Will He or Won’t He?

Talk about the horns of a dilemma. All the talking heads on Sunday morning said President Bush has only one chance of repairing the damage the Bush administration has done to itself. A two-pronged chance, actually: 1) Bush and Cheney should apologize to the American people for the actions of their aides. 2) Bush should widen his circle of trusted friends/advisers. Better yet, he should shitcan the old crowd and get a new crowd. What a challenge. Even to say he had been misled would show a flaw in judgment and George W. Bush has no flaws in the eyes of George W. Bush. The only way the Prez can maintain his self-image of God-like rectitude is to talk to only a very tiny group of people…five at most. He’s never wrong, makes no mistakes and never hears a discouraging word. Will he apologize? Will he fire his enablers? Not likely. What the Bush administration will do now though is become even more hardline, even more intransigent about its policies. All through history any group that feels threatened shows a marked tendency to circle the wagons and to intensify the attitudes and actions that got the group in trouble in the first place. Look for the BushMen to appoint more unqualified cronies to important positions, to kiss up even more embarrassingly to the far-right religious faction, to try to cut all services to the elderly and poor, to not only defend the war in Iraq but to bomb more cities and kill more American soldiers, and to threaten to attack more countries in the Middle East, even though the US has no means to implement another war. To retrench would show weakness. The Bush administration is now the weakest of any administration in the last fifty years and it would rather destroy itself than show weakness. Which, of course, is the worst show of weakness. Do last-ditch frenzied attempts to regain lost power ever work? No. They inevitably lead to implosion and total collapse.

Official A

We know that Patrick Fitzgerald’s “Official A” is Karl Rove. But Joe Cannon over at Cannonfire says it stands for Official Asshole. Thanks, Joe. May it stick like superglue: Karl Rove, Official Asshole. Next week marks the anniversary of a date that surely will live in disgrace, if not infamy--November 2nd, 2004. Was there ever a bunch of criminals as high on themselves as the Bush administration when they bragged of having a mandate one year ago? And since the Official Asshole is the location of Bush’s brain, we can only conclude that it was OA who put these now-notorious words in GWB’s mouth: “Let me put it to you this way: I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it. It is my style.” Twelve months later and the mandate that never was has slipped from the collective GOP memory. And not only has the President spent his political capital, the account is in the red. One year later. Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff Scooter Libby has been charged with committing five crimes and has resigned. The OA may be indicted in a future investigation. The illegal acts pf the President and Vice President may also be under Fitzgerald’s microscope. Chaos reigns in the White House. And the only thing reminiscent of the fascist takeover last November is Bush’s style, which hangs in the air like sewer gas. Go for a ride on your mountain bike, George. Better yet, have a drink. It’s only going to get worse.

2011 Dead; White House Dead Wrong

Last night I watched a rerun of “CNN Presents: Dead Wrong”, which originally aired on August 21, 2005. And there they all were, the a priori White House cast of characters lying their heads off to justify a preemptive strike in Iraq: Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Dick Cheney. As of October 27th 2,011 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq because Powell, Rice and Cheney lied. And their lies worked. Questions were not asked, investigations were not mounted, and demands for corroboration were not made. To our eternal discredit, Congress blindly voted in favor of authorizing President Bush to attack Iraq if Saddam Hussein refused to give up his WMD’s. Even though Congress never passed a formal declaration of war, the US attacked Iraq on March 19, 2003 because a group of insane warmongering neocons decided in 1997 to institute a plan of US global aggression. It was a perfect program to watch on the night Scooter Libby had been indicted. Dick Cheney’s chief of staff Scooter Libby, Project for the New American Century signer Scooter Libby, White House Iraq Group member Scooter Libby. This promoter of the US as a global aggressor, Scooter Libby, was charged with five crimes by Patrick Fitzgerald’s grand jury. Eventually, we will find out if Fitzgerald will indict Karl Rove and whether a broadened investigation into malfeasance in the White House will lead to Vice President Richard Cheney’s downfall and the total destruction of the Bush administration. But until that day, the tag line on the New York Times editorial this morning (The Case Against Scooter Libby) is the point we must never forget: “,,,as absorbing as this criminal investigation has been, the big point Americans need to keep in mind is this: There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.”

Oh No! Do Not Compare Iraq to Okinawa!

