October 3, 2003 PERMALINK
Out of Spin
Almost
(posted Oct. 3 1:15 AM ET)
In April, LiberalOasis argued that if there were no WMD, the Bushies would plant the evidence.
In July, LO conceded that if they were going to plant evidence, they would have done it already. But David Kay, who was sent to head up the search, could exaggerate whatever shreds of evidence he found.
Yesterday, Congress received Kayâs preliminary report.
Did he exaggerate? Kinda sorta.
To read his verbatim testimony, it almost seems like he tried to exaggerate it, but just had so little to work with.
He tried to explain why he was empty-handed by stressing how WMD evidence is easy to hide, key people have left the country, people are shooting at his staff, Iraqâs really big, he needs more time, blah blah blah.
And he also tried to be optimistic.
For example, he says his team has ãbegun to unravel a clandestine network of laboratories and facilitiesä and ominously notes that it ãwas never declared to the UN and was previously unknown.ä
So he got the goods? Well, no.
Said Kay, ãWe are still working on determining the extent to which this network was tied to large-scale military efforts or BW [biological warfare] terror weapons.ä
Obviously, this approach didnât work.
Congresspeople on both sides of the aisle werenât buying. The media were
unimpressed.
(NBC Nightly News aired this unflattering exchange:
REPORTER: Have you found any weapons of mass destruction?
KAY: I barely found lunch.)
And even Don Rumsfeld is starting to lose faith:
Itâs not clear that [the intelligence] was off by a little bit or a mile at this stage.
If it is off by a lot, that will be unfortunate, and then weâll know that.
Translation: Oh, well. Weâll get it right on the next war.
So the Establishment is starting to rub its eyes and realize that this whole exercise was a bloody tragic multi-billion dollar farce.
In turn, the GOP needs some new spin, so the entire rationale for the Bush presidency doesnât completely disintegrate.
On CNNâs Crossfire yesterday, Tucker Carlson appeared to be test-running the latest defense:
If this is true, in this report, when we finally see what is in it. And it turns out there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
That means the Bush administration was wrong, Hillary Clinton was wrong, Hans Blix was wrong, Jacques Chirac was wrong.
It's a big deal. And they ought to admit it.
For the moment, forget about the factual accuracy regarding what each person believed.
The overall message from Carlson is clear:
Pretty much everybody, pro-war and anti-war. thought Saddam had WMD. So donât go blaming the pro-war folks for this.
Of course, this completely ignores a key point of the argument against pre-emptive war.
Itâs one thing to think a rogue state has WMD. Itâs another to know it.
And thatâs what liberals were demanding before the war: proof.
A hunch doesnât cut it when youâre talking about war.
Those calls grew louder once the inspectors went back in, and couldnât find anything significant.
Now, while Washington debates whether this was an intelligence failure or intelligence manipulation (the truth is probably some of both), thereâs a larger lesson that should be learned.
Since intelligence is not perfect by its nature, perhaps it shouldnât be used as the sole justification for invading sovereign nations, killing thousands of civilians and sacrificing American soldiers.
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October 2, 2003 PERMALINK
Who Loves Special Counsels?
John Ashcroft Does
(posted Oct. 1 8:45 PM ET)
(minor edit Oct. 1 11:45 PM ET)
The hot topic continues to be if Attorney General John Ashcroft should appoint a special counsel to head up the investigation of The Leak.
68% of America says yes.
Well, how does John Ashcroft feel about it?
Letâs go to the videotape. October 4, 1997. CNNâs ãEvans & Novak.ä
(Robert Novak was off that day, sorry ironists).
The issue was allegations of fundraising violations by Al Gore:
ASHCROFT: The truth of the matter is that if the law's been violated, we should be able to ascertain that.
We can, if we have an independent person without a conflict of interest·
ROWLAND EVANS: ·The attorney general has shaved down all the allegations that Vice President Gore apparently down to one single allegation -- which telephone he used to make these fundraising calls from.
Do you really think that alone is worthy of a special prosecutor?
ASHCROFT: ·you know, a single allegation can be most worthy of a special prosecutor.
If you're abusing government property, if you're abusing your status in office, it can be a single fact that makes the difference on that.
So my own view is that there are plenty of things which should have caused [Attorney General Janet Reno], a long time ago, to appoint a special prosecutor, an independent investigator.
We asked for that on March the 13th of this year in letters from Republican members on the Judiciary Committee. And she's in a bad position·
·The man who signs her check is the man that she's investigating, and she hasn't been very aggressive about it.
Letâs review.
