Category: Politics

No great surprise I suppose, but it’s looking more and more obvious that Condoleezza Rice wasn’t exactly truthful in her testimony before the 9/11 panel this week, if today’s Washington Post report is to be believed. We’ll know for sure if (when?) the White House does release the PDB in question, but from all the leaks coming out, it certainly doesn’t sound like simply ‘historical’ material as it was described to the committee.

That said, I am by no means certain that 9/11 could have been prevented. It’s possible that an increased focus on domestic terrorism in the months leading up to 9/11 could have shaken loose enough of the data we had to “connect the dots” but it is by no means a sure thing.

What upsets me is that this administration is trying to take an attitude of total blamelessness for 9/11. Failures were “systemic”. Intellignece was not specific enough to be actionable. Principals were not asked to take actions. (Side note – maybe this is a Washington thing, but aren’t principals supposed to be the ones who decide to take actions, instead of waiting for their staff to tell them what to do?). Instead of saying, as Richard Clarke did, “We screwed up, we’re sorry.” they are saying, “We couldn’t have prevented it, so there’s nothing to apologize for.” That’s not good enough.

Arrogance is nothing new for this administration. But this is a time when it rings particularly sour.

I wasn’t planning on blogging any more about the 9/11 inquiries and Richard Clarke this week. As I’ve said before, 9/11 is a painful subject for me so I try not to stir the embers too often. But a friend, we’ll call her Patty, posted the following on a messageboard I frequent and she made a lot of sense.

i could give a rat’s ass about whose party did what. i rarely if ever get into these political threads because i can’t stand all the fingerpointing and nonsense. basically, what i’m trying to say is if you clear away all the bullshit on BOTH sides, what is happening in our government is frightening. unprecedented. everyone is too ****ing busy worrying about who did what to whom and what party is responsible to take a cold hard look at that shit. patriot act, no press conferences, no accountability whatsoever, staff jumping ship like there’s no tomorrow and consistently telling horror stories, LIES LIES LIES that pretty soon no spin in the world is going to cover or hide.

this is much more serious than a blowjob

i ask again, WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE??? it doesn’t matter whose SIDE you are on. any american should want answers. if they have nothing to hide, then they should be happy, no, PROUD to speak on the record re: their actions re: keeping america safe, blah blah blah. all his EFFORTS, all HE’S DONE. prove it then. let’s hear it. i want to, don’t YOU?

isn’t that what bush is going on and on about? isn’t that his bread and buttah stump speech? “i’ll save you, i know what i’m doing!”

okay then. show me your track record. TELL US. we’re listening.

hey, he was ELECTED. he is ACCOUNTABLE, as are his staff. to US.
put up or shut up. obviously they’re afraid of something or they wouldn’t be scurrying around like rats trying to dummy everyone the **** up.

Posted with permission. I bleeped out a bit of profanity.

Well, most of them are, if Richard Clarke is to be believed, and it certainly sounds like he’s credible. Anyone who read Bob Woodward’s “Bush At War” will not be surprised by Clarke’s charge that administration members wanted to invade Iraq as of September 12, 2001. Only now, the press seems more ready to pay attention to that fact.

There’s a great article at the Center for American Progress’ webaite detailing how Clarke is right and the Bushies are liars. Now, I’m well aware that this is a progressive website and there’s the danger of bias, but unless they’re lying in the quotes they cite, I’m pretty sure they’ve nailed this one. Here’s a sample:

CLAIM #1: “Richard Clarke had plenty of opportunities to tell us in the administration that he thought the war on terrorism was moving in the wrong direction and he chose not to.”

Well, maybe he’s not fat. But he got nailed flat-out lying on “Face The Nation” this weekend. I’ve added some emphasis but this is a verbatim transcript.
Source: http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/face_031404.pdf

Participants: BOB SCHIEFFER – CBS News, Secretary DONALD RUMSFELD – DOD, THOMAS FRIEDMAN – The New York Times

SCHIEFFER: Well, let me just ask you this. If they [Iraq] did not have these weapons of mass destruction, though, granted all of that is true, why then did they pose an immediate threat to us, to this country?

Sec. RUMSFELD: Well, you’re the–you and a few other critics are the only people I’ve heard use the phrase `immediate threat.’ I didn’t. The president didn’t. And it’s become kind of folklore that that’s–that’s what’s happened. The president went…

SCHIEFFER: You’re saying that nobody in the administration said that.

Sec. RUMSFELD: I–I can’t speak for nobody–everybody in the administration and say nobody said that.

SCHIEFFER: Vice president didn’t say that? The…

Sec. RUMSFELD: Not–if–if you have any citations, I’d like to see ’em.

Mr. FRIEDMAN: We have one here. It says `some have argued that the nu’–this is you speaking–`that the nuclear threat from Iraq is not imminent, that Saddam is at least five to seven years away from having nuclear weapons. I would not be so certain.’

Sec. RUMSFELD: And–and…

Mr. FRIEDMAN: It was close to imminent.

Sec. RUMSFELD: Well, I’ve–I’ve tried to be precise, and I’ve tried to be accurate. I’m s–suppose I’ve…

Mr. FRIEDMAN: `No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world and the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.’

Sec. RUMSFELD: Mm-hmm. It–my view of–of the situation was that he–he had–we–we believe, the best intelligence that we had and other countries had and that–that we believed and we still do not know–we will know.

Do people like Rumsfeld really think that people won’t call them on what they said in the past, that people will only believe what they’re told right now? How stupid do they think Americans are?

So Bush is going to push for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. In other words, he wants to use a document created to guarantee the rights of a free people to take away rights from one class of citizens.

You know, 50 years ago, most people would probably have voted to uphold Jim Crow discrimination laws. That didn’t make it right. Neither is this.

A sad day.

I still have trouble understanding why so many people like Kerry, but it’s been painfully obvious that most Democrats do not think Dean is the man to take back the White House.

Not that there’s anything short of a miracle that would keep me from voting for the Democrastic nominee come November. Anybody But Bush is the name of the game right now. But still, I would prefer to be enthusiastic about that nominee, as I was for Dean and for Clinton before him.

Maybe next time.

Followup: here’s a transcript of Dean’s excellent speech as he suspended his campaign today. Good stuff.