Countdown Newsletter -- 03/21/06: Bush: "I didn't want war."

"Who do you think you're f'n kidding?"

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Tonight on Countdown
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President Bush said Tuesday there will be "more tough fighting ahead" in Iraq, but added that "we're making progress" and denied claims that Iraq is in the grips of a civil war three years after the U.S.-led invasion. He also rejected accusations that he was determined to wage war in Iraq from early in his presidency. Acknowledging the public's growing unease about the conflict - and election-year skittishness among fellow Republicans - the president nonetheless vowed to keep U.S. soldiers in the fight. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11941620/

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After being surprised by her husband's role in the Dubai ports deal, Sen. Hillary Clinton has insisted that Bill Clinton give her "final say" over what he says and does, well-placed sources said. The former President agreed to give his wife a veto to avoid his habit of making controversial headlines that could hurt her chances of returning to the White House, multiple sources told the Daily News. "He knows it's Hillary's time now," said an adviser close to both Clintons who expects to play a key role in her likely 2008 presidential campaign. http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/401528p-340108c.html

Former Vice President Al Gore said Monday he's not planning to run for president in 2008 but hasn't ruled out a future in politics. "I'm enjoying what I'm doing," Gore told an audience at Middle Tennessee State University, where he gave a lecture on global warming, one in a series. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11442697/from/RS.3/

In the period before the Iraq war, Saddam Hussein's foreign minister Naji Sabri, was a secret paid source of the CIA, "NBC Nightly News" reported on Monday. Citing unnamed current and former U.S. intelligence officials, NBC said Sabri provided details of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction that turned out to be more accurate than CIA estimates. According to the intelligence sources, Sabri indicated that Saddam had no significant weapons program and that while the deposed Iraqi leader desperately wanted a nuclear bomb it would have taken more time for him to build one than the CIA's several-months-to-a-year estimate, NBC reported. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/20/AR2006032001566.html

An Ocala judge has rejected the plea deal that would have spared former middle school teacher Debra Lafave jail time in exchange for her pleading guilty in the sexual assault of a student nearly two years ago. http://www.sptimes.com/2006/03/21/Hillsborough/Lafave_deal_rejected.shtml

Susan Sarandon, the film star who is known almost as much for her leftist political views as for her acting, is reportedly in talks to portray Cindy Sheehan in a forthcoming biopic about the Californian mother who became an icon of the anti-war effort in the US after losing her son in Iraq. http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/film/news/article352565.ece

That's some of what we're planning for tonight's show.

Finally,

Sopranos fans... This piece mirrors my own take on Sunday's episode. It was all about identity, literally and metaphorically (you may have liked it, you may have been annoyed).

By Andy Dehnart:

The last time "The Sopranos" let viewers eavesdrop on one of Tony Soprano's dreams, it was a (controversially) long series of encounters with people in his life. At its end, Tony faced his childhood coach and, holding a literally impotent gun, was told that, as Tony said later, he "was unprepared, as usual," for life. That life was almost ended by Uncle Junior, and now, after two days in a coma, Tony Soprano had a different sort of dream, finding himself in a parallel universe.

Once again, it was a dream full of rich imagery and symbolism that demands repeated viewing and detailed analysis. Tony did not question this alternate universe, which was markedly different from reality; he was a salesperson living an apparently flatline sort of life. Arriving at a convention for work, he talked to his wife on the phone, and that woman was a bland, non-Carmela female; on his home voice mail message, his kids had chipper voices, most definitely not the morose but hyperbolic children Tony Soprano calls his own. "I'm 46 years old," Tony told a group of people at a bar, wheezing. "Who am I? Where am I going?" This identity-blurring dream sequence was intercut in the episode with scenes from Tony's real life, as his family-genetic and otherwise-reacted to his condition.

But the episode ended with Tony looking out at the window of his hotel room at a light in the distance. While it may have represented the proverbial, go-toward-it light, the light belonged to an airport-style searchlight, scanning all 360 degrees of the horizon. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11917564/

I thought the searchlight represented his own heartbeat, the blips on the screen over his shoulder in the real-life hospital room.

I haven't yet asked Keith what he thought about the episode... but I intend to.

-- Carey Fox

Countdown Home: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/

More:
A jury found an Army dog handler guilty Tuesday of abusing detainees at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison by terrifying them with a military dog, allegedly for his own amusement. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11943182/

The U.S. military said on Tuesday it was investigating Iraqi police allegations that its soldiers shot dead a family of 11 in their home last week. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11939503/

A man who spent 18 years behind bars for allegedly attacking a woman in her home has been released after DNA testing excluded him as the attacker. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11072381/

French lawmakers approved an online copyright bill Tuesday that would require Apple to break open the exclusive format behind its market-leading iTunes music store and iPod players. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11943799/

The Supreme Court made it harder Tuesday for investors to file class-action lawsuits claiming that companies misled them. Justices ruled 8-0 that Merrill Lynch should have been shielded from a lawsuit by former and current brokers who alleged that the company released misleading research and manipulated stock prices. The court's ruling does not apply to lawsuits filed by individual stock holders, only suits brought on behalf of larger groups. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11943681/

Mayor Ray Nagin finished work Monday on a plan to rebuild New Orleans, endorsing a proposal that would allow all residents to rebuild their homes in neighborhoods shattered by Hurricane Katrina. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11933196/

there was more than one CIA estimate? i.e., the one CIA really had... and the one there were told to have?

If * didn't want the Iraq war does that mean he'll back away from committing us to another futile way in Syria or Iran? Thought not.

What happens to your life when you get out of prison after 18 years of being confined for a crime you never committed? How on earth do you pick up the pieces? And what about the victim? It's likely that her testimony was instrumental in convicting this guy. How would you feel if you realized you'd mistakenly taken away decades of a man's life? And what if she still thinks this is the guy?