Huffington on Bush Lies, again...and again....and again

Here's what Ariana Huffington has to say about the Rove and Libby treason. Alternet also has a great post on the coming civil suit by Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame that will bring down the Bush White House. Can't wait.

It's getting hard to keep track of all the lies we've been told. Here's a quick cheat sheet:

We now know that Cheney lied to the American people about his involvement in the effort to smear Joe Wilson.

Three months after reportedly receiving a briefing about Wilson's trip to Niger from George "Slam Dunk" Tenet, and then telling Scooter Libby that Plame may have helped arrange her husband's trip, the Vice President went on national TV and told Tim Russert he didn't have a clue about the situation: "I don't know Joe Wilson ... I don't know who sent Joe Wilson ... I have no idea who hired him and it never came up."

We now know that Karl Rove lied about his involvement, too.

Back in September 2003, when Rove was asked if he had "any knowledge" about the Plame leak, he answered with an unambiguous "No."

Since then, we've learned that Rove was actually up to his Turd Blossom in Plamegate, discussing Plame and her role at the CIA with Matt Cooper and Bob Novak, and taking part in what a source familiar with his four visits to the grand jury characterized as "an aggressive campaign to discredit Wilson through the leaking and disseminating of derogatory information regarding him and his wife."

We now know that Scooter Libby also lied about his involvement.

Libby told Pat Fitzgerald that he first learned Plame's identity from Tim Russert. But his own notes show that it was actually his boss, Dick Cheney, who first clued him in about Plame. (Russert, of course, has said he learned of Plame's identity by reading Novak's column, but that's a conundrum for another blog!).

And we now know that Rove and Libby also lied to Scott McClellan, who then -- knowingly or not -- lied to reporters about the two men's involvement.

When pressed today about the fact that in October 2003 he had "categorically" assured reporters that Rove and Libby "were not involved" in the Plame leak, McClellan made it clear that he was just passing on "the assurances that I had received on that." In other words, I only lied to you because they lied to me.

Potential Bonus Presidential Lie: In June 2004, when asked whether he stood by his promise to fire anyone found to have leaked Plame's identity, President Bush (taking a cue from Rove) answered with an unambiguous "Yes." But the New York Daily News reports that Bush knew that Rove was involved in the leak two years ago. So why, a year later, was he still acting like he had no idea who'd been involved?

Let's put aside the legal arguments for a moment and just focus on this glut of lying. Clearly, these guys knew that what they were up to should be kept in the shadows. Hence Rove's desire to have his conversation with Cooper be kept on "double super secret background," his self-assessment that he'd "already said too much" to Cooper, and Libby's request that Judy Miller identify him as a "former Hill staffer" instead of the usual "senior administration official."

Cheney, Rove, and Libby obviously felt that their actions had to be covered up.

But what they were covering up was much more than the outing of Valerie Plame. They were covering up the way the White House had used lies and deception to lead us into a war that was reckless and unnecessary -- what Lt. Gen. William Odom, National Security Agency director under Reagan, has called "the greatest strategic disaster in United States history."

The reason why Cheney, Rove, and Libby were so aggressive in attacking anyone who questioned their rationale for war is because, by the summer of 2003, it was becoming embarrassingly clear how wrong they had been about Iraq -- wrong about WMD, wrong about flowers thrown at our feet, wrong about the cost of the war. Had their incompetence not been so grotesquely manifest, there would have been no need for the attack on Wilson -- and the resulting coverup -- that has now landed them all in such legal hot water.

If Rove and Libby are indeed indicted (adding Cheney to our Merry Fitz-mas gift list would just be getting greedy), I believe it will shake up our government in a way we haven't seen since Watergate.

To borrow a phrase from that era, let me make myself perfectly clear: I'm not saying that Plamegate is the same as Watergate. I'm saying it's worse. Much, much worse. No one died as a result of Watergate, but 2,000 American soldiers have now been killed and thousands more wounded to rid the world of an imminent threat that wasn't.

Could there be anything bigger?

After getting a fumbling cipher like George W. Bush elected president, the powers-behind-the-throne must have believed they were untouchable and could get away with anything -- including lying about WMD, outing a CIA agent, and, perhaps, lying to a special prosecutor.

Like Nixon, their mindset was "if you try to get in our way we'll destroy you." (See how quickly those keep-us-safe national security guys were willing to jeopardize an intelligence asset in the name of covering their asses.) And their hubris caused them to over-reach.

