Every once in a great while, when Patrick [tag]Fitzgerald[\/tag]’s criminal investigation becomes a little too embarrassing for the [tag]White House[\/tag], some of [tag]Bush[\/tag]’s media allies will roll out a half-hearted attack on Fitzgerald’s credibility. It never works, and the criticisms are usually pretty pathetic, but it appears some conservatives feel the need to go through the motions of criticizing the prosecutor. It’s just what they do.<\/p>\n
The latest is from Weekly Standard editor and Fox News contributor Bill [tag]Kristol[\/tag]<\/a>.<\/p>\n You know, the leak story is absurd, but I now think the whole prosecution is absurd. And I have hesitated to say this, because I have friends who respect Fitzgerald, but I now think it’s a politically motivated attempt to wound the Bush administration. … He is now out to discredit the Bush administration. He has bought the argument that there is something improper about the Bush administration responding to Joe Wilson’s charges.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n First, the White House did more than “respond” to [tag]Wilson[\/tag]. The Bush gang outed an undercover CIA agent, [tag]leak[\/tag]ed [tag]classified[\/tag] information, and disseminated “intelligence” that they knew to be false. Kristol believes there’s nothing “improper” about this. Why? Apparently because Bush is a [tag]Republican[\/tag].<\/p>\n Second, it’s way too late in the game to try and smear Fitzgerald. Attorney General [tag]Alberto Gonzales[\/tag]<\/a> has sung Fitzgerald’s praises; RNC Chairman [tag]Ken Mehlman[\/tag]<\/a> has said he has “complete confidence” in Fitzgerald; and Bush personally praised Fitzgerald<\/a> for the “dignified way” in which he’s run his investigation. Kristol’s a day late and a dollar short.<\/p>\n And third, Kristol’s attack is revealing. If Fitzgerald wasn’t making the Republican establishment nervous, Bush allies like Kristol would see no need to go on the offensive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Every once in a great while, when Patrick [tag]Fitzgerald[\/tag]’s criminal investigation becomes a little too embarrassing for the [tag]White House[\/tag], some of [tag]Bush[\/tag]’s media allies will roll out a half-hearted attack on Fitzgerald’s credibility. It never works, and the criticisms are usually pretty pathetic, but it appears some conservatives feel the need to go through […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7095"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7095\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}