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Video: Alternative
Views
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Censured Casualties
features rare footage
of war crimes against the Iraqi people suffered during
and after the Gulf War. The footage is from former Attorney
General Ramsey
Clark in his attempt to document the injustice
of United States military actions in the region.
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Video: Alternative
Views
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Another Unknown
War
features a film on the
struggle of the indigenous people of West Papua to remain
sovereign in the face of an Indonesian invasion backed
by world capital. Footage of Noam
Chomsky on Western involvments in the region and
the relation to East Timor.
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Doug's New Books & Related
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TV/Radio
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Sunday, April 30, 2006
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Saturday, April 29, 2006
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As Profits Soar, Oil Industry Unapologetic
A Band of Bandits that knows no shame.... but this too is something voters understand: letting the Oil Industry (i.e. Bush and Cheney) govern means that the industry runs amok and the public gets dumped on with price extortion and the Oil Bandits laugh to the bank
As Profits Soar, Oil Industry Unapologetic
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Prostitution Alleged In Cunningham Case
hookers in Watergate are part of the Repug-Lobby scandals, this should go some distance in bringing home the sleaze to wider audiences....
Prostitution Alleged In Cunningham Case
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Wednesday, April 26, 2006
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Randolph T. Holhut: 'The wake-up call on energy has arrived
Bring on new energy sources
The Smirking Chimp
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TPaul Craig Roberts: 'The world is uniting against the Bush Imperium'
Bring on the world against the Bush-Cheney Reich
The Smirking Chimp: "Paul Craig Roberts: 'The world is uniting against the Bush Imperium'"
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Tony Snow Becomes White House Press Secretary
Fox News Press Sec; Keith Olberman yesterday had a rich collage of soundbites in which Tony trashes Baby Bush, wait until he hears this stuff....
Tony Snow Becomes White House Press Secretary
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Bad Targeting
send Porter Goss home for his CIA McCarthyism blunder
and politicizing the CIA....
Bad Targeting
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Tuesday, April 25, 2006
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Bush Bumblers allegedly Fire Wrong Person for CIA Leaks
From Newsweek/MSNBC: it appears that the bombling Bush administration fired Mary McCarthy on false pretext! If true Porter Goss should be fired!
"Secrets of the CIA
A former colleague says the fired Mary McCarthy ‘categorically denies’ being the source of the leak on agency renditions.
WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Mark Hosenball and Michael Isikoff
Updated: 8:03 a.m. ET April 25, 2006
April 24, 2006 - A former CIA officer who was sacked last week after allegedly confessing to leaking secrets has denied she was the source of a controversial Washington Post story about alleged CIA secret detention operations in Eastern Europe, a friend of the operative told NEWSWEEK.
The fired official, Mary O. McCarthy, “categorically denies being the source of the leak,” one of McCarthy’s friends and former colleagues, Rand Beers, said Monday after speaking to McCarthy. Beers said he could not elaborate on this denial and McCarthy herself did not respond to a request for comment left by NEWSWEEK on her home answering machine. A national security advisor to Democratic Party candidate John Kerry during the 2004 presidential campaign, Beers worked as the head of intelligence programs on President Bill Clinton’s National Security Council staff and later served as a top deputy on counter-terrorism for President Bush in 2002 and 2003. McCarthy, a career CIA analyst, initially worked as a deputy to Beers on the NSC and later took over Beer’s role as the Clinton NSC’s top intelligence expert.
McCarthy's lawyer, Ty Cobb, told NEWSWEEK this afternooon that contrary to public statements by the CIA late last week, McCarthy never confessed to agency interrogators that she had divulged classified information and "didn't even have access to the information" in The Washington Post story in question.
After being told by agency interrogators that she may have been deceptive on one quesiton during a polygraph, McCarthy did acknowledge that she had failed to report contacts with Washington Post reporter Dana Priest and at least one other reporter, said a source familiar with her account who asked not to be identified because of legal sensitivities. McCarthy has known Priest for some time, the source said.
McCarthy, 61, a career CIA analyst who was working in the inspector general's office, was then told on Thursday that she was being fired. She was not escorted out of the CIA buiilding, the source said. She also had been assured that the CIA would protect her privacy--just one day before her name became publicly known as the agency official who had been dismissed for leaking to the press, the source said. Ironically, McCarthy, who presvously worked as chief intelligence official for the National Security Council during Bill Clinton's second term, was planning on retiring from the CIA soon to pursue a new career as a lawyer working on adoption and family cases.
CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano re-affirmed on Monday that an agency official had been fired after acknowledging “unauthorized contacts with the media and discussion of classified information” with journalists. Gimigliano and other administration spokespersons said they were prohibited by law from disclosing the identity of the person who was fired. But government officials familiar with the matter confirmed to NEWSWEEK that McCarthy, a 20-year veteran of the CIA’s intelligence—or analytical— branch, was the individual in question.
The officials, who asked for anonymity because they were discussing sensitive information, said that McCarthy had been fired after allegedly confessing during the course of a leak investigation based heavily on polygraph examinations that she had engaged in unauthorized contacts with more than one journalist regarding more than one news story. The only journalist so far identified by government sources as one of the unauthorized persons with whom McCarthy admitted contact is Washington Post reporter Dana Priest, who last week won a Pulitzer Prize for revealing details of a secret airline and prison network that the CIA operates to detain and interrogate high-level Al Qaeda suspects.
Priest’s most contentious story, published by the Post last November, alleged that the CIA had been “hiding and interrogating some of its most important Al Qaeda captives at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe.” Even though the Post said it decided, in response to administration appeals, not to identify the Eastern European countries involved in secret CIA detention operations, intelligence officials said at the time that the story caused potentially serious damage to agency activities. The officials said the CIA would be filing a “crime report” with the Justice Department regarding possible leaks of classified information. (Eric C. Grant, public affairs director of the Washington Post, says none of the paper’s reporters has been subpoenaed or talked to investigators in connection with this matter.)
A counter-terrorism official acknowledged to NEWSWEEK today that in firing McCarthy, the CIA was not necessarily accusing her of being the principal, original, or sole leaker of any particular story. Intelligence officials privately acknowledge that key news stories about secret agency prison and “rendition” operations have been based, at least in part, upon information available from unclassified sources.
British freelance journalist Stephen Grey, who published the first detailed revelations of the CIA’s secret airline system for transporting terrorist detainees in the London Sunday Times in late 2004, affirmed to NEWSWEEK over the weekend that “almost all” of the information that he assembled regarding the CIA operations came from “unclassified sources.” Several news organizations, including NEWSWEEK and The New York Times, reported stories about the CIA’s secret transport and detention operations based on airplane flight plan information which originally was assembled by Grey. Other foreign journalists put together early reports about CIA “rendition” operations—in which terror suspects allegedly were transferred by undercover CIA teams to a foreign countries where they were wanted for questioning—by using public record data bases to trace the ownership and history of suspicious private airplanes that were observed at foreign airstrips around the times that local terror suspects allegedly disappeared. Administration critics have described these renditions as the outsourcing of torture.
While acknowledging that information about the CIA operations was indeed available from unclassified sources, intelligence officials maintain that revelations like those made in the Post story about Eastern Europe could not have been put together without input from people who had access to classified information. These informants could confirm the stories and add detail to them. But the fact that McCarthy evidently is denying leaking the CIA prison story to the Post—and that other key information for stories revealing CIA detention and rendition operations originated with unclassified sources—does raise questions about how far the Bush administration will be able to press its crackdown on suspected leakers.
Two official sources familiar with the inquiry which led to McCarthy’s firing cautioned that news reports indicating that McCarthy was aggressively being pursued by the Justice Department for possible criminal violations were ahead of the facts.
