FORT HOOD SHOOTINGS: Breaking News Updates, Video

Lila Shapiro — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:13:45 -0500

Scroll down for the latest news listed chronologically. Live updates via Twitter are HERE.

5:06 PM ET -- Fort Hood suspect said methodical goodbyes. (AP) As if going off to war, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan cleaned out his apartment, gave leftover frozen broccoli to one neighbor and called another to thank him for his friendship -- common courtesies and routines of the departing soldier. Instead, authorities say, he went on the killing spree that left 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, dead.

Investigators examined Hasan's computer, his home and his garbage Friday to learn what motivated the suspect, who lay in a coma, shot four times in the frantic bloodletting that also wounded 30. Hospital officials said some of the wounded had extremely serious injuries and might not survive.

The 39-year-old Army psychiatrist emerged as a study in contradictions: a polite man who stewed with discontent, a counselor who needed to be counseled himself, a professional healer now suspected of cutting down the fellow soldiers he was sworn to help.

Relatives said he felt harassed because of his Muslim faith but did not embrace extremism. Others were not so sure. A recent classmate said Hasan once gave a jarring presentation to students in which he argued the war on terrorism was a war against Islam, and "made himself a lightning rod for things" when he felt his religious beliefs were challenged.

Investigators were trying to piece together how and why Hasan allegedly gunned down his comrades in one of the worst mass shootings ever on an American military base. The rampage unfolded at a center where some 300 unarmed soldiers were lined up for vaccines and eye tests.

Soldiers reported that the gunman shouted "Allahu Akbar!" -- an Arabic phrase for "God is great!" -- before opening fire Thursday, said Lt. Gen. Robert Cone, the base commander. He said officials had not confirmed Hasan made the comment.

Hasan's family said in a statement Friday that his alleged actions were "despicable and deplorable" and don't reflect how the family was reared.

Hasan was due to be deployed to Afghanistan to help soldiers with combat stress, a task he'd done stateside with returning soldiers, the Army said. The timing of his departure was not disclosed.

In any event, the major was saying goodbyes and dispensing belongings to neighbors.

Jose Padilla, the owner of Hasan's apartment complex, said Hasan gave him notice two weeks ago that he was moving out this week.

Earlier this week, Hasan asked Padilla his native language. When Padilla said it was Spanish, Hasan immediately went up to his apartment to get him a Spanish-language Quran. Padilla said Hasan also refused to reclaim his deposit and last month's rent, surrendering $400 that the major said should go to someone who needed it.

"I cannot comprehend that the enemy was among us," Padilla said, tearing up. "I feel a little guilt that I was basically giving housing to someone who is going to do so much destruction."

Neighbor Patricia Villa said Hasan came to her apartment the day of the shooting, and before, to give her vegetables, an air mattress, T-shirts, a Quran and offer her $60 to clean his Killeen, Texas, apartment after he left.

Jacqueline Harris, 44, who lives with her boyfriend Willie Bell in the apartment next door to Hasan, said he called Thursday at 5 a.m. and left a message.

"He just wanted to thank Willie for being a good friend and thank him for being there for him," Harris said. "That was it. We thought it was just a nice message to leave."

Bell said Hasan offered a farewell, saying "nice knowing you old friend. I'm going to miss you."

According to a Killeen police report in August, an Army employee was charged with scratching Hasan's car, causing $1,000 in damage. Apartment manager John Thompson said the man charged was a soldier back from Iraq, who objected to Hasan's faith and ripped a bumper sticker off the major's car that said: "Allah is Love."

Kim Rosenthal, another neighbor, said Hasan didn't seem too upset by his scratched vehicle, even though it was damaged so badly that he got a new one. "He said it was Ramadan and that he had to forgive people," Rosenthal said. "He forgave him and moved on."

Hasan appeared less forgiving to Dr. Val Finnell when they were classmates in a 2007-08 master's public health program at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md.

She said that at a class presentation by public health students, at which topics like dry cleaning chemicals and house mold were discussed, Hasan talked about U.S. military actions as a war on Islam. Hasan made clear he was a "vociferous opponent" of U.S. wars in Muslim countries, Finnell said.

"He made himself a lightning rod for things," she said. "No one picked on him because he was a Muslim."

Law enforcement officials said they are trying to confirm if Hasan wrote Internet postings that include his name about suicide bombings and other threats, equating suicide bombers to soldiers who throw themselves on a grenade to save the life of fellow soldiers.

Hasan is the Arlington, Va.-born son of Palestinian parents who ran a restaurant and bar in Roanoke, Va., from 1987 to 1995, and owned a small grocery store in that city.

His relatives in the West Bank said they had heard from family members that Hasan felt mistreated in the Army as a Muslim.

"He told (them) that as a Muslim committed to his prayers he was discriminated against and not treated as is fitting for an officer and American," said Mohammed Malik Hasan, 24, a cousin. "He hired a lawyer to get him a discharge."

Mohammed Hasan said outside his home in Ramallah that he heard about the shooting from a relative. "I was surprised, honestly, because the guy and his brothers are so calm, and he, as I know, loves his work."

Nidal Hasan is the eldest of three brothers. One brother, Annas, lives in Ramallah with a wife and daughter, and practices law. The youngest brother, Eyad, lives in Virginia.

"We don't mix with them a lot," Mohammed said. "Nidal like to stay alone, he was very calm. He minded his own business."

4:40 PM ET -- Mosques step up security. (AP) U.S. mosques fearful of a backlash after the shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas are stepping up security.

The man accused of opening fire at Fort Hood, Texas in a rampage that left 13 people dead and dozens wounded is Muslim.

A board member at All Dulles Area Muslim Society in Sterling, Va., contacted local police to ask for extra patrols. Friday is Islam's main communal prayer day.

In the Chicago area, the Islamic Society of Northwest Suburbs of Chicago sent e-mails asking Muslims to be more careful.

The Mosque Foundation president in Bridgeview says he's called police to put them on high alert. Zaher Sahloul (ZAH'-hair suh-LOOL') says he fears something could be done to Muslims because of "misguided anger."

4:30 PM ET -- Doctor says some Fort Hood victims may still die. (AP) A doctor at a hospital where several of the wounded from the shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas were taken says some patients may still die.

W. Roy Smythe (smeyeth) is the chairman of surgery at Scott & White Memorial Hospital in Temple. He said Friday that "everyone is not out of the woods."

He says some of the wounded have "extremely serious injuries" and several patients are still at "significant risk" of losing their lives.

4:20 PM ET -- A moment of silence at Fort Hood. (AP) Military, friends and families have observed a moment of silence at Fort Hood, Texas and other U.S. military bases as a show of respect for the victims of the shooting rampage.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates had declared a moment of silence for U.S. military forces worldwide on Friday afternoon.

Dozens of people haved gathered at Fort Hood and bowed their heads as part of the moment of silence.

4:15 PM ET -- Army chief: Shooting was a "kick in the gut." (AP) Army Chief of Staff George Casey has asked Army leaders across the country to review force protection measures after the shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, left 13 people dead.

Casey described the shooting as a "kick in the gut" for not just Fort Hood but for the entire Army.

1:00 PM ET -- Obama to attend memorial. (AP) President Barack Obama will attend a memorial service for those killed at Thursday's mass shooting at Fort Hood, Texas.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs on Friday said a service will be scheduled at the convenience of the families who lost loved ones during one of the largest mass shooting on a military base. Gibbs says a service has not yet been scheduled and it would be planned around the families' schedules, not the president's.

Thirteen people were killed and 30 others injured in the shooting rampage at the Texas Army post on Thursday. The suspected shooter is an Army psychiatrist; his motive remains unclear.

Gibbs said that a memorial service is keeping Obama's schedule next week in flux.

Obama is scheduled to leave for Asia on Wednesday but wants to attend a memorial before starting the 10-day trip. Gibbs says the White House would not rule out delaying the trip because of the service.

10:30 AM ET -- Shooter had emptied apartment. (AP) An Army psychiatrist suspected of opening fire on fellow soldiers at Fort Hood cleaned out his apartment in the days before the rampage that left 13 people dead, a neighbor said Friday.

The neighbor, Patricia Villa, said Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan came over to her apartment Wednesday and Thursday and offered her some items, including a new Quran, saying he was going to be deployed on Friday. She wasn't sure if he was going to Iraq or Afghanistan.

Authorities said the 39-year-old Hasan went on a shooting spree later Thursday at the sprawling Texas post. He was among 30 people wounded in the rampage and remained hospitalized Friday in a coma, attached to a ventilator. All but two of the injured were still hospitalized, and all were listed in stable condition.

Investigators were trying to piece together how and why Hasan allegedly gunned down his comrades in one of the worst mass shootings ever on an American military base. His motive wasn't known, but some who knew Hasan said he may have been struggling with a pending deployment and faced pressure in his work with distressed soldiers.

Hasan's family said in a statement Friday that his alleged actions were "despicable and deplorable" and don't reflect how the family was raised.

President Barack Obama ordered the flags at the White House and other federal buildings be at half-staff and urged people not drawn conclusions while authorities investigate.

"We don't know all the answers yet. And I would caution against jumping to conclusions until we have all the facts," Obama said in a statement.

The shooting spree began as some 300 soldiers had been lined up to get vaccinations and have their eyes tested at a Soldier Readiness Center, where soldiers who are about to be deployed or who are returning undergo medical screening. Nearby, others were lining up in commencement robes for a ceremony to celebrate troops and families who had recently earned degrees.

Soldiers reported that the gunman shouted "Allahu Akbar!" -- an Arabic phrase for "God is great!" -- before opening fire, said Lt. Gen. Robert Cone, the base commander. He said officials had not yet confirmed that Hasan made the comment.

When the gunfire subsided, soldiers described a scene that looked like a war zone: too many wounded to count, shells and blood on the floor, and comrades ripping off their clothes to make tourniquets to keep the injured alive. One woman, suffering from a wound to the hip, carried another victim to get help.

"You had people without tops on. You had people ripping their pant legs off," said Sgt. Andrew Hagerman, a military police officer from Lewisville, Texas.

Hagerman arrived at the scene minutes after the shooting stopped. When he entered the building, he kept his head down to avoid stepping in the pools of blood or kicking any spent shell casings.

"You could go around it," he said. "There was definitely a path."

The gunman was struck four times by a civilian police officer who also was wounded herself. Authorities said Kimberly Munley fired on the suspect just three minutes after the gunfire began, and base officials said her efforts ended the crisis. Munley was recovering Friday at a hospital and was in stable condition.

"It was an amazing and aggressive performance by this police officer," Cone said.

Hagerman said he saw Hasan laying on the ground receiving medical assistance for a gunshot wound as responders tried to get his handcuffs off to better treat him.

Hasan reported for duty at Fort Hood in July, after working at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington for six years. Though Hasan apparently had problems at Walter Reed, officials at the Fort Hood hospital said they weren't aware of any issues with his job performance.

One of Hasan's bosses praised his work ethic and said he provided excellent care for his patients.

"Up to this point I would consider him an asset," said Col. Kimberly Kesling, deputy commander of clinical services at Darnall Army Medical Center.

An imam from a mosque Hasan regularly attended said Hasan, a lifelong Muslim, was a committed soldier, gave no sign of extremist beliefs and regularly wore his uniform at prayers.

Villa, who recently moved next door to Hasan, said she had never spoken to him before he came over to her apartment.

She said Hasan gave her frozen broccoli, spinach, T-shirts and shelves on Wednesday, then returned Thursday morning and gave her his air mattress, several briefcases and a desk lamp. He then offered her $60 to clean his apartment Friday morning, after he was supposed to leave.

Someone who used to work with Hasan said he had expressed some anger about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Retired Col. Terry Lee told Fox News said Hasan had hoped President Barack Obama would pull troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq and got into frequent arguments with others in the military who supported the wars.

But another neighbor said Hasan appeared to be OK with his pending deployment, which he said was supposed to be to Afghanistan.

"I asked him how he felt about going over there, with their religion and everything, and he said, `It's going to be interesting,'" said Edgar Booker, a 58-year-old retired soldier who now works in a cafeteria on the post.

