Look, there are rarely “right” or “wrong” answers when it comes to policy preferences. In other words, if you’re trying to solve a problem, you can often find good solutions whether you’re a fiscal conservative, a social conservative, a social liberal, or a leftist. The best debates are about which plans are the best.

On the other hand, there are politicians who are simply the wrong choice. These candidates lie about where they stand, what they believe in, and what their motivations are in running. Often, they are driven by ego more than anything else. Voting for George W. Bush in 2004 was wrong. It was a mistake, and our country is poorer for it. He remains a man who cannot admit mistakes. He believes Iraq is going GREAT and congratulated Mike Brown on a great job handling Katrina.

My fellow Connecticut residents who voted for Joe Lieberman have made a similar mistake. He lied to us, claiming he would work to end the war, that he would work with Democrats on other issues, and show leadership for the state. Instead, he’s spending 9/11 this year with Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity, is a fanatical supporter of the Iraq war, further military adventures in Iran, and is generally so far off the Democratic agenda on nearly everything else, I want him to switch parties. At least that would be honest.

He’s also taking lessons from Republicans on how to run government. According to a new GAO reports, DHS is a mess. While Sen. Lieberman is holding hearings, I doubt he will criticize the President. Anything but that, and anything but pinning the incompetence on the folks in charge for the bulk of the lifetime of DHS.

Democrats that voted for Lieberman, what the heck were you thinking?

I know I said I would limit my posts about the Path to 9/11, but this is completely horrible. The movie contains a scene where a CIA agent supposedly calls the White House for authorization to kill bin Laden after supposedly having surrounded him Afghanistan. Sandy Berger is portrayed as not answering before the line gets cut.

One problem. The incident never actually happened. It’s a complete fabrication. From CQ:

Berger, reached by phone after the screening, seconded Ben-Veniste’s criticism. “It’s a total fabrication,” he said tersely. “It did not happen.”

That is not likely to prevent the film from being embraced far and wide among Bush supporters.

…

Neither Berger nor Ben-Veniste was consulted on the film. Kean, however, is an official adviser; he says the incident was a fictionalized composite. It was “representative of a series of events compacted into one,” he replied to Ben-Veniste at the time. In a phone interview a few days later, he added, “It’s reasonably accurate.” And he offered a prediction that the show will “get just as many howls from Republicans.”

It’s worth pointing out that Kean has something to gain by kissing up to the Republican establishment: his son is running for office in NJ.

Contrast this account to the comments by Richard Clarke, Larry Johnson, Rand Beers, Paul Pillar, all former NSC or CIA officials who worked in the Bush administration. Take a look at this account of Richard Clarke’s focus during his time in both administrations. Kean simply isn’t credible and this movie is nothing but a rehash of the “blame Clinton” line that Republicans have been peddling since 2000. It may be winning elections, but it’s flushing our country down the drain.

Early reports make the Path to 9/11 a sorry excuse for a docudrama. Mendacious might not be strong enough.

Here are some more blogs, newspapers, and magazines talking about this fictional bit of historical lovemaking to the Bush administration.

Blogs

• ABC Yanks the Movie’s Blog
• Firedoglake examines the marketing and early reviews of the movie. Hint: there’s a bias in the marketing.
• TPM Cafe talks about the movie

Other

• MediaMatters talks about the creators

I’ll keep this updated as I find more. It will probably be the last post on this subject.

(Standard disclaimer applies — see here.)

Wow, Rep. Peter Hoekstra just loves making stuff up to score political points:

Michigan Republican Rep. Peter Hoekstra also suggested some unauthorized leaks could have been deliberate attempts to help al Qaeda.

“More frequently than what we would like, we find out that the intelligence community has been penetrated, not necessarily by al Qaeda, but by other nations or organizations,” he said.

“I don’t have any evidence. But from my perspective, when you have information that is leaked that is clearly helpful to our enemy, you cannot discount that possibility,” he added.

Uh, yeah.

When it becomes acceptable for a sitting Congressman to call intelligence analysts traitors without any evidence, we’ve lost something to the terrorists. It’s even worse when the officials leak no actual intelligence but only evidence of possible Constitutional violations by the White House.