The slam dunking of Liar-in-Chief Bush & His Stenographer Fred Hiatt

[understandinglife]

Larry Johnson, eriposte and Jane Hamsher (and many folk commenting at their respective blogs) make this the Sunday of grandly stuffing the liar-in-chief along with one of his many loyal DC stenographers.

Firstly, Jane Hamsher:

For years now the GOP machine has succeeded in strong-arming the Washington Post into legitimizing their propaganda, dribbling out sensational disinformation during Whitewater to the hacktackular Sue Schmidt to put on the front page without skepticism or question. Over time they have provided easy, sleazy copy and traded "access" to the point that it has fueled an empire of mediocrity where only the people willing to limbo low enough and shape the news to Karl Rove’s satisfaction are rewarded with the scoops that trigger seniority. Both editors and reporters alike know their only ability to ascend the hierarchy comes from emulating supreme access pimp and BushCo. dupe Bob Woodward in a slavish devotion to stenography and the propagation of disinformation.

The new Washington Post editorial, an enormous turd that editorial page editor Fred Hiatt no doubt wrote, is such an unmitigated piece of BushCo. propaganda, such a giant bag of bullshit it deserves to be taken apart, piece by piece and beaten into the ground. Armando has a rundown of Hiatt’s bloodthirsty warmongering for which the paper will one day soon be held to account. But today’s editorial on the BushCo. leak shows just how the Post is earning its reputation for being just a few shades less reliable than PRAVDA:

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Much more of Jane's Does Fred Hiatt Even Read The Washington Post at the link:

http://www.firedoglake.com/2006/04/09/does-fred-hiatt-even-read-the-washington-post

Now, eriposte at The Left Coaster:

The Washington Post has a deeply fraudulent editorial defending Bush's involvement in the NIE leak. It's not just that they get the facts wrong, but by a fair accounting this editorial involves deliberate lying that also specifically excludes contradictory information, much like what George Bush did - and the editor who wrote this is clearly guilty of journalistic malpractice. I don't have time to go through every detail, so I'll just mention a couple of things. (All emphasis in quoted portions is mine). (Other bloggers have posted some rebuttals as well)

The WP editor who wrote this piece of garbage says:

PRESIDENT BUSH was right to approve the declassification of parts of a National Intelligence Estimate about Iraq three years ago in order to make clear why he had believed that Saddam Hussein was seeking nuclear weapons.

Clearly, the editor hasn't read his own paper and should be fired. After all, I pointed out the moment Fitzgerald's filing became public that Libby, and by extension Cheney and Bush, were deliberately misrepresenting the portion of the NIE that Libby leaked:

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The full report by eriposte in A Washington Post Editor Caught Brazenly Lying: When is this going to stop? is at:

http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/007321.php

And, Larry Johnson takes the long pass and stuffs both Bush and Hiatt:

Today's Washington Post has a genuine barn burner of an article that settles the case that George Bush deserves impeachment. He lied to the American people and the world during his 2003 State of the Union Address when he claimed that:

“The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa .”

Up to this point the Bush apologists tried to argue he did not lie, but was simply reporting what the intelligence community was telling him. Now we know -- HE LIED.

The Senate Intelligence Committee already has reported that the White House was warned not to use the Niger info. Now, according to the Washington Post, we learn that President Bush was warned specifically by the CIA in January, just a few weeks before the State of the Union, that the Niger story was not true.

Specifically, the story by Gellman and Linzer notes:

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More of Larry's George Bush, A Slam Dunk Liar at the link:

http://noquarter.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/04/george_bush_get.html

It is simple.

George W. Bush willfully violated National Security to cover-up his willful launch of a war of aggression and illegal occupation of Iraq.

And, it is now abundantly clear that Hiatt and much of the editorial and executive management of The Washington Post are going to get to share a gulp from the "Nuremberg chalice" with their colleagues Sulzberger, Keller and Miller, of course after standing in a very long line of neoconsters headed by Bush, Cheney, Rummy and Condi.

