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Bush: “If I Wanted to Break the Law, Why Was I Briefin’ Congress?”

Tuesday, January 24th, 2006

Bush tried his best today to change the subject on the NSA spying scandal. He’s like the Energizer Bunny. If he tried to get his message across unpersuasively and unconvincingly he just changes the rationale a bit and comes back with more baloney. So the new baloney is–the domestic spying program wasn’t that at all. It was a “terrorist surveillance” program.

Bush backed by troops at Kansas State University

Why is it that George Bush can’t make a single appearance outside the White House without being draped (or smothered?) by military personnel? These are from Ft. Riley (White House photo/Eric Draper)

This is rich in light of the New York Times recent story quoting FBI and other intelligence sources as saying that of the hundreds or thousands of leads developed by NSA through this program, no source could remember a single one that flushed out a terror suspect. In other words, this is how many terrorists were “surveilled” and discovered by the program: zero, zip nada, nuthin’. Bush claims that Iyman Faris’ alleged plot to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge with blowtorches (I always love writing that phrase because the concept itself is so preposterous–and keep in mind that Faris himself abandoned the plan telling his Al Qaeda connections that it was unlikely to succeed). But the Times story raised questions about whether the NSA wiretapping played a significant role in the case:

By the administration’s account, the NSA eavesdropping helped lead investigators to Iyman Faris, an Ohio truck driver and friend of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who is believed to be the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks. Mr. Faris spoke of toppling the Brooklyn Bridge by taking a torch to its suspension cables, but concluded that it would not work. He is now serving a 20-year sentence in a federal prison.

But as in the London fertilizer bomb case, some officials with direct knowledge of the Faris case dispute that the N.S.A. information played a significant role.

Given Bush’s fraudulent and deceitful campaign to gin up support for the war in Iraq, would you prefer to believe him or the “officials with direct knowledge of the Faris case” referenced above? Keep in mind that these are probably senior FBI intelligence officials who are directly refuting their president and vice-president.

Here’s the kicker, though, of Bush’s speech (NPR story–audio) today at Kansas State University:

I’m mindful of civil liberties–so I had all kinds a lawyers review the process. We briefed members of United States Congress, one of whom was Senator Pat Roberts, about this program. You know it’s amazing to me people will say to me: “You know he’s just breakin’ the law.” If I wanted to break the law, why was I briefin’ Congress?

I do understand that at a Bush event in Kansas his threshold of credibility is going to be pretty low. He’s not going to feel he needs to do a whole helluva lot to persuade his audience of his argument. But even at Kansas State, the ones he used were outrageously pathetic. Vetting the NSA with “all kinds of” government lawyers guarantees–what? That you’ve received a full, candid and unbiased legal opinion? Horsecrap.

And his last sentence really takes the cake. Because Dick Cheney snarled at a few members of Congress for a few minutes at a so-called briefing without revealing any significant information about the NSA program–that’s consulting Congress? We all know from those briefed themselves (some of whom complained to Cheney directly) that they felt they could make no judgments about the program based on the paltry information provided by Cheney and his spooks. I view those briefings as a form of plausible deniability. They had them precisely in the event of this type of scandal erupting so they could defend themselves by saying they did the right thing. When in reality, the briefing was an empty shell.

Try again, Mr. President/Energizer Bunny. This attempt fell flat on its face.

Tags: dick_cheney, domestic_spying, george_bush, iyman_faris, kansas_state_university, nsa_spying, terrorist_surveillance
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Cheney’s ‘Vision’ of Muslim Worldwide Domination

Tuesday, November 22nd, 2005

Osama & Cheney–believers in the Caliphate (credit: Elena Steier)

Dick Cheney’s speech today to the American Enterprise Institute was a stellar example of political argument that leaves the realm of reason descending into the black hole of delusion and paranoia:

Mr. Cheney said an early withdrawal from Iraq would be a “terrible blow” to the security of the United States, and painted a bleak picture of terrorists’ ambitions in Iraq.

“The terrorists believe that by controlling an entire country,” he said, “they will be able to target and overthrow other governments in the region, and to establish a radical Islamic empire that encompasses a region from Spain, across North Africa, through the Middle East and South Asia, all the way to Indonesia. They have made clear, as well, their ultimate ambitions: to arm themselves with weapons of mass destruction, to destroy Israel, to intimidate all Western countries and to cause mass death in the United States.”

Why does Cheney always look madder’n a hornet’s nest? It’s tough work stopping the Muslim quest for worldwide domination. (credit: Doug Mills/NYT)

Can you imagine what’s going on in that brain of his? It’s a veritable miasma of conspiracies, mass murder and religious terror. He really should be seeing a psychiatrist and taking psychotropic drugs. And if they didn’t work then maybe someone should just put him to sleep. Hey, just kidding–we don’t go in for that sort of thing even against our political enemies.

