HuffPo: IS WHITE HOUSE WHISTLEBLOWER READY TO BRING DOWN THE PRESIDENT?

[understandinglife]

I don't want to go Woodward and Bernstein all over you, but last week, just after Air Force 1 lifted off towards a meeting with Iraq's Prime Minister al-Maliki, someone in the administration who had had enough of the President's insistence that he knows what he's doing, sent a message that everyone seems to have missed: an administration mutiny is in the offing.

<clip>

My guess is that the favorite Washington cocktail party game over the next couple weeks will be "Guess 2006's Deep Throat."

<clip>

I'm going with the bitter Donald Rumsfeld and disclosing that, before he was fired, Rummy had told the President that the Iraq blueprint was becoming more black and blue.

Unfortunately, the game is deadly serious with more deadly consequences.

... whom do you think it is?


- maybe someone hasn't ...

[tridim]

1. It'd be funny if it was Rove

Remember Bush blasted him for "not working as hard as me on the election" a few weeks ago.

Anyone seen that fucker since the election?

[cui bono]

31. That was a joke. If you see it in context it's obvious.

A reporter asked who was winning the bet on who could read more books and he said Rove was, then joked that he was working harder than Rove. Everyone is missing the point just like they did with the Kerry joke.

[PurityOfEssence]

33. I heard it live on the radio; it was obviously a sting

That smirking nastiness was in the voice and you could hear the nervous tension in the room as people whooped, gasped and laughed. I haven't seen footage of it, but was told that although Rove was trying to laugh and shrug it off, he wasn't amused.

It was Junior at his classic best: vindictive and snide.

[cui bono]

56. I saw it live on TV and it was a joke. n/t

[jgraz]

77. I think you're both right

Somebody needs to pull the tape, because I was sure I saw a dark shadow pass over Chimpy's face after he made that crack. For a brief second he looked as if he wanted to kill Rove by gnawing through his ribcage and eating his liver.

[WinkyDink]

43. I think Bush was kidding on the square. He could not have been pleased with

Rove's election results.

[sofa king]

60. I suspect this wouldn't be the first time.

Shortly after Dick Cheney shot his pal in the face, someone in the White House turned Patrick Fitzgerald onto a trail of backed up emails from the Vice President's office. A month later, Raw Story said it was Karl Rove.

[NVMojo]

2. Condiliar ...trying to save her own ass

[Old and In the Way]

8. She seems like the weak link.

Her performance in front of the 9/11 Commission sounded like someone who was committing perjury. I don't see Condi being able to handle time in prison well...maybe she's preparing to save herself?

[nashville_brook]

15. i think condi too, but for for diff reasons -- i think she "loves" her boss

and might be getting rational b/c of her compassion for him.

she has acted so incredibly irrational in the past (911 commish comes to mind) that she's always seemed to be driven by more than the demands of the job. i think she would do anything to save him even if it means saving him from himself.

then again, i might just be writing my own romantic script. like, i would hope these people have some degree of humanity/romance in the absence of any objective sense of proportion.

[Mark E. Smith]

21. But which George Bush is her boss?

[BeHereNow]

23. Richard Armitage is her boss, does that give us a clue?

As to who her true puppet masters are?

BHN

[opihimoimoi]

3. Rummy is due for a deadly Stroke/Heart Failure jus about now...

[mod mom]

19. you mean he will be joining Ken Lay down in the new Club down in Paraguay?

[calimary]

30. Damn! Beat me to it! The "Kenny-boy Exit Strategy."

:toast:

[judaspriestess]

40. Agreed

so is that where Ken Lay is? Paraguay? he sure as hell isn't dead.

