"There is no connection, never!"
Posted on 07/17/2004 5:29:08 AM PDT by Begin
Poor Karl Rove. He spends close to two years meticulously staging photo ops and carefully crafting sound bites to create the image of President Bush as a take-charge, man-the-controls, land-the-jet-on-the-deck-of-the-aircraft carrier, "Bring 'em on" kind of leader. But now the latest revelations about the Misstatement of the Union fiasco are threatening to bring back the old notion of W as a bumbling, detached figurehead-in-chief.
And it's the president's own people who are painting this unflattering portrait.
Take George Tenet: While robotically impaling himself on his sword, the CIA director took great pains to point out that he thought so little of the Niger/Saddam uranium connection that he and his deputies refused to bring it up in congressional briefings as far back as fall 2002. It just didn't meet his standards.
Same with Colin Powell. The secretary went on at great length about the intense vetting process - "four days and three nights" locked up with the leaders of the CIA, working "until midnight, 1 o'clock every morning," going over "every single thing we knew about all of the various issues with respect to weapons of mass destruction" - that went into deciding what information would be used in his United Nations presentation. A presentation that ultimately did not include the Niger allegation because it was not, in Powell's words, "standing the test of time."
So here's the picture we're left with: When faced with using explosive but highly questionable charges in vital presentations leading up to a possible preemptive war, both Powell and Tenet gave the information they were handed a thorough going over before ultimately rejecting it. But not the commander in chief. Apparently, he just took whatever he was handed and happily offered it up to the world. And then when the uranium hit the fan, our stand-up-guy president decided that the buck actually stops with George Tenet.
As the Niger controversy is turning into a political firestorm, the question should be: What didn't the president know - and why didn't he know it? And why does he know less and less every day?
After all, it's becoming clearer by the day that just about everyone else involved knew that the president was using a bogus charge to alarm the nation about Saddam's nuclear threat. Whatever the opposite of "top secret" is, this was it.
The U.S. ambassador to Niger, Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick, knew: She had sent reports to Washington debunking the allegations. Joe Wilson, the envoy sent to Niger by the CIA, knew: His fact-finding trip quickly confirmed the ambassador's findings. The CIA knew: The agency tried unsuccessfully in September 2002 to convince the Brits to take the false charge out of an intelligence report. The State Department knew: Its Bureau of Intelligence and Research labeled it "highly dubious." Tenet and Powell knew: They refused to use it.
The president's speechwriters knew: They were told to remove a reference to the Niger uranium in a speech the president delivered in Cincinnati on Oct. 7 - three months before his State of the Union. And the National Security Council knew: NSC staff played a key role in the decision to fudge the truth by having the president source the uranium story to British intelligence.
The bottom line is: This radioactive canard had been thoroughly discredited many, many times over, but the administration fanatics so badly wanted it to be true they just refused to let it die the death it deserved. The lie was like one of those slasher movie psychos that refuse to stay buried no matter how many times you smash a hatchet into their skull. It had more sequels than "Friday the 13th" and "Halloween" combined.
With the events of the last week, George Bush has come across as very presidential indeed. Like his dad, he's been out of the loop; like Bill Clinton he's become a world-class word weasel; and like Richard Nixon he's shown a massive propensity for secrecy and dissembling.
Not exactly the role models Karl Rove had in mind.
Contact Arianna Huffington at arianna@ariannaonline.com.
"There is no connection, never!"
Hasn't she heard that the Senate Intelligence Report says that Iraq did approach Niger regarding yellowcake and that Wilson's report to the CIA actually bolstered the CIA's case?
another money-hungry broken-english wench that's swallowed the power monkey offered by the Democratic leaning press.
DATE CHECK ON ISLE 5!
"There is no connection, never!"
ROTFLMAO!
Man are these liberals rats desperate or what. arianna proves again NO intelligence is required to be a democratic party celebrity.
Funny how they can pick up all the nuiance in sKerry's "platform", yet can't see the plain facts when presented with them.
Joe Wilson lied and the democratic smear campaign has been exposed.
Anything Arrianna Huffington has to say is Greek to me!
She wrote this in 2003 and it's being re-posted for some reason.
Thanks for the clarification.
5.56mm
"Hasn't she heard that the Senate Intelligence Report says that Iraq did approach Niger regarding yellowcake and that Wilson's report to the CIA actually bolstered the CIA's case?"
I had the same question until I noticed the date of the article. Arianna can be added to the list of those who are eating crow.
How can anyone take Arianna seriously?
Where do I begin?
Perhaps with the fact that this old, and bitter woman was once upon a time "conservative"?
Or maybe, that she was such a shrill shrew that she drove her husband to homosexuality?
Or perhaps, bring up her very strange, awkword, and imbecilic run for the govenor of California?
Face it folks, anyone who pays attention to anything this hag has to say, is a loser also. ;)
Arianna,
On July 18, 2003, the Tallahassee Democrat posted a column by you titled, "President Bush's uranium lie is a radioactive canard". Considering the recent revelations by the Senate Intelligence Committee, and the British, that the liar was the former media darling, Joe Wilson, and not the President, when will we see your apology to President Bush, Karl Rove and his staff for your hateful slander?
[this was an e-mail to Arianna at arianna@ariannaonline.com]
I believe it's being reposted because it's showing what an idiot she is for making those comments without the full facts
Wouldn't you say?
Karl Rove's job, presenting the positive side of George W. Bush, is easy, compared to Arianna Huffington's, which is to deride George W. Bush at every opportunity. Goodness knows, if one were to pick over the Bush record meticulously, there would be evidence of some errors being made. But none of these errors are grave or disasterous in themselves, or even in combination. What Arianna does is simply deny plain fact, and continue to make accusations that have been repeatedly disproved.
The woman is a nut case.
My favorite lingering moment is from the last California Gubernatorial debate, where Arianna was spewing at Arnold about his treatment of women in his T3 movie. The Gubernator left us with the image of his "Terminator" character putting AH's (gotta luv her initials) head through a porcelain fixture. :-)
LLS
if i was married to that, homosexuality would start looking like a good alternative
I certainly hope so. I'd hate to think anyone would consider GWB God like. ;)
"The woman is a nut case."
That about sums up my feelings.
"This evidence to the contrary simply proves my point!" -Ariana Huffington
That, or self imposed exile in say, a monastery? ;)
Excellent letter, Philip!
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