David Gergen: "This is an administration that has been mostly free of scandal..."

[NYCGirl]

From Wonkette (I didn't post their original title: "David Gergen is Mentally Retarded")

http://wonkette.com/politics/david-gergen/david-gergen-is-mentally-retarded-242409.php

Ah, David Gergen: Man of Many Presidential Administrations, Consummate Washington Insider, Respected Nonpartisan Elder Statesman … and all this time, an actual retard. Here, the former senior adviser to every administration since Harding talks about the Scooter Libby verdict:

“This is an administration that has been mostly free of scandal over the last six years and now they have the taint that they cannot erase,” he said.

Mostly free of scandal? Jesus Christ, it’s the most corrupt, incompetent kleptocracy in American History. The election itself was an international scandal. How about Cheney’s secret “Energy task force,” Jack Abramoff, Halliburton’s no-bid contracts, Chalabi, Cheney hunting humans, Cheney’s unmarried pregnant lesbian daughter, the invasion of Iraq, Mission Accomplished, Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, Katrina, FEMA, Nigerian uranium, Armstrong Williams, Jessica Lynch, Pat Tillman, Jeff Gannon, Dubai Ports, blocking the 9/11 Commission, anthrax, WMDs … nope, no scandals there.

[saltpoint]

1. Not only that, but there are hardly any soybean fields in Illinois.

That David Gergen sure is on top of things, ain't he?

[Cha]

23. He must have been in a coma during

the buildup to the 2006 election when there was not one but several gop scandals comin' at us from all directions.

[saltpoint]

26. Hi, zidzi. No kidding. A deep coma -- the kind Terry Schiavo was in and

that Bill Frist -- the CAT BUTCHER -- diagnosed via video tape.

One of those deep, dark, irretrievable comas.

[Cha]

34. Hi Crusoe, yeah, the next scandal..

david gergen will be saying the same thing..“This is an administration that has been mostly free of scandal over the last six years and now they have the taint that they cannot erase,” he said."

A "taint" that should blow their "mostly scandal free regime" wide open.

[saltpoint]

38. It's been a while since I read the Gergen quotation and I'm still

shaking my head over it.

He's smart enough to know the statement is wrong.

And he does it anyway.

Yuck.

[Jacobin]

2. Well, if you're inside the beltway

and wanna be asked to get paid to come be a talking head from time to time, you have to pretend that this Alice In Wonderland administration is right side up.

Gergen is willfully ignorant of what is going on.

[lancdem]

17. Excellent point

[Nite Owl]

3. The guy must be in some

parallel reality, this administration even beats out Reagan. As Keith would say: Worst administration in the world!!!!!

[Beaverhausen]

4. well, as long as the congress was repuke, they weren't held accountable

So, in a way he is right. I'm glad to see that is changing fast.

[CatWoman]

10. what Beaverhausen said.....

[lancdem]

18. What Beaverhausen and Catwoman said ...

:)

[Uncle Joe]

29. What Beaverhausen, Catwoman and lancdem said....

:)

Also thanks to NYCGirl for the thread

Kicked and recommended

[AshevilleGuy]

5. ?? What color is the sky is HIS world??

I know that has been used before, but it's one of my favorites. :)

[enid602]

Gergen

But Bush and his administration have been able to avoid the apearance of scandal largely because of their control of the media and journalists such as Gergen. Evildoing alone does not a public scandal make; you actually have to have people investigating such deeds, and they must be able to freely voice their findings. So, in a way, Gergen was right.

[ContraBass Black]

6. You can't post that in the subject line.

DU'ers will injure themselves laughing.

[MrModerate]

7. I think he meant . . .

"No one who actually worked at the White House on a daily basis has been convicted of a felony until now."

A rather narrow definition of "scandal," to be sure, but he didn't get rich as a political consultant without being able to parse things carefully.

[myrna minx]

20. Perhaps the WH should erect a flip sign outside that states:

"Only *One* Convicted Felon This Year!" (so far) :rofl:

[rusty charly]

28. how about: "<5 Convicted Felons This Year!"

[stillcool]

30. What about David Safavian?

http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FB0912FA3E5B0C7B8EDDA90994DE404482&n=Top%2fReference%2fTimes%20Topics%2fPeople%2fS%2fSafavian%2c%20David%20H
Man Linked to Abramoff Is Sentenced to 18 Months

October 28, 2006, Saturday
By PHILIP SHENON (NYT); National Desk
Late Edition - Final, Section A, Page 9, Column 5, 495 words

DISPLAYING ABSTRACT - A former White House budget official who became entangled in the criminal investigation of the lobbyist Jack Abramoff was sentenced on Friday to 18 months in prison for lying about his relationship to Mr. Abramoff. The former official, David H. Safavian, wept as he pleaded for leniency from Judge ..

Government procurement chief David H. Safavian was arrested Monday. (Melina Mara/twp - The Washington Post)
Bush Official Arrested in Corruption Probe
The Bush administration's top federal procurement official resigned Friday and was arrested Monday, accused of lying and obstructing a criminal investigation into Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff's dealings with the federal government.
------------------------------------------------------------
"Based on our extensive review of his qualifications and background, we had no reason to believe that Mr. Safavian had engaged in any wrongdoing," said a spokeswoman for Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.), the committee's senior Democrat at the time of the vote.

