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TechnoratiThis trail is starting to look familiar. When an excerpt from the soon-to-be-released book by former presidential press secretary Scott McClellan revealed that President Bush and Vice President Cheney instructed him to tell journalists that top White House aides played no role in the outing of Valerie Plame Wilson, I had an eerie feeling that the nation had been down this path before.
In discussing a 2003 press briefing during which he told reporters that Karl Rove, the president's political adviser, and Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, had nothing to do with the leak, McClellan says he was misled."There was one problem," he wrote of what he told journalists that day. "It was not true. I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest-ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice president, the president's chief of staff (Andrew Card) and the president himself," McClellan writes.
This blurb from What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and What's Wrong with Washington, is posted on the website of its publisher, Public Affairs Books.
We now know that Plame Wilson's identity as a CIA undercover operative was leaked to reporters by at least two Bush administration officials, Libby and then-deputy secretary of State Richard Armitage. The Bush administration did so to undermine the credibility of her husband, Joseph Wilson, a former ambassador who was sent to Niger by the CIA to determine whether Saddam Hussein was trying to buy a nuclear weapons component from the African nation. After his trip, Wilson concluded that this charge wasn't true and publicly criticized Bush for making such an unsubstantiated claim one of his rationales for invading Iraq. The White House responded by leaking Plame Wilson's identity and suggesting that Wilson's trip was a junket arranged by his wife.
In March, Libby was convicted of obstruction of justice, lying to a grand jury and to FBI agents investigating the leak of Plame Wilson's identity. Libby was sentenced to 30 months in prison, but Bush commuted his prison time.
The seedy path taken by Bush's aides looks a lot like one taken by another White House.
In 1971, a group of advisers close to Richard Nixon decided to go after people they considered opponents of that Republican president. The people whose names made it onto that "opponents' list" were targeted for retribution in much the same way that the Bush administration went after Wilson. As Nixon White House counsel John Dean said at the time, "We can use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies." And, in fact, Nixon's henchmen tried to use the Internal Revenue Service to do just that.
Bush's minions took a similar road. They used information secretly gained from the CIA to strike at one of Bush's "enemies" - and to publicly use the president's press secretary to deny any role in this act of retribution.
When the House Judiciary Committee voted to impeach Nixon in 1974 (he resigned before the full House could vote on the resolution), it accused him of, among other things, trying to misuse the IRS to attack his enemies - and using his subordinates to make "false or misleading public statements for the purpose of deceiving the people of the United States" about the White House involvement.
While there is still little evidence to suggest that Bush was knowingly involved in this coverup, the evidence against Cheney is piling up. It came out during Libby's trial that the vice president authorized him to leak Plame Wilson's identity to journalists. And now we hear from McClellan that Cheney duped him into telling other reporters that the White House didn't have its hands in this matter. This trail of lies and deception has put Cheney on the same path that led to Nixon's impeachment. And it may yet cause the vice president to tumble into the same political abyss.
DeWayne Wickham writes on Tuesdays for USA TODAY.
Copyright 2007 USA TODAY
28 Comments so far
Show AllSorry Bill from Saginaw - they are traitors to us - willfully and deliberately the Dems have given us into the hands of monsters - the way social workers hand small children into the hands of psychotic pedophiles - because they are told to.
You weigh the options based on your values and world view, as you should. Your mistake is in believing you share a common world view with the animals who are making these decisions. THEY THINK WE ARE A LOWER FORM OF LIFE and therefore have "no standing" when it comes to making decisions that affect the important stuff - getting, holding, and increasing personal wealth, power, and privilege over us. They get those goodies by feeding us to the Richfilth animals who own this country.
George is simply today's political enemy and pretty good for campaign sloganeering (rhymes with sneering) as we saw in '06. "Vote For Me, I'll End The War In Iraq"
Remember that one. These guys live in the back of tinted window limousines sipping iced beverages of choice. WE ARE NOTHING TO THEM - THEY ARE THE ANOINTED OF MASTER.
You might want to begin considering cutting off all their heads.
Pieces.
With the exception of Henry Waxman, nobody in the Democratic controlled House has used its investigative powers to produce shit since the 2006 election upheaval. Because John Conyers was so good before (with his blue print for impeachment and his citizens' hearings into Ohio election fraud), he's now the biggest disappointment.
Maybe the problem is Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid can't walk and chew gum at the same time.
Conyers should be cleared immediately to start taking testimony into the origins of Bush's torture policies, the authorization of NSA's warrantless domestic electronic surveillance programs, and the "fixing" of prewar WMD intelligence around the "policy" of waging preventive war. Open up an honest forum, and the whistleblowers are likely to come out of the woodwork.
This would be a breath of fresh air in terms of public policy formulation, and from a narrow partisan perspective the Democrats have everything to gain, and absolutely nothing to lose.
