The Political Chase

Bush Bans ‘Characterization’

President Bush

The White House has definitely lawyered-up. White House Press Secretary Dana Perino has been ordered, presumably by the president, to not characterize the president’s reactions. Forget comments. Not even characterize the expression on his face.

Is it possible to get any more pathetic than that?

Why even bother with having a press briefing if she is not allowed to even characterize much less comment.

What a sad, sick, deranged man.

From today’s briefing.

QUESTION: Dana, is the President concerned about the impact on the CIA’s reputation and its integrity, not just here but around the world? I mean, there’s been similar episodes — we don’t know the full scope of this — but we know what we know, based on his point, that may be comparable to Abu Ghraib, where there were photos that were released –

MS. PERINO: No. No.

QUESTION: — the President spoke extensively about that.

MS. PERINO: Well, one, I haven’t – I’m not allowed to characterize the President’s reaction to this, but what I can tell you is that he — as I said Friday, he has complete confidence in General Hayden, and that remains.

QUESTION: But why can’t you characterize his concern, if there is one, about the integrity of a key governmental agency that operates around the world?

MS. PERINO: Well, I think I — pressed on that, I would say that I think the President feels very highly about all of the members of the intelligence community, and at the CIA. He knows that they work extremely hard in order to keep all of us protected, that they try to do everything that they possibly can. There’s — in regards to this specific issue, regarding these tapes, that the President said that he does not recall being made aware of their existence or their destruction until last Thursday’s briefing. There’s not much more I can say.

QUESTION: But he’s not concerned about the facts as we know them now?

MS. PERINO: In terms of — I can’t talk about that particular — I can’t characterize the President’s thinking on that.

QUESTION: Perhaps he’d like you to.

QUESTION: But why — I don’t understand why his reaction is somehow part of the investigation.

MS. PERINO: Well, because there’s a preliminary inquiry that’s been started, and to avoid any appearance of trying to prejudice that inquiry, it’s appropriate and better for us not to comment.

Pardon me!

Yes, you’re excused. That has to be the refrain that continues to cycle through Scooter Libby’s mind.

I believe one can safely presume that Scooter Libby has now received a formal, and somehow irrevocable, agreement for a pardon from George Bush prior to Noon on January 20, 2009.

Lewis “Scooter” Libby is dropping the appeal of his criminal conviction in the CIA leak case, his lawyer tells the Associated Press.

“We remain firmly convinced of Mr. Libby’s innocence,” attorney Theodore Wells tells the wire service. “However, the realities were, that after five years of government service by Mr. Libby and several years of defending against this case, the burden on Mr. Libby and his young family of continuing to pursue his complete vindication are too great to ask them to bear.”

Pardon me — I need to quickly find an emesis basin. Too great to ask them to bear, my ass.

Rockefeller’s Misleading Answers on CIA Tapes

CBS’s Bob Schieffer asks Sen. Jay Rockefeller, “Why were the tapes destroyed?” Rockefeller takes a long pause, leans forward, begins to speak but stumbles. He then takes a deep sigh, and is obviously uncomfortable about what to say — there is no good answer — finally, he musters up, “You can speculate…”

Schieffer did not ask what he (Schieffer) could personally do. He asked why the CIA’s video tapes of detainee interrogations that included waterboarding were destroyed.

That’s how the rest of the five-to-six minute interview goes. Misleading. Dodging the simple questions. The plagued and disgraced Senator that had probably confirmed his appearance on Face the Nation well before he had any knowledge of what the Washington Post would throw in his face just hours before taping the show.

When Schieffer asked Rockefeller what “he planned to do now,” Rockefeller attempts to make himself look good by starting with what he has done in the past to allegedly deter the administration’s torture programs, but his answers are for public consumption only. They have nothing to do with his real objectives. Rockefeller begins in 2005 — three years after the committee was initially briefed on the CIA’s torture programs, which included waterboarding — and offers up a few activities, which to the public make him appear righteous and ethical. He tried to stop the Evil Doers three times in 2005, and more beyond that, but the asphyxiating, burdensome weight of Minority Party Defeats loomed everywhere. Although committee meetings were intolerable, nothing could have been more troublesome than the floor of the Senate. It was impossible to speak in the Dyspnoeic Senate Chamber.

Watch the highlights:

Indeed. Rockefeller is a true patriot and has demonsrtated profound courage. He fully supported the Bush administration’s illegal counterterrorism tactics and programs for two to three years before the media began the slow process of exposing him as a war criminal - guility of committing crimes against humanity. But Rockefeller knows he can dodge criminal prosecution by lying. Why shouldn’t he lie? Who is going to refute him? Nancy Pelosi and his other co-conspirators?

