Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Dear Leader

Kevin points to this Ron Brownstein column in which Brownstein compares the Republican Party’s governing style to North Korea. It’s quite true. They believe bipartisanship is date rape. They know that they needn’t fear they will be seen in a bad light by the public for this because the public gives fuck-all about legislative process — and the media allows them to present themselves as having mandates or representing the mainstream despite having only the thinnest majority. They’ve taken the “winner take all” concept to new heights.

From Brownstein:

The essence of the modern Republican governing strategy is self-reliance. The goal is to resolve all issues in a manner that solidifies their political coalition. The means is to pass legislation primarily by unifying Republicans, thus shrinking opportunities for Democrats to exert influence. This approach represents the political equivalent to what the North Korean government calls Juche: a strategy of maximizing independence by minimizing dependence on outside forces.

I keep hearing that until Democrats start “winning elections” they should just step aside and if they refuse, they will be shoved aside. It makes me wonder if the founders knew what they were doing with this representation thing. Surely, it would have been more efficient to just have the ruling party come to Washington and legislate without interference from the minority. Think of how much money it saves.

One thing I think that both Brownstein and Drum neglect with their North Korea comparison is that in order to succeed it must also feature a godlike infallible cult leader. (After all, before Kim Jong Il was revealed as the successor to his father, he was mysteriously referred to as “party center“):

It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can’t get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile.

In North Korea they have the same kind of leader — but they have the good graces to notice:

Reflecting his apparent encyclopedic knowledge and superhuman abilities, the Dear Leader is also considered by North Koreans as a “great figure of the arts and architecture,” “genius of music,” and “world famous writer,” the report said.

The KCBS added that the Dear Leader is a “computer genius who surprises computer experts”, and the “ideal leader of the world” because he is so erudite.

The North’s media also have described the North Korean leader as an “incarnation of power” who exerts “unlimited creative power” and is the “hero of the heaven.”

Perhaps when we are done renaming every street in American after Great leader Ronald Reagan, we can begin the movement to officially recognise our Dear Leader too.

He, at least, knows his own value

Q — at politically? I mean, you’ve still got Iraq holding over your head and Social Security. You’ve got a lot of tough things that are going —

THE PRESIDENT: Well, it took — it took the — I don’t know how many times I have to tell people that polls go up and polls go down. If you made decisions based upon polls, you would be a miserable leader.

Q But power is perception.

THE PRESIDENT: Power is being the President.

[…]

Q Did the Bolton decision, you think, have any affect on your relations with the Senate, or will they understand?

THE PRESIDENT: …Bolton’s standing in the world depends upon my confidence in Bolton, and I’ve got a lot of confidence in Bolton.

One would think it would be much more efficient if we let Dear Leader make all the decisions. After all, power is the president. However, it would be much more difficult for the revolving door of lobbying and the military indusrtrial complex to make multi-millionaires of generals and politicans. So we need to at least have a congressional pageant now and then. The Democrats can play the fools.

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Punchin’ Judy

Arianna has more insider dirt on the Judy Miller file:

A well-connected media source e-mailed to say that the most interesting development on the Miller story is coming from inside the Times: “I gather that Doug Jehl, who is a dogged and respected reporter, has been assigned to do an in-house investigative report for the Times and that he is already cutting pretty close to the bone. Several editors he has spoken to are now asking themselves why there wasn’t more questioning of whether Miller’s silence reflects a fear of incriminating herself rather than betraying a source. I predict this will start to unravel in the next couple of weeks — if only because the Times is afraid of getting scooped again by outside rivals.”

If they just now began to question this then there is a lot more wrong with the NY Times than we’ve known. Considering Miller’s recent history any cub reporter would have at least wondered whether Miller was colluding with the administration on this.

As Xeno reminds me in the comments, the NY Times recently published quite a scathing editorial about Karl Rove “using” the press for his own ends and demanded that he hold a press conference and admit what he knows.

Far be it for us to denounce leaks. Newspapers have relied on countless government officials to divulge vital information that their bosses want to be kept secret. There is even value in the sanctioned leak, such as when the White House, say, lets out information that it wants known but does not want to announce.

But it is something else entirely when officials peddle disinformation for propaganda purposes or to harm a political adversary. And Karl Rove seems to have been playing that unsavory game with the C.I.A. officer Valerie Plame Wilson and her husband, Joseph Wilson IV, a career diplomat who ran afoul of President Bush’s efforts to justify the invasion of Iraq.

