WaxWorks
|
Friday, September 09, 2005
Tenet Agrees With Clarke
Buried during the Katrina news was this nugget in the Washington-Fox News-newspaper- equivalent, the Washington Times, on September 1, which makes the fact that it ever saw the light of day all the more surprising:
George Tenet is not going to let himself become the fall guy for the
September 11 intelligence failures, according to a former intelligence officer
and a source friendly to Mr. Tenet. A scathing report by
Inspector General John Helgerson criticized the former CIA director and a score
of other agency personnel for their failure to develop a strategy against al
Qaeda. The report, delivered to Congress this week, recommends punitive
sanctions for Mr. Tenet, former Deputy Director of Operations James L. Pavitt
and former counter-terrorist center head J. Cofer Black. Mr. Tenet's response to
the report is a 20-page, tightly knitted rebuttal of responsibility prepared
with the aid of a lawyer, according to the friendly source.
Mr. Tenet's decision to defend himself against the charges in the report
poses a potential crisis for the White House. According to a former clandestine
services officer, the former CIA director turned down a publisher's $4.5 million
book offer because he didn't want to embarrass the White House by rehashing the
failure to prevent September 11 and the flawed intelligence on Iraq's weapons of
mass destruction. Mr. Tenet, according to a knowledgeable source, had a
"wink and a nod" understanding with the White House that he wouldn't be scapegoated for intelligence failings. The deal, one source says, was sealed with the award of the Presidential Freedom Medal.
Now that deal may be off. Mr. Tenet's rebuttal to the report is detailed
and explicit. In defending his integrity as CIA director, Mr. Tenet
treads perilously close to affirming the account of Richard Clarke, the former NSC terrorism official whose public disclosure of the Bush administration's delay in adopting a strategy against al Qaeda stirred controversy last summer...
In criticizing Mr. Tenet for lack of a strategy to fight al Qaeda,
the IG report goes to the heart of the September 11 failure. Mr. Tenet's defense
inevitably leads to the sensitive issue of the CIA briefings of the president
and other senior officials in the summer of 2001. In deciding not to become the fall guy, Mr. Tenet has made a fateful decision. The latest salvo in the ongoing wars between the CIA and the White House may be about to burst. Until now, Mr. Tenet has kept silent about what Mr. Bush knew and when he knew it. Mr. Tenet's decision to defend his own role in September 11 puts the White House back in the spotlight. The only way he can push off responsibility is to push it higher up the ladder.
Interesting to see if Mr. Tenet gets the same treatment as Clarke by the right-wing attack dogs if he goes public.
Rules of the Blame Game
They apparently didn't teach me the rules of the "blame game" where I went to school. The White House has repeatedly claimed that people are playing the "blame game" when they quite correctly criticize and raise questions about the Administration's irrefutably inadequate response to Hurricane Katrina, while at the same time Administration officials, such as Karl Rove, have been anonymous sources (i.e. "A senior Bush Administration official says...") in numerous articles attacking state and local officials.
So let me get this straight: it's the "blame game" when you attack the Republican-controlled White House and federal government, but NOT the "blame game" when you attack the Democratic state and and local officials in Louisiana. Must be some federalism thing I don't understand.
Dwight Schrute As FEMA Head?
I'm a huge fan of the NBC show "The Office," and a good friend who's also a fan passed this along to me:
In the US version, there's a running joke between the "general
manager" (played by Steve Carell) and his underling, Dwight Schrute,
where they keep arguing back and forth about Schrute's title. Schrute's
real title is "assistant to the general manager," but he keeps saying it as
"assistant general manager," to Carell's frustration.
So, from the TIME article on FEMA chief Brown, with relevant info bolded:
Before joining FEMA, his only previous stint in emergency management,
according to his bio posted on FEMA's website, was "serving as an assistant
city manager with emergency services oversight." The White House
press release from 2001 stated that Brown worked for the city of Edmond,
Okla., from 1975 to 1978 "overseeing the emergency services division." In
fact, according to Claudia Deakins, head of public relations for the city of Edmond,
Brown was an "assistant to the city manager" from 1977 to 1980, not a manager
himself, and had no authority over other employees.
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
One of the Greatest Reactions Ever
You may have read about Kanye West's comments about Bush during the NBC telethon for Katrina victims, but I had not seen the actual clip until just recently, when a good friend forwarded it to me.
Much has been made about West's comments, but much less about Mike Myers' reaction to West's ad-lib when West vears off of the words on the teleprompter. As far as I'm concerned, that's the real entertainment here. West's first ad-lib about the National Guard having orders "to shoot us" throws Myers a bit, but West's second comment, referencing Bush just comes out of nowhere and causes Myers to double-take.
It really looked to me like I was watching a 12:45 Saturday Night Live skit. It's really worth a look.
UPDATE:
The Sports Guy (who, IMHO, probably is the funniest thing on the web right now) hits on the SNL skit I was thinking about, one of my top ten favorites of all time:
Along those same lines, a few readers made a fantastic connection between
the Kanye/Mike Myers TV moment and a classic SNL skit from 1994. I'm
legitimately bummed that I didn't remember this myself, but I'll let reader Josh
from New Hampshire explain:
"If you think Mike Myers' reaction was hilarious during the Kanye West
rant during the Hurricane Katrina telecast solely based on the reaction itself,
then you have NO idea how funny it is for those of us who have seen the old SNL
'Pasta maker infomercial' skit where he plays a salesman opposite host Heather
Locklear. For no reason at all, during the selling of this pasta maker, she
starts insulting every ethnicity she can think of. Stuff along the lines of,
'This machine is so easy, even a drunk Indian could use it.'