They keep doing it. And it won’t fly. As the number of American soldier deaths in Iraq crept closer and closer to 2000, the neocons and Iraq war apologists’ cant became more shrill and more illogical. Now this morning, an NYT Op/Ed column by Victor Davis Hanson (“2,000 Dead, in Context”) once again raises the argument that all wars cause deaths and the deaths during World War II were much higher than the deaths in Iraq. Hanson says, “The battle for Okinawa was an abject bloodbath that took more than 50,000 American casualties”. While it’s true that 405,399 Americans lost their lives in WWII, let’s make one important distinction. World War II was not an unnecessary, needless war started by the US to further its plans for global supremacy. That’s the difference, you idiotic, witless, irrational morons, with your specious arguments. If there is a comparable to Iraq in American history, then it’s William Randolph Hearst’s promotion of the Spanish-American war in 1898 in order to sell newspapers. That war, which lasted four months and was characterized by Teddy Roosevelt as “a splendid little war” killed 460 American soldiers. So if you want to play the comparable deaths game in unnecessary wars, there were “only” 196 deaths of American soldiers in the first four months of George Bush’s splendid little war in Iraq. Which would make it a better unnecessary war than the Spanish American war, if the war in Iraq had lasted only four months. But the unnecessary war in Iraq has lasted two years and seven months. And as of yesterday 2006 American soldiers have died in Iraq. Ergo, the war in Iraq is the most egregiously unnecessary, stupid, needless war in American history and it can be compared with absolutely nothing whatsoever.

2001 American Soldiers Have Died in Iraq

The Iraq Coalition Casualty Count (http://icasualties.org/oif) reports that as of yesterday 2001 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq. The AntiWar.com site (http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/) gives the following additional statistics: “As many as 1 of every 10 soldiers from the war on terror evacuated to the Army's biggest hospital in Europe was sent there for mental problems. Between 8 and 10 percent of nearly 12,000 soldiers from the war on terror, mostly from Iraq, treated at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany had 'psychiatric or behavioral health issues,' according to the commander of the hospital, Col. Rhonda Cornum. That means about 1,000 soldiers were evacuated for mental problems. The hospital has treated 11,754 soldiers from the war on terror, with 9,651 from Iraq and the rest from Afghanistan, according to data released by the hospital.” The neocons are saying that the people who are against the war planned “parties” to celebrate the 2000th American soldier death. Have they no shame? As far as I can tell, it’s the people who are trying to stop the slaughter and get our soldiers home who are supporting and honoring our troops, not the neocon liars who started this unnecessary war and want to prolong it until the year 2015. This morning’s NYT repeats that the Iraq Body Count group (http://www.iraqbodycount.net/database/) estimates between 26,000 to 30,000 Iraq civilians have been killed in this war. But I’ll put my faith in a Washington Post independent survey that reported at least 100,000 Iraqi civilians have needlessly died in the Bush administration’s needless war. It was mever a war to liberate the Middle East from despotic dictators. From the beginning, the war in Iraq was promoted by the White House Iraq Group to show that the US is so powerful it can aggress on any nation anywhere and blow it to smithereens. Well, we surely showed the world, didn’t we? Right now, today, if a tiny rogue nation detonated a homemade nuclear bomb or a germ warfare device in the US, we could not defend ourselves. We have no military. And worse yet, we have no plan for how the US would defend itself. Oh yes, we have a virtual military conjured up in the fantasy world of insane men like George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. And in this fantasy world the US would deploy phantom troops who would miraculously counterattack the chemicals or render a nuclear device inoperative ala Superman or Batman. But we have no actual well-equipped, well-trained fighting force or an actual workable plan for defending ourselves either here or in any part of the world. Indictments may or may not be handed down today by the Fitzgerald grand jury. But in any case the Bush administration has effectively finished itself off by malfeasance and misconduct. We can only hope the United States hasn’t also been rendered useless and impotent by these Republican mad hatters. They hijacked our legislative, judicial and executive branches of government and now they have pissed on themselves, our Constitution and 229 years of democracy.

Juggling Toxic Potatoes

Bush says he’s going to invoke executive privilege to avoid turning over documents about Harriet Miers’ work in the White House. "It's a red line I'm not willing to cross," Bush claimed. “We are not going to destroy this business about people being able to walk into the Oval Office” and give advice to the President, he said. Okay. That’s what he said. But what does it mean? It means the White House has found a way to deep six the Miers albatross. Salon.com made the argument that this is simply the out that Charles Krauthammer suggested last week: The WH stands firm that they won’t release the documents. The Senators say that without the documents they can’t consider the Miers nomination. And Miers, for the good of the country, withdraws her name as a Supreme Court nominee. It’s a fairly neat way for the WH to get rid of the Harriet Miers curse without having to admit it was wrong. But all of the recent WH fast shuffles won’t get rid of the main problem: The White House is wrong on every major issue facing the nation and the voters know it. It’s the same thing with the Cheney problem re Valerie Plame. Scooter Libby’s notes say Cheney got info about Valerie Plame from CIA head, George Tenet. But the crux of this stinkhole is that disclosing the identity of an undercover agent is only a crime if the person discloses an agent’s identity knows that the person had undercover status. It is impossible to prove what Cheney knew and what he didn’t know. Unless someone comes forward who will swear under oath that he told Cheney that Valerie Plame was an undercover agent, Cheney can swear he only knew she worked in the CIA. The White House crew is scrambling around like high-profile johns looking for the backstairs out of a whorehouse. And yet, the American public knows the truth. The entire Bush administration, the White House Iraq Group and everyone associated with them are beginning to glow in the dark. The spin cannot hide the telltale radioactive decay. But the juggling act this week sure is going to be worth watching.