[…]

The White House has painted itself into a corner. More than a year ago, Mr. Bush vowed to fire the leaker. Then Scott McClellan, the president’s spokesman, repeatedly assured everyone that the leaker was not Mr. Rove, on whom the president is so dependent intellectually that he calls Mr. Rove “the architect.”

Until this week, the administration had deflected attention onto journalists by producing documents that officials had been compelled to sign to supposedly waive any promise of confidentiality. Our colleague Judith Miller, unjustly jailed for protecting the identity of confidential sources, was right to view these so-called waivers as meaningless.

Mr. Rove could clear all this up quickly. All he has to do is call a press conference and tell everyone what conversations he had and with whom. While we like government officials who are willing to whisper vital information, we like even more government officials who tell the truth in public.

I assume that the NY Times will issue another such scathing indictment of Scooter Libby now that we know he was the person who Judy Miller is protecting. After all, he has the power to release Judy tomorrow if he will just hold a press conference and tell everyone what conversation he had and with whom. Then Judy would be released from her obligations and could testify in good faith. Right?

Libby On The Label

According to Murray Waas, Scooter told Fitzgerald that he met with Miller on July 8th. But he has not given Judith Miller the specific waiver she seeks to talk to the prosecutors.

It’s time for the press to go to the mattresses and demand an explanation from the white house.

The new disclosure that Miller and Libby met on July 8, 2003, raises questions regarding claims by President Bush that he and everyone in his administration have done everything possible to assist Fitzgerald’s grand-jury probe. Sources close to the investigation, and private attorneys representing clients embroiled in the federal probe, said that Libby’s failure to produce a personal waiver may have played a significant role in Miller’s decision not to testify about her conversations with Libby, including the one on July 8, 2003.

Libby signed a more generalized waiver during the early course of the investigation granting journalists the right to testify about their conversations with him if they wished to do so. At least two reporters — Walter Pincus of The Washington Post and Tim Russert of NBC — have testified about their conversations with Libby.

But Miller has said she would not consider providing any information to investigators about conversations with Libby or anyone else without a more specific, or personal, waiver. Bill Keller, the executive editor of The New York Times, has previously said Miller had not been granted “any kind of a waiver … that she finds persuasive or believes was freely given.”

Libby has never offered to provide such a personalized waiver for Miller, according to three legal sources with first-hand knowledge of the matter. Joseph A. Tate, an attorney for Libby, declined to comment for this story.

[…]

At least two attorneys representing private clients who are embroiled in the Plame probe also privately questioned whether or not President Bush had encouraged Libby to provide a personalized waiver for Miller in an effort to obtain her cooperation.

In a memorandum distributed to White House staff members shortly after the investigation became known, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, who at the time was White House counsel, wrote, “The president has directed full cooperation with this investigation.” Bush himself said: “[I]f there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. And if the person has violated the law, the person will be taken care of.”

Congressman Rush Holt, Democrat of New Jersey and a member of the House Intelligence Committee, while sidestepping the specifics as to whether Bush should order Libby to provide a personalized waiver for Miller, said in an interview Friday evening: “I would say the president has the power to help us get to the bottom of this matter. And we in Congress want to do this not so much for what has happened but to prevent such a thing from happening again.”

This is bullshit. The white house cannot get away with saying they are cooperating with the prosecutor by not talking — and then not require the staff to fully cooperate with the prosecutor.

“I want to know the truth,” Bush told reporters in September 2003 after news of the investigation had burst into headlines. “If anybody has got any information, inside our administration or outside our administration, it would be helpful if they came forward with the information so we can find out whether or not these allegations are true and get on about the business.”

Here’s Scotty from July 11th:

Q: Does the president stand by his pledge to fire anyone involved in a leak of the name of a CIA operative?

MCCLELLAN: I appreciate your question. I think your question is being asked related to some reports that are in reference to an ongoing criminal investigation. The criminal investigation that you reference is something that continues at this point.

And as I’ve previously stated, while that investigation is ongoing, the White House is not going to comment on it.

The president directed the White House to cooperate fully with the investigation. And as part of cooperating fully with the investigation, we made a decision that we weren’t going to comment on it while it is ongoing.

