April 4, 2006
Power Out of Control -- Gary Hart and Joyce Appleby on how Bush's push for power has created a Constitutional crisis. Times Union Bringing home the wounded from Iraq, 17,000 young Americans. Look at them now. LA Times William Buckley: Bush will be judged on failed Iraq war. And furthermore, Bush's fiscal behavior left conservativism behind a long time ago. The setting of a military mission that one did not have the means to accomplish in Iraq was also not consistent with true conservatism, says Buckley. Up from the Grassroots -- The Vermont Democratic state committee will decide in a special meeting April 8 whether to urge Vermont lawmakers to use a little-known provision in U.S. House rules to petition for President Bush's impeachment. "What I can tell you is it's generated a lot of energy at the grass roots. It's genuinely bubbling up from the grass roots," Jon Copans, the state party's executive director, said Tuesday. Times Argus Lies Continue to Surface -- A newly surfaced memo from Tony Blair's foreign policy adviser David Manning elaborates further on the knowing fraud perpetrated by Bush to go into Iraq, assuring the world that weapons of mass destruction would be found, while already knowing that the evidence wasn't there. Bush suggested committing further fraud by sending planes over Iraq disguised as UN planes to provoke Saddam Hussein into firing on them. This is obviously how Bush works. Slice it anywhere and you'll come up with the same tendency to lie for anything you want. "The web spun by Bush has now cost the lives of 2,300 U.S. soldiers, another 200 British and coalition soldiers, and tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians. Iraq is closer to civil war than stability. Three years later, it is the United States that is not disarming, with Bush admitting last week that our troops will be needed there past his presidency. We took out a madman with madness. At a minimum, there should be hearings, with Bush under oath. With any more details like this, the next step is impeachment." Derrick Jackson Chicago Tribune Bush Paper Trail Grows -- A cogent analysis of the latest memo of a meeting with Bush and Blair on TomPaine.com End of the Rich Man's Era? Mebbe. Just mebbe. Anniston Star Dirty Undies Showing -- Greg Mitchell looks at the record of Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, who can now write in a column called "Bush Wanted War" that "Colin Powell, you may recall, soiled his stellar reputation with a United Nations speech that is now just plain sad to read. Almost none of it is true." But at the time he sang a different tune as he joined the cheerleaders for war: "The evidence he presented to the United Nations -- some of it circumstantial, some of it absolutely bone-chilling in its detail -- had to prove to anyone that Iraq not only hasn't accounted for its weapons of mass destruction but without a doubt still retains them. Only a fool -- or possibly a Frenchman -- could conclude otherwise." Ouch! editorandpublisher.com The Human Race is Doomed -- says Professor Eric Pianka. Or 90% of it, anyway.
April 7, 2006
Will Bush fire himself?There are too many leaks of classified information in Washington. There's leaks at the executive branch; there's leaks in the legislative branch. There's just too many leaks. And if there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. And if the person has violated law, the person will be taken care of. -- George W. Bush, 2003
The Show Never Stops --Every day, some shocker. Yesterday a homeland security agent is caught in a sex crime sting (USA Today). Today, according to court documents that became public, Libby said Bush authorized the leak of the CIA agent. BBC, Reuters. When He Knew -- According to Scoop, Fitzgerald has known the identity of the leaker since early 2004. Required Viewing --A second edition of Dylan Avery's film Loose Change can now be viewed online. The second edition is stronger than the first. Take a look. (Bring a doctor with you! We dare you! Can you sit through it?) Just look. It may not answer many questions, but it asks many, and that's the first step. You Haven't Seen Everything -- And for more questions and answers about 9/11, check out reopen911.org The Worst and the Dullest -- A new book by Senator Edward Kennedy compares the Cuban missile crisis to Bush's launching of a pre-emptive war against Iraq. Boston Globe Midwestern Grass Roots -- Milwaukee citizens vote for Iraq pullout. Commondreams Climate Disaster in Progress -- The global melting is happening faster than previously thought. Commondreams Don't Look Now -- Are the Republicans in the path of political hurricane? USA Today Bush's War Crimes -- Chomsky on War Crimes in Iraq. "In 2002, White House counsel Alberto Gonzales passed on to Bush a memorandum on torture by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel. As noted by constitutional scholar Sanford Levinson: 'According to the OLC, "acts must be of an extreme nature to rise to the level of torture Physical pain amounting to torture must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death."'