The NY Times reports:
The prospect of a White House without Mr. Rove, Mr. Bush’s longtime strategist, has some allies of the president in a near panic, fearful that without him the administration would lose the one person capable of enforcing discipline across a party that has become increasingly fractious and that is almost at war with itself over the president’s nomination of Harriet E. Miers to the Supreme Court.
The worm is turning. Let’s remain optimistic that the worst harm has been done, and brighter days are on the horizon.
Update [2005-10-14 9:10:28 by BooMan]: For a belly laugh:
“In my administration,” Bush told voters in Pittsburgh in October 2000, “we will ask not only what is legal but what is right, not what the lawyers allow but what the public deserves.”
hmmm, does that mean I can use Windex to clean my sunglass’ off???
had to have a lil’ snark this morn’n….I’m hoping for the best here.
(I personally would be in favor of a public hanging…or a few ; )
I don’t think the public cares all that much, or would accept hangings. Considering how many of george’s enemies have ‘committed suicide,’ I have a different idea of poetic justice.
The coup has finally failed – hopefully in time for the survival of our country and our planet.
.
Behind the Iraq Dossier Hoax:
Intelligence Was Cooked in Israel
by Jeffrey Steinberg
According to media accounts, the 10 Downing Street “dossier,” cited favorably by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell in his disastrous Feb. 5 report to the United Nations Security Council, was plagiarized from an American graduate school paper, based on information more than a decade old. The scandal that erupted when the Blair dossier hoax hit the press, seriously undermined the credibility of those war party advocates of an immediate Anglo-American invasion of Iraq. As Lyndon LaRouche wrote, Powell was set up by a gang of public relations flacks who can’t think straight.
So far so good. But a deeper probe into the scandal reveals that there was good reason that the spin-meisters at the Coalition Information Center–the Washington-London civilian government propaganda unit that crafted both the Blair dossier and major portions of Secretary Powell’s own lighter-than-air book of evidence–did not reveal the sources of their information. The entire cooked intelligence picture was “Made in Israel”. It was cooked up at a right-wing think-tank complex notorious as a hotbed of radical Likudnik propaganda, and with links to the Office of Vice President Dick Cheney, via his Chief of Staff Lewis Libby and his former client, Marc Rich.
The essential facts are as follows: Two days before Powell’s UN appearance, 10 Downing Street issued a 16-page paper, “Iraq: Its Infrastructure of Concealment, Deception, and Intimidation,” purportedly based on high-level British intelligence data. In fact, at least 11 of the 16 pages were lifted, verbatim, from an Israeli journal, Middle East Review of International Affairs, whose sole proprietor is Dr. Barry Rubin , an American-born Israeli citizen. The 11 pages were drawn from two articles, by Ibrahim al-Marashi and Robert Rabil, that appeared in the September 2002 edition of that journal.
Middle East Review of International Affairs– Dr. Barry Rubin
Al-Marashi’s article, a profile of Iraqi intelligence, was drawn, largely, from Iraqi government documents confiscated during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Al-Marashi, in turn, heavily footnoted his article to other, earlier stories published in Rubin’s obscure online journal, by Amazia Baram, the journal’s deputy editor.
Read on »»
posted by tobyflat2 at 8:56 PM PST
Iraq – Its infrastructure of concealment, deception and intimidation (pdf) is Downing Street’s recently released intelligence dossier regarding Iraq, mentioned during Colin Powell’s UN speech. Fair enough maybe, but they copied it pretty much wholesale from here (authored by a postgraduate student from California), without even as much as a thank you. More info here (channel4.com) and here (bbc.co.uk).
Read more »»
Adnan Khashoggi and Manucher Ghorbanifar
▼ ▼ ▼
Yes… but imagine how invincible and arrogant this White House will feel if Fitzgerald’s investigation fizzles.
.
A bit under the weather and some gloom added, don’t want to sell the chick before it’s hatched?
Best get some cheers this morning to grow in the day.
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
NYCO is just saying, “Don’t enumerate the feathered progeny until the incubation process is fully materialized and developed.”
Even after the Fitz investigation is done, this ain’t over til it’s over.
The internal mental climate of the White House is very different today than it was three years ago. Then it was “What are we gonna do to them?” Now it is “What are they gonna do to us?” Rove remains a snake with great resiliance and counter-attack ability, others will not have his reactions. One thing the article doesn’t touch is the possible split between Cheney representing the corporate Republicans, and the fundies/social conservatives who long ago embraced Rove. If the White House is also divided by basic ideology as well as fear the internal cliques will ge fierce without strong central leadership–unlikely with George and if the split goes all the way to the very top positions.
The Miers pick seems to have exacerbated the internal splits.
Now to be fair to them, Boo, this may be one of the rare Bush promises that he’s kept.
Given their utter contempt for the public, the case can be made that they are giving us what we think we deserve. And there’s no question that Dumbya is keeping the first half of his promise: he’s certainly not asking what the lawyers allow.
That’s “what they think we deserve.” Gotta finish my coffee before posting in the morning….
Please! Please Mr. Fitz, start announcing some indictments today!
Even if it is just the initial ones while you continue to build a case against higher ups!
I am having withdrawal from the DeLay indictments. I need at least one a week.
Seriously, I’d rather they start with the small fish. Give the story time to build. Give Americans a chance to tune in. Make the big fish sweat. Heh heh.
The longer they twist in the wind, the more of the press corps will turn against them, but I don’t hold much hope that — should there be no high level indictments — the press will stay questioning for long. It’s the stink of failure that the press hates to be associated with; if there’s any way the Bush Admin can rebound from this stink, I think most of the Beltway press will leap right back into their lap.
Asking “not only what is legal but what is right” and Cohen’s piece yesterday sure sounds like one of their strategies will be to downplay this as a crime. Andrea Mitchell said something to the effect recently on HB that WH officials didn’t even know it was a crime. Be prepared for the “What me worry?” defense. This WH thinks they get to interpret the law (not the judiciary) as it suits them.
I keep going back to those 8? redacted pages that Fitzgerald has.
I don’t know of any redacted pages when they were going after Clinton (I could be wrong). But I don’t believe there were life-threatening dangers to overseas agents and their contacts because of sex in the WH.
Rove is testifying as we speak. Let the leak machine begin soon…
I can’t stop giggling when I read a “Jitters in the White House” story. This is the meme, people: the culture of corruption is crumbling, the Vulcans have turned their hammers upon each other.
No matter how true or false it is, these “jitters” stories are going to be all good, as they kids say.
I love the title too. Earlier this year a group of us were in a role playing game where my character was Jitters, a coffee serving illegitimate daughter of Ted Stevens whose only desire was to infiltrate the white house and restore America.
Now I find I’m already there. Heh.
that went in to this analysis of the conflicting forces at work within the Bush regime.
So far, of course, it’s only speculation, but it makes so much sense that I can’t help but suspect it’s probably all true.
Darn it I cant remember where I saw it but there was an article that basically shrugged about Rove’s passing and didn’t think it would make too much difference. It was a liberal source too.
The argument went this way; Delay lost his position as the majority leader.. but he still has all the old power he used to have (and he does). People still kowtow and still haev him on their ‘must-call’ lists. Rove should be the same way.. he may not be IN thje Whitehouse but he can still place calls and be an ‘unofficial advisor’ .. after all the president can still call on anyone he wants to (since rove and he are ‘friends, after all).
Unfortunately, i think this will be the way of it. FORTUNATELY, i also think that while Rove will still be in power and runnign things the real issue at stake here is the ‘presidents’ effecttiveness. With all of these scandals coming home.. iiiiiiiiiiiiI just dont think it’s likely that Bushy boy or his Republican party will retain their efficacy for very long. The democractic bloodhounds (r lite they may be…) will sniff blood and finally descend on them without the fear that’s been keepign them in check right now.
(yep they dont really HAVE to do anythign but we all know that they could be helping along the R’s demise if they really had the will)
So Bush’s legacy is way gone.. and i personally think it’s going to be ‘the death by a thousand knives’ sthick that finally gets’m
Right on the first, wrong on the second.
Indicting Rove, or Scooter, or Bolton… won’t matter.
They’ll step down, for cover, while der Shrubbenfuhrer “investigates” and then, probably within 10 or 15 minutes or so, Cheney will make a phone call and Bush’ll obediently sign off on a couple hundred blank carte blanche pardons and hand them to Karl, and they’ll be right back where they were. Nothing will have changed in the interim because everyone in a position to matter KNOWS that these guys will not ever see the inside of a cell except to order a different kind of torture for the Desaparecido of the Week. Just because the despots have taken the day off doesn’t make it a democracy.
And Bush, personally, doesn’t need to be effective; once Fitzgerald indicts, the neos will simply play the “We own everything, including the press and YOUR campaign contributors” card and the D’s will mutter darkly for a few minutes then meekly turn around and BOHICA like they have every day of the last five years. We’re past the Public Relations stage, then, and it won’t matter what anyone thinks of Bush, because he will no longer be anything but an open joke; Karl and the Dicks will be running things publicly.
Somewhere in the last couple of days, I read a comment that speculated Fitz might indict in state (?) courts (DC courts?), rather than fed, because der Shrubenfuhrer (love that one!) couldn’t pardon there.
If I’ve even remembered that correctly, no idea if he can/will, but it’s a lovely thing to contemplate.
actually i totally agree on everything you said. I dont think i made clear that Bush’s LEGACY is what i think is going down. I’m very much in your camp.
oh.. and your right.. it’s not important that Bush himself is effective..
Delay lost his position as the majority leader.. but he still has all the old power he used to have (and he does). People still kowtow and still haev him on their ‘must-call’ lists. Rove should be the same way..
Now that both DeLay and his daughter’s phone records are going to be investigated… They may not want to get in touch with him anymore.
I suspect they are all getting the “Don’t call me, I’ll call you!” treatment.