Very flashy, this release of Secret Bush Tapes

[Rose Siding]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/20/politics/20talk.html?hp&ex=1108875600&en=2791e4de2fc239a9&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Everyone with any juice at all would be fully aware of the bush clan's proclivity for longstanding vindictiveness. If Wead made the decision to go public independent of collusion with the bushies, this media fondling of jr's private activities will enrage them. What is worth that kind of political heat to another Republican?

Clearly, there are more tapes. "Mr. Wead said he withheld many tapes of conversations that were repetitive or of a purely personal nature." Kirkpatrick also writes that Wead "secretly taped some of their private conversations", which implies not all conversations were taped. -Bush can't know which were and which weren't.

I posit that other, reserved tapes may contain more incriminating remarks. Are these dozen tapes an open threat of blackmail that Wead makes? -a warning that other, damaging tapes exist and he's serious about releasing them? What does he want from Bush?

If the tapes are really a surprise to Jr, and these few are released now, what does that say? The timing is another thing to consider; just before the Europe trip. Does that give it more domestic play or less?

What else is going on that might require such a showy distraction? The story of w's youth in Scotland was widely revisited yesterday.

IMO, it's more likely that george w bush thoroughly showed himself and Wead has the goods. This is a power play by Wead and whatever faction within the GOP that has aligned with him.

[The Backlash Cometh]

1. You know what this all smells like to me?

I mean the Gannon cornucopia, the Bush tapes...it's almost like karma gave the GOP enough rope to hang themselves with.

[FreedomAngel82]

15. That would be so nice!

It always comes back to you.... I'll keep hoping and praying.

[rainbow4321]

31. Like maybe shrub will be regretting not going back to TX in Jan? n/t

[XanaDUer]

2. I just heard Chimpy's (terrible) imitation of Gore

on his drug taking.

My God, this man is a real piece of work, isn't he?

[Vinnie From Indy]

3. I think this is a planned distraction.

If this issue becomes big news guess which story will disappear even more than it has? You guessed it, it is the Jimmy Jeff Guckert story that will be crushed. The story about the tapes being held BY A BUSH FRIEND is controllable while Guckertgate is not. I think this is a designed distraction.

[Ready4Change]

8. I agree.

Killing an uncontrolled scandal with a controlled one.

[cruadin]

11. I think so too. These tapes are a little TOO...

vanilla. I mean there really doesn't seem to be anything there, other than the titillation of a "secret" tape recorder in these interviews.

If there's any shocking or damning info in these tapes (I mean, besides what we already know about shrub and his sophomoric humor) I haven't heard it. But, it serves to deflect attention from the press room performances of a paid "journalist", doesn't it?

[FreedomAngel82]

16. Wouldn't surprise me

With these people. I think the best thing is to keep persuing the Gannon/Guckert thing and if this happens it does.

[me b zola]

18. Dead on

Just more from the KKKarl propaganda machine.

[VOX]

38. Yes. There's NOTHING in these tapes that * supporters won't think is A-OK

Gonna get dirty on Democrats? Gonna play ball with the fundies? Gonna say "I've made some mistakes" when the drug issue comes up?

There isn't anything in these tapes that * supporters would find objectionable.

This "revelation" is as planned as building a model ship in a bottle.

[Bonhomme Richard]

4. Funny that it's timed with shrub out of the country.

This is sooooooo Rove.

[bluedog]

28. HATFIELD

remember the bush bunch tried to stop him from releasing his book about bush.....why now...does this guy release tapes that are suppose to be of his CLOSE friend bush?.....this makes no sense.........Rove is behind this because he knows bush has nothing to lose now.hes in the leadership position .as are the house and senate..........this is pure distraction ....to get peoples minds off of the Gannon issue......

[blm]

5. Bush would never be his completely evil self in front of Wead. Wead is one

of the Christian right who Bush was USING to help con...uh...craft his message to appeal to evangelicals.

The real Bush, the evil, manipulative, vengeful Bush comes out with Rove, Bartlett and his longtime fixer/hitman, James Bath.

[Rose Siding]

7. I think you're underestimating his megalomania

This is the same bush who told Condi "Fuck Saddam. We're taking him out" within earshot of someone who could get it into Time Magazine.

Like any true narcissist, he will expect others to behave within the attributes that he's determined them to have. This article actually does reinforce that pathology:

"It's me versus the world," he told Mr. Wead. "The good news is, the world is on my side. Or more than half of it."

[Last Lemming]

6. And Gannongate--

God what kind of horrible people are we all

Great evidence that Rice lied to the committee investigating 9/11--three thousand Americans died, and we are running around like rabid rabbits worried about who's sodemizing whom. . .

I never saw the uncensored photo--Is Gannon really eight inches?

[Syncronaut Seven]

9. No, centimeters

.

[robbedvoter]

10. "lucky" they didn't come up before the elections...like the Woodward book

that was on the reading list of W campaign site. Same style on both.
If anything, another "Gannonizing" of the media. By Rove.