[calimary]

49. Well...let's just say that if he is, IF he is, it's the absolute most

convenient and fortuitous passing EVER. He dies before he can be sentenced? So that means that his conviction can't go on the books, his record thus wiped "clean" - as though it never happened? No muss no fuss? Why, how nice! How just wonderfully marvelously convenient! Talk about your "Get Out Of Jail Free" card. Widow can thus get away scott-free, too? With the paterfamilias unblemished? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

I suspect that either he killed himself to avoid going to prison or he faked his death and bugged out to the Grand Caymans or maybe Paraguay or some place, staying in hiding til the heat dies down and the wife can join him. And they keep all the money. And besides, skilling and fastow were left behind to take the rap and do the time, so it's not as though all the aggrieved victims of this grand larceny didn't get their pound of flesh. Wouldn't surprise me if he was in Paraguay, doing some advance work on that new 98-thousand acres...

[No DUplicitous DUpe]

59. Did ya see my post below...#55? N/T

[elehhhhna]

78. I'm going to keep an eye out for him on Grand Cayman in April...

Ya never know. Enron was very well acquainted with GC's offshore banking systems.

[No DUplicitous DUpe]

55. Kenny boy really did die...My wife worked in the ER in Aspen...

..that morning, and took report from the night nurses who were working, when they brought him in.

If I didn't know that, I'd be unsure, too.

[calimary]

64. So then, I shift my bet to my other suspicion - that he then

killed himself. Or somehow brought about his demise. Perhaps if it was some coronary episode, he did what one would do to hurry things along - eat really irresponsibly, not take his meds for days beforehand.

And, yeah, listen to me. I can hardly hear myself through the tin foil!!! :D

But the underlying fact in this is that "Kenny-boy" squandered whatever good will and trust he ever had by sidling up to the bush bunch and then ripping off all those people. Lying to prop up the Enron empire so the little guy would keep buying in after he parachuted out just as the rollercoaster was about to crest the tallest peak. I've been led by events and circumstances to assume the worst of a guy like him, I'm afraid. I would suspect the worst. The first I heard of it, my antennae of suspicion were raised from the back of my head. It all seems just a bit too convenient. I immediately jumped to a visit I imagined Kenny-boy had with his cardiologist or attorney, maybe a routine examination, where the glum patient poured out his heart about his impending fate, and the doctor or lawyer made some offhand remark about how "...well, the only way to avoid things at this point would be if someone died before their sentencing, 'cause that wipes the record. But, jeez, Ken, you'd have to be dead for that to happen." What's to say someone who'd been on top of the world might not plunge into some pretty damned awful depression. Sometimes one is led to steep in worst-case scenarios if the situation is growing more grim and you're in a dark mood as is.

Just saying... The psychology that drives these people is something I find fascinating.

[calimary]

65. Self-delete - hit the wrong button.

Sorry about that.

[calimary]

66. I think my laptop's being unruly. Sorry about the repetition.

Dang!

[Control-Z]

68. Did the night nurses know him personally ?

Did they see his dead body and positively ID him with 100% certainty?

How did they know the dead body was his and not some other guy with an ID on him?

Did they do genetic testing?

[No DUplicitous DUpe]

69. Ya know, It's a small town, Aspen, his wife and all the sheriffs officers..

that were with him from the initial call... From what I was told, It was really him. His face was well known in the area, as he was generous with the money he stole from others..too many honest people I know personally, would have to be on the take.

[Control-Z]

75. Wow - I'm seriously shocked. n/t

[Skidmore]

4. Rummy wouldn't have done it for so noble a reason, and besides,

he is one of the head neocons and calling the shots. If it is Rummy, it become simply a CYA move. On second thought, whoever did it will have done it as a CYA move.

[Straight Shooter]

5. I don't call him Little Boots for nothing. Remember Caligula's fate.

bush is likely to meet the same fate, in a figurative sense, politically speaking.

Accountability or revenge, doesn't matter. Let's hope someone with the right credentials brings him down.

========================

"Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (August 31, 12 – January 24, 41), most commonly known as Caligula, was the third Roman Emperor and a member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, ruling from 37 to 41. Known for his extreme extravagance, eccentricity, depravity and cruelty, he is remembered as a despot. He was assassinated in 41 by several of his own guards.

