According to Frank Rich, GQ will post some very interesting reports from journalist Robert Draper tomorrow:
Draper reports that Rumsfeld’s monomaniacal determination to protect his Pentagon turf led him to hobble and antagonize America’s most willing allies in Iraq, Britain and Australia, and even to undermine his own soldiers. But Draper’s biggest find is a collection of daily cover sheets that Rumsfeld approved for the Secretary of Defense Worldwide Intelligence Update, a highly classified digest prepared for a tiny audience, including the president, and often delivered by hand to the White House by the defense secretary himself. These cover sheets greeted Bush each day with triumphal color photos of the war headlined by biblical quotations. GQ is posting 11 of them, and they are seriously creepy.
Take the one dated April 3, 2003, two weeks into the invasion, just as Shock and Awe hit its first potholes. Two days earlier, on April 1, a panicky Pentagon had begun spreading its hyped, fictional account of the rescue of Pvt. Jessica Lynch to distract from troubling news of setbacks. On April 2, Gen. Joseph Hoar, the commander in chief of the United States Central Command from 1991-94, had declared on the Times Op-Ed page that Rumsfeld had sent too few troops to Iraq. And so the Worldwide Intelligence Update for April 3 bullied Bush with Joshua 1:9: “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.” (Including, as it happened, into a quagmire.)
I don’t expect this to receive too much attention in the media, not with Sykesgate and Pelosigate going on. But it looks like what happened was that the Secretary of Defense bullied a weak-minded president with Biblical quotations while the vice-president was trying to torture people into saying there was a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda.
Just keep walking.
Update. The pictures-with-scripture are up now at GQ. If you have trouble with flash, you can view them as jpegs. Here’s the first one — just up the 01 to 02, etc., to see the others.
AhabTRuler
Ah, for the good old days of hating Robert McNamara. There is a man with a haircut that you can set your watch to.
Rummy was just that sort of boot-lick assbag Rockstar Secdef too, wasn’t he.
Jon
It was clear Rummy should go to jail when Bob Woodward wrote that he stalled the military response to 9/11-even hanging CIA teams out to dry who were organizing in Afghanistan on 9/12-just so he could get the credit for the campaign.
Bill E Pilgrim
Remember when we thought that Nancy Reagan’s astrologer directing foreign policy was as crazy as it could get?
This doesn’t augur well for the Finite Wingularicists. It’s an expanding Wingnuniverse for certain I think.
nenabeans
Yup, there are known unkowns, unkown knowns, not knowing knowns and unknown soon to be knowns. Or something like that, whatever, freedom is messy.
JGabriel
Someone mentioned Romans:13 earlier today, which includes this passage:
Which made me think, “Jesus, no wonder Bush likes the bible.” I’ll bet Bush started every day in office by reading that quote.
.
KG
@4: dude, divine right of kings, the powerful really like that shit.
sgwhiteinfla
Thats one hell of an article by Frank Rich. I wonder why he isn’t on Tee Vee much.
Bill E Pilgrim
@JGabriel:
Yea verily I say go forth and torture the wicked, for the vigilant shall inherit the Earth as long as the “tax of death” haveth been banished. Amen.
MD formerly MS-4
Can I whistle, too, while I keep walking?
Martin
Clearly there was a link between Saddam and al Qaeda otherwise God would have given those guys the strength to not confess to it under torture.
Testing their moral strength was us doing God’s good work.
Fulcanelli
Actually Scottish Evangelical Oswald Chambers is the guy Bush would read every morning. Lot of fucking good it did.
Shit like this is why I have no use for the Abrahamic religions and their pious, phony-ass, blood thirsty minyuns.
How’s Tunch BTW?
mvr
I’m surprised to find myself hoping this isn’t true, but believing it is likely so. It’s the hoping bit that surprises me. I’ve gotten so completely cynical about what the Bushies did I thought nothing could surprise me. I mean what they did, for whatever reason is bad enough. But to do it in this way for such shallow reasons . . .
I guess I knew that already.
gbear
I spent part of the morning catching up with Rachel Maddow’s reports about Cheney and torture-for-justification. The more time the wingulars spend on Pelosipalooza, the more attention is going to trickle over to Cheney’s sick sadistic abuse of the CIA. No amount of spin is ever going to save these guys now. Maddow’s coverage is well worth checking out. Breathtaking corruption.
Scott
Thats one hell of an article by Frank Rich. I wonder why he isn’t on Tee Vee much.
Yeah, I wonder.
Zandar
But Nancy Pelosi said bad things about the CIA, so naturally she is the worse person on Earth and should resign her Speaker’s gavel.
That’s infinitely worse than torturing people to try to get them to lie about Saddam’s WMD and 9/11 connections, of course. Cheney’s a goddamn American hero for that.
So sayeth the Village.
So goeth the world.
Wile E. Quixote
Dude, points for the Gershwin reference in the title. You rock!
demkat620
@JGabriel: wrongdoers became evildoers. Jeebus.
Fulcanelli
Good people will always do good things, and Evil people will always do evil things, but for Good people to do Evil things it takes Religion.
