Why Lie?

Why would Scooter Libby lie? That’s the question everyone was asking this weekend. After all, they point out, the transmission of classified information from Vice President Cheney to Libby wasn’t against the law. Why lie about it?

Here's what the pundits were missing.

First, though Republicans love to say that the entire world, including Democrats--even the Clinton administration--knew that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, the truth is, they were thinking chemical and biological WMDs--NOT NUCLEAR. This distinction is essential. Nobody thought Iraq had nuclear WMDs. But the Bush crew understood that the way to scare America into war was to assert that Iraq was in the process of acquiring nukes. Which is why the White House was so obsessed with Joe Wilson and his claim that the Niger uranium transactions were bogus. Wilson was the biggest threat to the nuclear WMD fiction, a fiction nobody had made or assumed before.

Second, Scooter Libby’s statements to investigators were so blatantly opposed to the established facts that they transcended mere mistake. And because lies are usually made in proportion to the misdeeds they attempt to hide, Libby must have been hiding something big. Keep in mind that the Bush Administration had faced withering criticism about its use of underhanded backroom smear tactics against its critics and opponents, secret backroom deals to shape energy policy and shady backroom deals to give no-bid contracts to campaign contributors, etc. They denied these criticisms, and nobody could find hard evidence to contradict them.

I bet Libby lied to hide the fact that his boss, Cheney, directed him and others, likely including Karl Rove, to conduct a systematic and coordinated smear campaign against Wilson, which may or may not have included the deliberate outing of Valerie Plame. Either way, should their effort ever become public it would confirm what many were saying about dirty administration tactics, including the claim that Dick Cheney was a nasty, mean spirited, vengeful, back stabbing, underhanded, deceitful, dishonest scum-bag willing to do anything to advance administration policies except defend them on their merits. Nothing illegal about that. Just unethical, sleazy and potentially immoral.

For a group of “family values” blabbermouths, disclosure of these tactics might have destroyed the “values” façade they so carefully misled the nation into accepting. Scooter Libby, it appears, told blatant lies to try to keep that façade from crumbling.

Regardless of the legality, what he and others did was disgraceful, and a confirmation that our executive branch is in a pitiful shambles, staffed by angry, scheming, incompetent ideologues. Many voters couldn’t believe this a year ago. But they are starting to believe it now.

Kay the Clown

On Sunday’s Meet The Press, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson should have been wearing a jester hat and clown shoes when she whined that perjury and obstruction of justice were “technicalities.” She will be so disappointed if those are the only charges produced by Plamegate.

To be fair, she was doing what most Republicans have been doing for five straight years--robotically regurgitating party talking points. But her comments demonstrate how far the Radical Right has fallen into the slime.

These are the same people who came to power claiming they wanted to clean up politics, yammering on about values, family values, ethics, morality, etc. They are also the people who screamed bloody murder when President Clinton was accused of…perjury! Remember them--red faced, eyes popping, saliva spraying--as they wailed about how Clinton was ruining the nation? But that wasn’t just a technicality?

Such recollections make the current Conservative stance more strikingly hypocritical. The fact is, the Bush administration is in disastrous trouble. Setting aside consistent ineptitude and lack of sound judgment, their operatives have been steeped in dirty dealings and unethical behavior from the beginning. Will anyone go to jail? Who knows. But the more the Radical Right windbags try to spin their way out of disaster, the more ridiculous they look.

Saying "Yes" to Torture?

A recenty documentary on the History Channel detailed the final days of the German Army near the end of World War II. The ragged remains of the German Ninth and Twelfth armies were caught outside Berlin along the Oder River. On the west bank of the river stood the American Army, and approaching from the east came the Red Army of Russia. The German commander, defying orders from Hitler to try to save Berlin, steered his troops to the river hoping to surrender to the Americans. The Red Army, undisciplined and seeking revenge for recent German atrocities against their citizens, had been raping and pillaging their way through the countryside, and the German commander knew that the Americans would care for his wounded and treat the captives with justice.

How sad to view this documentary with the knowledge that President Bush and his hapless, morally confused administration have destroyed our reputation for the just and benevolent treatment of military prisoners. Congress is currently trying to pass legislation to bind the executive branch to laws and treaties our nation has long embraced, prohibiting prisoner mistreatment and abuse, but President Bush is threatening his first-ever veto. He wants to retain the right to torture. For this, Bush reveals himself as an utter disgrace.

