Author: BooMan

There’s a big question hanging over President Bush’s Iraq policy: Why now? Why, more than 11 years after the Gulf War, is it suddenly so urgent for the U.S. to go after Saddam Hussein now?…

Why did the Administration wait until September to make its case against Iraq? White House chief of staff Andrew Card told The New York Times last week, “From a marketing point of view, you don’t introduce new products in August.”

In his speech to the United Nations, President Bush tried to shut down the political speculation. This is a life-and-death matter, the President insisted. “Should Iraq acquire fissile material, it would be able to build a nuclear weapon within a year,” he told the U.N. General Assembly in New York Thursday.

To those who say, we want more evidence that there’s a real threat, the Administration says, we can’t wait for a smoking gun to turn up. “We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud,” National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice said on CNN’s Late Edition recently.

An uber-insider source has just reported the following to TWN:

1. 1-5 indictments are being issued. The source feels that it will be towards the higher end.

2. The targets of indictment have already received their letters.

3. The indictments will be sealed indictments and “filed” tomorrow.

4. A press conference is being scheduled for Thursday.

The shoe is dropping.

More soon.

October 7, 2003

Q: Mr. President, how confident are you the investigation will find the leaker in the CIA case? And what do you make of Sharon’s comment that Israel will strike its enemies at any place, any time?

THE PRESIDENT: This is the dual question. (Laughter.) I’m trying to figure out if I want to answer either of them, since you violated a major rule. (Laughter.) At least it’s not a cell phone. (Laughter.)

Randy, you tell me, how many sources have you had that’s leaked information that you’ve exposed or have been exposed? Probably none. I mean this town is a — is a town full of people who like to leak information. And I don’t know if we’re going to find out the senior administration official. Now, this is a large administration, and there’s a lot of senior officials. I don’t have any idea. I’d like to. I want to know the truth. That’s why I’ve instructed this staff of mine to cooperate fully with the investigators — full disclosure, everything we know the investigators will find out. I have no idea whether we’ll find out who the leaker is — partially because, in all due respect to your profession, you do a very good job of protecting the leakers. But we’ll find out.

October 25, 2005

I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, first learned about the C.I.A. officer at the heart of the leak investigation in a conversation with Mr. Cheney weeks before her identity became public in 2003, lawyers involved in the case said Monday.

Mr. Cheney was interviewed under oath by Mr. Fitzgerald last year. It is not known what the vice president told Mr. Fitzgerald about the conversation with Mr. Libby or when Mr. Fitzgerald first learned of it.

From the October 20 broadcast of Westwood One’s The Radio Factor with Bill O’Reilly:

OREILLY: But if you’re beating a kid, there’s no excuse. Then you’ve lost control of the child, you’ve lost control of yourself. Here’s the litmus test: If you lose your temper, and then you do something to the kid physically, that’s abuse. If you lose your temper. Got it? That’s it. If you’re under control, it’s calculated, you’re disgusted, the kid knows, it’s tempered, absolutely your right as a child [sic]. Now in the Great Depression, every American got spanked. And those Americans went to war during World War II and won the very intense conflict and showed bravery across the board, the Greatest Generation. The Greatest Generation, almost down to the man, was spanked, ’cause that’s the way we did it in America. OK?

So I’m not believing all these sociologists, these fruitcakes, who run around going, you know, you look at a kid cross-eyed, he’s going to grow up to be a heroin addict. I’m not buying that. I think you have to do it responsibly, you have to do it in a way that the child understands what the boundaries are, and is given a choice. Stay within the boundaries, or you’re going to get punished. But I think that 90 percent of the time, you could find another way.