PeakVT
But it looks like what happened was that the Secretary of Defense bullied a weak-minded president with Biblical quotations
Nobody could have predicted…
gbear
@Zandar:
Go fucketh the village.
wag
There will be a Truth Commission. Obama is playing a great game, the end resultto be in a position where he will be forced to reluctantly support full investigation. If Obama had declared in his Inauguration Address his intention to investigate the Bush/Cheeny Administration, he would have been greeted with howls of protest, and the investigation would have been drowned in the same bath tub that the GOP wants to drown the government in.
Instead, Obama has taken the “long” view (if 6 months can be considered “long”), and has allowed the steady drip, drip, drip of information to set the stage for a tidal wave from the public to demand an investigation, which Obama wil, with grat sadness, be forced to agree to.
The Bush/Cheeny cabal sees this coming, and can no more stop it than the poor sods in Thailand could stop the tsunami that swept them to sea. Cheeny is in full panic mode. Bush has his head buried in the sand.
Anton Sirius
I wonder if Rummy quoted any of the cool bits of the Bible, like when Lot tosses his daughter out to the mob so they’ll leave him alone when he’s talking to the angel, or when God sends bears out of the forest to eat the children who are making fun of his prophet.
eemom
@sgwhiteinfla:
I’ve seen him a few times on either Maddow or Olbermann, can’t remember which (yes, they’re starting to blend together). I think he actually might not like being on teevee much; he doesn’t look very comfortable there.
I do like his columns about 98% of the time. Which, btw, is one reason I think the “Village” concept is overdone — there are a few consummate “villagers” who mostly are worth listening to.
Original Lee
The turtle moves!
But seriously, I’m sure Rummy had a Regent’s U grad picking the Bible verses to set at the top, or maybe he was performing word searches in Biblegateway.com to get just the right sentence to stick at the top. The Bible was just another tool to get him in good with the Prez. I absolutely loathe these people who think that slapping a verse on stuff makes the stuff Holy Writ, too. Also.
Dennis-SGMM
Smite, smote, smut. That’s their religion.
gbear
@Anton Sirius:
Mmmm, tasty children. God, that was a treat.
KG
Only in Washington, DC.
barkleyg
Sorry Doug, but I don’t understand why you are surprised. If you happen to remember, King George stated many times that “GD” SPOKE” to him, and wanted Georgie boy to be President so he could be GD’s representative on Earth, and do what GD wanted done.
Remember King George telling the world that he “get’s his advice” from GD, so why would he ask his father GWHB for advice, when the man(?) upstairs is giving him advice in his dreams !
tammanycall
Is Sykesgate still going on? I thought Prejeangate was the pop culture scandal du jour.
JasonF
Let’s not try to pretend President Bush was a victim here. Secretary Rumsfeld may have been a warmongering, territorial psychopath, but there’s no evidence whatsoever that President Bush was anything less than a willing participant in the march to war.
wag
The Internet (among other things) has made everyone so dependent of “the fierce urgency of now” that we forget to sit back and enjoy the slow roasting of the Bushies. We are demanding our meat NOW, with blood dripping. I personally want to savor their growing sense of panic. I like a medium rare steak as much as the next guy, but I also love slow braised lamb shanks that fall off the bone at the touch of the fork, and melt in your mouth. The house is filled with the aroma for hours while the shanks are cooking, and the house still smells good a day ro two later, reminding you of the wonderful meal.
Obama wants to braise the Bushies. I am looking forward to it going on for months.
grumpy realist
Actually, there are also some other bits of the Bible which get touted as justification to rebel against tyrants, so it really is the case you’ll find whatever you want to find there.
Go read up on the Resistance Theory that developed after the Reformation and look at what gets quoted. If I remember correctly the Divine Right of Kings stuff got developed as backlash against the inroads Resistance Theory was making in Europe. Didn’t Martin Luther get cold feet with the Peasants’ Rebellion and lurch wildly in the other direction?
DougJ
I’m not saying he is. But that Rummy Bible quote does sound bullying to me.
burnspbesq
One is tempted to wonder why this is coming out in GQ rather than in the WaPo.
On second thought … naah.
Dennis-SGMM
@grumpy realist:
I think that the origins of the Divine Right may go back a bit further. Medieval popes were insistent on the sole right of the religious to anoint kings. In doing so they loaned them some of God’s authority over all things. The quid pro quo was that the church had the option of taking back the loaned authority should the ruler do something foolish like tax church lands, inheritances, benefices, or (later) the income from selling indulgences.
wag
More evidence that Obama may just be waiting for the Beltway to come around to his way of thinking. Maureen Dowd, in tomorrow’s NYT
TenguPhule
Just another FU.
barkleyg
WAG : “The Internet (among other things) has made everyone so dependent of “the fierce urgency of now” that we forget to sit back and enjoy the slow roasting of the Bushies. We are demanding our meat NOW, with blood dripping. I personally want to savor their growing sense of panic.”
TenguPhule
So Bush was systematically castrated by his underlings while in office.
Still doesn’t dredge an ounce of sympathy here. He still needs to hang.
Dennis-SGMM
@wag:
Daffy Duck: I demand that you shoot me now!
Bootlegger
@nenabeans:
To the east, north, west and south by south-north of that position.