How Mush-Brained Can Pols and The NYT Be?

An article in the New York Times this morning (“Bush Choice Gets Criticisms Rare for Nominees to Court” by David D. Krikpatrick) shows that dimwitted pols and the NYT are examining the Miers nomination and saying that, for one thing, we the people are to blame for the unprecedented negativity over the Bush Supreme Court choice. Public expectations are higher now, the article says, since the last Supremes were named who had no judicial experience (Powell and Rehnquist). And to bolster its position that the disapproval over Miers is a mystery, the article repeats the NYT misinformation that Sandra Day O’Connor and Harriet Miers have similar resumes. No, they don’t. O’Connor and Miers personal and professional data could not be more unlike. Please see my October 4th post, “Let’s Get Something Straight” that shows just how different the two women are. Dear Political Historians, Senators and New York Times Fatheads: The reason Harriet Miers is being dissed is because she not only is an unqualified choice for a seat on the Supreme Court, she is the worst choice the White House could have come up with had it tried to name a ninny and corporate law hack to the Supreme Court. Which is what they have done. When before this nomination have Senators had to ask a nominee to re-do the written questionnaire because the answers as presented were “incomplete” and “insulting”? When before this nomination has a Supreme Court nominee been touted as being the best choice because she/he worshipped God in the approved church and manner of a born-again Christian? When before this nomination was a nominee lauded as the best choice because he/she was good at “details”—only to have it revealed that said nominee had forgotten to have his/her law license renewed and therefore could not legally practice law until he/she ponied up the renewal fee? When before this nomination was a nominee’s highest and best SCOTUS qualification a stint as head of the lottery commission of the nominator’s home state? When before this nomintion was a nominee acclaimed for having been the top lawyer in a law firm when in fact his/her job had been as a co-office manager? If Harriet Miers is the best nominee for the Supreme Court that the White House could come up with after having searched far and wide for months and months, then the current spate of troubles and scandals besetting the Bush administration has rendered it incapable of doing the nation’s business. Which of course is true. As we look forward to the Fitzgerald indictments and bearing in mind the Bush administration’s track record for choosing the lowest and worst for their appointments, Bush-asskisser, den-mother and born-again proselytizer Karen Hughes could be our next vice president.

Two News Stories, Sine Qua Non:

1) The number of deaths of American soldiers in the Bush administration’s unnecessary, contrived and fraudulent war in Iraq is 1,996. 2) Patrick Fitzgerald started a Web site on October 21 (http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/iln/osc/index.html). If no indictments are forthcoming, the current Fitzgerald grand jury expires October 28. Putting two and two together, it’s reasonable to conclude that a web site with a heading called “Legal Proceedings” was started with a view to announcing legal proceedings. As in, expect indictments this coming week.

Repubs In DC Are “Astonished”

WaPo had an article yesterday about how surprised lawmakers and observers in Washington, DC are that the White House confirmation process on Miers was so screwed up. It was such smooth sailing for Roberts, they are saying. The lead paragraph says, “Two months after engineering a nearly flawless confirmation process for Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., the Bush administration's bid to add Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court has been so riddled with errors, stumbles and embarrassing revelations that some lawmakers and other observers find it hard to believe it emanates from the same White House. "I'm sort of astonished by it," said George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, who has followed the nominations closely. "It's like a completely different team at the White House is handling it." Well…duh! you dimwitted assholes, Roberts was qualified and Miers isn’t. This attitude of amazement is the GOP’s problem in a nutshell. The machinery for slotting a Republican misfit and doofus into an important position is well oiled and well tested. It was assumed that if the Bush administration said “Make it so,” the Republican-controlled Congress, the stars in the heavens and God himself would align in a celestial conversion and cause the appointment to become fact. At least that is what Republicans have come to expect during the past five years. It hasn’t mattered a whit during the GWB years that a Republican tool wasn’t qualified. After all, isn’t Condoleezza Rice the Secretary of State? Wasn’t John Ashcroft the Attorney General? Didn’t Donald Rumsfeld misdirect and mismanage a two-week war into a no-end-in-sight debacle? And didn’t the alcoholic, under-achieving, lazy, ignorant, embarrassment of the Bush family become President of the United States? But now suddenly, as though everyone on Capitol Hill has awakened from a drug-induced coma, the thralldom of the GOP has ended and insiders in Washington, DC are astonished. Does this mean that Miers won’t be confirmed? Good heavens, no. Washington is still run by the morons who thought Cheney and Karl Rove would never be found out. But watching Repubs trying to act as though they can be honorable, legitimate, sincere, competent, truthful and authentic is going to be a lot of fun.

