The Bush administration has been a scandal since its inception. In fact, it was born in the scandal of Florida vote suppression, and the overreach of the Supreme Court.
We know that Cheney was selected as vice-president to run our foreign policy. Chimp-boy couldn’t even remember General Musharraf’s name, let alone devise a coherent worldview.
We know that Cheney then populated the government with advocates of war in Iraq, as spelled out in the PNAC documents.
We have them on record lamenting the failure of the American people to support preemptive wars of aggression. We have them on record pining for a second Pearl Harbor to buck up the American public and turn us into the bloodthirsty patriots we were born to be.
They got their Pearl Harbor, and then some. And they did NOTHING to stop it. NOTHING. Their own chief of counterterrorism said they did nothing. John Ashcroft told his briefer that he didn’t want to hear another damn word about al-Qaeda. And he didn’t. But he did decide to stop flying commercial airlines.
President Bush was given a memo saying that al-Qaeda was determined to attack us, determined to hijack airlines, and that they wanted to do so IN THIS COUNTRY. In spite of this, when a plane crashed into the World Trade Center he pretended to think it was an accident. He pretended to be unaware that al-Qaeda was planning just such an attack.
And he did NOTHING. He went into a classroom and read a story about a Pet Goat. He laughed and chuckled, and made jokes. And when he was told that a second plane had hit the WTC, he still did nothing. He looked shocked, yes. But he did nothing.
Doing something wasn’t his job. It was Cheney’s job. The 9/11 Commission soft-peddled it, but they determined that Cheney never even called Bush to ask for permission to down any remaining jets. Why would he? It was Cheney’s job to decide such matters.
And it was Cheney that told Bush that he had to have a little war in Iraq. “The little tyrant tried to kill your Daddy, you gonna take this shit?”
I can’t prove it, but the dark forces behind Cheney were busy at work long before they ever took office. The Niger documents were created while Clinton was still in office. They were crude forgeries. El-Baradei exposed them as forgeries in a few hours, as had the French and Italians, before him. The CIA claims they didn’t know they were forgeries, but that is preposterous. They obviously didn’t believe what was written in them, even if they thought the documents were genuine.
Cheney’s minions undoubtedly created the documents in the first place. Perhaps it was Michael Ledeen, as Vincent Cannistraro suggested:
link
Right now, we are arguing over whether Karl Rove committed a crime by destroying the career of a CIA officer. But this whole fiasco is covering up a far bigger crime. The crime is the Bush administration itself. Born in crime, raised in crime, and now fully mature and sociopathic in nature, the Bush administration has been a fraud from the beginning.
If this sounds paranoid, it’s not. We have been leveling accusation after accusation at this White House for five years now. And every one of them has eventually been exposed as true. Paul O’Neill revealed that Cheney was bent on war with Iraq in their very first national security meeting. Clarke revealed that they did nothing about terrorism. Someone at the CIA leaked that Bush had been briefed about a plot to hijack airplanes in this country and attack us with them. Joe Wilson told us the administration knew the Niger claims were false.
Karen Kwiatowski, a former Pentagon insider, told us:
“George Bush isn’t in control…the country’s been hijacked, key areas of neoconservative concern were politically staffed”.
We said the evidence for the war was being fabricated, and we have confirmed that it was fabricated. The policy was war, the intelligence was ‘fixed’.
The media seems to find this all somewhat amusing. It’s old news, or just one side of the story. Wilson exaggerated, Wilson lied too. That’s bullshit. The only question is whether Fitzgerald is going to indict the whole lot of them for crimes against humanity, or whether he will be satisfied to slap Turdblossom with a slap on the wrist.
A force not ONLY on the basketball court!
(My money is on Cheney. Et al.)
P.S. This means nothing, but in the early 1990s I used to play online bridge with Michael Ledeen and his pals. Bill Gates Sr. and Warren Buffett (aka TBone) played too.
you’re a mole inserted in this operation for the sole purpose of undermining the community.
Susan> Ledeen> Niger forgery> war.
Just connect the dots…
No. I just have this sort of Gump-ish life where I run into famous people from time to time. All I knew about Ledeen at the time was that he wrote for the American Spectator, and that he loved to play bridge online every night. I’d be surprised if he still doesn’t. It’s a very, very addictive game, and endlessly stimulating. Also very humbling since one never masters it.
it would be interesting if it is true that Cheney’s group had a meeting where it was decided to do a work-up on Wilson.
If anyone at that meeting is charged with serious crimes, it is possible that Cheney could go down in some kind of plea agreement.
Still, I think that is a little optimistic.
What differs slightly in the Raw Story article and what he originally said about the work up, is this (see bold):
“My understanding is that shortly thereafter, a meeting was held – sometime in March of 2003 – in the offices of the Vice President at which it was decided to do a “work up” on me. A work up means to run an intel op to glean all the information you can about “me.” My understanding is that at a minimum, [Cheney’s chief of staff] Scooter Libby was at this meeting.