... Gonzales further advised President Bush to effectively rescind the Geneva Conventions, which, despite being 'the supreme law of the land' and the foundation of contemporary international law, contained provisions Gonzales determined to be 'quaint' and 'obsolete.' Rescinding the conventions, he informed Bush, 'substantially reduces the threat of domestic criminal prosecution under the War Crimes Act.' Passed in 1996, the act carries severe penalties for 'grave breaches' of the conventions: the death penalty, 'if death results to the victim' of the breach. Gonzales was later appointed to be attorney general and would probably have been a Supreme Court nominee if Bush's constituency did not regard him as 'too liberal.'" tomdispatch.com
Weekend, April 7, 2006
The Gospel of Judas?! Is this for real? The New York Times is reporting the discovery of the personal story of Jesus from the disciple who betrayed Jesus with a kiss when he led the authorities to capture him. The word is that this alleged Judas gospel was found in an Egyptian desert. -- ... Well. Why not? Jesus -- God! We are living in interesting times, strange days. What next? No, don't tell me. Am I dreaming? A reframing of the story of Jesus. With Judas not as a villain, but as Jesus' favorite disciple. According to ABC.net, "A section of the 1700-year-old text claims to show that Judas Iscariot wasn't the villain he was made out to be. Far from being a traitor who dobbed Jesus into the authorities, it seems he got a bad press and it was all part of a plan devised by Jesus and Judas"
It's like Jesus Christ Superstar for real.
And the news never stops...
Lower Still -- Bush popularity at yet another low, 36% in AP-Ipsos poll. Congress even lower. Yahoo
April 8, 2006
Revisionist History -- "The President has set high standards, the highest of standards, for people in his administration," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said on Sept. 29, 2003. "If anyone in this administration was involved in it, they would no longer be in this administration." Robert Parry
Almost 100% -- An MSNBC online poll asks if Bush "misled the nation in order to go to war with Iraq?" 94% said yes. Ninety-four percent.
Triumph of the Conspiracy Theorists -- Conspiracy: "A planning and acting together secretly, esp. for an unlawful or harmful purpose, such as murder or treason." (Webster's New World Dictionary) These are conspiracies by definition. The White House is not denying Libby's testimony that Bush authorized the leak, even though he said three years ago he would fire anyone he found out was involved. They are not denying now that he did it, just as they are not denying that Bush broke the law by authorizing wiretaps. Bush says he has done illegal wiretapping and will keep on doing it because they don't have time to go get a warrant, even though the law allows the president to get the warrant retroactively three days after the wiretapping begins. Since there is no delay, time is obviously not a factor. Bush just doesn't want to be hampered by any legal limitations. As he has said repeatedly, he wants to be a dictator. He breaks laws for the sake of breaking them, to establish his right to do anything he wants.
For justification, he says he's a Wartime President, a title the presidential usurper earned by illegally invading another country based on trumped-up justifications. These conspiracists make Nixon look saintly by comparison, but Nixon is the model. This presidency is an attempt to go back and undo Watergate and re-establish the Nixonian concept of the presidency. "When the President does it, it's not illegal." (BBC: "The president's supporters say even if Mr Libby's testimony is accurate, what the president is alleged to have done does not constitute a leak because Mr Bush had the authority to release the information.") And so far they are getting away with it.
Bush press herder Scott McClellan said, according to The New York Times, "that the president had the authority to declassify and release information 'in the public interest' and had never done so for political reasons." But having the power to declassify information is not the same as the power to selectively leak classified information. If it's declassified, through the appropriate formal proceeding, then it is accessible to the public, not just to the Bush smear campaigners.
McClellan (Bush) is trying to get us to buy one more monstrous fraud in construing this slander campaign (which could have amounted to murder by revealing a CIA agent and her "assets" to "the enemy") as being "in the public interest". Let's have that again, how exactly was this in the public interest? The proposition is so ridiculous, it's hard to fathom, but if you try to follow the logic you must come to the conclusion that they define this war, this remaking of the middle east and the world under the neoconservative doctrine, as necessary no matter what lies have to be told, what constitutional principles have to be destroyed, or who has to be killed to do it. As Lenin said, the ends justify the means.