We condemn Saddam for his crimes against humanity, and yet what greater crime exists against humanity than the mistreatment and torture of untried prisoners kept indefinitely without any meaningful recourse? Our justice system, the backbone of our democracy, rests on the premise "innocent until proven guilty." But if we are so eager to spread democracy to others, we are obliged to spread it without betraying this premise. By assuming the guilt of prisoners, we make a mockery of our history and start down the path of our most reviled enemies.

Keeping in mind the sacrifices of generations of American servicemen, many of whom were vitally aided by "quaint" treaties like the Geneva Convention, the actions, policies and attitudes of our so-called leaders are an embarrassment, and go against the core values of our great nation. Such leaders make grandiose statements about their virtues, but their actions reveal the truth--they are hypocrites, deserving neither our votes nor our support, only our scorn.

Say "Fetus", Scully

When Matthew Scully writes in defense of Harriet Miers in the New York Times ("The Harriet Miers I Know", 10-14-05), it’s easy to see his respect for Harriet and her work ethic. And if his description is true, easy to imagine Harriet as a selfless White House servant without personal dreams or ambition. What is not easy is to understand why these traits are sufficient to qualify a person to the court, and why we should believe a guy like Scully anyway.

Author of the thorough and persuasive animal-rights book "Dominion", Scully seems the least likely person to have been a member of the Bush White House. One has to wonder…is there a greater example of self-hatred than a vegetarian Republican? Perhaps. Yet Scully, whose passion for the non-violent stewardship of animals seems paramount, is entirely at ease among the NASCAR party--the tough-guy, gun toting, NRA loving, meat killing, factory farming, barbecue crowd. It’s almost impossible to imagine how these opposing attitudes can be reconciled.

Perhaps his comment regarding Miers gives a clue.

"If anyone can be counted on to pause in deliberations over abortion cases, for example, and politely draw attention to small details like the authority of Congress and of state legislatures, or the interests of the child waiting to be born, it will be [Miers]."

Apparently, his compassion for animals extends to children waiting to be born. They are not embryos, zygotes, blastocysts or fetuses. They are children waiting to be born. As if they are already people, waiting to go from one room to the next. Anyone who has ever lived with a dog knows that dogs are people in a certain, limited respect. And for that, I respect Scully’s passion for animal rights. But leave it to a former Bush speechwriter to inject fantasy into a discussion about reality. The fact is, embryos are not people, and don’t yet possess any of the hallmarks of personhood. They don't wait. They aren't children. They are potential people, and we don’t call cucumbers "unborn pickles". The phrase "children waiting to be born" is a manipulative farce, worthy of a schoolyard idiot. What’s next—calling sperm "half-children waiting to be born?"

Perhaps Scully is trying to reach the Bush base—irrational fundamentalists who hope to force our country to live within the confines of their superstitions—by suggesting that Miers will vote to overturn Roe v. Wade and allow individual states to create their own tribal regions of bigotry, intolerance and injustice. Scully, after all, may believe that the Bible is the One True Word of God, which would rule out the possibility of having a rational debate with him. Or perhaps he is just trying to cheer up his former White House editor, Miers. Either way, Scully seems willing to ignore the meat-friendliness of the Republican party in favor of their stance on abortion, a fatal inconsistency.

If hard work, selflessness, a lack of grandiosity, commitment to superiors and an unwavering attention to detail were the attributes needed for a Supreme Court nomination, there might be millions of Americans qualified. But the Supreme Court nominee shouldn’t be one in a hundred. The nominee should be one in a hundred-million. What do you bet Karl Rove picked John Roberts, but with Rove lately preparing for his grand jury testimony, President Bush picked Harriet Miers. Leave it to an unqualified President to find an unqualified nominee.

Sorry Scully. I'm not buying it.

Eating Itself

Like a pack of wolves, Republicans are turning on President Bush. Across the airwaves and in print, words like “liar” and “betrayal” and “incompetent” have been flying from the very same sources that used to defend him. Harriet Miers seems to be the straw that broke the elephant’s back.

But critics from his own party fall into two very different camps. Both call the Harriet Miers nomination a bad mistake, but after years of feeling obligated to endorse fiscal recklessness, invasion planning errors and rampant cronyism, some are retracting their prior positions, now criticizing this same trail of Presidential blunders. These seem to be the moderates, who can no longer hide their disdain for such a bungler, especially with the ’06 election cycle approaching. By distancing themselves from the Bush disaster, they hope to preserve the old-Republican positions of fiscal responsibility and small government.

