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Robert Sterling
Editor, The Konformist
http://www.konformist.com
http://www.mediawhoresonline.com
Dear MWO:
So how, exactly, did the Democrats react to the revelations about
Bush's August intelligence briefing? A quick perusal of the press
would leave you with the impression that the Demos attacked Bush like
a rogue bag of pretzels.
The Democratic response has been described as "gleeful
braying," "mealy-mouthed accusation," "Bush bashing," "truly
outrageous," "ridiculous" and so on.
Of course, you could read the comments of the Democratic leadership
yourself � but why bother when you have the "liberal" media giving you
their version?
The press wouldn't mischaracterize the statements of Democrats � would
they?
Let's check and see. Here's House Minority Leader Dick
Gephardt "pouncing" on 5/16/02:
"I think it's early in the process to reach conclusions."
"I don't know what information was there in front of the White House,
the president, the intelligence committees or anybody else. That's
why we need to know this. Again, this is the pursuit of knowledge for
the purpose of preventing further attacks. That's what this is."
"QUESTION: Congressman, you keep saying that, you know, we
successfully prevented terrorism during the millennium, and it seems
to me that you're implying that we also could have prevented 9/11.
GEPHARDT: No, I don't know that at all. I don't know what the facts
are."
Hmm, doesn't sound like an attack to me. In fact, I'd say the whole
thing sounds awfully non-committal. Maybe Gephardt has some crazy
idea that he'd better get more facts before he forms an opinion.
Well, let's turn instead to Hillary Clinton, "implying" something
nefarious about Bush on the Senate floor:
"Those are all important issues, worthy of exploration by the
relevant committees of Congress. The goal of such an examination
should not be to assign blame, but to find out all the facts."
"Mr. President, I know some things about the unique challenges faced
by the person who assumes the mantle of Commander in Chief. No one
but those individuals who have that responsibility can truly know the
full scope of the burdens of that office. But I've had the privilege
of witnessing such history up close. And I know there is never any
shortage of second-guessers and Monday morning quarterbacks, ready to
dismantle any comment, or critique any action taken, or not taken.
Having experienced that from the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, I
will not play that game, especially in this circumstance."
Now that she mentions it, Hillary would know better than anyone how
horrible it would be to point fingers at the President without having
all of the facts. Sounds like she's being awfully restrained.
But, hey, how about Tom Daschle? That "obstructionist" must have let
the fur fly:
"We shouldn't jump to any conclusions. Clearly, there is a lot more
to be learned before we can come to any final conclusion about all of
the facts, but it clearly raises some very important questions that
have to be asked and have to be answered."
"Well, I'm concerned about whether or not the public was adequately
protected, and whether or not there was adequate information provided
to the public regarding these circumstances. But again, I think it's
important for us to get all of the facts and all of the information
prior to the time we come to any conclusion."
"QUESTION: Were you mislead or were you lied to?
DASCHLE: I'm not going to make any definitive judgment on that. I
think it is important for us to get all the information. There may be
an explanation. If there is, we need to have it. I'm ready to listen
to any plausible explanation as to how we can reconcile what was our
understanding with what now is being reported. "
Am I crazy, or does all of this sound reasonable, restrained, direct
and free of innuendo? Am I the only one who doesn�t hear a baseless
partisan attack?
According to the press, apparently I am. Here's a quick round-up �
notice the stunning lack of actual, in-context quotes from the
Democratic leadership:
"Despite the gleeful braying of Democrats who, after their long
period of solemn foreign-policy caution, are now acting like ecstatic
children just freed by the school bell, it's not clear that the Bush
administration deserves real blame for failing to see September 11
coming."|
Michael Crowley, The New Republic
"Now come the Democrats. In their conspiracy, George W. Bush was told
the attack was coming and didn't prevent it. They mealy-mouth around
this accusation, but that's just political foreplay to warm up the
public for an assault on Bush. This goes beyond pathetic to
dangerous."
Mike Thomas, Orlando Sentinel
"As Congressional Democrats and other Bush opponents rev up the
recriminations following this week's disclosures, they should
remember that the House and Senate Intelligence Committees received
some of the same intelligence reports as the White House."
Editorial Page, New York Times
"Revelations that shook the nation's capital last week provided
dispirited Democratic partisans with ammunition for bashing George W.