But in retrospect looking at this, the natural group [of people] who would meet to discuss something like this would be the White House Iraq Group (WHIG).“
The Whig includes: Libby, Hadley, Rove, Card, Hughes, Matlin (and a few more).
The other interesting thing is that Wilson says, ” my understanding” twice in this quote. I read this as meaning someone has given this information to him. You bet there must be people finding information about what happened and telling Wilson.
There must be a battle between those that scrubbed information and honorable intelligence people still in the CIA and even the state department.
When ex Cia analyst Ray McGovern testified at John Conyer’s Downing St. Minutes hearing, you could sense the anger and desire to strike back at those who had flipped the agency upside down and undermined good people there. It sounded like there was a major struggle going on for the control of the apparatus of power. Almost like a struggle between good and evil. They are evil.
Bush and Goss are eviscerating the agency.
Yeah. This may be our last chance. They own the DoD, the State Department, and they are working hard to castrate the CIA.
Cheney and the neocons are truly, truly evil.
Maybe that’s why Rove is in the hot seat. To take the rap for Libby and Cheney. Rove knows an awful damn lot, but he’s Dubya’s boy. Rove wants his dynasty and Cheney wants his. They’re not the same thing.
Interesting timing of the Rove “liberals and 9/11” remarks, pushing Rove into the public eye.
One small point on your diary, it’s SOP to send in the fighter jets when a plane goes off course, and it’s SOP to shoot down a plane that does not respond to the fighter’s commands and poses a threat. No call was necessary for either to happen.
Rove is only the FIRST fall guy line of defense for Cheney.
Libby may or may not be second, with Powell as the third choice if they can get away with it. (I don’t think they can. He didn’t survive as a black political general in a white system by being careless. HE’S got ethe goods on SOMEBODY…bet on it.)
But they will throw Georgie to the wolves rather than let Cheney’s operation get folded up. And that is EXACTLY what the whole neo-con thing is. A giant intelligence op, run by a separate intel community, a rival to and enemy of the CIA as it existed before the 2000 (s)election.
You can bet on THAT, too.
If it gets bad enough…Rove leads DIRECTLY to Butch.
The stupid, stupid sacrificial Lambident.
Watch.
If we do not concentrate on Cheney…HE becomes President.
EWWWWWWW….!!!
Scaaaaaary!!!!
Recall that even Cheney’s energy “task force” buddies backed off the immediate privatization of Iraq’s oil fields. Cheney’s become a political liability as a front man, he got “rebunkered” after his “last throes” statement. There’s a face not even Howard Dean’s mother could love.
You just get better day by day. They say you can’t feel a turning point when it’s happening, but by golly if this ain’t it – I’ll eat my hat.
Yes it’s tinfoil – yuck.
I like that
“born in the scandal of the Florida vote”
It has a nice ring to it.
Karen Hughes: “President Bush will bring a new tone to the white House” Dec. 2000.
Crimes. Crimes. Crimes from Cheney and the gang.
Apathy. Apathy. Apathy from most of the American population.
I feel so lost. America seems so lost. It is a nightmare from which we can’t seem to wake and I fear it will get worse.
Thank god, for places like this where we can rant, learn things, support each other and go back to fight to take our country back in whatever little ways we can.
Lots to rant about.
I think this ultimately goes to Cheney and the neocons. Rove seems like just the shell of the rotten egg.
I have to believe that Wilson is not working alone — that CIA friends are still feeding him information. I think there is a grand unifying theory that goes back to Cheney. Here’s mine, for what it’s worth:
Who gathered the information about Wilson and where/when does it get politicized? Both Bolton in State and Feith in DoD were engaged in stovepiping — analyzing intelligence data to support the war, then feeding it back to the CIA, Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc.
Wilson says information was already prepared (including connection to his wife) in March. I think they went into high gear against Wilson after his article, when Plame became fair game. I agree, this is much broader and deeper than Rove.
Well you might call it a rant Boo but I call it a logical progression of many facts we do know.
I’ve wondered over/over why the whole scenario of the Niger forgeries wasn’t pursued more. Everyone eventually seemed to agree(except all the rabid neocons)that they were forgeries yet no one seemed to care ‘who’ did the forgering-which always struck me as very peculiar in itself.
That’s a story I would really like to know the whole who/how did the forgeries and I think this would show Cheney’s dark miasma engulfing everything.
If we ever know the answer to this question, I think it could blow this whole thing open more than any other revelation.
From an interview conducted by Ian Masters with Vincent Cannistaro, the former CIA head of counterterrorism operations and intelligence director at the National Security Council under Ronald Reagan:
I have always wondered if the real reason Bush went so gaga on 9/11 was the sudden anxiety of “What if they find out we let it happen?” Of course that’s my inner tin foil hat man speaking to me.
that he paid any attention to the details – remember he doesn’t read. What he was gaga about was he was scared HE was a target. Remember he had Air Force 1 up in the air for so long it was embarrassing. Cheney was the decision maker then.
You’re probaly right. They wouldn’t trust a child with the details.
Sunday? I won’t spoil it for you, but he lays it all out. Here’s a snip.
This case is not about Joseph Wilson. He is, in Alfred Hitchcock’s parlance, a MacGuffin, which, to quote the Oxford English Dictionary, is “a particular event, object, factor, etc., initially presented as being of great significance to the story, but often having little actual importance for the plot as it develops.” Mr. Wilson, his mission to Niger to check out Saddam’s supposed attempts to secure uranium that might be used in nuclear weapons and even his wife’s outing have as much to do with the real story here as Janet Leigh’s theft of office cash has to do with the mayhem that ensues at the Bates Motel in “Psycho.”
This case is about Iraq, not Niger. The real victims are the American people, not the Wilsons. The real culprit – the big enchilada, to borrow a 1973 John Ehrlichman phrase from the Nixon tapes – is not Mr. Rove but the gang that sent American sons and daughters to war on trumped-up grounds and in so doing diverted finite resources, human and otherwise, from fighting the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11. That’s why the stakes are so high: this scandal is about the unmasking of an ill-conceived war …
Daniel Schorr arrived at the same conclusion in the Christian Science Monitor yesterday.
Rove leak is just part of larger scandal
WASHINGTON – Let me remind you that the underlying issue in the Karl Rove controversy is not a leak, but a war and how America was misled into that war.
I know you already know this, I’m just glad to see this finally laid out so well!
WooooooooooooHoooooooooooo!
knows a thing or two about leaks and the government’s reaction to them.
for digging the article out but also for the term MacGuffin. Wilson seems more than that though since he has actively worked on pulling the plot out into the public eye.
Maybe Gannon was a MacGuffin?
BUSH in the McGuffin.
The McMUFFIN.
Rove is just the ketchup.
Great rant, although it’s less rant than logical progression of what’s happened to date. And, yes, Frank Rich’s column this week is excellent!
However, two small nits to pick:
Cheney was selected as vice-president
Cheney supposedly was in charge of the search committee to find a vp candidate to run with Dim Son. He chose himself.
Cheney then populated the government with advocates of war in Iraq, as spelled out in the PNAC documents
Not only that, but most of them are retreads from the Nixon, Ford, and Reagan administrations, as well as that of Bush the Elder. The administration of Bush the Lesser looks like Iran-Contra redux.
p.s. I am ever so grateful for Spellcheck. It questions “Cheney” as a legitimate word.
Cheney and Rumsfeld are from Nixon’s team. These forces worked for Nixon, Reagan and Bush I. They were very mature when the Supreme Court appointed them Administration.
That’s what Barbara at Mahablog.com calls it. I think its more appropriate.
who the widening investigation is starting to engulf.
Writing at antiwar.com, in a post entitled “Rove-gate: Who Leaked to the Leakers? This isn’t about Karl Rove” Justin Raimondo writes:
I hate Karl Rove, and I try not to throw that term around lightly. I never have given him credit as a “genius”; rather, he is the dirtiest of political tricksters from early in his adult life.
But this whole Iraq thing has all the markings of Cheney and his PNAC clan. Further, I believe they found an easy mark in George W Bush to get “selected” in 2000 and then proceed with plans to invade Iraq as a start to their new world order.
I don’t believe Bush has the drive and focus to have been at this for so long, the way Cheney does. I don’t believe Rove would have had access to the information that Cheney does. Rove and Bush are the frat boys, used to being in power, on the inside of the inside joke-types, never having to accept “no”. Cheney is just pure evil, and will stop at nothing to achieve his goals. Treason? I don’t think he sees that he crossed that line, and even if he did, so what?
Cheney was too much in charge during 9/11 to not think him involved in some way with this whole deal, and by that I mean Iraq AND the outing of Valerie Plame. Someone with very high power told agencies like the FAA and NORAD to stand down, not to scramble jets, and then to destroy the cockpit voice recorders and other records. Someone with very high power didn’t allow the Secret Service to do what I think would be their #1 priority when the first plane hit, and that would be to get their President to safety (remember, the first plane hit while Bush was still in the limo). They would have never allowed him to even set foot in the classroom let alone read a book and sit for all those minutes — unless they were told to stand down by someone they didn’t want to cross. I don’t see Karl Rove as having that power.
The enigmatic one liner “The wind cries Hannah” from soj, the other day, led me to explore the Cheney team background.
It exposed an insight from history that blew my mind…
The Synarchists – a system of power that totally rejects democracy. for totalitarian rule by the industrial elite.
The roots of Synarchism are old, and occult. Historical links with Fascim abound. And the facts are just under the surface of mainstream googling – you can go and find out all this yourselves in 60 minutes. Do it.
Its relevance to Cheney comes from the influence of Leo Strauss on the thinking of key Cheney players.
Its relevance to the Media comes from the influence of British press magnate and Synarchist Beaverbrook who trained up both Conrad Black and Rupert Murdoch, among others.
I’m away at sea for a couple of days – I can’t follow up. But please – check out the Synarchists. It’ll be the best hour you ever spent.
Yes yes yes yes yes yes YES!!!
Go after CHENEY!!!
YES!!!
THANK you, Booman and the rest of you.
THANK you!!!