David LattEmmy-Winning Television Writer, Producer
Posted January 30, 2009 | 09:48 AM (EST) BIO Become a Fan Get Email Alerts Bloggers' Index
Bush Punk'd Us Again
stumble digg reddit del.ico.us mixx.com ShareThis
Read More: Bush Administration, Bush Pardons, Harriet Miers, Karl Rove, Miers Immunity, Rove Immunity, Politics News
Show your support.
Buzz this article up.
Buzz up! Get Breaking News Alerts
never spam
Share Print CommentsA lot of ink was spilled by many writers, myself included, who were convinced that President Bush would pardon key members of his administration before he left office. We were certain he would protect Cheney, Rove, Rumsfeld, Gonzales and others who were important architects of his expansion of executive power. As January 19th approached we beat the war drums ever more loudly, hoping to keep the issue in the public's eye. We believed that by publicizing the issue Bush wouldn't be able to hide in the shadows and sign pardons without public notice.
And then on January 20th Barack Obama was inaugurated as our 44th president. We took a collective breath and relaxed. Apparently Bush really didn't believe in granting pardons.
Think again.
Michael Isikoff reported for Newsweek that while many of us were fomenting about Bush preemptively pardoning at-risk members of his administration, he and his lawyer Fred Fielding (White House Counsel) were concocting one last expansion of executive privilege. Four days before he left office, Mr. Bush authorized Fielding to write letters to Harriet Miers and Karl Rove giving them "absolute immunity" from Congressional inquiry and prosecution. Preemptively. In perpetuity. Absolute and irrevocable.
The letters set the stage for what is likely to be a highly contentious legal and political battle over an unresolved issue: whether a former president can assert "executive privilege" -- and therefore prevent his aides from testifying before Congress -- even after his term has expired.
These letters were delivered before Congress or any prosecutor had initiated action against Miers and Rove. Clearly Bush sought to inoculate Rove and Miers from all attempts to prosecute them for their actions during his administration. Only when John Conyers (Chairman, House Judiciary Committee) subpoenaed Mr. Rove did the letters come to light. Waving his letter in the air, Karl Rove refused to appear before the committee.
In December while Bush was giving a round-robin of legacy interviews proclaiming his two terms as successes, Vice President Dick Cheney was taking his own victory lap. In two of those interviews he said something interesting: I authorized the CIA's use of torture and I did it because my boss wanted me to. The Vice President had pointed a smoking gun right at Bush's heart. Cheney was clearly prodding Bush to issue pardons to protect his underlings AND to protect himself.
Every protective measure by Bush is self-protective. If Karl Rove and Harriet Miers don't testify under oath, then they can't reveal what Bush agreed to and authorized. How many more such letters did Bush have Fielding write?
With so much public attention focused on whether Bush would pardon his associates, the ex-president did an end-run around the issue. Ultimately, his claim to broad powers of executive privilege may be overturned in the courts. But how long will that take? And at what expense? Clearly Bush hopes that by making inquiries so difficult, he will dissuade Congress and prosecutors from even trying to look into the dark recesses of his administration's activities.
Back home in Texas, surely Bush is having a good chuckle right now. He punk'd us again!
Karl Rove
A lot of ink was spilled by many writers, myself included, who were convinced that President Bush would pardon key members of his administration before he left office. We were certain he would protec...
A lot of ink was spilled by many writers, myself included, who were convinced that President Bush would pardon key members of his administration before he left office. We were certain he would protec...
Related News On Huffington Post: Bush Lawyer Fred Fielding Told Rove: Ignore Subpoena
Just four days before he left office, President Bush instructed former White House aide Karl Rove to refuse to cooperate with future congressional inquiries into...
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Saturday, January 24, 2009
From Al-Jazeera English (Mid-S.Asian News)
Pakistan calls on US to end attacks
Asif Ali Zardari, the Pakistani president, has called on Barack Obama, his US counterpart, to end American missile attacks in South Asian nation's tribal border regions with Afghanistan.
Zardari's comments were reported in the local media on Saturday, a day after the first US attacks in Pakistan since Obama's inauguration.