April 9, 2006
Ho hum de dum dum, if you turn on The News it's just business as usual, as if it's no big thing that the supposed president was just revealed to be the leaker he said he was after, the man who committed the felony, who put lives in jeopardy in order to smear a man who exposed his lies about the reasons for going into Iraq. The news takes all this in stride, ho hum, how's the weather? Pretty damn bad. But then, the big media have reported everything as normal from the day the Supreme Court stopped the vote counting in Florida to make sure it didn't threaten Bush's claim to victory. But it's not. It's not normal. This isn't the United States as it ever was before. It's a disgrace.Go back to sleep, Big Media, while your audience continues to drop off. Who cares? What do you have to offer? Mind-numbing noise. Here are some good news links for the weekend:
Treason for National Security -- Joe Conason on the Deception that Bush Can't Spin. Eating Well is the Best Revenge -- The Upchuck Rebellion, Jim Hightower on meaningful revolt against industrial crap sold as food. Rigged -- In Ohio, election officials rigged the recount. Cleveland Plain Dealer Leaker in Chief -- NY Times A Tear in the Cover -- "The judge overseeing the death penalty trial of Zacarias Moussaoui yesterday ordered prosecutors to provide hundreds of thousands of government documents generated as evidence in the case to lawyers representing families of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks." This could be trouble for the government that has tried to keep the lid on these events since they happened. Attorneys representing 9/11 victims' families in a lawsuit against the airlines for not doing what they should have to prevent the attacks showed up at the Moussaoui trial and told the judge that "she had the authority to order the disclosure of documents that have been turned over to Moussaoui's defense team. The plaintiffs' attorneys said they believed the documents, which they have been unable to obtain from the government, will help them show in the civil case that the airline industry knew about the risks of airline hijackings before Sept. 11 but failed to act." Whew! Washington Post John Dean on Bush as Chief Leaker -- John Dean analyzes the latest revelations: Libby's testimony that Cheney authorized the leaks and said Bush had also authorized them. "Many commentators are dismissing this situation as run-of-the-mill presidential/vice presidential politics. But I believe it is more serious," said Dean. "From a political perspective, separate from the illegality, there is the hypocrisy: The Bush Administration has prosecuted and sent to jail officials who leaked far less serious information - as I discussed in detail in a prior column. It is actively, and currently, threatening to prosecute others who have leaked information about the president's illegal electronic surveillance of Americans. Beyond the hypocrisy, however, is what the President, Vice President, Libby and no doubt others did to destroy the career of Valerie Plame. Maybe the administration has quietly settled with the Wilsons, who seem to have dropped out of the public eye. This would have been wise, because as the facts unravel, it increasingly appears that administration officials did indeed attack Mr. Wilson for his speaking out; the leak of his wife's identity does indeed seem to have been done in harsh retribution. Such a violation of civil rights is a crime." A President Who Leaks -- "Bush is often fond of defending his wildly inappropriate and often illegal activities by claiming that he has every right to do whatever he wants because America is 'at war,'" says William Rivers Pitt. "Never mind that no war has actually been declared. If we take his premise that we are in fact at war, than the disclosure of classified information for political gain must be defined simply and directly. It is treason." Also in this article, Rep. Jane Harman, ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, spoke about Bush's alleged hip-pocket declassification. "Leaking classified information to the press when you want to get your side out or silence your critics is not appropriate. The reason we classify things is to protect our sources - those who risk their lives to give us secrets. Who knows how many sources were burned by giving Libby this 'license to leak?' If I had leaked the information, I'd be in jail. Why should the President be above the law?" Pitt also quotes the relevant paragraphs of the 1947 National Security Act, which makes it pretty clear that any of them down the line who knew this information was classified and passed it on, should be doing jail time. Soldiers Against the War -- A new documentary film shows the GI revolt against the Vietnam War. In Motion
April 10, 2006