Now that it’s been reported that Libby is the source Miller is protecting the media should demand that Libby free their sister from jail.

“Scott, Judy Miller is languishing in a DC jail because the vice president’s chief of staff refuses to grant her a specific waiver. The prosecutor has told federal judges that he needs to talk to her. Is this what the president calls cooperating with the investigation?”

There really is no good reason why Libby hasn’t provided a specific waiver for Judy if he told Fitzgerald he talked to her.

Unless he lied to the prosecutor about what was said, that is.

And if Judy gets a specific waiver she has no more excuse to play Jeanne d’Arc. If she still won’t squawk, the NY Times will have to finally admit that they have employed a neocon operative as a reporter.

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Sit Tight

A thought to ponder as we debate whether we should be moving toward more social conservatism. The number one Republican in the US Senate just endorsed stem cell research and the number three Republican in the Senate just backed off his previous support for intelligent design.

This would indicate to me that these two politicians, one of whom is running for president and the other who is trying to keep his seat in a swing state, have seen numbers that indicate the religious right is hurting their chances. They are sistah sojah-ing like madmen pretty damn early in the game.

I suspect that some democratic strategists think this is a good reason for us to “meet them in the middle” by running as social conservatives — just without James Dobson. But anyone who thinks this is someone who hasn’t been watching politics for the last 20 years.

We should sit tight. We’re already in the middle, right where most of the public is. It’s just that the public didn’t realize it until recently. When the wingnuts start devouring each other we should tie them together and run against the whole lot. I know this because I watched it happen in the 80’s. To us.

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Good For Thee But Not For Me

The United States’ envoy in Iraq delivered a warning on Saturday to Shi’ite Islamist leaders, propelled to power by U.S. forces, not to use a new constitution to impose discriminatory laws by majority rule.

Hmmmmm.

JOINT RESOLUTION Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States relating to marriage .

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years after the date of its submission for ratification:

“Article —

“SECTION 1. Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution or the constitution of any State, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups.”

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The Palmeiro Defense

In related news, Karl Rove returned to testify before the grand jury investigating the Plame leak today. Rove testified that while he indeed did leak Valerie Plame’s name to reporters, he has no idea how it happened.

“I still don’t know what caused me to do it,” Rove said. “I know I didn’t mean to do it. I don’t even think I did it, but I did. I’m not a crazy person. We were going to get our war anyway. It makes no sense.”

Read the whole thing.

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Confession Is Good For The Soul

In anticipation of tomorrows Press The Meat, I think that guests should be required to read Swopa and Fishbowl DC. Maybe Ashleigh Blitzer ought to see if he can get Monsignor Tim on his show.

It turns out, contrary to my post below, that NBC was a little bit, shall we say … lawyerly, with its statement of Russert’s involvement:

Mr. Russert told the Special Prosecutor that, at the time of that conversation, he did not know Ms. Plame’s name or that she was a CIA operative and that he did not provide that information to Mr. Libby. Mr. Russert said that he first learned Ms. Plame’s name and her role at the CIA when he read a column written by Robert Novak later that month.

What that statement very cleverly leaves open is that Russert did tell Libby that “Joseph Wilson’s wife” was a CIA “employee.”

Look, this is getting stupid. There is no reason on earth that Tim Russert should not be required to say right out if he repeated gossip to Lewis Libby about Joe Wilson and his wife. It means that he’s a dirt-dishing little scumbag but it has no bearing on his legal culpability. One could easily understand why he would think that repeating this tidbit to a man who had the highest security clearance wouldn’t exactly mean he was spilling state secrets.

I would have thought that since all this has been hashed over in great detail these last few weeks that the “professionals” in the mainstream press would have thought it was worthwhile to pursue — even if it meant that the leader of the kewl kids was confronted with his own words and asked to explain. After all, that is what he does every single Sunday morning to whichever poor schmuck submits him or herself to his grilling.

As Atrios eloquently points out this morning, this absurd idea that celebrity journalists aren’t public figures is laughable in itself. But the idea reaches total absurdity when you consider that these celebrity journalists are players in the biggest scandal of the last five years. When you have these journalists being called before Grand Juries, making deals with special prosecutors and distributing carefully worded lawyerly statements — they are just like any other citizen in that situation; they are witnesses to a possible crime. I wish that the press were so solicitous of private citizens who don’t have their own TV shows when they camp out on their doorsteps screaming for comment.