Col. Steve Braverman, the Fort Hood hospital commander, said early Friday that Hasan was on deployment orders to Afghanistan. A military official later told The Associated Press that Hasan was to be deployed to Iraq. It was not immediately possible to verify the discrepancy.

The military official, who did not have authorization to discuss the matter publicly and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity, said Hasan had indicated he didn't want to go to Iraq but was willing to serve in Afghanistan.

Cone said authorities have not yet been able to talk to Hasan, but interviews with witnesses went through the night.

Officials are not ruling out the possibility that some of the casualties may have been victims of "friendly fire," that in the confusion at the shooting scene some of the responding military officials may have shot some of the victims.

Cone acknowledged that it was "counterintuitive" that a single shooter could hit so many people, but he said the massacre occurred in "close quarters.

"With ricochet fire, he was able to injure that number of people," Cone said. He said authorities were investigating whether Hasan's weapons were properly registered with the military.

The wounded were dispersed among hospitals in central Texas, Cone said. Their identities and the identities of the dead were not immediately released.

Friday was designated a day of mourning at Fort Hood. There also will be a ceremony at the air base to honor the dead.

Hasan, who was born in Northern Virginia, pursued a career in psychiatry at Walter Reed, working as an intern, a resident and, last year, a fellow in disaster and preventive psychiatry. The Army major received his medical degree from the military's Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md., in 2001.

But his record at Walter Reed wasn't sterling. He received a poor performance evaluation, according to an official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the case publicly. And while he was an intern, Hasan had some "difficulties" that required counseling and extra supervision, said Dr. Thomas Grieger, who was the training director at the time.

Faizul Khan, a former imam at a mosque Hasan attended in Silver Spring, Md., said "I got the impression that he was a committed soldier." He said Hasan attended prayers regularly at the mosque in Silver Spring, Md., and was a lifelong Muslim. He spoke often with Hasan about Hasan's desire for a wife.

In an interview with The Washington Post, Hasan's aunt, Noel Hasan of Falls Church, Va., said he had been harassed about being a Muslim in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, and he wanted out of the Army.

"Some people can take it and some people cannot," she said. "He had listened to all of that and he wanted out of the military."

At least six months ago, Hasan came to the attention of law enforcement officials because of Internet postings about suicide bombings and other threats, including posts that equated suicide bombers to soldiers who throw themselves on a grenade to save the lives of their comrades.

Investigators had not determined for certain whether Hasan was the author of the posting, and a formal investigation had not been opened before the shooting, said law enforcement officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the case.

Federal authorities seized Hasan's computer Friday during a search of his apartment, said a military official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation.

8:49 AM ET -- Shooter was set to deploy to Iraq. (AP) Defense department officials say the Army psychiatrist who opened fire on fellow soldiers at Fort Hood was slated for deployment to Iraq.

One of the military officials says Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan was in the preparation stage of deployment, which can take months. The official said Hasan had indicated he didn't want to go to Iraq but was willing to serve in Afghanistan. The official did not have authorization to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

A second military official said Hasan's family has Palestinian roots. There have been reports that he was harassed for his Muslim religion, but the official says there is no indication Hasan filed a complaint within the military about that.

6:50 AM ET -- (AP) The suspected shooter, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, was on a ventilator and unconscious in a hospital after being shot four times during the shootings at the Army's sprawling Fort Hood, post officials said. In the early chaos after the shootings, authorities believed they had killed him, only to discover later that he had survived.

In Washington, a senior U.S. official said authorities at Fort Hood initially thought one of the victims who had been shot and killed was the shooter. The mistake resulted in a delay of several hours in identifying Hasan as the alleged assailant.

Authorities have not ruled out that Hasan was acting on behalf of some unidentified radical group, the official said. He would not say whether any evidence had come to light to support that theory.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss matters that were under investigation.

Officials are not ruling out the possibility that some of the casualties may have been victims of "friendly fire," that in the mayhem and confusion at the shooting scene some of the responding military officials may have shot some of the victims.

The gunfire broke out around 1:30 p.m. at the Soldier Readiness Center, where soldiers who are about to be deployed or who are returning undergo medical screening. Nearby, some soldiers were readying to head into a graduation ceremony for troops and families who had recently earned degrees.

Pastor Greg Schannep had just parked his car along the side of the theater and was about to head into the ceremony when a man in uniform approached him.

"Sir, they are opening fire over there!" the man told him. At first, he thought it was a training exercise -- then heard three volleys and saw people running. As the man who warned him about the shots ran away, he could see the man's back was bloodied from a wound.

Schannep said police and medical and other emergency personnel were on the scene in an instant, telling people to get inside the theater. The post went into lockdown while a search began for a suspect and emergency workers began trying to treat the wounded. Some soldiers rushed to treat their injured colleagues by ripping their uniforms into makeshift bandages to treat their wounds.

Fort Hood Lt. Gen. Bob Cone praised the soldiers for their quick reaction.

"God bless these soldiers," Cone said. "As horrible as this was it could have been worse."

Video from the scene showed police patrolling the area with handguns and rifles, ducking behind buildings for cover. Sirens could be heard wailing while a woman's voice on a public-address system urged people to take cover. Schools on the base went into lockdown, and family members trying to find out what was happening inside found cell phone lines jammed or busy.

"I was confused and just shocked," said Spc. Jerry Richard, 27, who works at the center but was not on duty during the shooting. "Overseas you are ready for it. But here you can't even defend yourself."

The wounded were dispersed among hospitals in central Texas, Cone said. Their identities and the identities of the dead were not immediately released.

Jamie and Scotty Casteel stood outside the emergency room at the hospital in Temple waiting for news of their son-in-law Matthew Cooke, who was among the injured.

"He's been shot in the abdomen and that's all we know," Jamie Casteel told The Associated Press. She said Cook, from New York state, had been home from Iraq for about a year.

Amber Bahr, 19, was shot in the stomach but was in stable condition, said her mother, Lisa Pfund of Random Lake, Wis.

"We know nothing, just that she was shot in the belly," Pfund said. She couldn't provide more details and only spoke with emergency personnel.

Ashley Saucedo told WOOD-TV in Michigan that her husband was shot in the arm, but she couldn't discuss specifics. Saucedo said she and the couple's two children weren't permitted to leave their home at Fort Hood during the shootings.

The motive for the shooting wasn't clear, but Hasan was apparently set to deploy soon, and had expressed some anger about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, said generals at Fort Hood told her that Hasan was about to deploy overseas. Retired Col. Terry Lee, who said he had worked with Hasan, told Fox News he was being sent to Afghanistan.

Lee said Hasan had hoped Obama would pull troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq and got into frequent arguments with others in the military who supported the wars.

For six years before reporting for duty at Fort Hood, in July, the 39-year-old Army major worked at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center pursuing a career in psychiatry, as an intern, a resident and, last year, a fellow in disaster and preventive psychiatry. He received his medical degree from the military's Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md., in 2001.

But his record wasn't sterling. At Walter Reed, he received a poor performance evaluation, according to an official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the case publicly. And while he was an intern, Hasan had some "difficulties" that required counseling and extra supervision, said Dr. Thomas Grieger, who was the training director at the time.

At least six months ago, Hasan came to the attention of law enforcement officials because of Internet postings about suicide bombings and other threats, including posts that equated suicide bombers to soldiers who throw themselves on a grenade to save the lives of their comrades.

Investigators had not determined for certain whether Hasan was the author of the posting, and a formal investigation had not been opened before the shooting, said law enforcement officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the case.

10:09PM ET -- Col. Ben Danner says Hasan was shot at least 4 times.

9:43PM ET -- Fort Hood commanding officer holds press conference. Watch the press conference given roughly 30 minutes ago by Lt. Gen Bob Cone. Cone reversed earlier reports of the suspected gunman's death, saying Hasan was shot and wounded but is alive and in stable condition.

9:21 PM ET -- Gunman Hasan not dead but wounded. Lt. Gen Bob Cone is holding a press conference right now and he has just confirmed that the gunman Nidal Malik Hasan is not dead, contrary to prior reports. He was shot and wounded and has not been interrogated yet. Hasan is in stable condition. Cone cited confusion at the hospital for the earlier incorrect reports of Hasan's death.

Cone also cannot speak to if Hasan was firing indiscriminately or targeting specific people. Earlier reports had Hasan using two handguns, but Cone said one of the weapons was a semi-automatic weapon. Cone praised the first responders on the scene, saying this could have been much worse than it was.

9:02 PM ET -- Fort Hood families can call 254-288-7570 for information.

8:56 PM ET -- Shootings reportedly not indiscriminate. CNN reports that Senator Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison is saying the shootings were not indiscriminate but were targeted at specific people. This has not been confirmed beyond Hutchison.

8:51 PM ET -- Authorities aware of Hasan six months ago. The AP reports that Hasan came to the attention of authorities six months ago due to internet postings that discussed suicide bombings and other attacks. It is not confirmed that Hasan was the author of these postings. One of the them can be read here.

8:32 PM ET -- Compounding the tragedy is that Fort Hood has lost more troops in the Iraq war than any U.S. based military facility.

8:29PM ET -- Nadar Hasan, cousin to gunman, speaks to Fox News. Hasan's cousin spoke to Fox News' Shepard Smith and said the family is "shocked" at the news. He said Hasan is a "good American" who joined the military "against his parents' wishes... right out of high school." Being deployed to Iraq was his "worst nightmare." Watch the interview here.

8:09PM ET -- Suspect in custody is suspected second shooter. Ft. Hood spokesman Christopher Haug told Campbell brown that authorities suspect there were two shooters, and the person in authorities have in custody is suspected of being the second shooter.

8:06PM ET -- Authorities report that the lockdown on Fort Hood has been lifted.

7:53PM ET -- Another man detained for questioning. Fort Hood spokesman Christopher Haug confirms reports that another person has been detained for questioning in the shooting.

7:38PM ET -- Fox News' Shepard Smith reports he is hearing that the two men who were arrested and subsequently released were trying to stop the shooting and were detained out of precaution.

7:33 PM ET -- Raw video from Fort Hood.

7:31 PM ET -- NBC News: Another shooting victim has died. The victim was identified as a female by MSNBC.

7:02 PM ET -- AP Newsbreak: "AP source: Suspected Fort Hood shooter got poor performance evaluation for Army hospital work."

6:41 PM ET -- Congressman: Other soldiers detained have been released. "The two suspects arrested shortly after the shooting have been released," the Austin American-Statesman reports, citing the office of Rep. John Carter, whose district includes Fort Hood.

6:26 PM ET -- Senator: Suspect was upset about deployment. Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison told CNN that the Army Major identified as one of the shooters at Fort Hood was upset about his upcoming deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, in a statement, Texas Sen. Jon Cornyn urges patience:

It is imperative that we take the time to gather all the facts, as it would be irresponsible to be the source of rumors or inaccurate information regarding such a horrific event. Once we have ascertained all the facts, working with our military leaders and law enforcement officials on the ground, we can determine what exactly happened at Fort Hood today and how to prevent something like this from ever happening again. We do not yet have these details. My prayers are with the individuals who were killed today, the wounded and their loved ones.

6:20 PM ET -- The latest from AP.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said the president is being kept updated as details about the shooting emerge.

Gibbs said he told Obama about TV news reports that seven people were dead at the Texas military location and others were injured. Gibbs said he informed Obama based on broadcast reports and the president is being kept up to date through the White House Situation Room.

The Web site of the base in central Texas has posted an alert that says, "Effective immediately Fort Hood is closed." The Web site said that units at the base have been ordered to account for all personnel.

The site says, "This is not a Drill. It is an Emergency Situation."

Fort Hood is located halfway between Austin and Waco.

On the Fort Hood Web site, the word "closed" is posted with the statement, "Effective immediately, Fort Hood is closed. Organizations / units are instructed to execute a 100 percent accountability of all personnel."

Fort Hood was asking people on post to stay away from windows, CNN affiliate KXXV said. The incident took place at the sports dome, now known as the soldier readiness area, the station reported.

FBI agents are headed to the scene to assist, said Erik Vasys, spokesman for the FBI office in San Antonio. He had no other details.

