After trumpeting Bush’s “good news” last week, will the media now highlight a momentum reversal?
June 21, 2006
Last week, the media seized on a “spate of good news” supposedly providing the White House a surge of momentum. In recent days, there have been negative turns of events in many of the areas that had been the focus of the media’s enthusiasm, including the violence in Iraq and Afghanistan and the trial of a former White House official. Will the media examine the effect of this apparent string of bad news on Bush’s purported momentum?
Why is Rove still in the White House?
Posted by
Bob Geiger at 8:41 AM on June 15, 2006.
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| Not so fast. |
When George W. Bush ran for president in 2000, one of the major pieces
of imagery his team managed to successfully create was that of Bush as
a man of his word who “says what he means and means what he says.” Of
course, we have found that with Bush and his entire crew in the White
House, making a commitment and keeping it — such as their ongoing
homage to the Religious Right — is easy work compared to simply
telling the truth on a daily basis.
In June 2004
Bush said that he would fire anyone in his administration involved in
leaking sensitive information about CIA operative Valerie Plame. And,
while his right-hand man, Karl Rove, appears to have at least
temporarily escaped from Patrick Fitzgerald’s net in the CIA-leak
investigation, the entire world knows, as a matter of fact, that Rove
was indeed one of the people who spilled Plame’s identity to the media.
This
is a fact. We know it because it is a part of the record of the grand
jury investigation into the Plame case, in which Time Magazine reporter
Matthew Cooper cited Rove as the person from whom he received the news
that Plame was a CIA agent in 2003.
“I, obviously, along with
others in the White House, took a sigh of relief when he made the
decision he made. And now we’re going to move forward. And I trust Karl
Rove, and he’s an integral part of my team,” said Bush yesterday of Fitzgerald’s decision, adding that he could not comment further because there’s an “ongoing trial.”
So
now it appears that Bush has traded in the tired mantra of not
commenting due to an “ongoing investigation” to ignoring the truth
because of an “ongoing trial.” This has about as much credibility as
former White House Spokesman Scott McClellan’s repeated assertions that
Rove had no involvement whatsoever in the Plame case.
Out of all the political nuance Americans have to parse today to get
at the truth, this one seems remarkably easy: Bush lied again. He said
that he would fire anyone in his administration who leaked information
about Plame. It is a fact that Karl Rove leaked information about
Plame. Bush has not fired Karl Rove.
That’s
so easy even a Republican can understand it and, despite Bush’s
attempts later in 2004 to amend his statement to only taking action if
a crime was committed — “If the person has violated law, the
person will be taken care of,” he said — wrong is wrong and we in the
progressive media need to lean on this issue right up until election
day in November.
In the craven minds of the fake-patriots who
inhabit the right-wing of American politics, Bill Clinton was the
personification of evil in our country for lying about having sex
outside of his marriage. But somehow, allowing a guy who knowingly
exposed a covert CIA agent, to remain in a sensitive position in the
upper-most corridor of power in our executive branch of government is
just another day at the office.
Whether or not Patrick Fitzgerald
ultimately decides to indict Rove for some aspect of his treasonous
behavior, and the technical reasons behind all of that, is not within
anyone’s control outside of the Special Counsel’s orbit. But Bush needs
to do the right thing, keep his word and fire Rove for exposing one of
our nation’s critical intelligence assets in a time of war.
And we cannot let him forget that.
Rove WON’T be indicted
June 14, 2006
We now know that Jason Leopold was NOT correct reporting that Karl Rove would , or was, indicted. I'm sorry to have jumped on that bandwagon. I've always trusted Truthout. I now have an inkling of doubt.
The thing progressives need to do is stop hoping the courts will save us. (remember 2000?) Democrats must state their issues clearly and firmly. They HAVE TO go on the offensive concerning this war, spending, the enviroment, education, gas prices, Katrina, and the situations where they know the outcome. They can't tip-toe throught the tulips. They have to put their steel toe boots on and kick in the door. If they haven't learned the lesson that we're up against the best of the best by now, then they will lose again.
Charlie Grapski, a Democrat running for the Florida House of Representatives, was arrested in April after filing a lawsuit alleging that city officials influenced the outcome of an election. In this interview, Grapski tells a frightening tale of false arrest, intimidation, and a crony-business system all centered around money interests.
BREAKING: ZARQAWI DEAD
June 8, 2006
On June 08, 2006, ABCNEWS reported that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has been confirmed to have been killed in Baghdad in a bombing raid by a United States task force hunting him. His death has been confirmed by mutiple sources in Iraq.
Al-Zarqawi Dead
June 8, 2006
CNN is reporting that Al-Zarqawi has been killed.
Of course, islamistts said he was dead years ago. Who knows. Sounds like an election year announcement of something that happened ages ago.
The prime minister of Iraq said that U.S. troops crush civilians “with their vehicles and kill them just on suspicion.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. writes about how in the 2004 election Republicans prevented more than 350,000 voters in Ohio from casting ballots or having their votes counted – enough to have put John Kerry in the White House.