Such strikes against Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters are counterproductive, the private NNI news agency quoted Zardari as saying.
Eight alleged foreign fighters, including one aligned with al-Qaeda, were killed with 14 other people in a double strike in the Waziristan area on Friday, according to Pakistani security officials.
The foreign ministry said that an unspecified number of civilians were also killed in the air raid by an unmanned aircraft.
The foreign ministry said that it had informed US officials of its "great concern".
"With the advent of the new US administration, it is Pakistan's sincere hope that the United States will review its policy and adopt a more holistic and integrated approach toward dealing with the issue of terrorism and extremism," a ministry statement said.
"We maintain that these attacks are counterproductive and should be discontinued,'' it said.
Increasing attacks
US attacks within Pakistan increased in number in 2008, with more than 30 occurring since August.
Pakistan has previously criticised their effectiveness and consequent deaths of civilians in such attacks. They also say that the air raids heighten anti-US feeling locally and undermine the government's own attempts at halting opposition groups.
The Pakistani parliament has adopted a unanimous resolution stating that US and Nato attacks would be considered an affront to the country's sovereignty.
Obama has not commented on the missile policy but had made the war in Afghanistan and the linked battles against opposition fighters in Pakistan a foreign policy priority.
Richard Holbrooke has been appointed special-envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan in the Obama administration.
The US does not directly admit to firing missiles in the border region, which Pakistan has little control over.
Pakistan calls on US to end attacks
Asif Ali Zardari, the Pakistani president, has called on Barack Obama, his US counterpart, to end American missile attacks in South Asian nation's tribal border regions with Afghanistan.
Zardari's comments were reported in the local media on Saturday, a day after the first US attacks in Pakistan since Obama's inauguration.
Such strikes against Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters are counterproductive, the private NNI news agency quoted Zardari as saying.
Eight alleged foreign fighters, including one aligned with al-Qaeda, were killed with 14 other people in a double strike in the Waziristan area on Friday, according to Pakistani security officials.
The foreign ministry said that an unspecified number of civilians were also killed in the air raid by an unmanned aircraft.
The foreign ministry said that it had informed US officials of its "great concern".
"With the advent of the new US administration, it is Pakistan's sincere hope that the United States will review its policy and adopt a more holistic and integrated approach toward dealing with the issue of terrorism and extremism," a ministry statement said.
"We maintain that these attacks are counterproductive and should be discontinued,'' it said.
Increasing attacks
US attacks within Pakistan increased in number in 2008, with more than 30 occurring since August.
Pakistan has previously criticised their effectiveness and consequent deaths of civilians in such attacks. They also say that the air raids heighten anti-US feeling locally and undermine the government's own attempts at halting opposition groups.
The Pakistani parliament has adopted a unanimous resolution stating that US and Nato attacks would be considered an affront to the country's sovereignty.
Obama has not commented on the missile policy but had made the war in Afghanistan and the linked battles against opposition fighters in Pakistan a foreign policy priority.
Richard Holbrooke has been appointed special-envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan in the Obama administration.
The US does not directly admit to firing missiles in the border region, which Pakistan has little control over.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
In one week, the U.S. Constitution will be front and center as Barack Obama solemnly swears to "preserve, protect, and defend" it. Given all that has happened over the last eight years, that oath is not nearly as pro-forma as it used to be.
During his final press conference yesterday, President Bush said that when it came time "to protect the homeland" he "wouldn't worry about popularity." He would "worry about the Constitution of the United States." It wasn't clear, as it hasn't been for most of his time in office, whether his concern was directed at upholding the document or circumventing it.
So as the Obama Years are about to begin, one of the questions facing the new president is what will he do about the transgressions of the Bush Years? Will his promise to protect and defend the Constitution include an investigation into the assaults on it perpetrated by members of the Bush administration?
On change.gov, the website of the Obama transition team, there is a section where people can submit questions and readers can vote on the questions they most want the incoming administration to answer. The top question last week, receiving over 23,000 votes, came from Bob Fertik of democrats.com:
"Will you appoint a Special Prosecutor (ideally Patrick Fitzgerald) to independently investigate the gravest crimes of the Bush administration, including torture and warrantless wiretapping?"
