Scotty Beams Up....

Not only are the rats deserting the Ship of State, but some are squealing once safely away.

The latest, and maybe loudest, squeal comes in the form of a pre-publication excerpt from a memoir by former White House press secretary, Scott McClellan.... "WHAT HAPPENED: Inside the Bush White House and What's Wrong with Washington," to be published next April....

"I stood at the White House briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.

"There was one problem. It was not true.

"I had unknowingly passed along false information, and five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice president, the president's chief of staff and the president himself."

McClellan says he was in that position because he trusted the president: "The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq."

Restore the credibility of The Decider and the White House by suggesting to the press day after day that Rove and Libby had no involvement in the publication of the name of covert CIA operative Valarie Plame.

While McClellan did finally take this baby step toward full disclosure.... these events happened in the summer of 2003. He's coming forward only now, after the Plame investigation and Libby's conviction for perjury and obstruction of justice, and after Bush pardoned Libby. Where's Scotty been?

This story just broke, the shock waves are just hitting. It's impact while as yet unknown could very well affect the upcoming elections and end careers. Stay tuned....

Bush's Muddy Mess

Yesterday, President Bush mourned the resignation of Attorney General Gonzales, charging that Gonzales's... "good name was dragged through the mud for political reasons." (WaPo)

So, let's review why it was past time for Gonzales to go.

"There have been no verified civil liberties abuses in the four years of the act's existence." December 15, 2005, op-ed piece by Gonzales, urging Congress to reauthorize the USA Patriot Act.

FACT: Internal FBI documents show that Gonzales had been informed of at least a half-dozen instances of legal or procedural violations of the Patriot Act. In May 2007, Gonzales's former deputy, James B. Comey, disclosed that he and several colleagues had concluded that the program was so illegal that he and other officials at Justice and the FBI were ready to resign unless it was altered.

"There has not been any serious disagreement, including -- and I think this is accurate -- there's not been any serious disagreement about the program that the president has confirmed." Gonzales, February 6, 2006, Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on warrantless wiretapping by the National Security Agency.

FACT: There was a nighttime showdown over the program in March 2004 in the hospital room of then Attorney General Ashcroft.... Gonzales, as White House counsel, tried to get an ill and "barely articulate" Ashcroft to certify that the program was legal.

"We never had any intent to ask anything of him if we did not feel that he was competent." Gonzales, July 24, 2007, Senate testimony about the visit to Ashcroft's hospital room.

"I have not been involved, was not involved in the deliberations over whether or not U.S. attorneys should resign." Gonzales, March 26, 2007, interview on "NBC" Nightly News.

FACT: Three days later, Gonzales's former chief of staff, D. Kyle Sampson, testified that he had conferred with Gonzales at least five times about the plan to remove federal prosecutors and that Gonzales had attended the final meeting on the topic.

"I haven't talked to witnesses because of the fact that I haven't wanted to interfere with this investigation and department investigations." Gonzales, April 19, 2007, Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the U.S. attorney dismissals.

FACT: Gonzales's former senior counselor, Monica Goodling, testified before Congress that in early April, Gonzales ..."laid out for me his general recollection" of the "process regarding the replacement of the U.S. attorneys... and then he asked me if he thought - if I had any reaction to his iteration.... I did not know if it was appropriate for us to both be discussing our recollections of what happened...."

"I don't recall - I don't recall exactly when the decision - I made the decision." Gonzales, April 19 Senate Judiciary hearing on the firings, at which Gonzales said nearly 70 times that he did not know, could not recall or was unsure about various information.

So...although Gonzales repeatedly insisted.... 70 times.... that he could not recall key events in the prosecutor dismissals including a meeting he held with Bush and adviser Karl Rove..... and, although Gonzales testified that there were no internal Justice Department disagreements over a domestic surveillance program, even though top Justice and FBI officials had judged it illegal and threatened to resign unless it was altered.... it was all just dirty politics according to Bush.

Even the conservative National Review in March said of Gonzales, "We have never seen evidence that he has a fine legal mind, good judgment, or managerial ability.... Nor has his conduct at any stage of this controversy gained our confidence." (WaPo)

Gonzales legacy will be that he lied before Congress, interpreted the law to match his boss's political wishes and the White House perception that the Constitution gives the president much more authority than Congress or the judiciary.

He contended that international treaties like the spurned Geneva Convention are subject to "situational" adherence, and signed off on harsh treatment of U.S. detainees. He crafted legal memos that allowed for torture and authorized military tribunals that the Supreme Court later ruled weren't legally authorized, and defended transfers of detainees to harsh interrogation nations.

And, lest we forget, it was Gonzales's U.S. attorney who prosecuted and imprisoned two border agents trying to apprehend a drug runner from Mexico.... giving the drug smuggler immunity to testify against the agents.

