The Phony Scandal

The Weekly Standard ^ | 07/28/03 | Fred Barnes

[foreverfree]

bump

[cyncooper]

Ping for Fred Barnes laying it out and a Robert Joseph clarification:

A second myth about Cheney is that he insisted the sentence about Saddam's effort to buy uranium in Africa be included in the State of the Union. This was the buzz in the Washington press corps last week. It turns out Cheney played no part. Nor did another figure who's been fingered as the author, Robert Joseph of the National Security Council staff. The sentence was written by the president's speechwriters, who accumulated evidence about Saddam and weapons of mass destruction to strengthen the case against him. They used the NIE as their reference document.

[cyncooper]

Fred's usually pretty cool headed, but he's been way off the deep end on this right from the start.

I totally disagree. My take has been Fred was right on the money from the start. He was contemptuous and dismissive of the assault on the administration all along and particularily of Joseph Wilson. He became frustrated after a few days when it became clear the WH had bungled their initial response and the dems and the media were running wild all over the place with it. Nobody expects perfection, but he's just calling it like it was. That does not excuse the dems and the media for their outright lies.

[RasterMaster]

Tell me, does ANYONE see the global instruction going on from this incident? There must be a central Socialist directing the attacks on both Blair and Bush, unfortunately Blair is taking more heat. It seems to follow in places where B.J. Clinton had just been.

What you say Senator Clinton?

[Miss Marple]

Well, I don't know what Senator Clinton says, but I agree wholeheartedly.

I also have my suspicions about who was involved in the David Kelley death, and it isn't Tony Blair.

[YaYa123]

Senator Jay Rockefeller, (Chris Mathews too), have been blaming VP Cheney for this since the flap began. To this day, they are still saying it was Cheney who sent Wilson to Niger. But the Democrats are hoping to tar Condeleeza Rice too. Cheney, Rice = A witchhunt twofer!

Remember how the Democrats went after Clarence Thomas? We ain't seen nothin yet. Condi Rice is a clear and present danger to the DNC, and to the political aspirations of Hillary Clinton. They would sure like to bring down black, female, Republican, Rice.

[veronica]

I'm a FredHead. :) Fred, Krauthammer, Cal Thomas, Steyn. They are the best IMO. And Fred is right. Bush let events get ahead of him, and not for the first time. But he has a very talented political team around him, and he'll recover. He always does.

[BlueAngel]

Thanks Pokey!

[maica]

Does anyone think that this assault on President Bush on the eve of his trip to Africa wasn't coordinated by the DNC with the complicity of the New York Times?

X-Amb Wilson, friend of Kucinich, Ramsey Clark, etc,
could have written his op-ed which started the feeding frenzy at any time after Jan 28.

The fact that he was published just before the Africa trip has the stink of the DUI revelation just happening to come out three days before the Presidential Election in 2000.

Terri McAuliffe's MO is all over this. I guess pundit/reporters like Fred Barnes must be too close to the action to see the bigger picture.

He (Terri) even gave himself away when he had to drive his Escalade past the Fox DC Bureau studios and crow to Brian Wilson, "He's Gone! He's Gone! We've got him now!" Too bad Brian did not have a camera with him.

[livius]

I think what he meant by "it shouldn't have been necessary" was that Bush just should have ignored the whole obviously phony "scandal" from the start, in which case no efforts to get a grip on it would be necessary now.

But I agree that Bush shouldn't have let himself be drawn into a desperate Dem play. Of course, they scheduled it well, as usual, just before Bush was about to leave the country.

Rule 1: Never believe that Dems are interested in the truth.

[maica]

What you say Senator Clinton?

See my remark above. Terri McAuliffe does not work independently, he is not bright enough to think these nasty traps up by himself. I hope Mary Matalin's husband was not involved in the strategy for this, and that it was just Bill, Hill, Ann Lewis, Bob Shrum, and the usual DNC incrowd.

If Carville was involved, Mary has no business aiding the admin in damage control.

[MeekOneGOP]

Thanks, Pokey. I think the WH made a boo-boo on this one, and Fred is right.

