Needlenose

Over the holiday I was thinking how nice it would be to ‘get over’ the Bush years by having a fitting send-off for him before the inaguration - what about having a big shoe-in on 1/19?  Maybe we could do one in each big city, organize it through meetups?

I’m picturing having some big effigies of Shrubya and Dick.  Everybody could bring some old shoes from their closets and we could all fling our shoes at the effigies.  Sure, it wouldn’t be as gratifying as flinging them at the real guys, but there is a much lower chance of getting shot by an overzealous Secret Service guy.

What do y’all thinK?

Swopa must be off doing something either more productive or more entertaining. Therefore I must post Cheney’s disclosure that he worked on the Plame press talking points.

From all-but-admitting that he was the force behind the waterboarding and Gitmo to casually almost admitting to this felony, Cheney is just laughing at us, knowing that he ‘got away with it.’

“Thanks for explaining how to use the bureaucracy to circumvent the President and impose my own policies… Hillary passes along her thanks, too!”

(Via Reuters:  “Vice President Dick Cheney bids farewell to Vice President-elect Joe Biden, following their nearly hour-long visit at the vice president’s residence at the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington.”)

Beware the kiss of death.

Oh dear.

The Anthrax attacks following 9/11 have always disturbed me. I’m no conspiracy theorist, but it was odd that Shrubya put a bumbling fool on the case who smeared the wrong guy (who ended up getting a bunch of our taxpayer money in recompense), then put a team on it that has dragged it out for years. Then, on the eve of getting grand jury approval to start a trial, the key suspect of the new investigation mysteriously commits suicide - amidst revelations that he was a known nut-jub.

To top it off, Senator Patrick Leahy just came out to say that he believes the anthrax terrorist didn’t act alone:”:

If he is the one who sent the letter, I do not believe in any way, shape or manner that he is the only person involved in this attack on Congress and the American people,” Leahy told FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III at a hearing yesterday. “I believe there are others involved, either as accessories before or accessories after the fact. I believe that there are others who can be charged with murder.”

Great, now we’re gonna be stuck with decades of Conspiracy Nuts writing books and creating documentaries about ‘the 2nd Germsman’ on the grassy knoll. Me? While I doubt there was a real conspiracy behind the attacks, I am quite convinced that the Cheney Shrubya Administration cynically used the attacks to increase public, media & Congressional fear in order to sell their crazy wars, and more…purposefully put the “B Team” on the case to drag it out beyond the point where anybody but conspiracy nuts would remember it (not hard here in the U.S.).

From the Associated Press today, covering Barack Obama’s appearance on a talk show:

Obama refused again and again during an interview that aired Sunday to give hints on whom he might pick for a running mate, but he did describe the qualities he’s looking for. Shyness and blind loyalty are not among them.

“I’m going to want somebody with independence, who’s willing to tell me where he thinks or she thinks I’m wrong,” Obama said in an interview that aired Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

The remark came in the twilight of the Bush White House, an administration famous — and much-criticized — for the value it has placed on loyalty within its ranks.

Silly, biased AP! Â The problem with excessive loyalty in the Bush administration isn’t that Dubya makes decisions, and Cheney simply says, “Yes, sir.”

It’s that Cheney makes decisions, and Dubya simply says, “Yes, sir.”

Via Think Progress, Rep. Henry Waxman is still chasing after information on how Valerie Plame Wilson was outed as a CIA employee — and, judging from the letter he released this morning (sent to Attorney General Ashcroft Gonzales Mukasey), not quite as quixotically as I’d assumed:

On December 3, 2007 , I wrote to request that you arrange for the production of documents relating to Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald’s investigation into the leak of the covert identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson, including copies of FBI interview reports of White House officials. I appreciate that you have since made redacted versions of the interview reports of Karl Rove, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, and other senior White House officials available to the Committee.

I am writing now to renew the Committee’ s request for the interview reports with President Bush and Vice President Cheney and to request unredacted versions of the interviews with Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, Condoleezza Rice, Scott McClellan, and Cathie Martin. I also request that the Department provide all other responsive documents that were approved for release to the Committee by Mr. Fitzgerald.

So Fitz authorized the release of investigative files, and Mukasey actually turned some stuff over?! I hadn’t realized this.

In his interview with the FBI, Mr. Libby stated that it was “possible” that Vice President Cheney instructed him to disseminate information about Ambassador Wilson’ s wife to the press. This is a significant revelation and, if true, a serious matter. It cannot be responsibly investigated without access to the Vice President ’s FBI interview.

It’s not really “a significant revelation,” since Libby said the same thing in his grand jury testimony, which was made public during the trial. But I guess it’s handy for keeping the pressure on.

The interviews with senior White House officials also raise other questions about the involvement of the Vice President. It appears from the interview reports that Vice President Cheney personally may have been the source of the information that Ms. Wilson worked for the CIA. Mr. Libby specifically identified the Vice President as the source of his information about Ms. Wilson. None of the other White House officials could remember how they learned this information.

The last sentence is noted solely for humor value. If only links to Needlenose 2.0 weren’t still messed up, I’d cite one of my posts on the “theory of Immaculate Dissemination.”

In his FBI interview, [press secretary Scott] McClellan told the FBI about discussions he had with the President and the Vice President. These passages, however, were redacted from the copies made available to the Committee. Similar passages were also redacted from other interviews.

There are no sound reasons for you to withhold the interviews with the President and the Vice President from the Committee or to redact passages like Mr. McClellan’s discussions with the President and the Vice President. Mr. Fitzgerald’s investigation is closed and he has indicated that it would be appropriate to share these records with the Committee. There has been no assertion of executive privilege.

Moreover, withholding these documents would create an unfortunate double standard. During the Clinton Administration, the Committee requested the records of FBI interviews with President Clinton and Vice President Gore in 1997 and 1998 as part of the Committee’s campaign finance investigation. These records were turned over to the Committee by the Justice Department without any consultation with the White House.

Obviously these quaint notions of independence and oversight are now defunct, and I presume that the Bushites have no intention of turning over anything that is genuinely incriminating. But kudos to Waxman for trying, and for exposing the lack of any fig leaf to cover their mendacity.