UnFairWitness

Rick Santorum's Big K Street Lie

Rick Santorum:

“I had absolutely nothing to do—never met, never talked, never coordinated, never did anything—with Grover Norquist and the—quote—K Street Project,” Mr. Santorum said.

Actually, Tim F at Balloon Juice pretty much has the goods on this big lie, but I just happened to be rummaging around at Grover Norquist's site anyway and found this blast from the past (2002).  Oddly, it seems to have been recently deleted from atr.org, but fortunately Google has it cached.

The research  project, headed by GOP activist Grover Norquist, was discussed in June  in a private meeting in the Capitol hosted by Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.).   Several Republican lawmakers already have copies of the dossier, dubbed the "K Street Project," according to GOP aides.

I suppose it still exists in the WaPo archives somewhere, as well.

The internets never forget.  Full text below the jump.

Analyzing the Hamas win in Palestine

For substantive analysis of the Hamas electoral success in Palestine, see:

Andrew Schamess:

My hopes are with both the Palestinian and the Israeli people - that this change in the political landscape will turn out to bring them, somehow, even against all expectations, a step closer to peace.

Helena Cobban, 1 , 2 :

I am fairly optimistic about the impact this could have on progress towards a real, sustainable peace between Palestinians and Israelis. Read some of my reasons for this here.

Oh wow.  That AP news report says that Fateh got only 43 seats. That is truly a debacle for the movement that (1) dominated the reconstitution of Palestinian national life in the 1950s (but oh, that was a long time ago now), and (2) has dominated the entire governance and patronage system inside the West Bank and Gaza since 1994.

The report also says this:

Mahmoud Zahar, a top Hamas official, said the group would extend its year-old truce if Israel reciprocates. "If not, then I think we will have no option but to protect our people and our land," he told Associated Press Television News.

That he announces a readiness to extend the truce is good news.  But note that he's stating that at this point it would have to be reciprocal.  Over most of the past year, Hamas has abided by a truce (tahdi'eh-- literally, a "calming") against Israel that Israel never subscribed to and indeed that Israel never abided by.

If Zahar is holding out the offer of a reciprocal truce now-- will Israel respond?

And Claire Wolfe says what probably crossed every honest person's mind after reading the official US responses:

Yet the U.S. officially refuses to deal with Hamas because Hamas advocates violence and overtly aims for the destruction of a country. I don't want to see Israel destroyed. But pardon me; if you're going to refuse to deal with a political party because it advocates violence and has policies that destroy countries, then there are a couple of parties a lot closer to home that we should all refuse to deal with.

As Madame Condi said, "You cannot have one foot in politics and another in terror."

Unless you're the planet's only 800-pound canary of course.

Hamas wins Palestinian elections

So, Hamas wins a majority of seats in the Palestinian elections and the statements from the fake "peacemakers" in response strike all the relentlessly predictable poses of phony diplomacy.  Rather than follow the script laid out for them by their would-be masters, the Palestinians, in essence, said spin this, hypocrites.

I was going to mock some Condi quotes, but they're too repulsively kindergarten-teacherish, condescending and simple-minded.   Let's just have an actual intelligent comment on the elections, from Lawrence of Cyberia:

.....all the talk about trying to exclude Hamas from the democratic process, or threatening to not deal with a government that includes them, or warning that having Hamas in government will harm the peace process (what peace process?), is plain stupid. The primary responsibility of Palestinian political institutions is to reflect and represent Palestinian society – nationalists, leftists and islamists alike - not the wishes of the US or the EU or anyone else. And it is sheer chutzpah for Israel – which has refused to negotiate at all with the PA for five years, and failed to negotiate in good faith with the Palestinians in good faith for much of the previous ten - to try to influence the elections by warning now that it won’t be able to enter into negotiations if Hamas wins the elections. An Israeli government that absolutely relies on the absence of substantive peace talks so that it can pursue its unilateralist policies is warning Palestinians that voting for Hamas will prevent a return to negotiations? Please, spare me.

More on Farris Hassan's Dad, Redha - the plot thickens

Not only did Farris Hassan's dad arrange his trip to Baghdad, he told CNN that he was in Baghdad when Farris called from Kuwait.

Hassan's father, Redha Hassan, a medical doctor, told CNN that he had helped his son get a visa into Iraq from Beirut. The elder Hassan said he was leaving Iraq himself when the teen called, unable to get into the country from Kuwait. He told him to go to Lebanon and said he spoke with him almost daily. (Route)

When asked why he helped, Hassan said his son had come so far by the time he called that he couldn't see not helping him.

Redha Hassan and Atiya, who lives in Tampa, are divorced. Farris spends most of his time in Fort Lauderdale, where his father lives.

So, the big "story": Teen goes to Iraq all by himself, doesn't tell parents - is all bullshit. All that's left to find out is why Dad lied so much, why Dad helped Farris go to Iraq in the first place and why  Mom was so utterly in the dark about it all.  And what was Dad doing in Iraq, anyway?

 

Farris Hassan: The Dad Did It

RE: This post - The picture is beginning to resolve a bit, now.  Farris and his Dad, Redha Hassan, are telling different stories.  Mom sounds mostly clueless.  She's enjoying the media attention but reporters are beginning to figure out that she's peripheral to Farris' activities.

Typically, at the border (and other police situations when cops want to catch people lying) they split everyone up and question them individually to see if they all tell the same story.  Clearly, this technique was used on the Hassan father and son, and the media is beginning to report the discrepancies in their stories.  You can be sure that the US authorities have ten times the information we currently do.

See here and here.  For example, Farris told the AP in Baghdad that his parents didn't know where he was, while Redha Hassan told reporters that he arranged for Farris' flight from Kuwait City to Beirut and then arranged his flight to Baghdad ten days later, after hiring private security guards for his son.  AP says Farris left the private security guards out of the story he told them.   Also, Redha Hassan says Farris spent Christmas evening in a Beirut church interviewing Christian Lebanese, when all other accounts have Farris flying into Baghdad on Christmas day.

It'll be interesting to see what happens next.  Farris has written some Republican themed essays featuring the typical bloodthirsty terrorists who want to behead Americans with the obligatory good vs evil jingo framing, so they may try to Jessica Lynch him.  Wingnutty warbloggers certainly recognize him as one of their own kind. If so, we'll never know what happened.  On the other hand, the dad has been in trouble with the law before for forging Iraqi passports and ID (1985 - charges were dropped in the end) so father and son may be involved in something the Feds can spin as a much-needed victory in the Terror War if they hammer them.