WaxWorks
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Saturday, February 25, 2006
How Does It Feel?
I don't know the ins and outs of the policy merits of letting a UAE-controlled company run our ports, but I do find the President's argument that, in a post 9/11 world, national security concerns should be set aside because of the wrong message it would send to an ally, particularly ironic.
This is the same President who attacked Democrats as not being concerned enough about national security because they wanted federal employees, not outside contractors, to run airport security after 9/11.
This is the same President who attacked Democrats as not being concerned enough about national security because they supported giving employees of the Homeland Security Department (a department which the President initially opposed) the same protections that other union members would have. These attacks got so vicious that Max Cleland, who gave three limbs for his country, was compared to Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden for his support of this position.
This is the same President who attacked Democrats as not being concerned enough about national security because they dared to suggest that the U.S. should go through the U.N. process, rather than attack unilaterally, to avoid alienating valuable allies in the war on terror.
This is the same President who attacked Democrats as not being concerned enough about national security because they felt that the damage to the U.S.'s moral standing in the world, including among our important allies in the war on terror, outweighed the marginal benefit, if any, that came from the tortune and abuse of prisoners.
This is the same President who attacked Democrats as not being concerned enough about national security because they believed that, while a wiretapping program might yield valuable information in the war on terror, the President was still obligated to follow the law and the Constitution.
Over and over, the President has attacked Democrats whenever they have suggested that outside concerns, such as alienating valuable allies, outweigh taking all steps, no matter how questionable, to secure this nation after 9/11.
So, my view is, Mr. President, you reap what you sow. I'm sure Max Cleland would be happy to explain it to you if you don't understand what that means.
This Could Get Good
White House "finds" 250 e-mails from the VP's office. Things do not look good for Cheney:
The White House turned over last week 250 pages of emails from Vice
President Dick Cheney’s office. Senior aides had sent the emails in the spring
of 2003 related to the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson,
Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald revealed during a federal court hearing
Friday.
The emails are said to be explosive, and may prove that Cheney played an active role in the effort to discredit Plame Wilson’s husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, a vocal critic of the Bush administration’s prewar Iraq intelligence, sources close to the investigation said.
Sources close to the probe said the White House “discovered” the emails two weeks ago and turned them over to Fitzgerald last week. The sources added that the emails could prove that Cheney lied to FBI investigators when he was interviewed about the leak in early 2004. Cheney said that he was unaware of any effort to discredit Wilson or unmask his wife’s undercover status to reporters.
Cheney was not under oath when he was interviewed. He told investigators how the White House came to rely on Niger documents that purportedly showed that Iraq had tried to purchase uranium from the African country.
Cheney said he had received an intelligence briefing on the allegations in late December 2003, or early January 2004, and had asked the CIA for more information about the issue.
Cheney said he was unaware that Ambassador Wilson was chosen to travel to Niger to look into the uranium claims, and that he never saw a report Wilson had given a CIA analyst upon his return which stated that the Niger claims were untrue. He said the CIA never told him about Wilson's trip.
However, the emails say otherwise, and will show that the vice president spearheaded an effort in March 2003 to attack Wilson’s credibility and used the CIA to dig up information on the former ambassador that could be used against him, sources said.