The Case of the Leaking President -- Former prosecutor Elizabeth de la Vega wrote an excellent analysis of the current discussion about the discovery of Bush as the leaker of the CIA agent's identity. Of course the establishment media, frightened to call a spade a spade, afraid to know embarrassing things, is asking the wrong questions. After carefully threading through many strands of information and confusion, much of it intentional, de la Vega finally comes to what she says in the right question: "Is a President, on the eve of his reelection campaign, legally entitled to ward off political embarrassment and conceal past failures in the exercise of his office by unilaterally and informally declassifying selected -- as well as false and misleading -- portions of a classified National Intelligence Estimate that he has previously refused to declassify, in order to cause such information to be secretly disclosed under false pretenses in the name of a "former Hill staffer" to a single reporter, intending that reporter to publish such false and misleading information in a prominent national newspaper?" TomDispatchAnd Now For Their Next Trick -- Seymour Hers on whether the Bush administration crazy enough to bomb Iran. (See also "U.S. studying military options on Iran" Washington Post.) This is utterly bizarre, what we are living through (so far). Under the neocon foreign policy, lifted out of the Neocon manifesto, the Project for a New American Century, the U.S. is committed to prevent any country from having a military build up that could in some way rival that of the U.S., or cause it some concern. And the administration (from the fraudulently presented candidate who advocated "compassionate conservatism" and "a humble foreign policy") is committed to attacking any country pre-emptively that it deems unilaterally to be a problem. This is not an exaggeration by me, it's the policy of the United States. So in order to stick to your commitment, you have to go ahead and attack Iran even if you are militarily on your back and stretched thin and ready to snap. Bring 'em on, say the neocons. So God help us if they've got a wild hair up their collective ass now and have taken it upon themselves to attack Iran. Bush increasingly looks like he's trying to hustle his Armageddon and Rapture scenario into play. If he really believes his neo-evangelist doctrine, like Reagan apparently did, he and DeLay and whoever else carries the flag of the Onward Christian Soldiers of the Right will be floating up to the heavens sans clothing on the day the Lord returns to scald the nonbelievers to death, a la Satan. Strange land. Strange religion. Get Scared Again -- This new film about Flight 93 has been upsetting some of its audience who are not ready to be thrust back to 9/11. Since it's based on legendary occurrences that cannot be established as real, it looks as though its purpose is just to get people back into that frightened mentality in which they can be more easily controlled. Never let the fear die, that's the Bush mantra. Telegraph.co.uk Why We Did It -- Dan Dewalt, Newfane, Vermont, selectman, on why the town council voted for impeachment. Star Tribune
April 11, 2006
One More Monday Night and One More Crime -- I don't know how many smoking guns it takes, how many crimes the Bush mob has to be caught committing in broad daylight for the people to throw the bums out. Now in New Hampshire James Tobin, Bush's presidential campaign chairman for the New England region in 2004, has been convicted of a phone jamming scheme designed to keep Democrats from voting, and here's the punch line: the guy was in close touch with the White House during the days he pulled off the job. "A Democratic analysis of phone records introduced at Tobin's criminal trial show he made 115 outgoing calls — mostly to the same number in the White House political affairs office — between Sept. 17 and Nov. 22, 2002. Two dozen of the calls were made from 9:28 a.m. the day before the election through 2:17 a.m. the night after the voting... " writes the Associated Press. "The Republican state chairman at the time, John Dowd, said in an interview he learned of the scheme that day and tried to stop it. Dowd, who blamed an aide for devising the scheme without his knowledge, contended that the jamming began on Election Day despite his efforts. A police report confirmed the Manchester Professional Fire Fighters Association reported the hang-up calls began about 7:15 a.m. and continued for about two hours. The association was offering rides to the polls." Dig the denial: "The national Republican Party, which paid millions in legal bills to defend Tobin, says the contacts involved routine election business and that it was 'preposterous' to suggest the calls involved phone jamming." The phone jamming the bum was convicted of on the days of the phone calls. Bloody preposterous. And the White House? "As policy, we don't discuss ongoing legal proceedings within the courts," White House spokesman Ken Lisaius said. Yeah, right... Yep, It Was a Lie -- Robert Schlesinger How Bush selectively leaked information that had already been disproven in order to bolster his fraudulent case for going into Iraq. "In other words, trying to support the drive to war, Libby -- at Cheney's direction -- sought out reporters and lied to them. (And by extension to the public.)" Sure, We Trust You -- Reported by The Australian: "Britain has tried to