Instead of having Obama respond to Fertik's question, change.gov posted an earlier reply from Joe Biden who had said, "President-elect Obama and I are not sitting thinking about the past... I think we should be looking forward, not backwards."
Picking up the dropped ball on Sunday, George Stephanopoulos directly asked Obama Fertik's question ("the most popular question on your own website").
Obama echoed Biden's reply: "I don't believe that anybody is above the law. On the other hand, I also have a belief that we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards... My orientation is going to be to move forward."
Given the multiple -- and massive -- obstacles looming directly in front of him, Obama is wise not to be driving into the Oval Office looking in his rearview mirror. But I hope he will realize that moving forward and looking backwards are not mutually exclusive. Particularly if he isn't the one focused on the past.
There is no doubt that the economic crisis, Iraq and Afghanistan, health care reform, and the regulation of Wall Street should be the Obama administration's primary concerns.
But that doesn't mean we, as a country, should allow Bush and Cheney's offenses to accompany their perpetrators to a peaceful retirement in Texas and Wyoming.
That's why I am in favor of John Conyers' efforts to create a National Commission on Presidential War Powers and Civil Liberties -- a DC version of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission created after the fall of apartheid in South Africa. The new Commission would come with subpoena power, a $3 million budget, and the mandate to investigate a host of issues ranging from Guantanamo, to torture, to extraordinary rendition.
The Commission members would come from outside government -- appointed by Obama and leaders from both political parties. So the administration and Congress could continue looking and moving forward while the country avoids falling into the trap of allowing the outrages of the Bush administration to be forgotten or, worse, implicitly sanctioned.
Dawn Johnson, Obama's pick to head the Office of Legal Counsel, has eloquently made the case against turning the page and not looking back:
"We must avoid any temptation simply to move on. We must instead be honest with ourselves and the world as we condemn our nation's past transgressions and reject Bush's corruption of our American ideals. Our constitutional democracy cannot survive with a government shrouded in secrecy, nor can our nation's honor be restored without full disclosure."
This becomes all the more important as Bush and Cheney continue their Polish the Legacy Tour -- aka Lie-a-palooza '09.
During his Monday presser, which he dubbed "the ultimate exit interview," Bush thanked reporters for giving him a chance to defend his record "because I think it's a good, strong record." And defend it he did, standing behind the war in Iraq, his handling of Katrina, the use of Gitmo, and his tax cuts. And he strongly disagreed with "the assessment that our moral standing [in the world] has been damaged."
As for the economy, Bush insisted, "I inherited a recession, I am ending on a recession. In the meantime, there were 52 months of uninterrupted growth." Which is kind of like saying the flight of the Hindenburg was fabulous up until the landing.
Cheney has been even more relentlessly on message -- ie pathologically in denial. Say what you will about the VP, the guy is savvy.
Watching him make the exit interview rounds, including his brazenly unrepentant turn with Wolf Blitzer on Sunday, has been like watching a brilliant lawyer defending a clearly guilty client. He has constructed a narrative of what has happened, cherry-picked and twisted every fact to back up his story, and then repeatedly hammered home his rendering of things, refusing to give an inch. His version of what has happened over the past eight years is air tight, iron clad -- and completely wrong.
Among the lowlights from his interview with Blitzer was his demonstrably false claim that the administration "did not base going after Saddam Hussein on any connection with 9/11," his demonstrably false claim that "there wasn't anything the administration did to create that inaccuracy on the part of the [pre-war] intelligence," and his demonstrably false claim that waterboarding "is not torture" because "we don't do torture."
Cheney also has a masterful ability to pass the buck, as when he told Bob Schieffer that the chaos and bloodshed that followed the fall of Baghdad should be laid at the feet of the Iraqi people: "There weren't any Iraqis early on who were willing to stand up and take responsibility for their own affairs." And that torture, which isn't really torture since we don't "do torture," was, in any case, okay because morally creative legal flunkies like John Yoo told them it was: "What we did was authorized by the legal authorities that were to be the source of that kind of advice."