You remember some of the more outrageous accusations leveled by Condi, Dick and friends before we went to war? It appears that Tricky Dick (should I call him ‘II’ since Nixon was the first?) hasn’t learned a lesson from his previous excesses. But this time, the American people “won’t be fooled again” (don’t you just love using the Who to denigrate Dick Cheney?). The first time his over-the-top rhetoric sounded believable to many Americans. Now, he comes off as a truly paranoiac parody of himself. Notice how he continues to conflate the Iraq insurgency with Al Qaeda? Actually, because of Al-Zarkawi’s role in Iraq (a fuse we lit through our occupation) there now IS a link between the two groups that had never existed before.

As for the substance of his statement, WE are the ones who created the Iraq insurgency. Had we done things differently (even if we HAD toppled Saddam), there might not have been one. But I predict that after we leave most Iraqis will tend to their own affairs. That might mean killing each other. But very few will graduate to world terrorism. But of course that leaves Al Qaeda, which will feel emboldened by such a victory. But neither Al Qaeda nor any other similar entity will ever come close to being able to mastermind all the perfidy Cheney outlines above.

It’s remarkable that Dick Cheney and Osama bin Laden (and their respective followers) are the only people in the world who take Al Qaeda’s Muslim Caliphate plan seriously. I’ve been thinking that if you shaved Osama’s and Al-Zwahari’s beards off they’d probably look remarkably like George Bush and Dick Cheney. Whata ya think?

After thinking more about this post and Cheney’s warped mindset, I was reminded of Communism, which played the same role in the thinking of Cold Warriors from just after WWII, when Stalin took over Eastern Europe until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. You remember those speeches about the dangers of Communism and its attempt at worldwide domination? Others before me have noted that the Bush Administration’s terrorism mantra has taken the place of Communism as the motherlode of the neoconservatives, who are the natural offspring of the Cold Warriors. These guys need a scary enemy (even if it’s one practically made up out of whole cloth) to make the U.S. public malleable to their machinations. Reminds me of those scary handpuppets which as children we projected on the bedroom wall in menacing poses. When you turned the lights back on, they didn’t look scary at all.

I’m not arguing that Al Qaeda is not a serious enemy of the U.S. and all freedom-loving people. I am arguing that the threat from Al Qaeda needs to be placed into the context of all the other threats we face. It is not a greater threat than say, Hurricane Katrina essentially incapacitating an entire American city for months. Al Qaeda and Islamic fundamentalism is a threat, not THE threat.

Tags: al_qaeda, american_enterprise_institute, caliphate, dick_cheney, iraq_war
Posted in Politics & Society | 1 Comment »

Cheney Out as Woodward Source…Rove In?

Saturday, November 19th, 2005

There goes what I thought was a beautiful theory about Woodward’s secret Plamegate source. Dick Cheney was my man. He had pointedly not denied involvement. Since Libby appears to be taking the fall for his boss, I thought perhaps that Cheney was trying to do what he could to help his underling. But a Friday morning AP report quotes an anonymous source (don’t you just love those kind?!) saying:

Dick Cheney is not the unidentified source who told Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward about the
CIA status of the wife of Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson, a person familiar with the investigation said Thursday.

The vice president did not talk with Woodward on the day in question, did not provide the information that’s been reported in Woodward’s notes and has not had any conversations over the past several weeks about any release for allowing Woodward to testify, said the person, speaking on condition of anonymity.

And it was such a nice, tidy theory. If not Cheney, who else could it be?

The NY Times obliquely points a finger toward Bad Boy Karl:

The prospect of a prolonged investigation seems likely to focus increased attention on Karl Rove, the senior White House adviser who has acknowledged having conversations with reporters about Ms. Wilson.

Some of Mr. Rove’s supporters had expressed hope that Mr. Fitzgerald’s decision last month to allow the previous grand jury to expire without charging Mr. Rove signaled he was no longer in jeopardy. But lawyers involved in the case said Mr. Rove remained under scrutiny, and the prosecutor could use the new grand jury to review his case.

The White House declined to comment on the issue Friday, as did Mr. Rove’s lawyer, Robert D. Luskin.

Interesting that Luskin, who’s shown himself to be only too eager to shower the press with denials of his client’s involvement in anything dirty should now give the press the silent treatment. Hmmm. What could it mean?