The military installation is located near Killeen, Texas. It is the Army's largest installation, Honore said.

6:07 PM ET -- Shooting suspect is Army mental health specialist. CBS reports that suspected Ft. Hood shooter Maj. Hasan was a licensed psychiatrist from Maryland. According to the AP, a defense official said Hasan was a mental health professional -- either an Army psychologist or psychiatrist. It's not known if he was treating people at the post.

6:06 PM ET -- Obama speaks with Fort Hood Commanding General, ABC's Jake Tapper reports.

5:40 PM ET -- Fort Hood the site of earlier massacre. "It's worth noting that Fort Hood is located in Killeen, Texas, home to the deadliest shooting rampage in modern US history until the Virginia tech Massacre: The Luby's Massacre. On October 16, 1991, George Jo Hennard, 35, drove his pickup truck through the window of a Luby's Cafeteria. Armed with with a Glock 17 and a Ruger P-89, Hennard killed 23 people, wounded 20 others, then shot himself."

5:19 PM ET -- Shooting suspect identified as Major Malik Nadal Hasan. He was killed and two other suspects have been apprehended, Lt. Robert W. Cone said.

More details from ABC News:

The gunman used two handguns, Cone said. He wasn't sure if the shooter reloaded the weapons during the attack.

The general called the attack "a terrible tragedy, stunning." He said the community was "absolutely devastated."

The extent of the injuries of victims "varies significantly," according to Cone.

5:03 PM ET -- President Obama: "Horrific outburst of violence." President Obama spoke about the shootings at Fort Hood and cut short a previously scheduled speech at a conference on National American issues.

Obama said he and his administration were receiving regular updates, and that "What we do know is that a number of American soldiers have been killed and even more have been wounded in a horrific outburst of violence." He vowed that federal resources would be made available for an investigation into the shootings and to aid families and personnel.

4:55 PM ET -- Via the AP:

The first shooting began at about 1:30 p.m. at a personnel and medical processing office, Army spokesman Lt. Col. Nathan Banks said. The facility, called a Soldier Rating and Processing center, handles administrative details for soldiers.

Banks says the second shooting took place at a theater on the sprawling base.

Sgt. Rebekah Lampam, a spokeswoman at Fort Hood, said it was not known whether the shooters were soldiers or civilians.

An Army spokesman said the base was locked down after the shootings.

Covering 339 square miles, Fort Hood is the largest active duty armored post in the United States. Home to about 52,000 troops as of earlier this year, the sprawling base is located halfway between Austin and Waco.

At the Soldier Readiness Center, soldiers who are about to be deployed or who are returning undergo medical screening - on average about 300-400 screened a day, Lampam said.
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Lampam said a graduation ceremony for soldiers who finished college courses while deployed was going on in the auditorium at the time of the shooting.

The White House said President Barack Obama was notified of the shootings.

The base is home to nine schools - seven elementary schools and two middle schools - and all were on lockdown, said Killeen school spokesman Todd Martin.

Texas Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Tela Mange said Texas Rangers and state troopers were en route to Fort Hood to help seal the perimeter of the 108,000 acre base.

Fort Hood officially opened on Sept. 18, 1942, and was named in honor of Gen. John Bell Hood. It has been continuously used for armored training and is charged with maintaining readiness for combat missions.

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Local TV station KXXV reports:

We've learned an incident has taken place at the sports dome, now known as the soldier readiness area.... Temple ISD Schools Have Been locked down as part of this incident. The district's spokeswoman tells News Channel 25 the district is on soft lockdown.

MSNBC is reporting that one suspect is in custody, and one is still on the loose. Additional reports have come in that a second suspect is on the loose on the military base, but that has not been confirmed at this time. According to reports, the suspects were in military uniform. More details from MSNBC:

The official would not give [the suspect's] name nor additional details. It was unknown whether victims are soldiers or civilians. One gunman was reportedly in custody and another was on the loose, NBC News said. A third shooter may be involved, according to NBC News affiliate KCEN, which said the person had opened fire on the SWAT team at the base.

The Fort Hood military base is huge -- home to 4,929 active duty officers, 45,414 enlisted and nearly 9,000 civilian employees. The early word from MSNBC is that this is all military, and no civilians were involved. But that has not been confirmed.

The shootings began minutes before a graduation ceremony was to begin, honoring soldiers who had obtained degrees from extension schools. President Obama has been informed of the shootings.

Filipino Prisoners Perform Queen Medley (VIDEO)

Alex Leo — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 08:43:26 -0500

The dancing inmates are back, this time with a tribute to Queen. Yes, the Filipino prisoners who are taught dance routines in order to improve their health and general well-being did several MJ tributes this year, but have now moved on. Granted, there's a little Styx in the mix, but besides that they did an excellent job of shuffling together the best of Queen and pulling off a dance interpretation worthy of rock royalty.

WATCH:

Nicole Kidman: I Tried 'Strange Sexual Fetish Stuff'

Katherine Thomson — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:23:11 -0500

Nicole Kidman has a wild side, according to a new interview in British GQ, excerpted in the Daily Mail.

The 42-year-old mom, married to Keith Urban, told the men's mag her marriage is 'raw' and 'dangerous.'

'I've explored obsession. I've explored loss and love in terms of being in a grief-stricken place, I've explored strange sexual fetish stuff, I've explored the mundane aspect of marriage, and monogamy,' Kidman said.

'You work on it,' she went on of marriage. 'It's a very extraordinary, adventurous place to be: incredibly raw, incredibly dangerous and you're very much out at sea. You're exposed. You could drown.'

'When you commit to someone like that, you live and die together by that decision.'

Asked about her first marriage to Tom Cruise, she stayed mum on their split. 'I want to honour that marriage for what it was, and there is nothing I would go into about that. I have never discussed the intricacies of it and I never will,' the actress said.

Kidman will be seen in Rob Marshall's musical Nine later this year.

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Bittergate: the Untold Story Behind the Story that Rocked the Obama Campaign

Mayhill Fowler — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 07:40:14 -0500

Yesterday I read David Plouffe's book and was struck by a sentence in his explanation of Bittergate -- Barack Obama's notorious campaign remark at a San Francisco fundraiser in early April, 2008, where he said that "bitter" Pennsylvania blue-collar voters "cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them." Plouffe quotes Obama as telling him that, "I really don't know how the hell I constructed my point like that."

Well, I know how the hell he did it. In fact, it actually makes perfect sense. It is the untold story of Bittergate. Obama's remark was and still is one of the biggest stories of that historic Presidential run. It is also still one of the least understood. Though I was the first to report on his comments in my Levittown post, here on HuffPost as a citizen journalist following the candidates and covering the campaign trail, it was not until later that I fully understood the driving forces behind that statement. I don't think it was really an accident at all, but rather, that in his quick rise to power, Barack Obama did not have the chance to get to know his fellow Americans -- at least not the ones in Levittown, Pennsylvania.

I've given the full account in my upcoming e-book, Notes from a Clueless Journalist: Media, Bias and the Great Election of 2008, due out in January. The following is an excerpt, exclusive to HuffPost.

*****

The Story of "Bitter"

The night before Haverford, I was fidgeting in a Pennsylvania school gymnasium while waiting for Hillary Clinton and weeping over a dog. Senator Clinton, of all the candidates, brought out the pet-mania in a supporter. Canine attendance at her events was a phenomenon of the trail, and I had begun to take photographs of the various dogs, all wearing Hillary regalia, many squeezed into little Hillary costumes. On the evening of Monday, April 14, however, I realized that this penchant signaled more than enthusiasm. It was a sign that here sat a room full of losers--their loss magnified by their obliviousness to the reality that their candidate also was a loser. By April, despite Clinton victories in Texas and Ohio and a likely upcoming win in Pennsylvania, no one in the press, except for those prone to Super Delegate conspiracy theories, believed that Clinton would get the Democratic nomination.

But this was the time when Hillary Clinton, nourished perhaps by the respect she had received in the poor Hispanic communities of Texas, began to get her voice and a receptive audience--always now in a town's meaner streets and not, as only a season before, in the nation's professional enclaves, which had begun to drift into the Obama camp. Here filling the gym risers at the Bristol Borough Junior-Senior High School, listening to John Mellencamp's "Small Town" and chanting Hillary-Hillary-Hillary! were the working class folk who would stick with her until the end in South Dakota because she, more than any other candidate in decades, was finding a way to speak to the many and varied losses in these Americans' lives.

This is retrospect. On that April weekday evening I did not make the connection between what I had seen in Texas and what I was beginning to hear in Hillary Clinton. I had no way of predicting South Dakota. But I knew I was looking at a gym full of losers whose bright cheer cast therefore the more garish glow. In that jaundiced reportorial frame of mind, sitting in the press compound at Bristol, desultorily I watched a woman shepherd a young man in a wheelchair onto the gym floor. Likely the young man, who had ALS, was her son. I watched a slow delight spread up these two faces, lifting to the Hillary fervor rising from the bleachers. Beside the wheelchair was a large but patient dog, tethered much more by the palpable spirit of expectation than by his leash. Contemplating the dog's jauntily-angled kerchief with its cheap silkscreening of Hillary's face, I began to tear up.

"Oh for Christ's sake, Mayhill," I said to myself, "get a grip." I could not believe I was losing it over a goddamn dog.

A man who looked vaguely familiar walked up and extended his hand. "You're Mayhill Fowler," he said. "I'm John Mullane of the Bucks County Courier Times. I like what you said about Pennsylvanians."

My first thought was vain--that he had recognized me from my original OffTheBus photo, in which my head seemed to sprout like a stalk of broccoli. Already Mullane was telling me a story, something about Barack Obama at Truman High School in Levittown, a five-minute drive from Bristol. Now I knew why Mullane looked familiar, for the previous week I had covered Obama's Levittown event, too.

Looking back, I can hardly believe I wrote about Levittown. A week ago that Monday I had posted Obama's musing on choosing a running mate. Tuesday I had flown East to resume covering the Pennsylvania primary. On the flight, I had decided to write more about his remarks, for a Friday posting. I understood that revealing the rest would be a blow, a serious blow, to his campaign, and yet on Wednesday I went to the town hall meeting in Levittown as if everything were business as usual. Even as I was resolved to keep writing about the campaigns, I was also in some state of denial. Who was that April woman? By now I have acquired too much of a reporter mindset ever again to do such a nutty thing: to cut a story in half--to suspend it in time, as it were--in order to think through a decision and meanwhile to carry on with work. Maybe that Mayhill was the real journalist. Maybe it is a paradox. But rereading my Levittown article for the first time since I wrote it (and I had forgotten I wrote it until I began researching post-November), I see that I was prescient about the political journey many Levittowners would make, if not about the immediate opportunity Barack Obama would have to focus on the distant horizon.

April 10, 2008. Barack Obama's town hall meeting in Levittown, PA, yesterday was, in the sphere of political conversation, the epilogue to Michael Sokolove's fine essay in the New York Times Sunday magazine blending a reminiscence of the changes in Levittown since his childhood there with an analysis of Obama's chances with Levittown voters. At a fundraiser in San Francisco Sunday night, Obama dismissed Sokolove's conclusion that blue collar Levittown might not be quite ready to vote for a black man. "People are misunderstanding the way the demographics in this contest are broken up the way they are. Because everybody just ascribes it to white working class don't want to vote for the black guy. There were intimations of this in an article in the Sunday New York Times today--kind of implies it's sort of a race thing. That's not what it is."

If that's not what it is--then what is it? For two hours, I talked to people waiting for the doors at Levittown's Harry S. Truman High School to open for the Obama event. The conversations would seem to support both Sokolove's and Obama's realistic appraisal that Levittown is not Obama Country. Obama's analysis of his cool reception from the working class is that it stems from a feeling of having been betrayed by government and subsequent cynicism. But it's precisely this cynicism that makes men like Ed and Frank, both Vietnam Veterans and union electricians, willing to take a flyer on Obama. In their estimation, Hillary and Bill Clinton are part of the world's wealthy ruling class that "knows exactly what they're doing but not telling us." Like many people in line--and indeed Americans everywhere--Ed and Frank aid that "we need somebody new."

