Ron Suskind's newest book about forged CIA documents ordered from the White House is beginning to gain some traction:

"The House Judiciary Committee has announced it will review reports that the White House in 2003 ordered the CIA to forge and disseminate false intelligence documents linking al-Qaeda and Iraq."

The White House has has thus far proven to be "teflon" and this is the newest attempt by a journalist to expose the less than honorable administration. I am less than optimistic that anything will come from the initial review of reports but Suskind claims he has "edge to edge" proof for his claims with both "on the record" and "off the record" sources.

There have been denials by the key players Suskind is going after such as Tenet and Rice but he shows how their rebuttals are classic "non-denial denials" as once seen during the Nixon era. We'll will have to see.

Amy Goodman inteviews Suskind for an hour and her interview was released today. If interested here is the transcript and above the transcript is a link to a mp3 version to listen. If interested forward the mps to 7:45 to skip over the daily headlines and get directly to the interview.

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/8/1..._the_world_ron

What I think is important is Suskind is really getting at how America through the Bush Administration has lost its "moral authority" in the world. Now you can debate his findings in the book and we will have to wait and see what comes from it but I think it is harder to deny that America is not the moral authority it was 10 years ago. Of course there might be folks on this board who deny the importance of being the moral authority but Suskind discusses quite eloquently in the interview how losing this authority is really what sets us up for future terrorist problems.

I think the Europe and Russia's less than interested response to Bush's response to the Georgia crisis really demonstrates our lessening position in the international scene currently.

Suskind's interview illustrates to a "t" why many of us progressives who are proud americans have been so conflicted the past 8 years and see Obama as at least a step in the right direction to restore the integrity of our country to what it once was.

It is not about taxes, or energy or health care...I mean all of that is important but for some of us who have lived abroad for significant periods of time and frequently travel abroad and can see America through less of an ethnocentric lens and can see and hear from other perspectives what this country has become through the neocon movement, this election is more about the chance to restore America's moral authority in the world.

The fact that McCain reframe's the potential of Obama to be popular in the international community as kin to Paris Hilton or Britney Spears' hollywood lives is just so off the point as so consistent with the ideology that has gotten us to where we are today. We have to be smarter.

I encourage you not to be so hasty in your need to prove the "lefty" wrong and take the time to listen with intent to the interview.