Bush."
Robert Novak, Syndicated Columnist
"This all went on Friday - against a backdrop of Democrats attacking
the president for "what he knew and when he knew it." If you listen
to the Democrats carefully, what they were actually saying when they
used that Watergate phrase is truly outrageous. They were saying that
Bush knew an attack was coming that was going to take the lives of
thousands and did nothing about it"
Rush Limbaugh
"Well, Hillary Clinton said I believe it was The New York Post had a
headline saying he knew. And she, on the Senate floor, said a lot of
my constituents are wondering about that, especially this being New
York. And the implication being that somehow he knew and did
nothing. I mean, which has got to be that he knew that there was
going to be a suicide bombing and that he did nothing, which is
ridiculous."
Mort Kondracke, Fox News
"And I'm afraid what Democrats have tried to do is encourage these
conspiracy theories that the president knew."
Fred Barnes, Fox News
"Democrats and the press corps immediately pounced, with Presidential
wannabe Dick Gephardt invoking the Watergate language of "what the
White House knew," yada yada."
Wall Street Journal Editorial Page
It must be great to be in the American press: you don't have to
actually report on what people say, because you are blessed with the
innate ability to divine their true feelings, especially when it
serves your political theories.
Well, here's my theory:
For a year and a half, we have been subjected to the most imperial,
secretive, unaccountable, spin-obsessed, partisan, politically
motivated administration to occupy the White House since Nixon.
For these Republicans, every Democratic statement is either an
opening for attack or a blow that must be countered.
There's not a shred of doubt in the press's mind that, had this same
scenario played out under a Gore administration, the Republicans,
sensing an opening, would have lashed out viscously. And in the
twisted logic of our media, that means the Democrats must have lashed
out as well.
Trouble is, it just isn't so.
Best,
Mark Weber
*****
PHOENIX MEMO WENT TO FRUSTRATED NYC PATRIOT-MARTYR
John O'Neill, FBI Hero, Got Word in July, Was Rebuffed, "Retired" In
Anger
NY Times, Incredibly, Reports And Then Blows Huge Story
A Crucial Piece Of The Bush Scandal Puzzle?
In a stunning revelation, the New York Times has reported that among
the two FBI office counterterrorism chiefs who received the now
famously neglected Phoenix memorandum last July was none other than
John O'Neill -- then the top counterterrorist officer in the FBI's
New York City's office, and the FBI's leading expert on Osama bin
Laden.
O'Neill knew perfectly well what Al Qaeda was up to, and had been
knocking on doors (and, at times, heads) for years to get his
colleagues and superiors to understand what he did.
The last straw came in July 2001, when (as he told the French authors
Guillaume Dasqui� and Jean-Charles Brisard in an interview), O'Neill
became fully aware that the Bush administration, anxious over
negotiations for a Caspian Sea oil pipe line, had decided to back off
of tracking bin Laden and opposing the Taliban, lest it risk
alienating powerful Saudi families. Instead of going after the
Taliban and bin Laden, the Bush Administration decided to negotiate
and try to buy off the Taliban and bin Laden.
Unfortunately for the Administration, the pipe-line negotiations
broke down in August.
And on September 11, bin Laden struck.
What no one has known until now is that at the very moment that
O'Neill was finally giving up, in July, he was being apprised of the
Phoenix memorandum -- a memo, it seems, that practically nobody
inside the Bush Administration was willing to treat seriously other
than himself.
At the end of August, in disgust, O'Neill left the FBI to take what
he somewhat ruefully regarded as his "retirement" job --as head of
security at the World Trade Center. There, on September 11, John
O'Neill died at the hands of his arch-enemy bin Laden's fiendish
followers.
Connect the dots? Well, duh! O'Neill got the Phoenix message. No
one would listen. No one. The Bushies had backed off bin Laden. So
O'Neill changed jobs -- and went on to die a martyr's death. While
all the people who ignored him, on up the chain to the Oval Office,
live on -- ghoulishly making political hay out of his sacrifice and
their own incompetence -- and, in a sense, their own perfidy.
But here's the really amazing thing -- having unearthed this
blockbuster, the New York Times reporters David Johnston and Don Van
Natta, Jr., simply bury it in their story.
They report, incredibly, that O'Neill simply "retired" back in
August -- ignoring the well-known background, leaving the dots
unconnected!!
What did O'Neill know back in July? Whom did he try to warn? What
happened when he did so? What did his "retirement" -- and its tragic
consequences -- have to do with his frustrated efforts to get Bush's
people to listen to him about the Phoenix memo, and/or about
everything else he knew about Osama bin Laden's clear and present
danger to American lives?
Here are some questions that the Bush people don't want asked, by the
New York Times, by a National Board of Investigation, or by anyone
else.
Who among ye Whores will have the guts to ask them -- and then have
the additional guts to find the answers?
If you can't be stirred by common decency or by human justice or by
old-fashioned professionalism, listen to this -- there's a Pulitzer
Prize here for someone with enough guts.
Just connect the dots -- and do some intelligent reporting.
In death, the hero John O'Neill may just turn out to be the central
clue to solving the Bush 9/11 scandal.
Which will still be cruel -- but at least might lead to justice.
*****
ANTI-BUSH BACKLASH BUILDS
Whores, For Once, Outraged At Dubya's Bullying, Scare Tactics
Bush Likened to Wizard of Oz
Even Paula Zahn Objects!
Open Ridicule for Bush, Cheney, Condi, Rummy
"Authentic" "Credible" "Trustworthy"?
"Nixonian" "Unaccountable" "Venal" Emerging As True Bush/Cheney
Character
The Tipping Point?
With unpredicted ferocity, the public backlash against the crude
diversionary scare tactics currently being deployed by the Bush
Administration has built into a fresh media firestorm.
Yes, even the Bush-fawning mainstream media, or some of them, finally
seem to have gotten sick to their stomachs.
Check out MoDo's latest:
"There is a red alert going on now, but it's only in Karl Rove's
office. (There is severe risk of political damage to the Bush
administration.)"
Tim Noah, Howard "Mister" Kurtz, Michael Kramer -- all have blasted
the Bushies transparent effort to change the subject away from the
White House's incompetence with a Chicken Little blitz. What Noah
calls the whipping up of "dire news for maximum political benefit."
Chris "Tweety" Matthews has been especially pungent:
"We have a real problem with [Phoenix memo not reaching Bush,
Mohammad Atta acquiring student visa].. these are real screw-ups,
real foul-ups.. Are they being covered up by these generalized
warnings?"
Wow! Guess Dubya's been "un-anointed" as infallible king.
And, omigod, even Paula Zahn!:
"[T]here are people out there, even the president's supporters, who
are saying that they think this latest series of warnings are nothing
more than the administration collectively trying to cover its
derriere."
Some of these creeps got rich by lying about Bill Clinton, calling
him a low politician who would do anything to save his political
skin, in contrast to the "authentic," "credible," "trustworthy"
George W. Bush.
Slowly but surely, even some of those previously believed to be the
most hopeless cases may be awakening to the fact that they've been
had, that Bush, his family, and their coterie are vicious pols,
capable of undertaking what may well turn out to be the most heinous
coverups in American history -- and that's just with 9/11 and Enron.
What does it say about the "trust" factor when everyone now believes
that as a result of the eight-month coverup, the Bush administration
would react to the criticism that threatens its tenuous terror-based
power, by stoking more terror?
We won't ask these Rove-bots to eat crow -- yet. Just to keep
reading MWO, as so many of them have started to do, for reliable
updates on the Bush regime's out-of-control "administration."
And don't just read MWO. Keep reading the likes of the honorable
Paul Vitello, writing in Newsday:
It also doesn't help that the government has sounded like the Wizard
of Oz in the last few days - "Pay no attention to that man behind the
curtain!" they seem to be saying with all their warnings of imminent
attacks; their scolding of the Democrats for "playing on the
emotions" of the victims' families by daring to ask real questions;
their implication that a real review of the record might divert FBI
manpower from the job of counter-terrorism. These are scare tactics.
When the mainstream press doesn't just blast the powers that be but
begins to ridicule them, you know that a tipping point is about to be
reached.
So far, the Bushies have failed to cover up with their signature
techniques of stonewalling, blaming Clinton, and calling their
adversaries traitors. Now they have decided to try and scare the
hell out of the American people. But it's not working!
Nothing will work.
The Bushies and their media brownnoses are, for the time being,
screwed and tattooed -- and they have no one to blame but themselves.
Response to Cheney's Threats, New Warnings:
Near-Universal Revulsion And Skepticism
Media, American People Simply Don't Trust Bush
The only debate seems to be whether the new threats represent cynical
efforts to distract from current criticism or cynical efforts to
provide cover against future criticism:
"That's why the Bushies are trying to terrify us. They desperately
want to change the subject from the stunning lapses of their
ostensibly expert foreign policy team � and they cynically want to
make it sound as if nothing they do or don't do really matters in the
end."
MoDo
----------------------------------------------------------------------
----------
"But Chatterbox doesn't put it past the Bush White House to time its
release of this dire news for maximum political benefit. With the
start of a new week, Topic A is shifting away from the Bush
administration's possible incompetence in handling the 9/11 threat
(mounting evidence suggests that the worst of this occurred within
the FBI) and toward the prospect of a new, devastating al-Qaida
attack on U.S. soil."
Tim Noah
----------------------------------------------------------------------
----------
"What started as a story about how the Bush team handled unspecific
warnings about possible terrorist attacks in the U.S. before 9/11 has
now prompted the Bushies not only to defend themselves from charges
of irresponsibility � which they are entitled to do � but to go on a
Chicken Little warnings binge that another attack is imminent,
inevitable and around the corner, but we can't tell you when, where
or how."
Thomas L. Friedman
----------------------------------------------------------------------
----------
"Put in terms a family newspaper can publish, all this unspecific
sputtering amounts to little more than some classic and familiar butt-
covering.
But this time it's butt-covering with a purpose, and that purpose is
misdirection. The more we learn about what various government
agencies knew before Sept. 11, the more certain we are that we aren't
prepared for what may come next � and the government definitely
doesn't want us to know that."
Michael Kramer
----------------------------------------------------------------------
----------
"American intelligence agencies have intercepted a vague yet
troubling series of communications among al Qaeda operatives over the
last few months indicating that the terrorist organization is trying
to carry out an operation as big as the Sept. 11 attacks or bigger,
according to intelligence and law enforcement officials."
Which raises a number of questions:
Is such a dastardly attack really brewing?
Is the administration, having been stung by disclosure of the pre-
9/11 warnings, now putting out every bit of scary intelligence � just
in case?"
Howard Kurtz
----------------------------------------------------------------------
----------
"We have a real problem with [Phoenix memo not reaching Bush,
Mohammad Atta acquiring student visa].. these are real screw-ups,
real foul-ups.. Are they being covered up by these generalized
warnings?"
Tweety:
Hardball, May 21, 2002
----------------------------------------------------------------------
----------
"All right, Cliff, because I know Bob is so fired up to talk about
this from Boise, Idaho today. And we dragged him out of bed early.
I'm actually going to start with you first, Cliff.
There is a lot of second-guessing going on, and there are people out
there, even the president's supporters, who are saying that they
think this latest series of warnings are nothing more than the
administration collectively trying to cover its derriere. What about
that?"
Paula Zahn
----------------------------------------------------------------------
----------
Of course, maybe it's true. It could well be true. I'm certain it's
at least partly true. But the problem is that it's so deeply
convenient and the administration's response to calls for inquiries
has been so strident and aggressive that it's difficult to see this
as mere coincidence.
"Another clue adds to my suspicion. One of the two outlets to break
this story, The New York Times, says that the increased activity has
been for 'the last few months.' NBC says it's for the 'past several
weeks.' So why do we hear about it right now? And what about Tom
Ridge's color-coded terror system? Come to think of it, where's Tom
Ridge?"
Josh Marshall
----------------------------------------------------------------------
----------
"On one level it's impossible to hear these dire assessments and,
with charred images of Sept. 11 still fresh in our minds, not recoil.
And only a fool would dismiss them out of hand. Still, skeptics must
be allowed to ask the obvious out loud: Don't these hair-raising
warnings come at a convenient time for the White House, as it tries
both to fend off criticism for its mishandling of terrorist
intelligence and to squash an expansive inquiry on Capitol Hill?"
Eric Boehlert
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