So, Rockefeller plays the secrecy card and begins his carefully planned evasive tactics. He tells the public he opposes, and has opposed all along, the administration’s programs. He alleges submitting a few proposals as ranking member of the intelligence committee, which he knew were doomed to fail along party lines. He’s safe. The public believes Rockefeller has tried because he submitted a few proposals, but the real substance of his integrity and ethics reside in his handwritten note to Dick Cheney. A true act of rebellion — the Boston Tea Party the Rockefeller Handwritten Note Rebellion.

Note: If you missed the seminal point of Rockefeller’s appearance — his lies that secrecy requirements kept him from rebuking illegal torturing — you can watch it here.

Rockefeller’s False Claims of Secrecy Requirements

On numerous occasions, Sen. Jay Rockefeller has claimed he was unable to do anything about any of the Bush administration’s illegal counter-terrorism programs (torture, warrantless eavesdropping, etc.) because “secrecy requirements” prevented him from speaking out publicly against the administration’s policies. Rockefeller’s, like Jane Harman’s, claims are simply flat out lies (see here).

Here is Rockefeller repeating his lies yesterday on CBS’s Face the Nation, when Bob Schieffer asks him about the Washington Post’s article yesterday exposing Rockefeller’s, and other Democrats, role supporting the Bush administration’s illegal torture policies.

Watch it:

Prior to Schieffer asking Rockefeller about the Post’s article, Schieffer asked him about the CIA destroying videotapes of the detainees’ interrogations. Rockefeller squirmed, had to search for answers, and when he had answers…well, they were at best answers-lite, to put it nicely. Video to follow soon.

See more highlights of the entire interview.

Reaction to Dems Support on Torture

In my last post on the WaPo’s article eviscerating Democratic leaders (Pelosi, Rockefeller Harman, et al.) for supporting/enabling the Bush administration’s torture-policies and program, with minor exceptions, I did not want to judge too quickly until more information is released. There’s always a story to follow The Story and thereby the potential for the unknowns to change the overall dynamics — negatively or positively. But there are a few areas that don’t require patience — full knee-jerk reaction is totally acceptable.

If taken at face value, the article is a damning indictment of Democratic leaders in Congress that may prove them to be as guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity as the Bush administration (Oval Office to the specific interrogator(s)). But, I’m confident more information will be forthcoming and not so confident that it will be vindicating for the Elite Democratic Beltway Establishment.

Regardless of what the news looks like in the future, there are two inescapable elements to this albatross: the crap that Harman and Rockefeller have been trying to pull by declaring themselves “helpless” because of secrecy requirements. No matter what revelations come forth (or not) in the future, they’ve already played their hand, and there is no returning to the game. If they firmly believed that pathetic storyline, they have no business being on an intelligence committee, much less holding office as a Senator or Representative. Voters in West Virginia and California need to throw the bums out when their respective terms expire. That of course presumes they manage to avoid criminal prosecution before reelection time.

Moreover, Jay Rockefeller needs to be removed immediately as Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. This complicit clown is going to lead an investigation into his own malfeasance? It’s ludicrous to even consider the notion of Rockefeller being privileged to intelligence committee information given his record (torture, FISA, etc.), much less allowing him to quietly sweep his own trash out the door just like he has for the Bush administration.

In general terms, a special prosecutor needs to be assigned. It has been well established the administration and their GOP water-carriers in Congress cannot be trusted, and without some immediate credible contradiction from Democratic leaders that have supported this torture fiasco all along, they can no longer be trusted either. As presented, they are nothing but a bunch of hypocrites, whose last resort may be someone exposing the WaPo’s article as actual Republican propaganda, which would not surprise me given the Post’s history and the way the article was written. It almost looks like a fill-in-the-blanks form from Karl Rove’s playbook.

On a bit of a side note, it’s rather interesting to see how Democratic presidential candidates have responded to the issues over the past week. John Edwards and Joe Biden seem to be the only candidates taking note of what’s happening inside the Beltway and responding accordingly.

I’m really surprised with the absence or inaccessibility of statements by Obama on important issues of the day. Either Obama does not have any statements on his campaign’s web site about emerging issues, or they are hidden quite well. Good luck trying to find anything that is not Oprah related.

As for Hillary, there are tons of releases but its just BS in the form of all-Hillary-all-the-time. Endorsements here, endorsements there, Hillary issues a plan to get Ken and Barbie back together, blah, blah, blah. A quick sample from Hillary’s site: 

Edwards and Biden stay on top of the issues and issue statements, with Edwards holding a slight edge. Their statements may be a bit boiler-plate, but at least they’ve taken a position and recognize something is happening in the world other than themselves.

More on all this later…