Connecting the dots

April 8, 2006

Well, at least Knight Ridder gets it.

The revelation that President Bush authorized former White House aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby to divulge classified information about Iraq fits a pattern of selective leaks of secret intelligence to further the administration’s political agenda.

Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and other top officials have reacted angrily at unauthorized leaks, such as the exposure of a domestic wiretapping program and a network of secret CIA prisons, both of which are now the subject of far-reaching investigations.

But secret information that supports their policies, particularly about the Iraq war, has surfaced everywhere from the U.N. Security Council to major newspapers and magazines. Much of the information that the administration leaked or declassified, however, has proved to be incomplete, exaggerated, incorrect or fabricated.

This week’s revelations are devastating, but while the specific information is new, the pattern is not.

Great observations.

Isn’t this the moral relativism that Bushites spend so much time foaming about the mouth about on TV when they rant about Liberals?

Doesn’t this mean that the prez is above the law and the constitution?

Yup and yup.

Perhaps the only good thing to come of this administration is the end of the Bush political dynasty.

  • I can imagine “The Dick” Cheney running around his undisclosed location as we speak, looking for someone’s upper body to fire 200 pellets into. The Regal Moron, of course, acts (or maybe is) oblivious as usual. All the rest of the GOP are just plain running scared shitless and witless. It’s up to the elected Dems to keep them that way.

    Wasn’t Knight Ridder recently sold? I hope they retain their critical faculties.

  • Dan–don’t forget Jeb, the current Governor of Florida, because he will definitely be running sometime. And who knows, maybe Jenna or Not Jenna in the future–they are certainly as qualified as Daddy is right now.
    And Ed, yes, I believe Knight Ridder was bought by a company that intends to keep some of their papers and close, merge, or spin others off. It’s uncertain what will happen to their individual voices but odds are they will end up fitting in with most of the other media we’ve got these days and be run by corporate Republicans. We need a Soros or a consortium of progressives to buy some of these papers.

  • The press refers to everyone in Washington “leaking” all over the place. Like they’ve got bladder problems, coupled with no sense of decency or self-control. Which, I guess, pretty much covers it.

  • Pardon me if I’m behind the times, as I’ve been out of the loop for a bit while traveling, but who’s conducting “far-reaching investigations” on domestic wiretapping and secret CIA prisons?

  • Knight-Ridder is most likely to be purchased by Ron Burkle – no Republican he! Big-time Clinton financier (among other things). So it’s highly likely they may become even more vocal.

  • James Dillon,

    So far as I know, nobody is conducting investigations of anything. It’s not “the Republican way” of doing things. The White House simply asserts “L’ etat c’est moi” and does whatever it likes, whenever it likes, and leaves the mess for others to clean up.

  • That’s great that Knight Ridder and AP are starting to get real. But I bet there are still hordes of academics across the country who still feel too threatened to say the same kind of stuff to their students.

    Tell all your academic friends to speak the truth– and to tell the one wingnutty kid in the class who wants them to show a film-strip about Creationism to fuck off.

  • Intelligence work involves information and misinformation. The Bush administration has always viewed US citizens on the street as “potential enemies” to be led and misled. Karl Rove has been a master of misinformation since his college days. It takes a lot of arrogance to plant a microphone in your own office and blame it on your opposition in order to create an issue to overshadow real issues before an election in Texass. Now, Shrub’s administration, by denying a civil war is taking place in Iraq and their actions there, are just trying to sit on the lid hoping Iraq doesn’t blow up before the November elections here. If that isn’t enough to worry about, Presidunce Bush is trying to force a showdown with Iran. Assuming we all survive this dumbass president, I recommend an intelligence test for all future presidents with a required minimum score. May we all live to see Shrub, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfshits, Perle and any other war criminals from this administration on trial in the Hague.