The Roman historian Suetonius referred to Caligula as a "monster", and the surviving sources are universal in their condemnation. ... the surviving sources are filled with anecdotes of Caligula's cruelty and insanity rather than an actual account of his reign, making any reconstruction of his time as Princeps nearly impossible. What does survive is the picture of a depraved, hedonistic ruler, an image that has made Caligula one of the most widely recognizable, if poorly documented, of all the Roman Emperors; the name "Caligula" itself has become synonymous with wanton hedonism, cruelty, tyranny, and insanity."

--snip--

"As a boy of just two or three, he accompanied his parents on military campaigns in the north of Germania and became the mascot of his father's army. The soldiers were amused whenever Agrippina would put young Gaius in a miniature soldier costume, and he was soon given his nickname Caligula, meaning "Little (Soldier's) boot", after the small boots he wore as part of his costume."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caligula

[Auntie Bush]

62. Maybe it's Colon Bowel

[Hekate]

72. OMG, I didn't know that Caligula really means Little Boots!

That is just too rich. :rofl:

I have a friend who calls Dubya "Baby Caligua" so I've picked it up from her -- now I have to check to see if she already knew the linguistic parallel.

Hekate

[nolies32fouettes]

6. it's not a higher up well-known name.

It's a Leg. aid or whatever they call white house aids.

[undeterred]

7. How on earth did they let someone with a conscience get in?

[Mz Pip]

11. Seems an aid's

statements would be easy to dismiss - unless there is a paper and tape trail. How many people have come forward in the past 6 years and just been blown off as disgruntled employees i.e. Paul O'Neill, Richard Clarke. Even Woodward was dismissed as just being pissed that Bush wouldn't talk to him.

Well, I hope this is true. It would be delicious, indeed.

Mz Pip
:dem:

[nolies32fouettes]

37. probably a transcriptionist type thing.

You know those arrogant people have to delegate the menial jobs. Probably assumed the person wouldn't understand.

[jazzjunkysue]

53. Right. Most have already betrayed him. Who's left? Thats the question.

Bet it's Condi. She's just getting her little career off the ground. She's gonna want a nice post in the next admin, whether that be sooner or later.

[Blackhatjack]

9. I said years ago some WH insider was bound to have taped evidence of Bush....

...holding it for the right time, to be used in defense of efforts to make them a scapegoat or to be used for economic gain in a 'tell all" book.

You cannot have the tirades and conduct going on in the WH with Bush, and keep all of that quiet forever.

Given Bush's fits of rage and incompetence, somebody is going to see the 'ship is sinking' over the next 2 years once the congressional investigations begin, and they are going to be putting that information to very good use.

[xchrom]

10. i don't care who it is -- just get it done.

[marmar]

26. Exactly....

Humpty-Dumpty has been up on the wall long enough.

[Delphinus]

12. Oh,

someone, please bring me up to date! I've obviously missed something!!

[calimary]

35. I think you just have to reread from the top of the thread.

Hey, it's all swirling around in my head, making me dizzy, too.

But psychologically, it would stand to reason. The "empire" is starting to crumble. The "empire" - in this case, being the bush machinery. Look what's happened in the past few months that's been completely adverse to the juggernaut that bush/cheney/rove had built: lots of subtle and not-so-subtle public humiliations and low-level take-downs and smack-downs of george. His daddy has to step in and send James Baker and the rest of the cavalry in to rescue his miscreant boy AGAIN (the Newsweek cover ALONE - with the larger figure of gwhb positioned so it appears he's leading a much smaller figure of a visibly disgruntled gwb - literally shown balking like a small child, slightly behind him). And everybody talks about it.

Then there's the election - 11/7! Should be our battlecry!!! - that further smacked him upside the head, bringing Democrats back to power, throwing out all his little friends from their seats at the grown-ups' table, and sending them back to the kiddie table where they belong. Some of them he even campaigned for in highly visible photo-ops. Which means all these enemies and other assorted headaches of his and dick's are taking over key positions - like Patrick Leahy to the Senate Judiciary Committee, John Conyers to the House Judiciary Committee, and Henry Waxman to the Government Reform Committee in the House - dogs on their pants legs that george and dick were able to sneer at and kick to the side in their superiority. And Christopher Dodd announcing one of his first targets is the Military Commissions Act that removed habeas corpus. All these are big black eyes to george. And everybody talks about it. And he missteps again, ordering rummy's resignation AFTER the election which makes him look reactive, not moving the game but being moved by it, and too late to help because he's now pissed off those little friends of his who remain on Capitol Hill, who are mad because they think if he'd gotten rid of rummy earlier, their majorities might have been saved. And everybody talks about it.

