George Bush Is Engaged in an Epic Battle to Cover His Ass

kpete

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Sat Mar-01-08 09:49 AM
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George Bush Is Engaged in an Epic Battle to Cover His Ass

Edited on Sat Mar-01-08 09:59 AM by kpete

George Bush Is Engaged in an Epic Battle to Cover His Ass

By Allan Uthman, Buffalo Beast. Posted March 1, 2008.

Bush's showdown with the Dems in Congress over granting telecoms immunity for spying has big implications.

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What the hell is going on here? When you compare the truths of this dispute with the rhetoric from the White House and its mouthpieces, there's really no other conclusion than that this country has gone fucking bonkers. Reality and public perception don't even share a zip code anymore. After years of constant, obvious lies, their ridiculousness compounded by countless revelations of their falsehood, Bush is still sticking with the same despicable, transparently manipulative bogeyman bullshit he started with. And like-minded jackasses in the media, like Bill Kristol on Fox News Sunday, still have the inconceivable gall to say things like, "I think it's kind of unbelievable, frankly, that -- it's a judgment call, we don't know -- not to give the administration the benefit of the doubt."

The benefit of the doubt? A judgment call? Sorry Bill, but fuck you. Your judgment's been shit; your President's judgment's been shit, and both of you are documented liars. So forgive the hell out of the rest of us if there's no doubt to benefit from when it comes to whether the president is a fucking fraud. The entire administration is a fraud. Every department is a fraud, staffed by fraudulent people, hostile to its stated mission and intent on it's nullification, by death or paralysis. There may never be proof, especially if Bush gets his way, but what thinking person can muster much doubt that the administration is listening not just for terrorist chatter, but to anyone they want -- political enemies, reporters, chicks they're into--whoever.

In 2006, after Andrea Mitchell asked New York Times reporter James Risen, who broke the domestic spying story, out of the blue, "You don't have any information, for instance, that a very prominent journalist, Christiane Amanpour, might have been eavesdropped upon?" Risen did not, but NBC scrubbed the question from its transcripts of the interview, later explaining that the story had been "released prematurely," that they had not "completed" their reporting. But they didn't call the allegation irresponsible, or speculative, or any other dismissive adjective they could have used. They essentially confirmed that they had reason to believe that Bush was secretly wiretapping a prominent CNN reporter.

And why the hell wouldn't he, after all? Without a reviewable record of warrants, it's not as if anyone can possibly find out -- unless somebody sues the telecoms, and specific, decidedly non-terrorist surveillance targets are identified in the ensuing discovery process. And that is why the Republicans are going apeshit over retroactive immunity, not just to protect the telecoms, but to cover their own asses. If it ever comes out that their secret, illegal domestic wiretaps were not targeting al Qaeda, but Al Gore, the jig is finally up. The entire "trust us, we're hunting terrorists" rationale, as thin as it always was, will lose any residual integrity, and the GOP may never recover. And they know it. And maybe, hopefully, the Democrats finally know it too.

more at:
http://www.alternet.org/story/78032?page=2