The sources told NEWSWEEK that because McCarthy’s alleged acknowledgements that she leaked classified information were made as a result of an inquiry based on polygraph examinations, it would be difficult, if not impossible, for prosecutors to use any admissions she made in trying to put together any criminal prosecution. One of the sources, a law enforcement official close to the investigation, noted that polygraph evidence is normally inadmissible in criminal court cases because of judicial doubts about the reliability and credibility of lie-detector machines. Also, the official said, witnesses submitting to a polygraph examination usually give up their rights not to make self-incriminating statements. The use of any admissions McCarthy gave under these circumstances for a criminal investigation would therefore be problematic, the official indicated.
The law enforcement official and a counter-terrorism official familiar with the case indicated that because the polygraph evidence was likely unusable, any effort by prosecutors to make a criminal case against McCarthy would therefore have to be based on an entirely fresh reconstruction of evidence from other sources. The sources indicated that it was possible, though by no means certain, that prosecutors could still put together some kind of case against McCarthy from evidence untainted by the CIA polygraph inquiry that led to her firing.
The McCarthy case troubles some former U.S. intelligence officials, who note that the CIA, while aggressively pursuing leaks to the news media, has failed to take disciplinary action against any of its officials for the widely acknowledged intelligence failures of recent years. “Nobody got fired for September 11 and nobody gets fired for [mistakes about] WMD, but they fire someone for this?” said one former U.S. senior intelligence official. In the case of the September 11 attacks, a report by the same Inspector General’s office where McCarthy worked recommended the convening of CIA disciplinary boards for a number of current and former officials. But CIA director Porter Goss rejected the recommendation and has refused to allow even an unclassified version of the inspector general’s report to be publicly released. Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, sent the CIA two letters seeking a public disclosure of the inspector general’s findings—one only a few weeks ago—but has yet to get a response.
At the same time, some former officials said, the use of polygraphs on officials inside the inspector general’s office is potentially controversial, given the fact that the inspector general is by statute supposed to be an independent officer. “This gives them [CIA management] entrée to the I,.G’s office which they’re not supposed to have,” said another former agency official. But a former CIA Inspector General, Frederick Hitz, said he was polygraphed by the FBI over the leak of a report the internal watchdog's office produced on Soviet mole Aldrich Ames in the mid 1990s. Hitz says that security concerns would override concerns about the IG’s independence.
Larry Johnson, a former CIA analyst who got into a dispute with McCarthy in the late l980s when she was his supervisor and remains critical of her management style, nonetheless says that he “never saw her allow her political [views] to cloud her analytical judgment.” Johnson maintains the Bush White House is “really damaging the intelligence community” by sending a message to career officials that “unless you are a partisan of the party in power, you cannot be trusted.” This message, Johnson says, is destroying the intelligence community’s “professional ethos.”
A serving CIA official said that the day that McCarthy was escorted out of the CIA’s Langley, Va., headquarters, some former colleagues of McCarthy defended her, even while acknowledging they were not familiar with the details of the case. “She worked for me on the most sensitive national security material there is and I had no reason to think she ever did anything like what’s been alleged to have been done here,” said Beers. McCarthy was a “quality intelligence officer who handled the matters with skill and understanding,” he added.
Editor's Note: The original version of this report was updated shortly after its initial posting on April 24 to include comments from McCarthy's lawyer, Ty Cobb.
© 2006 MSNBC.com
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12466719/site/newsweek/
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Monday, April 24, 2006
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Foreign Affairs - Latin America's Left Turn - Jorge G. Casta?eda
Left Turn in Latin America: reaction against failures of neo-liberalism, reaction against Bush administration neo-imperialism, and assertion of local and national progressive traditions, looking good down there....
Foreign Affairs - Latin America's Left Turn - Jorge G. Casta?eda
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Bob Patterson: 'What will be displayed at the Bush Presidential Library?'
Bush Presidential Library should be a record of War Crimes and other misdeeds....
The Smirking Chimp
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The Smirking Chimp - Paul Krugman: 'The great revulsion'
the US public is finally experiencing a Great Revulsion against the Bush-Cheney Gang as body count increases daily in Iraq, gas prices soar, and life gets harder and meaner
The Smirking Chimp - Paul Krugman: 'The great revulsion'
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Saturday, April 22, 2006
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Senate Hearings on Bush, Now
Carl Bernstein calls for Senate Hearings investigating crimes of the Bush-Cheney-Rove Gang
http://www.vanityfair.com/features/general/articles/060417fege08
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The Worst President in History?
More and more US Historians are agreed: George W. Bush is the worst president in US history; Rolling Stone cover story by Sean Willenz
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/profile/story/9961300/the_worst_president_in_history/print
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Vice Squad
article on pernicious influence of Cheney Thugs
http://www.prospect.org/web/printfriendly-view.ww?id=11423
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Does Condi Leak?
Claim that "Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice leaked national defense information to a pro-Israel lobbyist in the same manner that landed a lower-level Pentagon official a 12-year prison sentence, the lobbyist's lawyer said Friday"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/21/AR2006042101648_pf.html
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Friday, April 21, 2006
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Stephen Pizzo: 'Forrest Gump's evil twin'
stupid is as stupid does; Bush as Moron. His administration confirmed its stupidity yesterday when in a sensitive public meetings with the Chinese President the Bush administration allowed a Falon Gong activist to pose as a reporter that it credentialed to break up the ceremony; a master of ceremonies introduced the president of the Republic of China (Taiwan's name!); and at the end Bush rudely grabbed President Hu, pulling him back into a photo session as he was walking away; what incompetents....
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/article.php?sid=25777&mode=nested&order=0
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Sidney Blumenthal: 'Revolt of the generals'
Blumenthal on General's critique of Rumsfeld and call for his dismissal:
Sidney Blumenthal, The Guardian
The analogy between Iraq and Vietnam has proved to be most compelling to the generals who planned and conducted the Iraq invasion. They kept to themselves their profound disquiet about the rapid rejection of the original plan for invasion that took 10 years to develop, the inadequate downsized force, the absence of preparation for the occupation, and the disastrous decision to disband the Iraqi military.
Almost all voted for Bush in 2000. Serving their civilian neoconservative superiors, they endured contempt. Donald Rumsfeld's closest aide, the undersecretary of defence for intelligence, Stephen Cambone, joked that the army's problems "could be solved by lining up 50 of its generals in the Pentagon and gunning them down", according to Michael Gordon and General Bernard Trainor in their new book on the Iraq invasion, Cobra II. In September 2001, Rumsfeld held a Pentagon meeting where he declared the "bureaucracy" - the career professionals - to be "a serious threat to the security of the United States".
The generals have been wary of engaging in public debate for fear of being misconstrued as political. But they are haunted by Vietnam and deeply influenced by HR McMaster's 1997 book, Dereliction of Duty, which argues that the joint chiefs of staff of the Vietnam era failed in their constitutional responsibility to object strenuously to misguided strategies. (McMaster is a general serving in Iraq.) As the generals have stepped forward to demand Rumsfeld's resignation, they speak in the language of McMaster's book.
On March 19, retired Major General Paul Eaton, who was in charge of training the Iraqi army, called Rumsfeld "incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically". On April 2, retired General Anthony Zinni, former chief of US Central Command, said: "Poor military judgment has been used throughout this mission." On April 9, retired Lieutenant General Gregory Newbold wrote: "I now regret that I did not more openly challenge those who were determined to invade a country whose actions were peripheral to the real threat - al-Qaida."
On April 13, retired Major General John Riggs and Major General Charles Swannack, former commander of the 82nd Airborne, went public. "They only need the military advice when it satisfies their agenda," said Riggs. Swannack emphasised that Rumsfeld bore "culpability" for the abuses at Abu Ghraib.