What is thus now PERCEIVED (and we've all talked about how important perception is - this cabal creating its own reality that the rest of us in our poor, pathetic, puny "reality-based community" will be left only to study and try to understand - wherein WE react and they move the game and WE are moved by it) is that the ship is taking on water and is seriously facing the prospect of sinking. Frank Rich in the NYTimes even wonders if bush is talking to the walls now (his latest editorial - it's in Times Select so you have to pay for it, but they give you the first line free in the billboard). Kissinger's revealed in Woodward's book as being back, and you know what images THAT conjurs up from Ghosts of Presidential Take-Downs Past (everything from the now even more obvious and public comparisons to the failure of the US in Vietnam to Kissinger's own recollections of Nixon groveling on his knees, crying, praying, and talking to the portraits on the wall). And everybody talks about it.

george is now widely PERCEIVED as being seriously damaged goods. There's talk of rummy being seriously in trouble, and John Dean's latest in findlaw.com speculates that cheney is the target of the upcoming Democratic Congressional investigations. Which, if it happens, would leave bush further adrift and further isolated. Whose puppetmaster's hand goes up his ass if cheney's busy fighting for his own political life? And everybody talks about it.

That's another key that contributes to the dominos falling. Nancy Reagan, stiletto in hand, once warned her White House nemesis Donald Regan that "people are talking." Probably mostly she, herself, to her friends and to anybody she thought she could plant stories with or spread dirt through. She thought his incompetence and arrogance was making her husband look bad and was starting to give him trouble and not keeping Iran/Contra sufficiently away from him, and she is widely credited with maneuvering behind the scenes to get his head to roll. Which it did. When people start talking, the magazine covers no longer look good (I think it started with Time magazine's "End of Cowboy Diplomacy" and its humiliating photo of the "all hat no cattle" image referring to - who do YOU think???) and a major TV network openly jumps the corral fence on the previously unutterable taboo ("Yes, it IS a civil war and, tough cookies - that's what we're gonna call it!") then you know things are NOT going swimmingly for george. The wheels are VISIBLY coming off the cart. I remember some of us speaking about it in terms of the dike springing too many holes for kkkarl rove to plug. With what's happened by now, it is CLEAR that kkkarl has run out of fingers, and even toes. The events are running this White House now, not the other way around. The bushies have lost control. The juggernaut has run out of gas. They don't look so ferociously invincible anymore, do they?

Which brings us to this rummy memo and White House "whistleblower" talk. Hell, I just saw Kathleen Koch (spelling?) touch on the rummy memo with Fredrika Winfield on CNN, and openly questioning (AND referring to OTHERS that are openly questioning) whether bush is gonna listen to all this since he's already indicated he's digging his heels in for "victory" - staying in Iraq til the job is done. You never had THAT stuff before now, either, where they're telling it like it is - bush as stubborn, unreasoning, closed-minded, closed-eared little brat. The wheels ARE coming off the cart, quite publicly, and that's about the time when you see other insiders perfectly positioned to start jumping ship with changed priorities - saving their OWN skins rather than sticking around trying to shore up Humpty Dumpty any longer.

Smell that smell? I think it's a whiff of loser stench that has suddenly replaced george w's bottle of after shave in the morning. He has it all over him. And frankly, it wouldn't surprise me at all if rummy leaked his own memo, or had somebody leak it for him to give him "plausible deniability" during the few remaining days in which he still works there. I might want to leave a ticking time bomb in the file, too, if I felt that I was being sacrificed so the fuck-up-in-chief could be salvaged. Might be rummy's little "up-yours" parting gift. Remember, there are some who, when they feel they're about to go down, decide to take somebody down with them. Misery loves company, after all.