The Confidence Game

Tom DeLay grins for his felony mug shot. George W. Bush tosses off the disparaging words “background noise” when he speaks about problems dogging his administration. And we’re supposed to read “no problem” into these adolescent swaggers. So how is this confidence game working out? The polls say Americans would rather have Democrats in the majority in Congress than Republicans. The polls say that only 29% of the people approve of the way Congress is handling its job. The polls say only 39% of the people approve of the way Bush is doing his job. Bush was asked how he’s handling all the recent goings-on in his administration and he said: "There is some background noise here, a lot of chatter, a lot of speculation and opining, but the American people expect me to do my job and I'm going to." He added, "part of my job is to work with others to fashion a world that will be peaceful for future generations. I've got a job to do to make sure the economy continues to grow. I've got a job to make sure there is a plausible reconstruction plan for cities affected by Katrina." It’s been five years since George W. Bush became President of the United States and the people have been left to wonder when he might begin to do his job. When will all Americans have affordable health care, access to a good education and a workable strategy for getting out of Iraq? When will the President be as concerned for the poor and elderly as he is for big business and the wealthy? And when may we look forward to breathing air that won’t make us sick? It’s good to know that the President intends to start to do his job at some point before the year 2008. But it raises some concern to find out that first he intends to bring peace to all nations of the world for all time to come, world without end amen. When the President talks about background noise, does he mean the chatter in his earpiece when the White House prompters tell him what to say? Or is he hearing voices?

Is It Amnesia or Abject Terror?

Someone other than Scooter Libby mentioned Valerie Plame to Judith Miller and Miller made an oh-so-clever notation in her little black book—“Valerie Flame”. But oops and alas, she can’t remember who she was talking to when she made the notation. Karl Rove says he remembers that he and Scooter Libby talked about Valerie Plame. But there was someone else he talked with about Plame…it’s just that darn and blast, he can’t recall who it was. GOP shill Robert Novak started the whole mess when he outed Plame as a CIA operative and said two White House officials had told him so. He probably named names to Patrick Fitzgerald early on, but now he’s shaking in his boots about the retribution surely to come and may never crawl out of his hole. WaPo’s Walter Pincus knows but he’s not going public. And if Fitzgerald doesn’t release a report on his findings, we’ll never find out who the other guy is. Never mind. We know it’s Cheney. Bush is in hot water because he has denied knowing anything about anything, which is a lie of course. But Bush isn’t the culprit…he’s too stupid to be the culprit. And besides, of all the suspects, Bush has a viable defense. He is so confused and over-medicated he actually may have forgotten what he knew and when he knew it. So…it’s Cheney. And what with his history of heart attacks, aneurysms, defibrillator, shunts, pacemaker, meds, and what-not, he won’t live long enough to give us the satisfaction of seeing him indicted, frog-marched and jailed. However, what is going to be a lovely denouement and meltdown is Fitzgerald’s investigation into the White House Iraq Group. As we know, there are nine members of WHIG that are in deep shit over forcing an unnecessary war on the citizens of the United States by lying about the threat posed by Iraq. But the full list of evildoers and bad guys who will be under the microscope is a delight to read: Condoleezza Rice, WHIG Karl Rove, WHIG Stephen Hadley, WHIG Andrew Card, WHIG Mary Matalin, WHIG Nicholas E. Calio, WHIG I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, WHIG Alberto Gonzales, Attorney General Ari Fleischer, former WH spokesman Susan Ralston, former ass’t to Karl Rove Israel Hernandez, Assistant Secretary of Commerce John Hannah, aide to Dick Cheney Scott McClellan, WH spokesman Dan Bartlett, WH Communications Director Claire Buchan, WH Deputy Press Secretary Catherine Martin, Deputy Ass’t to the President Jennifer Millerwise, CIA Dir. Public Affairs (former Press Sec’y to Dick Cheney) Jim Wilkinson WHIG Colin Powell, former Secretary of State Karen Hughes, WHIG Adam Levine, former press aide Bob Joseph, Special Ass’t to the President Vice President Dick Cheney President George W. Bush Let the good times roll. And by the way, Condi Rice is feeling so sure of herself and high on war and bloodshed (1987 American soldiers have been slaughtered in Iraq) that she cheerily said yesterday we’d probably be in Iraq for the next ten years and that she couldn’t rule out expanding the war into Syria.