Most of the Levittown town hall meeting crowd were older folk, and many of them were from New Jersey. It's only a 20-30 minute drive from Princeton to Levittown, so Princetoners have been working for Obama in and around Levittown and lower Bucks County. When I asked Afton, a pet shop owner in Princeton, if she thought Obama was right about Levittown and race, she replied, "He hasn't been on the canvass." Both she and her husband, who is determined to sell Obama on Rhodesian ridgebacks as the dogs of choice for his daughters, shook their heads. "A lot of white men are not voting for him here." Debbie, a former army brat and currently a worker for peacecoalition.org, concurred. "There's a lot of misinformation--Muslim, that he'll subvert the Pentagon." Debbie said that some of her neighbors had re-registered as Republicans just so they wouldn't have to vote for either Obama or Clinton.

Indeed larger Levittown itself seemed to be absent from the Levittown town hall meeting. The group that came out in force to see Obama were the local teachers, the people who hold communities like Levittown and its neighbor Bristol together. Many of these teachers were women and Clinton supporters who nevertheless wanted to hear Obama before finally making up their minds. Melissa, a teacher at Truman High, said that she was for Clinton because "men have messed up things too much." And, yes, "race and gender are not irrelevant" in Levittown, but "I hope we're not that shallow." Jo Ann, another local teacher, described herself as "an open-minded supporter of Hillary Clinton." She felt that Clinton had the most detailed plan to overhaul No Child Left Behind. When I pointed out that Clinton wants to "scrap" N.C.L.B. and that Obama wants to "overhaul" it, Jo Ann said she didn't see much difference, but that she'd be interested to hear what Obama had to say about education.

In the subsequent town hall meeting, Senator Obama did talk about education, as he always does, although for the Levittown and Bristol teachers he wasn't as detailed and specific, or as impassioned, as he can be on the need to improve education in America. He had arrived late at Truman High and was a bit rushed. This may have been one of those missed opportunities to which all campaigns, due to the rigors of the road, succumb. Having followed the Obama Campaign for almost a year, I have come to believe that education is the lodestar for the direction in which Obama wants to take us. The significant moment in Levittown yesterday was Obama's comment that we must be "willing to sacrifice on the behalf of future generations." As I've written before, the call to sacrifice has been a chord, at first muted, now louder, in Obama's speeches from the beginning. But Levittown was the first time I've heard him say anything more specific about that sacrifice--and the implications of "future generations" for a place like Levittown are many and not least in the field of education.

The one thing everybody waiting in line to hear Senator Obama agreed on is that change is in the air. Lower Bucks County is going Democrat (despite the neighbors who have re-registered as Republicans), Central Bucks County is going Democrat--all Bucks is going Democrat. The reality is that the white working class guys who won't vote for a black guy, or a woman, are getting old and slowly passing on. With the loss of manufacturing jobs, Levittown may be dying, but new and different towns are sprouting nearby. Everybody talked about the growing African-American communities and the million-dollar homes five minutes away. Lower Bucks County is becoming a bedroom community for people with good jobs in Manhattan, a 50-minute train ride. These commuters are, in a spiritual if not a literal sense, the children and grandchildren of the aging Levittowners, a more prosperous generation who have been able to afford bigger and better homes than those in the tracts of Levittown and Bristol Township. Perhaps someday, long after Barack Obama is President but as a consequence of his policies, a well-educated work force with twenty-first century jobs will appraise the beautiful bones of Levittown and Bristol with an eye to tearing down the old tract houses and building for a newer and greener world. Nothing lasts--everything passes away--change is inexorable. In the light of this paradoxically immutable truth, Barack Obama is right to focus in the distance, beyond racism in places like Levittown, lest he get mired in the here and now. ["Obama Courts Working Class through 'Future Generations"]

Much to do with John Mullane--a sentence from my Levittown post stands out. "He [Obama] had arrived late at Truman High and was a bit rushed." That was the crux of the story John Mullane told me less than a week later at the Clinton rally in Levittown. As is clear from Obama's remarks at the San Francisco fundraiser, he had that same Sunday, on the flight to San Francisco, been reading in the New York Times Sunday magazine Michael Sokolove's engrossing essay on returning to Levittown, where Sokolove had grown up, and finding the old working class community not particularly disposed to Obama. According to Mullane, after the town hall meeting in Levittown Obama had planned to stop by Gleason's Bar, where Sokolove had conversed with the locals. "Eight men sat around the bar, and not one of them supported Obama," Sokolove had written. Mullane said that in setting up the Gleason's stop the campaign staff had told the bar staff that Obama really wanted to talk to Steve Woods, the Gleason's habitué whose negativity had been particularly colorful. "Rapid fire, he told me the issues he cared about," Sokolove wrote. "'No. 1, gas prices. It's killing everybody. No. 2, immigrants. They should go back to Mexico. Three, guns. Everybody should have the right to bear arms. In fact, everyone should have a gun in this day and age,'" Woods had said. But, as is often the case with campaign schedules, Obama was running very late that Wednesday and never got the chance to swing by Gleason's Bar and meet Steve Woods.

"That's why Obama said what he did in San Francisco," Mullane told me. "He was thinking about Steve Woods. He'd just read about Woods in Sokolove's piece. Did you notice that Obama in San Francisco echoed both Woods and Sokolove?"

I had not noticed, but as Mullane ticked off the similarities, I agreed. Barfly Steve Woods had told Sokolove that two of his issues were immigrants and guns. In San Francisco, Obama had picked up on the words. Obama had also echoed Sokolove's succinct description of working class Levittown. "The cascade down the job ladder . . . is the sort of slide that makes a person . . . more prone to cling to the familiar," Sokolove had written. "Jobs have been gone now for twenty-five years and nothing's replaced them," Obama had said in a more loquacious rumination, reaching towards the now-famous conclusion: "It's not surprising then that they get bitter and they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment." Surely, the pejorative verb cling--the word that most offended many Americans--came from reading Michael Sokolove in the New York Times Sunday magazine.

Obama could not get Woods out of his head, Mullane suggested. "If Obama had gone to San Francisco after Levittown instead of before, and if he'd had the time to talk with Woods, he never would have said what he did."

Surely John Mullane had it. "You're right," I said. "He's like a college professor, trying to work out a problem by verbalizing a potential line of reasoning." Having known many professors, I was well aware of this tendency--one which non-academics often misunderstand. A common conclusion--a version of ridicule--is that professors often do not know their own minds or stand for much of anything. This is one reason our society at large does not have much respect for the profession. But politicians are not professors. We hold politicans to their words. And many Americans had not been pleased by Obama's comments, from wherever they sprang, about small-town Pennsylvanians.

As Mullane and I talked, I realized that this was the coda to my essay about Obama's remarks in San Francisco. This was a good story in its own right. But I knew I would not write it. I could not do it. With my life turned upside-down--the scrutinizer become the scrutinized--buffeted by suspicion and accusation, I turned away, feeling that any revisiting of the fundraiser story would be tainted by questioning of my motives in doing so. Indeed for the rest of the presidential race I carefully eschewed any use of the adjective "bitter." By that Monday evening in April, I suspected, furthermore, that if I did not write up John Mullane's conclusions, no one else would. The days when I assumed naively that someone in the mainstream media would get a particular story were long gone. In fact, John Mullane told me that he had called Michael Sokolove to point out the interesting connection, but that Sokolove had yet to follow up.

Monday, April 14, Bristol, Pennsylvania was a day I failed to commit the act of journalism. Even though my stepping forth to cover the presidential campaigns is in many ways so much more the story of my learning to be a journalist than it is of the great election of 2008, nevertheless there would be only three days between April and December when I presumed to think I was more than a pretender. Now I wonder if my failure to follow through on John Mullane's story is at heart the reason why--even thought at the time I had no full sense of its importance.

On June 30, 2008, John Mullane and I met again in Bucks County. At a McCain rally in Pipersville, Mullane reintroduced himself and again mentioned the Sokolove-Woods-Obama connection. "I wrote about it, you know," Mullane said, and I made a mental note to check out his piece, but at the time I was absorbed with the difficulties, as a citizen journalist, in transitioning to the daunting hurdles in covering a general election rather than a series of primaries. In the last days of the race, reading Michael Sokolove's "second return to Levittown" article on November 9 for the New York Times "Week in Review," and two weeks before having read Matt Bai's cover story on Obama and the working-class vote for the October 15 New York Times Sunday magazine, I began to grasp the significance of the loss for a wider audience of John Mullane's story. I found it curious that Michael Sokolove in his November article, an account of his return to Levittown on Election Day to interview voters, made no mention of Steve Woods, particularly since John Mullane had pointed out to him the Woods connection to Obama's infamous remarks.

I had already been wondering about Matt Bai, interviewing Obama aboard his campaign plane late in the race with McCain and yet not confronting Obama when Obama said, "I was actually making the reverse point [in San Francisco]." By now, the campaign's explanation for Obama's remarks was that he had misspoke. It is clear from the audiotape, however, that Obama did not say the opposite of what he meant. Since such misspeaking happens to all of us now and then, we know it when we hear it. In his October article, Bai recounts Obama telling him, "That [those remarks] was my biggest boneheaded move." Likely this was a disarming, slightly-confessional airborne moment. But Larry Ceisler, a Philadelphia Democratic consultant, had called Obama's remarks "boneheaded" the Friday I posted them and quickly the adjective had become a campaign staple. Therefore, Barack Obama was not really engaging Matt Bai with a glimpse of introspection.

At this point, in the last days of the election, I looked up online John Mullane's article of April 15 for the Bucks County Courier News. In fact, Mullane wrote two articles, for like Sokolove he returned just before the election to the subject of the Levittown voter. In April, Mullane had headed straight for Gleason's Bar and talked to Steve Woods, who, as it turns out, had been fooling around a bit with Times reporter Michael Sokolove. Woods did not own a gun. He had nothing against legal immigrants; his mother was an immigrant. Steve Woods, it would seem, like many of the working class folks I met on the campaign trail, had given the big city reporter what Woods thought the guy wanted to hear. It was this kind of passive-aggression that had held me back from writing about the many racist remarks I got in Texas. In most conversations, as I have said before, I suspected that the Texan peppering candidate Obama with racial slurs was not a racist and likely had an African-American acquaintance or two. It was an act for my benefit--because isn't that just what snotty educated not-from-around-here reporters believe about folks like us no matter what we say or do?

Steve Woods is merely the human interest element in Mullane's April column. These are the key sentences: "Obama read it [Sokolove's article in the April Sunday New York Times]. When he finished, he told his staff he wanted to book a speaking engagement at the biggest high school in Levittown." Upon reading his piece at last, I emailed John Mullane. In his reply, he expands upon the assertion. "Congressman Patrick Murphy [an early Obama supporter in Pennsylvania] at the opening day of little league baseball in Levittown told me that Barack had read Sokolove's Times piece on his way to San Fran, and had expressed great frustration to his staff about the comments quoted from Gleason's Bar. Obama told his staff he wanted to visit the bar to find out why his policies weren't selling with ordinary Levittoids."

Here is the missing link in the Bittergate story--a story that, for all the verbiage, no journalist, including me, properly told. It was in many ways the biggest story of Election 2008 until the entrance of Sarah Palin upon the scene. And yet nobody got it. Time and again, pundits and voters asked, "Who is Barack Obama?" As a reporter on the campaign trail, I had re-learned a lesson from my teaching days: people do not believe something is true simply because you tell them so. Beyond all the beautifully-crafted campaign rhetoric, beyond the soaring (and therefore to many minds suspect) enthusiasm of supporters, beyond the increasing (and to many minds annoying) infatuation of journalists, the answer to the question about Obama rested in a resolve he made--an April dramatic action.

Here is a guy who, reading that a bunch of other guys do not like him and sure as hell are not going to vote for him, very much wants to meet these guys. He is determined to do so. He is intrigued. He is not only going to the bar where they hang out, but he tells his staff to book the biggest school in town right away, as soon as possible. Obama gives the order on Sunday; the Levittown event is Wednesday. But the revelation is not that his campaign had amazing organizational skills. Rather here is a man who does not hold a grudge. Where most individuals would respond to the Gleason's guys with some peevishness at the very least, Obama bears them no ill will. Politicians are drawn not first to their core supporters but to those outside the circle. It seems to be an attraction as sure and strong as a magnetic force. And, of course, that urge to garner is one way in which power ultimately corrupts. That being said--here in his response to reading about Steve Woods and his companions, in his curiosity and in his lack of animus, is Barack Hussein Obama.