Meanwhile back at the ranch, the Senate should set aside a couple of days to debate and repeal the 2002 AUMF - the authorization for use of military force resolution underlying the invasion and continued occupation of Iraq. Senator Robert Byrd and Senator Hillary Clinton have already cosponsored a bill for simple, straight forward repeal. Think of how much fun it will be if the Republicans fillibuster.
Again, the public debate on Iraq would shift.
No more demagoguery about supporting the troops, or giving General Petraeus a chance to walk on water without micromanagement from Washington. Change the subject awhile to discuss the more critical questions of how the American public was repeatedly lied to about WMD and Saddam-Osama ties, and whether Bush's doctrine of preventive war - abruptly reversing a bipartisan US foreign policy position going back 50 years to keep American ground forces out of the Middle East - was a wise policy decision in the first place.
Again, the Dems would have everything to gain, nothing to lose.
All they got to do is walk and chew gum at the same time.
Bill from Saginaw
That's fine, I hope and pray Cindy replaces Nancy. When is that election? In the meantime, Conyers is the blockade, then of course if we wait long enough, Bush may be our King George. Conyers is the key, it is self evident.
Ok, so pressuring Conyers didn't work. What was the pressure, petitions?
I say pressure Nancy Pelosi with loss of her job. Support Cindy Sheehan and let Pelosi (and anybody else) know about it now, in this winter of our discontent.
Can we change the behavior of a Democrat from San Francisco?
It was an airport shit house, not a bus station.
Scott didn't know he was lying? Really?
This is just another nelly hissy fit. Baby Caligula kicked Scotty out of bed in favor of Jeff Gannon. Gay guys. The whole lot of them. Sorry, I've got to go find a bus station where I can do a little toe tapping.
Why not contact all the Judiciary Committee members and get them to bring the Kucinich bill for impeaching Cheney to the floor. Makes no sense to me to just gripe about a do-nothing Congress and then do nothing ourselves.
May not work but we can at least TRY!
Where have you been hiding out COMMONVOICE? What happened to Cindy Sheehan when she gave Conyers all of those petitions to begin the impeachment process he was sitting on? Conyers is the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee. He tossed Cindy out of his office and then had her and her supporters arrested. A lot of good people here have been trying n vain. Conyers has refused to budge on it and he is the most guilty of them all. He has the buck and in this case, the buck stopped at his desk.
Luckylefty
Wasn't it Bill Clinton who buried Iran-Contra? Now he pals around with his good buddy, Bush I.
Wanna bet Clinton II would drop all investigations into the wrong-doings of Bush II?
Just one more reason the media have practically crowned H Clinton as the Democratic nominee.
Luckylefty -
According to the lead whistleblower, NSA started installing the drainpipe splitter at the ATT San Francisco facility in late January, 2001 - LONG BEFORE the 9/11 attacks. The drainpipe would not only allow for contemporaneous surveillance (with or without a FISA warrant, presumably), but also would permit retrieval of past email, phone, and Fax communications of a targeted person of interest.
Think about the enormous power that snooper technology can provide. If the spooks can scoop up and preserve all the past electronic transmissions of a system for retrieval (or disposal) later on, the whole concept of getting prior judicial approval for conducting a wiretap becomes an anomaly. If it's okay for me to listen in on your future conversations, then why not let me retrieve your past ones as well?
This nation spent billions to develop and perfect the high tech surveillance tools that enables NSA (for instance) to overhear and record every one-on-one conversation in every room of an embassy, or a military command center, or a foreign government's cabinet meeting sessions.
George W. Bush casually unleashed that technology upon domestic telecommunications by simply getting the cooperation of ATT and other big companies to permit NSA to get the system installed and up and running. Bush did that long before 9/11 - perhaps reassuring the companies that the system would only be used after wiretap authorization had been obtained from FISA or from a regular federal judge. The companies (except Qwest) went along. Now, they want immunity from being held accountable for invading their customers' privacy.
Damn right, standing alone, that's an impeachable offense.
It's right up there with torture, and invading another country based upon fear mongering lies, hype and fixed intelligence.
If - domestically - you turn loose the CIA, the NSA, the DIA, and the dozen other federal intelligence agencies originally designed to snoop overseas but now operating on US soil, then you no longer need to farm out the burglaries to Cuban dissident plumbers, or delegate the warrantless eavesdropping to rogue agents like E Howard Hunt.
Hell, they're all rogues now. Surely Tricky Dick is chuckling in his grave.
Bill from Saginaw
We're human, they're human...
On at least a couple of occasions Gandhi allowed someone to choke him until he was blue in the face and until the person recognized their shared humanity.
Impeachment is very much alive and where it counts most: within the people of America.
And McClellan's comment is very much alive too - it will be one of the lead sentences of my weekly impeachment letter.
And McClellan's statement is very much alive here or why all the commentary?
Does CD stand for Common Doubts or Common Dreams?
Rave on American Dreamers, rave on!
McClellan's statements are interesting, even provocative.
But, with a moribund congress, what does it matter? No other group can impeach Bush and Cheney if congress refuses to act in the face of compelling evidence of wrongdoing.