I suspect that, come January (and just imagine what might go down between now and then, while everybody still standing, and undoubtedly deathly afraid, in the White House spends a very glum Christmas looking at their belly-buttons and the office shredder, and figuring out their OWN best exit strategies - I mean, we already have contradicta hinting about writing tell-all books), when the Dems take over and the hearings begin and the subpoenas start trickling out and various necks realize how close they are to the block, we may see more republi-CONS having a change of heart and joining the new juggernaut. The one helmed by Leahy, Dodd, Waxman, Conyers, Pelosi, and friends. If they think the end is inevitable, you think they're gonna wanna stay loyal to bush? They're liable to do what Barry Goldwater and a few other staunch Republican loyalists finally felt compelled to do with Nixon when they realized there was too much writing on the wall and there were too many events (and too much evidence) breaking against him. They went to him, told him that he had lost all remaining support from any prop-ups in the House or Senate, and no one was willing to save his ass anymore, and that he WOULD be impeached. And that's when he resigned. I mean, Chuck Hagel is already talking out of school. A LOT. Many of 'em are just waiting for the most favorable moment at this point. Nobody wants to hitch their wagon to an anvil. And bush is turning into an anvil more and more rapidly by the day.

It's gonna be a LOT of fun to watch. But we have to be vigilant and do our part to have our Dems' backs, keep them propped up so they remain resolute, although it appears the events themselves are conspiring to do that anyway.

Prepare le popcorn. Sorry this is so long.

[AntiFascist]

39. great post calimary! n/t

[libodem]

47. Very worthy commentary...thanks

[sendero]

52. I think...

... you've pretty much nailed it. Good work!

To summarize, I think that the election loss was a clarion call for every Republican except the DictatorTot.

They see the writing on the wall, and they're tired of waiting for him to. He's expendable at this point, in fact, it would benefit the party to expend him, and expend they will :)

He's "dead" man walking, he just isn't smart enough to realize it yet.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

61. Locked, loaded and turning the

hotplate on high. :popcorn: :popcorn: :beer:

[Hekate]

73. "And everybody talks about it" Great post, Calimary!

:popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn:

Hekate

[understandinglife]

74. "Smell that smell? I think it's a whiff of loser stench ..." Outstanding post!!

:toast: to you calimary!

[Beausoir]

80. Fantastic post! Loved reading your thoughts. n/t

[alfredo]

13. Spot

He's now in an undisclosed location.

[jgraz]

14. The sick thing is that no one has done it up to now

All of these people deserve to hang.

[calimary]

51. That's because up til recently they all assumed they'd just keep

getting away with it, that things' would flip back, kkkarl would have somebody's nuts in a vice, and the media would wise up and start covering all the GOOD things happening in Iraq that nobody ever talks about (from the "Yeah, SURE" file), and everything would be just fine. And ol' dubya would be on top of the world, master of his domain, with everyone else completely intimidated and cowed by his scare talk and his perceived invincibility. Those days are LONG gone. george not only fucked up just a little too royally, but he lost their invisibility cloak AND all their Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free cards. They're not gonna stick with a loser, especially if it means they get taken down, too. We're rapidly approaching a time when they save their own asses and leave his to the wolves.

Remember that commercial they saved until the last week or two of the 2004 campaign? The one with the wolves? The wolves that were pacing off in the not-terribly-distant distance? Until the announcer's script built to the proper crescendo of fear and terror and bad guys with beards and turbans and all of a sudden the wolves are heading your way? On the march, kinda like freedom. Well, YOU aren't the one the wolves are suddenly interested in. They're closing in on george and what remain of his friends and loyalists. The PNACers from adelman to perle to wolfowitz have already jumped ship, laying the blame for their horrendous schemes for world conquest SQUARELY on his shoulders. It's not even that their plans sucked. It's that they were put in HIS hands to execute, and he and his team were incompetent. Well, that part of it IS true. But they're gonna leave the entire mess squarely in his lap like a dumped plate of spaghetti, while they slither off under their rocks to wait until maybe a better ball-carrier comes along and they can try it again, only this time it'll work, 'cause this time we won't have some complete nincompoop in charge. Yeah, SURE. Hopefully we can snare some of them, too, and drag them before a committee with subpoena power and prepare them for their orange jump suit fittings as well. After they've swung by the Hague, that is.