Mnemosyne
@gbear:
I’ve been wracking my brain ever since the “Pelosigate” mutterings started, trying to figure out how in the hell this can possibly be a win for Republicans. Either torture was no big deal, in which case Pelosi acted correctly, or torture was a giant fucking deal, in which case Pelosi is clearly a very small fish in a very large pond stocked with much bigger (Republican) bait. Even the dimmest conservatives will have to start admitting that torture was, in fact, a major problem if they insist that Pelosi resign.
This may be yet another sign that Republicans are spending so much time talking in code to one another that they don’t realize non-wingnuts can’t understand what they’re saying anymore.
jl
Oh boy, a Bible threat-down. I’m always up for one of those. How about a few lines from that golden oldie, Micah . Signs sez following in vew for our erstwhile brave leaders (and maybe current bunch if they don’t get on the stick):
“6.12 For the rich men thereof are full of violence, and the inhabitants thereof have spoken lies, and their tongue is deceitful in their mouth.
6.13 Therefore also will I make thee sick in smiting thee, in making thee desolate because of thy sins.”
Mike G
the Secretary of Defense bullied a weak-minded president with Biblical quotations
I wouldn’t ue the word ‘bullied’, more like ‘manipulated’. Bush is and was a dull-witted, solipsistic, ill-informed, self-centered, easily-manipulated asshole who demanded his briefings be abridged, dumbed-down and spoon-fed to tell him what he wanted to hear.
Rumsfeld fed Bush’s shallow mind Bible verses as reinforcement to pursue a course Bush wanted to follow anyway, the way dumbass authoritarian-follower sheep at megachurches are conditioned every Sunday. Talking Bush into belligerent military action isn’t exactly a difficult task of persuasion. The crime is that such an intellectually shallow non-thinking man-child was ever nominated to a position of power in the first place. The disastrous results of his egregious lack of cognitive skills will be with us for decades.
Martin
Actually, I think there will be either a special prosecutor or a panel that has indictment powers. I don’t see Obama dragging the country through a commission that risks inflaming the public, only to have it end in no action.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Mnemosyne:
I’ve been wracking my brain ever since the “Pelosigate” mutterings started, trying to figure out how in the hell this can possibly be a win for Republicans.
I’ve come to the conclusion that this is because they really believe that it’s all entirely partisan. That is, they believe their own wingnuttery which is saying “Oh, people are just trying to attack Bush and Cheney because they’re Republicans, no one really cares about torture.”
So in that way of thinking, they gleefully see that they’ve “turned the tables” in accusing Pelosi and they think “hey, we won!” Because it was all a matter of gratuitously attacking people on trumped up charges to begin with, in their minds.
Whereas all along I’ve been saying fine, let’s investigate if any Democrats were involved in approving of torture also, let’s have it all out in the open.
Confuses the hell out of them, that one.
KG
@ 41: In the interest of trying to figure this out (and monitor the Wingularity) I tuned into Rush a couple of times this week. The idea is to get the Democrats to turn on each other. The line was something like “if this really was a big deal, then to be consistent, they’re going to have to go after Pelosi.”
Bill E Pilgrim
@KG:
I tuned into Rush a couple of times this week. The idea is to get the Democrats to turn on each other. The line was something like “if this really was a big deal, then to be consistent, they’re going to have to go after Pelosi.”
I think it’s more actually in the hope that it would scare people off investigating or prosecuting, hoping that Democrats would somehow say “Oh, wait, if everyone is guilty then never mind”.
Which is very close to the thesis of about a hundred articles by the Broders of the world in the past month or so, doing the heavy lifting for the extremists like Rush, as always.
jl
@46: Some one needs to write poor Rush that we intend to go after the truth, and we will let the law will “go after” whoever has committed a crime.
Might have to figure out a way to explain that to him in simple terms.
And, maybe add a PS thanking them for Governor Huntsman. Just to show that we are not as mean and nasty as they say we are.
jl
@47: The Limbaughs and Broders and Iggies and Brooksies and corrupt cowardly big media fat heads can go shit themselves for all I care. If “everyone” is guilty, more the need for an investigation.
I cannot find the post right now, but Glenn Greenwald posted a recent interview with an international human rights lawyer. The absolute minimum legal obligation the US has under the anti-torture treaty is a full, fair and thorough investigation. So, let’s get on with it. It’s the law (though the rancid clowns who rule is probably do not really understand what that means anymore).
Mnemosyne
@KG:
That’s all well and good but, as usual, Rush hasn’t spent a second thinking about how the 80% of Americans who don’t like him are going to view this. I doubt that they’re going to be able to pressure Pelosi to resign and have that be the end of it, especially since Pelosi shows no signs of collapsing. (Yet.) If she does resign, that would signal to normal Americans that Torture Is A Big Fucking Deal, and people will want it investigated further.
The wingnut echo chamber at work again.
BDeevDad
Speaking of the Bible, Conservative religious bodies, have launched a national campaign to attack early stem cell research by mass emails to the NIH.
steve s
mass emails to the NIH have done early stem cell research?
wilfred
The moment he resigned, Rumsfeld disappeared. I don’t recall ever hearing another word from him, or even seeing a photo. A complete erasure.