Mullane's two Courier Times columns reveal, just as he and I had spoken on that April Monday night in Bristol, the impetus for Obama's unfortunate remarks in San Francisco. A thoughtful and well-spoken man did not suddenly bungle a sentence. Rather he did not know who these Pennsylvanians were and are, and he was trying to figure them out. Barack Obama did not understand them. I know them because I grew up in small towns in both the South and the Midwest. And therefore I had called Obama out on his assertion that he wanted to bridge the country's cultural divide. But why would a Barack Obama have understood these Americans? He had known only islands, growing up in Hawaii and Indonesia. He had come to the mainland to attend a small college in Pasadena, California. Then he had lived in New York City and Cambridge, Massachusetts, graduating from Ivy League schools and briefly working. Choosing Chicago, partly as a way to establish an African-American identity, he had quickly become a member of that city's large and influential circle of educated African-American professionals. Except for a brief legislative campaign foray to downstate Illinois and a summer in Iowa before the caucuses, Barack Obama had not had any sustained encounters with ordinary Americans in the heartland.

In his quick rise to power, Barack Obama did not have the chance to get to know his fellow Americans. This is the truth that his words at the San Francisco fundraiser reveal. Friday evening at Ball State University in Indiana, only hours after my piece went up, Obama tried to explain his San Francisco remarks. His paraphrase, perilously close to his San Francisco linkage between religious belief and economic distress, shows how far he had to go in understanding Middle America. "I didn't say it as well as I should have. But what is absolutely true is that people don't feel like they are being listened to. And so they pray and they count on each other and they count on their families." Instead of acknowledging that people pray in many circumstances, and that some pray daily no matter the circumstances, and that for those of religious belief such belief exists a priori to any quotidian detail of human existence--instead of placing prayer in this larger context--Obama clumsily rephrased himself. Then Obama tried to place the blame elsewhere for the brouhaha. "Lately, there's been a little typical sort of political flare-up because I said something that everybody knows is true, which is that there are a whole bunch of folks in small towns . . . who are bitter." Finally, he came up with a better rephrasing. "So I said, well you know, when you're bitter you turn to what you can count on."

The next day, in a Saturday conference call with the press, small-town Pennsylvania mayors who supported Obama took up his cause. John Fetterman, the mayor of Braddock, said, "We are very much a community of faith . . . . We have over twenty church congregations here." As the larger campaign would do consistently going forward, Fetterman shifted the conversation to the social problems on which everyone also agreed: the loss of jobs, the needs in health care, a call for better education. "We've lost ninety percent of our population," Fetterman said, in speaking of jobs. Richard Gray, the mayor of Lancaster, contributed to this purposeful confusion of the issue by arguing semantics. People were angry, not bitter. It is not that people cling, but that they have been diverted away from the real issues. A signal, however, that the campaign thought Obama had more than a semantic problem was the fact that not the mild-mannered David Plouffe, who usually spoke on the more important calls, but the wily strategist David Axelrod directed the conversation.

"The question at hand here is what is the mood about our economy," David Axelrod said, rescuing Mayor Gray from the diversion argument in which, as Gray added "gender and sexual preference" to the mix, he began to mire rather than help the campaign. We need to keep focus on economic issues and special interests and trade deals, Axelrod said. "It means consistent leadership--telling people what you mean and sticking to it," Obama's chief strategist said, seemingly--although of course no one in the press could see--with a straight face. "Senator Clinton pounced on this first thing in the morning--predictably. She has been a longtime foe of trade deals." David Axelrod was already wielding the tactics that would work for the campaign: recast Obama's remarks; attack the opposition; push the argument to terrain far, far away from cultural issues like guns and religion.

Therefore, the damage control and spin began, at first wobbly, with Obama himself in Indiana and then with the mayors' conference call and later the Pennsylvania Sportsmen for Obama conference call (a campaign/press gem for all time). The line of defense would be exactly that which Obama first drew at Ball State and Axelrod redrew in the mayors' conference call, most importantly shifting attention from the verb "cling" to the adjective "bitter"--never the controversy--but the Obama Campaign would make it seem as if it were. And so the fallout from the San Francisco gaffe gelled into "Bittergate."

Like any political campaign, Obama's could not tell the truth. A presidential campaign can hardly say that the candidate does not know the voters yet but is making progress. Furthermore, Obama was careful never to apologize directly--at least in part likely because he is a superstitious man. There was a history of verbal gaffes in Pennsylvania political contests. In every instance where a candidate had apologized, he or she had lost.

Therefore, in that Saturday conference call with the press, David Axelrod said merely, "He [Obama] was sorry for the offense anybody took from them [his words]."

"People have interpreted it [the San Francisco remarks] in a way he didn't mean," Axelrod went on to say. Over time, this would become the campaign meme. And so on October 19 Obama said to Matt Bai, "I was actually making the reverse point," and Bai did not take him up on the assertion--at least not for The New York Times. In elaboration, Obama added, "I mean, part of what I was trying to say to that group in San Francisco was, 'You guys need to stop thinking that issues like religion or guns are somehow wrong.'" If Obama had so exhorted, I would never have had that shock moment of distress because he was inferring the opposite. I would never have had anything to report. More importantly, even though Barack Obama may by now have come to believe his statements to Bai, these untruths, patently false upon examination, are not worthy of him. But just as I am now wedded to the observation that Obama is an elitist--a comment I made in order to keep myself from speaking the truth, a comment on a subject I find irrelevant to discourse about presidential qualifications--so Barack Obama is wedded to the assertion that he said the opposite of what he meant.

Despite the talk post-election that 2008 has been a game-changer for tactics and tools and strategy in presidential races, some basics, like message damage control and its consequences, have remained the same. Nowhere is this less-than-exciting reality more evident that in the media's failure to get the whole story of Bittergate. By the time Matt Bai wrote the Times October piece on Obama and the working-class vote, he did not want to revisit an old story in Pennsylvania. Bai followed Obama on to fresher territory: Virginia and that state's working-class voters. The media were no longer interested in Pennsylvania, because all signs pointed to Obama and not McCain winning there. The hot topic in autumn was Virginia, and the possibility that a Democrat might carry the Old Dominion for the first time in decades.

More importantly, Michael Sokolove never followed up on John Mullane's story. If the Internet has been as transformational for politics as post-election pundits would have it, then surely Sokolove would have posted an addendum to his Levittown article on "The Caucus," the New York Times online political blog, and linked back to Mullane's Courier Times column. But Sokolove did not. For all the self-congratulatory cork-popping among Internet media enthusiasts about the leveling influence of the blogosphere and the democratization of campaign coverage, for all the chatter about linkage and knowledge transfer, the real story of Bittergate never made it out of Pennsylvania--never made it out of Bucks County. In fact, Googling a string of terms like "Obama--Pennsylvania--bitter--guns--religion--San Francisco" produces hundreds of articles from known media outlets and bloggers, all linking to one another in a circle, like an enormous tiger chasing its tail. Without more information--like Mullane and Courier Times--several hours of Googling will not provide the two columns by J.D. Mullane.

In his email to me of November 17, 2008, John Mullane wrote:

"I called Mike Sokolove at his home in Bethesda, Md. and connected the dots--from Woods to Sokolove to Murphy to Obama to you. Mike was intrigued, and agreed that it was his article and his interviews at Gleason's that inspired Obama's thoughts.

I asked Mike for a quote, and he said he had to collect his thoughts. He sent me an e-mail response, which is what appeared in the April 15 column.

By the way, I went to Gleason's in October, prior to one of the Obama/McCain debates, and chatted with Steve Woods. He told me he had reconsidered and was now going to vote for Obama. I wrote a column about it, which was published Oct. 16.

Neil Samuels, vice chair of the Bucks County Democratic Organization, e-mailed me to say he liked that column. He said he had e-mailed a copy to Mike Sokolove. I will speculate that this is why Sokolove returned to Levittown on Nov. 4 to see for himself that Obama had 'closed the deal' with working class whites here. Sokolove did not mention me or the Courier Times in his second piece for the Times. But, let's face it, May, you've been among the big dogs of journalism on the campaign trail. That's the way a lot of them are. The higher up some people go on the journalism food chain, the stingier they get giving credit to others.

A couple of years ago I wrote a column poking fun at the Times. It ended up on Jim Romenesko's journalism blog at Poynter.org, which is widely read in the industry. I got an angry email from a Times editor calling me and local writers like me, 'hacks in the hinterlands.' So there you go. Why give a hack in the hinterlands of Pa. any credit? Obama and guys who write for the Times and other august publications regard themselves as a cut above most of us. If it had been Sokolove at the San Fran fundraiser--and not Mayhill Fowler--Obama's 'bitter' comments to those his donors would still be their little secret."

I like to think that Michael Sokolove would have heard the significance in Obama's San Francisco remarks and reported them. Nevertheless, some of my experiences post-Bittergate speak to the truth of what John Mullane calls the journalism food chain. In a panel discusssion about Internet impact on politics and journalism at the Personal Democracy Forum media conference in New York City in June, 2008, for example, Ben Smith of Politico made a distinction between himself, as a journalist, and me. "She's a source. She's a great source. She smuggled a tape recorder into a fundraiser and put the audio online. . . . The central thing she did was bring a tape recorder into an event and emerge with it. . . . We [journalists] love it when sources do deceitful things on our behalf." At the forum, I was struck not so much by the condescension, for I was not a smuggler but a chronicler, however small-news, of a hundred or so campaign events by June 2008. I was struck, however, by Ben Smith's misapprehension of my intent in writing about Barack Obama at the San Francisco fundraiser. "She tried so hard to protect Obama from his words," Ben Smith said. On the contrary, I was calling Barack Obama out--politely, to be sure. If he were not the same man who had once stood up and declared that Democrats need to honor a place for religious belief in the public square, then he was not the man I had thought he was. And if he did not figure out how to talk about small-town Americans to more worldly coastal folk then even if he were President he would get no chance at "change."

And so the fiefdoms of journalism failed a story. Bai was not interested in old news. Sokolove did not link. Mullane could not get out of the county. I lost my nerve.

I also lost a certain naïveté. Since I had long since done background research on Obama, I knew the extent to which he had cut-and-pasted both his biography and his journey through the world of Chicago politics. But it was not until I saw him as the consummate politician with just the right touch of pander perfectly nail the Philadelphia speech for the AFL-CIO, and until I heard him in San Francisco a few days later, that I began to regard him coolly. I admired him still, but with more skepticism and at a distance. What happened to me in the aftermath of Bittergate, moreover, made me see that if I wanted to do good reporting I had to keep that distance. Ironically, even as I was becoming detached, many journalists, now that it looked like they would not be fruitlessly investing in another John Kerry, began to allow themselves to fall for Barack Obama. A complementary narrative was unfolding, as both Obama and Clinton spoke more and more to and about the working class Americans who had once been the constituency of the now-forgotten John Edwards of North Carolina.

Dud, Baby, Dud: The Lesson of Doug Hoffman

Chris Kelly — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 07:50:24 -0500

"I believe America is turning the page to a new dawn." ~ Doug Hoffman, Concession Speech

Doug Hoffman lost his election last night. He was supported by a plurality of talk radio entertainers, and a majority of former half-term governors of Alaska, but it wasn't enough. An obscure quirk of constitutional law says you also need votes from voters. This is the same cruel hurdle that tripped up three of his other biggest supporters, Gary Bauer, Fred Thompson and Rudy Giuliani, all of whom ran for President of the United States, but failed the "getting votes" test, because everyone hates their guts.

With their help, and a million dollars from the Club for Growth, Doug Hoffman lost a part of New York State that had voted Republican since the best way to get from Albany to Buffalo was by canal.

Not bad for a first try.