  • I’m thinking that Iran will be the final breaking point. (1) Ignoring them completely gives them the opportunity to vill the vacuum created by the Iraqi expedition—and they’ve the muscle to do it with. (2) Any sanctions package that inflicts real pressure will, in all likelihood, be met with an oil-production curtailment—how will the economy function under not only fuel that cannot be afforded by many, but fuel that’s not abundant enough to meet the base needs of the country? (3) Military action is just out of the question—the US doesn’t have the troop volume needed to invade; they don’t have enough to hold back a full-scale Iranian invasion of Iraq. “Shock and Awe” tactics will not work against real, die-hard fanatics who have been taught that death is better than life. (4) The only way to bring US forces to a number deemed valid for such an assault will require dusting off the Selective Service Act, and re-instituting the draft—that alone would bring this administration down, barring an offensive first-strike action by the Iranians themselves. (5) The nuclear option just isn’t viable anymore—refer to the effect of Item 2 (above). Fallout from even a limited nuclear strike will contaminate most of the MidEast oil fields and bulk-terminal stations neutron warheads will only trigger a mass response from Iran’s remaining ability, and no one knows yet whether other “anti-US interests” have economic/military treaties with Tehran. Is there a pact between Tehran and Pyong Yang? Caracas? Russia? I don’t think even the State Department knows for sure—and there are a whole lot more “maybe/ if/ perhaps-it’s-possible” scenarios in this than there was in the Iraq mess in December 2002.

    But the dolts in Washington can’t see any of this. They can’t even see what they’ve done wrong inside the Beltway, let alone on the other side of the planet….

  • Hate to tell you this, Steve, but you’re a bit “out of the loop” regarding what this administration is capable of and likely planning regarding Iraq.

    Allow me to recommend you go read Sy Hersh’s new piece on this at the New Yorker – http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060417fa_fact

    And if it’s not too off-putting, you might look at my own article here:
    http://www.thatsanotherfinemess.com/2006/04/06/is-nuking-iran-george-bushs-november-strategy/

    After the past 5 years, one has to operate on the expectation that if GW Bush can do it, he will do it.

  • In regards to Iran, read the attached article which was linked at DrudgeReport. I fear (literally) our self-deluded psycho-christian president will attempt to bring about armageddon for his far right base before the November election, after which he may find his assumed authority under restraint.

    newstelegraph article
    Senator Joe Biden on Bill Maher’s show Friday said that he believes Bush makes a decision based on his judgement and then prays it was right. Prayers seem ineffective and Bush’s judgement is definitely lacking. Should we trust our future to this puppet president any longer? He has his finger on the button to our nuclear weapons and from all indications he intends to use them. Our congress needs to stop our presidud’s assumed war powers before the entire middle east is engulfed in civil war or irradiated. This will be the second time we used nuclear weapons on a civilian population. WAR PRESIDENT is right. He almost seems quite willing to expedite man’s extinction from this planet, whether through intentionally ignoring global warming because it interferes with their next money making venture, coal to ethanol, or blowing up and irradiating a significant part of the world and everybody downwind.

  • Tom Cleaver, You and I thought the same thing, it will be a nuclear surprise before the election. He may not have the authority to do it after the election. I hope we all live that long. Will China and Russia sit idly by? Bush has found a way to get us all to stop thinking about his last debacle in Iraq.

  • A blockbuster story in tomorrow’s WaPo.

    Tenet interceded to keep the claim out of a speech Bush gave in Cincinnati on Oct. 7, 2002, but by Dec. 19 it reappeared in a State Department “fact sheet.” After that, the Pentagon asked for an authoritative judgment from the National Intelligence Council, the senior coordinating body for the 15 agencies that then constituted the U.S. intelligence community. Did Iraq and Niger discuss a uranium sale, or not? If they had, the Pentagon would need to reconsider its ties with Niger.

    The council’s reply, drafted in a January 2003 memo by the national intelligence officer for Africa, was unequivocal: The Niger story was baseless and should be laid to rest. Four U.S. officials with firsthand knowledge said in interviews that the memo, which has not been reported before, arrived at the White House as Bush and his highest-ranking advisers made the uranium story a centerpiece of their case for the rapidly approaching war against Iraq.

    Bush put his prestige behind the uranium story in his Jan. 28, 2003, State of the Union address. Less than two months later, the International Atomic Energy Agency exposed the principal U.S. evidence as bogus. A Bush-appointed commission later concluded that the evidence, a set of contracts and correspondence sold by an Italian informant, was “transparently forged.”

  • Anyone who believes that Bush or anyone else above janitor in the administration thought there were WMDs in Iraq is in serious need of professional help. The question that will never be answered because it will never be asked by the media is why are we in Iraq?

    What we can say with great certainty is that Bush lied and people died as a result. The whole leaky game the administration played and is still playing comes under the heading of faith. He’s only lied so people could believe, have faith. And the faith continues. Faith moves mountains, mountains of lies that is.

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