silence renewed sabre-rattling from within the US administration for military action against Iran, saying the idea that the White House wants a nuclear strike is 'completely nuts'." Not, however, out of the question with the wildmen in Washington.... Speaking to the BBC, Blair's man Jack Straw said: "There is no smoking gun, there is no casus belli. We can't be certain about Iran's intentions and that is, therefore, not a basis on which anybody would gain authority to go for military action." Even though that was not a problem when it came to Iraq... Can Bush get lower? In the polls, that is. tahlequahdailypress.com We Have Met the Enemy -- Bush's search for the leakers leads to his mirror. Bloomberg Spontaneous Declassification -- Christian Science Monitor: "A related area of debate is exactly when the information Bush declassified can be deemed to have been, in fact, declassified - when the president gave permission for the private briefings, for now an unrevealed date, or on July 18, 2003, when the White House formally announced the declassification of much of the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE). To Jeffrey Smith, former general counsel of the CIA, this is a relevant question. 'At least in my mind, there's a difference between declassification - which is a formal step in which information is put officially on the public record - and a leak,' says Mr. Smith. 'Here, what appears to have happened is the White House wanted to get this information out, but selectively gave certain portions of the NIE to a reporter without attribution. That's not declassification; that's a leak.'" These are Crimes -- Greg Palast: "OK, let's accept the White House alibi that releasing Plame's identity was no crime. But if that's true, they've committed a bigger crime: Bush and Cheney knowingly withheld vital information from a grand jury investigation, a multimillion dollar inquiry the perps themselves authorized. That's akin to calling in a false fire alarm or calling the cops for a burglary that never happened - but far, far worse. Let's not forget that in the hunt for the perpetrator of this non-crime, reporter Judith Miller went to jail. Think about that. While Miller sat in a prison cell, Bush and Cheney were laughing their sick heads off, knowing the grand jury testimony, the special prosecutor's subpoenas and the FBI's terrorizing newsrooms were nothing but fake props in Bush's elaborate charade, Cheney's Big Con. On February 10, 2004, our not-so-dumb-as-he-sounds President stated, 'Listen, I know of nobody - I don't know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information. 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. ...And if people have got solid information, please come forward with it.' Notice Bush's cleverly crafted words. He says he can't name anyone who leaked this 'classified' info - knowing full well he'd de-classified it. Far from letting Bush off the hook, it worsens the crime. For years, I worked as a government investigator and, let me tell you, Bush and Cheney withholding material information from the grand jury is a felony. Several felonies, actually: abuse of legal process, fraud, racketeering and, that old standby, obstruction of justice." "The Bushes: A Hereditary Trait For Treason? Surely Not!" writes Tony Hendra on the Huffington Post. "Like many US and UK bankers, Prescott Sheldon Bush, patriarch of the Bush clan, and partner in Brown Brothers Harriman, self-described as 'the world's largest private bank', grew rich in the 1930s, profiteering from Hitler's rise. His closest contact inside the Nazi war-machine was one Fritz Thyssen director (and scion) of a coal-and-steel empire central to the rearmament of Germany. Unlike many fellow bankers, Prescott continued to reap profits from his German industrial interests after the invasion of Poland in 1939 - technically no crime but morally repugnant to me since the Luftwaffe he was helping bankroll were dropping bombs on my parents, and soon, me. Good old Prescott kept nuzzling up to the Nazis all the way to August 1942, eight months after the US declaration of war in Dec 1941, a blatant violation of the Trading with the Enemy Act. In a word, treason. Treason in time of war would, for ordinary folks, be punishable by death. Prescott escaped having his scrawny neck stretched because you don't top a Skull-and-Bones man. (Id est, you don't turn a Skull and Bones man into skull and bones). It helped that Presky was soon cooperating with the brand-new US intelligence services ratting out his former Nazi pals. Thus exhibiting another congenital Bush trait: nuzzling up to genocidal killers during their rise, then at the right moment turning on them and coming off smelling like roses." Amazing! "A Brigham Young University physicist said he now believes an incendiary substance called thermite, bolstered by sulfur, was used to generate exceptionally hot fires at the World Trade Center on 9/11, causing the structural steel to fail and the buildings to collapse. 'It looks like thermite with sulfur added, which really is a very clever idea," Steven Jones, professor of physics at BYU, told a meeting of the Utah Academy of Science, Arts and Letters at Snow College Friday.'" Read on! Deseret News, see also 911truth.org Mark Morford on the 9/11 Truth Movement. Morford on the money, as always. The Myth and the Reality -- by David Ray Griffin, an excellent exposition of 9/11, the truth, so far as it is known, behind the government veil. 911truth.org