Do take a moment or two to express yourself at WaPo's blog (so many are!).

And, do be sure to read DUer Sparkly's excellent comparative analysis of the WaPo Editorial vs the Gellman/Linzer report.


If You're pro-Bu$h, You're Anti-America

[understandinglife]

1. "Do they think we are going to just swallow this bit of idiocy whole?"

http://www.firedoglake.com/2006/04/10/and-the-reason-was

No way ....


Peace.

[stop the bleeding]

2. It's effing insulting n/t

[blm]

3. The Washington Post has long been a mouthpiece for BushInc and has used

its occasional honest and proDemocratic articles to pass itself off as a real newspaper.

[understandinglife]

4. "But here's the problem for the White House. There is no such section."

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So, after three days, they've settled on their spin: the President authorized discussion of the NIE but left all the details to Cheney and his aides.

The problem with this strategy is that Libby was quite specific in his testimony about what he was authorized to say. According to Fitzgerald, Libby testified that he was "specifically authorized in advance of the meeting to disclose the key judgments of the classified NIE to Miller." Later Fitzgerald notes:

Defendant understood that he was to tell Miller, among other things, that a key judgment of the NIE held that Iraq was "vigorously trying to procure" uranium.

So, according to Libby, he was authorized to discuss the key judgments section of the NIE, specifically the part that said Iraq was "vigorously trying to procure" uranium.

But here's the problem for the White House. There is no such section.

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More of Anonymous Liberal's Bush's Catch-22 at the link:

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/04/bushs-catch-22.html

That's the problem with lying ....


If You're pro-Bu$h, You're Anti-America - and you dig traitors

[stop the bleeding]

6. 04/06/06 - from Firedoglake - said the same thing

http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:yQVJW6qLxwAJ:www.firedoglake.com/2006/04/06/bush-authorized-libby-nie-release-to-press/+key+judgments+firedoglake&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1


about the lack of key judgments

[understandinglife]

8. Yes. Thank you for posting that link!

Peace.

[stop the bleeding]

9. we should be thanking you

the research that you put forth in this post and all of the others is a vital component in the war of disinformation

Peace!

[Beetwasher]

5. That Editorial Is One of the Most Filthy, Blatant, Disgusting Pieces of

Propoganda I've ever seen. It's sick and demented.

The WP needs to be held accountable for this brazen atrocity.

[understandinglife]

7. "The answer is obvious: No. Such a misuse of authority is the very essence

... of a criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States. It is also precisely the abuse of executive power that led to the impeachment of Richard M. Nixon." - Elizabeth de la Vega

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The Bush administration increasingly has all the charm -- and given its ever-sinking polling figures, all the popularity -- of a late Byzantine court. So let me turn the rest of this Toad's Wild Ride of an inside-the-Beltway Imax 3-D extravaganza over to former federal prosecutor Elizabeth de la Vega. Let her direct you to the right questions to ask to unravel our present magical mystery tour of this labyrinth of a case in which, it looks increasingly apparent, Bush and Co. have lost their way.

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Link to Elizabeth de la Vega's Final Jeopardy: Asking the Right Question About the President's Involvement in the CIA Leak Affair:

http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=76008

Abuse of power.

Violations during 'war' of the National Security Act of 1947, 18 USC 793, EO12958, IIPA, at a minimum, and all for political purposes.


It's Tribunal Time in the United States of America

[understandinglife]

10. White House spins, but Waas blocks

White House spins, but Waas blocks
by smintheus
Sun Apr 09, 2006 at 09:43:07 PM PDT

The story in Monday's NYT, based upon the assertions of an anonymous White House source, is a blatant attempt to distance George Bush from the Plame leak. There are several elements to the spin that the source is dishing up, but the most substantial point, at first glance, is that Bush authorized the disclosure of parts of the NIE in June, 2003. If true, that would be days before Libby set to work, in early July, doling out tidbits of (still?) classified intelligence while simultaneously outing Valerie Plame.

