Day: September 10, 2005

Secret 9/11 Report Lays Blame on Former CIA Head Tenet; Will Tenet Retaliate with a Tell-All about Bush?

Jon Ponder

Tenet reportedly struck a deal with the president in which he turned down a $4.5 million offer to write a tell-all book in return for Bush’s promise that he wouldn’t be blamed for intelligence failures. Is he surprised that Bush has renegged?

Broken promise: A secret report on 9/11 intelligence failures within the CIA that lays blame on the agency’s former leaders could result in retaliatory revelations about White House shenanigans related to the “fixing” of pre-war intelligence and, perhaps, the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame.

The report, which was prepared by the CIA’s Inspector General, allegedly lays the blame for pre-9/11 intelligence lapses on former CIA Director George Tenet and other current and former top agency officials.

The document recommends establishing an “accountability board” to investigate whether Tenet and his team were aggressive enough in going after the al-Qaida network, and how he handled squabbles over the sharing of intelligence between the National Security Agency and the CIA.

In response, Tenet hired a lawyer and prepared a 20-page rebuttal to the report in which he denies assertions of the witnesses against him and questions the lack of interviews with people who might have presented a countervailing view. Tenet’s response is also classified.

Sources close to Tenet say that before he resigned, he struck a “wink and nod” deal with President Bush in which Tenet turned down a $4.5 million advance to write a tell-all book in return for Bush’s promise that the intelligence failures would not be laid on Tenet. The deal was reportedly sealed when Bush awarded Tenet the Presidential Medal of Freedom in December 2004.

We have to wonder if Tenet could be gullible enough to believe that Bush would keep his end of the deal – or maybe Tenet believed that what he knows about Bush was enough to ensure the president would keep his word.

But now the big question is – has Tenet called his publisher to see if the $4.5 million offer is still open for the tell-all book.

Poll: Bush Drops to 38% Approval in Newsweek Poll

Jon Ponder

Still way too high: MSNBC has announce that in the new Newsweek poll, President Bush’s approval rating has dropped to a career low of 38 percent in any major poll we are aware of. The disapproval rate for his job performance is 55 percent, which MSNBC says is the highest percentage the president has received in Newsweek polling.

The poll data were not yet available online, as of 10 AM, PDT.

Update: RAW STORY got the data.

Bush Feared Visit Among Black Hurricane Victims

Jon Ponder
“If I’m Karl, do I want the visual of black people hollering at the president as if we’re living in Rawanda?”

He’s not their president: How can any African-Americans still support this president:

One prominent African-American supporter of Mr. Bush who is close to Karl Rove, the White House political chief, said the president did not go into the heart of New Orleans and meet with black victims on his first trip there, last Friday, because he knew that White House officials were “scared to death” of the reaction.

“If I’m Karl, do I want the visual of black people hollering at the president as if we’re living in Rwanda?” said the supporter, who spoke only anonymously because he did not want to antagonize Mr. Rove.

Limbaugh ‘Flubs’ NOLA Mayor’s Name: ‘Nayger’

Jon Ponder

Shameful: Has the leading light of the conservative movement exposed his true colors? It appears that the GOP’s spiritual leader – the Honorary Member of the Gingrich Congress – has exposed the ugly truth about himself, his personal ignorance and the corruption of modern consevativism.

Listen for yourself as Rush Limbaugh repeatedly refers to New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, as Mayor “Nayger.”

Powell ‘Devastated’ By False Report He Gave U.N.

Jon Ponder

Admits guilt: Thousands of people have died as a result of President Bush’s war of whim in Iraq. Now former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who leant his credibility to the campaign to convince the American public that Iraq was a threat that required neutralization, has admitted that the facts he presented to the United Nations were false.

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell said Thursday his prewar speech to the United Nations accusing Iraq of harboring weapons of mass destruction was a “blot” on his record.

“I’m the one who presented it to the world, and (it) will always be a part of my record. It was painful. It is painful now,” Powell said in an interview with Barbara Walters on ABC News.

The presentation by the soldier-diplomat to the world body in February 2003 lent considerable credibility to President Bush’s case against Iraq and for going to war to remove President Saddam Hussein.

In the speech, Powell said he had relied on information he received at Central Intelligence Agency briefings. He said Thursday that then-director George Tenet “believed what he was giving to me was accurate.”

But, Powell said, “the intelligence system did not work well.”

“There were some people in the intelligence community who knew at the time that some of those sources were not good, and shouldn’t be relied upon, and they didn’t speak up,” Powell said.

“That devastated me,” he said.