NEWSLINKS
April 14, 2006
A Supremely Class Act (Not) -- The eloquent and dignified Supreme Court Justice Scalia in response to criticisms of his taking a hunting trip with Cheney while he considered an important case involving Cheney: "For Pete's sake, if you can't trust your Supreme Court justice more than that, get a life." Washington Post Is it or isn't it? Now Scooter's lawyers file a motion saying Cheney and/or Bush didn't order Scooter to leak Plame's name. It seems like it's still a crime to expose the name of a CIA agent. Washington Post Uh Oh, Lookout for another Pet Goat -- Bush decides to save his presidency by going to Jefferson City to talk about prescription drugs. Kansas City Star Answers, Mr. Cheney -- SLTrib.com Won't Go -- An Australian-born Royal Air Force doctor on trial for refusing to go to Iraq because he thought the war was illegal said last night he believed the US was the moral equivalent of Nazi Germany. Malcolm Kendall-Smith could face an unlimited jail sentence for disobeying the order to go to Iraq last year and four orders to prepare for his deployment, in the first British case of its kind. The Australian Generals Want Rumsfeld's Head -- "A recently retired two-star general who just a year ago commanded a US Army division in Iraq has joined a small but growing list of former senior officers to call on US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to resign. 'I believe we need a fresh start in the Pentagon. We need a leader who understands teamwork, a leader who knows how to build teams, a leader that does it without intimidation," Major General John Batiste, who commanded the Germany-based 1st Infantry Division in Iraq, said. In recent weeks, retired Marine Corps Lieutenant General Gregory Newbold, Army Major General Paul Eaton and Marine Corps General Anthony Zinni all spoke out against Mr Rumsfeld. This comes as opinion polls show eroding public support for the three-year-old war in which about 2360 US troops have died.'" Courier Mail That makes four generals now calling for Rummy's resignation. "Batiste was adding his voice to a chorus already made up of retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, former head of the U.S. Central Command; retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, who oversaw training of Iraqi forces, and retired Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Gregory Newbold, former director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff." NY Daily News The cat that ate the caiman -- Itay's center left candidate unseats the billionaire media magnate. NY Times One to Go -- The defeat of Silvio Berlusconi has left Tony Blair isolated in Europe as the last political leader supporting the war in Iraq. Mr Berlusconi had been the only ally of Mr Blair and President George Bush in Europe after Jose Maria Aznar, the Spanish prime minister, was defeated in the aftermath of the Madrid bombings in March 2004. Mr Blair is likely to put a brave face on the defeat, although many will see it as a further nail in his own political coffin. Independent Too Little Too Late -- Robert Scheer: "On Monday, former Secretary of State Colin Powell told me that he and his department's top experts never believed that Iraq posed an imminent nuclear threat, but that the president followed the misleading advice of Vice President Dick Cheney and the CIA in making the claim. Now he tells us." Robert Scheer How crazy are they? William Rivers Pitt Yes, He Would -- Discounting the possibility that Mr. Bush will start another ill-conceived and unnecessary war isn't sensible, says Paul Krugman. It's wishful thinking. Bush's Play Acting -- "Bush didn't stop there. He issued an all-points bulletin requesting help for the prosecutor. 'And if people have got solid information, please come forward with it. And that would be people inside the information who are the so-called anonymous sources, or people outside the information -- outside the administration. And we can clarify this thing very quickly if people who have got solid evidence would come forward and speak out. And I would hope they would.' The day before, the president had sent out his press secretary, Scott McClellan, to announce that involvement in this incident would be a firing offense: 'If anyone in this administration was involved in it, they would no longer be in this administration.'... Bush acted in the beginning as an innocent injured party. He pretended to be utterly baffled by events. His feigned unawareness was intended to deflect attention from himself. His call to find those responsible was to ensure that the facts would never be known. When he was exposed, he donned a new guise. Instead of the seeker of truth, he became the truth teller." Salon