In response, the Bush administration has mounted a full-scale PR defence. Rumsfeld appeared in the guise of King Solomon on rightwing radio talkshow host Rush Limbaugh's programme: "This, too, will pass." Bush proposed a syllogism: "I'm the decider, and I decide what's best. And what's best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain." But the revolt of the generals, speaking for much of the serving senior officer corps, is unprecedented in scope and depth.
The White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, resigned this week partly to distract attention from Rumsfeld. Clinging to Rumsfeld as indispensable to his strength, Bush reveals his fragility. Their denial extends beyond the realities of Iraq and its history to that of the US. Bush & co disdained nation building as something soft and weak connected to the Clinton presidency, just as they belittled and neglected terrorism as a Clinton obsession before September 11, and as the president dismissed history as weightless.
"History? We don't know. We'll all be dead," Bush remarked in 2003. "We cannot escape history," said Abraham Lincoln. The living president has already sealed his reputation in history.
Sidney Blumenthal, a former senior adviser to President Clinton, is the author of The Clinton Wars.http://www.smirkingchimp.com/print.php?sid=25774 Email: sidney_blumenthal@yahoo.com.
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John W. Dean: 'If past is prologue, George Bush is becoming an increasingly dangerous president'
John Dean sees Bush as increasingly dangerous. Excerpt: "Many political scientists believe it is possible to predict presidential performance. While no one can predict future events, the future performance of those who occupy the Oval Office can be ascertained, at least in a general fashion.
Political scientist James David Barber first showed the analytical and predictive potentials of psychology in studying presidents with his classic, The Presidential Character: Predicting Performance in the White House. This work, originally published in 1972, has been republished and updated on four occasions.
Barber first wrote -- long before Richard Nixon's troubles had fully unfolded but based on his scrutiny of Nixon's personality and character traits -- that Nixon would self-destruct in his second term. Since then, Barber has tested and retested his analytical tools, applying them to all the modern presidents up to and including George Herbert Walker Bush.
In retirement, Professor Barber did not apply his techniques to either Presidents Bill Clinton or George W. Bush. But shortly after 9/11, curiosity prompted me, to see how the incumbent president fared under Barber's predictive analysis. The results were anything but comforting.
Professor Barber's Analytical Framework
Before I offer the results of my analysis, a bit of background is essential.
While no system is infallible, and typologies have their weaknesses, Barber's prophetic results have proven extraordinary, for he has been uncannily prescient with his method. He takes five common elements -- character, worldview, style, power situations, and climate of expectations -- and using these elements he has assembled clusters of presidents since Theodore Roosevelt within which he finds a number of repeating baseline characteristics.
Social scientists often employ obtuse terms that appear less than user friendly, and Professor Barber is no exception. Yet when one actually becomes familiar with the jargon, it proves quiet handy. So it is with Barber's grouping of past presidents.
It is not possible to do justice to Barber's work in summary form, but those who are interested can examine his work for themselves. For my purposes, an overview suffices: At least a few key concepts -- and some of Barber's jargon -- are necessary to broadly understand his approach.
Column continues below ? Barber has catalogued presidents based on the similarity of their personalities and character traits. His first baseline is to describe them as either "active" or "passive" regarding their work. This he determines by looking at how much energy they invest in the work of the presidency. For example, Lyndon Johnson was a human dynamo; Calvin Coolidge slept eleven hours every night and took naps during the day.
The second baseline for Barber is how presidents react toward their work: "positively" or "negatively." Generally speaking, he seeks to determine if their political experiences are satisfying. To quote Barber, "The idea is this: is he someone who, on the surfaces we can see, gives forth the feeling that he has fun in political life?"
Examples of president who had fun notwithstanding the burdens of power are Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan -- placing them on the positive side of Barber's typology. No doubt Barber would have found Bill Clinton there as well
-- except perhaps toward the difficult end of his second term.
Barber's four categories are active/positive (Example: FDR), active/negative (Example: Nixon), passive/positive (Example: Reagan) and passive/negative (Example: Jefferson).
It is the active/negative group that is the most troubling.
The Troubles of Active/Negative Presidents
Active/negative types, broadly speaking, are aggressive in pursuing their political and policy aims, yet they get little true emotional reward from undertaking these endeavors.
In addition to Richard Nixon, Barber says Woodrow Wilson, Herbert Hoover, and Lyndon Johnson were active/negatives -- all presidencies that did not end well.
In his book and his other writings, Barber has noted that for active/negative types that "[l]ife is a hard struggle to achieve and hold power" -- one in which they are "hampered by the condemnations of a perfectionist conscience."
"[A]ctive/negatives pour energy into the political system, but it is energy distorted from within," Barber notes. He found that these presidents are "much taken up with self-concern," and they always want to know if they are "winning or losing, gaining or falling behind."
Active/negative evaluate themselves "with respect to virtue." They view their actions (if not the world) as being good or bad. Their "perfectionistic conscience" provides no room for growth through experience, for they expect themselves to be good at all they undertake. Their ethics result in "denial of self-gratification," for these men see themselves as self-sacrificing rather than self-rewarding. They are "concerned with controlling [their] aggression … reining in [their] anger."
These presidents are capable of generating "tremendous energies for political domination." They are also uniquely stubborn men, who become more rigid and inflexible as they proceed, for they become caught up in their own self-righteousness. And as Barber says, they mask their decisions not to budge, their rigidity, in whatever rhetoric is necessary, so that they can ride the tiger to the end. They also are our most secretive presidents.
Failure by these presidents is predictable because their flawed perceptions are often risky, they are gamblers, and their rigidity can easily plunge the nation into a tragedy. This occurred with Wilson -- whose presidency was marred by a failed peace accord, a disintegrating economy, and refusal to admit the impact of a debilitating stroke. It occurred with Hoover -- who ineffectively presided over the nation's most devastating economic depression. And it also occurred with Lyndon Johnson -- his Vietnam debacle and withdrawal from reelection. Finally, and most obviously, it occurred with Nixon -- forced to resign after Watergate .
With such presidents there is always "the potential for grievous harm," Barber warns, observing that while the nation has survived several such presidents, this is "cold comfort to those individuals and families who suffered for what these Presidents did."
Barber admonishes that when we find ourselves with an active/negative president, we have a situation that cannot be ignored -- for all such presidents are potentially dangerous.
Is George W. Bush An Active/Negative President?
There is little doubt in my mind that George W. Bush is an active/negative president. Based on the available information, he strikes me as a perfect fit. But because one of Bush's aides, a political scientist who has observed Bush at close range, sees him as otherwise, it caused me to take an even closer look.
Former Bush White House aide John J. DiIulio, Jr., a respected academic, has said he thinks that Bush is an "active/positive," because "he loves the job and is very energetic." Although DiIulio is not a presidential scholar (by his own admission), his comment caused me to examine his observation -- and my own.
DiIulio appears to be using shorthand because loving the job, per se, is not one of the criteria upon which Barber relies. And DiIulio appears to base his conclusion on Bush's public face -- and on an event DiIulio attended with Bush -- rather than on Bush's typical day to day behavior.
Barber's active/positive criteria requires a "relatively high self-esteem [with] … an emphasis on rational mastery," which is not Bush. Bush no doubt loves being head of state, enjoying the pomp of his high office, as well as the politics of the presidency. Yet there is no evidence he even likes being head of the government (for it involves far more intellectual rigor than Bush enjoys). In fact, Bush is like Nixon in that he gets out of the White House every chance he has to do so.
There is an abundance of evidence (from simply watching television coverage of the seldom smiling, often annoyed, forehead-wrinkled Bush) that demonstrates that Bush reaps a "relative[ly] low emotional reward" from the job -- to quote one of Barber's active/negative criteria.