WHIG Pigs May Be Indicted

Democratic Underground had an interesting item yesterday posted by Stevendsmith. The post said that Larry C. Johnson had reported Patrick Fitzgerald was considering 22 indictments, including “Stephen Hadley, Karl Rove, Lewis Libby, Dick Cheney, and Mary Matalin”. Johnson said Hadley had told friends he expected to be indicted. The disinformation White House Iraq Group started by Karl Rove and Andrew Card in 2002 with the aim of fraudulently pushing the US into attacking Iraq had nine original members: Karen Hughes, Mary Matalin, James R. Wilkinson, Nicholas E. Calio, Condoleezza Rice, Stephen Hadley and I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby (plus Rove and Card). How has Mary Matalin sunk so low? And who is Stephen Hadley? Mary Matalin is a Republican political strategist who has been an assistant to George W. Bush and counselor to vice president Dick Cheney. No, she does not have a law degree. She went to Hofstra law school but dropped out after one year. She has few qualifications that would account for her place in the rarified circles of Republican politics other than the unerring instinct of a predator and brass balls the size of the Capitol dome. She is the odd couple partner of James Carville, famous Democrat political strategist to Bill Clinton. Matalin resigned from the White House in December of 2002, five months after the inception of WHIG and six months before the Wilson/Plame leak. It’s been reported she’s already testified before Fitzgerald. It would be a gift from heaven to see this arrogant, smart-ass, former beautician-turned-political dreadnought put in her place by an indictment. When Condoleezza Rice was appointed Secretary of State by GWB, Stephen Hadley replaced her as National Security Advisor. Hadley has been in the Department of Defense in various positions since 1986. He’s an old-line faithful Republican who can be counted on to lie and to defend lies when it is advantageous to any GOP agenda. He might see an indictment as a badge of honor but I see it as just deserts for a career Republican gofer and water boy. Speaking of which, has anyone seen Robert Novak recently?

William Kristol Is a Smug Devious Sack of Crap!

Did you ever notice when William Kristol says something cruel and mean he always smiles? As if the smile means he’s not a bullying little putz, but rather a compassionate superior being. I watched Katherine Hepburn in “Suddenly Last Summer” last night. She did the same thing as an actress. When she played a spiteful mean bitch she said every nasty line with a smile. It was chillingly effective. But back to Weekly Standard editor Wiliam Kristol. He is quoted in this morning’s NYT. You can just see the snide, patronizing, condescending smile as Kristol says, regarding the White House chief of staff Andrew Card’s role in pushing the Harriet Miers nomination, “(Critics) could perhaps hold Andy accountable for not saying, 'Mr. President, this is going to be a mistake’.” Kristol added, "He's always been - weaker is not quite fair, but he's always been a less powerful chief of staff than we're used to. It worked well for a while. It seemed he was good at coordinating Karl and the vice president and Josh Bolten and Condi. And, again, to give him credit, in the first term things went pretty well, you have to say. So I don't really put the blame on Andy; he's doing what he's always done." If William Kristol has decided to blame Andy Card in one sentence, and take back the blame in the next, could it be that William Kristol wants to call attention to Andrew Card because Card is Karl Rove’s boss? Could it be Kristol’s way of saying Rove isn’t the bad guy, the buck stops at Card’s desk. Just look at those big-shot plotmeisters ratting each other out! It’s all over blogland this morning that Judith Miller made a veiled threat to Dick Cheney in her Grand Jury testimony. Scooter Libby seems to have made a veiled threat to Judith Miller. William Kristol wants us to look at Andy Card not Karl Rove. And what with all the attention on the Supreme Court nomination and Fitzgerald’s Grand Jury, the White House Iraq Group (WHIG) has nearly been forgotten. WHIG’s sole purpose was to market the Iraq war to the public. It was a task force chaired by Karl Rove and set up by Andy Card in August 2002. The plan was to ratchet up fears about the danger Iraq posed to the US. The operative phrase used by the group to instill fear and panic was “mushroom cloud”. William Kristol masterminded the Project for the New American Century. He wrote the mission statement, which proposed a pre-emptive strike strategy to ensure US global supremacy. Kristol’s plan was then taken up by WHIG. Scooter Libby signed Kristol’s PNAC Statement of Principles and Libby is a member of WHIG. Since attention is now focusing on Cheney, and away from Libby, the toads in the White House swamp are scrambling around for a convenient scapegoat for Cheney. Kristol is pointing at Card. How about pointing at Kristol? He’s always been all over, smiling and pontificating, throwing mudballs, plotting, scheming, seeming to stay above the fray but getting down and dirty in the trenches, calling for war and global aggression while playing both sides against the middle. Yep. I just found my pick for oily craven manipulating pismire most likely to be behind the Wilson/Plame leak and all other disasters of the Bush administration: William Kristol, Wicked White House Slimemother and Pot-Stirring Master Bastard.