Tim Russert gave a very lawyerly statement about what he told the special prosecutor. He has never been asked to expand on it or clarify it, to my knowledge. That is journalistic malpractice.

Here’s what they should do, it’s really quite simple.

Mr Russert, did you ever tell Scooter Libby in any way shape or form that Joseph Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA?

Oh, and then guys,if he tries to answer by saying that he didn’t know her name or what her role was at the CIA, follow up. Be reporters and persist. Ask him if he mentioned Joe Wilson’s wife to Libby at all. If he says yes, then ask if he mentioned where she worked. It’s not hard.

Update: I see Arianna beat me to this.

…frankly, this week, instead of coming up with questions for Tim, I’d like to hear him give some long-overdue answers about his still ill-defined involvement in Plamegate.

And I’m not the only one feeling this way. Earlier this week, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Sydney Schanberg called on Russert and all the other reporters involved in the story (yes, that includes you Bob Novak) to “tell us everything”: “Tim Russert cuts a large figure in Washington,” wrote Shanberg. “He should be a big man now and give us some details; why not agree to be interviewed by someone as probing as he?”

[…]

So what do you say, Tim? Why not put Roberts’ faith on hold for a week and restore the public’s faith in you by putting yourself in the Meet the Press hot seat? As Schanberg said of his fellow reporters: “We have no rational explanation for calling regularly on government and corporate giants to release all possible information to the public if we ourselves decline to release the details about our roles and our processes when they are germane to the story.… The public has a right to know; isn’t that our mantra?”

Considering how well Bob Novak has responded to being on the receiving end of the cattle prod, I suspect that The Padre will not take to well to being “probed” with his own petard. But it is worthwhile to put pressure on these guys to start leveling with the public. I know that it’s too much to ask that this clubby little world be exposed, but we have to try.

I’ll agree with Kevin on this to the extent that the press may be better than it used to be in many respects, but that’s not really the problem. With the rise of public relations, the cacophany of information and the overwhelming power of marketing we need an independent press more than we used to to help us filter through the bullshit so that we can maintain our democracy. Instead, they seem to be drifting toward entertainment values which are by definition controlled by the very forces that are making it difficult for the public to see their world clearly. The last fifteen years of political coverage have been dominated by tabloid circuses or jingoistic parades. They need to try harder.

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The Terminator

In case anyone’s wondering if Pat Fitzgerald is really as much of a prosecution machine as people think he is, there is actually little doubt. He seems to really like putting away dirty politicians of all stripes. In fact, he seems to be mowing down the entire corrupt Illinois political system in a thoroughly bipartisan way:

If ever U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald leaves Chicago, I figure that Mayor Richard Daley, his Democratic machine and his Republican friends in the Illinois political combine will pop for champagne at Gibsons in Rosemont.

[…]

“I’m just going to do my job until someone tells me otherwise,” Fitzgerald said at a news conference in which he announced the indictments of more combine boys.

“I love my job. I’m very, very lucky to work with the people behind me and the people behind that, and I have no plans to do anything else.”

Federal authorities charged three political insiders Wednesday with extorting money from investment companies working with the Teachers Retirement System pension fund.

According to the indictments, in trying to shake down a Virginia investment firm on behalf of Republican Stuart Levine, top Democratic fundraiser and lawyer Joe Cari is alleged to have said:

“This is how things are done in Illinois.”

Another lawyer, Steven Loren, also was charged in the shakedown scheme. He and Cari are now cooperating with prosecutors. Levine, who was indicted on multiple counts, was recently indicted in another alleged kickback scam on the state’s Health Facilities Planning Board.

Years ago, some questioned if there was an Illinois combine, a ruling bipartisan clique gorging on public money, using political muscle to fill their pockets. I don’t think many people question that anymore.

According to the grand jury, some Democrats and Republicans work together just fine. They’re not divided by opposing ideologies. Instead, they’re bound by a common interest: cash.

The combine fought to stop Fitzgerald from coming to Chicago from New York. They ran former U.S. Sen. Peter Fitzgerald (R-Ill.) out of politics for the sin of installing Patrick Fitzgerald (no relation) in the job of federal hammer in Chicago.

