Category: Weaponsgate

Poker-faced Liars.

“Editors: Can you show us your cards? Cheney: Sure. One of them’s a six.” By way of Value Judgment, experience the tribulations of poker with Dick Cheney. “Cheney: We will show you our cards after we have collected the pot. It is important that things be done in this order, otherwise the foundation of our entire poker game will be destroyed.” Update: In semi-related news, the Supreme Court bails out Cheney 7-2 on the energy task force documents, although they also decided to punt the case back to a lower court. Hmmm.

Bouncetime for Bonzo.

Dubya jumps in the polls after Reagan’s photo-op funeral, and decides to celebrate by lying about Iraq and 9/11 all over again. C’mon, y’all Republican moralists out there…Where’s the outrage? Clinton was impeached for far less, and we already know the Baptists won’t put up much of a fuss.

Technical Difficulties.

Well, between Tenet’s resignation and Reagan’s end, my cable modem picked an eventful few days to give up on me. More to come next week, after the Time Warner technicians have ascertained and corrected the problem.

…Wake up with fleas.

What does $340,000 a month buy you? Treason. Ahmed Chalabi, until very recently the Neocons’ favorite Iraqi, apparently tipped off Iran that we’d broken their codes. “U.S. intelligence officials two weeks ago had told CNN that Chalabi, a member of the Iraqi Governing Council, gave intelligence secrets to Iran so closely held in the U.S. government that only ‘a handful’ of senior officials knew them.” So…which of the Bushies was it? Between this and the Plame affair, the Bush administration has now displayed a pattern of disregarding and betraying our intelligence community.

Wobbly Leadership.


So apparently Dubya handles a bike about as well as he handles a Segway (or the nation)…poorly. Well, at least one benefit of this nasty scrape for the viewing public is that, when Bush addresses the nation on Iraq tonight, you’ll literally get to see the blood on his hands.

Lie down with dogs…

wake up with fleas. The US raided the compound of Ahmed Chalabi this morning, who up until this week was receiving $340,000 a month in taxpayer funds for spouting exactly the lies the Bushies wanted most to hear. In fact, Chalabi has been the Dubya gang’s favorite Iraqi for years now, but “U.S. disenchantment with Chalabi has been growing since it dawned on the White House and the Pentagon that everything he had told them about Iraq — from Saddam Hussein’s fiendish weapons arsenal to the crowds who would toss flowers at the invaders to Chalabi’s own popularity in Iraq — had been completely false.” Is Wolfowitz’s house next?

Iraq-Contra?

“Woodward reports that in July 2002 Bush ordered the use of $700 million to prepare for the invasion of Iraq, funds that had not been specifically appropriated by the Congress, which alone holds that constitutional authority. No adequate explanation has been offered for what, strictly speaking, might well be an impeachable offense.” Sidney Blumenthal sees the behavior underlying Reagan’s Iran-Contra fiasco revived, while law professor Cass Sunstein delves deeper into the illegality and unconstitutionality of Dubya’s likely misappropriation of funds.

Revisionist History.

Once again, it seems, the Bush administration is falsifying records to cover up their shadiness. This time, the Pentagon deleted key remarks made by Rumsfeld to Bob Woodward on the certainty of the Iraq war. (Regarding an invasion of Iraq, Rummy told the Saudis in Jan. 2003, two months before operations commenced, that they could “take that to the bank.”) Given the other times the Bushies have been caught doing this, their withholding of Reagan and Bush Sr. papers, and the general moral turpitude of this administration, one has to wonder how snarled up the historical record is at this point.

Failing Up Yet Again.

Clandestine oil deals with the Saudis, secret (and quite probably) illegal misappropriation of anti-terrorism funds, Bob Woodward’s confirmation that Richard Clarke was right despite the Bushies’ smear machine…no matter how you cut it, the news coming out of the White House these days looks grimmer and grimmer. Now Dubya is actually running on the Patriot Act, of all things, and yet his poll numbers are rising?! I’m going to chalk up this latest bounce to sheer GOP cash flow (a funding discrepancy soon to change) and the post-primary press lull for Kerry. But, still, I find it hard to believe that anybody of an independent disposition can look at what’s going on in Washington these days and in good conscience vote for Dubya. This joker can’t handle the 9/11 commission without Cheney by his side, and he can’t even face the national press without begging to see the questions in advance. Why on Earth would anyone think this fool should stay in office? Inept and corrupt, Bush is easily the worst president America has seen since Warren G. Harding. In fact, he’s probably worse. Where’s the outrage?

Dubya and his cronies have coasted on the “soft bigotry of low expectations” long enough…let’s vote out these guys, already.