POLLS SHOW CATHOLICS WILL VOTE FOR McCAIN

The Catholics this blogger knows can use any code words they want such as BARACK OBAMA is "too arrogant," "too elitist," "too skinny," "too whatever," but what it boils down to is for many, many Catholics this Catholic knows BARACK OBAMA is TOO BLACK.

PERIOD.

Comment by BILL CORCORAN, editor of CORKSPHERE

THE REST OF THIS BLOG REPORT COMES FROM A RIGHT WING BLOG SITE

Catholics Opting for McCain

August 9th, 2008 at 06:07am Mark Noonan
http://blogsforvictory.com/2008/08/09/catholics-opting-for-mccain/

Social issues are driving it:

The latest Associated TV/Zogby International poll reports a significant change in Catholic support for the leading presumptive presidential nominees of both major U.S. political parties. Zogby analyst Fritz Wenzel explains that the shift amongst Catholics is due to increased concern about “social values.”

In mid-July, Catholics polled by Zogby International favored Democratic Sen. Barack Obama by 11 percent. The latest poll now shows they favor Republican Sen. John McCain by a margin of 50 to 34 percent.

Zogby International said in a Tuesday press release that McCain leads Obama among all voters by 42 to 41 percent, as measured by a telephone poll of 1,011 likely voters. The poll, commissioned by Associated TV and conducted from July 31 to August 1, claims a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

On the other hand, an Associated Press/Ipsos poll conducted between July 31 and August 4 finds Catholic support evenly divided between both candidates.

Fritz Wenzel, a Zogby Polling Analyst, gave CNA a statistical breakdown of the 269 Catholic respondents’ answers.

About fifty percent of the Catholics favored McCain, while 34 percent favored Obama. Twelve percent were undecided, while two and one percent favored third-party candidates Bob Barr and Ralph Nader, respectively.

“Catholics vote largely on a set of conservative values and on social values. On social values McCain has a natural advantage because of his pro-life stance, compared to Obama’s pro-choice stance,” Wenzel told CNA.

“This is a dominant issue in voting for Catholics because of the balance of the Supreme Court. The other issues are also important. When you start thinking about the conditions in the Iraq War, that was a concern for Catholics earlier. It’s becoming less so, so voters are turning to other, more domestic concerns.”

BELOW ARE NOT THE COMMENTS OF BILL CORCORAN, EDITOR OF CORKSPHERE, BUT COMMENTS FROM A RADICAL RIGHT-WING BLOGGER

The push is rapidly coming to a shove and I think that, in the end, a very large majority of devout Catholics will give their votes to John McCain.

There’s just too much riding on this election to think that Obama is the man for the times. While a lot of Catholics very much want large increases in social spending (heck, in a way even I do - though I don’t want to pour it into the failed, liberal programs; I have other ideas), with the Supreme Court in the balance and the Culture of Life poised for some real victories under continued Republican government, the thought of a few more billion for social spending drops in the scales of relative values. Lets first save life, then we can worry about what to do with the life once here.

There is also in Obama that very off-putting arrogance and self-centeredness. While we’re not better than anyone else, there is in Catholic attitude a demand of humility, and the higher you go the more humble we want you to be. As Obama rises, so does his ego, and Pride isn’t a deadly sin for nothing, you know?

All in all, this year is shaping up to have a lot of surpises in store, and the fact that the Catholic vote might go decisively for McCain - and perhaps hand him the White House - is just one of a dozen oddities…but it is good that my fellow Catholics are wise to the needs of the day.

WHITE HOUSE STATIONERY ORDERED FAKE 9/11 LETTER THAT LED TO IRAQ WAR: CHENEY LIKELY SUSPECT

Tape: Top CIA official confesses order to forge Iraq-9/11 letter came on White House stationery

08/08/2008 @ 8:38 pmFiled by John Byrne
http://rawstory.com//printstory.php?story=11877

In damning transcript, ex-CIA official says Cheney likely ordered letter linking Hussein to 9/11 attacks

A forged letter linking Saddam Hussein to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks was ordered on White House stationery and probably came from the office of Vice President Dick Cheney, according to a new transcript of a conversation with the Central Intelligence Agency's former Deputy Chief of Clandestine Operations Robert Richer.