Lately, there’s been speculation that the president would lean on Fitzgerald and remove him because Fitzgerald is a presidential irritant, acting as special counsel in Washington. He’s investigating Bush administration officials for reportedly leaking the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame.

Presidential political adviser Karl Rove and others in Rove’s sphere have been questioned in the investigation. It is assumed Rove will seek revenge. U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) wants to hold Senate hearings to question Fitzgerald about his investigation. These hearings are seen as an extension of Rove’s long hand.

And in Chicago, Fitzgerald has the Outfit upset, not to mention Streets & San, the mayor’s office and Daley’s own 11th Ward organization, and the Republican clique of former Gov. George Ryan. Fitzgerald and Chicago FBI chief Rob Grant are expected to announce more corruption charges in another case on Thursday morning.

So they’re giving everybody agita. With all this going on, all these investigations and all the political interests he’s threatened by pursuing cases, Fitzgerald was asked the big question.

Do you want to stay?

“I’m not going to start lobbying for a job,” he said. “I’m just saying that I’m very happy with my job, very grateful I have it, and I’m just going to keep working.”

He wasn’t lobbying. And he wasn’t being slick about it. He was just answering the question, appearing to be slightly embarrassed to be talking about himself.

I don’t know Fitzgerald well. But I can see he is uncomfortable with being cast as some knight on a white horse. He’s no such thing. He’s much more dangerous.

He’s a federal prosecutor who does not want to run for governor or a big job in a top law firm. He’s not whispering that he’d like to be made a federal judge. He doesn’t want to be somebody’s rainmaker.

There’s nothing more frightening to the combine than someone without an appetite they can feed.

If he hands down indictments the long arm of Karl Rove is going to morph into a thousand tentacles intent upon bringing this guy down. Within minutes you will see every talking point the Democrats used against Ken Starr being regurgitated by right-wing mouthpieces as if they just made it up that morning. It’s one of their favorite (and most useful) tactics — use the other side’s rhetoric against them. They take advantage of the ear worms of repetitive political rhetoric which a lot of people then just automatically accept as conventional wisdom.

And if you think you’ve seen Republicans whining and snivelling about being victimized before now, you ain’t seen nothin’ until you see them shriek like little old ladies about being persecuted by the jack-booted thugs. If and when that happens, I hope that the liberal pundits have the wisdom to turn the tables on them this time and call them out for being a bunch of bedwetting sissies. Karl Rove needs to take it like a man. There’s a war on. If he’d just apologise, maybe we could move on …

‘N what about the rule ‘o law?

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Jujitsu Death Blow

Blogenlust’s Law states …

As an online discussion among wingnuts grows longer, the probability that a Clinton will be blamed for something approaches 1 (i.e., certainty).

Here’s the example John cites:

The left appears to have lost its appetite for the Plamegate scandal. This, in itself, is more than sufficient reason for conservatives to pursue the matter aggressively. The left has much to hide in this affair. Now that they have done us the service of making Plamegate a national issue, let us employ Saul Alinsky’s principle of “political jiu-jitsu” and re-direct the left’s own momentum against it.

Of particular interest is the odd connection between Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper and would-be president Hillary Clinton. Cooper is the reporter who made an elaborate show of pretending that he was ready to go to jail to “protect” his “source” Karl Rove. In fact, we now know that Rove had given Cooper a blanket release to reveal his name some eighteen months before Cooper finally revealed it. So why did Cooper pretend that he only received permission at the last minute, just before he was to be jailed for contempt? And why did major media assist Cooper in his pretense?

Plainly, the Democrats’ media allies were trying to distort the facts to cast Rove in a bad light. But to what end? Such an elaborate deception could not have unfolded on its own. Someone had to orchestrate it. But who?

One hint may come from the fact that Hooper’s wife, Mandy Grunwald, is a former spinmeister for the Clinton White House and a close confidante of Hillary. Her father, Henry Grunwald, was formerly editor of Time magazine, and wrote the first major editorial calling for Richard Nixon’s resignation (hat tip, Sacajaweau).

[…]

It would seem that the apple does not fall far from the tree. Like her father before her, Mandy Grunwald now finds herself at the vortex of what appears to be an effort to undermine our commander-in-chief at a critical phase of a major war.

How likely does it seem, gentle reader, that Matt Cooper failed to discuss his Plamegate work with his wife? And how likely does it seem that Mandy Grunwald failed to keep Hillary’s war room advised of her husband’s progress?

