Scott McClellan’s nervous twitch

December 17, 2005

It’s often easy to see when Scott McClellan feels like he’s in a jam. Yesterday, for example, when too many questions started going in a direction with which he’s uncomfortable, he relied on his favorite trump card. See if you can spot it.

“Well, we have a responsibility to work with Congress to do all we can, within the law, to protect the American people. And that means preventing attacks and saving lives. And the President made a commitment that he would do everything within his power and within the law to prevent attacks and save lives. He renewed that commitment more than ever after September 11th. […]

“The President is firmly committed to upholding our Constitution and protecting people’s civil liberties. That is something he has always kept in mind as we have moved forward from the attacks of September 11th, to do everything within our power to prevent attacks from happening. It’s very important to him. […]

“I think these are difficult issues that you have to address in a post-September 11th world. Some people go back to a post-9/11 [sic] mind-set now that we’re four years after the attacks of September 11th. The President said he would never forget what happened on September 11th. We are going to do everything within our power to prevent something like that from happening again. […]

“We have made a number of improvements relating to our intelligence in the aftermath of September 11th so that we can connect the dots and prevent attacks from happening — go after and disrupt plots from happening in the first place.”

It’s as if the poor guy has a twitch.

Funny how Bush’s flacks never mention August 6, 2001. That’s the day the President (on vacation in Crawford) was handed a memo from his National Security team with a banner headline reading BIN LADEN DETERMINED TO STRIKE WITHIN U.S. That was a significant day too, but, oddly, Scotty and the crew never mention it. They seem to think that repeating “9/11, 9/11” will make people feel all patriotic or scared or both, but there’s no mention of 8/6 or Bush’s failure to grasp the import of the document he was handed.

Come to think of it, they don’t mention Bin Laden much anymore, either, do they?

  • “Due to the tragic events of September 11th…”:

    We have found the Constitution to be an obstacle in the War on Terror.

    We know that anyone could be a terrorist.

    We are certain that Saddam Hussein supported terrorism and, therefore, he was a threat to our nation.

    We have learned that those critical of our policies give aid to our enemies, whoever they may be.

    There are many things we know about the terrorists that we cannot share with the public or its representatives because sharing them would alert the terrorists that we are against them.

    The above is the kind of claptrap spouted by the administration and accepted by much of the American public. 9/11 was Bush’s burning of the Reichstag — the excuse to do anything he wants.

    Bush is no Hitler and Republicans are not nazis, but national crisis — imagined or real, and accompanied by fear — have regularly been used to suspend individual rights and freedoms.

    This shameless prop of 9/11 is disgraceful, disgusting and vile. Bush’s unapologetic admission that he has knowingly violated the Constitution he swore to upholdand protect should be grounds for immediate impeachment, trial, conviction and time in a federal prison.

  • Want to understand the bullshit of BushCo?

    9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11,

  • Now that the Crony-in-Chief is out of the closet violating federal law with no consequences.

    How big of a step would it be to suspend national elections for reasons of ‘national security’?

    The terrorists have won.

  • The sure-fire way to eliminate the chance of “another 9/11” is to change our societal and governmental model to that of the Soviet Union. They did a wonderful job of protecting themselves and virtually eliminating the chance of an “attack”, in whatever form that might take.

    Are we willing to become a defacto Soviet Union in order to ensure our safety? I don’t think so.

    As Benjamin Franklin wisely said so long ago, “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Perhaps we should listen to one of our foremost forefathers.

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