Month: October 2005

I was going through my files looking for a link I had related to the Plame case when I came across a copy of Bush’s famous October 7, 2002 speech in Cincinnati just prior to the Congressional vote on Iraq. It was in this speech that Bush laid out his case for regime change and the need to use military force in Iraq. Something compelled me to re-read it…there was something about seeing these words again that sent a shiver down my spine.

To read these words three years later is mind numbing. It’s impossible to come to any other conclusion than that our President is either the biggest liar to ever walk the face of the earth, or he is of unbelievably limited mental capacity. Either way he should be removed from office immediately. After re-reading this speech I believe it would be impossible for anyone with a modicum of cognitive ability to come to any other conclusion. Almost every claim he made was false, and has been proven so over the course of time. And they are not just false, many of the claims in retrospect are downright absurd. Whether he knew they were false at the time is irrelevant. If he did ….he’s a liar,… if he didn’t, it proves that his incompetence is monumental and unforgivable.

So why don’t we take a little trip down memory lane and make a short stop in the bizarro world that is George W Bush.

(I’ve bolded and numbered the lies for easy reference)

With reference (and apologies) to Jerome’s throrough diary, the following is an interesting addition.  Apparently the administration is not satisfied with the staggering debt of our citzenry.  It is the aim of the Bush administration to achieve the same result abroad.  

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/14/business/14yuan.html

Joe Wilson “was a dagger aimed at the heart of WHIG and its disinformation campaign. Exactly who tried to silence him and how is what Mr. Fitzgerald presumably will tell us.”

NYT columnist Frank Rich, as usual, is spot on — I’m beginning to think of him as a national journalistic treasure — beginning with the title of today’s piece, “It’s Bush-Cheney, Not Rove-Libby” (sub. only, via Daou Report).

It didn’t matter at all to the WHIGs that their sales points and marketing techniques to sell the Iraq war were weak, dishonest, even laughable to anyone in the know. Or that real people would die! No matter. Make the sale.

Blake [Alec Baldwin, mocking]: “The leads are weak.”
The fucking leads are weak? You’re weak.
   — Glengarry Glen Ross, IMDb

The WHIGs’ marketing campaign for war is weak? No matter. Close the sale! Towards the end, Rich writes:

It’s long been my hunch that the WHIG-ites were at their most brazen (and, in legal terms, reckless) during the many months that preceded the appointment of Mr. Fitzgerald as special counsel. When Mr. Rove was asked on camera by ABC News in September 2003 if he had any knowledge of the Valerie Wilson leak and said no, it was only hours before the Justice Department would open its first leak investigation. When Scott McClellan later declared that he had been personally assured by Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby that they were “not involved” with the leak, the case was still in the safe hands of the attorney general then, John Ashcroft, himself a three-time Rove client in past political campaigns. Though Mr. Rove may be known as “Bush’s brain,” he wasn’t smart enough to anticipate that Justice Department career employees would eventually pressure Mr. Ashcroft to recuse himself because of this conflict of interest, clearing the way for an outside prosecutor as independent as Mr. Fitzgerald. (Emphasis mine.)

See, this is usually how dishonest salespeople trip themselves up: They’re so narcissistic and greedy, that they themselves — like their hapless sucker clients — sometimes fail to read the small print.

For a backgrounder snapshot of every member of WHIG, the bastards who sold the Iraq war to the people, the media, and Congress — with photo, infamous quotes, and “dish” — visit my “Glenngarry Glenn Rove.”

P.S. Frank Rich’s fine work is now subscription-only but you can read long excerpts at AfterDowningStreet.

At long last The New York Times has published its long-awaited exposé detailing its role and that of its Pulitzer Prize winning reporter, Judith Miller in the scandal that has come to be commonly referred to as “Plamegate.”

It is not a pretty picture. Neither the Times nor Judith Miller emerge from this article looking at all favorable. More problematical for the Times, whose reputation has been badly tarnished by this affair, the article seemingly raises more questions than it answers both about the veracity of Judith Miller and the transparency of America’s “newspaper of record,” The New York Times.

The new Times article is far from kind to Judith Miller, nor does it offer compelling justification for Miller’s long refusal to testify before Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s grand jury that has been investigating the July 2003 outing of Valerie Plame Wilson as a covert CIA agent involved in preventing the proliferation of WMD.

The article notes that “three courts, including the Supreme Court declined to back Ms. Miller.” The Times neglected to point out that some of the judges supported the principle of a journalist being allowed to protect sources, but felt that national security considerations along with the evidence that a serious crime had been committed outweighed any right Miller might ordinarily have to protect this source.

The Times also neglected to mention that Fitzgerald knew all along that Miller’s source was I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby. He identified Libby in his initial court filings against Miller. The Times dances around speculation that Miller herself might be a target of Fitzgerald’s investigation, and that some feel her refusal to testify might indicate a desire to shield herself rather than Libby. The article does note that some “critics said The Times was protecting not a whistle-blower but an administration campaign intended to squelch dissent.”

Below: AN UNFLATTERING PORTRAIT OF JUDITH MILLER’S REPORTING …

Crossposted from Street Prophets, because this is important, dang it!

In fact, important action item before I even get into the meat of this post–please, if you think it is important for progressive religious types to actively oppose the so-called “Religious Right”, be sure to add a link to Equality Ohio to your blogrolls.

I’m serious. Go do it now. Equality Ohio. Or at least write yourself a note to remind you to do it later.