The Cover-Up on the Way to War

The Cover-Up on the Way to War

All they had to do was get past the election.

Coming just before John Dean is set to testify in front of the Senate Judiciary
Committee on censure, I find the title of Murray Waas' article dripping with
irony. “Insulating Bush” unravels whatever rhetorical cover to which
President Bush has been clinging for 3 years. But the plot worked. Bush got
a second term, Republicans control Congress, and the fantasy lives on.

Political theatre works. Will Democrats ever learn?

Karl Rove, President Bush's chief political adviser,
cautioned other White House aides in the summer of 2003 that Bush's 2004 re-election
prospects would be severely damaged if it was publicly disclosed that he had
been personally warned that a key rationale for going to war had been challenged
within the administration. Rove expressed his concerns shortly after an informal
review of classified government records by then-Deputy National Security Adviser
Stephen J. Hadley determined that Bush had been specifically advised that
claims he later made in his 2003 State of the Union address — that Iraq was
procuring high-strength aluminum tubes to build a nuclear weapon — might
not be true, according to government records and interviews.

Hadley was particularly concerned that the public
might learn of a classified one-page summary of a National Intelligence Estimate,
specifically written for Bush in October 2002. The summary said that although
“most agencies judge” that the aluminum tubes were “related
to a uranium enrichment effort,” the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence
and Research and the Energy Department's intelligence branch “believe
that the tubes more likely are intended for conventional weapons.”

PREWAR INTELLIGENCE
Insulating Bush,
by Murray Waas

They all lied to keep their power and keep Bush in the presidency.
It's what we all knew in our gut. But the bile rises up just the same.

Karl Rove must have been in serious flop sweat management all
throughout the cover-up months, especially once it staggered into years. It
takes a certain type of desperation to encourage a campaign like the Swiftboat
veterans. Back in the spring of 2004, when I still had a message board, long before
I went to blogging, right-wingers loved to post screeds against Kerry. One wingnut
in particular loved to warn of a book coming that would blow Kerry so far out
of the water he'd never recover. Karl had to keep the distraction campaign
going at all costs, so the Swiftboat veterans was a hit made in heaven.

What George W. Bush, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice
and the entire Bush pack are willing to do to win goes far beyond what any Democratic
member can dream, spin or weave. You can talk about all the details, the personalities,
the planning and policy, the numbers and nickel and diming, but it all comes
down to one thing. Republicans consider winning in politics a blood sport and
we do not. Until that changes the party in power will not.

Again, George W. Bush, Karl, Dick, Condi, all of them knew what
Bush was saying was a lie, but they went ahead just the same. Better still, Bush knew what he was saying wasn't true, but he said it anyway. Anything to win is not considered spin. It's politics, baby.

The previously undisclosed review by Hadley
was part of a damage-control effort launched after former Ambassador Joseph
C. Wilson IV alleged that Bush's claims regarding the uranium were not true.
The CIA had sent Wilson to the African nation of Niger in 2002 to investigate
the purported procurement efforts by Iraq; he reported that they were most
likely a hoax.

(snip) … Most troublesome to
those leading the damage-control effort was documentary evidence — albeit
in highly classified government records that they might be able to keep secret
— that the president had been advised that many in the intelligence community
believed that the tubes were meant for conventional weapons.

Quite a while ago, I interviewed John Dean over the disgrace that
is Abu Ghraib. We got to talking about “Worse Than Watergate.” When
Mr. Dean's book came out, I thought that to be worse than Watergate Bush would
have to really make an effort. As Dean sits before the Senate Judiciary Committee
tomorrow, I imagine many of us will be flooded with memories. If only we could get the same outcome.

Senator Russ Feingold having John Dean testify on censure is a
tactical move. Of course, it also has historical significance. But better still,
it is astounding political theatre delivering a powerful image that whatever
decency and honor George W. Bush ever had, now lies in blood soaked rags that
wrap the latest limb lost from yet another U.S. soldier.

Again, to beat this bunch you have to get up in the dead of night and lay your traps before they wake. No wonder “Real Security” didn't get covered, as Bush droned on in a speech no one cared about, opposite the Democratic plan roll out. Reporters just rolled their eyes. The Democrats went straight at Bush at the same time, without any thought of a counter move, plodding along like a jack ass determined to stay the political course, no matter the political outcome. In the end, “Real Security” didn't get covered. We've just got no glamour, no big show with real guts, no political theatre. Ian explains it further. It's the biggest problem our side has got.

President Bush sent boys and girls to die in a war he knew was
being trumped up on reasons that would never stand the test of time. The cynicism
it takes to launch such propaganda, when you know what you're saying is false
is what makes a president out of a mediocre mortal. The trap set, Bush's next best hope was to bide his time and pray that no one found out while he
was still in office. Even after people know the truth, you have to wonder if
anyone cares any longer.

Again, we all knew in our gut how this all went down. The venom
to which Ambassador Wilson and his wife were attacked was just too vitriolic
to be a minor skirmish in some detail about nukes from Niger. Wilson had unmasked
the whole nut of the neocons shell game on Iraq. Everything was riding on keeping what
Bush and everyone around him knew a secret. But it was the president's big secret that was the darkest. It worked. It propped up a presidency, by giving a faux man some grandeur, while giving an unworthy wuss another term, if only barely.

Nice guys really do finish last.