I also heard he has Alzheimer’s.
Xenos
There is an important shoe that has yet to drop, mainly, where is the financial corruption? Once people go so far as to commit war crimes, there is usually a lot of graft and embezzlement going on, too.
And while there was no shortage of crooked dealings with Cheney-connected entities, I would have expected some blockbuster details to come out by now about outright theft and pocket-lining, too.
The authoritarian rump 20% can not be reformed. But if financial corruption were so blatant and open (not your typical semi-legal corporate corruption. but more hookers and bribes) then even the villagers would have to report on it with contempt and outrage.
valdivia
sort of OT but not really: Am I totally petty for hoping that the Obama team releases some important torture report on thursday morning in advance of Cheney’s magnum opus on Torture at AEI?
Xenos
Well, there should be some sort of report on the shelf about the 100 or so detainees who died in US custody in Iraq and Afganistan. Or a report about a failure to account for the “disappeared” detainees. Or a memo about a failure to review either of these issues. Or an email about bloodstains on the carpets of the Naval Observatory.
Work it a bit, guys!
kay
The President, who is the son of a President and a third generation US politician, didn’t think there was anything at all unusual and bizarre about these cover sheets?
It really makes you wonder what else was going on in that White House on a daily basis. The US attorney testimony starts to make a little more sense, now.
Was fundamentalist religious crusade just general policy?
kay
@wilfred:
Rumsfeld is around. He went to the White House correspondent’s dinner.
I know because Code Pink followed him through the hotel lobby, and CNN filmed it, and then did a disapproving snippet on Code Pink. They’re radicals. Tsk, tsk. So rude to Donald Rumsfeld. Television anchors don’t much like those ladies.
Compare the media’s sneering dismissal of anti-war protesters with the deference and respect with which the radical anti-abortion protesters at Notre Dame are treated, and you start to understand how we ended up with bible quotes on cover sheets.
opium4themasses
What I find funniest/saddest about quoting Joshua, is how after the fall of Jericho, God commanded Joshua to commit genocide (except for the virgins of course).
Sometimes I wonder how far this could have gone without forced endings like term limits. Then again, there is more yet to uncover. The rabbit hole may go deeper than I imagine.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Shit.
And then there’s this over a picture of some kneeling soldiers:
“Whom shall I send and who will go for us? Here I am Lord, send me.” – Isaiah 6:8
Here’s the thing: Anyone who says Bush read the Biblical quotes and was overawed because he’s so pious and all was either asleep for the past eight years or is looking for a way to excuse that fucking weasel. I’m willing to wager serious money this was a sick joke between Shrubya and Rummy.
SGEW
GQ has now posted the bible quote cover sheets.
Creepy as hell! WTF?
Possibly creepiest: “It is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men” (Peter 2:15) right over a god damned picture of Saddam Hussein!
This is some fucked up shit right here.
SGEW
From Frank Rich’s op-ed:
[Pieces of footwear] are gonna be dropping. Rumsfeld better get himself a steel umbrella.
[edited to try to avoid spam filter]
[didn’t work. Shoe shoe shoe, dammit!]
Maude
@kay:
Yes.
kay
@Maude:
Correct me if I’m wrong, Maude, but I don’t remember CNN offering a national forum discussion to antiwar protesters. I don’t remember any antiwar protesters being invited into the studio, so we might “understand” their opposition to President Bush.
Yet. Here are the anti-abortion protesters.
Ash Can
@Xenos:
Halliburton/KBR and Blackwater/Xe should have that angle covered nicely.
harlana pepper
More evidence that Rumsfeld was one more sick, twisted old fuck.
kay
@harlana pepper:
Rumsfeld is a con man. Who was the mark?
SGEW
@Ash Can: I quoted some details from the Frank Rich op-ed (re: Blackwater) above, but th’ spam filter ate it. Cause of footwear. Here’s the quote again:
lovethebomb
I would be very surprised if there is an investigation. Republicans seem to drive the agenda whether in power or not. The papers today are drenched in ink about the republican plans to block Obama’s supreme nomination, before he has announced it. We’ve recently been treated to a Newtfest, a Rush-athon and a Cheney torture session.
Remember, a vast majority of dumb Americans fully supported the invasion before it went sour. A thin majority (perhaps) re-elected this moran in 2004. To indict these war criminals is to indict them. They no wanna dat.
Redhand
Just followed the link to GQ to check out Rummy’s daily briefing sheets with biblical quotes. Seriously creepy doesn’t even begin to describe them. This stuff is right up there with the worst of the “Allah Akbar” jihadi propaganda.
What’s amazing to me is that Bush tolerated such obvious manipulation. What a simpleton. What a sicko. I guess he thought he was Richard the Lionheart liberating Jerusalem.
When the history books are written, people will look back on the Bush years as the most insane period in our history, hands down.
valdivia
sorry to keep going back to my own pet idea about how to cut the legs from under Cheney–now that I have thought about it I want the WH to release the info right *after* the Cheney speech. That way he is publicly on the record supporting policies that did not work.