Ashcroft is not an ãindependent person without a conflict of interest.ä
A potential suspect, Karl Rove, once worked for Ashcroft, and ãthe man who signs [his] checkä is someone heâs investigating.
And we have ãa single allegationä of ãabusing [oneâs] status in office.ä
So by Ashcroftâs own standard, he cannot ãascertainä ãif the lawâs been violated.ä
Now, itâs still LiberalOasisâ take (most certainly a minority one among liberals) that it is not a given that Ashcroft would cover up White House wrongdoing.
And that Ashcroft, as an ambitious politician who is not especially close to Bush, his aggressiveness would depend on how Beltway Republicans were treating the scandal.
Furthermore, it still looks to LO that a lot of GOPers have their finger in the wind, and last eveningâs W. Post poll shows the wind in Bushâs face.
But since Ashcroft is on record about when special counsels should be appointed, reporters need to ask him:
Will he be following his own standards in handling this investigation?
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October 1, 2003 PERMALINK
Where's the GOP?
Calling Frist, DeLay, Hastert...
(posted Oct. 1 1:15 AM ET)
The general view inside the White House among senior staff is that this is going to create a few rocky political days, that it's mainly the Democrats pushing it, and that if all the Republicans stay on board, the story goes away," said a Republican worker with close ties to the White House.
-- NY Times, 10/1/03
As of now, thatâs more a cry for help than a statement of confidence.
Because the Republicans are not ãon boardä yet.
In Day 2 of the full-blown phase of The Leak, nearly all GOP politicians continued to lay low and let Bush defend himself.
Bush had only one defender hit the circuit, RNC Chair Ed Gillespie, who appeared at least on CNNâs Inside Politics, MSNBCâs Hardball and ABCâs World News Tonight.
(His basic message: Justice Dept. investigation, great! Amb. Joe Wilson, Dem party hack! By the way, we donât even know if anything happened.)
And the only elected GOP official who spoke out yesterday, to LiberalOasisâ knowledge, was Sen. Mitch McConnell, also on Hardball.
Gillespieâs and McConnellâs talking points were not fully coordinated, in particular on the question of a special counsel.
On CNN, Gillespie said:
·in the past, we've seen many of the same Democratic members of Congress who have talked about, ãWe don't need outside counsels. We don't need special counsels.ä
And, in fact, opposed an independent counsel act. All of a sudden now [they say], ãOh, we ought to have one of those.ä And it's pure politics.
While McConnell indicated that a special counsel wouldnât be so bad:
The career professionals down at the Justice Department, who are incorruptible and not subject to being manipulated by either side, are in the process of initiating this investigation·
·and if the bureaucrats down there·believe that a special counsel is warranted, they will recommend that to the Attorney General.
And I donât have a doubt in my mind that he will go along with it·
Further, Gillespie is intentionally blurring the facts by using ãindependent counselä and ãspecial counselä interchangeably. Theyâre different.
The independent counsel law, which expired in 1999, allowed for counsels who were appointing, not by the Attorney General, by a three-judge panel. And they had unlimited funding (a big reason why the law was scrapped.)
A special counsel, the only current option, would be appointed by the Attorney General and would serve at his pleasure.
Despite the discrepancy on that issue, there is one thing that both of them did. Or, more accurately, did not do.
Neither of them truly defended the White House. Neither insisted that there was no wrongdoing at high levels of the Administration.
That would indicate they expect someoneâs going to take a fall, and they donât want to dirty themselves in the process.
In fact, on Fox Newsâ Special Report, Bill Kristol, while giving the caveat ãif someone did [this]ä, went as far as to say:
·someone thinking this through now has to realize this is going to come out·
·I wouldnât be surprised to see a resignation in the next few days.
Though in LOâs view, with the possibility of a 10-year jail sentence, a pre-emptive resignation would seem hard to quickly engineer.
(Atrios spots other conservatives breaking from Bush.)
Bush may be able to get more GOPers to join in the smears of Wilson that Gillespie was spreading on all of his appearances.
But thatâs a sideshow, trying to mitigate damage, not eliminate it.
It wonât stop the media frenzy of a ãcriminal investigation.ä
Especially since there arenât yet any Republicans willing to fully get ãon boardä and make the case that the investigation won't bag big White House game.
And that may be because there isnât much of a case to be made.
(UPDATE 10/1/03 9 AM ET -- The NY Times today quotes House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Rep. Peter King and Sen. John McCain about The Leak.
All make mild defenses of the White House, but no one argues that no top official is guilty.)
QUICK HIT
While yesterday, LiberalOasis argued that an Ashcroft investigation doesnât automatically mean the ãfix is in,ä the DNC blog Kicking Ass is spotting some questionable Ashcroft activity in the early stages.