Indeed, Bush clearly fits many of the traits that Barber relies upon to define his active/negative presidents. For example, Bush has a "compulsive quality, as if … trying to make up for something or escape from anxiety in hard work." Consider how he has immersed himself in continuous campaigning throughout his first term, while Cheney minds the store.
Continuing with Barber's criteria, Bush is clearly "ambitious, striving upward and seeking power." Indeed, few presidents have been so anxious to risk their political capital to enhance their power as Bush did in the 2000 Congressional races.
In addition, Barber notes that the active/negative president "has a persistent problem in managing his aggressive feelings." Bush seems to deal with his through strenuous exercise -- running and weight training -- which, for him, have (laudably) replaced alcohol as a way to "blow off steam."
Overwhelming Evidence Shows Bush Is An Active/Negative
In sum, I don't believe Professor DiIulio's judgment that Bush is an active/positive president is borne out by the facts. In my judgment, we do, in fact, have another active/negative president -- with all the attendant problems that appears to entail, based on Barber's analysis.
And if I am right, that bodes ill. George W. Bush has taken huge risks during his first term -- with his unprecedented tax cuts, his disregard for humongous budget deficits, and a preemptive and largely unilateral war in Iraq. At the same time, he stubbornly refuses to admit to so much as a single mistake. Under Barber's model, though, we have seen nothing yet. If this active/negative president gets a second term, Barber's model predicts these traits -- love of risk and dislike of admitting error -- will only become more aggravated.
Not since Woodrow Wilson, Herbert Hoover, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon has the nation been exposed to an active/negative presidency. It is not something to look forward to without the greatest vigilance.
As information about John Kerry unfolds in the coming weeks and months, it will be interesting to examine him by Professor Barber's predictive tools. Stay tuned.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
John W. Dean, a FindLaw columnist, is a former counsel to the president.
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20040521.html
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Wednesday, April 19, 2006
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Italian Court Says Prodi Won Election - New York Times
Berlusconi goes down and hopefully will be in jail sooner rather than later; this should also be the fate of the Bush-Cheney Gang as the ship sinks, the rats jump off or drown, and the documentation of serious corruption and crimes multiplies...
Italian Court Says Prodi Won Election - New York Times
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Salon.com Politics War Room | Politics
DC Buzz on Bush administration unravelling from Salon: "The story behind Rove's new role?
We're not inclined to read much into the supposed change in Karl Rove's job at the White House. The Washington Post says that while Rove will retain his title of deputy chief of staff, he will "drop his portfolio as policy coordinator" and "once again" focus exclusively on politics. By our way of thinking, that's just a reflection of reality. Bush's approval ratings and tense relations with Congress mean there's not much of a policy agenda worth directing, and did anyone really think that Rove would spend 2006 focused on anything other than politics anyway?
But John Podesta, the former chief of staff for Bill Clinton and current head of the Center for American Progress, speculates that something else may be going on here. In a post at Think Progress, Podesta wonders if Rove has finally lost his security clearance -- and thus his ability to work on policy issues that pertain to national security -- as a result of his role in the outing of Valerie Plame.
As Podesta notes, an executive order Clinton signed in 1995 requires the prompt revocation of security clearances belonging to anyone who knowingly, willfully or negligently engages in action that "could reasonably be expected to result in an unauthorized disclosure of classified information." By leaking Plame's identity to reporters, Rove committed just such a violation. Yet as of November, at least, the Los Angeles Times was reporting that Rove still had his security clearance. As Jonathan Alter wrote at the time, "Having his security clearance yanked would not require Rove to resign as deputy chief of staff to President Bush. But it would prevent him from taking part in policymaking that relates to national-security issues, which would mean a much-reduced role in the Bush White House."
So is that what's happening now? Podesta raises the question, and with it this corollary: Even if Rove's security clearance hasn't been revoked as a result of the Plame case, shouldn't it be withdrawn now? If, as Rove says, he's going to make the war on terror a central campaign issue this year, is it really appropriate for him to have a security clearance that will help him do so?
Here's another, more obvious, question to ponder: If Rove is really going to spend the next seven months concentrating on partisan politics, why, exactly, should American taxpayers be footing the bill?
-- Tim Grieve
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Permalink [12:31 EDT, April 19, 2006]
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McClellan's replacement: The shortlist, plus one
The White House is said to be considering all sorts of Bush loyalists as possible successors for Scott McClellan.
If the president wants to dance with the ones who brung him, there's Fox News commentator Tony Snow, a former speechwriter for Bush I. If he really wants to remind everyone of the smashing success that the war in Iraq has been, there's former Coalition Provisional Authority spokesman Dan Senor and former Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke. If he wants to keep it an inside job, as seems to be the plan in this shake-up that isn't really, there's counselor to the president Dan Bartlett, deputy press secretary Trent Duffy and former Treasury spokesman Rob Nichols. And if he wants to reach out to Republicans in Congress, there's Ron Bonjean, the communications director for Denny Hastert who, as the National Journal's Hotline notes, served as a spokesman for Trent Lott during his darkest days.
But if the decider in chief wants someone in the McClellan mold, why not pick up the phone and see if William Bennett is up for the job? When McClellan was asked last week whether the president knew that a team of experts had concluded that two trailers found in Iraq weren't mobile weapons labs at the time he was saying that they were, McClellan turned things around by demanding to know whether ABC News was going to apologize for reporting on the story in the first place. Now Bennett, a former Bush I and Reagan administration official, has taken things one step further. In response to the news that the Washington Post's Dana Priest and the New York Times' James Risen and Eric Lichtblau had won Pulitzer prizes for revealing the Bush administration's use of secret prisons overseas and warrantless surveillance back home, Bennett suggested that the reporters should be put behind bars.
As Editor and Publisher reports, Bennett told CNN that the reporters "took classified information, secret information, published it in their newspapers, against the wishes of the president, against the request of the president and others, that they not release it. They not only released it, they publicized it -- they put it on the front page, and it damaged us, it hurt us ... As a result are they punished, are they in shame, are they embarrassed, are they arrested? No, they win Pulitzer prizes -- they win Pulitzer prizes. I don't think what they did was worthy of an award -- I think what they did is worthy of jail, and I think this investigation needs to go forward."
Of course, if Bennett were to get the job and the investigation were to go forward, he'd have to stop talking about it. Remember, the White House never comments on ongoing criminal investigations.
-- Tim Grieve
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Wait, there's a difference?
Scott McClellan's departure is apparently only one-half of today's White House shake-up. As the Associated Press is reporting, Karl Rove is "giving up oversight of policy development to focus more on politics with the approach of the fall midterm elections."
Joel Kaplan, who was incoming Chief of Staff Josh Bolten's No. 2 man at the Office of Management and Budget, will get Rove's current title of deputy chief of staff for policy. Rove will apparently remain at the deputy chief of staff level, too.
-- Tim Grieve
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McClellan resigns; will a Fox man replace him?
Scott McClellan has just resigned as White House press secretary. Appearing on the South Lawn of the White House with the president, McClellan said, "I have given it my all, sir, and I have given you my all, sir, and I will continue to do so as we transition to a new press secretary."
While we're not ones for dancing on the grave, we do note with some interest word of a possible successor to McClellan: As the New York Times reports this morning, White House officials have been talking about the press secretary job with Fox News commentator and radio talk-show host Tony Snow.
Tony Snow? That would be this man.
Sources tell the Times that White House officials have talked with Snow to gauge his interest in the job. Interested? He seems to have been auditioning for the job for years. A former speechwriter for the president's father, Snow has dispensed all sorts of pro-Bush wit and wisdom in his syndicated column and in his Fox appearances.