Really. If you look at the track record over the past six years, you'll see that these assholes got away with it merely BECAUSE THEY COULD. All the ducks were lined up in their order, and in their favor. The rubber-stamp see-no-evil, hear-no-evil, speak-no-evil House and Senate wasn't going to make any waves and just give 'em pass after pass after pass. Same thing for the thoroughly and effectively intimidated press corp(se). And the Dems were cowed rather beautifully, too. And all was right with the world. So there wasn't going to be ANYBODY calling them on ANYTHING - with any teeth. A few fringies and oddballs here and there - who could be laughed off the stage. Everything was all managed, and kkkarl was in his heaven and all was right with the world. And they COULD just keep on getting away with it. With ANYTHING. They had it locked up like nobody's business ever before in the history of American politics. And this cozy, comfy, extremely friendly situation in which every deck in the gameroom was securely stacked in their favor was certainly easy enough to get used to. And there was plenty of money to do dirty tricks with, because Abramoff was king of K Street and nobody was daring to get in his way, either. Times were good, and they got used to it. When it became a habit, it became what habits often are - hard to break. And for a long time, they didn't even have to worry about that prospect.

AND THEN THINGS CHANGED.

I think, frankly, that it all really started with Cindy Sheehan during the summer of 2005 and the day-after-day-after-day bad publicity involving this single sympathetic figure - whom EVERY MEDIA OUTLET was forced to describe as a "grieving mother" (who's REALLY gonna beat up on a "grieving mother," especially in wartime, without risking looking bad?). She was David to george's Goliath, and people tend to love underdogs anyway, particularly an anti-war movement that is already gathering momentum. She kept hounding bush to meet with her and he kept refusing and it just started making him look bad, at a time when, coincidentally, the whole Iraq war was making him look pretty bad, too. And THEN, Hurricane Katrina. Need we say more? It was an express train ride straight downhill after that, and bush never fully recovered. The bad news and adverse turns of events never broke in his favor after that, and softened him up for Loserville in the following year.

Things have CHANGED. The chemistry, the vibes, the zeitgeist, the whatever, it's CHANGED. And if we don't make it count to promote and cause positive change, we deserve whatever the descendents-of-george feel like whacking us with.

[mopinko]

16. i assumed this when the foley story broke, plus woodward's

new book. all the truth popping out all over the media. i knew that the puppet masters were throwing * & co under the bus.

[nashville_brook]

17. with foley i wondered if that might have been from

within the pentagon or cia. b/c it seemed like a lot of leaks came out around that time regarding personal peccadilloes and that always makes me think of spookage. like, i wonder sometimes if perversions aren't tolerated b/c that makes leaders vulnerable to manipulation... like "you're in as long as we say you're in."

[mopinko]

54. i think you are correct

i think that perversions are not only tolerated, i think they are fed.

[Horse with no Name]

18. Spearheaded by Poppy

and his henchmen.

[Joanne98]

20. I think it's Rummy. I think Bush fired him because of the MEMO..

NOT because of the election. Bush used the election for cover. Rummy waited a couple of weeks to see what Bush would say. When he was sure he was going to get the blame, he "leaked" the memo to the NYT. It's my guess that this is not the only memo he has. Wouldn't it be funny, if Rummy was the one to bring Bush down. I think Rummy is CRAZY enough to do just that.

[Peace Patriot]

22. Please warn us it's a NYT link ("yesterday's leak") requiring registration, and,

if you feel really compassionate, provide a significant quotation, so we don't have to register with those fuckers.