Like my old Greek pal Icarus, they flew too close to the sun... and now it looks like they, and their multitude of lies, are about to come crashing down.

Now Insiders Are Getting the Truth About Bush

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/19/AR2005101902246.html

Washington Post chronicles Powell's chief of staff at State frustration and anger at the ineptitude and arrogance (what a combination) of the Bushies, especially Cheney and Rummie.

Why America is Still Racist Even if Not Malignantly So

Answer this question before you read the link. Who commits more crime in America? White folks or black folks?

http://www.alternet.org/rights/26507/

When New Orleans flooded after Katrina had passed through, the national media, the local media, hell just about everybody, saw pictures of black folks obtaining the necessities of life during a time of the collapse of all public and private services, businesses, etc. That some people didn't get why there were people left in New Oleans after the mandatory evacuation order demonstrated their ignorance of the reality of poverty. That some people called the same activity looting when done by black people and "finding something to eat for their families" when done by white people is obviously racist.

These assumptions demonstrate why America is still racist, even if that racism is no longer the malignant in your face racism of Reconstruction and the KKK that lasted well into the 20th century. It is now the racism of unexamined assumptions; assumptions that have 150 years of lies undergirding them.

How did you answer the question at the top of this post?

Understand this. Black people constitute about 12% of the population of the United States. What does your answer tell you about yourself?

Code Words and The Wing Nut Right

Cross posted to Daily Kos

Reading Kos's post on Republican code words and the lunatic right wanting to be out of the closest, reading all the comments and especially one about compromise and the Civil War starting me on this meditation.

There's more below the fold.

• sww92498's diary :: ::
• 
  

Of course, the Civil War started because the slave interest (the intellectual and historical antecedents to the current Right Wing in America) would not compromise. Lincoln was elected with the stated platform of leaving slavery alone where it currently existed, but not allowing it to be extended into newly acquired territories. The US had tried compromise; the Missouri Compromise, and the Kansas-Nebraska Act tried to compromise by balancing slave and free territory. South Carolina seceded due to Lincoln's election which would have left South Carolina with their "peculiar institution" but not allowed slavery to expand any further.

While the country probably could not have weathered the secession of the red states back in 1860, what would happen if the lunatic Right got pissed off again and threatened to leave and take their Red States with them.

Here's my daughter's take on the question. Let them go their unhappy way.

Dear Red States :

We're glad you're leaving. We'll have California,
Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and all the Northeast. We believe this split will be beneficial to the people of the new country of New California. (She's from California: obviously Arnold would have to go). You Red States will have one another.

To sum up briefly:
You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states.
We get stem cell research and the best beaches.
We get Elliot Spitzer.
You get Ken Lay.

We get the Statue of Liberty.
You get OpryLand.
We get Intel and Microsoft.
You get WorldCom.
We get Harvard.
You get Ole' Miss.

We get 85 percent of America's venture capital and
entrepreneurs.
You get Alabama.

We get two-thirds of the tax revenue.
You get to make the red states pay their fair share.

Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22 percent lower than the Christian Coalition's, we get a bunch of happy families.
You get a bunch of single moms.

Please be aware that Nuevo California will be
pro-choice and anti-war, and
we're going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at once. If you need
people to fight, ask your evangelicals. They have kids they're apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose, and they don't care if you
don't show pictures of their children's caskets coming home.

We do wish you success in Iraq, but we're not willing to spend our resources in Bush's Quagmire.

With the Blue States in hand, we will have firm
control of 80% of the country's fresh water, more than 90% of the pineapple and lettuce, 92% of the nation's fresh fruit, 95 % of America's quality wines (you can serve French wines at state dinners) 90 % of all cheese, 90% of the high
tech industry, most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy League and Seven Sister schools, plus Stanford, Cal Tech, and MIT.

With the Red States, on the other hand, you will have to cope with 88% of all obese Americans (and their projected health care costs), 92% of all U.S. mosquitoes, nearly 100% of the tornadoes, 90% of the hurricanes, 99% of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100% of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia.

We get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you.

Additionally, 38% of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62% believe life is sacred unless we're discussing the death penalty or gun laws, 44% say that evolution is only a theory, 53% that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61% of you crazy bastards believe you are people with higher morals than we lefties.

By the way, we're taking the good pot, too. You can have that dirt herb they grow in Mexico.

Sincerely,

Author Unknown in New California

So maybe we just let them go.

Hurricane Katrina and George Bush

'Nuf Said

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=cartoon+Homeland+Security