Sid Blumenthal: Bush's brand new enemy is the truth

[Teddy_Salad]

Clarke's claims have shaken the White House to its foundations

http://www.guardian.co.uk/september11/story/0,11209,1177418,00.html

[reprehensor]

1. Go Sid! n/t

[papau]

2. 4 great paragraphs

But his account need not stand on his reputation alone. Clarke was not the only national security professional who spanned both the Clinton and Bush administrations. General Donald Kerrick served as deputy national security adviser under Clinton and remained on the NSC into the Bush administration. He wrote his replacement, Stephen Hadley, a two-page memo. "It was classified," Kerrick told me. "I said they needed to pay attention to al-Qaida and counterterrorism. I said we were going to be struck again. They never once asked me a question, nor did I see them having a serious discussion about it ... I agree with Dick that they saw those problems through an Iraqi prism. But the evidence, the intelligence, wasn't there."

Rice now claims about terrorism that "we were at battle stations". But Bush is quoted by Bob Woodward in Bush At War as saying that before September 11 "I was not on point ... I didn't feel that sense of urgency". Cheney alleges that Clarke was "out of the loop". But if he was, then the administration was either running a rogue operation or doing nothing, as Clarke testifies.

Bush protests now: "And had my administration had any information that terrorists were going to attack New York City on September 11, we would have acted." But he had plenty of information. The former deputy attorney general, Jamie Gorelick, the only member of the 9/11 commission to read the president's daily brief, revealed in the hearings that the documents "would set your hair on fire" and that the intelligence warnings of al-Qaida attacks "plateaued at a spike level for months" before September 11. Bush is fighting public release of these PDBs, which would show whether he had marked them up and demanded action.

The administration's furious response to Clarke only underscores his book. Rice is vague, forgetful and dissembling. Cheney is belligerent, certain and bluffing. In Clarke's account, as in the memoir of former secretary of the treasury Paul O'Neill, Bush is disengaged, incurious, manipulated by those in the circle around him; he adopts ill-conceived strategies that he has played little or no part in preparing. Bush is the Oz behind the curtain, but unlike the wizard, the special effects are performed by others. Especially on terrorism and September 11, his White House is at "battle stations" to prevent the curtain from being pulled open.

[DustMolecule]

4. I question paragraph 4

Bush is the Oz behind the curtain,

Wouldn't 'Cheney is the Oz behind the curtain' be a - little bit - more accurate at the very least....

What is his role in all of this? I personally suspect it is quite huge!!!

edited: for 'bolding'

[T_i_B]

5. Something for the Clinton fans

Terrorism was a Clinton issue: "soft" and obscure, having something to do with "globalisation", and other trends ridiculed from the Republican party platform. "In January 2001 the new administration really thought Clinton's recommendation that eliminating al-Qaida be one of their highest priorities, well, rather odd, like so many of the Clinton administration's actions, from their perspective," Clarke writes in his new book, Against All Enemies. When Clarke first met Rice and immediately raised the question of dealing with al-Qaida, she "gave me the impression she had never heard the term before".

[papau]

6. Never put into control the D student that got through via legacy

The average IQ of the US Executive dropped 20 points with the Bush gang.

[teryang]

3. The truth was always his enemy n/t

[snippy]

7. Agreed. The truth is not a "new" enemy to Bush.

Bush is the most compulsive and incessant liar in the history of American politics.

John McCain has an illegitimate Negro daughter and Richard Clarke had complete access to Bush and Rice which proves that Clarke was out of the loop which is Clinton's fault even though everyone except Bush himself knows where he was during his Alabama National Guard service which was after he volunteered to go to Viet Nam which is Clinton's fault but before he was no longer required to take a flight physical and the 60 lines of embryonic stem cells prove that republican science is better than sound science but the Bush administration did not reveal the identity of a covert CIA operative which resulted in 2,000,000 new jobs being created because democrats support terrorism and are not good Americans just as the Jews were not good Germans which is Clinton's fault and the White House is cooperating with the 9/11 commission since Bush did not ignore either the repeated warnings of the dangers of al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden or the August 6 2001 intelligence briefing specifically warning of the upcoming 9/11 attacks because the mission of the United States is to bring freedom to every single person in the world which will cut the deficit in half if you do not count those parts of the deficit which will increase under Bush which is Clinton's fault but the boxes from China were labeled "Made in USA" which resulted in 2,600,000 new jobs being created even though the $400 billion decorative medicare turkey was not labeled $550 billion which proves that government spending has gone down if you do not count the increased government spending under Bush which is Clinton's fault and Bush's plane to Baghdad was spotted because before Saddam bought the uranium and became an urgent but not imminent threat which is Clinton's fault Bush had no plans on his desk to invade Iraq since the aircraft carrier was too far offshore for the Navy to make a large enough banner to describe the WMD we have found in Iraq some of which Saddam was giving to Osama for following Saddam's plans and using Iraqi hijackers on 9/11 which is Clinton's fault but everyone who pays income taxes got a tax cut which created 3,000,000 new jobs and allowed Iraqi oil revenue to pay for the cost of the reconstruction of Iraq after the invasion by a small number of troops who would be greeted with floral program related activities except for the dead and wounded brought home secretly which is Clinton's fault since Bush is the one who hugs the mothers and the widows and the wives and the kids and that is why Bush who is responsible for good economic numbers but not bad economic numbers which is Clinton's fault wrote the poem that he did not write blaming Laura for dropping the dog.

There is no subject so somber, serious, or shallow that Bush will not lie about it. The only other option is not to lie. And that is something Bush can not do.

Ridiculing Bush for his compulsive and incessant lying needs to become common, especially among Americans who do not follow politics. Ridiculing Bush for his administration's compulsive and incessant law breaking needs to become common among Grand Jurors.

FIRE THE LIAR

[teryang]

8. That about covers it!

This regime makes me ill.

[drhilarius]

9. did anyone see

all of rummy's press conference. I only caught the last 10 minutes of his spinning class.

[newyawker99]

10. Hi drhilarius!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast: