Out Of Context, But Still Interesting . . .
Bits and pieces, from Frank Rich's Op Ed in the NYT, today, titled:
Follow the Uranium
"WELL, of course, Karl Rove did it. He may not have violated the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, with its high threshold of criminality for outing a covert agent, but there's no doubt he trashed Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame."
"But no one knows what this e-mail means unless it's set against the avalanche of other evidence, most of it secret, including what Mr. Rove said in three appearances before the grand jury. Therein lies the rub, or at least whatever case might be made for perjury."
"What's most likely is that Mr. Novak, more of a common coward than the prince of darkness he fashions himself to be, found a way to spill some beans and avoid Judy Miller's fate."
"Hence, last week's erection of the stonewall manned by the almost poignantly clownish Mr. McClellan, who abruptly rendered inoperative his previous statements that any suspicions about Mr. Rove are "totally ridiculous." "
"Mr. Wilson, his mission to Niger to check out Saddam's supposed attempts to secure uranium that might be used in nuclear weapons and even his wife's outing have as much to do with the real story here as Janet Leigh's theft of office cash has to do with the mayhem that ensues at the Bates Motel in "Psycho." "
"The real culprit - the big enchilada, to borrow a 1973 John Ehrlichman phrase from the Nixon tapes - is not Mr. Rove but the gang that sent American sons and daughters to war on trumped-up grounds and in so doing diverted finite resources, human and otherwise, from fighting the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11."
"Once we were locked into the war, and no W.M.D.'s could be found, the original plot line was dropped with an alacrity that recalled the "Never mind!" with which Gilda Radner's Emily Litella used to end her misinformed Weekend Update commentaries on "Saturday Night Live." "
"But the administration knows how guilty it is. That's why it has so quickly trashed any insider who contradicts its story line about how we got to Iraq, starting with the former Treasury secretary Paul O'Neill and the former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke."
"Seasoned audiences of presidential scandal know that there's only one certainty ahead: the timing of a Karl Rove resignation. As always in this genre, the knight takes the fall at exactly that moment when it's essential to protect the king."
{begin orignal content}
Ok. Now it's time for my predictions.
Rove (one way or another) is Going Down! As a person more familiar with Title 18 U.S.C. than most of the pundits, I, for years, have been telling people the following: "Just hope and pray that you NEVER get inside the target scope of a Federal Prosecutor . . . Particularly if you have Anything to hide." And KR must have something to hide, here. Firstly, the spin here is not only patently-obvious bullshit, but it ain't even semi-solid bullshit. It is that runny nasty sort of bullshit that gets all over the place. That is Dangerous Bullshit. It is dangerous to the bull who made the mess, as it is so drippy and nasty and all over the place, that the bull is likely to slip and fall on it (in it) while trying to get away from the mess he just made.
(Hmm, that makes for an interesting picture in my mind of exactly how Rove is Going Down. But I digress . . .)
Anyway, can anyone who is Not a Republi-Con collaborator actually believe that KR went before a Federal Grand Jury, and did not commit perjury? And (sometimes being a lawyer is too cool) this is the good one. This is the one I am willing to bet a dollar on, as I do understand the legal elements of "conspiracy" and "obstruction" and "witness tampering" and "witness intimidation." I find it hard to believe that Rove did not run afoul of the laws against that sort of conduct, simply because of his personality, his record, his skillset, and his basic function in the Bush WH.
To be specific, I find it hard to imagine that Rove did not try to do what he naturally does, warp the facts and the truth and concoct "A Story," spread that story, and try to get others to agree to stick to that story, even once the Investigation began, because that is what he is best at doing, and what he actually had been doing in the WH as part of his duties.
This man is not even a Lawyer Gone Bad. He is a Career Political Hack. One who's claim to fame is his mastery of the arts of deceit, deception, and bold faced lies. He is a Master Bullshitter (even if his shit does stink, like anyone else's'.)
Enough about him; I can't say for sure he is going to do time, but I see an indictment with his name on it, in the near future.
Now for the rest of the Gang of Thugs.
Call me unreasonably optimistic, but to my mind, the "High Water Mark" for Bush and the gang, was the reelection. Since then, they haven't been able to keep the rubber on the road, and I think that this now-sexy story about Rove is the chink in the armor of the Bush Admin. Like Rich says in his op ed, I think that this crack is going to get wider and wider.
And to follow up on that, ( this is admittedly my "wishful thinking") I think that all of the Bush Administration's bullshit is going to get scooped up, dug up, vacuumed up, analyzed, tested, and (hopefully) after that, the Bush Admin. is finally going to have to answer to the American People for their little, ugly, Neo-Bolshevik* games.
___________
* At least one Political Scientist has theorized that the Neo-cons have more in common with the Bolshies, than any prior movement in American Political History. And note that this Political Scientist is an Old Fashioned Con (Hey, I thought they were Extinct!)
Relationship with other types of U.S. conservativism
The traditional conservative Claes Ryn has developed the critique that neoconservatives are actually what he calls a variety of neo-Jacobins. True conservatives deny the existence of a universal political and economic philosophy and model that is suitable for all societies and cultures, and believe that a society's institutions should be adjusted to suit its culture. Neo-Jacobins in contrast
are attached in the end to ahistorical, supranational principles that they believe should supplant the traditions of particular societies. The new Jacobins see themselves as on the side of right and fighting evil and are not prone to respecting or looking for common ground with countries that do not share their democratic preferences. (Ryn 2003: 387)
[Neo-Jacobinism] regards America as founded on universal principles and assigns to the United States the role of supervising the remaking of the world. Its adherents have the intense dogmatic commitment of true believers and are highly prone to moralistic rhetoric. They demand, among other things, "moral clarity" in dealing with regimes that stand in the way of America's universal purpose. They see themselves as champions of "virtue." (p. 384).
Thus, according to Ryn, neoconservatism is analogous to Bolshevism: in the same way that the Bolsheviks wanted to destroy established ways of life throughout the world to replace them with communism, the neoconservatives want to do the same, only imposing free-market capitalism and American-style "liberal democracy" instead of socialism.
(emphasis added.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism_in_the_United_States
Follow the Uranium
"WELL, of course, Karl Rove did it. He may not have violated the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, with its high threshold of criminality for outing a covert agent, but there's no doubt he trashed Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame."
"But no one knows what this e-mail means unless it's set against the avalanche of other evidence, most of it secret, including what Mr. Rove said in three appearances before the grand jury. Therein lies the rub, or at least whatever case might be made for perjury."
"What's most likely is that Mr. Novak, more of a common coward than the prince of darkness he fashions himself to be, found a way to spill some beans and avoid Judy Miller's fate."
"Hence, last week's erection of the stonewall manned by the almost poignantly clownish Mr. McClellan, who abruptly rendered inoperative his previous statements that any suspicions about Mr. Rove are "totally ridiculous." "
"Mr. Wilson, his mission to Niger to check out Saddam's supposed attempts to secure uranium that might be used in nuclear weapons and even his wife's outing have as much to do with the real story here as Janet Leigh's theft of office cash has to do with the mayhem that ensues at the Bates Motel in "Psycho." "
"The real culprit - the big enchilada, to borrow a 1973 John Ehrlichman phrase from the Nixon tapes - is not Mr. Rove but the gang that sent American sons and daughters to war on trumped-up grounds and in so doing diverted finite resources, human and otherwise, from fighting the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11."
"Once we were locked into the war, and no W.M.D.'s could be found, the original plot line was dropped with an alacrity that recalled the "Never mind!" with which Gilda Radner's Emily Litella used to end her misinformed Weekend Update commentaries on "Saturday Night Live." "
"But the administration knows how guilty it is. That's why it has so quickly trashed any insider who contradicts its story line about how we got to Iraq, starting with the former Treasury secretary Paul O'Neill and the former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke."
"Seasoned audiences of presidential scandal know that there's only one certainty ahead: the timing of a Karl Rove resignation. As always in this genre, the knight takes the fall at exactly that moment when it's essential to protect the king."
{begin orignal content}
Ok. Now it's time for my predictions.
Rove (one way or another) is Going Down! As a person more familiar with Title 18 U.S.C. than most of the pundits, I, for years, have been telling people the following: "Just hope and pray that you NEVER get inside the target scope of a Federal Prosecutor . . . Particularly if you have Anything to hide." And KR must have something to hide, here. Firstly, the spin here is not only patently-obvious bullshit, but it ain't even semi-solid bullshit. It is that runny nasty sort of bullshit that gets all over the place. That is Dangerous Bullshit. It is dangerous to the bull who made the mess, as it is so drippy and nasty and all over the place, that the bull is likely to slip and fall on it (in it) while trying to get away from the mess he just made.
(Hmm, that makes for an interesting picture in my mind of exactly how Rove is Going Down. But I digress . . .)
Anyway, can anyone who is Not a Republi-Con collaborator actually believe that KR went before a Federal Grand Jury, and did not commit perjury? And (sometimes being a lawyer is too cool) this is the good one. This is the one I am willing to bet a dollar on, as I do understand the legal elements of "conspiracy" and "obstruction" and "witness tampering" and "witness intimidation." I find it hard to believe that Rove did not run afoul of the laws against that sort of conduct, simply because of his personality, his record, his skillset, and his basic function in the Bush WH.
To be specific, I find it hard to imagine that Rove did not try to do what he naturally does, warp the facts and the truth and concoct "A Story," spread that story, and try to get others to agree to stick to that story, even once the Investigation began, because that is what he is best at doing, and what he actually had been doing in the WH as part of his duties.
This man is not even a Lawyer Gone Bad. He is a Career Political Hack. One who's claim to fame is his mastery of the arts of deceit, deception, and bold faced lies. He is a Master Bullshitter (even if his shit does stink, like anyone else's'.)
Enough about him; I can't say for sure he is going to do time, but I see an indictment with his name on it, in the near future.
Now for the rest of the Gang of Thugs.
Call me unreasonably optimistic, but to my mind, the "High Water Mark" for Bush and the gang, was the reelection. Since then, they haven't been able to keep the rubber on the road, and I think that this now-sexy story about Rove is the chink in the armor of the Bush Admin. Like Rich says in his op ed, I think that this crack is going to get wider and wider.
And to follow up on that, ( this is admittedly my "wishful thinking") I think that all of the Bush Administration's bullshit is going to get scooped up, dug up, vacuumed up, analyzed, tested, and (hopefully) after that, the Bush Admin. is finally going to have to answer to the American People for their little, ugly, Neo-Bolshevik* games.
___________
* At least one Political Scientist has theorized that the Neo-cons have more in common with the Bolshies, than any prior movement in American Political History. And note that this Political Scientist is an Old Fashioned Con (Hey, I thought they were Extinct!)
Relationship with other types of U.S. conservativism
The traditional conservative Claes Ryn has developed the critique that neoconservatives are actually what he calls a variety of neo-Jacobins. True conservatives deny the existence of a universal political and economic philosophy and model that is suitable for all societies and cultures, and believe that a society's institutions should be adjusted to suit its culture. Neo-Jacobins in contrast
are attached in the end to ahistorical, supranational principles that they believe should supplant the traditions of particular societies. The new Jacobins see themselves as on the side of right and fighting evil and are not prone to respecting or looking for common ground with countries that do not share their democratic preferences. (Ryn 2003: 387)
[Neo-Jacobinism] regards America as founded on universal principles and assigns to the United States the role of supervising the remaking of the world. Its adherents have the intense dogmatic commitment of true believers and are highly prone to moralistic rhetoric. They demand, among other things, "moral clarity" in dealing with regimes that stand in the way of America's universal purpose. They see themselves as champions of "virtue." (p. 384).
Thus, according to Ryn, neoconservatism is analogous to Bolshevism: in the same way that the Bolsheviks wanted to destroy established ways of life throughout the world to replace them with communism, the neoconservatives want to do the same, only imposing free-market capitalism and American-style "liberal democracy" instead of socialism.
(emphasis added.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism_in_the_United_States
posted by Abstentus at 2:42 PM
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