Per Pelosi: impeachment is off the table. Also, opposition (real, not rhetorical) to the Iraq war is off the table, revoking the patriot act- off the table, revoking NCLB-off the table, etc, etc, etc.
However, caving the to the Bush regime is definately on the table.
Um pah pah, Um pah pah, everyone knows! They just go through the motions. High political society in the US of I is a money-sex shop. Mouth and Massage the corporate love interests with the right words, and the representatives in that red light, gaudy establishment get stuffed with money. Military pimps hang out for pay and drugs, so they can achieve the joys of blowing up and shooting foreigners opposed to the corporate love interests. The military hardware corporations drool over the latest means of killing. The sadists and torturers have a constant supply of new victims. The chief madame is barely able to keep up appearances, and looks distinctly soiled. Some of the rival senior whores look like they want to take over, but haven't got a clue how to live differently. And meanwhile the real world on whose currency and income the whole show depends on, is falling apart. I wonder why.
"IF". That great big important word IF, the media picks up on this story, and IF a major newspaper makes it headline news, until the impeachment process begins, this McClellan story will never compare to Watergate and Nixon.
If however they do publish and broadcast it, then the house of cards Cheney has built will fall and his heart problems will be a moot issue.
They've learned from Nix's son's mistakes.
There will be no investigation.
There will be no impeachment.
There will be no peace.
The KGB, oops I mean the CIA has the goods on all those capital hill phonies. They are being blackmailed into cooperation. Let's stop whining about political solutions and come up with a real solution.
Oh yeah, I forgot...
None of you are ever going to do anything about it either.
I guess it's up to me.
These articles are as useless as crotch shots of some celebrity whore. The whole system is falling apart and he wastes time and space on a minor-league media whore. I guess he couldn't afford a higher priced hooker in D.C.
Hoa binh
Yeah and Waxman is following up and having hearings. Evidently they are now held in a UFO, or someplace that is unavaliable to the FREE press.
Sorry Kem Patrick, you are dead on. The Cone of Silence has been erected on this one, just like it was with Gary Webb and his expose on CIA/Crack Connection with the Contras. They lynched him. They ruined him professionally. No one would support him. Then the IG's report finally came out and confirmed everything he wrote. TOTAL SILENCE. Mr. Webb committed suicide with a shotgun.
That's how we handle dissidents in this country. That's why the little weasel Scotty Boy waited so long for his little announcement and buried it in his little tell-all - he'd already been given the "all clear" by his Masters. Dead story. Just like what the NYT and their pet journalist did by spiking the Abu Ghraib story for over a year, then putting it into a little tell-all book . He'd also been given the "all clear" by his Masters.
Forgettit folks this game is rigged and it's liars all the way down. That's Empire.
Piece.
Support Congressman Wexler who seems to be trying to follow this up in Justice Committee.
When this story hit last Wednesday, several of the TV news pundents said, this admission and revelation of McCllan's would be the story of the decade. It should be, but I don't see where it will be. It's another 'Ho- Hum' and pass the bull. ___ I hope I am wrong.
Kem - But USA Today qualifies as a mainstream publication, easily. So there is still hope...
Memories,
Like the corners of my mind
Misty water-colored memories
Of the way we were
Scattered pictures,
Of the smiles we left behind
Smiles we gave to one another
For the way we were
Can it be that it was all so simple then?
Or has time re-written every line?
If we had the chance to do it all again
Tell me, would we? could we?
Memries, may be beautiful and yet
Whats too painful to remember
We simply choose to forget
A good question might be why Scott McClellan needs to wait years to tell America the truth in a profitable book. Could it be we have a White House full of the wrong people. I'm ready for a party change there back to the type that liked Mike McCurry.
As for McClellan's use of the word "unknowingly", yeah, right. The only way he ever got to be press secretary in the first place was by swearing allegiance to the Bush agenda and proving himself an even bigger liar than his bosses.
Perfect Storm Kem Patrick. A blog back in '02 said it clear, "Nixon would not be impeached today." Facts don't matter. Not here, not in the ME, not anywhere. Sorry.
When the NSA put those huge "drain" pipes into the AT&T network, you may asssume they fish the sewer with computer precision. Politicians, CEO's, Journalists, Publishers, everybody. Voice & data. Got it all. Start from the premise that 98% of them are 'dirty' in one way or another, get their dirt, get their silence or their tacit obedience (eh? Nancy? Obedient girl). Hoover taught them well. They're all thugs now. Meyer Lansky would be proud.
Peace.
Dodd's on it.
http://chrisdodd.com/blog/dodd-calls-mukasey-investigate-mcclellan-charg...
To what level and how far he'll go, if it's just political promo, we'll see.
Seems like the lower your polls, the more likely you are to move in this direction.
Been a dead issue since January.
"Impeachment is off the table," remember?
From what I have seen on the TV news and what has not been covered in our local newspapers, McClellan's comments about this subject are already a dead issue.