Dowd: Curveball the Goofball

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/03/opinion/04dowd.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position=

<snip>

We don't need a 14-month inquiry producing 601 pages at a cost of $10 million to tell us the data on arms in Iraq was flawed. We know that. When we got over there, we didn't find any.

This is the fourth exhaustive investigation that has not answered the basic question: How did the White House and Pentagon spin the information and why has no one gotten in trouble for it? If your kid lied and hid stuff from you to do something he thought would be great, then wouldn't admit it and blamed someone else, he'd be punished - even if his adventure worked out all right for him.

When the "values" president and his aides do it, they're rewarded. Condoleezza Rice was promoted to secretary of state. Stephen Hadley, Condi's old deputy, was promoted to national security adviser. Bob Joseph, a national security aide who helped shovel the uranium hooey into the State of the Union address, is becoming an under secretary of state. Paul Wolfowitz, who painted the takeover of Iraq as such a cakewalk that our troops went in without the proper armor or backup, will run the World Bank. George Tenet, who ran the C.I.A. when Al Qaeda attacked and when Saddam's mushroom cloud gained credibility, got the Medal of Freedom.

Then the president appoints a compliant Democrat and a complicit conservative judge to head an inquiry set up to let the president off the hook.

Please, no more pantomime investigations. We all know what happened. Dick Cheney and the neocons had a fever to sack Saddam. Mr. Cheney and Rummy persuaded W., "the Man," that it was the manly thing to do. Everybody feigned a 9/11 connection. Ahmad Chalabi conned his neocon pals, thinking he could run Iraq if he gave the Bush administration the smoking gun it needed to sell the war.

[hedda_foil]

1. When MoDo's good she's GREAT.

The whole damn mess perfectly summed up in one brief column, ending with the kicker:

The report warns the president to watch out for the "headstrong" intelligence agencies. If only the commission had concerned itself with headstrong officials at a higher level. Then its 601 pages would be worth reading.

[tofubo]

2. hopefully

this will come back somehow to bite bush's ass

either he knew and pushed the bad info anyway
-or-
bush gave the medal of freedom to three incompetent boobs (and a promotion to two others), therefore proclaiming himself an incompetent boob by assocication

[BadGimp]

3. get a load of this..

From the LaTimes.com of today Sat 4/2

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-intel2apr02,1,1614640.story?coll=la-headlines-nation&ctrack=1&cset=true
see www.bugmenot.com for a pw/id without having to register

"German authorities refused to let U.S. intelligence officials interview their source until March 2004, a year after the war began.

But warnings mounted from the start."

The CIA nor the DIA ever even met this asshat till AFTER we started this aweful and illegal god dammed fucking War!!

How can they possibly get away with this?

I hate what's happening to our country.

WASS

[anarchy1999]

4. A home run for MD! She hit it right out of the park and then some!

What a piece of work, too bad for us all she showed up so late in the game.

[leveymg]

5. Maureen Dowd (NYT): "Curveball the Goofball"

There's still some outraged journalistic integrity at The Times. A little.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/03/opinion/04dowd.html

<SNIP>
It is absurd to have yet another investigation into the chuckleheaded assessments on Saddam's phantom W.M.D. that intentionally skirts how the $40 billion-a-year intelligence was molded and manufactured to fit the ideological schemes of those running the White House and Pentagon.

As the commission's co-chairman, Laurence Silberman, put it: "Our executive order did not direct us to deal with the use of intelligence by policy makers, and all of us were agreed that that was not part of our inquiry."

<SNIP>

This is the fourth exhaustive investigation that has not answered the basic question: How did the White House and Pentagon spin the information and why has no one gotten in trouble for it? If your kid lied and hid stuff from you to do something he thought would be great, then wouldn't admit it and blamed someone else, he'd be punished - even if his adventure worked out all right for him.

When the "values" president and his aides do it, they're rewarded. Condoleezza Rice was promoted to secretary of state. Stephen Hadley, Condi's old deputy, was promoted to national security adviser. Bob Joseph, a national security aide who helped shovel the uranium hooey into the State of the Union address, is becoming an under secretary of state. Paul Wolfowitz, who painted the takeover of Iraq as such a cakewalk that our troops went in without the proper armor or backup, will run the World Bank. George Tenet, who ran the C.I.A. when Al Qaeda attacked and when Saddam's mushroom cloud gained credibility, got the Medal of Freedom.