@kay–it drives me up the wall. *any* criticism of a Democratic president is welcome, given wall to wall coverage no matter how lunatic and fringy it is *and* given legitimacy. Peep about a republican and you are a traitor. Grrrrrrrrrrr.
not to sound like BOB, but I am sitting at an airport in latin america waiting to go home. I must report that most of the people here are sun tanned gringos.
Ash Can
@burnspbesq: The fact that this is coming out in GQ as opposed to a news publication such as the WaPo strikes me as a serious potential positive for advancing popular opinion in favor of investigating the criminals in the previous admin. People will be reading this article who may not regularly read news publications, or who may be more quick to dismiss the stuff that appears in news publications as worthless windbaggery. At the same time, though, GQ’s readership doesn’t exactly skew toward blithering idiocy, so the article is likely to get the intellectual and moral reception it deserves. I believe I have reason to hope that, by appearing in a publication such as GQ, the article will stir up even more righteous outrage than it would by appearing in a news publication.
Ann B. Nonymous
As more information about how Cheney and Rumsfeld manipulated W becomes public, the more I’m impressed with their personal integrity.
If I had been Cheney, I would have bilked W out of every asset he had. Something about the truly stupid brings out that side in me. But Cheney, bless his cyborg heart, really is a true believer.
MikeJ
When you get to the poker table, look around. If you can’t identify the sucker, you’re it.
Ash Can
@valdivia: Hey, if the WH were to release such info during Cheney’s speech, it could get featured side-by-side with the speech for that whole news cycle. I’d like that.
valdivia
@Ash Can:
love the way you think. wouldn’t that be grand?
Maude
@kay:
You’re right. It was rah, rah for war.
Bush was on a Mission from God.
Fineman at Newsweek once said that after 9/11, the press gave Bush the benefit of the doubt.
A lot of the media was too lazy to go and find out what was what. It was about them, not the country.
Mrs. Can- a thousand apologies for the gender goof. I was just so proud that I spelled your name right.
kay
@Maude:
It was rah rah here. I live in a conservative area. There was horn-blowing the evening of the invasion.
I think it was revenge for 9/11. No one cared that Iraq didn’t have anything to do with 9/11. They wanted to believe Cheney. They were rattled by the vulnerability that 9/11 exposed, and they wanted a show of force.
It worried me at the time because it’s a bed-rock US legal value that punishment is specific to the actor. Can’t just lash out indiscriminately, or all hell breaks loose.
But, that’s what they were honking horns about. 9/11 revenge. It’s the only explanation that makes sense.
Iron-Ick-Ally
Distribution goes from 10 to 12 to 16. Original 10 would be POTUS, VP, SecDef, Condi… how many other people on the NSC? Then who would be the other 6 to get added?
The classifications get partially redacted in the later ones, too.
Ash Can
@Maude: No apologies are necessary, of course, nor is the formality. (Now that you mention it, a name like “Mrs. Can” would be right at home in a Monty Python sketch or a Charles Dickens novel.)
Iron-Ick-Ally
Perhaps Obama can nominate Fran Townsend as the Special Envoy to Common Sense?
MikeJ
Pity I can’t see the slideshow. I fucking hate flash and all of its crashtacular spawn. Brought down both ffox, Chrome and Safari.
harlana pepper
@kay: Honestly, I felt the same way throughout. As a matter of fact, I was incensed. Living in a redstate area, as you can imagine, I was completely alone and, quite frankly, a little horrified. Nothing, *nothing* has ever been same for me since.
kay
@MikeJ:
It’s wild. Remember, these were government issue. Indistinguishable from what you might find at a mega-church in Colorado Springs.
They didn’t just cross the church-state line. They erased it. Church is state, and it has an army.
MikeJ
If anyone, like me, has trouble with the flash, the urls for the graphics are:
http://men.style.com/images/flashxml/gq/topsecret/_images/01.jpg
through
http://men.style.com/images/flashxml/gq/topsecret/_images/11.jpg
Just inc the filename.
kay
@harlana pepper:
My husband was much braver than me. He’s generally conservative, a former prosecutor, and has voted for Republicans, although he usually goes for the third party loser. He’s now a registered Democrat, but he has libertarian leanings, so I don’t know if that will stick.
He was appalled, and he said so, loud and long. He took an enormous amount of heat for it, and gave no ground. I tend to want to compromise, and wished he would stop. It was complicating my life and work, and I was afraid. He was right.
MikeJ
Wonder if they took out noforn and sent it to the brits? Look at what they redacted, the distro section of the classification. originator controlled (orcon), no foreign (noforn), exclusive distribution (exdis). That got blacked and number of copies went up.
BC
Thing about Frank Rich – he was a theater critic who turned political pundit. So guess he’s less a “villager” in the political sense. Always worth a read – just too bad he doesn’t have more impact on other pundits.
Dennis-SGMM
@Ann B. Nonymous:
Why settled for some gnawed crayons and a half-eaten jar of paste when you can grab a whole country with proven reserves for your BFFs in the oil patch?