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September 30, 2003 PERMALINK
Is the GOP United?
(posted Sept. 30 1 AM ET)
The best thing to do is to have a very thorough and very fast investigation, find out what happened.
And, if what we think may have happened did happen, identify and fire and prosecute those people.
If the best way to get it done well and get it done fast is to turn it over to an independent counsel, then I say turn it over to an independent counsel.
-- Victoria Clarke, Fmr. Bush Pentagon Spokeswoman
CNN, Paula Zahn Now, 9/29/03
You may recall that it was George Stephanopoulos, recently departed from the White House, who was the first Dem to say ãimpeachmentä following the Monica revelation.
That jacked up the frenzy level, giving the removal of the president plausibility in the eyes of the media.
Clarkeâs statement on The Leak may not get the same level of attention. But it is just as relevant.
It is an indicator that some Republicans will not be willing to fall on the sword for Bush at the expense of national security principles.
Similarly, on CNNâs Crossfire, the GOP wasnât even organized enough (or committed enough) to send a polished spokesperson to defend the Administration.
Instead, backbencher congressman Jack Kingston gave a limp defense:
PAUL BEGALA: You supported an independent counsel when the Democratic agriculture secretary got football tickets for free.
Surely, as a man of integrity, which you are, you will support an independent investigation of this alleged treason.
KINGSTON: Paul, if the case moves in that direction, then I think you will see something like that on a bipartisan basis.
But at this point that we're at right now, we don't know exactly what her role is·
·If it becomes apparent that maybe the Democrat fears that Ashcroft isn't going to be thorough enough and there's evidence to say this is a big, big cover-up, this is a Bush problem, then we will take it from there.
But at this point, that's where we are yet.
You can be sure those messages were not handcrafted by the White House or the RNC.
This is not to say there isnât a defense happening in some corners.
The National Review ran two pieces yesterday trying to discredit Amb. Joe Wilson.
And Rush Limbaugh used their work to push the same point ö all ignoring the charges of illegality by the Bushies.
(The Weekly Standard, at this writing, seems to be holding back, posting no pieces on this yesterday. Though its Executive Editor, Fred Barnes, was giving the National Review line on Fox News yesterday)
But weâre not hearing top elected GOP officials take this route yet. In fact, we havenât heard from top GOPers at all.
This doesnât appear to be a unified front.
And if that dynamic remains, and the GOP is split or hesitant, that will put Attorney General John Ashcroft in an interesting position.
Many Dems are calling for a ãspecial counsel,ä arguing Ashcroft canât be trusted to conduct a fair investigation.
But under the rules, a special counsel would report to him anyway.
Unless he recuses himself for conflict of interest purposes (like he did regarding Enron), he canât be extricated from the process.
Does that mean the fix is in? Not necessarily.
Yes, he is a disaster on civil liberties, and was a loathsome right-wing Senator.
But he is not especially tight with Bush.
He has had ãtenuous relationsä with Bush at times, and was not Bushâs first choice for the job.
And if there are enough GOPers that are repulsed (a la Poppy Bush) by the outing of a CIA official, Ashcroft may not feel pressured to conduct a phony investigation.
In fact, he may find it politically advantageous for himself to show off some independence.
This is not to say that Ashcroft is so decent and reputable that he wouldnât cover for Bush. He may well might.
But it will hinge upon how his fellow Washington GOPers react over the next few days.
If more and more people sound like Victoria Clarke, Bush will lose control over this process, and heads will likely roll.
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September 29, 2003 PERMALINK
The Sunday Talkshow Breakdown
A weekly feature of LiberalOasis
(posted Sept. 29 12:30 AM ET)
The double scoop from the Sunday W. Post ö the Justice Dept. investigation of the White House illegally naming a CIA operative, and the House investigation of the Iraq intel failure ö shook up the shows.
As a result, Condi Rice and Colin Powell ö previously scheduled to hit most shows ö faced questioning that was tougher than usual.
In general, hosts let them get away with recycled talking points.
But in a twist, Meet the Pressâ Tim Russert was the fiercest of them all, while This Weekâs George Stephanopoulos flinched.
Stephanopoulos faced Powell, who was ripe for a pummeling.
This past week, a Feb. â01 Powell quote resurfaced:
[Saddam Hussein] has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction.
He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors.
Soon after that, the NY Times recounted an exchange between Powell and its editorial board:
·Asked whether Americans would have supported this war if weapons of mass destruction had not been at issue, Mr. Powell said the question was too hypothetical to answer.
Asked if he, personally, would have supported it, he smiled, thrust his hand out and said, "It was good to meet you."
