Month: February 2007

Libby Closing Arguments: Both Sides Put Bush Administration on Hot Seat

Jon Ponder

Too bad nothing will come of it:

In his closing argument, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the chief prosecutor, said that disclosure of Ms. Wilson’s identity was used by the White House to discredit her husband’s assertions that the Bush administration had distorted intelligence to justify invading Iraq. He said the disclosure of her name cast a cloud over the Bush White House in general and over Mr. Cheney in particular.

But Mr. Wells argued for the defense that when Ms. Wilson’s name was first disclosed in the summer of 2003, Mr. Libby had been so preoccupied with growing questions about the inability of United States forces in Iraq to find any unconventional weapons, a principal justification for going to war, that he did not have time to pay attention to the issue of Ms. Wilson.

“The wheels are falling off the Bush administration,” Mr. Wells said. “Thousands of young kids are on the ground there. It’s a crazy period.”

And:

Mr. Fitzgerald seemed for the first time to lend his weight publicly to the assertion by critics that Ms. Wilson’s identity was disclosed to punish Mr. Wilson and undermine his credibility.

Mr. Fitzgerald said the disclosure of Ms. Wilson’s identity had left “a cloud over the White House over what happened” as well as a cloud over Mr. Cheney because he had been behind the effort to counter Mr. Wilson’s charges.

Neither Mr. Libby nor anyone else was charged with unlawfully disclosing Ms. Wilson’s identity. But Mr. Libby was charged with misleading the grand jury and investigators.

“Don’t you think the American people are entitled to a straight answer?” Mr. Fitzgerald asked of the jury. He said that “a critic points fingers at the White House and as a result his wife gets dragged into the newspapers.”

He said Mr. Libby “made a gamble, he threw sand in the eyes of the grand jury” rather than tell the truth and risk being prosecuted for leaking her name.

Britain to Pull 2,100 Troops from Iraq

Jon Ponder

The Brits are leaving Basra:

[U.K. Prime Minister] Tony Blair today declared that “the next chapter in Basra’s history will be written by the Iraqis,” as he announced that 1,600 British troops would be withdrawn in the coming months.

The current total of 7,100 would be reduced first to 5,500 and then to 5,000 by the end of the summer, the prime minister told parliament in a special statement on Iraq.

But he did not specify a time in 2008 when all UK troops would be withdrawn

The British withdrawal could escalate beyond these numbers after Blair leaves office at the end of the summer.

Fratboy-in-Chief Threatened to Sodomize Bin Laden

Jon Ponder

This is sourced to Ariel Sharon, a Bush ally:

“I will screw him in the ass!”
— Pres. Bush

Speaking of George Bush, with whom Sharon developed a very close relationship, Uri Dan recalls that Sharon’s delicacy made him reluctant to repeat what the president had told him when they discussed Osama bin Laden. Finally he relented. And here is what the leader of the Western world, valiant warrior in the battle of cultures, promised to do to bin Laden if he caught him: “I will screw him in the ass!”

Sounds like our guy — likes towel snaps and fart jokes, and was caught on tape speaking with his mouth full in an expletive-laden conversation with Tony Blair.

But is it a Freudian slip?

Investigation Finds Rev. Ted Haggard Hit on Men in Congregation

Jon Ponder

Earlier this month, Rev. Tim Ralph, one of the ministers charged with degayifying self-hating homo evangelist Ted Haggard announced that Haggard had been completely cured, and anyway, he only had sex with the gay prostitute and no one else:

We have verified the reality of that struggle through numerous individuals who reported to us firsthand knowledge of everything from sordid conversation to overt suggestions to improper activities to improper relationships.

In investigating Haggard’s assertion that his extramarital sexual contact was limited to former male escort Mike Jones, the board talked to people close to Haggard and found no evidence contradicting him, Ralph said.

“If we’re going to be proved wrong, somebody else is going to come forward, and that usually happens really quickly,” he said. “We’re into this thing over 90 days, and it hasn’t happened.”

Well, Rev. Tim, it has now. The people in charge at Haggard’s former mega-church have done what they say is a “reality verification” on their former leader, and it appears Ted may need further degayification:

“[We] have done extensive fact-finding into his lifelong battle with a ‘dark side’ which he said in his confession letter has been a struggle for years,” Pastor Larry Stockstill, part of the church’s board of overseers, told the 14,000-member congregation Sunday.