A few nuggets from the archives:
In an appearance on Fox earlier this year, Snow claimed that Valerie Plame wasn't a covert CIA officer at the time the Bush administration blew her cover, adding, "even her husband says she wasn't covert for six years." Plame's husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, has never said any such thing.
In a posting to his blog, Snow said that the White House ought to send flowers and chocolates to the New York Times reporters who broke the warrantless-spying story. Snow said the reporters had "saved the Bush presidency" by revealing that the president was doing such a good job of keeping tabs on al-Qaida, and he suggested that the story would work to Bush's political and polling advantage. Engaging in exactly the sort of false-choice argument he had made repeatedly, Snow wrote: "If we try to fight the war on terror with eyes shut and ears packed with wax, innocent people will die."
In a column on Iraq in December, Snow said it would be easy to call "Jack Murtha, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid or any of the other wheezy prophets of the Defeatocrat Party as oddities were it not for the fact that their position on Iraq is deeply consonant with what the Modern Democratic Party has believed for 50 years." He then said that Democrats were stupidly -- and dangerously -- rejecting the president's "infinitely variable approach to the ever-shifting situation in Iraq" with a "weird faith in plans."
In a column following the vice president's shooting of Texas attorney Harry Whittington, Snow said reporters who pressed for answers were "fools" who had forgotten "the importance of behaving like human beings, rather than velociraptors." He added: "Most of us have tasted the milk of human kindness, and thus incline to support victims of unforeseen hardships or tragedies, and Dick Cheney clearly fell into that category. He was a man in distress."
Truth be told, we were starting to worry that we'd miss having Scott McClellan to kick around anymore. The only bad news we see now: The Times says Snow isn't the only candidate to replace him.
-- Tim Grieve
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The survey says: The "decider" gets its wrong
George W. Bush may well be the "decider," as he proclaimed Tuesday, but that doesn't necessarily mean he's good at deciding "what is best" for the country. You could ask the American people about that, or you could just take the word of SurveyUSA, which just did.
In it latest 50-state poll on the presidency, SurveyUSA finds that majorities in just four states approve of the job Bush is doing in office: Utah, Wyoming, Idaho and, barely, Nebraska. At the other end of the spectrum, little Rhode Island has become a seething hotbed of Bush disappointment, with 74 percent of the public registering disapproval. It's hardly alone: Bush has disapproval ratings of 70 percent or worse in five states and disapproval ratings of 60 percent or worse in 22 more.
Nationally, more of the same at the White House is bringing more of the same in the polls. As the Wall Street Journal reports this morning, the president's approval rating has slipped to 35 percent in the latest Harris poll, down from 36 percent last month and close to the all-time low of 34 percent recorded in November 2005. Another sign of unhappiness with the decider in chief: Only 27 percent of those polled say they think "things in this country are going in the right direction."
-- Tim Grieve
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From Al Gore, a step toward 2008?
If 2006 could be like 1994, could 2008 be like 2000?
It's a question we're hearing a lot from people who have seen Al Gore on the road with "An Inconvenient Truth," and it's one that's being raised again in light of a short item in today's New York Daily News. The paper says that Gore has hired Roy Neel -- a longtime aide who went on to run Howard Dean's presidential campaign -- to help him raise awareness of global warming.
Could Neel help out with a presidential bid, too? Yes, but he insists that's not what this is all about. Speculation about Gore in 2008 is "clearly flattering," Neel tells the Daily News, but Gore is "doing nothing to run a presidential campaign right now."
-- Tim Grieve
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Bush on Rumsfeld: Because I said so
George W. Bush was asked today to respond to the charge that he's ignoring retired military commanders who say it's time for a change at the Pentagon. Here's what the president said:
"I say, I listen to all voices, but mine is the final decision. And Don Rumsfeld is doing a fine job. He's not only transforming the military, he's fighting a war on terror. He's helping us fight a war on terror. I have strong confidence in Don Rumsfeld. I hear the voices, and I read the front page, and I know the speculation. But I'm the decider, and I decide what is best. And what's best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the secretary of defense."
In what may be a bad sign for Scott McClellan, the president was dramatically less definitive when he was asked if some White House staffers might be subject to "involuntary" departures. Bush said that he has given new White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten the authority to "design a White House structure so that it will function so that he can do his job," and that he expects Bolten to bring him "different recommendations" as to "who should be here and who should not be here." The president then waved off some unspecified "gossip" about personnel changes before moving quickly to an in-depth answer to an unasked question about gas prices.
-- Tim Grieve"
Salon.com Politics War Room | Politics
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Salon.com | "I'm the decider"
Bush is boss and will take the Republic down rather than admit a mistake or fire a miserable failure. Sidney Blumenthal comments:
"I'm the decider"
Clinging to Rumsfeld as generals lead an unprecedented revolt, Bush reveals his weakness and his disdain for the lessons of history.
Salon.com | "I'm the decider"
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Spokesman Resigns in White House Shake-Up
some Bush villains go down but there are plenty of replacements...
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/19/washington/19cnd-resign.html?ei=5094&en=53aa51bcc89925b5&hp=&ex=1145505600&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print
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Monday, April 17, 2006
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Sunday, April 16, 2006
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Documents link Rumsfeld to prisoner's 'degrading and abusive' interrogation
Rummy directly involved in torture....
The Smirking Chimp
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Saturday, April 15, 2006
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Friday, April 14, 2006
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Michael Donnelly: 'End game for the Lizard Brains? The week the Bush administration fell apart'
Endgame coming up?
The Smirking Chimp: "Michael Donnelly: 'End game for the Lizard Brains? The week the Bush administration fell apart'"
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Thursday, April 13, 2006
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Lacking Biolabs, Trailers Carried Case for War
one of Bush's recurrent Iraq WMD Big Lies exposed: did Bush himself know he was lying or was he just fed information that experts knew was wrong by his handlers? does Bush get mad at being made a fool and liar by his handlers, or does he accept his role, or is in such denial that he doesn't know or care if he is telling the truth or lying and believes that whatever he says is true anyway?
Lacking Biolabs, Trailers Carried Case for War
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Bush's Tangle of Big Lies
As Sidney Blumenthal reports, Bush just gets more and more tangled up in his web of lies and deception=
"The slow-motion trap
His presidency was built on secrecy and, we now know, on lies. The more Bush struggles to free himself, the more his past deceptions bind him.
By Sidney Blumenthal
Apr. 13, 2006 | President Bush has been in search of himself for two and a half years. His voyage of self-discovery began on Sept. 30, 2003. Asked what he knew about senior White House officials anonymously leaking the identity of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson, he expressed his earnest desire to help special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald ferret out the perpetrators. "I want to know the truth," he said. "If anybody has got any information inside our administration or outside our administration, it would be helpful if they came forward with the information so we can find out whether or not these allegations are true and get on about the business."
Bush didn't stop there. He issued an all-points bulletin requesting help for the prosecutor. "And if people have got solid information, please come forward with it. And that would be people inside the information who are the so-called anonymous sources, or people outside the information -- outside the administration. And we can clarify this thing very quickly if people who have got solid evidence would come forward and speak out. And I would hope they would." The day before, the president had sent out his press secretary, Scott McClellan, to announce that involvement in this incident would be a firing offense: "If anyone in this administration was involved in it, they would no longer be in this administration."
Last week, however, in a filing in his perjury and obstruction of justice case against I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, Fitzgerald revealed that Libby had been authorized by the president and vice president to leak parts of the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction to reporters.
The White House's initial response was for an anonymous "senior administration official" to leak to the New York Times that Bush had played "only a peripheral role in the release of the classified material and was uninformed about the specifics," as the Times reported. The White House source, trying to remove the president from the glare, fingered Cheney as the instigator.