As ridiculous and deceitful as Cheney's closing arguments are, inflicting this much damage to the Constitution then coming up with rationales that allow high crimes to dissolve into Sunday morning rhetorical squabbles requires an impressive level of brainpower. But it's brainpower at its most dangerous -- divorced from judgment, wisdom, and reality.
That's why we can't allow the historical revisionism to stand uncontested.
I am all for moving forward. But we can move forward as a nation that looks the other way when it comes to torture and lawlessness. Or we can move forward as the nation envisioned in the Constitution that Obama is about to solemnly swear to preserve, protect, and defend.
Dick Cheney
In one week, the U.S. Constitution will be front and center as Barack Obama solemnly swears to "preserve, protect, and defend" it. Given all that has happened over the last eight years, that oath is ...
In one week, the U.S. Constitution will be front and center as Barack Obama solemnly swears to "preserve, protect, and defend" it. Given all that has happened over the last eight years, that oath is ...
During his final press conference yesterday, President Bush said that when it came time "to protect the homeland" he "wouldn't worry about popularity." He would "worry about the Constitution of the United States." It wasn't clear, as it hasn't been for most of his time in office, whether his concern was directed at upholding the document or circumventing it.
So as the Obama Years are about to begin, one of the questions facing the new president is what will he do about the transgressions of the Bush Years? Will his promise to protect and defend the Constitution include an investigation into the assaults on it perpetrated by members of the Bush administration?
On change.gov, the website of the Obama transition team, there is a section where people can submit questions and readers can vote on the questions they most want the incoming administration to answer. The top question last week, receiving over 23,000 votes, came from Bob Fertik of democrats.com:
"Will you appoint a Special Prosecutor (ideally Patrick Fitzgerald) to independently investigate the gravest crimes of the Bush administration, including torture and warrantless wiretapping?"
Instead of having Obama respond to Fertik's question, change.gov posted an earlier reply from Joe Biden who had said, "President-elect Obama and I are not sitting thinking about the past... I think we should be looking forward, not backwards."
Picking up the dropped ball on Sunday, George Stephanopoulos directly asked Obama Fertik's question ("the most popular question on your own website").
Obama echoed Biden's reply: "I don't believe that anybody is above the law. On the other hand, I also have a belief that we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards... My orientation is going to be to move forward."
Given the multiple -- and massive -- obstacles looming directly in front of him, Obama is wise not to be driving into the Oval Office looking in his rearview mirror. But I hope he will realize that moving forward and looking backwards are not mutually exclusive. Particularly if he isn't the one focused on the past.
There is no doubt that the economic crisis, Iraq and Afghanistan, health care reform, and the regulation of Wall Street should be the Obama administration's primary concerns.
But that doesn't mean we, as a country, should allow Bush and Cheney's offenses to accompany their perpetrators to a peaceful retirement in Texas and Wyoming.
That's why I am in favor of John Conyers' efforts to create a National Commission on Presidential War Powers and Civil Liberties -- a DC version of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission created after the fall of apartheid in South Africa. The new Commission would come with subpoena power, a $3 million budget, and the mandate to investigate a host of issues ranging from Guantanamo, to torture, to extraordinary rendition.
The Commission members would come from outside government -- appointed by Obama and leaders from both political parties. So the administration and Congress could continue looking and moving forward while the country avoids falling into the trap of allowing the outrages of the Bush administration to be forgotten or, worse, implicitly sanctioned.
Dawn Johnson, Obama's pick to head the Office of Legal Counsel, has eloquently made the case against turning the page and not looking back:
"We must avoid any temptation simply to move on. We must instead be honest with ourselves and the world as we condemn our nation's past transgressions and reject Bush's corruption of our American ideals. Our constitutional democracy cannot survive with a government shrouded in secrecy, nor can our nation's honor be restored without full disclosure."
This becomes all the more important as Bush and Cheney continue their Polish the Legacy Tour -- aka Lie-a-palooza '09.