A rare thing, as far as I can recall. Of course the 'RATS and media jumped all over it.

Kind of late now to go back and fix. Move forward.

Within days of conceding an error was made, most of Bush's senior staff concluded they had made a mistake. No, it wasn't in mentioning Saddam's quest for uranium in the State of the Union in the first place. It was in making an admission of error about intelligence information. "We have nothing to apologize for," an official said. The concession was like blood in the water, attracting sharks, another official agreed. What the White House might have said on July 7 but didn't was something like this: "We have full confidence that British intelligence is correct in citing Iraq's effort to buy uranium. The British finding is supported by further intelligence of our own." No apology or backpedaling required. This might not have satisfied Democrats and the press, but it wouldn't have raised more questions than it answered, as the we-made-a-mistake tack did. It would probably have brought the issue to a quicker end.

[MeekOneGOP]

. . . A rare thing, as far as I can recall.

NOW I NEED to clarify. LOL !! The 'rare thing' was the WH making an error.
The Bush administration usually does a better job, and gets it right, imho.

[Victoria Delsoul]

But the State of the Union never mentioned any supposed actual sale of uranium. No such sale was cited in any draft of the speech. None was referred to, even fleetingly, in Rice's article. So what was twisted? Wilson looked into the Niger case, but he had no grounds for accusing Bush of "selective use of intelligence." He hadn't examined the other evidence of Saddam's attempts to buy uranium in Africa. He didn't know the nature of the British intelligence Bush mentioned, if only because the Brits still haven't revealed it to the CIA, the White House, or anyone else. Wilson, by the way, is a fervent opponent of Bush and the war in Iraq. He's now advising congressional Democrats.

The Democrats will always look for an opportunity to undermine GW and his administration. It's up to the White House not to give in, and I think they're doing a fairly good job under the circumstances.

[gcruse]

So "flinching" is bad and leads to brouhaha. Denial and coverup lead to impeachment. Absent governmental perfection, no administration of earth could pass the test.

[Deb]

Terry Moran is the spawn of Helen Thomas. Andrea Mitchell Greenspan should have been fired the day she moved in with Alan.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the heads up!

[NonValueAdded]

Maica wrote: "The fact that he was published just before the Africa trip has the stink of the DUI revelation just happening to come out three days before the Presidential Election in 2000.

"Terri McAuliffe's MO is all over this. I guess pundit/reporters like Fred Barnes must be too close to the action to see the bigger picture.

"He (Terri) even gave himself away when he had to drive his Escalade past the Fox DC Bureau studios and crow to Brian Wilson, "He's Gone! He's Gone! We've got him now!" Too bad Brian did not have a camera with him."

I am SO glad someone else notices the suspicious timing of this flap. I am sorry I didn't post this comment while the thread was fresh. I only found the article via today's Neal's Nuze and performed the required search before posting FB's article myself.

If GWB's intentions and motives are at question here, then why aren't the motives and intentions of the DNC and the press equally an issue? The DNC trying to tag GWB with a scandal involving Africa on the eve of a presidential visit? At best, it was a juvenile attempt to smear GWB without thought to the consequences on the President's visit to Niger. McAuliff's purported crowing would seem to reinforce this speculation.

However, at worst the remarks were intentionally timed to attempt to sabotage any possible good that might come of GWB's visit to Africa - a desperate attack, mindful of the string of successes racked up by this Presidency, attempting to ensure no foreign policy win for GWB. How about the implications of that? Hatred so deep that the DNC is willing to sabotage the foreign policy of our United States for a political gain of the lowest sort? THERE is the news story. Why isn't this aspect being explored? VLWMC (Vast left wing media conspiracy)?

[maica]

The Democrat ARE saboteurs. They are willing to sink this country if they cannot regain power. I have never experienced anything like this assault on our national image. I thought contesting the election in 2000 was a new low, then the Clinton pardons, then the Torricelli/Lautenberg switch.

Using liberal media to convince the world that our president is not worthy of the office is so far beyond the pale that I think we must get active in our rebuttals to their smears.

They WANT another VietNam so they can say "I told you so."

Have you seen David Horowitz' article from Front Page Magazine?