Harriet on Hot-Seat Today

Harriet Miers gets her chance to rebut the jeers and boos today. She will finally go before the Senate and answer questions. Hang onto any photos you have of Bush’s Consigliere since she got her SCOTUS nomination on October 4th, so you can do a before and after. Apparently Miss Harriet had a 20-man-team makeover yesterday. On October 12th, Eleanor Smeal (Feminist Majority Foundation head) had a few choice words to say about “the hue and cry” over Miers’ qualifications. Smeal asked if a man would be subjected to questions about mental capacity. One answer and one question back atcha, Ms Smeal: Clarence Thomas was subjected to heated interrogation about his qualifications and even more embarrassing topics when he was nominated to the Supreme Court. And, has any man ever had a 20-man-team makeover prior to going before the Senate? You can’t bitch and moan about a double standard when the person in question exploits the double standard. Has Ratbang Diary become Gossip Central today? Oh yeah. We do it all when it fits. Like…did you hear that Condi Rice and Harriet Miers are good friends…really really good friends for years and years? As in, really really really good friends for years and years and years. Well…that’s what I heard.

Judith Miller and Her Can of Worms

The NYT features two stories this morning about their reporter Judith Miller who spent 85 days in jail, supposedly for protecting the identity of her sources for an article she intended to write but never wrote. One article, “The Miller Case: A Notebook, a Cause, a Jail Cell and a Deal", by Don Van Natta, Jr., Adam Liptak and Clifford J. Levy, is an overview of the whole Miller saga. The other, “My Four Hours Testifying in the Federal Grand Jury Room", is Judith Miller’s own account of her testimony before Patrick Fitzgerald and the Grand Jury. The following paragraph is what an old editor of mine called the “so-what paragraph”. It’s inserted in an article to edify the people who have been living in a cave. This is the lead paragraph in Judith Miller’s NYT account about her testimony and will serve as a so-what. “In July 2003, Joseph C. Wilson IV, a former ambassador, created a firestorm by publishing an essay in The New York Times that accused the Bush administration of using faulty intelligence to justify the war in Iraq. The administration, he charged, ignored findings of a secret mission he had undertaken for the Central Intelligence Agency - findings, he said, that undermined claims that Iraq was seeking uranium for a nuclear bomb.” Okay. So much for the back-story. The only addition necessary is to mention that columnist Robert Novak started a furor in his syndicated column on July 14, 2003 by saying that Joseph Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, was a covert agent in the CIA. I’ve been reserving judgment on Miller since she went to the slammer. At first, it seemed honorable that she was willing to serve jail time because she wouldn’t name names. It’s the journalist’s right, after all, not to name names. But also, the specter of Joseph McCarthy and the HUAC hearings hovers over any demand to name names. Since the McCarthy hearings, forcing people to name names gives rise to renewed fears of sliding down that slippery slope again. But now, I no longer have a problem with judging Judith Miller. As of this morning, it’s clear to me that she went to jail to protect herself and to protect another source, which so far is unnamed, unrevealed, and safe as a virgin in a convent. There’s that hogwash about Miller needing to have the vice president's chief of staff Lewis Libby tell her himself that she could name him as a source. In December 2003, F.B.I. investigators asked Libby and other officials in the White House to sign waivers saying that previous promises of confidentiality to reporters could be disregarded and that the reporters could reveal their sources. Libby signed the waiver. But NYT executive editor Bill Keller said, "Judy believed Libby was afraid of her testimony.” Keller said he didn’t know why Miller thought Libby was afraid, but he added, “She thought Libby had reason to be afraid of her testimony." Uh huh. Read, Judy Miller was afraid of Scooter Libby, not visey-versey. Don’t forget that when the White House was shouting loudest that Iraq definitely had WMD’s, Judith Miller was staunchly on the White House side. Someone high up in the Bush administration had convinced her there were WMD’s in Iraq and she wrote articles to that effect. In fact, when the NYT came under fierce condemnation for its seeming pro-WMD bias, Keller told Miller she was off the Iraq beat. And then there’s the part about NYT’s lawyer Floyd Abrams wanting Patrick Fitzgerald to question Miller only on conversations she’d had with Libby about Wilson/Plame. Plus the fact that Abrams asked Fitzgerald to promise that Miller would not be called back to answer questions about anyone other than Libby. When Miller got the assurances she needed from Libby (in a jailhouse conference call with Libby and lawyers from both sides), when she had been assured she would be queried only on the Wilson/Plame conversations and that she would not have to answer questions about other sources, then, and only then did she agreed to testify. The biggest question in this whole matter is, who is the other person(s) Judith Miller spoke to regarding the Wilson/Plame matter? That’s the most important question in all of this. And we probably will never know. So all this crap about Judith Miller protecting her sources is crap. Judith Miller is protecting herself and the Bush administration. Which is what she always has done and will do into the foreseeable future.