MR Bill
“A religion is a cult with an army…”
MikeJ
After further examination, my theory is wrong. http://men.style.com/images/flashxml/gq/topsecret/_images/09.jpg is unredacted and still has 16 copies. Which could mean they were blacking additional sources after the humint and comint tags.
harlana pepper
@kay: That’s really interesting — I could not seem to shut up about it, to my Dem friends mostly, which were very few and they really weren’t all that interested. I tried to keep my mouth shut at work, however, since it was a very “conservative” environment (defense lawyers) but I didn’t always succeed. Your husband sounds like a *true* conservative, not what I would call a “Bush conservative” which is no conservative at all. Good on him for standing by his principles.
Based on the behavior and reactions of those around me at that time, I questioned my own sanity on a regular basis. I was terrified, not of terrists, but of my own countrymen.
(I’m still waiting for all those people who pooh-poohed me to admit that I was right. I can’t help it. It pisses me off that everybody just coasted along without questioning a damn thing, never realizing how close we came to destroying our way of life and the principles for which this country stands. Of course, I always get pissed when I revisit this issue.)
Dennis-SGMM
Here’s a link to the Draper piece at GQ.
El Cid
I think the Pelosi code for the Wingnuttinati is that since they perceive Pelosi as this giant monster of gay communist elite look down upon the common man ultra liberal Democratic politics, they assume that liberals must have the opposite view — thus if Pelosi is their giant nightmare demon, she must be the liberals’ touchstone super ultra saint hero.
So they’re shocked when they question something about NANCY PELOSI and Democrats don’t react with fear and pants-pissing like Republicans do if someone fails to genuflect enough to Rush or Ronald Reagan.
Mike in NC
Dubya’s sense of entitlement, supreme narcissism, and need to have his ego constantly stroked cannot be underestimated. I’m willing to believe the whole episode with the flight to the USS Abraham Lincoln in combat gear, “Mission Accomplished” banner, and all the rest of that deplorable PR stunt were his own idea. He only neglected to lead the crew in singing “Onward Christian Soldiers”.
MR Bill
El Cid, you are right on Pelosi.
My wingnut brother is into some Nancy hatin’, and is shocked when I say stuff like “sure, if she’s guilty here, she needs to be thrown to the wolves..By all means, investigate!”
“But, she’s a…Liberal!”
“Dude, do you know anything about her record? She’s actually a moderate, and often something of a economic conservative. Stop saying ‘San Francisco Librul’ like it was a brand name or something. And I’m pretty sure her husband is in a defense industry.”
He really can’t tell the difference between her and Cindy Sheehan, and the crap he watches/listens to is the reason.
MikeJ
If Pelosi was gone, San Francisco might actually get a real San Francisco liberal for a rep.
Comrade Jake
“When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.” -Sinclair Lewis
kay
@harlana pepper:
I would be sitting next to him, at one or another function, talking to someone else, and I would hear him start ticking off points, and it would immediately escalate. We left early a lot.
His “work friends” were and are law enforcement types, and they were all gung ho. They were horrified by him, like a betrayal. Most of the hard feelings have been papered over, it’s too small a town to hold a grudge, but it was difficult for a while.
gnomedad
@JGabriel:
Not a popular quote with the teabaggers and secessionists these days, I’m thinking.
ironranger
I’ve never thought of Rummy as being very religious or just never read about that. It looks more like he was fine with the Bible quotes on cover sheets if it advanced his war agenda.
gnomedad
Apparently, 2003 was the Year of the Bible, so we don’t need another one right now.
MikeJ
Excellent. With that book done we can name this the year of The Killer Inside Me, and next year the year of Frannie and Zooey.
kay
@harlana pepper:
I will happily admit you were right. I was and am grateful to the people who said something. I just wasn’t one of them, although I didn’t bail on him, because I essentially agreed with him, and I am a firm believer in a united front. I was trying to find common ground, out of self-interest, probably, which in this case was pretty silly.
You either invade or you don’t.
I wanted diplomats to invade, or something. Carrying treaties? I’m not sure what my plan was.
linda
not a friggin mention of this yet on wee george’s show — who has given a chair at the table to liz cheney this morning.
what blows my mind is the SCREAMING manipulation of this product and, let’s face it, with its only intended audience of one — and that stupid f*cking jackass who eagerly devoured every f*cking bit of it.
unbelieveable.
Little Dreamer
Well Proverbs 16:3 (image 5) was proven false.
I am happily hoping a bunch of Christians approach me soon so I can tell them they’re supposed to have the power to move mountains or stop hurricanes (depending on where I’m living I guess, since I’m moving back east).
So many lies in that book.
wasabi gasp
Those memos look like something that might be handed out by a nutter on the subway.
Also, Liz Cheney needs to soften the landing of a falling piano.
MikeJ
If you don’t have any plans, nobody can make them succeed.
Indylib
The anecdote in the article about Rumsfeld stalling the deployment of active duty troops during the first days of Katrina is sickening. People died because he was busy fighting a turf battle. The bases in the surrounding states were on alert and that sick fuck held off deploying their choppers and rescue personnel for 3 goddamned days. And that little puke we had as President sat around on his dumb ass for 3 days before he ordered Rumsfeld to do it.
This article is an ugly reminder just why I hate these assholes so much.
