Part IV: Controlling Information & Re-Writing History
…2005 report by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office on potential problems with the Medicare prescription drug program…(administration officials) demanded that the report say that the administration had "established effective contingency plans"--which it hadn't--and that it drop the assertion that some people would encounter difficulties obtaining necessary drugs…"
--"George the Unready," Paul Klugman, New York Times, March 3, 2006.
…2003 Environmental Protection Agency report about global warming where the administration deleted the part that pinned warming on cars and industry; the 2003 Health and Human Services report on healthcare to people of color that deleted the words "disparities" and "inequality" from a first draft; and the Department of Justice report on perceptions of racism on its staff where half of the 186 pages were blacked out. Don't even think about notes from Cheney's Energy Task Force.
--"Scraping to Fill the Shelves of the Bush Library," Derrick Z. Jackson, Boston Globe, May 10, 2006.
Career appointees at the Department of Agriculture were stunned last week to receive e-mailed instructions that include Bush administration "talking points"--saying such things as "President Bush has a clear strategy for victory in Iraq"--in every speech they give for the department.
--"The USDA on Iraq: Everything's Coming Up Rosy," Al Kamen, Washington Post, May 8, 2006.
If that's all there was to it, silly memos and blacked-out, redacted governmental reports and government scientists being bullied by political flunkies and hacks--that would be bad enough.
But it's far more insidious.
It should be common knowledge by now that this administration badgered, bullied, and bribed the CIA to come up with intelligence that would justify their predetermined decision to go to war. Too many books have been written on the subject from insiders who are now out, and from high-ranking generals from within the Pentagon, now retired, who are speaking out, at long last, about the unforgivable rush to an unnecessary, ill-conceived, and ill-planned war in Iraq, which drained valuable and irreplaceable resources from the REAL war we're supposed to be fighting, the so-called "war on terror."
(How can you declare war on "terror"? Consider the London bombing. In spite of all the London law enforcement and military concentration on al Queda contacts in Britain, nobody thought to watch a bunch of disgruntled bozos who decided to blow up a train and a bus. It was an act of terrorism, but it was not committed by an enemy state or by a known terrorist organization. This is the nature of terrorism and there is no such thing as a "war" on it.)
Anyway--we all know now, with sickening certainty, that any intelligence experts who dared speak against the war plans were either marginalized, forced out of their jobs, otherwise ignored, or even, in the case of Joe Wilson, targeted for personal destruction.
News media outlets who played the game were given close access to administration insiders, where they were fed doctored information that bolstered the case for war. Those who dared write against it were frozen out, shut out, and even barred from the White House press room.
This has all been made public now. What is more insidious are the secret moves made by this administration through, not just signing statements, but executive orders.
Bush seems determined to control what the public is permitted to know…Perhaps the most egregious example occurred on November 1, 2001, when President Bush signed Executive Order 13233, under which a former president's private papers can be released only with the approval of both the former president (or his heirs) and the current one…The administration's effort to grandfather the Reagan papers under the act also raised a red flag. President Bush's signature stopped the National Archives from a planned release of documents from the Reagan era, some of which might have shed light on the Iran-Contra scandal and illuminated the role played by the vice-president at the time, George H.W. Bush.
George W. Bush and his father can see to it that their administrations pass into history without examination. Their rationales for waging wars in the Middle East will go unchallenged. There will be no chance to weigh the arguments that led the administration to condone torture by our armed forces. The problems of federal agencies entrusted with public welfare during times of national disaster--9-11 and Hurricane Katrina--will be unaddressed. Details on no-bid contracts awarded to politically connected corporations like Halliburton will escape scrutiny, as will the president's role in Environmental Protection Agency's policies on water and air pollution.
This is about much more than the desires of historians and biographers--the best interests of the nation are at stake.
--"Bush's Veil Over History," Kitty Kelley, New York Times, October 10, 2005.
You know, at the time that George H.W. Bush was president, George W. worked for him behind the scenes at the White House. As I recall, it was W. who fired John Sununu, who was chief of staff at the time. W. wasn't governor then. He was working for Daddy.
Now all the work-product he might have put out during those heady days before he was himself selected president, by the same Supreme Court justices who were appointed by Daddy--will be hidden away, along with any other papers from his own administration he deems "private."
Oh, those signing statements! Those executive orders! Consider Executive Order 13292. This is a little-known document signed by Bush that grants the greatest expansion of power of the vice president in American history. According to an article in salon.com, by Sidney Blumenthal, "The order gives the vice-president the same ability to classify intelligence as the president. By controlling classification, the vice president can in effect control intelligence and, through that, foreign policy."
(Blumenthal, a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist, jokes that, if Cheney had had his way, he'd've classified the accident where he shot his hunting buddy in the face.)
So, Bush works hard to control information and re-write history--especially his part in it--while at the same time, bullying even his closest advisors into giving him only good news. This is how he comes to be cutting a birthday cake with Sen. John McCain when Hurricane Katrina is destroying the Gulf Coast.
In the meantime, Karl Rove, who has been questioned five times by a grand jury for his part in the despicable outing of a CIA intelligence operative whose expertise was weapons of mass destruction--Karl Rove, who is being investigated by a special prosecutor as we speak--Karl Rove has not only kept his job next door to Bush at the White House, but the administration has said flat-out that it would now be Rove's job to concentrate on holding onto the death-grip Republicans have on power, seeing to it that Republicans do not lose their seats in Congress so they can continue to control that branch. He will, basically, be running political campaigns for the Republican National Committee from the White House.
So…who, then, pays his salary?
Well, in part, I DO, FROM MY DEMOCRATIC TAX DOLLARS, which is, at the very least, a conflict of interest, since the White House is supposed to be representative of government of the people, by the people, and for the people--not just REPUBLICAN people.
Aren't there laws that specifically prevent using the White House for political campaign fund-raising and other purposes? Didn't Republicans raise high holy hell because Clinton let a few big donors sleep in the Lincoln Bedroom?
And now our tax dollars are going to pay a fat handsome salary to the fat ugly "boy genius" who sits at the Right Hand of Bush and manipulates political campaigns for the Republicans.
I'm just saying. I'd love to hear what Rush would have had to say if say, James Carville had held a similar West Wing position in the Clinton White House.
So…how is it that a president who is, after all, merely one branch of a three-branch Constitutional form of government, able to get away with all these power grabs?
It's easy. Like an alcoholic whose wife tells his boss that he's sick when he's really hung over, Bush has a chorus of enablers to back him up: a Republican Congress.
--"George the Unready," Paul Klugman, New York Times, March 3, 2006.
…2003 Environmental Protection Agency report about global warming where the administration deleted the part that pinned warming on cars and industry; the 2003 Health and Human Services report on healthcare to people of color that deleted the words "disparities" and "inequality" from a first draft; and the Department of Justice report on perceptions of racism on its staff where half of the 186 pages were blacked out. Don't even think about notes from Cheney's Energy Task Force.
--"Scraping to Fill the Shelves of the Bush Library," Derrick Z. Jackson, Boston Globe, May 10, 2006.
Career appointees at the Department of Agriculture were stunned last week to receive e-mailed instructions that include Bush administration "talking points"--saying such things as "President Bush has a clear strategy for victory in Iraq"--in every speech they give for the department.
--"The USDA on Iraq: Everything's Coming Up Rosy," Al Kamen, Washington Post, May 8, 2006.
If that's all there was to it, silly memos and blacked-out, redacted governmental reports and government scientists being bullied by political flunkies and hacks--that would be bad enough.
But it's far more insidious.
It should be common knowledge by now that this administration badgered, bullied, and bribed the CIA to come up with intelligence that would justify their predetermined decision to go to war. Too many books have been written on the subject from insiders who are now out, and from high-ranking generals from within the Pentagon, now retired, who are speaking out, at long last, about the unforgivable rush to an unnecessary, ill-conceived, and ill-planned war in Iraq, which drained valuable and irreplaceable resources from the REAL war we're supposed to be fighting, the so-called "war on terror."
(How can you declare war on "terror"? Consider the London bombing. In spite of all the London law enforcement and military concentration on al Queda contacts in Britain, nobody thought to watch a bunch of disgruntled bozos who decided to blow up a train and a bus. It was an act of terrorism, but it was not committed by an enemy state or by a known terrorist organization. This is the nature of terrorism and there is no such thing as a "war" on it.)
Anyway--we all know now, with sickening certainty, that any intelligence experts who dared speak against the war plans were either marginalized, forced out of their jobs, otherwise ignored, or even, in the case of Joe Wilson, targeted for personal destruction.