On Monday, Bush appeared at Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, where a graduate student asked him about his role in the leak of classified information. The president, who had once perplexedly said, "I want to know the truth," replied, "I wanted people to see the truth and thought it made sense for people to see the truth." Was blind but now he sees? Grace (or Patrick Fitzgerald) had led him home.
Bush acted in the beginning as an innocent injured party. He pretended to be utterly baffled by events. His feigned unawareness was intended to deflect attention from himself. His call to find those responsible was to ensure that the facts would never be known. When he was exposed, he donned a new guise. Instead of the seeker of truth, he became the truth teller.
But the classified information he authorized to be selectively leaked -- that Saddam Hussein was seeking to purchase yellowcake uranium in Niger for use in nuclear weapons -- was not the truth, and its release was intended to buttress a falsehood. Indeed, last week, former Secretary of State Colin Powell told journalist Robert Scheer that the notorious 16 words in Bush's 2003 State of the Union address concerning Iraq's supposed efforts to buy uranium -- the claim that former ambassador Joseph Wilson was sent to Niger to investigate -- were bogus. "That was a big mistake," Powell said. "It should never have been in the speech. I didn't need Wilson to tell me that there wasn't a Niger connection. He didn't tell us anything we didn't already know. I never believed it." Thus, three years after the event, Powell finally admitted publicly that the president spoke falsely about the reason for war, that there were interested parties inside the administration determined to put false words in his mouth, and that the secretary of state, knowing this, lacked the power to stop it.
Bush as the man of truth offered a convoluted explanation of the declassification process. He retreated into technical legalisms that as the man of action he had disdained. "You're not supposed to talk about classified information, and so I declassified the document," he said at Johns Hopkins. "I thought it was important for people to get a better sense for why I was saying what I was saying in my speeches."
Once again, he offered a misleading statement. The completely irregular process of Bush's declassification, so unprecedented that Scooter Libby was unsure it was legal, was a badge of guilt. The declassification reflected a vengeful impulse against a critic and was an inadvertent confession of the fragility and tenuousness of Bush's case for war.
Fitzgerald's filing of April 5, the cue for Bush's latest theater of the absurd, provides previously lacking details of the narrative. Through Fitzgerald's further filings before the January 2007 trial of Scooter Libby, other crucial facts may yet emerge. In his prosecution of Libby, Fitzgerald is establishing indisputable facts about the history of the Bush presidency and its methods of operation.
Fitzgerald writes that the Office of the Vice President viewed Wilson's revelation of his mission to Niger and what he didn't find there "as a direct attack on the credibility of the vice president (and the president) on a matter of signal importance: the rationale for the war in Iraq." So, Fitzgerald continues, the White House undertook "a plan to discredit, punish or seek revenge against" Wilson that included as one of its elements outing the covert identity of his wife. The "concerted action" against Wilson was centrally organized and directed. The prosecutor writes that he has gathered "evidence that multiple officials in the White House discussed her employment with reporters prior to (and after) July 14 [2003]" -- the date her activities tracking weapons of mass destruction for the CIA were compromised by being publicized by conservative columnist Robert Novak. (Full disclosure: Joseph Wilson and I became friends when we worked together in the Clinton administration.)
While one part of the "concerted action" was to attempt to damage Wilson by attacking him through his wife, another was to manipulate the press to undermine Wilson's credibility. Cheney ordered Libby to act as the leaker. The plan, according to Libby's testimony, was to "disclose certain information in the NIE" to New York Times reporter Judith Miller. Libby and Miller had worked this way before when she had published a series of stories asserting that Saddam Hussein possessed WMD based on leaks she received and that were in circular fashion cited by the administration as authoritative reports by the "newspaper of record." Libby testified that he was directed to leak to her that the NIE "held that Iraq was 'vigorously trying to procure' uranium."
In the setup for the leak, Fitzgerald writes, Cheney "advised defendant that the President specifically had authorized defendant to disclose certain information in the NIE" and that that approval was a secret. Libby was a team player, but he was also anxious about a declassification that was "unique in his experience."
The formal rules for declassification were amended by Bush's Executive Order 13292 of March 25, 2003, on "Classified National Security Information." Under any circumstances the president has the authority, as he always has, to unilaterally declassify official secrets and intelligence "in the public interest." But a decision to declassify a document normally passes through the originating agency and then through the Office of the National Security Advisor. Then the document is stamped declassified and the declassified order is appended to the document.
None of these procedures was followed in this case, which is why Libby's antenna was gyrating. He sought the advice of Cheney's counsel, David Addington, Libby's close ally. In approaching Addington, Libby must have known what he would hear. Addington is the foremost legal advocate in the White House of the idea that the president should be unbound, unchecked, unfettered in his authority, whether in the torture of detainees, domestic surveillance or any other matter. Unsurprisingly, Addington "opined that presidential authorization to publicly disclose a document amounted to a declassification of the document."
Only four people -- Bush, Cheney, Libby and Addington -- were privy to the declassification. It was kept secret from the director of central intelligence, the secretary of state and the national security advisor, Stephen Hadley, among others. Indeed, Hadley was arguing at the time for declassification of the NIE but was deliberately kept in the dark that it was no longer classified. Fitzgerald writes about Libby: "Defendant fails to mention ... that he consciously decided not to make Mr. Hadley aware of the fact that defendant himself had already been disseminating the NIE by leaking it to reporters while Mr. Hadley sought to get it formally declassified." Having Hadley play the fool became part of the game.
On July 8, Libby met with Miller. In a dance of mutual deception, Libby misrepresented the contents of the NIE, which Miller apparently accepted at face value, as she had accepted such leaks in the past. With an air of mystery, telling Miller she should identify him in her story as "a former Hill staffer," Libby vouched for a document some of whose information he knew to be false, failing to note that the NIE notably did not prove that Saddam was seeking uranium in Niger; on the contrary, the NIE contained a caveat from the State Department's Intelligence and Research Bureau saying that the rumors "do not, however, add up to a compelling case." For her part, Miller thought she was receiving classified, not declassified, material, as she wrote later in her post-prison account in the Times.
Ten days after their meeting, which did not result in a story, the already declassified NIE was formally declassified as though it had never been declassified. The date of its declassification in the official government record, in fact, reads July 18, 2003, not the date that Bush declassified it for the purpose of Libby's leaking.
After the launch of the federal investigation, Libby became frantic. He knew that he had leaked Valerie Plame Wilson's identity and that others had, too, and he wanted to be protected. Fitzgerald writes that "while the President was unaware of the role that the Vice President's Chief of Staff and National Security Adviser had in fact played in disclosing Ms. Wilson's CIA employment, defendant implored White House officials to have a public statement issued exonerating him." But there was no forthcoming statement. Libby implored Cheney "in having his name cleared." But Cheney did nothing for his henchman. In a White House that demands impeccable loyalty, loyalty was not being returned.
Libby not only knew that Hadley had leaked Plame's identity; he also knew that Karl Rove, the president's principal political advisor, had leaked her name to Novak. Libby linked himself to Rove in his desperate coverup. He gave press secretary Scott McClellan a handwritten note, almost in the form of a haiku. It read:
People have made too much of the difference in
How I described Karl and Libby
I've talked to Libby.
I said it was ridiculous about Karl
And it is ridiculous about Libby.
Libby was not the source of the Novak story.
And he did not leak classified information.
On Oct. 4, 2003, McClellan informed the White House press corps that Rove and Libby (and National Security Council staff member Elliott Abrams) were innocent of the charges of leaking Plame's name -- "those individuals assured me that they were not involved in this."
Then Libby appeared before the grand jury, where he several times claimed under oath that he learned about Plame's identity from reporters. On Oct. 28, 2005, he was indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice.