The transcript was posted Friday by author Ron Suskind of an interview conducted in June. It comes on the heels of denials by both the White House and Richer of a claim Suskind made in his new book, The Way of The World. The book was leaked to Politico's Mike Allen on Monday, and released Tuesday.

On Tuesday, the White House released a statement on Richer's behalf. In it, Richer declared, "I never received direction from George Tenet or anyone else in my chain of command to fabricate a document ... as outlined in Mr. Suskind's book."

The denial, however, directly contradicts Richer's own remarks in the transcript.
"Now this is from the Vice President's Office is how you remembered it--not from the president?" Suskind asked.

"No, no, no," Richer replied, according to the transcript. "What I remember is George [Tenet] saying, 'we got this from'--basically, from what George said was 'downtown.'"
"Which is the White House?" Suskind asked.

"Yes," Richer said. "But he did not--in my memory--never said president, vice president, or NSC. Okay? But now--he may have hinted--just by the way he said it, it would have--cause almost all that stuff came from one place only: Scooter Libby and the shop around the vice president."

"But he didn't say that specifically," Richer added. "I would naturally--I would probably stand on my, basically, my reputation and say it came from the vice president."

"But there wasn't anything in the writing that you remember saying the vice president," Suskind continued.
"Nope," Richer said.
"It just had the White House stationery."
"Exactly right."

Later, Richer added, "You know, if you've ever seen the vice president's stationery, it's on the White House letterhead. It may have said OVP (Office of the Vice President). I don't remember that, so I don't want to mislead you."

Suskind says decision to post transcript unusual
Suskind posted the transcript at his blog, saying, "This posting is contrary to my practice across 25 years as a journalist. But the issues, in this matter, are simply too important to stand as discredited in any way." It was first picked up by ThinkProgress and Congressional Quarterly's Jeff Stein.

Suskind's new book asserts that senior Bush officials ordered the CIA to forge a document "proving" that Saddam Hussein had been trying to manufacture nuclear weapons and was collaborating with al Qaeda. The alleged result was a faked memorandum from then chief of Saddam's intelligence service Tahir Jalil Habbush dated July 1, 2001, and written to Hussein.
The bogus memo claimed that 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta had received training in Baghdad but also discussed the arrival of a "shipment" from Niger, which the Administration claimed had supplied Iraq with yellowcake uranium -- based on yet another forged document whose source remains uncertain.

The memo subsequently was treated as fact by the British Sunday Telegraph, and cited by William Safire in his New York Times column, providing fodder for Bush's efforts to take the US to war.

The Sunday Telegraph cited the main source for its story on Iraq's 9/11 involvement as Ayad Allawi, a former Baathist who rebelled against Saddam and was appointed a government position after the US occupation.

Nothing in the story explains how an Iraqi politician was privy to the fake memo, but the New York Times column alluded to Allawi and described him as "an Iraqi leader long considered reliable by intelligence agencies."

"To characterize it right," Richer also declares in the transcript, "I would say, right: it came to us, George had a raised eyebrow, and basically we passed it on--it was to--and passed this on into the organization. You know, it was: 'Okay, we gotta do this, but make it go away.' To be honest with you, I don't want to make it sound--I for sure don't want to portray this as George jumping: 'Okay, this has gotta happen.' As I remember it--and, again, it's still vague, so I'll be very straight with you on this--is it wasn't that important. It was: 'This is unbelievable. This is just like all the other garbage we get about . . . I mean Mohammad Atta and links to al Qaeda. 'Rob,' you know, 'do something with this.' I think it was more like that than: 'Get this done.'"
Magazine asserts Feith created bogus document

Today, The American Conservative also published a report saying that the forgery was actually produced by then-Defense Undersecretary Douglas Feith's Office of Special Plans, citing an unnamed intelligence source. The source reportedly added that Suskind’s overall claim “is correct."