So Bush is in the clear? Hardly. A report by Murray Waas from February 2nd has the goods on what the White House was doing in mid to late June, 2003. And what would that be? Obsessing about the holes in the Niger story, and planning how to cope with Joseph Wilson's activities in exposing those holes.

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It was this obsession of Cheney and Libby in May and early June, then, that caused the CIA to generate the June 17th memo. Waas reports that a few days after the memo was written, both Cheney and Libby were informed about it.

In other words, the concerted effort to block, circumvent, undermine, or otherwise confront the danger that Joseph Wilson's revelations might pose for the White House had begun at least a month before Wilson actually published his op-ed. No matter if Bush can walk his decision to declassify (parts of) the NIE back into late June, therefore. It does nothing to distance Bush from the concerted effort inside the White House to find something to do about what Wilson knew and was already telling.

Links:

http://smintheusblog.blogspot.com/2006/04/white-house-spins-but-waas-blocks.html

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/4/10/0437/46077

Message to Bu$h - You are going to jail.


Peace.

[Norquist Nemesis]

11. Just heard on Thom Hartmann they've alloted $3 BILLION

for "propoganda" aimed toward U.S. citizens. Now, why would they need to propogandize the U.S. citenzry? (rhetorical question)

This came from Victoria (lastname?) who is part of the WH press corps.

[mod mom]

12. The media is complicit in promoting this faux presidency.

We saw it from the beginning of the coup in 2000 and it has continued through this day. They blatantly lie despite proof indicating the truth. Fred Hiatt must have truly been caught in some compromising acts to write that trash. Unbelievable, as usual.

[understandinglife]

13. Former CIA General Counsel: "That's not declassification, that's a leak."

Bush's Search for Leakers Leads to His Mirror

by Margaret Carlson on 10 April 2006

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There's a process for declassifying information outlined in the Executive Order on the subject, which the president followed 10 days later when he released the whole National Intelligence Estimate.

What he did on July 8 was something quite different, according to Jeffrey H. Smith, a former CIA general counsel. ``Declassification is a formal act and the courts are clear on how it's done,'' Smith says. ``Instead, here selective portions of the NIE were released to a single reporter. That's not declassification, that's a leak.''

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If there's justice in the world, the clip of Bush's promise to hold the leakers responsible will replace, or at least accompany, every replay of the tape of Bill Clinton's ``I didn't have sexual relations with that woman'' whopper. Bush joins Richard Nixon and O.J. Simpson and all the other Hall of Fame hypocrites who made such a to-do over searching far and wide for the miscreants they saw in the mirror each morning.

Link to full article:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=washingtonstory&sid=aA0KoKrk5.Ec

No where to hide Georgie boy ... no where.


Peace.

[understandinglife]

14. Think Progress on the White House, WaPo disinformation tag team

White House Uses Washington Post Editorial To Defend Bush Leak

This weekend, the Washington Post wrote an editorial defending President Bush’s smearing of Joseph Wilson. The Post editors mangled the facts and failed to note — as their political writers did — that Bush deceptively leaked intelligence information despite knowing it had been disproved months before. ().

One might be tempted to dismiss the effect that a mere 575-word editorial can have on the public debate. But it is already being peddled peddled by the White House to misinform the public. Here’s the product of the White House’s efforts –

More at the link:

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/04/10/falsehood-into-cv

Caught.


Peace.

[understandinglife]

15. Froomkin: "Is the president telling the truth? Is he a hypocrite?"

Under what circumstances did he take the country to war, and how far was he willing to go to cover them up? Can the president be trusted to distinguish what's truly in the national interest, as compared to what's simply in his political interest?

What's clearly needed now is full disclosure, on the record, starting at the very top.

More of Some Explaining To Do by Dan Froomkin at the link:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/04/11/LI2005041100879.html

Yep.

And, maybe WaPo senior management should place Dan Froomkin in charge of their editorial board, for starters.


Peace.