Fitzgerald's filing demolishes Libby's projected defense as a busy man with so many important matters of state on his mind that he just can't remember exactly who told him what about Plame. Here, in his own words, Libby recalls precisely his anxiety about the "unique" declassification and the others who leaked Plame's name. Libby may now wonder why he should play the fall guy, unless the scenario is to hope for a presidential pardon on the morning of Jan. 20, 2009, the day Bush leaves office.
President Bush, having previously play-acted as unknowing, is now engaged in the make-believe that he is helping people "see the truth." Yet the White House refuses to declassify the one-page summary of the NIE used to brief Bush. Presumably, it contains the caveats from various intelligence sources on Saddam's WMD, showing that the case remained unproved and shaky when Bush presented it as conclusive.
The White House also refuses to release the transcripts of Bush's and Cheney's testimony before the prosecutor. As witnesses they are not bound by any rule of secrecy and are free to discuss their testimony publicly. During the Watergate investigation, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that President Nixon had to turn over his secret audiotapes to the prosecutor. Fitzgerald obviously already has the White House transcripts. Only the public is uninformed of their contents. Why won't the White House release them now? Indeed, there is a precedent. On June 24, 2000, then Vice President Al Gore made public his testimony to the Justice Department investigation into campaign finance. (While Bush and Cheney insisted on giving testimony without being sworn under oath, they remain legally liable. Under Title 18, Section 1001 of the U.S. Code, anyone who testifies falsely in a federal inquiry may be fined and sentenced to five years in prison.)
Bush is entangled in his own past. His explanations compound his troubles and point to the original falsehoods. Through his first term, Bush was able to escape by blaming the Democrats, casting aspersions on the motives of his critics and changing the subject. But his methods have become self-defeating. When he utters the word "truth" now most of the public is mistrustful. His accumulated history overshadows what he might say.
The collapse of trust was cemented into his presidency from the start. A compulsion for secrecy undergirds the Bush White House. Power, as Bush and Cheney see it, thrives by excluding diverse points of view. Bush's presidency operates on the notion that the fewer the questions, the better the decision. The State Department has been treated like a foreign country; the closest associates of the elder President Bush, Brent Scowcroft and James Baker, have been excluded; the career professional staff have been bullied and quashed; the Republican-dominated Congress has abdicated oversight; and influential elements of the press have been complicit.
Inside the administration, the breakdown of the national security process has produced a vacuum filled by dogmatic fixations that become more rigid as reality increasingly fails to cooperate. But the conceit that executive fiat can substitute for fact has not sustained the illusion of omnipotence.
The precipitating event of the investigation of the Bush White House -- Wilson's disclosure about his Niger mission -- was an effort by a lifelong Foreign Service officer to set the record straight and force a debate on the reasons for going to war. Wilson stood for the public discussion that had been suppressed. The Bush White House's "concerted action" against him therefore involved an attempt to poison the wellsprings of democracy.
-- By Sidney Blumenthal http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2006/04/13/leaks/print.html
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Monday, April 10, 2006
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Sunday, April 09, 2006
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Los Angeles Times: In Politics, Leaking Stories Is a Fine Art
another Leak relevation: part of the myth of Iraq/al Qaeda connection comes from Cheney office leak to rightwing press; from LAT:
"Months after U.S. troops stormed into Iraq, the Pentagon drafted a top-secret document using classified intelligence to spell out Baghdad's involvement with Al Qaeda. It supported one of President Bush's strongest arguments for the war.
Within days, big chunks of the classified report appeared verbatim in a conservative magazine, the Weekly Standard, complete with the paragraph numbers that are a telltale feature of Defense Department documents.
Headlined "Case Closed: The U.S. Government's Secret Memo Detailing Cooperation Between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden," the article said the intelligence left no doubt that Iraqi President Hussein had been in league with Al Qaeda.
It was a classic leak — the kind of national security breach that the Bush administration had often reacted to with indignation.
But instead of complaining, officials held up the article as proof of the Hussein-Bin Laden nexus. Vice President Dick Cheney told the Rocky Mountain News: "One place you ought to go look is an article … in the Weekly Standard here a few weeks ago." That is "your best source of information" about Hussein and Bin Laden, he said.
Even at the time, most members of the intelligence community believed the relationship between Hussein and Bin Laden was relatively unimportant and considered the leaked memo a distortion of evidence.
The episode unfolded in late 2003 and early 2004 at a time when critics were beginning to question Bush's case for going to war. And it reflected one of the most basic facts of life in Washington: Though high-level officials often portray leaks as renegade acts that betray the public trust, leaks are just as likely to be fully approved, calculated actions by loyal members of an administration — moves designed to advance an agenda, thwart enemies and manipulate public opinion.
Such leaks are a primary reason so much Washington reporting is based on anonymous sources — and why critics often question the motives of the unnamed person.
Sometimes, planning for important leaks starts in the White House.
It was disclosed Thursday that former Cheney aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby had testified that the president approved a leak in July 2003 of selected material from a different classified report. The information was meant to bolster another administration argument for the Iraq war. The White House has not denied leaking the material.
Critics say such leaks helped Bush in the buildup to the war."
Los Angeles Times: In Politics, Leaking Stories Is a Fine Art
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The Smirking Chimp - Robert Parry: 'Did Bush lie to Fitzgerald?'
could it be that Bush lied to Fitzgerald? in any case Bush is losing whatever was left of his credibility on LeakGate; it also puts more negative light on Judith Miller who was obviously getting disinformation straight from Lewis Libby and Cheney's office as well as INC
The Smirking Chimp - Robert Parry: 'Did Bush lie to Fitzgerald?'
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Tony Hendra: 'The Bushes: A hereditary trait for treason? Surely not!'
treason runs in the family....
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/print.php?sid=25607
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Friday, April 07, 2006
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Man tells president he should be ashamed of policies
Let the people speak! and tell Bush off!
Here's the exchange, Henry Taylor is a national hero!:
"
Q: "You never stop talking about freedom, and I appreciate that. But while I listen to you talk about freedom, I see you assert your right to tap my telephone, to arrest me and hold me without charges, to try to preclude me from breathing clean air and drinking clean water and eating safe food. If I were a woman, you'd like to restrict my opportunity to make a choice and decision about whether I can abort a pregnancy on my own behalf. You are -"
Shrub: "I'm not your favorite guy. Go ahead. (Laughter and applause.) Go on, what's your question?"
Q: "Okay, I don't have a question. What I wanted to say to you is that I -- in my lifetime, I have never felt more ashamed of, nor more frightened by my leadership in Washington, including the presidency, by the Senate, and -"
Bipartisan Audience Members: "Booo!"
Shrub: "No, wait a sec -- let him speak."
Q "And I would hope -- I feel like despite your rhetoric, that compassion and common sense have been left far behind during your administration, and I would hope from time to time that you have the humility and the grace to be ashamed of yourself inside yourself. And I also want to say I really appreciate the courtesy of allowing me to speak what I'm saying to you right now. That is part of what this country is about."
Shrub: "It is, yes." (Applause.)
Q: "And I know that this doesn't come welcome to most of the people in this room, but I do appreciate that."
Shrub: "Appreciate -"
Q: "I don't have a question, but I just wanted to make that comment to you."
Shrub: "I appreciate it, thank you. Let me --
"I'm going to start off with what you first said, if you don't mind, you said that I tap your phones -- I think that's what you said. You tapped your phone -- I tapped your phones. Yes. No, that's right. Yes, no, let me finish."
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/article.php?sid=25588&mode=nested&order=0
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Bomb Explodes Inside a Shiite Mosque
MORE HELL IN IRAQ
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/07/world/middleeast/07cnd-iraq.html?hp&ex=1144468800&en=c01de98fd3393c3f&ei=5094&partner=homepage
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Thursday, April 06, 2006
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Bush Authorized Secrets' Release, Libby Testified
what's explanation of why Libby pointed to Bush, is there a Bush-Cheney war and Libby is going after Bush or is he just trying to save his ass or what? this is more mysterious to me than the chatter I've been hearing all day....