Doug Hoffman didn't just have money to burn and the staunch support of Facebooking frost bunnies, Fox News and the Ghosts of Vanity Campaigns Past. He also had coots on the ground; an army of volunteers from the tea bag movement, the 9/12 Project and the fanatic anti-choice fringe. The problem was, they could shout at the polling places as loud as they wanted, and they did, but they didn't live there, so they weren't allowed to vote.

There's probably a lesson to that. Something about politics being local.

And beyond that, about the people who do live there resenting being told what to do.

Rush Limbaugh predicted that Hoffman would win. In fact, Hoffman's victory was such a foregone conclusion yesterday that Rush had already moved on to mocking Democrats spinning their loss.

Rush:

If Hoffman wins -- and polls suggest that he will -- the race there will be dismissed as an outlier...

Folks, I want you to print these words out. I want you to get the transcript off my website. I want you to print these out, I want you to distribute them, I want you to carry them with you, and we'll just see how close I am to being right. (When Hoffman wins) the State-Run Media will say, "New York-23, the race is more about the demise of the Republican Party and anger on the right than Obama or his policies."

Print it out. Distribute it. And carry it with you, just to see how close he was to being right: Not within a zillion light years.

Rush couldn't be right, (and he can never be wrong) because he's debating a straw man from the future. His point is that X would say Y. And that's always his point: If the thing he imagines happening happens, liberals will react in a way he imagines, and it'll be just like them, too. Except they never do, because it doesn't, so they can't, not that they would have. But I wouldn't put it past them, since they do it every time.

But not today. Imaginary liberals won't be saying New York-23 doesn't matter. Rush will.

A Muslim Soldier's View from Fort Hood

Kamran Pasha — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:30:06 -0500

Major Nidal Malik Hasan is a murderer and has brought great shame upon every American Muslim in the armed forces. There are currently over 10,000 Muslim soldiers in the U.S. military, men and women who are patriotic and love their country and their fellow service members. Hasan’s evil actions, the murder of his fellow soldiers at Fort Hood, have now brought those honorable soldiers’ loyalties into question. The Islamophobe community on the Internet is trumpeting how Hasan’s behavior is reflective of the threat Americans face from their Muslim neighbors, and how radical Islamists have infiltrated the ranks of our military. Calls for purging the military, and perhaps even the United States, of its Muslim members have already begun. Today there are dozens of families mourning the attack on their loved ones by a fellow-in-arms. And there are hundreds of Muslims at Fort Hood who knew Hasan and are stunned that he would betray their country and their community with such cold, calculated ease. Hasan’s rampage has truly shattered many more lives than we can begin to imagine.I spoke today with a friend who is a Muslim soldier stationed at Fort Hood. He is a 22-year veteran of the U.S. Army and a recent convert to Islam. He agreed to share his perspective with me if I granted him anonymity. So we will call him Richard.Richard is exactly the kind of soldier we need to protect our country from those that seek to do us harm. A combat veteran who has served in Iraq, Richard became interested in studying Islam initially as a strategic means of understanding his adversary in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks. But as he began to study the religion’s teachings, he became struck by how different they were from what was being claimed by men like Osama Bin Laden. Instead of a religion of hatred and misogyny, he found an Islam of love, wisdom, and human empowerment. His strategic analysis blossomed into spiritual identification, and Richard embraced Islam just over two years ago. As a “revert” (as Muslim converts like to call themselves, since Islam believes everyone is born a Muslim), Richard was faced with the added challenge of being a soldier in a conflict in which members of his new faith were on the other side.Richard decided that the best way he could be true to his military oath and his religious convictions was to use his position as an American Muslim soldier to build bridges of understanding. He currently works as a liaison between the U.S. military and Muslim leaders in the Middle East to garner their support against the common enemy – the Islamist radicals who oppose both the American military and the mainstream Muslim community that wants nothing to do with their extremism. Richard has very much been in the forefront of our military’s efforts to win hearts and minds in the Muslim world.Richard first met Major Hasan in July 2009 when the latter arrived at Fort Hood. According to Richard, there are between 300-500 Muslim families that live at Fort Hood, and everyone in the community is associated with the base either as a service member or in a civilian support capacity. The Muslim community is largely South Asian, hailing from Indian, Pakistani, and other sub-continental backgrounds. The community is prosperous, with many doctors and professionals at its core. The Muslims at Fort Hood live in harmony with their neighbors, and from Richard’s experience, most were happy to be associated with the U.S. military and viewed their work through a lens of profound patriotism.Richard assumed that the newcomer, Nidal Malik Hasan, shared the values of the other Muslim community members. He found Hasan to be a friendly man who did not initially appear to be a radical, and they bonded as fellow Muslims on the base. Richard and Hasan would often pray together, and during the last 10 days of Ramadan, the two men secluded themselves inside the local mosque for a period of reflection and worship. And, fatefully, Richard and Hasan prayed side-by-side at the mosque the morning of the massacre, after they had engaged in a friendly competition to see who could recite the azan, the call to prayer, first. After prayers that morning, Hasan left while Richard and a few others remained behind to recite the Qur’an. Hasan appeared relaxed and not in any way troubled or nervous. A few hours later, Hasan fired two guns on his fellow soldiers and forever shattered dozens of lives, as well as the peaceful community of trust and respect that Muslims had built at Fort Hood.Richard said that he and other members of the Muslim community are struggling to understand how this happened. Looking back, Richard said that he did find some aspects of Hasan’s worldview troubling, but he had no indication that the man was capable of mass murder.Richard remembered one of his first conversations with Hasan. The newly-arrived army psychiatrist told Richard that he felt the “war on terror” was really a war against Islam, and that perhaps Muslims should not be part of the US military. Richard told Nidal that he disagreed. First, he did not believe as a Muslim that the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan are part of a grand conspiracy to destroy Islam. And second, even if a Muslim believed that a specific military action was wrong, he could not escape responsibility for it just by resigning from the military. The reality was that his or her taxes would still be used to fund the campaign, and so American Muslims were invested in the situation whether they liked it or not.Richard’s view as a Muslim was that he had a responsibility to do good in whatever situation he found himself in. He was a Muslim in the American military at a time when the United States was in conflict with areas of the Muslim world. Richard’s role was to do his part as a Muslim by creating new friendships and partnerships between the American military and the Muslim community.But Hasan clearly did not share Richard’s point of view, and Richard decided not to get into an argument with a fellow solider he had just met. And so the two moved on from their dispute and established a friendship as fellow Muslims in the Fort Hood community.As Richard got to know Hasan better over the next several months, he found the major to be a pious man who was at the mosque daily. But Richard also began to garner a sense of Hasan’s political views that troubled him. A black-and-white outlook on Islam and life that had no room for nuance or debate. Hasan had apparently attended a mosque led by an imam named Anwar Al-Awlaki, a Yemeni scholar whose political views Richard disagrees with. Awlaki is a controversial figure among Muslims, and has been accused by the Congressional Joint Inquiry on 9/11 of serving as a “spiritual advisor” to two of the September 11 hijackers. While Richard is careful to say that he respects much of Awlaki’s historical scholarship, he rejects his political ideology, which posits a black-and-white, us versus them, view of America’s relationship with the Islamic world.Richard’s own study of Islam has revealed that such a harsh dualistic approach to religion is very much against the history of Islamic thought and practice. Indeed, debate is central to the Islamic tradition, and mainstream Muslims have always understood that true faith requires openness to nuance and subtlety. In my novel, Mother of the Believers, which tells the story of Islam from the perspective of Aisha, Prophet Muhammad’s wife, I discuss how the early Muslim community engaged in profound debate and discourse in the search for truth. An embrace of subtlety and intellectual sophistication is inherent to the Islamic tradition.But this kind of subtlety is anathema to fundamentalists of any religion or ideology, who are incapable of seeing other points of view. And the backlash against my book by Muslim fundamentalists reveals the deep-seated fear that such people have of mainstream Muslims’ efforts to take back the discourse from those who cannot accept shades of grey in life and faith.Richard does not know how heavily Hasan was influenced by fundamentalist thinkers like Awlaki. But the major’s views were definitely troubling. Richard described an incident where Hasan made some anti-Semitic comments about Jews as a nation being “cursed by God” in Islam. Richard responded that the Qur’an does not condemn any group of people collectively, and that no one is born “cursed” by their ancestry. Indeed, even though there are verses that are critical of some Jews who were political opponents to Prophet Muhammad, the Qur’an states very clearly that it is speaking only in relation to those who do evil, not those who do good, and that God judges people by their actions. (3:75-76). Another verse is even more explicit:“Those who believe (in the Qur'an), and those who follow the Jewish scriptures, and the Christians and the Sabians -- any who believe in God and the Last Day, and work righteousness, shall have their reward with their Lord; on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve.” (2:62)When Richard made this point, Hasan became flustered and simply responded that as a “revert” Richard clearly did not know Islam as well as he did, someone who had been raised as a Muslim. But from Richard’s point of view, Hasan was simply regurgitating cultural attitudes and prejudices and cloaking them in the form of religion. And in the process he was blinding himself to what Islam actually taught.A second incident that revealed the hints of radicalism inside Hasan’s worldview took place when Richard once asked a group of Muslims on the base whether they would consider the Taliban to be members of “Ahl-as-Sunna,” the Arabic term for those who follow the Prophet’s tradition and life example. It is a short-hand among many Muslims to denote those who are “mainstream” versus those who are “misguided.” Hasan became angry that Richard could even ask such a question, but the other Muslims rose to Richard’s defense, pointing out that the Taliban are a patchwork of a variety of groups, many of whom are clearly way out of the mainstream Islam as practiced by the vast majority of believers. Richard was taken aback by Hasan’s sudden anger at what had been seconds before a friendly discussion.Perhaps most troubling are Hasan’s views on suicide bombing. The major has posted his opinions on the Internet, suggesting that he viewed at least some suicide bombers as the moral equivalent of soldiers who throw themselves on grenades to save others. Readers of my work will know that I have stated very clearly and with deep conviction that suicide bombing is a violation of Islam’s basic rules of war (and I have received death threats from radicals who disagree with me).Richard shared my views, and when Hasan attempted to rationalize suicide bombing in a conversation, Richard told him in no uncertain terms that suicide is forbidden in the Qur’an (4:29). An argument ensued, and then an Islamic scholar who was present told Hasan that Richard was right. Suicide cannot be defended under traditional Islamic law, regardless of efforts by some modern scholars to rationalize it. Hasan was unhappy to hear this point of view, and the men decided to change the topic.I asked Richard whether he believed that Hasan was motivated by religious radicalism in his murderous actions. Richard, with great sadness, said that he believed this was true. He also believed that psychological factors from Hasan’s job as an army psychiatrist added to his pathos. Hasan had spent months listening to horror stories from returning soldiers about their experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it had hardened his position on these wars. The news that he would be deployed overseas to Iraq, to a war that he rejected, may have pushed him over the edge.But Richard does not excuse Hasan. As a Muslim, he finds Hasan’s religious perspectives to be fundamentally misguided. And as a soldier, he finds Hasan’s actions cowardly and evil. Hasan was not being sent into combat – he would have been working in a secure office in the Green Zone far away from the life and death dangers that Richard and his fellow combat veterans face every day. For Richard, a Muslim convert and patriotic soldier, Hasan’s actions were those of a sinner and a villain, one who will be held accountable by the U.S. justice system in this world, and by Allah in the Hereafter.Listening to Richard’s perspective, I felt many emotions. Sorrow that good men and women like him will now have to defend their patriotism from those who want to use one madman’s actions to target an entire community. Pride that Muslim soldiers like Richard continue to do their duties with honor, despite the two worlds they are forced to straddle.And hope. That despite the clouds of evil that seek to hide the truth, the message of Islam, a faith of love, wisdom and community, will always shine through.Thank you Richard for your service. May Allah bless you and all your fellow soldiers who risk their lives daily so that people of all faiths can be free in the United States of America.Kamran Pasha is a Hollywood filmmaker and the author of Mother of the Believers, a novel on the birth of Islam as told by Prophet Muhammad's wife Aisha (Atria Books; April 2009). For more information please visit: http://www.kamranpasha.com

Stephanie Seymour Gets Naked In Vanity Fair (PHOTOS)

Katy Hall — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:20:22 -0500

Supermodel Stephanie Seymour, who is embroiled in a bitter divorce with estranged husband Peter Brant, has taken her clothes off for Vanity Fair.