As for Rumsfeld, my gut says the man is in BIG TROUBLE, legally (over Plame leak, 9-11, or SOMEthing). I don't think he resigned over the elections or failed war policy. What does he care about elections? And he's been running a failed war since late 2001. He meant it to fail, or didn't care if it did or it didn't. Remember his comment about the looting of Baghdad? Freedom = the freedom to loot. (--in essence.) I think that's his philosophy. And he and his war profiteer paymasters have profited beyond their wildest dreams. He had all sorts of folks able and willing to arrange a surgical removal of Saddam, and a quick exit from Iraq, with a stable government left in place, and maybe UN-run elections after that--all at minimal cost-- but he reviled them and fired them at every turn. So a reasonable, limited war was not his intention. His intention was chaos, extended long enough to drain the US treasury of all available funds and drive us into massive debt, that the poor will be paying for for decades to come, and abscond with billions and billions of dollars--no doubt spirited through off-shore accounts--maybe to fight corporate resource wars elsewhere. (South America? Whole damn place has turned leftist; people there thinking their oil, gas, minerals and other resources are for the benefit of the people; got to stop THAT idea; easier knockover than the Middle East (or they think it is)).

So, as the whistleblowers circle, he's outa here. (--and/or the prosecutors, and/or the Democrats, and/or the Plame-Wilsons, and/or the Jersey Girls, and/or the very unhappy US military). He has no intention of being bothered with the fallout. He's gone. Oh, he might spear Bush/Cheney on his way to Paraguay, just for laughs, or maybe to polish his spurs with his paramilitary buds. But a memo from Rumsfeld to Bush, giving Bush good advice on the Iraq War, has to fall into the category of fascist humor.

Here's a war project for patriotic Democrats--a little war that I would actually support. Invade the Cayman Islands. We might at least get some of the money back.

[understandinglife]

24. As you request ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/03/world/middleeast/03military.html

Rumsfeld Memo Proposed ‘Major Adjustment’ in Iraq
By MICHAEL R. GORDON and DAVID S. CLOUD
WASHINGTON, Dec. 2 — Two days before he resigned as defense secretary, Donald H. Rumsfeld submitted a classified memo to the White House that acknowledged that the Bush administration’s strategy in Iraq was not working and called for a major course correction.

“In my view it is time for a major adjustment,” wrote Mr. Rumsfeld, who has been a symbol of a dogged stay-the-course policy. “Clearly, what U.S. forces are currently doing in Iraq is not working well enough or fast enough.”

Nor did Mr. Rumsfeld seem confident that the administration would readily develop an effective alternative. To limit the political fallout from shifting course, he suggested the administration consider a campaign to lower public expectations.

“Announce that whatever new approach the U.S. decides on, the U.S. is doing so on a trial basis,” he wrote. “This will give us the ability to readjust and move to another course, if necessary, and therefore not ‘lose.’ ”

“Recast the U.S. military mission and the U.S. goals (how we talk about them) — go minimalist,” he added.

<clip>

In other words ... though, unusually, Rummy is actually cogent:

We've accomplished quagmire.

Let's keep killing our soldiers and Iraqis while we find a way to spin the fact that "we've accomplished quagmire."

I'm outa here ...

We could put a lock on those Cayman Island funds with a few key strokes ... no need to invade ... though, I agree, we should return all those $$$ to the US Treasury.

[DemReadingDU]

42. somebody aware of both Hadley & Rumsfeld memos

assuming that both memos were leaked by the same person, or maybe there is more than 1 whistleblower?

[cui bono]

32. You may be able to hover over the link and see the url...

depending on your browser. I use firefox and if I hover over a link the url shows up on the bottom left of the browser, in the border where it says "done" after a page is loaded.

[NMDemDist2]

63. i think Rummy has made some big $$$ on this war somewhere

that's what might be what's got him running scared

[Lasthorseman]

25. I hope so

I admit bombarding a certain place with the nastiest of emails which of course I know are only read by staffers. I am dumbfounded as to the reason the black helicopters have yet to show up at the house.

[populistdriven]

41. Your post finally broke the sour mood I was in all day...

Thanks! Its great to hear you are leveraging the attention of insider people since you have special access.


