The Political Animal is upset because he is finally starting to catch a whiff of politics in the whole 9/11 Commission. Better late than never, I say, but what is Kevin so upset about:
You can just feel the cleverness oozing from Ashcroft’s pores as he felt “compelled” to mention that Gorelick was the author of the memo, can’t you? It’s like watching a high school student council meeting.
But there’s a serious question here. The fact that Ashcroft was so pleased with himself makes it obvious that he declassified this memo for the sole purpose of embarrassing Gorelick, an action that continues a Bush administration pattern of casually declassifying anything that helps their political cause but refusing to declassify anything that might hurt them.
You mean it is sorta like certain Democrats on the 9/11 Commission demanding that an August 6th PDB that they had read be declassified so people like you could wildly exxagerate (like in this post you wrote two hours ago)the ‘information’ contained within the document and use it as a bludgeon to beat the President with as an election year stunt?
Is it something like that? I am shocked!
shark
They’re finding out that blowback is a real bitch, aren’t they?
epistemology
Politics in the 9/11 commission?!
Hell, the Iraq war never had anything to do with US security (no one is that stupid). This was about politics from the beginning. Too many liberals supported the Afghanistan war. Rove needed a war that would generate some of those anti-American protests he loves so much.
Rick
Sheesh. Just read a bunch of the comments. I’m not sure Washington Monthly was really needing an injection of shrill statemongering like Drum has drawn.
Cordially…
Flagwaver
Jeebus, I don’t freakin’ believe my eyes!!!
Epistemology, I think your tinfoil hat slipped a little, and let in some of those satellite-based mind control rays. I’ve heard “It’s all about the oil!,” and I’ve heard “Bush lied about WMD!” but I’ve NEVER heard that this was all about giving Rove some anti-American protests. And that benefitted Rove/Bush how, exactly??????????
Planning to vote for Dennis Kucinich, are you??
HH
Notice how everyone but Yglesias apparently sidesteps the real issue of conflict of interest…
Andrew J. Lazarus
Do you think Ashcroft is being even-handed when he decides which memos to de-classify? I mean, is it possible that there’s other pertinent memos that are still secret???
Slartibartfast
I don’t understand why those who were screaming for the PDB declassification aren’t overjoyed that the declassification of this memo was accomplished with such alacrity.
TM Lutas
I think we should all take a moment to cheer the Democrat party operatives for their self-sacrifice. They’re furthering the cause of declassification reform, don’t you know.
br
So what Andrew is proposing is that we ignore the memo and its author simply because we just, really just, don’t know if there are more memos…what a way to change the subject…magicians you all are
Ron
Slarti asks
You were joking, right? Allow me to quote from a couple of Calpundit’s previous posts:
Slartibartfast
No, I wasn’t joking. But it’s possible that you misunderstood me.
Rick
“I mean, is it possible that there’s other pertinent memos that are still secret???”
AJL,
This is one of those historic moments when it’s appropriate to adapt a quotation from Jacques ChIrak: You missed a good opportunity to keep quiet.
Cordially…
Robin Roberts
It should be rather obvious that Gorelick’s memo doesn’t have any potential to reveal intelligence capabilities to the extent that the PDB memo did. Accordingly, Ashcroft’s declassification of it did not do as much damage as the 9/11 Commission did by setting up the pressure for the declassification of the PDB. And as for game playing, there is a good case for the idea that the Democrat commission members were trying to play a game that dared the White House to declassify the PDB while hoping that the WH wouldn’t.
And as pointed out, still Gorelick sits on the Commission while fatally conflicted.
The Bobs
You mean it is sorta like certain Democrats on the 9/11 Commission demanding that an August 6th PDB that they had read be declassified
Which democratic commission members were making this demand John? I have been unable to confirm this assertion.
frontinus
I’d seen mentions of FISA changes during 1995 in several articles predating Ashcroft’s theatrics so I seriously doubt this was entirely unknown in the beltway. Much like the Ressam/Millenium story which was allowed to fester for weeks.
Andrew J. Lazarus
Salon says that Ashcroft’s deputy AG “Larry Thompson, endorsed precisely the same 1995 guidelines on Aug. 6, 2001.” I wonder why Ashcroft didn’t mention that?
Salon also notes that Ashcroft apparently lied under oath when he stated that Clinton had not approved an assassination of Osama. And that both Democratic and Republican members of the Commission were trying to interrogate him about this, within the constraints that the assassination order remains classified. I guess Ashcroft didn’t realize that the Administration had (most reluctantly) turned over that memo along with other Clinton-era material they had withheld. Perhaps that’s because unlike the hastily-declassified Gorelick memo, it didn’t tend to exculpate them. (Don’t you find the Administration’s willingness to declassify memos seems based more on politicial opportunity that any visible security interests?)
Clarke, Zinni, Wilson, so many career civil servants end up at loggerheads with the Bush Administration. Some of them have no record as Democrats.
Ricky
Joe f-ing Conason?
What, you couldn’t find a string from Sid Blumenthal to grasp ahold of?
the talking dog
HH-
Good catch on conflicts of interest involving Gorelick.
(1) Mr. Ashcroft somehow raised Ms. Gorelick as an impediment to his own freedom of action, failing to note that he outranks her as the AG (she was Deputy) and more importantly, she was out of power– and he was in, yet whatever her policy was he didn’t like, he didn’t change it to his liking.