"My source also notes that Dick Cheney, who was behind the forgery, hated and mistrusted the Agency and would not have used it for such a sensitive assignment," the magazine wrote.
"Instead, he went to Doug Feith’s Office of Special Plans and asked them to do the job. … It was Feith’s office that produced the letter and then surfaced it to the media in Iraq. Unlike the [Central Intelligence] Agency, the Pentagon had no restrictions on it regarding the production of false information to mislead the public. Indeed, one might argue that Doug Feith’s office specialized in such activity."

More of Suskind's transcripts are available here.

AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE REPORTER SAYS IT WAS CHENEY WHO WANTED LETTER FORGED THAT LED TO WAR WITH IRAQ

American Conservative: It was Feith’s office, not CIA, that forged the Habbush letter.

Ron Suskind’s new book alleges that the White House ordered the CIA to forge a letter from the head of Iraqi intelligence to Saddam Hussein linking the dictator to the 9/11 terrorists.

The American Conservative’s Philip Giraldi argues today that “an extremely reliable and well placed source in the intelligence community” told him Suskind’s overall claim “is correct,” but that it was Douglas Feith’s Office of Special Plans — not the CIA — that forged the letter:
My source also notes that Dick Cheney, who was behind the forgery, hated and mistrusted the Agency and would not have used it for such a sensitive assignment.

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/08/07/american-conservative-it-was-feiths-office-not-cia-that-forged-the-habbush-letter/

Instead, he went to Doug Feith’s Office of Special Plans and asked them to do the job. … It was Feith’s office that produced the letter and then surfaced it to the media in Iraq. Unlike the [Central Intelligence] Agency, the Pentagon had no restrictions on it regarding the production of false information to mislead the public. Indeed, one might argue that Doug Feith’s office specialized in such activity.

A CIA counterrorism expert said that, in the run-up to war, Feith’s office recommended that the CIA’s finding of no link between Iraq al Qaeda relations “be ignored. Not challenged, not made the subject of a critical dialogue between policymakers and analysts, but ignored.”

VOICE OF AMERICA REPORTS: U.S.-LED FORCES KILL 4 WOMEN AND 1 CHILD IN AFGHANISTAN

Afghanistan Coalition Says 4 Women, Child Killed in Offensive Against Militants

By VOA News 08 August 2008
http://www.voanews.com/english/2008-08-08-voa14.cfm

U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan say Friday they inadvertently killed four women and a child while battling militants in central Afghanistan.

Ghazni Province, AfghanistanA U.S. military spokeswoman, Lieutenant Colonel Rumi Nelson-Green, says the civilians were killed Thursday as troops moved in on a key Taliban militant in the Giro district of central Ghazni province.

She says armed militants threatened coalition forces, which responded with small-arms fire, killing several Taliban as well as the women and the child. Three militants were arrested.

The U.S. military called the deaths "inadvertent" and promised a full investigation.

CNN REPORTS: IRAQ BOMBING KILLS 21: TWO MARINES DIE

The Olympics and the John Edwards' affair have not stopped the violence in Iraq as another attack took place on Friday killing 21.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A bombing at a crowded outdoor market in northern Iraq on Friday killed 21 people and wounded 50 others, according to police.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/08/08/iraq.main/index.html

Nineveh provincial police said the parked car bomb went off in Tal Afar, west of Mosul. There has been violence in Tal Afar throughout the Iraq war, and U.S. and Iraqi troops in Nineveh province have been taking on al Qaeda in Iraq there.

Also Friday, the U.S. military announced that two Marines died in a noncombat-related incident near Karma on Thursday in Anbar province.

Nine American troops have died in Iraq so far this month -- two in combat and the others in vehicle accidents and other noncombat incidents.