:D

[LSK]

27. I can see it as being Rummy

He never liked Rice or Powell and Im sure hates many in the administration.

He is truly a self-centered SOB who cares only about himself.

[earth mom]

28. This thread is very interesting and oh so delicious too...

:9

[Garbo 2004]

29. Young's engaging in wishful thinking IMO. I'm more inclined to think the leaks are "strategery"

to show that the Administration is actively doing something, considering options about Iraq on their own independent of/before the Iraq Study Group report and a Dem Congress, and/or it's a bit of Administration infighting using the media.

But a "mutiny" that will "bring down the President?" How? Young thinks Administration insiders who have hung on this long don't really have stuff that would be far more damaging and yield more results?

[seabeyond]

34. fire the guy offering new strategies? i like how kerry said it today talking

to wolfie. kerry had already stated that what they are suggesting now is what dems were saying three years ago. wolfie read the "leaked" memo and kerry responded it is the information in the leak, not the leak itself that is important. refering to how bushco alway makes the one that leaks the issue, instead of what was leaked

[MODemocrat]

36. I think it's Dick Cheney

Here of late he's been pretty "aggitated" with Bush, over the firing of Rummy.
It's getting really eerie.:scared: :scared:

[Canuckistanian]

38. A whistleblower in this media circus?

And which network or paper would be the first to air or print this earth-shaking revelation? They'd lose their place in the WH press briefing lineup.

Maybe the NYT can do it. They're already traitors who should be lined up and shot, in the junta's eyes.

And it would have to be physical. A piece of paper, a recording, a power point presentation on disk.

People can easily be discredited. Evidence, not so easy.

[Tony Soprano]

44. Someone low profile

Rummy would be an obvious choice, he is a devioius and arrogant old SOB but I figure it would be someone low profile like the original DeepThroat.

[Independent_Liberal]

45. I'm going to say the first name that pops into my head...

Paul McNulty, Deputy Attorney General

He was the Chief Prosecutor investigating the AIPAC case. He indicted Franklin, Rosen and Weissman. He was a bigtime Bush loyalist for a while. Remember when he and Gonzales and Mueller all threatened to resign over the documents obtained in that FBI raid of Jefferson's office? I think he's somebody who's pissed about something. I think he has some things he wants to reveal.

[Tony Soprano]

46. there ya go...

in keeping with my low profile sort of person....

[libodem]

48. hmmm

very interesting

[Garbo 2004]

50. Would a DAG have access to classified Pentagon, NS Advisor, WH memos?

Not as if he would be an addressee or naturally in the loop on Iraq matters.

[wicket]

57. K & R

:kick:

[me b zola]

58. k&r

[EFerrari]

67. K&R. For no reason, I think the cartel would rather keep

Rumsfeld than the Dim Son. No idea why I think so except that it's much easier to hire frontmen.

[BlueIris]

70. When the whistleblower does emerge, my guess: it's a woman.

Mid-level aide of some variety. May say that her religious beliefs motivated her to reveal whatever she has to reveal.

[Marie26]

71. I think it's Hadley.

And not necessarily to hurt the Bush Admin. He was one all the Sunday talk shows today, talking about how Bushco. really are trying to be flexible, & pointed to the leaked Rumsfeld memo as one example of that openness to new polices. The leak & the "open to new options" line seem to go together nicely.

[Skittles]

76. I AM DISGUSTED IT HASN'T HAPPENED YET

just IMAGINE how many people are aware of JUST HOW OUT OF TOUCH that incompetent bastard really is - and think about HOW LONG THEY HAVE KNOWN IT

[npincus]

79. more humorous than serious...

if only. If Hadley's memo were not an approved leak, why weren't they screaming and blaming the NYT as usual? And calling them unpatriotic and the other bullshit they've pulled in the past?

Why they would leak that memo at that time is beyond me... but given their judgement and competence, it's not surpirsing.

Whatever 'friends' Rummy has probably leaked his memo, or Rummy was somehow behind it.

Oh Happy day when the rats turn on the Chimp, if it comes.