Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani told George Stephanopoulos this morning on Good Morning, America, that “We had no domestic attacks under Bush” — a statement that, obviously, is flat-out false. Stephanopoulos apparently (I didn’t see the show, personally) did not challenge Giuliani on this point on the air, so he does so now in a post on his political blog, George’s Bottom...

The turning point for me was earlier this week when President Obama said we are at war with al-Qaeda. Then why try foreign enemy combatants in our federal courts? Why give them the rights enjoyed by U.S. citizens? Why read them our Miranda rights so they can lawyer up? Why are we as a nation so preoccupied with our true values that we bestow them to people who never had them where they came from and want to...

His name is John Michael Farren, and he allegedly tried to kill his wife:

For those who missed the President’s address live, the White House has posted a copy of the remarks as written. The NYT Caucus blog reports that the president’s remarks were delayed twice this afternoon because “declassifying the security review took far longer than expected.” Patrick at Political Byline chimes in: “I look forward to seeing what the Government does. Speeches...

This is according to Robert Gibbs, as reported by Sam Stein at The Huffington Post:

To call out biased memes, as Steve Benen does with ABC News’s “Democrats are Dropping Like Flies” news item:

That’s two D senators down. Not to mention Democrat Bill Ritter, Governor of Colo, said to announce tomorrow he will not be running for a second term. His limp tenure, lack of progress, lack of vitality, are the reasons, pundits say. There are others who are ‘suddenly’ retiring, stepping down, choosing not to run again. What’s happening? Looks like both political strategy and loyalty...

UPDATED: Darleen Click at Protein Wisdom simultaneously links to this post, and embraces her inner sixth-grader. Click and laugh. The right is all over this story about Michael Yon being handcuffed and questioned at the Seattle airport. For them, this is an open-and-shut case of overzealous airport security hassling an obviously harmless American citizen. Now, I’m not saying that Yon needed to be arrested,...

Although Yemen has been on the United States terrorism watch list for years, it is only since the Christmas Day underwear bomber that the fiefdom on the Arabian Peninsula became a household word to Americans, courtesy of our media’s flavor of the month and gotcha journalism. In examining the stronghold al-Qaeda has grasped in Yemen, it makes the threat of that terrorist group seem meek in Afghanistan by...

Picked this up via Twitter from several people (H/T Ed Morrissey) but it seems that Michael Yon, independent photojournalist who has done a ton of work in Iraq and Afghanistan, was detained and handcuffed at Seattle airport for not answering pressing national security questions such as… how much money he earns? When they handcuffed me, I said that no country has ever treated me so badly. Not China. Not...

A new poll shows the race to succeed the late Ted Kennedy is down to 50-41. I still expect the Democrat Coakley to win and with this poll out there will probably be more of a get out the vote effort, so she’ll probably win by 10-15 points. But it is interesting to see the race this close given that the state has only about 20% Republican voters.

Adding on to Dr. Steven Taylor’s fine post highlighting some of the more irrational responses to Mark Hosenball’s Newsweek article about the intelligence briefing Pres. Obama received three days before the Christmas Day attempted airline bombing, here is a much more thoughtful and sensible piece by the always-worth- reading Spencer Ackerman:

How many times have we heard this? North Korea calls for an end of hostile relations with the United States in a New Year’s message pledging to make the Korean peninsula nuclear free. Makes me wonder if the official issuing the statement carried by the government’s Korean Central News Agency, state radio and television had celebrated too far into the early morning hours of the new year which I guess...

The White House has finally begun to push back against the right-wing campaign of lies and smears that began immediately after the Christmas Day aborted airline bombing and continue to this moment. In a post on the White House communications blog, Dan Pfeiffer responds to yesterday’s Politico interview with Dick Cheney in which Cheney accused Pres. Obama of “pretending we are not at war”:

Two of the nation’s greediest media giants are at loggerheads over fee transmissions and no matter who wins the public will pay dearly. Unless a deal is struck with News Corp.by midnight New Year’s Eve, Time Warner Cable could drop all Fox programming. At the moment, the dispute affects only Time Warner subscribers. Waiting in the wings how this plays out is NBC, ABC and CBS. I’m a TWC subscriber...

This trenchant observation from Steve Benen is worth quoting without comment:

I cannot believe that Dick Cheney waited six whole days to criticize Barack Obama for waiting three days to make a non-hysterical public statement about the attempted airline bombing on Christmas Day. How could he let Pete Hoekstra get ahead of him on such an obvious opportunity to turn a national security event into a carnival of political grandstanding?

I must admit I was not shocked to hear a secret report for Pentagon brass that efforts to train the Afghan National Army (ANA) are beset with deep-rooted problems which could take years to overcome. NBC-TV foreign correspondent Richard Engel said the privately-commissioned report: 1) — Contends nepotism, corruption and absenteeism among ANA officers makes success impossible. ANA troops on the ground, however,...

The Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad is commenting on a just-released, preliminary Dutch government report on “what happened at the Dutch airport where the would-be bomber transferred.” Parts of what the Handelsblad is reporting: “It would not be exaggerating to say the world has escaped a disaster,” Dutch home affairs minister Guusje ter Horst said at a press conference on Wednesday. But she...

Karl Rove, that fierce defender of “traditional marriage” and fanatical conservative activist against same-sex marriage, and his second wife, have divorced.