The record of Safavian's confirmation shows extensive questioning by the committee staff about his alleged lobbying for local Muslim leader Abdurahman Alamoudi, who in October 2000 made widely publicized comments supporting Hezbollah and the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, at a rally in Lafayette Park.

Lobby disclosure forms originally filed by Safavian's firm, Janus-Merritt Strategies, show that it represented Alamoudi, a prominent Muslim activist, until 2001. Alamoudi has since been convicted and imprisoned for accepting money from the Libyan government as part of an alleged plot to assassinate the crown prince of Saudi Arabia.
-----------------------------------------------------

In its probe, the Senate committee also raised questions about a potential conflict of interest between Safavian and his wife, Jennifer, the chief counsel for oversight and investigations at the House Committee of Government Reform, which oversees federal procurement policy matters.

Safavian said his wife had pledged to recuse herself from "any matters where the conduct of officials and employees" at the Office of Management and Budget the principal issue, "as well as matters relating specifically to procurement policy, competitive sourcing, or information technology."

[NYCGirl]

31. And the guy who stole stuff from Target, Claude Allen?

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/03/11/claude.allen.arrest/

[MrModerate]

46. Did they ever get a conviction . . .

Or did they divert him to Kleptomaniacs Anonymous?

[NYCGirl]

51. Fine and probation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/05/washington/05allen.html?ex=1312430400&en=cb95115d92d49c27&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

[MrModerate]

45. No daily White House pass for Safavian

So it doesnt' meet the Gergen criteria.

[Phredicles]

8. In the same way Las Vegas is mostly free of sleaze.

I mean, :wow::wow::wow::wow::wow::wow::wow::wow::wow::wow::wow::wow::wow:

[rusty charly]

9. i saw him say it and my jaw dropped.

[NYCGirl]

12. Oh, my! NT

[blm]

21. It's the same thing he always says - the Bushes have 'sterling' characters to him

and their integrity is 'unquestionable' and no wonder he was a perfect fit for the Clinton WH, who also ignored BushInc scandals.

That worked out well for the country, didn't it?

Was Gergen working for BFEE the entire time he was 'advising' Bill?

The Clintons' Real Trouble with Truth

By Robert Parry
February 24, 2007



Hollywood mogul David Geffen touched a raw nerve with Hillary Clinton when he told New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd that “everybody in politics lies, but they do it with such ease, it’s troubling.”

The Clintons’ trouble with truth, however, is not just the petty political lying nor is it their quibbling over what “is is” or what “mistake” means. It’s that they have never shown any real reverence for the truth. Too often, they see it as something to be traded away for a transitory tactical advantage.

If a future historian is ever to understand what happened to the United States in this era – how the world’s greatest power so disastrously lost its way – that scholar should look back to the first Clinton-Bush transition in 1992-93, when Bill Clinton could have grasped a unique historical moment but didn’t.

Clinton was the first U.S. President to take office after the end of the Cold War. He could have ordered a long-needed historical review of what nine U.S. presidents had done, often behind opaque cloaks of government secrecy.

This review also could have assessed what damage those decades of secrecy, propaganda and deception had done to the core values of the American Republic. By revealing the truth, both the good and the bad, Clinton could have helped restore vibrancy to the democratic process by giving the voters the means to again be an informed electorate. ......(more)

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/022307.html

[Old and In the Way]

11. When you view things through your Republican lenses, you can

filter out reality. Was this Gergen's attempt at sarcasm? If not, he really hasn't made progress in his rehab.

[unpossibles]

sadly it's true, but only because they control the message

it's like the "tree in the forest" question: If a politician kills/lies and no one reports it to the people, does it make a scandal?

[Blue_In_AK]

13. Maybe he meant

mostly free of being held accountable for any scandal.

[gatorboy]

14. Heh! I heard him say that yesterday and did a quadruple back flip in dismay.

I mean...Bleuhh?????

But considering he was on Larry King, I guess he assumed no one would hear it.

[whistle]

15. David Gergen is a puke, a fascist and a life member of the Bohemian Grove

[Double T]

16. political and presidential ass kisser extraordinaire.............

making a feeble attempt to insure future job security by being a mealymouthed fence walker while living in absolute fucking denial.

[Annces]

19. Another upside down message person

We need him like we need Captain Kangaroo.

[Cha]

22. I read the first line and am incensed.

Is david gergen one of the most Disingenuous stenographers on the face of the Planet Earth or what?

Or just a goddamn liar?

I'm sure if he weren't so fucking lazy he could go all the way back to 2001 and come up with scandal. Or is it because the corporatemediawhores think they swept everything under the carpet outta sight and mind from the citizens?

[leftchick]

24. another gergen gem "Libby is going to jail for lying about a NON CRIME"!

KING: David Gergen, what do you make, finally, of that civil suit the Wilson's have filed?