Brant is a multimillionaire businessman and polo pony breeder who is seeking sole custody of the couple's three children because, he claims, Seymour is hooked on drugs and booze and has repeatedly cheated on pee tests to hide it. He also claims his estranged wife's shopping habit costs $257,000 a month.

Seymour, 41, accuses Brant of trying to turn their children against her and ordering the domestic staff to keep her away from them. Also, there is a dispute over a Maurizio Cattelan bust of Seymour said to resemble either a hunting trophy or the figurehead on a ship's bow.

Is getting naked the best revenge? Here is one photo and you can see more and read the Vanity Fair story here.

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The 12 Most Offensive Signs From Bachmann's Tea Party

Rachel Weiner — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:28:03 -0500

Michele Bachmann held a rally on Capitol Hill Thursday to try and "scare" lawmakers into voting against health care reform which drew thousands of protesters. Will it work? Probably not, but at least she got all these interesting signs out of it.

Vote for the worst:

[Photos from AP, RoadKillRefugee, Anna Marie Cox, ThinkProgress's Lee Fang, and Little Green Footballs.]

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Drunk Frenchman Opens Bottle Of Wine With Shoe (VIDEO)

Alex Leo — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:09:35 -0500

Wow. Just wow. I mean this is truly amazing--a gift from the Web gods. Not only is this man plastered and being mocked and filmed by his friends (which is kind of great to begin with) but he pulls off an unbelievable and incredibly informative stunt sure to garner praise for years to come. We won't spoil it for you, but suffice to say he's a genius.

WATCH:

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RARE PHOTOS: Sperm Whale EATS Giant Squid

Katherine Goldstein — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:37:36 -0500

Guest Post from Dave Hansford, National Geographic

Carrying the remains of a roughly 30-foot (9-meter) giant squid in her jaws, a female sperm whale, with a calf at her side, swims near the surface off Japan's Bonin Islands (map)in the northwestern Pacific. Taken on October 15, this and other "absolutely sensational" new pictures offer rare proof of the sperm whale's taste for giant squid, said giant squid expert Steve O'Shea of the Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand.The pictures may also reveal that adult sperm whales, which grow up to 59 feet (18 meters) long, use pieces of their prizes to teach youngsters how to catch their own, O'Shea told National Geographic News.The group of five adults and one calf kept diving deep in unison, photographer Tony Wu told the Daily Mail. "It seemed as if the adult whales were trying to teach the baby to dive and also to eat squid," he said.

More Awesome Photos From National Geographic:

Giant Jellyfish Invade Japan

Marine Machines: Robot Fish, Penguins, Lobsters

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Civil War In Corporate America: Banks Battling The Chamber On Accounting Rules

Ryan Grim — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:59:42 -0500

Amid the ongoing financial regulation overhaul, the banking industry is hoping to pull off a quiet power grab that has eluded its grasp since the Great Depression, by stripping the independence of the board that sets financial accounting standards.

The move could effectively let banks set their own accounting standards in rough economic times.

Astonishingly, at a time when the public is crying out for greater regulation to limit excessive risk-taking by financial institutions, the banks are trying to get Congress to agree that the next time there's a big downturn, they should have the ability to alter their accounting standards -- essentially, fudge the numbers -- so that the public and investors won't be able to tell how insolvent they really are. By ignoring their declining asset values, they can avoid the standard requirement of raising more capital.

The mechanism is contained in an amendment set to be introduced in mid-November by Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-Colo.) that would move final authority over the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) from the Securities and Exchange Commission to a new body, a so-called "oversight" board, that would include the officials charged with managing systemic risks to the financial markets.

[UPDATED: Scroll down for the legislative language, which surfaced Friday and goes even further than suspected.]

These regulators would have the authority to override FASB's accounting guidelines by taking into account economic conditions.

The move is so radical that it has split corporate America. The bankers and members of Congress who support it have earned themselves an unlikely enemy: the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

A typical business or investor, after all, prefers honest, independent accounting, because they buy and sell real things based on real value.

"Washington isn't thinking straight," said Josh Rosner, managing director of Graham, Fischer & Co, a New York-based financial analyst who advises regulators and institutional investors. "Financial statements are for the benefit of investors."

Indeed, allowing banks to alter accounting standards when they run into trouble is incentive to take more risk and, in essence, institutionalizes fraud. The regulators would now be under enormous political pressure -- and sometimes under direct orders -- to allow banks to remain in business long after they've become insolvent, in the hopes that things will turn around and they'll grow again.

And rather than stabilize the system, removing accounting independence destabilizes it in the long run, as investors and other banks have little confidence in the veracity of financial statements.

Perlmutter told the Huffington Post that under his proposal, the FASB "would stay with the SEC, but in instances where an accounting procedure or a way it's being implemented poses a threat to the financial system by exaggerating what's going on -- is pro-cyclical to a point that it, too, threatens the system -- then the financial regulator, the systemic regulator, could look in to it.

"For virtually every situation you can think of, there's no change, but [there would be a change] in the event that there's a threat to the system, like the dysfunctional market we had from October through March, and that the accounting procedures just didn't fit for a system where there was no market," Perlmutter said.

Leslie Oliver, a spokeswoman for Perlmutter, said backers of the amendment haven't been surprised at the opposition from certain sectors of corporate America.

"That's understandable for a company that has tangible assets," she said. Perlmutter said he has yet to hear directly from the Chamber.

That the banking industry finds itself in opposition to large sectors of the business community is evidence that a historic power struggle for control of the economy is underway.

The issue is stirring up the House Financial Services Committee. "It's caused a great deal of controversy," said committee chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.). Frank has yet to take a position, he said, waiting until Perlmutter finishes meeting with members of the committee. "I told him I would wait until he finishes his conversations," Frank told HuffPost.

FASB is fighting to keep its independence. "The amendment that's being considered represents a shift that threatens to fundamentally challenge the objectives of financial accounting and politicize the process and harm financial system," said FASB spokesman Neal McGarity. "The mission of bank regulators is to ensure the safety and soundness of the banking system. We have a different mandate. That's why this is of considerable concern."

A powerful subcommittee chairman already opposes it. "I'm for keeping the independent FASB and I see no reason to change it," Rep. Paul Kanjorski told HuffPost.

The Chamber joined with investors and auditors in opposing the Perlmutter amendment.

From a letter sent to top committee members by representatives of the Center For Audit Quality; the Chamber of Commerce; and the Council of Institutional Investors:

"By placing the FASB under the jurisdiction of a structure charged with managing systemic risks to the financial markets, accounting rules will be viewed though the narrow lens of a few large companies from specific industries, rather than considerate of the applicability of financial reporting policies to over 15,000 public companies. Such a narrow focus can skew standards such that it makes understanding of transactions that businesses engage in on a daily basis more difficult and undermine the confidence of investors. We believe that the SEC has been and continues to be best suited to provide the oversight of the FASB for such a broad and diverse economy."

The American Bankers Association stands on the other side. "A Systemic Risk Oversight Council could not possibly do its job if does not have oversight authority over accounting rulemaking," top bank lobbyist Ed Yingling testified before the committee on October 29. "This is a major deficiency in the draft legislation. Accounting policies are increasingly and profoundly influencing financial policy and the basic structure of our financial system. Thus, accounting standards must now be part of any systemic risk calculation. To do anything less creates the potential to undermine any action taken to address a systemic risk. The Financial Accounting Standards Board should continue to function as it does today, but it should no longer report only to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The SEC's view is simply too narrow. Accounting policies contributed to the crisis, as has now been well documented, and yet the SEC is not charged with considering systemic and structural effects."

Yingling said the ABA "strongly supported" the approach taken by Perlmutter. "We thank Representatives Perlmutter and [Frank] Lucas [R-Okla.] for their foresight and leadership on this critical issue."

While the big banks would be pleased by the change, Frank said, the major push has come from community banks. Perlmutter said that his amendment was one of the community bankers' highest priorities.

Community banks are a popular and powerful political force in Congress. They didn't heavily trade the exotic products that nearly brought down the global economy; they received little in the way of bailout money; they don't give multi-billion-dollar bonuses; they tend to take more responsibility for loans that they issue; and they're generally respected members of the local community.

"Many members of the committee are supportive of community banks," said Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), one of the most progressive members of the committee and a subcommittee chair. "The big banks have been such an outrageous, scandalous story about how they operate and what they have done that we tend to want to support the community banks in whatever they ask us to do."

Waters told HuffPost she supports Perlmutter's amendment.

And winning the support of community bankers is in essence a necessary condition for Democrats who want to pass reform legislation through the Financial Services Committee. The Perlmutter amendment could be a way to win community banks over to the idea of a systemic regulator, a priority of the administration.

But working to loosen accounting rules could come back to hurt the Democratic Party: When the system goes down again, voters will want to know why.

When HuffPost asked Frank if Wall Street was pushing Perlmutter's measure, he responded emphatically.

"You have this caricature in your heads. You literally don't understand the way the world works," he said. "It's the community banks, the credit unions, who are driving this...Seriously, the community banks have the political clout here. Not the Wall Street banks."

Frank said the ABA was likely pushing for the amendment to win favor with community banks in its rivalry with the Independent Community Bankers of America.

Perlmutter agreed. "It's the community banks I've been working with. I'm not hearing it from the Wall Street guys," he said.

While the ABA has traditionally been associated with large Wall Street banks, it also represents small banks and is attempting to expand its membership by signing up more community bankers.

It works well for the big banks when their interests are aligned with the little ones, as is the case here. When their interests are not aligned, the little banks often win. Community banks, for instance, won an exemption from examinations -- though not the rules -- related to the Consumer Financial Protection Agency.

The ICBA wants to use its clout and the distrust of the big banks to move Perlmutter's amendment even further in their direction. "We're not buying and selling all the time. We hold a lot of things for the long term.... So we'd like to build in some additional sensitivity to community banks so would like to make that more explicit," Steve Verdier, an ICBA senior vice president, told HuffPost. "We're going to get in touch with [Perlmutter] to see if there are more things that can be done to tweak it in our direction."

Much of the debate around the amendment comes down to what is called the mark-to-market accounting requirement. Banks -- both big and small -- have long sought to avoid marking their assets down to market prices when those market prices are too low. Marking down the assets requires the bank to take a loss on its books, which then requires it to raise more capital by selling off assets at low prices. Banks claimed that in the fall, the market had frozen and that they couldn't sell assets. Another way of putting it is that the market price was lower than they wanted to accept.

Regardless, forced selling at low prices creates a downward spiral that banks and the GOP blame for the financial crisis last fall. The GOP called for a study of the effect of mark-to-market accounting on the economic collapse as part of the bailout. That report found the accounting practice did not cause the collapse. Either way, the banks hope to avoid that cycle when the commercial real estate market collapses and they find themselves with bad loans again.

"It's about easing the pressure to reduce the value of their assets in community banks, so they don't have to raise more capital," Frank said.

Asking accountants to change standards based on economic conditions could very well make their heads explode, however. It's not their job, they say, to keep the system from collapsing. It's their job to give honest numbers. If a company is bankrupt, it's bankrupt.

"Accounting standards are not policy," remarked one person involved in the fight.

But they have become policy. In the spring, Kanjorski's subcommittee hauled the head of FASB in for a hearing and demanded the number-crunchers change their mark-to-market standards within three weeks or Congress would do it for them. FASB's head pushed back during the hearing, saying that banks who called him asking for such a change were usually bankrupt fairly quickly.

"They practically dragged him into the hallway and beat him to death," said Rep. Brad Miller (D-N.C.), a committee member skeptical of the Perlmutter amendment.

Three weeks later, they eased their accounting rules. But it wasn't simple for the banks. Even with the intense congressional pressure, the change only sneaked by by a single vote and created tension on a board accustomed to a freedom from politics. The Perlmutter amendment would make such a battle unnecessary for the banks.

"There are a lot of banks that are in a lot of trouble and have a lot of exposure to commercial real estate," Miller said. "You can't fix that with accounting."