Little Dreamer
I don’t think Bush felt bullied by these at all, I bet he bought right into the method and probably was looking forward to Rummy’s next installment, idiot that he is.
ericvsthem
@Redhand: Imagine the outraged response from the wingers if those memo cover sheets were from Saddam’s Iraqi defense minister, the photos were of members of the Iraqi National Guard, and the quotes were from the Koran.
Woody
Doesn’t this simply suggest that the suspicions we all held–that the Chimp was actually chosen by the Cheney/Rumsfeld/PNAC/AIPAC cabal to be the face of their regime–were true all along, and that the coup plotters had been busy long, long before they stole the 2000 ‘election’…
There’s only one suitable punishment for Rummy, Cheney, Addington, Libby, and the rest: guillotine…
Dexter Morgan
Where’s Ezekiel 25:17?
“The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of the darkness. For he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know I am the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you.”
I’m disappointed. ;-)
Little Dreamer
@Woody:
That was no suspicion, that was belief, at least on my part.
HitlerWorshippingPuppyKicker
Interesting reference to Cheney and the dynamics inside the Bush administration, in this fascinating conversation with Barack Obama in Newsweek.
When I read this calm, rational interview, and compare it to the steady firehose of nonsense coming out of the computer and the tv set lately, it’s quite the experience.
cosanostradamus
.
Hey, man, war is Hell, the government sucks, yadda-yadda. But look at the bright side: Torture music! You don’t normally get that in a constitutional democracy. So groovy!
.
harlana pepper
@kay: That’s how most of my friends felt at the time. I got very frustrated about it. However, now having been thoroughly exhausted by outrage fatigue, not to mention my own emotional and personal issues) over the years I have yielded to your way of thinking. It has been better for me emotionally to do that. I know I did what I could at the time, it did not work (I was actually such an idealist that I thought my own party would have *something* to say about it, surely they would not want to repeat the mistake of creating another Vietnam, I was a complete rube).
Note: that was one thing that frustrated me about Obama in the beginning — I had no interest whatsoever in “reaching across the aisle” to these people, unless the sole purpose was the slap the ever-lovin’ shit out of them. I was naive on that as well because apparently he knew what he was doing. I realized after he won the presidency that perhaps, just MAYBE, I’m not right 100% of the time. ;^)
HitlerWorshippingPuppyKicker
The smartest person I can think of doesn’t watch cable news at all.
Hmm. Correlation.
Causation?
Little Dreamer
@HitlerWorshippingPuppyKicker:
Hmmm, funny, you watched a lot more cable news than I did.
btw, please remove my name off of your Pogo profile. I don’t want it there.
harlana pepper
@HitlerWorshippingPuppyKicker: Was Spongebob around 8 years ago, I don’t know. If he was, I assume, that’s what chimpy was watching, interspersed with bible cartoons, throughout.
SGEW
From the Newsweek interview:
Newsweek:And the last movie you saw?
President Obama: Now, movies I’ve been doing OK [with] because it turns out we got this nice theater on the ground floor of my house … So Star Trek, we saw this weekend, which I thought was good. Everybody was saying I was Spock, so I figured I should check it out and—[the president makes the Vulcan salute with his hand].
N: Very good.
O: Yes, absolutely.
Neeeeerrrrrd!
(But in a very good way, of course)
Little Dreamer
rightwingers are going to have a fit at Obama calling the White House “my house”. Too funny!
;)
jrosen
The things that you lible to read in the Bible
AIN’T NECESSARILY SO!
SGEW
From Dick Cheney’s Hotel Suite contract rider (“Vice-Presidential Downtime Requirements”):
‘Nuff said.
gnomedad
@kay:
I “supported” the war at the time (scare quotes because nobody asked me) for a reason no one seemed to be discussing — the the Iraqis were suffering under the sanctions and shouldn’t be paying the price for our national security interests. I never imagined that the war would be prosecuted so incompetently or that the WMD count would be ZERO.
JL
If those who approved torture are prosecuted, are they going to become martyrs for the whackos?
SGEW
@JL: Why not? If H[name redacted to avoid Godwin violation]r can be a “martyr” for some, why not Cheney and Bush?
Janet Strange
@Little Dreamer: LIving in Texas through the Bush gov years, I had no doubt from the time Ann Richards was the gov. I said to myself (and any liberal friends who would listen), enjoy Ann’s first term. She won’t get a second. They’re going to run Bush jr to set him up for the Presidency and he’ll win.
But I thought it was just the old Bush sr, Jim Baker power axis at work and that it would be bad, but bad like Bush I, not worse than I’ve ever seen or could have imagined.
When I started reading the PNAC documents on the web years later, I started to understand how it was SO bad. Those guys were totally delusional, with a delusional plan for American Empire, and were making it public for all to see from the mid-90’s.
But of course, I knew nothing of the PNAC or any of the people who became the core of the Bush administration until well after 2000, because Gore sighing or something was so much more important to those guardians of democracy (the Press) . . .
jrosen
@wag
I agree with your understanding of the play, but I would use another analogy, since Obama is known to be a very good poker player.
