The incredible moving goal posts

July 14, 2005

Newt Gingrich may not be particularly athletic, but you, too, can watch with amazement as he moves goal posts while barely lifting a finger.

June 2004:

Q: Given — given recent developments in the CIA leak case, particularly Vice President Cheney’s discussions with the investigators, do you still stand by what you said several months ago, a suggestion that it might be difficult to identify anybody who leaked the agent’s name?

Bush: That’s up to —

Q: And, and, do you stand by your pledge to fire anyone found to have done so?

Bush: Yes.

Yesterday:

“The president’s been pretty clear: if somebody’s broken the law they will be fired. The question is whether or not, uh, what Karl did was in any way breaking the law.” — Newt Gingrich, NBC’s Today, July 13, 2005

The president may have been “pretty clear,” but apparently not quite clear enough for ol’ Newt.

Here’s my prediction: if Rove and/or other senior administration officials are indicted, the new standard will become Bush’s vow to only fire those convicted of a felony.

I’m just waiting for the Friday afternoon press release on something related to this whole story. Hopefully the MSM doesn’t call it a day at 5.

  • Too funny!

    Bush, the so-called “strong” leader, won’t do his job as President of the United States and fire a known threat to national security because he doesn’t want to interfere with some lowly *lawyer’s* investigation!

    A strong leader? No, a shriveled dick. A reporter needs to ask Bush if a lawyer picked his tie, too.

  • It won’t be a Friday that things happen, this time. It will be another “Saturday Night Massacre” when Fitzgerald is fired, just like Nixon tried to do with the Special Prosecutor investigating him and Watergate. The difference this time, though, will be that Gonzoles WILL fire Fitzgerald, unlike then AG Elliot Richardson and Deputy AG William Ruckelshaus, each of whom on Saturday, October 20, 1973, refused to fire Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox. So Nixon turned to Solicitor General Robert H. Bork (yes, THAT Bork), the next in line at the AG’s office, who followed Nixon’s (probably) illegal order and fired Cox.

    Nixon also abolished the Office of Special Prosecutor, and turned the Watergate investigation over to the Justice Department directly. Unfortunately for Nixon, the media then had a backbone, the firestorm led Congress to show that it had the balls to conduct hearings the next Spring, and the Supreme Court had the rectitude to order the President to turn over the White House tapes in July. And rest is history as Nixon resigned the next month.

    To read the detail, go to: http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/watergate/articles/102173-2.htm

    Should Bush attempt to fire Fitzgerald or otherwise corrupt his investigation, then all bets are off regarding Bush’s likely impeachment, conviction, and removal from office. The only hope I have is that Bush is so craven and beholden to Rove and his minions that Bush will do this; if we are really lucky, they will take Cheney down at the same time.

  • In the event there is a conviction, my bet is Bush will grant ol’ Turdblossom a presidential pardon.

  • I think CB has a great point here—by subtly shifting what the president actually said, Newt (and the rest of the B-Team) can:

    1. Let the president keep saying the “right� things legally/morally, and,
    2. Get the zealots out there with the misinformation to cover his ass when he doesn’t live up to those words.

    This is a technique and we will see more of it. One way to combat it is to keep drawing attention to it, either by writing letters to your paper, emailing your congresscritters, or emailing reporters covering this stuff directly. I’m not sure about this last but, but I am sure that there are a few reporters who’d love to nail Newt and others on this type of misspeak, but that don’t do their homework well enough to see it themselves.

    (In all fairness to the media, covering all the techniques these liars use is pretty difficult)

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