Replies

Then why did they let him in?
Who is "they"?
Does Grover Norquist decide who sees the President?
Well, to some extent, it seems that he does. Isn't that what he is paid to do? Gain access.

Who is "they"?

Umm, you know - the White House and its staff? The folks who are supposed to know about terrorists and terrorist sympathizers? How's that for a start?

I'll ask again in an effort to build that starting point...If you had high level access to the WH and the POTUS would you personally take it upon yourself to ensure that whoever you brought in for a visit was on the up and up beforehand, no matter if it was supposed to be "someone else's job" or not?

Well, to answer your earlier questions, I'm not Norquist. Or Rove. Or GWB for that matter. Along with that, I'm also not the Secret Service, the FBI, the CIA, or any of the other folks we put in charge of tracking terrorists and terrorist sympathizers. Neither, to my knowledge, is Grover Norquist. And concomitant with my failure to be those people or institutions, I don't have the resources that they have. And if they knew something about these guys that I didn't, and used it to play "gotcha" rather than letting me or their masters - remember them? the people they're supposed to report to? - I'd probably be a bit pissed off too.

Well, gee Wally, do you think it's because Norquist arranged the meeting and they trusted him to vet those he brought in? Did they even know exactly which individuals were being brought in or was it just a "some guys I know" type of thing.

I dunno. Why in the hell didn't they ASK? Or am I supposed to believe that Grover Norquist can stroll up to the front gate with Osama bin Laden in tow, and everyone there will just wave them into the Oval Office, no questions asked - because hey, it's Grover, right?

She wrote that President Clinton ``wasn't sure we'd want photos of him with these people circulating around''....the White House determined that Wang Jun had not been vetted by the NSC

Et cetera. You'll have to excuse me if I hold this White House to a slightly higher standard than the last one.

Such minor things though. No sense getting too complicated as to specific responsibilities, is there.

Let's see. Shall I go through and count the number of threads that blamed all the Clintoon Chinagate problems on Chung and Charlie Trie and the rest of those characters? Or maybe, just maybe, I'll find a whole bunch of threads assigning responsibility to the man at the top, Der Schlicker himself. Is that where this is going? Is Grover just a convenient knife with which to stab Bush? 'Cause it's starting to look that way to me - is that where you want to go with this? Is that what this is all about?