(2) Why is no one talking about Ms. Gorelick being on the 9-11 commission AT ALL when her Wlimer Cutler & Pickering law firm represents SAUDI DEFENDANTS in civil suits being brought by families of 9-11 victims? Just– why is that? I realize Ms. G. is a Democrat (as am I)– and of late, its fashionable to call Republicans for this kind of conflict– but this one is bad.
As to that– I think you’re all kind of missing the point of the 9-11 commission, which is good theatre– OF COURSE its partisan– the press eats that shit up. Its mission is to divert the attention of the American people from some fairly OBVIOUS questions that DO NOT involve the commission’s limited mandate on so-called intelligence failures. I refer specifically to operational failures– and why no one is investigating a series of fiascos ranging from delays in notifying NORAD to delays in scrambling fighters to delays in TELLING fighters IN THE AIR just how critical the situation was to the DOD situation room well aware of 2 planes crashing into WTC and 2 more in the air, and tracking them, while not telling the SecDef who remained in his office (with 20,000 other people) while a plane hurtled to the Pentagon, and finally and most intriguingly, why the President of the United States– the one man with the authority if necessary to shoot down airliners over the United States, took himself out of commission to read a goat story to 3rd graders, instead of excusing himself to get his ass to a situation room.
THOSE are things I want to see investigated– and they are ALL beyond this commission’s mandate.
Funny that.
Tongue Boy
Andrew Lazarus states: “Salon says that Ashcroft’s deputy AG “Larry Thompson, endorsed precisely the same 1995 guidelines on Aug. 6, 2001.” I wonder why Ashcroft didn’t mention that?”
It does seem ridiculous for his own AG to endorse guidelines that were in the author’s own words “which go beyond what is legally required.” And both Gorelick and Thompson look foolish after this decision by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review.
But is your implication that the final consequences stemming from Gorelick’s memo were the same as Thompson’memo and therefore deserved equal billing? If so, that conclusion does not square with the timelines; Thompson’s memo could have had no conceivable impact on the events of 9/11 coming as it did less than five weeks beforehand, whereas Gorelick’s memo immensely weakened intelligence sharing capabilities during the precise period that Al Qaeda, the perpetrators of 9/11, was gathering strength.
Since certain members of the committee seemed immensely worried about the time constraints of questioning during Ms. Rice’s testimony, perhaps Ashcroft was cutting to the chase and addressing those decisions having a direct effect on the course of potential intelligence failures leading to 9/11.
Andrew J. Lazarus
Tongue Boy, indeed if Ashcroft’s DoJ had changed the policy as of August 2001, ut would not have stopped the hijackers. But the conspicuous failure to change the policy (indeed, the decision to reiterate it) suggests that Ashcroft should have been much, much less smug.
jean
Was just running through the comments here and someone said,
In Salon they wrote and I burst out
laughing. You believe what you
read on that site?
Oh, dear.
Andrew J. Lazarus
You can take editorializing at Salon at whatever discount you please. Generally I assume that statements of fact from the mid-left to the mid-right are truthful: I’m not disputing the right-wing reports of Gorelick’s memo (that of course soon spread to the major media), even though I didn’t read it with my own eyes.
Of course, there are exceptions. Where’s the WMD? (Bush still talks about them the way a developmentally-disabled adult might speak of Santa Claus, that he just can’t let go of the chance they exist).
Tell you what, jean. Let’s make a cash bet on whether Salon is correct that Larry Thomson reaffirmed the pre-existing policy.
GrantR
Andrew wrote:
“…Ashcroft should have been much, much less smug.”
Exactly how smug is Ashcroft allowed to be?
Slightly smuggy with a chance of glowers?
Kimmitt
Since he was in office during the worst attack in US history, not even a little smug.
Of course, since he’s a goddamn fascist, smug comes with the territory.
Andrew J. Lazarus
Gorelick in the Washington Post: “The Truth About the ‘Wall'”
Very obvious that the idea the wall arose from some volitional act of hers is absurd. And that until it was convenient as part of the Slime and Defend campaign, AG Ashcroft never had any problem with it.
Tongue Boy
I didn’t see is testimony so am unable to gauge his “smugness” for myself. Having observed him through two terms as attorney general, two terms as governor and one term as U.S. senator from my home state, I would never use the term “smug” to characterize Ashcroft’s public appearances. Boring, maybe. Sleep-inducing, almost certainly. Smug, naaahh.
Tongue Boy
Kimmitt excretes, referring to John Ashcroft:
“Of course, since he’s a goddamn fascist, smug comes with the territory.”
Golllly! Us Ozark hillbillies sure got schlickered by that big-city fascist John Ashcroft, bein’ all fascist and not even tellin’ us.
Even after we elected him twice as attorney general.
And twice as governor.
And once as U.S. senator.
And he *really* schlickered us ’cause bein’ a fascist and whatnot, he twern’t suppos’d to hold no more ‘lections after the first one. Maybe he was just pretendin’ to be a fascist so as to gets all the fascist votes. Well, durn tootin’ he did it and then got all gooey democrat on us and when he was gov’nor he didn’t even disband the Missouri State Assembly like a good fascist!
Well, I know one ol’ hillbilly who ain’t never gonna vote for that lyin’ bastard ever, ever again.
Ricky
Andrew, Gorelick’s spin convinces no one but the diehard Bush haters (like Kimmitt, who just destroyed any and all credibility whatsoever).
Well, yeah, if you want to forget those pesky facts.
Please.