Bush: Any Criminals in Leak to Be Fired — Now instead of just firing anyone involved, they have to be criminalized. OK, I guess this shows you what he knows. He knows that Rove may weasel out of this. This kind of loyalty reminds me of poor ghetto kids who become superstar athletes. They keep thier loyalty to the old network and get brought down by it. Bush, no matter what he said, will never abandoned Karl. And he wouldn’t have said what he said (about firing anyone) unless Karl misled him in the first place. Yeah, this is leadership.
What Bush should have done was the following. Revealed the situation two years ago and apologized for Rove. Let Rove get indicted and even found guilty of whatever. Pardoned Rove and re-hired him while pooh-poohing the whole episode. Nobody would have cared. Now it looks suspicious.
Bush, appearing with visiting Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India, spoke a day after Time magazine’s Matthew Cooper said that a 2003 phone call with Rove was the first he heard about the wife of Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson apparently working for the CIA.
Bush said in June 2004 that he would fire anyone in his administration shown to have leaked information that exposed the identity of Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame. On Monday, however, he added the qualifier that it would have be shown that a crime was committed.
This is surprising? The administration is above the law. they make the rules now, and no amount of logic, legality, morality, or rationality will sway them from “We are always right, and we answer to NO ONE!”
John thats not nice he watches you on TV 🙂
Nice picture. I am reminded of the scene in Lewis Carroll’s “Through the Looking Glass” where the baby turns into a pig.
This is what he has always done … change his story to match the current known facts .. he did this over and over again on the war and WMD’s.
John, I’m not sure what you’re referring to when you say that Bush is now “parsing”…
Bush 2003:
Bush 2005:
It sounds very consistent to me.
John,
I read all your articles and follow this website. I respect everything you do in the tech field, but I wish you would stay away from politics. I realize you make your living by being opinionated about the direction of tech, and I love it. However, this venture into politics, specifically anti-bush-anti-conservative postings, doesn’t become you.
Do what you want, but this reader wants less politics.
Philip, so what you’re saying is that I should shut up and not express any opinions about any of this whatsoever. If there’s corruption or stupidity or an oncoming train I should be like the rest of America and just shut up and do what I’m told. Right? This is what you want people to do who don;t agree with you? Or do you think it’s cool for everyone to be more docile? Seriously. DO you think that’s the American way? I just wonder.It baffles me. I have a stake in this country you know.
Even in my tech writing I’m for the little company and against corporatism. I don’tsee that much of a difference. The philosophy is the same. Smaller government, more competition. How is this anti-conservative? I am a conservative. Bush isn’t. He wants to naturalize illegal aliens en masse. How is that conservative?
And I also do not see how smearing a decorated wheelchair-bound Viet vet is conservative, or Christian for that matter. An example of the administrations work is here: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/docs/Anti-Cleland.rm — a classic.
Scott. So by parsing what you have there it can be interpreted as: unless someone is found guilty in a court of law the leaking of the information is no big deal. OK, whatever.How are you going parse the comments by the press secretary that there is no way Rove was involved.
And I think there were other quotes you are not using. Maybe someone will dig them up.
Rove created Bush.
He saw how the religious right could be marshalled to win elections, and he convinced Bush to run for Governor in Texas.
Bush rewards loyalty, and he will be loyal to Rove.
He needs him.
On the othe hand, Rove could probably do his job managing the mid-term elections and the 2008 transition at 80% effectiveness if he was at the RNC, or an external consultant, like Dick Morris.
I’d like to point out how ridiculous it is for anyone to hold Bush to this statement about “firing leakers”. The conventional wisdom before this was how tight-lipped and disciplined the Bush White House was, and how leakers were very rare and reporters could hardly get their stories done. This secrecy was somehow sinister and an indication of foul play for the Democrats. Bush’s anger at squashing leakers was about internal discipline and minding the message. Demos had no interest in squashing leakers.
Until now. Until the leaker also broke the law (maybe). So in fact, this leak revolves around whether the law was broken, not about the President’s statement, which he made thinking it was a disloyal peon instead of The Architect. He had no intention of firing one of his inner circle.
This is going nowhere for the Democrats, because they and the media are bringing the issue to a boil prematurely. There won’t be any chance of firing Rove until the prosecutor Fitzgerald finishes his investigation, and this is gonna die down before then, and no one will care anymore.