How Do You Like That!

Remember the dozen pro-Bush guys from the 42nd Infantry Division in Tikrit who shilled for the Bush administration in the staged videoconference this past Thursday? Turns out, mouthy Master Sgt. Corine Lombardo who was so articulate about "working side-by-side, training and equipping 18 Iraqi army battalions", is a Bush ringer. Ward Harkavy, who writes “The Bush Beat” for The Village Voice. spotted Lombardo sitting in the front row of the staged photo from Tikrit. Master Sgt. Lombardo is a Public Affairs tool. She writes a regular column for “Operation Liberty Torch”--a pro-army rag--for the 42nd Infantry Division. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But during the fake “conversation” between GWB and the troops, Lombardo never owned up to the fact that her first and foremost job is to make the BushMen look good in Iraq. Boy, it must be like paying $1000 for really bad sex. All this money being spent on fake photo-ops, fake journalism, fake snow jobs, and the war in Iraq still looks like the pig’s ear that it is: a war of aggression instigated by arrogant third-rate politicians who had avoided being in the military, planned by over-the-hill Pentagon officials who decided to wage a war on the cheap, and carried out by an insufficient number of ill-equipped and inexperienced military personnel. Trying to cover up the Iraq stinkhole is bad enough. But WaPo reported a true story yesterday that shows the depths of incompetence to which our government has sunk. The US Army is sending bills to our wounded and maimed soldiers for everything from military housing to travel for follow-up hospital treatment to military gear found missing after their injuries. The military says these bills were mistakes and they are being rectified. Mistakes? Computer errors? Who cares? We’re talking about people who believed in their government enough to fight an unnecessary war. These people should be honored not billed. Mistakes? I rest my case. Could the Bush administration and the Pentagon fuck up any worse? Oh yes! I am sure they could and they will. Wait for it!

Oh No He Didn’t!

Oh yes, he did! So afraid of what noncoms might actually say, the BushMen staged another scripted teleconference with our folks in uniform. This time, it was troops from the 42nd Infantry Division in Tikrit (right…Saddam’s birthplace) who were told what to say and when to say it yesterday as President Bush stood safely behind a podium at the White House. It’s only a matter of time until Bush is caught on videotape or on an open mike saying something incriminating. But it was the Pentagon’s Allison Barber who was caught on camera yesterday coaching the troops and giving them questions to ask. The Associated Press reported this morning that, “After asking for some water bottles to be removed from the shot, Barber then staged what was described as a brief rehearsal, in which she asked the soldiers to act out the order of their answers and which topics each would cover”. Half of the soldiers speaking on camera were officers, Paul Rieckhoff, director of the New York-based Operation Truth, an advocacy group for U.S. veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, said, adding, "If he wants the real opinions of the troops, he can't do it in a nationally televised teleconference. He needs to be talking to the boots on the ground and that's not a bunch of captains." So…we’ve had the amateur Mission Accomplished theatrics. The obviously fake Thanksgiving turkey in Baghdad in 2003. The hovering helicopters and stage set constructed for Bush’s visit to the Katrina disaster on September 2nd that was dismantled as soon as he left. And the amazing thing is, these half-assed White House movie-of-the-week producers haven’t caught onto the fact that while they are creating bogus films of bogus events of a bogus president, cameras are filming their fakery. What a bunch of stupid clumsy dithering morons. I guess John Edwards was right when he said the GOP’s problem isn’t arrogance, it’s incompetence.

Why Did Bush Nominate Miers in the First Place?