[kentuck]

12. Why now ??

And who does he work for??

[Rose Siding]

14. It's a nuclear-sized tactic, isn't it?

-if that's what's happening. The very idea of "secret tapes" must chill the blood. So it would be something big.

Maybe the selection of the 08 candidate? Or some looming foreign policy direction? I don't see any current, specific domestic policy as getting any faction so drastically riled, but some of them are nutty so who knows?

Who is more powerful right now than a man who *everyone knows* possesses a number of undisclosed, taped converstions with the pres of the US?

[Vinnie From Indy]

23. These tapes are a distratcion, a ginned up controllable scandal PERIOD

Who is more powerful right now than a man who *everyone knows* possesses a number of undisclosed, taped converstions with the pres of the US?

That person would be Karl Rove who called this guy and said, "Hey, we need to run the tape story we talked about so we can knowck this GannonGate thing down the memory hole."

[Rose Siding]

27. Maybe but would Rovians trust something like this to a former Amway

businessman and associate of Jim and Tammy Faye Baker? It's pretty off-the-wall.

[Ashamed_American]

25. Rose,

that's "nuculer."


www.BlackEyedSundays.com

[Rose Siding]

26. I'm mortified

[texastoast]

13. Houston Chronicle softballed it big time

There was a tiny little article about it on page A20 this morning. It highlighted all of the pro-Bush statements made in the tape, such as (paraphrasing), "I don't want kids using drugs like I did." "I can't judge gays because I'm a sinner too." Yada yada.

[bush_is_wacko]

17. Secret tapes? Funny how they ALWAYS tend to lead to

IMPEACHMENT proceedings.

Information overload is giving me the impression THIS movement is ON!

Read a Nixon impeachment book and you will recognize the road map.

The ethics rule changes led to one unexpected glitch. I think it is being overcome. As long as they don't tell anyone they're investigating it they have all the time in the world to do it. Once they announce they are moving toward impeachment proceedings they have 2 months to indict!

This is going to go down FAST!

[PurityOfEssence]

21. You're dreaming

These guys are going to goose-step along with their leader to the very end. He is a lame duck, but that also makes him politically bulletproof: he never has to stand for election again. Because of that, he can invade Syria, bomb Iran, run some more coups in Venezuela until he has to invade, destroy Social Security, crush labor unions, make business immune from any prosecution, and generally run willy-nilly.

If anything blows up, it blows up on him, and the rest of the reactionaries have a certain amount of cover by having made qualified statements and symbolic protests. Meanwhile, they get their way, and maintain power.

Do you SERIOUSLY think the current monarchists would ever impeach him?

[bush_is_wacko]

30. If they thought their names would be connected to THIS scandal?

Darn' Tootin' I do!

Politically bulletproof? No such thing. Politicians eat their own on a regular basis to keep their secrets. Chimpy is nothing but a mouthpiece to them. You'd be surprised how quick they can turn tail on him.

On edit: I'm speaking of the Guckert scandal and this just adds more fuel to a fire that seems to be growing out of control. There is a lot of screeching and shuffling going on right now. If there is even the slightest indication these tapes and the Guckert scandal are going to go public bush's benefactors are going to through him to the wolves.

[donsu]

19. Yeah, what's in it for Wead

why would Wead just bebop out with these tapes as if.

[liberal N proud]

20. When will all of America finally wake up and see bu$h for what he is?

Here is a similar article on MSNBC:
Private tapes shed light on candidate Bush
Conversations on political foes, drugs recorded by old friend
The Associated Press
Updated: 9:36 p.m. ET Feb. 19, 2005
NEW YORK - Private conversations with George Bush secretly taped by an old friend before he was elected president foreshadow some of his political strategies and appear to reveal that he acknowledged using marijuana, The New York Times reported Saturday.

The White House did not deny the authenticity of the tapes.

“The governor was having casual conversations with someone he believed was his friend,” White House spokesman Trent Duffy said, referring to Bush.

So that makes what he was doing OK?
When will they come out of the trance and call for his head?

[nookiemonster]

22. When this shows up on the front page so quickly,

you can safely assume that this is nothing but a distraction from the GG story.

MSM has no shame.

[Rose Siding]

24. How much do we know about Wead?

There's this about Moon- last yr (?)...

Sun Myung Moon's Infiltration into the Churches

On January 19 there was an Inaugural Prayer Luncheon for Unity and Renewal at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Washington D.C. Tickets cost $100. The Washington Times Foundation sponsored the luncheon. As is often the case the committee that sent out the letter for the luncheon was not part of the Washington Times Foundation. They included Doug Wead. Doug Wead is an unpaid political adviser. Larry Zillioz was kind enough to send me some background on Wead. Doug Wead is an unpaid political adviser. While Bush has shunned many of his father's old political advisers, Wead is one exception. During the Bush administration, Wead, ordained as an Assemblies of God minister, served as a liaison to various groups, including the evangelical community. He is now reaching out to gather evangelical support for the younger Bush. In an interview with the Center, Wead acknowledged that Bush turned to him during the intense media scrutiny over rumors of cocaine use. "I'm a friend, and he did call me that week. I'm not in his inner circle," Wead said.

