It seems mighty coincidental that Wilson, Berger, Dana Priest's husband, McCarthy, the ever popular Larry Johnson, Richard Clark just to name 6 all ended up advising Kerry in the 2004 campaign.
That web of individuals all had either something derogatory to say about the conduct of intelligence operations by the Bush administration, or tried to make sure no bad information surfaced about such operations during the Clinton administration.
I would be surprised if a task force were not exploring evidence of a conspiracy to undermine the CIA and defense department prosecution of the war on terror.
Fitz's investigation has for some reason not delved into the problems occasioned by the Wilson disinformation campaign, and his connection with the Kerry campaign while conducting it.
Maybe (dare we hope) that is because the ol' poker player is biding his time while a trusted Justice Department group is investigating this angle.
Maybe the McCarthy firing is the beginning of the dropping of the other shoe.
17 comments:
I would be surprised if a task force were not exploring evidence of a conspiracy to undermine the CIA and defense department prosecution of the war on terror.
Sorry to be crude, but I don't think this WH has the balls to do something like that.
Flenser:
Need I point out that Carl Rove has never been one to suffer testicular atrophy.
I like the timing of Rove's 'change in position'. MSNBC and others are calling it a demotion and are sure it's their own calls for change that made it happen. Snort.
Bush used Rove to help form policy as long as he could. I'm sure Bush knew this arrest was imminent so he deemed the time was right to unleash Rove's full attention on the politics.
Before the Nov election, the electorate will know that the Democrats are the Party of Treason.
Syl,
I think that's both a little harsh and a little optimistic. The Democrats are not the "party of treason", they're the "party of Woodstock". For most of them it's still 1969, Nixon's still in office, and it's all about sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll. These are the people who never-never grew up.
flenser,
I too don't give so much creedence to the White House. I'm not yet convinced that Bush isn't as stupid as he looks. I personally think he's trying to conduct the government on a professional level the way he believes is consonant with his values; his opponents have no such scruples. He doesn't seem to realize that he's fighting by Marquess of Queensberry rules and his opponents are not. They own the arena and have bought all the refs and he's still fighting the game the old-fashioned way.
That's okay, MHA, I'll settle for "the party of sedition and conspiracy to commit espionage."
What is interesting is the pattern during election years. About this time during 2002, 2004, and now 2006, Bush is in the doldrums, with what seems is no strategy and no hope of overcoming those clever and ankle biting Democrats.
Then about labor day that wascally wabbit comes out and bangs poor Elmer Fudd on the head, such that by election day, his team wins.
This is just my impression, but it seems to have been borne out during his first term.
I do not think testosterone has ever been lacking in this White House.
RA:
I don't think Ms. McCarthy is the target for prosecution. There are bigger fish to fry here, and, it seems to me, there is a lot more smoke today than there was last week this time.
But McCarthy is a big shoe that has dropped, make no mistake about it.
StY,
Why did you leave out subversion? It has a nice alliterative ring if it follows sedition. Actually, 'sedition subversion and espionage' has the best sound.
Vnjagvet,
I've crossed my fingers on links to the Senate Committee on Intelligence Democratic staff. What a nice tidy bundle they would all make and we have Rockefellers memo laying out the strategy of subversion.
The Hatch Act was mentioned over at JOM and I believe it might have some merit. A tie between McCarthy, Senate staff, Priest and the NYT seditionists would make for a rather explosive set of charges.
I don't think Bush looks stupid or is stupid or lacks balls.
Sometimes discretion really is the better part of valor. I think Bush could have made his own life a lot easier by taking the easy way out of everything, he did not.
If he were a coward, he would have followed the Clinton doctrine of ignoring it and hoping it will either go away or come to fruition on someone else's watch.
I think there is more here than we know, there always is.
DT:
I think you done broke the code. In the late 1950's, somehow it became gauche in certain intellectual circles to think of one's self as a citizen of such a nouveau country as the United States rather than as a "citizen of the world".
The US was neither civilized nor cultured enough, don'cha know.
I remember when JFK was President, having taken over from that famously midwestern Eisenhower, Jackie's touch in the White House was decidedly European in flavor.
Had it not been for JFK's famously light touch and sense of humor, encouraged by Papa Joe and Jack's handlers soft-pedaling the European approach, some might have thought that too high class for the typical US citizen.
As it was, the 1000 day Camelot came to an end, and many those from the Ivy League and Eastern Establishment have had terminal nostalgia for a return ever since.
Particularly afflicted were the MSM and the beaurocracy in the State Department and the CIA.
Good old American values became passe' among the chattering classes and the old "striped pants set".
Reagan turned that around because of his common touch, his intellect(don't laugh) and his robust writing and speaking skills.
He and his conservative forerunner, Barry Goldwater, almost single-handedly inspired a new breed of scholars in the eighties and nineties that succeeded in evening the odds and providing a conservative and proudly and uniquely American counterpoint to the "one-world" ideal propounded by Europeans, the Soviet Union and the third world intellectuals.
Couple that with Newt Gingrich's Republican Revolution in 1994 which ousted the Democrats from Congressional control, and the change was complete.
There has been bitter resentment ever since among those who think it is their intellectual destiny to control the levers of Government.
The elections of 2000, 2002 and 2004 have not alleviated this resentment.
I suspect desparation has been rampant among the generation reaching late middle age.
They hate GWB because he has thwarted their fondest dreams of governing this country with their sure, "we know what is best" hand.
("pddtug" word verifcation)
They are both.
After all these people really did try to run a man for the White House who sat in front of the Senate and compared his fellow soldiers to the army of Ghenghis Khan. For their own good of course. The fact that Americans were dying in the war at the time meant nothing to him or them. The fact that if he took that job he would have to be Commander in Chief never seemed unseemly to them.
So in their minds, this is their brand of patriotism...they are saving America from itself. It is their duty as citizens of the world. And of course that means they really are still the hippies at Woodstock because any adult would have figured out by now that there is no such thing as a citizen of the world. It is rather like believing in fairies and sprites, elves and hobbits.
But this ain't Middle Earth.
vnjagvet,
I agree with you completely but there are a couple of ingredients to the stew you have omitted.
One is that many of these people have gone to the finest schools since their earliest days. Their whole lives they have been told that they are the natural leaders and they believe it. They have been told that they have the best teachers and they believe it. They have been told that theirs are the finest ideas and they believe it. They really don't think it's right that all those uneducated buffoons out there in the hinterland should get an equal vote to theirs.
The other point is ethnicity. The Northeast isn't mostly Anglo-Saxon but the rest of the country is. The Northeast is mostly Catholic, but the rest of the country is mostly Protestant. There's a lot of resentment boiling under the surface in the Northeast toward America, a place that many of the residents of the Northeast have never lived in nor felt part of. Whereas my family lives all over the country, from New York to California, literally from Alaska to Florida, most folks in the Northeast have no connections as far south as Pennsylvania, let alone beyond.
But this ain't Middle Earth.
I think for many of these people it is Middle Earth, or as close as is physically possible. They've never suffered or even strained. They've never known want, never been hungry, never had to wear old clothes or drive and old car. They've always lived in the safe neighborhoods. Their concern for the poor may be genuine but it is abstract at best.
MHA:
Truman threatened to throw Joe Kennedy out of a window once. Much later when Kennedy was nominated he said he was not worried about the Pope, but the guy's Pop.
Yes, there was some strain between the midwest Protestant who had never been to college and the prep school elite from Boston.
Even in the same party.
I wonder if Romney will have a chance at the nomination? The Yankees won't know what to do then.
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