GERGEN: Well, we will have to see where it goes. It's clear they want to keep pursuing this. They will get their movie out. They're going to get their day. They are getting their revenge, I must say. But, Larry, what strikes me above all about all of this, we learned back in Watergate, that the cover-up is always worse than the crime and people keep forgetting that. But here we are back at that same place. There's no underlying crime here. What Scooter Libby may go to jail for is lying about a non crime (ph).

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0703/06/lkl.01.html

what a fucking traitor enabler!

[WI_DEM]

25. you make some good points, but Cheney's unmarried pregnant lesbian daughter is a scandal?

[NYCGirl]

27. That's Wonkette's take on it — and you know they have to throw in some snark

or it wouldn't be Wonkette.

[Vincardog]

32. One more makes this greatest

[Gabi Hayes]

33. r5

[Vincardog]

36. Way to go Gabi

[Major Hogwash]

35. Evidently Gergen doesn't live on this planet.

Because over 60 million people didn't vote to re-elect the man who promised "to restore integrity to the White House".

What a frickin' joke!

[stevedeshazer]

37. Keepin' his dance card open

:silly:

[ooglymoogly]

42. BINGO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think smarmy duplicity works here.

[Norquist Nemesis]

50. Either that or the Bushetals found a Haitian to selectively erase

his memory.

[Lisa]

39. That's the funniest thing I've seen so far this year!

Please tell me he was rolling his eyes when he said that. Please?!!!

[DinahMoeHum]

40. "mostly free of scandal" = little bit pregnant

n/t

[Warren DeMontague]

41. He said "scandal". He didn't say "disasters, fuckups, and obvious criminal or unconstitutional

behavior"

...a "scandal" means someone got a blow job.

[glitch]

43. If the corporate media doesn't report the scandalous behavior then

there are no scandals. Simple man is Gergen. Or as Bugs Bunny would say:
What a maroon!

[Morgana LaFey]

44. I thought: My GOD, David, what's a scandal to you, OR

what planet have you been on, between spots on TV?

[Blackhatjack]

47. Well if he wanted to go down in the book of outrageous statements, he succeeded...

The scandals of this Administration will keep historians busy for the next decade after Bush leaves office.

[Swede]

48. M*A*S*H Producer Larry Gelbart's List of corruption,it's HUGH.

And it's still growning.

Iraq
Abu Ghraib
Guantanamo
Unwarranted Phone Taps
Unprecedented Powers
Unmatched Incompetence
Unparalleled Corruption
Governor Bob Taft
Representative Tom Delay
Representative Roy Blunt
Representative Ken Calvert
Representative John Dolittle
Representative Tom Feeney
Representative Katherine Harris
Representative Jerry Lewis
Representative Gary Miller
Representative Marilyn Musgrave
Representative Richard Pombo
Representative Rick Renzi
Representative John Sweeney
Representative Charles Taylor
Representative Curt Weldon
Representative J.D. Hayworth
Representative Don Sherwood
Representative Bob Ney
Representative Duke Cunningham
Representative Tom Reynolds
Representative Chris Cannon
Jeff Gannon
Representative Mark Foley
Representative Dennis Hastert
Senator George Allen
Senator Bill Frist
Senator Conrad Burns
Senator Rick Santorum
David Safavian
The Vice Presidential Energy Task Force
Three bucks a gallon
Record oil company profits
Anwar Pipeline
Anbar Province
Adelphia
Merck
Halliburton
Arthur Anderson
Qwest
Tyco
WorldCom
Global Crossing
Global Warming
Global Boiling
Exxon
Enron
Abramoff
Adam Kidan
Timothy Flanigan
Ralph Reed
Rita
Katrina
Fema
Terri
Condi
Harriet Miers
The Supreme Court
Diebold
John Bolton
Florida, 2000
Ohio, 2004
North Korea
Iran
Darfur
Stem Cell Research
Scooter Libby
Valerie Plame
Golden Parachutes
Shrunken Pensions
Bernie Kerik
Eminent Domain
Social Security
Habeas Corpus
Ahmad Chalabi
The Baghdad Museum
Tora Bora
Taliban Resurgence
Iraqi Insurgents
General Eric Shinseki
General Anthony Zinni
Mission Accomplished
Illegal Immigration
Intelligent Design
Kenneth Tomlinson
Claude Allen
Swift Boat Hit Squads
Ari Fleischer
Scott McClellan
Tony Snow
Ann Coulter
Expiration of Assault Weapons Ban
John Ashcroft
Alberto Gonzales
George Tenet
Paul Bremer
Paul Wolfowitz
Richard Perle
Kissinger Redux
Duck Cheney
Donald Henry Rumsfeld
Turd Blossom
And finally, the Uniter-Decider-Reader of Camus, Shakespeare and "My Pet Goat," who describes the party that successfully prosecuted two world wars as people who cut and run.

[Blue_Tires]

52. bloody brilliant!!!!

that needs to be on the DU homepage

[Swede]

54. Good idea.

It's time to look at these again.

[Ganja Ninja]

49. A classic case of not seeing the forest for the trees.

Or maybe not seeing the trees for the forest.

[BlooInBloo]

53. Equivalent: This is an asshole that has been mostly free of shit.