A perversion of justice Bush refuses to overturn, although he commuted the sentence of VP Cheney's chief of staff, "Scooter" Libby even before Libby had served a day of his sentence for what passes at the White House as business as usual.... perjury and obstruction of justice.

Gonzales excuses lawbreaking and violent Latino gang members as "individuals who have run into a spell of tough luck," and approved immigration reform legislation that included putting them on the fast track to citizenship on their word that they had renounced gang activity.

While our president mourns the loss of his legal political enabler Gonzales.... we mourn that Bush's Justice Department, the safeguards of our Constitution and the rule of law lay broken at his feet.... trampled into the mud by the actions of his own administration.

Bush Spins in Tennessee

Bush rebuffed a question today at a town-hall-style meeting in Nashville about a possible pardon for border agents Ramos and Compean....

"I know the prosecutor very well, Johnny Sutton. He's a dear friend of mine from Texas. He's a fair guy. He is an evenhanded guy and I can't imagine, well, you know....."

Yes, we do know. Another friend of George.... that's enough for The Decider.

While George found the 30-month jail sentence of Cheney's chief-of-staff "Scooter" Libby "excessive," he evidently doesn't find anything excessive about the 11 and 12-year federal prison sentences for the border agents who fired at a fleeing Mexican drug smuggler... trying to escape from his van loaded with illegal drugs.... who was given blanket immunity by U.S. Attorney Sutton, even a border pass, to testify against them.

The drug smuggler's still free and suing U. S. taxpayers for $5 million.

It was the border crashing smuggler's word against the agents, the prosecutor took the smuggler's word. There are other outrageous actions by George's dear-friend Johnny, but that fact alone shows how the deck was stacked against the agents.

When asked at this same forum about his stalled immigration-overhaul bill, "Bush Defends His Immigration Proposals," (WaPo) and dipped into his bottomless well of fear warning, without that legislation and with stricter enforcement of the border, "I can make you a prediction.... that pretty shortly people are going to be knocking on people's doors saying 'Man we're running out of workers.'"

Oh, perish the thought that we might have stricter border enforcement.... thereby going against Gonzo's Justice Department's policy of ignoring the rule of law.... then employers might have to pay U.S. citizens a living wage to do a job.

The Decider also defended his failed Iraq policy, and tried once again to link the current Islamic militants in Iraq with those who planned 9/11.... the big "boo!"

But, he can no longer emotionally stampede his propaganda-weary audience.

As the woman who asked about the pardon for the border agents informed The Decider.... the Tennessee General Assembly has passed a resolution asking for such a pardon.

And So It Goes....

This may be the best news of the year so far.... "Senate Republicans Deliver Sharp Criticism of Gonzales"..... with Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) even suggesting that Attorney General "Gonzales's status as the nation's leading law enforcement officer might not last through the remainder of President Bush's term."

But then maybe not. Specter's modus operandi is dragging out a GOP Trojan Horse, loudly proclaiming a popular position in the town square, and then quietly letting the GOP malefactors loose to continue their stealthy dismantling of our country
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And, don't you feel there is something supremely unsatisfying about the conviction of Scooter... lying and obstruction of justice in the Plame-Wilson-yellow-cake leak investigation .... what about Cheney and his neocons lying the country into war?

But, perhaps the best result emerging from Libby's perjury conviction is best summed up: "What Has Happened to Dick Cheney?" The fact that Libby was Cheney's closest adviser adds another cloud to the gathering storm of speculation.... "Is the vice president losing his influence, or perhaps his mind?"

The one on the assent as Cheney's political teeter-toter sinks seems to be Sec. of State Condi Rice.... the Bush administration is making a sharp jump toward diplomacy abroad, even (gasp) talking to other nations.

The Decider's part in this new diplomacy front.... "Bush Embarks on Longest Trip to Latin America." Perhaps trying to dispel the devilish label that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez pinned on him last year at the U.N., he and Laura are winging their way to Brazil, Uruguay, Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico this week "to bring a message of hope, a message that says we care about the human condition....".

Or, maybe he is just escaping the D.C. political turmoil and starting the customary presidential lame duck world tour. Whatever.

The Decider needs new horizons, he's already muddied the pond of hope and care for the human condition in this country.

Trial Unlocking Iraqgate

What we have here is nothing less than Iraqgate. The breadth and consequences of the manipulation of facts to justify the invasion of Iraq makes Watergate pale into jay-walking-ticket insignificance.

The perjury trial of Scooter Libby, VP Cheney's right-hand man, is ferreting out this slimy trail of deception that leads directly to the White House.