News media outlets who played the game were given close access to administration insiders, where they were fed doctored information that bolstered the case for war. Those who dared write against it were frozen out, shut out, and even barred from the White House press room.
This has all been made public now. What is more insidious are the secret moves made by this administration through, not just signing statements, but executive orders.
Bush seems determined to control what the public is permitted to know…Perhaps the most egregious example occurred on November 1, 2001, when President Bush signed Executive Order 13233, under which a former president's private papers can be released only with the approval of both the former president (or his heirs) and the current one…The administration's effort to grandfather the Reagan papers under the act also raised a red flag. President Bush's signature stopped the National Archives from a planned release of documents from the Reagan era, some of which might have shed light on the Iran-Contra scandal and illuminated the role played by the vice-president at the time, George H.W. Bush.
George W. Bush and his father can see to it that their administrations pass into history without examination. Their rationales for waging wars in the Middle East will go unchallenged. There will be no chance to weigh the arguments that led the administration to condone torture by our armed forces. The problems of federal agencies entrusted with public welfare during times of national disaster--9-11 and Hurricane Katrina--will be unaddressed. Details on no-bid contracts awarded to politically connected corporations like Halliburton will escape scrutiny, as will the president's role in Environmental Protection Agency's policies on water and air pollution.
This is about much more than the desires of historians and biographers--the best interests of the nation are at stake.
--"Bush's Veil Over History," Kitty Kelley, New York Times, October 10, 2005.
You know, at the time that George H.W. Bush was president, George W. worked for him behind the scenes at the White House. As I recall, it was W. who fired John Sununu, who was chief of staff at the time. W. wasn't governor then. He was working for Daddy.
Now all the work-product he might have put out during those heady days before he was himself selected president, by the same Supreme Court justices who were appointed by Daddy--will be hidden away, along with any other papers from his own administration he deems "private."
Oh, those signing statements! Those executive orders! Consider Executive Order 13292. This is a little-known document signed by Bush that grants the greatest expansion of power of the vice president in American history. According to an article in salon.com, by Sidney Blumenthal, "The order gives the vice-president the same ability to classify intelligence as the president. By controlling classification, the vice president can in effect control intelligence and, through that, foreign policy."
(Blumenthal, a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist, jokes that, if Cheney had had his way, he'd've classified the accident where he shot his hunting buddy in the face.)
So, Bush works hard to control information and re-write history--especially his part in it--while at the same time, bullying even his closest advisors into giving him only good news. This is how he comes to be cutting a birthday cake with Sen. John McCain when Hurricane Katrina is destroying the Gulf Coast.
In the meantime, Karl Rove, who has been questioned five times by a grand jury for his part in the despicable outing of a CIA intelligence operative whose expertise was weapons of mass destruction--Karl Rove, who is being investigated by a special prosecutor as we speak--Karl Rove has not only kept his job next door to Bush at the White House, but the administration has said flat-out that it would now be Rove's job to concentrate on holding onto the death-grip Republicans have on power, seeing to it that Republicans do not lose their seats in Congress so they can continue to control that branch. He will, basically, be running political campaigns for the Republican National Committee from the White House.
So…who, then, pays his salary?
Well, in part, I DO, FROM MY DEMOCRATIC TAX DOLLARS, which is, at the very least, a conflict of interest, since the White House is supposed to be representative of government of the people, by the people, and for the people--not just REPUBLICAN people.
Aren't there laws that specifically prevent using the White House for political campaign fund-raising and other purposes? Didn't Republicans raise high holy hell because Clinton let a few big donors sleep in the Lincoln Bedroom?
And now our tax dollars are going to pay a fat handsome salary to the fat ugly "boy genius" who sits at the Right Hand of Bush and manipulates political campaigns for the Republicans.
I'm just saying. I'd love to hear what Rush would have had to say if say, James Carville had held a similar West Wing position in the Clinton White House.
So…how is it that a president who is, after all, merely one branch of a three-branch Constitutional form of government, able to get away with all these power grabs?
It's easy. Like an alcoholic whose wife tells his boss that he's sick when he's really hung over, Bush has a chorus of enablers to back him up: a Republican Congress.
posted by Deanie Mills at 8:24 PM
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