You make lemonade. Democrats are now completely sold that Bush lied, and they are now moving on as if that is de facto and de jure the truth (in their attempt to find a Bush scandal du jour). Now, Oliver ups the ante– not only did the White House get caught in a lie, but they have decided to use it to their advantage to get rid of george Tenet:
There was a method to the White House acknowledging the fraudulency of the uranium situation: take down Tenet and the CIA…
The info I’ve seen so far says that the CIA hedged their bets at best about the Iraqi WMD program, and that they urged the Brits to dispense with the Nigerian tube evidence, while it was the Cheney-Rumsfeld wing of activity (including Condi Rice) who were ready to go guns-a-blazin’ on Iraq. This is rotten from the head on down, and the Democrats will be remiss in their duties if they don’t pursue this to the hilt.
Do you understand now why I called the previous posts Democrat over-reach? That Bush lied is now a settled fact to the left, now they are looking for their own little Watergate. It’s fun to watch these guys. And, for clarity- that is Oliver Willis making the claim, and not Oliver Stone.
*** Update ***
Uh oh. Tenet is now claiming it was the CIA’s fault. I guess the line will now be that Bush has been after Tenet forever, and they conveniently got rid of him while covering up for Bush’s lie. Of course, that is not what Tenet is saying, Bush is saying, Tony Blair is saying, or anyone in the Administration- but hey, you gotta love the loony left:
CIA Director George Tenet acknowledged Friday his agency wrongly allowed President Bush to tell the American people that Iraq was seeking nuclear material from Africa when analysts had doubts about the quality of the intelligence.
“These 16 words should never have been included in the text written for the president,” Tenet said in a statement released after Bush and his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, blamed the miscue on the CIA and members of Congress called for someone to be held accountable.
“This was a mistake,” the director’s statement said.
Stayed tuned for more spin from the Democrats. I am predicting they will say what I have said above, or they will claim that this is clear proof of the incompetence of the Bush administration. Should be entertaining.
Steve Malynn
ODub, O. Stoned, there’s a difference?
Dean
Ironically, after 9-11, folks on BOTH sides of the aisle figured that Tenet’s head should have rolled.
Apparently, now, the Dems will fight to save Tenet, regardless of whether he’s incompetent, simply because Dubya wants to get rid of him (assuming he does at all).
At this rate, Dubya should say he hates Pickering, at which point he’ll make it through the hearings process on greased rails.
Ricky
Looney left is right.
They’re becoming nuts.
Was last year’s ass kicking at the polls not enough?
Moe Lane
OOC, has anyone kept track of how many Surely -This- Will Be The Thing That Marks The Beginning Of The End For Bush events we’ve had by now? I want to say somewhere between 20 and 30, but it’d be pretty much a guess.
M. Scott Eiland
You know, if GWB came out against gargling with battery acid and juggling active chainsaws, every lefty blogger in the Western World would be missing their throats and forearms by the next sunrise. I always thought that Clinton had a talent for driving his enemies to foaming insanity, but GWB has proven himself superior in that area.
It’s going to be a long five and a half years for the American left.
Mark L
Forget expecting sanity from the Dems. What amazes me is that *all* of these stories track back to two sources — one of whom has been discredited, the other which is a CAIR operative.
The fake is Wilkinson. He is some yahoo who convinced a reporter at Capitol Hill Blue that he was a CIA agent present at two Presidential briefings. In actuality he was NEVER employed by the CIA, and appears to be a Greg Packer type who gets his jollies by convincing reporters that he is The Man With The Inside Scoop. CHB has apologized for being hoaxed.
The other twit, Wilson, was pretty thoroughly debunked at the NRO website. Cheney sent the guy to Niger to investigate the uranium story, and Wilson spent the trip on his butt drinking sweet tea. Since he did next to nothing, he was ignored in evaluating the claim.
So there you have it a fraud and a fool are the basis for the “Bush lied” lie.
Gary
Ricky,
Looking at either Daily Kos’ or Atrios’ posts and comment threads is a good measure of just how loony they have become. They’re no indicator of the democrats as a whole though, so it’s a bit early to tell whether any lesson was learned in the fall elections.
If I had friends considering voting a left of center candidate in the next election, I would send them to either site to cure them of the notion, so the looney left can be leveraged into performing a valuable service.
Moe,
Count the number of daily posts at Atrios’ Asylum and multiply by total comments daily divided by 1.001 (to account for the occasional person passing through and poking some Atriette in the eye) for your answer.
Frank DiSalle
You wrote exactly what I thought when I read Willis this morning…
David Perron
I’m not sure which is worse: the Left latching on to THIS particular problem at the expense of addressing the real issues in government, or the Left actually gaining the upper hand because they’ve chosen to do the intelligent thing in lieu of the newsworthy. Still, let ’em scream? Or no?
mark
Actually, the so-called “Niger story” may become less significant when word spreads about the Osama/Saddam link that Instapundit links to today. The piece written by a judge appointed by President Carter.
Gary Farber
I don’t think I spin for the left (and I enjoy being frequently accused of spinning for the right), but I don’t think either of your characterizations are remotely correct (sorry for not cooperating with your, well, frankly, rather crude stereotypes that will certainly apply to many, and equally not apply at all to even many more).
To be specific, I don’t see any major reason to believe that Bush or his folks were “gunning for Tenet” (though that’s probably true of some Administration folks; this is the way infighting in every beaucracy works, not to specify Presidential beaucracies), nor that George Bush personally and conciously cackled and said to himself “I will lie about this, bwaaahahhahahaha!”
What I don’t find hard to believe, I’m afraid, is that Bush is insufficiently interested in reading detailed reports to notice that there is considerable debate and argument on whether a particular point rises to a point of certain certainty, and, instead, relies on reports from aides, and that this is, gasp, shock, horror, a flaw in an executive, just as much as excessive devotion to minutia can be a huge flaw.
In other words: gosh, wow, George Bush’s judgements, and ability to make them, may be questionable, just as said ability might be questionable in any individual.
Alternatively, he may be utterly brilliant and infallible, or the truth might lurk somewhere “in between.”
Which is all part of what the presidential battle will be about, of course.
I’m not a huge fan of any of the Democratic contenders. But I’m surely not impressed with George W. Bush.
I’m on the record as agreeing with quite a number of his policies, and I’ve been duly declared a traitor and a fool by many Democrats and leftists.
Yet, somehow, that doesn’t make he wholeheartedly favor Bush’s policies or judgements, either.
I’m, as I said the other day in another matter, just funny that way.
Why am I writing more here than for my own website? Ooops.
Dodd
Has there been some new piec eof news about Tenet that I missed? I am 99 44/100ths percent sure that the piece I saw reporting that Tenet had taken repsonsibility specifically said that the President remained confident in him and that he had no plans to resign. In fact, I remember being somewhat irritated that, once again, someone had screwed up but not one head would roll.
Hey! Look at that. I was right. The sentence immediately following the passage Oliver quoted says that “[a] CIA spokesman told CNN that Tenet, appointed to the helm of the agency by President Clinton, has no plans to resign and has not been asked to leave.”
So from precisely which portion of his nether regions is OW pulling this silliness?
HH
“Actually, the so-called ‘Niger story’ may become less significant when word spreads about the Osama/Saddam link that Instapundit links to today.”
Unfortunately, you’re assuming that Eric Alterman’s book is correct.