During his Monday presser, which he dubbed "the ultimate exit interview," Bush thanked reporters for giving him a chance to defend his record "because I think it's a good, strong record." And defend it he did, standing behind the war in Iraq, his handling of Katrina, the use of Gitmo, and his tax cuts. And he strongly disagreed with "the assessment that our moral standing [in the world] has been damaged."
As for the economy, Bush insisted, "I inherited a recession, I am ending on a recession. In the meantime, there were 52 months of uninterrupted growth." Which is kind of like saying the flight of the Hindenburg was fabulous up until the landing.
Cheney has been even more relentlessly on message -- ie pathologically in denial. Say what you will about the VP, the guy is savvy.
Watching him make the exit interview rounds, including his brazenly unrepentant turn with Wolf Blitzer on Sunday, has been like watching a brilliant lawyer defending a clearly guilty client. He has constructed a narrative of what has happened, cherry-picked and twisted every fact to back up his story, and then repeatedly hammered home his rendering of things, refusing to give an inch. His version of what has happened over the past eight years is air tight, iron clad -- and completely wrong.
Among the lowlights from his interview with Blitzer was his demonstrably false claim that the administration "did not base going after Saddam Hussein on any connection with 9/11," his demonstrably false claim that "there wasn't anything the administration did to create that inaccuracy on the part of the [pre-war] intelligence," and his demonstrably false claim that waterboarding "is not torture" because "we don't do torture."
Cheney also has a masterful ability to pass the buck, as when he told Bob Schieffer that the chaos and bloodshed that followed the fall of Baghdad should be laid at the feet of the Iraqi people: "There weren't any Iraqis early on who were willing to stand up and take responsibility for their own affairs." And that torture, which isn't really torture since we don't "do torture," was, in any case, okay because morally creative legal flunkies like John Yoo told them it was: "What we did was authorized by the legal authorities that were to be the source of that kind of advice."
As ridiculous and deceitful as Cheney's closing arguments are, inflicting this much damage to the Constitution then coming up with rationales that allow high crimes to dissolve into Sunday morning rhetorical squabbles requires an impressive level of brainpower. But it's brainpower at its most dangerous -- divorced from judgment, wisdom, and reality.
That's why we can't allow the historical revisionism to stand uncontested.
I am all for moving forward. But we can move forward as a nation that looks the other way when it comes to torture and lawlessness. Or we can move forward as the nation envisioned in the Constitution that Obama is about to solemnly swear to preserve, protect, and defend.
Dick Cheney
In one week, the U.S. Constitution will be front and center as Barack Obama solemnly swears to "preserve, protect, and defend" it. Given all that has happened over the last eight years, that oath is ...
In one week, the U.S. Constitution will be front and center as Barack Obama solemnly swears to "preserve, protect, and defend" it. Given all that has happened over the last eight years, that oath is ...
Friday, January 16, 2009
Thursday night's valedictory speech was quintessential Bush: delusional from beginning to end. He made Afghanistan sound like a swell place to vacation when, in truth, only those with a death wish venture out these days without an armed convoy. He lauded Iraq as "a friend of the United States" -- without ever mentioning the fact that if Iraq has a BFF it is Iran, not America. He claimed that America's "air, water, and lands are measurably cleaner." Who is doing the measuring, the same eco-unfriendly companies to which he handed his environmental policies? It's dangerous spin. It's easy to feel a pang of pity for a guy heading out the door. But the more sympathy he evokes, the more susceptible we are to the lies he is telling. Before we know it, his revisionism becomes accepted as the truth.
Arianna Huffington
Arianna Huffington
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
this is blueoregon
Bush thinks his legacy will forgive his lies and deception. It won't, because the entire world is affected. His will be noted as an aside as a 'greedy, destructive presidency--an assault on fair and just, good and goodwill.'
Bush thinks his legacy will forgive his lies and deception. It won't, because the entire world is affected. His will be noted as an aside as a 'greedy, destructive presidency--an assault on fair and just, good and goodwill.'
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
