someone say the shit out loud. Sadly, but not surprisingly Evan Bahy was the most conservative voice on here. He droned on and on about the same DLC bullshit that they spoke in that nearly empty room the other day. Brownstein lacerated every point Bayh made, then someone came and pulled out Bayh's microchip and wheeled him into the closet. Okay, that part I made up.