EDITED BY ADMIN: COPYRIGHT

[Demit]

6. The NYT is careful to confine its integrity to the op-ed page.

Meanwhile, on the "news" pages, shills like Bumiller and Nagourney are still hard at work blowing kisses to the Bush brothers.

[Moderator]

12. leveymg

Per DU copyright rules
please post only four
paragraphs from the
copyrighted news source.


Thank you.


DU Moderator

[yardwork]

7. I combined another thread on the same column with this one!

:-)

[realFedUp]

8. Another good one....n/t

[rodeodance]

9. report was a waste of 10 m $$ and the major players got promoted.

[rodeodance]

10. sick sick sick

.....How did the White House and Pentagon spin the information and why has no one gotten in trouble for it?.......

[bvar22]

11. Recommended for Greatest

:kick:

[cybildisobedience]

13. when is MoDo going to call out her colleagues

like Judith Miller, Chalabi's mouthpiece, or Tom Friedman, who was so certain there were WMDs in Iraq because a cab driver in Beirut told him there were, or William Safire, who was another willing shill for the neocons, or the whole NY Times, which persecuted Bill Clinton over a phony Whitewater scandal for eight years, but didn't see fit to hold Bush's feet to the fire when he marched off to a senseless war that is STILL costing U.S. lives?

[sellitman]

14. Curveball the Goofball By MAUREEN DOWD

NYT
Published: April 3, 2005
WASHINGTON

SNIP> I had an editor once whose wife was in the Audubon Society. There were a lot of articles about birds in that newspaper.

I had an editor once who loved fishing. There were a lot of articles about fish in that newspaper.

Organizations organically respond to please the boss. Bosses naturally surround themselves with people who tell them what they want to hear.

When King Lear's favorite daughter spoke frankly to him, and refused to fawn like her sisters, she was instantly banished. Insincerity pays.

More: http://babyurl.com/syvutO
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If this wasn't so pathetic it would be humorous- Kevin

[Imagevision]

15. Just another tid-bit for Bush umm...Legacy?

Every major player who failed their job responsibilities gets premoted except Tenet -- he had to be awarded the Medal of Freedom?!!

Sad day for America, very sad indeed!

[Imagevision]

16. Don't Take Your Eye Off The Curveball --must read>

<snip>By MAUREEN DOWD NYT
Published: April 3, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/03/opinion/04dowd.html?8...

It is absurd to have yet another investigation into the chuckleheaded assessments on Saddam's phantom W.M.D. that intentionally skirts how the $40 billion-a-year intelligence was molded and manufactured to fit the ideological schemes of those running the White House and Pentagon.

As the commission's co-chairman, Laurence Silberman, put it: "Our executive order did not direct us to deal with the use of intelligence by "policy makers", and all of us were agreed that "that" was not part of our inquiry."

Huh? That's like an investigation into steroids in baseball that looks only at the drug companies, not the players who muscled up.

We don't need a 14-month inquiry producing 601 pages at a cost of $10 million to tell us the data on arms in Iraq was flawed. We know that. When we got over there, we didn't find any.

Please, no more pantomime investigations. We all know what happened. Dick Cheney and the neocons had a fever to sack Saddam. Mr. Cheney and Rummy persuaded W., "the Man," that it was the manly thing to do. Everybody feigned a 9/11 connection. Ahmad Chalabi conned his neocon pals, thinking he could run Iraq if he gave the Bush administration the smoking gun it needed to sell the war. (read the whole piece)

[Maestro]

17. All of these investigations

are part of the spin because it delays any one person for being blamed. Then when * is gone, and he is summarily blamed along with Cheney and the other neocons, it will be called a political witchhunt just to tarnish Shrubery's legacy or some sort of BS like that. The war was a neocon wet-dream; nothing more, nothing less.

[renaissanceguy]

18. "neocon wet-dream"

I love that!

http://www.cafepress.com/liberalissues.16781662

[Maestro]

21. Thanks. I wish I had a more erudite way

of explaining it, but I don't at the moment. Probably, it is because of the stupidity of the government is dumbing me down as well.

Edited for stupid typos.

[NNN0LHI]

19. I know this is an editorial but please leave it here mods. Pretty please

[Moderator]

20. Sorry, NNN0LHI

It's a good article, but LBN really isn't the place for it.

[struggle4progress]

22. kick