“We have verified the reality of that struggle through numerous individuals who reported to us firsthand knowledge of everything from sordid conversation to overt suggestions to improper activities to improper relationships. These findings established a pattern of behavior that culminated in the final relationship in which Ted was, as a matter of grace, caught,” he said.

Stockstill did not elaborate…

None needed. Ted was perving on men in his church, and even leading some of them astray. Looks like Pastor Ted has a lot more gay to pray away.

Snow: Bush Knew About Horror at Walter Reed – But Did He Care?

Jon Ponder

Tony Snow was awfully casual about the fact that Pres. Bush knew about the horrid conditions at Walter Reed hospital’s Building 18:

In today’s press briefing, a reporter asked White House Press Secretary Tony Snow about the Washington Post’s two-part series over the weekend, highlighting the Walter Reed hospital’s dilapidated conditions. Snow stated that “the president certainly has been aware of the conditions in the wards where he has visited, and visited regularly.” Snow also affirmed that the administration was aware of Walter Reed’s conditions “before the articles appeared in the paper.”

So Bush knew wounded soldiers were living in rat- and cockroach-infested squalor at the military’s flagship hospital and yet he did nothing about it. In fact, no one did anything about it until the Washington Post ran an expose.

What Are Giuliani’s Foreign Policy Credentials?

Jon Ponder

In Los Angeles, a city prone to both manmade and natural catastrophes, we don’t make saints out of our politicians when they don’t screw up in the aftermath of a disaster. I guess it’s different in New York.

Other than doing what mayors do when their cities suffer disasters — ie. his job — I will never understand how Rudy became “America’s Mayor.” And I’m even more flummoxed why anyone thinks such a narcissistic, authoritarian jerk should become “America’s President.” But I am notoriously missing the Republican delusion gene.

The biggest head-scratcher is that not screwing up after 9/11 somehow confers onto Giuliani expertise at foreign policy for which there is no other apparent basis. So what are his foreign policy credentials?

Everybody knows the basics. On Sept. 11, 2001, he rolled up his shirt sleeves and gave reassuring speeches. He has a tough guy persona. He expresses extremely strong disapproval for enemies of the United States. (For instance, Giuliani has bragged about asking President Bush to let him personally execute Osama bin Laden.) All this makes Republicans swoon…

If having a macho swagger and talking tough about bad guys were enough to make a good commander in chief, we wouldn’t have the worst foreign policy disaster in U.S. history on our hands right now in Iraq. And, need I remind anybody, one of the reasons Giuliani hasn’t been able to fulfill his Bin Laden execution fantasy is that Bush allowed the Al Qaeda leader to escape at Tora Bora by using Afghan proxies instead of U.S. ground

And then there is this:

Last week, Giuliani said that Lincoln had “that ability that a leader has — a leader like George Bush, a leader like Ronald Reagan — to look into the future.”

There’s that delusional thing again. It wouldn’t surprise me to see Rudy’s outrageous comparison of Bush to Lincoln popping up in a campaign ad before the 2008 campaign is over.

Romney Caught Flagrantly Misrepresenting on ABC

Trish

Mitt Romney’s dots don’t connect. That was painfully clear in his recent interview with George Stephanopoulos on This Week.

Every straight question George asked was answered sideways by Romney. He had a “yes, but,” a “not exactly,” and a “O.K., but let’s talk about now” for every query. The most interesting oratory gymnastics by the Republican presidential candidate concerned his membership — including being a bishop, the president of Boston Area Parishes, and a two-year missionary in France — in the cult of Mormonism.

Mormons: “It is our belief that the new Jerusalem will be established within the state of Missouri.”

Stephanopoulos: I just have one more question about this and it has to do with the Muslim world.

In your faith, if I understand it correctly, it teaches that Jesus will return probably to the United States and reign on earth for 1,000 years. And I wonder how that would be viewed in the Muslim world. Have you thought about how the Muslim world will react to that and whether it would make it more difficult, if you were president, to build alliances with the Muslim world?

Mitt Romney: Well, I’m not a spokesman for my church. I’m not running for pastor in chief. I’m running for commander in chief.*

So the best place to go for my church’s doctrines would be my church.

Stephanopoulos: But I’m talking about how they will take it, how they will perceive it.