But Stephanopoulos (unlike his ABC colleague Diane Sawyer earlier in the week) completely neglected to raise the â01 quote in the interview.
And while his interview partner George Will brought up the NYT incident, without coupling it with Powellâs â01 admission, it was easy to duck.
Powell said, unchallenged:
It was a question being asked as I was walking out of the room.
Stephanopoulos did ask Powell about the Iraq intel revelation.
The W. Post reported:
Leaders of the House intelligence committee have criticized the U.S. intelligence community for using largely outdated, "circumstantial" and "fragmentary" information with "too many uncertainties" to conclude that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and ties to al Qaeda·
But Powell, instead of addressing the substance of the letter, just dismissed it, and shifted to their familiar line of argument:
Saddamâs done lots of bad things, so it was reasonable to go to war assuming he did this bad thing.
Specifically, Powell said:
Two weeks ago today, I was in Halabja [where] in March of 1988, Saddam Hussein gassed the people with VX, with sarin, nerve agents, and it killed 5,000 people in one day; that was 15 years ago.
Now, if you want to believe that he suddenly gave up that weapon and had no further interest in those sorts of weapons, whether it be chemical, biological or nuclear, then I think you're -- it's a bit na•ve to believe that.
But of course, there are other explanations that donât rely on Saddam suddenly becoming a nice guy.
Stephanopoulos should know.
He raised one theory while questioning Don Rumsfeld back in July -- that Saddam thought it would show weakness if people knew he had no WMD.
The current Time magazine also suggests Saddam might have been bluffing, that he was duped by his own scientists, and that not everything destroyed is accounted for because of sloppy record-keeping.
Yet Stephanopoulos didnât challenge Powell on any of these scenarios.
(Over at CNN, Judy Woodruff was a little tougher on Powell regarding his â01 quote, but also let Powell off without raising other scenarios why no one can find WMD).
In fairness to Stephanopoulos, he spent more of his time pressing Powell on the $87B request and the inability to get foreign assistance.
Still, he inexcusably missed some big openings.
Meanwhile across town, Russert was relentless (if not quite merciless) with Condi Rice.
He piled the missing David Kay report on top of Powellâs â01 quote and the House intel debunking, then asked pointedly:
Was the premise of the war based on faulty or hyped intelligence?
And after the familiar resuscitation of talking points, Russert simply rebutted:
What if the intelligence was just plain wrong?
He didnât stop. Proclaiming that ãthe administrationâs credibility is on the line,ä he did a full-blown revisiting of the ã16 wordsä in the January State of the Union.
He aired Riceâs June defense, on MTP, that ãno one in our circles knew that there were doubts and suspicionsä about the Niger allegation.
Then Russert said flatly, ãthat has proven to be wrong,ä noting that her deputy acknowledged getting two CIA memos disputing the allegation in Oct. Î02, and that Condi herself received one of them.
Condiâs retort? By January, everybody forgot about the Oct. memos, and Condiâs not even sure she read hers. Therefore:
We are trying to put now in place methods so you donât have to be dependent on peopleâs memories for something like that.
Well, thatâs a relief.
Russert also brought up the White House leaks exposing an undercover CIA agent -- broken earlier by MSNBC, but advanced significantly by the W. Post yesterday.
In turn, Russert succeeded in embarrassing Rice, who wouldnât say much more than itâs ãup to the Justice Departmentä what happens next.
However, it was Tony Snow on Fox News Sunday that did the most probing.
And Condi danced and danced and danced:
SNOW: Well, when the story came out·was it known in the White House that she was a CIA employee?
RICE: I'm not going to go into this, Tony, because the problem here is this has been referred to the Justice Department·
SNOW: Well, but it is revealing, or it's important to figure out what the White House reaction was at the time.
For years and years and years, for instance, the administrations chased Phillip Agee all around the globe because he had revealed the name of a CIA officer. This is a grave offense·
·did the White House take any action, back then in June, when the story appeared?
RICE: Well, it was well known that the president of the United States does not expect the White House to get involved in such things·
·
SNOW: But there was nobody at the White House at the time who was saying, "Oh, we've got a problem here"?
RICE: Tony, I don't remember any such conversation·
[Just like how she doesnât remember the CIA Niger memo!]
SNOW: Do you think the White House should release phone logs, if necessary, to figure out who talked to whom?
RICE: Tony, as a matter of course, when the Justice Department is looking into something, of course the White House cooperates.
They should know about phone logs.
It took the White House about 24 hours to tell the neocon Weekly Standard that Wesley Clark never called Karl Rove.
This could get interesting·
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