The administration behaved cowardly in revealing Plame to attack Wilson. If Plame wasn’t covert, and the law wasn’t broken, I hope Fitzgerald is able to prosecute for perjury. Everyone will poo-poo it, but lying to the FBI is a crime, and not kosher in this age of terrorism, and making an example of an administration member on that point would be awesome.
The desire to suppress debate is one of the most alarming things about the neo-cons and religious zealots that currently are calling the shots. That sort of repression was NEVER a feature of either party before the neo-cons took office.
It is just unbelievable with all the whole sale corruption and government give away’s to corporations and the rich are not nightly decried in the press. But as more and more press establishments are bought by people like Rupert Murdock, expect less and less truth.
I think that it is an interesting comment on the Bush admin that the only one consistently (and most successfully) going after corruption and corp malfeasance is the NEW YORK Attorney General.
Phillip…
how is John anti-conservative? He seems really conservative to me….he’s just not a knee jerk conservative.
Let’s face it…Bush’s golden boy gleem is wearing thin — look at the polls. I think John is just pointing out the Emperor has goosebumps.
David – Bollocks, bush has changed his position:
The quotes:
“If anyone in this administration was involved in it [the improper disclosure of an undercover CIA operative’s identity], they would no longer be in this administration.” – Scott McClellan, September 29, 2003.
“I don’t know of anyone in my administration who has leaked. If somebody did leak classified information, I’d like to know it, and we’ll take the appropriate action. And this investigation is a good thing.” – George W. Bush, September 30, 2003.
Clearly stating if anyone in the admin *leaked* the info then they would be fired. Not mention of it needing to be criminal.
Now he’s saying:
“I would like this to end as quickly as possible so we know the facts and if someone committed a crime they will no longer work in my administration.” – President Bush
Now they have to be convicted of a crime. A clear and major flip-flop. People can be as unethical and traitorous as they like in this admin, so long as they don’t get indicted.
David
Bush has changed his stance. Deny it if you want, but then that only means that YOU are in denial. This Bush administration has lied throughout its term in office. The fact that once again it has changed its tune to fit the facts is not surprising.
Remember Clinton was impeached by the radical extremists because of a personal affair. He didn’t lie. People didn’t die because of Clinton’s fabrications. The country didn’t go from a surplus to the largest deficit in history under Clinton. Clinton didn’t repeal the Estate Tax by telling people that so many farmers were losing the family farm (because Farmers were exempt).
Phillip
The purpose of this blog is for readers to comment on articles of current events. They may be political, social, inane, ridiculous, or anything that John finds interesting. Reading the posts, there is usually a large variation in opinions. I believe that the most popular topics are illegal immigration, the economy, and Bush’s lies and manipulation. If you don’t care to join a discussion, then don’t. I might add though, don’t bite the hand that allows you to make the comments.
>People didn’t die because of Clinton’s fabrications.
So you believe that Saddam was a threat in 1999 when Clinton started a bombing campaign, and this campaign had nothing to do with the impeachment vote the same day?
AB CD
American Aircraft were patrolling the Iraq No-Fly Zones during Clinton’s Administration. The No-Fly Zones were put in place by a U.N. resolution. The U.N. resolution was put forward during Dubya’s daddy’s administration. As I recall, the Iraqis were targeting the American and British aircraft with radar and in such a situation the pilots had permission to take out the radar. Clinton didn’t start anything.
So what did Clinton fabricate? The impeachment was all political and directed towards Clinton’s private life. The part of us that almost every American considers personal and out of bounds. Gee, the same Senators that were so upset with Clinton’s private life, during a motion to apologize for past discrimination towards Blacks, REFUSED TO ALLOW THEIR NAMES BE RECORDED AS DENYING A VOTE ON THE ISSUE. And these Senators were the same ones rushing to Terri Schaivo’s defense.
AB CD, can you spell hypocrisy?
Maybe you didn’t like Clinton’s personal peccadilloes, but his domestic policies were sound. He took us from the high deficits of the previous two Republican Presidents and made them into surpluses. Clinton gave America full employment. Clinton (and especially V. P. Al Gore) encouraged the Internet. Clinton did not lie to America in order to bring a War where upwards of 100,000 Iraqis have died and many more have been seriously injured. Clinton did not open the borders to allow millions of illegal people into the country unimpeded. Clinton did not give Billions of dollars to Iraqis to end up being skimmed into private bank accounts.
Bush is a poor President that will be remembered in history for his lies, fabrications, abuse and denial of civil rights, robbing the poor to give to the rich, and having fewer manufacturing jobs today, five yrs later, then when he first came into office.