Mitt Romney: I understand, but that doesn’t happen to be a doctrine of my church.

Hold on there, pard. Even though you went on to claim that you only voted for Democrat Paul Tsongas because you were a registered Independent; and that you were pro-choice but now you’re pro-life except not that much because it should be up to each state to decide; and that you used to favor allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military but since Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is working so well, now you want them to hide their sexual orientation; and that you supported the Brady Bill’s three-day waiting period but now we don’t need it since we have faster computer systems so you joined the NRA a few months ago…even though you wormed you way through all that and more, you were just flat wrong or lying about the Jesus coming to America bit.

[…]

Scaife Funded ‘Arkansas Project’ to Destroy Clinton, Now Says He Was a ‘Pretty Good’ President

Jon Ponder

In the 1990s, Pittsburgh billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife provided at least $1.8 million to fund the “Arkansas Project,” a conspiracy to dig up dirt on Bill and Hillary Clinton in their home state. The project was successful in that it eventually led to the snaring of Pres. Clinton and Monica Lewinsky in a perjury trap, and their sex lie under oath led to his impeachment.

Rightwingers like to blame the September 11 attacks on Pres. Clinton, saying he was distracted by his personal problems. This is bull, of course. But if it were true, the real culprits would include Scaife, Olson and Tyrrell.

Another result of the Arkansa Project was that it softened support for Clinton’s would-be successor, Vice Pres. Al Gore, thus paving the way for the Bush administration and six diasastrous years of conservatives’ corrupt control of the government, as well as the war in Iraq, which has been called the worst foreign policy blunder in U.S. history.

Now, however, an aide to Scaife says the reclusive billionaire has changed his mind about Bill Clinton:

Christopher Ruddy, who once worked full-time for Mr. Scaife investigating the Clintons and now runs a conservative online publication he co-owns with Mr. Scaife, said, “Both of us have had a rethinking.”

“Clinton wasn’t such a bad president,” Mr. Ruddy said. “In fact, he was a pretty good president in a lot of ways, and Dick feels that way today.”

The purpose of the Arkansas campaign was to hobble the Clinton presidency by spreading lies, half-truths and rumors about the Clintons. According to sources that include the invaluable, “Hunting of the Presidency,” by Joe Conanson and Gene Lyons, the Arkansas Project operated out of the offices of the American Spectator magazine, a mouthpiece for rightwing ideology. Another good source for this story is David Brock, whose book, “Blinded by the Right,” describes how he worked as a “hit man,” writing deliberately false news stories about the Clintons’ personal lives at the behest of American Spectator and its editor-in-chief, Emmett Tyrell Jr.

(Brock has repented and now runs the liberal watchdog organization, Media Matters for America.)

The administrator of Scaife’s funding for the Arkansas Project, according to these and other sources, was Ted Olson, a longtime pal of Whitewater inquisitor Ken Starr. There is much speculation, along with some evidence, that Olson or his minions fed Starr’s Whitewater investigation information collected by the Arkansas Project. This connection was a key element of the “vast rightwing conspiracy” Hillary Clinton referred to during her appearance on the Today Show on January 27, 1998.

Olson’s late wife Barbara was one of the rightwing blondes in the 1990s that included Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham and Kellyanne Fitzpatrick Conway, who used their virulent hatred of the Clintons to became media stars. Barbara Olson wrote an anti-Hillary screed titled, “Hell to Pay: The Unfolding Story of Hillary Rodham Clinton.” (She died onboard the plane that hit the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.)

In 2000, Ted Olson argued for the Bush-Cheney campaign in Bush v. Gore at the Supreme Court, thus delivering the presidency to the man who will forever be known as the Worst President Ever. Olson was rewarded by being named Bush’s first solicitor general, a post once held by his friend, Ken Starr.

Rightwingers like to blame the September 11 attacks on Pres. Clinton, saying he was distracted by his personal problems. This is bull, of course. But if it were true, the real culprits would include Scaife, Olson and Tyrrell, who drummed up moral outrage about the president’s peccadillos. Other presidents, including the current president’s father, have reportedly had affairs while in office without the intrusion of public scrutiny.

Now that Scaife has seen the light, it seems that the least he could do is offer a full accounting of what was done in his name, and with his money, in connection with the “get Clinton” project.