A Time Magazine story goes a long way toward explaining why the Woodward story came out now. After Fitzgerald announced Libby’s indictment on October 28th, Woodward realized that he was the first reporter to have been approached by an Administration official regarding Wilson:

According to Woodward, that triggered a call to his source. “I said it was clear to me that the source had told me [about Wilson's wife] in mid-June,” says Woodward, “and this person could check his or her records and see that it was mid-June. My source said he or she had no alternative but to go to the prosecutor. I said, ‘If you do, am I released?’”, referring to the confidentiality agreement between the two. The source said yes, but only for purposes of discussing it with Fitzgerald, not for publication.

After the source contacted Fitzgerald, Woodward was contacted by the prosecutor on November 3rd.

The Time report also contains this tantalizingly piece of information about his source:

Asked if this was the first time his source had spoken with Fitzgerald in the investigation, Woodward said “I’m not sure. It’s quite possibly not the first time.” But it is the first time Woodward had contact with Fitzgerald, even though Woodward’s name shows up on various White House officials’ calendars, phone logs and other records during June and July, 2003, the time frame that is critical to determining whether a crime was committed when information about Plame’s employment was shared with reporters. Those White House records were turned over to Fitzgerald long ago.

Woodward expressed some surprise that Fitzgerald hadn’t contacted him earlier in the probe, but had high praise for the prosecutor whose investigation he has openly criticized on television. During his time with the prosecutor, Woodward said, he found Fitzgerald “incredibly sensitive to what we do. He didn’t infringe on my other reporting, which frankly surprised me. He said ‘This is what I need, I don’t need any more.’”

Woodward, of course, could’ve just replied to the Time reporter who asked whether the source had spoken previously to Fitzgerald: “I don’t want to go into that.” Instead, he basically telegraphs that his source HAS already testified. This certainly leaves the source open for perjury charges since during the source’s first testimony he or she clearly did not acknowledge any contact with Woodward. And that’s almost certainly why Pat’s reconvened a grand jury. Someone’s very likely to get a big, black piece of coal in their Christmas stocking this year (i.e. an indictment).

I wonder how Pat could’ve let Woodward slipped through the cracks in his investigation? The latter’s nose is into everything in this Administration. Seeing the reporter’s name in the visitor log should’ve triggered something. Hey, but nobody’s perfect.

Note the sucking up to Fitzgerald in “Woodward expressed…high praise for the prosecutor…” What a self-serving jackass. You tell the world on Larry King that you think Pat Fitzgerald is making a mockery of journalism and justice and then you think kissing his tuchis is going to get you off the hook? I think Pat deserves a lot of credit for treating Woodward like a gentleman. The WashPo jerkoff deserved to have his butt reamed. Hey, Bob, get yourself a good lawyer (I’m sure he’s already got one).

Tags: bob_woodward, dick_cheney, Karl_Rove, pat_fitzgerald, Plamegate
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Woodward Joins Miller in the Plamegate Journalism Scandal

Wednesday, November 16th, 2005

Bob Woodward must’ve been jealous of the absolute jouranalistic mess Judy Miller got herself and the NY Times into regarding Scooter Libby and Plamegate. Because he’s now done the same to himself and the Washington Post (see story) regarding his knowledge of Valerie Wilson’s identity (through an unnamed Administration source) well before Libby spilled the beans to Miller. This new development raises scores of questions–among them:

Woodward: new inductee into journalism hall of shame? (credit: Getty Images)

1. why didn’t Woodward report the contact to his editors?

2. when he discovered the subject of Pat Fitzgerald’s inquiry and that the latter was investigating serious national security breaches, why didn’t he report the conversation to Pat Fitzgerald?

3. what is the motivation now of the original Administration source who revealed Wilson’s ID to Woodward in coming forward to Fitzgerald to reveal the conversation just after Libby’s indictment?

4. Did Leonard Downie have the kind of talk with his political reporters that Phil Taubman of the Times had with the paper’s Washington bureau asking if any of them had been offered Wilson information by any Administration sources? If he did, what did Woodward say when asked? If he didn’t, why didn’t he? What good is he as an editor if he can’t monitor his charges properly?

Woodward’s and the Post’s answer to the first question is that Woodward has a “special arrangement” with the Post (do I hear someone say “Big Mr. Run Amok?”) by which he does not have to share information he gleans in preparation for writing his Bush “Path to Power”-type exposes. Also, the journalist would argue that he did not know at the time of the original conversation that Wilson was an undercover operative. However, this does not explain why he didn’t come forward as soon as Fitzgerald was appointed to the case. Personally, I think he aided in concealing a potential crime and had an affirmative responsibility to come forward, which he didn’t. At an absolute minimum, he had a responsiblity to go back to his source and ask for a release from his confidentiality agreement. He could have argued that the federal investigation trumps the agreement. Even if his source disagreed at least he could say he made an attempt. But he didn’t even do this.

