Exactly, he thought with the old media and the rogue CIA elements running cover for him, he could do and say whatever he pleased.
His head is still in the 1960's where he most likely would have pulled this off. This,IMO, is the blind spot the American Left is just now coming to grips with.
Not sure they are there yet.
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I like this factoid:
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It is clear that a greater geo-political game has been afoot for some time. The fact that France had paid to have the Niger documents forged to embarrass the Bush administration is only part of the deception. The other aspect of this operation is that the CIA and ISG deliberately ignored or downplayed information provided by British intelligence and documents found in Iraq indicating that an Iraq-Africa uranium connection was a logical and reasonable conclusion, and that connection most likely involved the Congo.
On would think that by now, the rogue agents would have realized that their attempt to slam the President on pre-war intelligence has been undone by their own post-war audit trail. The media will, naturally, wait for historians to correct the record.