AMERICAblog this morning posted, “Okay, you know it's not going to happen (if) Hill staffers are emboldened enough to challenge the President.” Joe in DC was referring to a New York Times article reporting, “lawyers for the Republican senators on the Judiciary Committee are expressing dissatisfaction with the choice (Harriet Miers) and pushing back against her, aides to 6 of the 10 Republican committee members said yesterday.” And now it comes out that Karl Rove is the one who gave James Dobson the secret info on Miers, which led Dobson to his unqualified support. But the flea in Dobson’s ear made Dobson say, "I can't reveal it all, because I do know things that I'm privy to that I can't describe, because of confidentiality." I must say, I have moments of wondering if Rove hasn’t been setting up GWB for a monumental fall since 2000. But let’s say that Rove and Bush were on the same page about Miers. Why would they nominate someone who didn’t have a prayer? How about payback? They owed her a gigantic quid pro quo and only an extraordinary quid would justify her equally extraordinary quo. At least she does have a law degree. And she is Bush’s consigliere. What on earth did she do to earn the humongous payback of being nominated to the Supreme Court? The perfect thing about this giving and taking back is that Bush and Rove may have been the godfathers on the reward end, but others are doing the taking back. Like stealing back the ransom bag, it's all win. Except, that little detail about what did Miers do for the White House? There is a trail and it will be followed, you can bet the rent on that.

Mush and Gush From Harriet Miers

This morning’s NYT gives a view of Harriet Miers at her kiss-up sycophantic best. Quoting from over 2000 pages of personal notes and correspondence released by the Texas State Library and Archives Commission, an article by Ralph Blumenthal and Simon Romero shows Harriet Miers to be an embarrassingly fawning toady. The notes go back to 1995 when then-Texas Governor George W. Bush named Miers to chair the Texas lottery commission. Prior to that appointment Miers had worked at the Locke Purnell Rain and Harrell law firm. Just before becoming Bush’s consigliere, she was Co-Managing Partner at Locke Liddell & Sapp. And let’s be clear about what a managing partner does. A managing partner is a glorified office manager who also practices law. And Miers was a co-, not a sole managing partner. But back to Harriet Miers real career: Suck-up par excellence. Miers to Bush after his 51st birthday: "You are the best governor ever - deserving of great respect.” Miers to Bush on March 25, 1995 (Thank you) “for taking the time to visit in the office and on the plane back—cool. Keep up all the great work. The state is in great hands. Thanks also for your and your family’s personal sacrifice.” Miers to Bush in October 1997: “Hopefully Jenna and Barbara recognize that their parents are ‘cool’- as do the rest of us. All I hear is how great you and Laura are doing. Texas is blessed.” Miers to Bush after an Anti-Defamation League dinner in 1996 honoring Miers: “Texas has a very popular governor and first lady! I was struck by the tremendous impact you have on the children whose lives you touch.” With George W. Bush, the kiss-up tactic works. He believes it all. No matter how high it’s piled GWB believes every ingratiating word. One of the more interesting facets of the Miers story is that she, like the other women in GWB’s professional life seem totally sexless. Condi Rice, Karen Hughes, and Harriet Miers have a job to do: feed George Bush’s ego and delusions. They have other titles, but they get paid to keep the narcissist happy and this has nothing whatsoever to do with anything sexual. The women may fawn, preen, smile, cajole, praise and gush. But they come across as neuter gender fembots. And they've been programmed to make the Bushbot believe he’s president.

WaPo's William Raspberry: Better Than Abortion

William Raspberry's Op/Ed piece in the Washington Post this morning is interesting on many levels. He says there is a better cure to the US soaring crime rate than following William Bennett's suggestion to abort all black babies. For starters, it's interesting that Raspberry who is black doesn't fume and foment over Bennett's remark. He gives a number of possible responses to Bennett, but he doesn't get riled and defensive. Raspberry tells a true story about how the problem of raging elephants was handled in South Africa's Kruger National Park. And he relates the Kruger National Park solution to young black men in America: Too many young black men have no older black men to teach them how to be responsible productive adults. And the reasons he gives for this dilemma, at least by me, are 100% right. I see a great parallel between the response of powerful adult white men to the black community, and the response of powerful adult white men to poor people. Yes, you can substitute the word Republicans when I say powerful adult white men. The Republican Party's message to the black community and to all poor people is that blacks and poor folks have gotten themselves into the spot they are in by not being powerful wealthy and white. Ergo: Fuck you all for having so little forethought. This overall attitude of the Republican Party is a disgrace. But worse than being a disgrace, it has hurt the entire US population because it has brought about an underclass that now is finding it difficult, if not impossible, to help themselves. I wouldn't go so far as William Bennett in suggesting a solution. That is to say, I wouldn't actually suggest killing all wealthy white adult Republicans. But getting the worst of the lot out of public office would go a long way toward healing what's wrong with America.