Josh Marshall is absolutely correct in noting the brazen conflict of interest in Woodward going around the media circuit impugning Fitzgerald’s investigation when he himself knew he was deliberately concealing material testimony from the prosecutor. This is absolute hypocrisy and the most shoddy judgment. I don’t know whether Woodward is guilty of obstruction of justice. Even if he’s not, he’s tarnished himself and the Post in the same way that Miller tarnished the Times:

Woodward never mentioned this contact — which was at the center of a criminal investigation and a high-stakes First Amendment legal battle between the prosecutor and two news organizations — to his supervisors until last month. Downie said in an interview yesterday that Woodward told him about the contact to alert him to a possible story. He declined to say whether he was upset that Woodward withheld the information from him.

Just like Miller, who dragged her paper into the mire and then (with the connivance of her publisher) handcuffed the Times from covering the story, Woodward handcuffed the Post by concealing an important aspect of the story from his employer. Might it not be time for the Post to consider showing Woodward the door just as the Times recently did for Miller? The problem of course is that Woodward is a household word among journalists and is always good for tons of newsworthy copy (not newsworthy to me but perhaps to his editors and some Post readers–personally, I think Woodward is a semi-fossilized journalistic windbag). But I’d argue that no matter how much juice the connection to Woodward brings the paper it doesn’t make up for the sleaziness of this act.

You’re going to find that Woodward tries the same tack as Miller in seeing himself as the victim and as having done nothing wrong. That’s the way media stars see themselves. They never have anything to apologize for. They always do things out of the best of motives. Well, it won’t wash any better for him than it did for Miller. Let Woodward go off and write his Bush on the Path to History books. He doesn’t need the Post to pontificate. Nor does the Post (or us for that matter) need him.

(cartoon: Pat Oliphant)

Let’s examine the motivation of the still confidential source in the Bush Administration who revealed the information to Woodward. The Post notes this source didn’t come forward until a week after Libby was indicted. That too seems like obstruction of justice. And the timing is sneakily suspicious, as if the source was attempting to undermine Fitzgerald’s case against Libby. Do you think the source might be Cheney himself or someone else in his entourage? After all, if Libby is willing to “go down” protecting Cheney–might not Cheney have decided that he would do what he could to protect Libby? The Times reports this telling piece of information:

Mr. Cheney did not join the parade of denials. A spokeswoman said he would have no comment on a continuing investigation. Several other officials could not be reached for comment.

And if Cheney IS the source, then it puts him right in the thick of it. And since Fitzgerald has been trying to ascertain Cheney’s level of knowledge of Wilson’s identity (you can tell how hard he’s tried by Miller’s chracterization of her testimony to the grand jury), this would guarantee the Big Guy gets a second look. Since Woodward made clear that his source did not reveal that Wilson was undercover then perhaps this protects Cheney somewhat (unless Fitzgerald can secure independent confirmation that Cheney knew she was). Getting back to Libby, it appears that this, at first glance, tends to undermine the charges against him when one learns that Libby was NOT the first Administration figure to spill the beans about Wilson. But then again, if it was Cheney perhaps the chances of proving a conspiracy between the two rises.

The Times article also raises this tantalizing possibility of added jeopardy for Cheney:

If there are inconsistencies between Mr. Woodward’s account and any earlier account by his source, Mr. Fitzgerald could be obliged to explore new legal implications.

So since Cheney HAS testified before all of this came out (and again this assumes he IS the source which may or may not be the case) then Pat and his attorneys are busy pouring over Cheney’s original testimony, comparing it to what he said after coming forward to reveal his conversation with Woodward and with Woodward’s own testimony. That’s alot of potential jeopardy for Big Guy.

Returning to Woodward, given his dismissive attitude toward Fitzgerald’s investigation, this new revelation seems to be yet another attempt (by his source or him) to undermine it whether intentionally or unintentionally. It makes Woodward an actor in the story and a bad (I mean that in both senses) one at that. This development also makes it that much harder for Fitzgerald to build a convincing case against Libby. Not that he can’t do it because one should never underestimate Pat Fitzgerald’s prosecutorial abilities.

Let’s hope that Pat has enough ammunition to build as strong a case against the source as he has against Libby. By the way, since ‘Official A’ is taken should we start calling this person Official X? It has a nice mysterious ring to it, doesn’t it?

Tags: bob_woodward, dick_cheney, judy_miller, lewis_libby, pat_fitzgerald, valerie_wilson, washington_post
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