Wead is a motivational speaker, an author and business consultant based in Irving, Texas, near Dallas. In the past he's been viewed as a religious extremist. When he ran for Congress in Arizona calling himself a "Goldwater Republican," Barry Goldwater, objecting to his views, endorsed the Democrat, who won. He lost his job at the White House when he objected that the Bush staff had invited a number of gay groups to the signing of hate crime bill, according to the Arizona Republic. His popularity with the evangelical community is a valuable asset to Bush, who is said to call him regularly. Wead is credited with Bush's strong showing in the Iowa straw poll last August.

According to the New Republic, Wead helped George W. Bush's brother, Neil, after the government investigation of the Denver-based Silverado Savings and Loan. Neil had sat on the thrift's board, but he was not prosecuted. Wead, according to the newspaper, offered him a share of his lecture-circuit business.

http://www.cephasministry.com/moons_infiltration_into_the_evangelical_church.html

SBC leaders ‘shocked’ that prayer luncheon was sponsored by Unification leader

WASHINGTON (BP) -- Evangelical leaders, including many Southern Baptists, said they were unaware that the Jan. 19 Inaugural Prayer Luncheon for Unity and Renewal was sponsored by Sun Myung Moon, founder of the Unification Church.
The prayer luncheon, held in Washington, featured more than 1,400 of the nation’s leading ministers, civic and political leaders, including SBC President James Merritt, Executive Committee President and CEO Morris H. Chapman, and Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission President Richard Land.

Merritt, who delivered a tribute to evangelist Billy Graham, said he was stunned to learn that the event was sponsored by Moon’s church.
“We knew that it was going to be an interdenominational event, but we had no idea that the luncheon was hosted by the Moonies,” said Merritt, pastor of an Atlanta-area church. “My invitation to the event came through Doug Wead.”
Wead, a former White House senior staffer for George Bush, was one of the organizers of the luncheon. In his invitation to Merritt, no reference was made of Moon’s participation or sponsorship. Wead could not be reached for comment.
http://www.cephasministry.com/moons_infiltration_into_the_evangelical_church.html

He supported TBN's Crouch during his sex scandal:
snip>
He said the network received unsolicited backing from dozens of Christian leaders who called or e-mailed their support, including author Josh McDowell; Doug Wead, a onetime advisor to former President George H.W. Bush; and singers Pat Boone and Carman.

On Sunday, The Times detailed the fierce legal battle that Crouch successfully fought to keep secret a 1998 agreement that paid Enoch Lonnie Ford $425,000 in exchange for staying silent about his allegations of a sexual encounter between him and Crouch in 1996 at a TBN-owned cabin near Lake Arrowhead.

When Ford wrote a manuscript last year that contained details of his allegations, Crouch went to court to enforce the 1998 agreement.
http://www.yuricareport.com/Dominionism/PaulCrouchAttemptsToKeepAccuserQuiet.html

snip>
The younger Bush also had the services of Doug Wead, an Assemblies of God minister for two decades, formerly associated with Amway, singer Pat Boone, and televangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker...
http://www.miami.com/mld/observer/news/8742904.htm

You really have to ask yourself if Rove et al would actually pick a former Amway businessman to work with on something like this.

[HR_Pufnstuf]

32. Hail to the Moon King

Hail to the Moon King

"The deeply weird coronation of Rev. Sun Myung Moon
in a Senate office building -- crown, robes, the works --
is no longer one of Washington's best-kept secrets."

full:
http://www.yuricareport.com/Dominionism/MoonIsCoronatedKing.html

[librechik]

29. the rest of the tapes will be donated to the George W. Bush library

(according to Wead) and treated like the rest of his presidential files--never to see the light of day again, no doubt.

[DemGa]

33. This is a distraction, I'm disgusted --nt--

[ClayZ]

35. Check out the Protests in Brussels, they want us distracted from that too!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1252119

[Orangepeel]

34. I would have said "FISHY"

I don't for a minute believe that this supposed old friend decided to betray him now. The White House asked him to release the tapes, which were probably produced with the bush campaign's full knowledge.

Consistent with this beief, I just heard David Gregory said that it was remarkable how similar what the then governor said on tape was to how he actually ran the campaign.

[Disturbed]

36. So called Christian ethics.

Tape a someone's convo secretly and then release that to the Whore Media.

Does anyone really believe that The Bush Junta didn't know about this in advance?

The Silverspoon Sociopath says that gays are sinners as he is so it's not right to kick them. How sweet.

These tapes do no damage to the little Dicktator. They are a distraction to sidetrack the Propogannon scandal.

[0007]

37. Isee absolutely nothing but bullshit in this story.

39. front page of the HimalayanTimes in Kathmandu

My massage therapist asked me today about Bush smoking marijuana! Not, however about any gay hustlers being let into the White House under a pseudonym and the consequent security breach.