Cheney’s sudden verbal diarrhea is a “tell” showing his anxiety that what appears to be the first plausible motive for waterboarding somebody 83 times, that is, a meaningful connection between Saddam and 9/11, will come out. So is the frantic effort to make an issue of Pelosi, — which I guess will fade in less than a week. (I wonder what Colin Powell is thinking now, since the misinformation he pushed at the UN and which has ruined his reputation for either sharp-mindedness or veracity — or both — seems to have come from this torture-tainted source; when he decides to come forward instead of letting Wilkerson front for him will be the day it all comes crashing down.) Meanwhile, a slow drip of items like the blown Sunni demarche in 2004, these latest pictures of Rummy’s Bible-thumping cynicism, Rove on the prosecutor scandal, etc. (Modo is coming over!) show hat the walls are beginning to totter.
Obama is “slow-playing” his hand, that is, knowing that he has strong percentages in his favor and reading the other hands as weaker, he will try to let them lead the betting and commit themselves to staying in with losing cards. When the river card comes up red and he fills his ace-high flush (which he probably had on the the turn — 6th card — anyway), he’ll be able to go all in and win.
At least I hope that’s what he is doing.
In my 30’s at the time, I followed Watergate from the time it was a cloud no bigger than a man’s hand — more Biblical imagery for you — let me remind all you young whipersnappers that it took more than 2 years to reach its final denouement—and that was a sitting President who was the central figure. So let’s not be hasty, as Treebeard would say. Sometimes satisfaction delayed is satisfaction enhanced.
Ash Can
@ kay, harlana pepper, gnomedad et al.: I too supported the Iraq invasion at first — albeit very reluctantly — because Colin Powell got up in front of the UN and made the case for it. Up until then, I just thought Dubya was looking to fight his dad’s feuds and that the idea of invading Iraq was stupid. But I trusted Powell, so I felt that if he was saying it, there must be something to it. (This was also before I resumed following politics as closely as I once had, and do now.)
Color me punked.
It’ll be a cold day in hell before I ever again believe a word anyone associated in any way with, or supportive in any way of, the Bush Clusterfuck says.
Tsulagi
Apparently, like Peak Wingnut, there was never any Peak Stupid in the previous clown admin.
Just what a country needs, top leadership getting intel briefings on two wars wrapped in Jesus crack.
Janet Strange
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Yep, that’s exactly it. Someone subscribed me to a bunch of wingnut email lists and that’s what they’re saying. That our failure to show up at Pelosi’s house with torches and pitchforks proves that we on the left have no interest in torture other than as a weapon against the glorious legacy of St Bush (who kept us safe, don’tcha know). It’s just BDS, that’s all.
Notorious P.A.T.
Remember, throughout his life Bush always quit and ran away when what he was doing became the slightest bit difficult. Rumsfeld probably thought he needed to keep his foot on the gas.
gnomedad
@jrosen:
Nice metaphor! Thanks!
Mnemosyne
@Xenos:
You’d think so, but we’ve had multiple soldiers electrocuted to death by KBR’s shoddy workmanship and it’s been only a one-day story each time. We’ve had pallets of cash — as much as $1 billion — disappear without a trace and the press barely noticed.
Huge amounts of corruption have been reported on briefly and then sunk without a trace because doing that reporting is hard work. Better to call Liz Cheney again and get a few quotes from her than to have to actually go out and interview less important people who have actual information. You can interview Cheney from your desk while playing computer Solitaire, but anything else would require actual, you know, work.
gnomedad
@SGEW:
This.
Comrade Darkness
I’m not saying he is. But that Rummy Bible quote does sound bullying to me.
I see it is as a joint prayer session cheap pr0n-style celebration of their acting as the sword hand of a righteous, vengeful god. But perhaps that’s because little BushBoy as a victim nauseates me to the core. Although his whiny pleas that HE was the decider do ring of Tantrum of the Weak and Manipulated.
Jihad, Crusade. Same f*cking word.
Antwerp
Shorter jrosen, shorter liberal blogosphere: There just has to be something we can get this guy on…HAS to be…
Interrobang
I don’t know how anyone could have believed a word Colin Powell said at the UN or any other place, being as he was one of the original military yes-men involved with covering up the My Lai massacre. He’s been lying in the service of evil authority since before I was born (and even I know it). I just figure anything that comes out of his mouth has an approximate truth-value of 0, including “and,” “but,” and “the.”
As to the folder covers, I guess it really is true that the Left has all the good graphic designers. I’ve seen more attractive, well-designed report covers cobbled together by high school students using rudimentary DTP software, scissors, and UHU sticks…
bago
@Antwerp: Like documented war crimes perhaps?
barkleyg
@79 Kay”
“I think it was revenge for 9/11. No one cared that Iraq didn’t have anything to do with 9/11”
GindiBaBa
War is Played Out.
It has run its course.
Words of Peace
Little Dreamer
@Janet Strange:
I had a premonition that things were going to be really bad. Of course, I had no proof, just gut instinct and nobody took me seriously.
Hedley Lamarr
I wonder why Rummy’s god was so slow to deliver body armor and better protected Humvees? Last night I saw that the poor troops in Af-Pak are still lacking some of this gear.
LanceThruster
The Atheist Prayer: “Jesus, protect me from your followers.”