Month: October 2005

“Unleash the Weasels,” quips ReddHedd at FireDogLake blog. And, it seems we have weasels in both parties. ReddHedd gives us this mouthful (!) for starters:

“He’s a vile, detestable, moralistic person with no heart and no conscience who believes he’s been tapped by God to do very important things,” one White House ally said, referring to special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald. – New York Daily News

Chase that with this apertif from the Wall Street Journal:

Even before the CIA leak investigation has ended, Democrats and Republicans are planning public-relations campaigns. […]

Republicans, meanwhile, have started complaining about prosecutorial overreach.

For their part, Republicans are trying to focus attention elsewhere — on coming elections and their legislative efforts, for example — while playing down the significance of any charges. They also are trying to train some fire on retired diplomat Joseph Wilson, the husband of Valerie Plame, the Central Intelligence Agency operative whose identity was disclosed. Mr. Wilson charged that the White House leaked the name of his wife to undercut his criticism of the administration’s war policy. The Republican National Committee distributed to some politicians talking points titled, “Joe Wilson’s Top Ten Worst Inaccuracies and Misstatements.”

During weekend television talk shows, some Republican lawmakers even floated the idea of perjury and obstruction of justice charges amounting to little more than legal foot faults.

That may be a tricky path to pursue, in part because of the Republicans’ record of attacking the Clinton administration for not being truthful. Democrats yesterday quickly circulated a recap of Republican outrage over President Clinton’s misleading comments about his relationship with intern Monica Lewinsky. “Republicans: Against Perjury and Obstruction Before They Were For It,” read the document’s headline. Republicans also may have to maneuver without their master strategist, White House political adviser Karl Rove, who is one of the likely targets of the investigation.

The Democrats? Well — Jesus, people! Chill, will you?!

“It’s not in the Democrats’ interest to go nuts,” said Mark Corallo, a media consultant and former Justice Department official under Attorney General John Ashcroft. Their thinking, he says, should be: “Our enemy has set himself on fire. Instead of pouring gasoline that can blow up and burn us all, why don’t we just step away and let them burn.”

Raw Story has Democratic leaders “privately planning ‘indictment’ strategy. Whew.

The WSJ piece adds, “The Democrats’ talking points begin: ‘The White House leak case is about how the Bush administration manufactured and manipulated intelligence in order to bolster its case for war in Iraq’.”

Okay, that sounds like a start. Now I just pray that you don’t make “We were duped!” a main theme because you’ll look like idiots. After all, we the lowly were able to figure out that it was all lies, and you couldn’t or wouldn’t. So, begin with an apology! Please. We might forgive you (?).

And don’t miss pateacher’s new diary, “Shameful Republican Hypocrisy.”

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this diary is dedicated to all who suffer because of war and other disasters

cross-posted at DailyKos, Booman Tribune, European Tribune, and My Left Wing.

images and poem below the fold

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“BAGHDAD (AFP) – The US death toll in Iraq reportedly hit 2,000 amid a sharp spike in violence that killed 14 Iraqis … with the deaths of two more soldiers. … (AFP) Thank you, Tehanu, for alerting us.

Bread and Circuses

Mired in heat and dust and sand

Gallant band of brothers true
Country’s service is their aim

Death and maiming is their due


In where angels fear to tread

Foolish, dreaded leaders rush

Bringing power’s fearsome groan

Leaving only graveyard’s hush



“By the pricking of my thumbs”

This way comes the wicked pawn

Drunk with drinking conquest’s draught

Juggernaut goes crushing on

Continued below:

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Yesterday, I highlighted some of the more mainstream comments of Ben Bernanke.  In general, he comes across as a more or less right leaning economist.  This is the same school that taught Alan Greenspan.  Bernanke has made some other interesting policy observations and or arguments.  Several of these have raised concerns from some economi

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I’m watching the live feed of Democracy Now!. Amy Goodman is interviewing Mel Goodman, a former CIA analyst and a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy. There is no tape or transcript yet. My notes:

Robert Novak: “A useful idiot.”

Lewis “Scooter” Libby: ” is just a aparatchik” — his patron was Dick Cheney

Cheney has lost his “plausible denial.” He may end up — it’s a long shot — as an unindicted co-conspirator.

It is very significant that the Niger documents are being investigated by Fitzgerald. The UPI story over the weeekend was by a very good longtime journalist.

Fitzgerald has access to the Italian parliamentary investigation. The Italians have investigated the documents, and they know something about the docs. FORMER AGENCY PEOPLE could be involved. Under Bill Casey, there was serious misuse of the agency … this could be a covert action to allow the president to say something in the State of Union that was not accurate.

Again, why didn’t the Senate Intel Committee look at this? Why didn’t the media? Because they were obsessed wtih leaks and sources.

The SP (Fitzgerald] is doing the job that the Senate should have done, the media should have done, Congress should have done. He is a hero.

WHIG (White House Iraq Group) was set up at the same time that Donald Rumsfeld set up a secret shop in the Pentagon.

The Office of Special Plans created fake intel — passed it along to WHIG — their job was to write materials for Condi Rice and Dick and Rummy so they could talk about the aluminum tubes, mushroom clouds, etc.. … More when the audio or transcript becomes available.

MORE SOURCES: David Wurmser et al.: See my “More Cheney Aides Targeted in CIA Leak Inquiry,” BooMan’s “As Indictments Loom: Old Hands Pile On Cheney,” Larisa and Jason’s brilliant report on Wurmser yesterday at Raw Story, and my Glengarry Glen Rove “bio pic” piece on the WHIG group.

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