To put it another way, what did Hillary know and when did she know it?

I hadn’t thought about it before, but it’s perfectly obvious that Hitlery and her minions in the liberal media hatched this clever plot to implicate the White House in the outing of a CIA agent — in order to help the terrorists. My God, it’s been right in front of our faces all this time!

I’m reeling from the devastating cleverness of that move. My head is spinning. All is lost, my friends. All. Is. Lost. I’m joining the other side. They were always right. I was always wrong. They have won three elections in five years and I realize that we can never defeat them again. They are too smart for us.

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Uhm no — He’s Just An Idiot

Bush’s loyalty raises doubts about his political judgment

“It seems that President Bush is falling into the Nixon trap – his administration can do no wrong. His allies and people who support him can do no wrong,” said Robert Dallek, a presidential historian. “Palmeiro is above suspicion, Rove is not to be questioned, John Bolton is a stand-up guy.

“The danger is he divorces himself from public reality, political reality, and it erodes his ability to lead the country,” Dallek said.

It’s not that his administration can do no wrong. It’s that he can do no wrong. If he picked these people for his administration or for his friends, thay are, by definition, good people who are above suspicion. To say otherwise would be to admit that his judgment is imperfect and that is impossible. Dear Leader is an infallible child.

Several analysts said the Palmeiro situation illustrates that point. Bush took a strong stand against steroids in his 2004 State of the Union address, demanding that major league sports take tougher action to eliminate steroid use by athletes.

“The use of performance-enhancing drugs like steroids in baseball, football and other sports is dangerous and it sends the wrong message – that there are shortcuts to accomplishment and that performance is more important than character,” Bush said.

But when news of Palmeiro’s positive drug test and 10-day suspension by Major League Baseball became public, Bush almost instantly backed the ballplayer, saying Palmeiro spoke truthfully on March 17 when he wagged his finger at the
House Government Reform Committee and emphatically denied ever using steroids.

Bush’s fondness for Palmeiro – who recently became only the fourth major league player to slam more than 500 home runs and 3,000 base hits – dates back to when Palmeiro played for the Rangers under Bush’s ownership.

“Rafael Palmeiro is a friend. He testified in public and I believe him,” Bush said Monday. “He’s the kind of person that’s going to stand up in front of the klieg lights and say he didn’t use steroids, and I believe him. Still do.”

Bush’s quick defense seemed contradictory to some, in light of his previous tough talk on steroids.

“His defense in this case, so quickly, seemed like an about-face, from taking a stand to a ridiculous statement a fan might make to another fan in a bar,” said Richard Lapchick, chairman of the DeVos Sports Business Management Program at the University of Central Florida. “It certainly didn’t seem like he thought that one through.”

How unusual. And he’s usually so intellectually thorough.

Stephen Hess, a political scientist at George Washington University in Washington, believes Bush’s judgment isn’t clouded by loyalty. The president had no problem in dismissing Lawrence Lindsey, his economic adviser during the 2000 campaign and the head of his Council of Economic Advisers until his ouster in 2002.

“That showed me he’ll carry loyalty to a point – which is part of what presidents do,” Hess said.

Of course, Lindsey was let go not long after he estimated publicly that a war in
Iraq could cost $200 billion, far above Bush loyalists’ line at the time, which may have been seen as disloyal. Iraq war costs will exceed $200 billion in the next year.

And he was fat. His loyalty doesn’t extend that far.

Honestly, this blind defense of Palmiero has little to do with loyalty. It’s about Bush’s faith based approach to everything. If he believes it, it must be true. He does not use reason to come to conclusions. He makes decisions based on feelings and beliefs and “instinct.” In this case, his instinct is that Palmiero is a good guy and therefore could not have lied. His “instinct” is that creationism makes sense and therefore, is as legitimate as evolution. His “instinct” was that Saddam was a threat and therefore, we had to invade.

We have a man with a child’s mind running this country. Millions of us can see this as clearly as we can see his face on our television screens. People can call me an elitist and a snob for pointing this out but I will never stop. It’s like telling me it’s rude to notice that the sun came up this morning or that gravity exists. It is observable fact that this president is intellectually stunted. I’m not going to pretend otherwise so that certain people’s feelings don’t get hurt. I’ll lose my mind.

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