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) fought a lonely battle last spring to stave off the loosening of the accounting rules and opposes this more dramatic shift, as well. Banks may have good reason to want to overstate the value of their assets, he said, and it may work for a time. But an economy can't be run indefinitely on imaginary numbers. "I enjoy reading fiction, but not in financial statements," he said.

UPDATE: HuffPost obtained a copy of the amendment language that is circulating among lobbyists. Perlmutter's spokeswoman confirmed its authenticity.

The amendment would empower the council overseeing FASB to "recommend to the SEC, either publicly or privately to take such action as is necessary, including but not limited to suspension, modification or elimination of such accounting principles, standards or procedures as they may apply to the stability of the financial system or the safety and soundness of financial companies, as a whole, for such duration as is reasonable and appropriate."

If the SEC doesn't follow the "recommendation," according to section (c) of the amendment, the council can order it to do so.

In other words, for the sake of financial stability, bank regulators could secretly order the "elimination" of accounting standards.

SEC. 1103. PRUDENTIAL OVERSIGHT OF ACCOUNTING PRINCIPLES AND STANDARDS THAT POSE SYSTEMIC RISKS.

(a) IN GENERAL.--In the event that any member of the Council believes that an accounting principle, standard or procedure threatens the stability of the United States financial system or companies, as a whole, then the Council shall investigate and by a majority vote, determine whether any corrective action, emergency or otherwise, is necessary to prevent or mitigate any adverse effects from such principle, standard or procedure. In the event that the Council determines that corrective action is necessary then, the Council shall recommend to the SEC, either publicly or privately to take such action as is necessary, including but not limited to suspension, modification or elimination of such accounting principles, standards or procedures as they may apply to the stability of the financial system or the safety and soundness of financial companies, as a whole, for such duration as is reasonable and appropriate.

(b) ADOPTION OF COUNCIL RECOMMENDATIONS BY SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION.--the Securities and Exchange Commission shall ensure that the prudential standards recommended by the Council are implemented within 60 days of the Council's recommendation or within such other time period specified by the Council.

(c) FAILURE TO ADOPT STANDARDS.--If the Securities and Exchange Commission fails to ensure that the prudential standards recommended by the Council are implemented within the time period specified in paragraph (b), the Council is authorized to direct that any recommendations issued pursuant to paragraph (a) be implemented for the purposes of generally accepted accounting principles."

UPDATE II: The SEC and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants both oppose the amendment, as well. "Accounting should be about accounting, and not about anything else," writes SEC chair Mary Schapiro in a letter to Frank sent Thursday.

From a letter from the AICPA:

It is our understanding that Congressman Ed Perlmutter (D-CO) is considering language to amend the Financial Stability Improvement Act of 2009, which would undermine the independent accounting standard process as currently carried out by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) strongly opposes this amendment and any attempt that would serve to undermine the independence of accounting standard setting. The purpose of public company financial reporting is to provide investors with clear, objective, and transparent financial information. This helps investors make informed investment decisions. Any attempt to divert financial reporting from its primary investor-focused objectives to other policy objectives with regard to financial institutions damages investor protections.

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Mahmoud Vahidnia, Student, Stuns Iran By Criticizing Supreme Leader

Nick Sabloff — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:33:30 -0500

BEIRUT — An unassuming college math student has become an unlikely hero to many in Iran for daring to criticize the country's most powerful man to his face.

Mahmoud Vahidnia has received an outpouring of support from government opponents for the challenge – unprecedented in a country where insulting supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is a crime punishable by prison. Perhaps most surprising, the young math whiz has so far suffered no repercussions from the confrontation at a question-and-answer session between Khamenei and students at Tehran's Sharif Technical University.

In fact, Iran's clerical leadership appears to be touting the incident as a sign of its tolerance – so much so that some Iranians at first believed the 20-minute exchange was staged by the government, though opposition commentators are now convinced Vahidnia was the real thing.

Details of the encounter were reported on the state news agency IRNA and in a pro-government newspaper, Keyhan, which gave its account with a headline reading, "The revolutionary leader's fatherly response to critical youth." Even Khamenei's official Web site mentioned the incident.

Still some of those in attendance at the Oct. 28 forum say Khamenei appeared taken aback by the questioning and left the meeting early, according to commentary posted on pro-reform Web sites.

The session began with a speech in which Khamenei told the students the "biggest crime" was to question the results of the June 12 presidential election that returned hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power. Khamenei himself declared Ahmadinejad the victor despite opposition claims of widespread fraud.

After the speech, Vahidnia raised his hand, then for 20 minutes he criticized the Iranian leader over the fierce crackdown on postelection protests, in which the opposition says 69 people were killed and thousands were arrested.

In brief excerpts broadcast on state TV, the thin, bespectacled Vahidnia was shown standing behind a podium, gesturing at times for emphasis.

"I don't know why in this country it's not allowed to make any kind of criticism of you," said the student, wearing a long-sleeved blue polo shirt and appearing calm.

"In the past three to five years that I have been reading newspapers, I have seen no criticism of you, not even by the Assembly of Experts, whose duty is to criticize and supervise the performance of the leader," he said, referring to the clerical body that chooses the country's supreme leader.

Khamenei countered, "We welcome criticism. We never said not to criticize us. ... There's plenty of criticism that I receive," according to accounts in state media and on opposition Web sites.

The boldness of Vahidnia's comments underlines how Iran's postelection turmoil has undermined the once rock-solid taboo against challenging the supreme leader. During demonstrations, young protesters have frequently chanted "Death to the dictator" – referring to Khamenei – and even "Khamenei is a murderer." Several high-ranking pro-opposition clerics have also been openly critical.

The supreme leader stands at the top of the hierarchy of Iran's clerical rulers, and his word is supposed to be final on political issues. Scores of Iranian writers, bloggers and academics have been jailed for writing what authorities have deemed as insults to Khamenei.

But so far Vahidnia has been spared. The president of Sharif University even defended the student, saying he spoke within the law.

The incident has propelled the soft-spoken man in his early 20s to national prominence and inspired widespread support on the Web.

The night of the encounter, fellow students gathered, shouting, "God is great" and "death to the dictator" in support of their colleague, according to video footage posted on pro-reform Web sites.

"Vahidnia showed a new atmosphere which is the true characteristic of the Iranian people," Ataollah Mohajerani, a former pro-reform Cabinet minister, wrote on his Web site. "If from now on in gatherings in the presence of the supreme leader one finds the courage to get up and speak in defense of justice and right, the climate of tyranny will suffocate."

Speaking to The Associated Press, Mohajerani dismissed the idea that Vahidnia could have been planted by authorities, but said the state was using the incident to try to paint itself in a better light.

"Khamenei wants to show that the leader is totally prepared to face criticism," Mohajerani said in a telephone interview from London.

During the face-to-face exchange, Vahidnia also raised allegations of abuse of imprisoned opposition protesters.

"You, who have the role of a father, when you deal with your opponents in such a manner, your subordinates will likely behave similarly, as we have seen in the prisons," he told Khamenei, referring to the reports of torture and rape.

He also criticized state-run Iranian television and radio for their depiction of the protests as the work of troublemakers and pawns of Iran's foreign enemies. "Do you think radio and television have portrayed the recent events accurately or broadcast a caricature-type image of them?" he asked.

The supreme leader countered that he had his own criticisms of state media, including their failure to give enough coverage to the government's "positive achievements."

"Don't assume that because I appoint the head of state television, they bring all their programs to me for approval," the Iranian leader said, adding that state broadcasts of the situation in the country were "incomplete."

Vahidnia, a gold medalist at the country's National Math Olympics two years ago, told the pro-opposition Alef Web site that officials at first barred him from speaking, but Khamenei apparently allowed him to go ahead. He said he was interrupted several times by the event's moderator who insisted they were out of time. Vahidnia could not be reached for further comment.

The evening of the encounter, state television aired excerpts of Khamenei's speech but did not show Vahidnia or mention the exchange. Days later, however, it ran a report denying rumors he had been arrested and showed an image of him at the gathering.

In Italy, at least two parliament members have issued calls for their government to offer Vahidnia asylum if necessary.

Lawmaker Benedetto Della Vedova called the student a symbol of the "demands for change and modernity" in Iran. Another parliament deputy, Angelo Bonelli, praised Vahidnia's "courage" and urged political leaders to stand by his "fight for rights and democracy."

Vahidnia's comments were so brazen and unprecedented that many Iranians thought it was staged by the government.

"I thought it was a hoax, to show us that we have freedom here," said one young Iranian woman who has participated in the opposition demonstrations. She asked not to be identified for fear of getting into trouble with authorities.

"But now that it looks like it was real, I think it's a huge deal," she said. "Never before has anyone had the courage to do such a thing."

Keith Olbermann, Sean Hannity Friendly At Yankees Game

Danny Shea — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:00:35 -0500

If there's one thing that could bring Keith Olbermann and Sean Hannity together (apart from the occasional CNN-bashing), it's baseball.

Both cable news stars showed up for Game 6 of the World Series Wednesday night at Yankee Stadium.

Olbermann wrote about the game on his MLBlog, where he said of Hannity, "And lastly, a reminder that baseball does erase boundaries. The guy I'm taking a photo of, who's taking a photo of me - we get along perfectly at the ballpark - less so during our day jobs."

Mediaite's Steve Krakauer notes that Hannity pre-taped his 9PM show, while Olbermann's "Countdown" aired live at 8PM with guest-host Lawrence O'Donnell.

Pics of Olbermann and Hannity below, via Olbermann's MLBlog, Baseball Nerd:

Nicole Narain, Sex Addict, Interviewed On Joy Behar Show: "It Was Exhausting" (VIDEO)

Nick Graham — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 20:05:16 -0500

On The Joy Behar Show tonight, Joy and Dr. Drew Pinsky interviewed Nicole Narain, a Playboy playmate and recovering sex addict, about her struggle towards recovery. In the preview clip CNN has put out, Narain discusses how she used to masturbate all day and still has to remain watchful for triggers that could put her in a relapse:

You know what, I really try hard not to think about masturbating too much. I had a moment there where I really did, I could not get out of bed one day because I was just, it was a constant thing. That was an exhausting day. It was like, I didn't even want to eat food because that was my food for the day. It was exhausting and it was scary because it consumed my entire day and I try very hard not to have any triggers around me where I would feel like I need to masturbate today.

Narain hasn't completely given it up. She is only human, after all: "I'm definitely a lot better . . . I'm still human - don't get me wrong. We all have to clean the pipes once in awhile."

WATCH:

Malia Obama's Science Test: President Tells Story About Daughter's Grades (VIDEO)

Nick Graham — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:36:40 -0500

During a speech in Madison, Wisconsin today to promote education reform Obama veered from his scripted remarks to give an example of the importance of parents setting high academic standards for their children so that they come to expect such standards from themselves. We're not sure how much his daughter Malia appreciated the story since it involved the nation hearing how she received a 73 on a science test a couple years ago, but it ends with her success so we hope she won't be too upset.

WATCH:

In our own household, with all the privileges and opportunities that we have, look, there are times when kids slack off. There are times when they would rather be watching TV or playing a computer game than hitting the books. And part of our job as parents, Michelle and my job, is not just to tell our kids what to do, but to start instilling in them a sense that they want to do it for themselves.

So Malia came home the other day and she had gotten a 73 on her science test. Now she's a 6th grader. There was a time a couple years ago when she came home with like an 80-something and she said I did pretty well, and I said, no, no, no. I said our goal is 90 percent and up. So, here's the interesting thing. She started internalizing that, so she came and she was depressed - got a 73. And I said well what happened: 'Well the teacher, the study guide didn't match up with what was on the test.' So what's your idea here? 'Well, I'm gonna start, I've got to read the whole chapter. I'm gonna change how I study, how I approach it.'

So she came home yesterday and she got a 95. But here's the point. She said, 'I just like having knowledge.' That's what she said. And what was happening was she had started wanting it more than us. Once you get to that point, our kids are on their way. But the only way they get to that point is if we're helping them get to that point. So it's going to take that kind of effort from parents to set a high bar in the household. Don't just expect teachers to set a high bar; you've got to start setting a high bar in the household.

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