"CIA former associate deputy director Robert Grenier averted his glance from the defense table where Libby sat as he joined the ranks of witnesses helping the prosecution paint Libby as a liar who tried to conceal his bosses' efforts to silence a war critic. Grenier's agency had repeatedly taken a beating from Cheney and Libby in the run-up to the Iraq war, with Cheney deriding the spooks as incompetent in finding evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction." (WaPo)

As Frank Rich points out in Sunday's New York Times, "Why Dick Cheney Cracked Up":

".... Dick Cheney lost it on CNN.... and barked 'hogwash' at the congenitally mild Wolf Blitzer" in an interview conducted "the day after the start of the perjury trial of Mr. Cheney's former top aide, Scooter Libby. The vice president's on-camera crackup reflected his understandable fear that a White House cover-up was crumbling. He knew that sworn testimony in a Washington courtroom would reveal still more sordid details about how the administration lied to take the country into war in Iraq....

"The White House [is] terrified about being found guilty of a far greater crime than outing a CIA officer, lying to the nation to hype its case for war. When Mr. Wilson, an obscure retired diplomat, touched that raw nerve, all the president's men panicked because they knew Mr. Wilson's modest finding in Africa was the tip of a far larger iceberg..... thanks to the commotion caused by the leak case, that damning evidence has slowly dribbled out....

"What we are learning from Mr. Libby's trial is just what a herculean effort it took to execute this two-pronged cover-up after Mr. Wilson's article appeared. Mr. Cheney was the hands-on manager of the 24/7 campaign of press manipulation and high-stakes character assassination, with Mr. Libby as his chief hatchet man."

Like a horror movie's monster octopus tentacles, the same falsifying of facts and propaganda are pulling the country into the bottomless depths of an expanded and extended war in Iraq.

Watergate brought down a president.

Iraqgate will hopefully rid us of the war's evil architect, Cheney, and his apocalyptic influence over future events.

Justice and over 3,000 U. S. heroes' now stilled voices demand it.

DC Sopranos Sing

..."sacrifice the guy that was asked to stick his neck in the meat grinder."

Is this a mob boss fingering his pigeon on the Sopranos?

In a way, yes....the political equivalent.

This message was given by "Tony" Cheney to "The Ba-Da-Boom Crew" instructing them that the fall guy for the leak that Valerie Plame was a covert CIA agent would be "Scooter" Libby, and not "Turd Blossom" Rove.... "Big Boss" Bush's front man.

Oh yes, Cheney is the capo trying to shield Bush from any connection to the crime.... the falsifying of intelligence that took us to war in Iraq and the perjury committed by Libby in trying to cover for his bosses. But the cops, in the form of Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, are slowly closing in.

You have to look no further than the response to a query posed by Wolf Blitzer (CNN) to Cheney about Cheney's pregnant gay daughter to see the real "Tony".... the stone wall and threatening-glare shot at a genuflecting Blitzer says it all. Archconservative Cheney's intimidation and refusal to discuss an obvious political paradox is exactly how he and his back room boys operate.

But, these political mobsters, despite all their strong-arm tactics, are being sucked into the legal vortex of Libby's perjury trial, exposing the corruption swirling through the Bush administration.

Matthew Cooper, Time magazine's White House reporter in the summer of 2003, told jurors yesterday that President Bush's top political aide, Karl Rove, was the first administration official to privately tell him that former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson was married to a CIA officer. (WaPo)

Looks like Turd Blossom is fingered after all.... now we want to hear all of the Sopranos sing!

Fleischer Has Libby For Lunch

Yesterday, after throwing his stink bomb.... "Former Press Secretary Says Libby Told Him of Plame".... a smirking Ari Fleischer strutted off the political stage once again.

Fleischer testified "Libby's 'hush-hush' disclosures over a lunch table in a White House dining room" were three days earlier than Libby had sworn to investigators he first learned of the undercover CIA officer, Valerie Plame, wife of Joseph Wilson who explored, and publicly declared false, White House touted reports that Iraq had tried to buy nuclear material in Niger.

"Fleischer, testifying under an immunity agreement with the prosecution, also made it clear that Libby had told him Wilson's wife held a position in the CIA's counterproliferation division, where most employees work in a covert capacity." (WaPo)

You may ask, how was it that Fleischer remembered this luncheon.

Because, Fleischer's lunch with Libby was their first ever and took place a week before Fleischer was to leave his White House job as press secretary. That's how. A first-time-ever lunch with Vice President Cheney's go-to guy would be memorable.

Since leaving his press secretary post in June 2003, Fleischer has remained a loyal White House advocate.

His style as White House mouthpiece was described by Ana Marie Cox in the Washington Post as a "smirking wall - mean, arrogant, indifferent, "... a "swaggering, eat-you-for-breakfast podium style."

So, it's a satisfying justice, watching the White House enablers eat their own.