"The board of callers behind them would light up every time she made one of
these insulting remarks, but the best part was watching Myers trying to distance
himself from her, hiding behind the counter, trying to say how he didn't agree
with what she was saying before she would interrupt -- the expression on his
face during the whole thing was the best part. You MUST not have seen this skit
because I find it impossible that you would not bring it up when mentioning the
Kanye West debacle. It just adds a whole new level of hilarity to his
discomfort."
Here's a link to the script of the Locklear skit. It really is brilliant.
A Picture Defeats a Thousand Defensive Republican Talking Points
Per Josh Marshall, posted on the White House website is a picture of President Bush being briefed by videoconference by National Hurricane Center Chief Max Mayfield on Sunday August 28th.
Raises some interesting questions about, after being told about the possible consequences of the storm, why he then chose to attend McCain's birthday party and play guitar in San Diego, doesn't it? And why didn't he see that everything was done that could be done to provide relief assistance? Sound like he had a similar reaction to the PDB on August 6, 2001. We're talking about sheer incompetence here.
I'm waiting for Fox News and the conservative columnists and bloggers to go back to the drawing board on this one.
Sen. Reid raises an important point:
In a letter to the Senate's Homeland Security Committee chairwoman, Reid,
the Senate Democratic leader, pressed for a wide-ranging investigation and
answers to several questions, including: ''How much time did the president spend
dealing with this emerging crisis while he was on vacation? Did the fact that he
was outside of Washington, DC have any effect on the federal
government's response?''
But Nancy Pelosi shows how truly stunningly out of it the President is:
At a news conference, Pelosi, D-Calif., said Bush's choice for head of the
Federal Emergency Management Agency had ''absolutely no credentials.''
She related that she had urged Bush at the White House on Tuesday to
fire Michael Brown.''He said 'Why would I do that?''' Pelosi said.
'''I said because of all that went wrong, of all that didn't go right last
week.' And he said 'What didn't go right?'''
''Oblivious, in denial, dangerous,'' she added.
Monday, September 05, 2005
From the Condi Rice School of Crisis Management
When you are cornered because of your incompetence, just lie, lie, lie. Wonkette covers Chertoff's latest CYA whopper:
On Sunday, DHS chief Michael Chertoff told "Meet the Press's" Tim Russert that
one reason for the delay in getting federal aid to Katrina victims was that
"everyone" thought the crisis had passed when the storm left: "I remember on
Tuesday morning picking up newspapers and I saw headlines, 'New Orleans Dodged
The Bullet.'"
Wonkette then shows about six or seven major papers, including all the major papers in New York, Washington and New Orleans. None of them have the headline Chertoff references.
Wonkette notes:
The Newseum has over 400 frontpages archived but we suspect that the one with the "New Orleans Dodged The Bullet" hed exists primarily in Chertoff's mind.
Why Not Quit?
I'll post more soon about Chief Justice Rehnquist and his legacy on the court, and in particular his activist tendencies (no matter what conservatives say, Rehnquist was just as result-orientated as conservatives have criticized Brennan for being), but I'm a little bit puzzled about why he chose to stay on after this term. Was it a case of stubborness in the face of death? Clearly, he was very sick and deteroriated quickly since the end of June. Perhaps, after the death of his wife in 1991, the court was his life and he just didn't want to leave.
However, Rehnquist was known above all as prizing the smooth administration of the court. It seems to me that his staying on despite his very poor health is contradictory to that position. Furthermore, Rehnquist was on the court in 1975, when Justice Douglas refused to resign after having a serious stroke and had to deal with the messy aftermath, which included refusing to count Douglas' vote in 5-4 cases, until finally someone convinced Douglas to quit. (Outlined in great detail in Bob Woodward's fantastic book on the Supreme Court, "The Brethren"). Part of Douglas' resistance to resign lay in the fact that the President who would appoint his successor, Gerald Ford, had baselessly attempted to have Douglas impeached when Ford served in the House.
But Rehnquist had no such issues, as the man he appointed in 2000 was reelected with only Diebold's help in 2004. So I'm left wondering why he chose to stay on.
Oh, To Be a Fly on the Wall
Regardless of what you think about John Roberts as chief justice, Democrats should be happy about the pick for one reason: imagine how angry Scalia must be to be passed over. He was doing a full-scale charm offensive since the election, hoping to get the nod. Now he can dissent away with full fury and continue to further alienate Justice Kennedy (who's the swing vote on this court). It would have been nice to have seen his face when he got the news this morning. Quack, quack, Mr. Justice.
Sunday, September 04, 2005
Bush's Kinda Guy
Josh Marshall quite nicely sums up FEMA director Mike Brown's (or "Brownie," as Bush refers to him) resume:
So let me see if I understand this. Brown's a Republican from the
southwest. He ran unsuccessfully for Congress when he was thirty-three. Then he
bounced from job to job, finally getting into the sports business in mid-life,
before getting canned. And then he used connections to land himself a
high-powered position in the federal government for which he had no apparent
experience at all.
How could such a fellow possibly be in the Bush administration?
Any drug or alcohol use in his past? As the President said yesterday, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."