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/06/AR2006040600333_pf.html
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Bush authorized Plame leak to Times, Libby told grand jury
it's totally believable that Bush and Cheney sicced Rove and Libby onto reporters to try to destroy Joe Wilson....
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/print.php?sid=25573
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Wednesday, April 05, 2006
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Salon.com Politics War Room | Politics
Salon on why DeLay "really" quite:
"No, really, why did DeLay quit?
The New York Times uses a nice, soft word this morning to describe Tom DeLay's sensibility: He's "dispirited" by continuing legal difficulties. This is the closest we've seen any reports come to saying that DeLay resigned because he anticipated being charged in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal. The former majority leader has been emphatic in his confidence that the Abramoff imbroglio will simply not touch him, and reporters have so far come up with little evidence to show that he stepped down because of Abramoff (beyond the obvious issue of timing, that mounting federal investigation). And so still now, a day and a half after the big news hit on TV and in the papers, the main story line remains the one DeLay himself is pushing -- that DeLay quit simply because he wanted to avoid a bruising election that he might have lost. He's taking one for the team. He's being a gentleman. He's an honorable man.
But of course that's not the story, or at least not the whole story. Tom DeLay, you see, is dispirited, one friend tells the Times, because the prosecutors are coming. Tony Rudy, Tom DeLay's former deputy chief of staff, pleaded guilty last week to corruption charges, and now is telling the law all he knows. Rudy's plea agreement mentioned that a certain "Lobbyist B" was under investigation; officials have confirmed that this is a reference to Edwin Buckham, who is DeLay's friend and served as chief of staff to the congressman in the 1990s. If Buckham pleads out, DeLay's troubles will deepen.
One anonymous DeLay friend tells the Times: "Tony Rudy and especially Ed Buckham were more than just former colleagues -- they are Tom DeLay's friends ... You can imagine what it feels like: to know that your friends are being squeezed to say terrible things about you, things that aren't true. By leaving the House now, I think DeLay hopes that the spotlight on him and his friends will dim a little."
Anyone who has ever seen one or two episodes of "Law & Order" understands that these maneuvers are classic: Prosecutors go after the underlings to get at the bigger fish. Indeed, as one unnamed government official points out to the Washington Post, prosecutors' plea deals with Rudy, Abramoff and Michael Scanlon, another former DeLay aide, place a "dramatic premium" on evidence that might implicate others. The official tells the Post that for DeLay, "the federal case is going to get worse before it gets better."
But DeLay maintains his innocence, and in interviews with the Post and other outlets, his lawyers are insistent that the federal case had nothing to do with his sudden resignation. The Post digs deeper into DeLay's main reason -- that he got some bad polls recently.
"Starting in December, DeLay's private polling pointed out serious political problems," the paper says. "At first, it suggested a roughly even voter split with former congressman Nick Lampson, the Democratic nominee. But it also showed that nearly eight in 10 voters were already firmly decided on one of the two candidates -- a rarity for a House race, especially considering that the general election was 11 months away. That meant changing minds would be costly."
DeLay commissioned another poll after his victory in the primary last month, and found no difference in the mood of voters -- winning the seat would be very difficult, costing as much as $10 million. And in the end, what would DeLay get? A seat in the House, but not a leadership position. It would be a demotion.
And why take that when, out of Congress, the future could be so much brighter? As the Post reports: "Friends and associates of DeLay say they think he can make a prosperous future for himself as a corporate-paid legislative strategist, book author and speaker."
Update: I said earlier that the Times report comes closest to saying that it was the Abramoff investigation that did DeLay in. But that was before I saw Knight Ridder reporter Ron Hutcheson's story, which has several lawyers saying that as far as the law is concerned, DeLay is done.
In a story that includes many fine quotes, here's the best one: "The guy has a hide of titanium," John P. Flannery II, a former federal prosecutor, says of DeLay, dismissing the congressman's argument that he was afraid his race would get too nasty. "This is not about his election; this is about his defense of the criminal investigation. The circle is closing on him for a federal indictment."
Salon.com Politics War Room | Politics
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Tuesday, April 04, 2006
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Monday, April 03, 2006
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ZNet |Iraq | Iraq is Splitting
Iraq has already fallen apart, maybe its best to recognize this, get the US out, and let the Iraqis and interested parties figure out what to do with the mess
ZNet |Iraq | Iraq is Splitting
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David R. Francis: 'US bases in Iraq: a costly legacy'
imperialism is very, very expensive
The Smirking Chimp
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Watch Keith Olberman!
Keith Olberman's COUNTDOWN! is the only news show on corporate TV worth watching; every night he presents stories critical of Bush Administration neglected by other networks and has sharping critical opinions as Howie's article notes; its on MS-NBC Mon-Fri at 5:00 and 9:00 pm
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/02/opinion/02sun1.html?_r=3&hp=&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin
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NYT on Iraq
The NYT had a good editorial yesterday on situation in Iraq although its not certain there is any hope as they project in conclusion....
"The Endgame in Iraq
Iraq is becoming a country that America should be ashamed to support, let alone occupy. The nation as a whole is sliding closer to open civil war. In its capital, thugs kidnap and torture innocent civilians with impunity, then murder them for their religious beliefs. The rights of women are evaporating. The head of the government is the ally of a radical anti-American cleric who leads a powerful private militia that is behind much of the sectarian terror.
The Bush administration will not acknowledge the desperate situation. But it is, at least, pushing in the right direction, trying to mobilize all possible leverage in a frantic effort to persuade the leading Shiite parties to embrace more inclusive policies and support a broad-based national government.
One vital goal is to persuade the Shiites to abort their disastrous nomination of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari. Mr. Jaafari is unable to form a broadly inclusive government and has made no serious effort to rein in police death squads. Even some Shiite leaders are now calling on him to step aside. If his nomination stands and is confirmed by Parliament, civil war will become much harder to head off. And from the American perspective, the Iraqi government will have become something that no parent should be asked to risk a soldier son or daughter to protect.
Unfortunately, after three years of policy blunders in Iraq, Washington may no longer have the political or military capital to prevail. That may be hard for Americans to understand, since it was the United States invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein and helped the Shiite majority to power. Some 140,000 American troops remain in Iraq, more than 2,000 American servicemen and servicewomen have died there so far and hundreds of billions of American dollars have been spent.
Yet Shiite leaders have responded to Washington's pleas for inclusiveness with bristling hostility, personally vilifying Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and criticizing American military operations in the kind of harsh language previously heard only from Sunni leaders. Meanwhile, Moktada al-Sadr, the radically anti-American cleric and militia leader, has maneuvered himself into the position of kingmaker by providing decisive support for Mr. Jaafari's candidacy to remain prime minister.
It was chilling to read Edward Wong's interview with the Iraqi prime minister in The Times last week, during which Mr. Jaafari sat in the palace where he now makes his home, complained about the Americans and predicted that the sectarian militias that are currently terrorizing Iraqi civilians could be incorporated into the army and police. The stories about innocent homeowners and storekeepers who are dragged from their screaming families and killed by those same militias are heartbreaking, as is the thought that the United States, in its hubris, helped bring all this to pass.
It is conceivable that the situation can still be turned around. Mr. Khalilzad should not back off. The kind of broadly inclusive government he is trying to bring about offers the only hope that Iraq can make a successful transition from the terrible mess it is in now to the democracy that we all hoped would emerge after Saddam Hussein's downfall. It is also the only way to redeem the blood that has been shed by Americans and Iraqis alike.http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/02/opinion/02sun1.html?_r=3&hp=&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin
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