The other group, radical religious Republicans, are apoplectic that Bush nominated Miers over one of their carefully groomed and vetted Appellate Court Judges, despite the fact that Miers, too, is a devoted evangelical. This group isn’t as willing to criticize the Bush track record, but questions his commitment to a strict constructionist court. Feeling that the Supremes have been legislating from the bench, they want state legislators to have more power, because their radical agenda would be repugnant to the nation as a whole. They hope to carve out little pockets of theocracy, bigotry and intolerance in a few key states where they have the votes to do so, aided by a new Supreme Court.

This second group, the radical religious right, spent the last five years in the center of political discourse because their voting block made the difference between victory and defeat for Bush. But despite their numbers, they are neither a majority nor mainstream. They are radical fanatics, and while their dream of a narrow court may come true, the blunders and ineptitude of their poster child, President Bush, so egregious that his own party is turning on him, all but ensures that their political sun is setting. Amen.

Presidential Meltdown

Each passing day brings more evidence of the implosion of the Bush Presidency. If there’s an issue, he’s on the wrong side of it. If there’s a problem, he’s part of it. If there’s a solution, he’s against it.

Take the Katrina reconstruction effort. Nobody is in charge. There is no plan. There is no leadership. No coordinated effort of any scope or merit pending. Karl Rove, initially rumored to be in charge, has quietly stepped down, perhaps to stay out of the limelight while the Plame investigation takes its course. So now, according to White House Spokesman Scott McClellan, President Bush is in charge. I hope he does a better job with the reconstruction effort than he did with the companies he left bankrupt before turning to politics.

And then we have the legislative amendment to the current defense bill sponsored by Senator McCain prohibiting “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment” of military prisoners. It is being backed by almost the entire Senate. But Bush is against it. Apparently, he wants to continue cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of prisoners, and claims the amendment will tie his hands.

Yes, George, that’s the point--they want to prevent you from continuing an immoral policy.

For a President who babbles on and on about morals, values and decency, his actions and priorities reflect an utter lack of decency, a betrayal of his stated values, and can only be described as immoral. Torture, in any guise, is immoral. Period. Any government or group who uses torture becomes as bad and reprehensible as any enemy they could face.

But even the Radical Right are going batty now, railing against the Harriet Miers nomination, claiming Bush has betrayed them by not nominating a strident, conservative powerhouse to the Supremes. In backroom conversations with notable conservatives, Bush has been trying to reassure that Miers is their kind of conservative, implying inside information about her that the Senate will likely never hear. But in doing so, he only underscores his penchant for deception and manipulation, qualities his own supporters are no longer able to abide.

Just today, strident conservative Jack Burkman called Bush a liar on MSNBC, referring to Bush’s claim that Miers was the most qualified person for the Supreme Court job. Of course, Burkman refuses to acknowledge that Bush has ever lied or deceived before, which is less a claim about the facts than a regurgitation of the party line. The truth is, the entire Bush presidency is based on deception, on bait-and-switch programs, on spin and rhetoric and orchestrated third-party smear campaigns. For the Radical Right robots to finally break from the script and call Bush a liar…confirms that the Bush meltdown is in full swing.

Is Bush Kidding?

I’m sure the sad-eyed and diminutive Supreme Court Nominee Harriet Miers is a nice woman, likely a person of integrity. But does George Bush really expect us to believe that she is, to use his words, “...the best person I could find?” Gosh. Every time he looks to fill a post, the best person for the job happens to be…one of his closest friends and advisors! I guess the most brilliant people in America are already on Team Bush.

Fact is, the Bush definition of “best person” has little to do with ability or achievement and everything to do with loyalty. When you secretly fear that you are a dolt, that you are in-over-your-head, that you’ve fooled too many people for too long, you need loyalty to protect the truth of your incompetence. Great leaders welcome dissent, but fraudulent leaders surround themselves with “yes people”. And there is no greater example of a Yes Presidency than that of President Bush.

Will Miers make a good Justice? Who knows. You can bet she will make religious conservatives happy, despite their current grumblings. As sure as the Sun is round, Bush knows her stand on abortion and gay rights. After all, they are close and longstanding friends. By choosing a mystery woman, he avoids the bitter fight he would surely get by nominating a conservative judge with a track record, which would further expose and damage his radical and floundering Presidency. But regardless of the outcome, the nomination itself underscores our growing sense of Bush’s narrowness, ineptitude and mediocrity.

“I picked the best person I could find.” Who does he think he’s kidding? What a joke.

Black Box Politics

Was Harriet Miers nominated to replace Sandra Day O’Connor on the Supreme Court because she is not a judge, and thus has no history of judicial opinion? Will she use the same dishonest dodge used by John Roberts, claiming that all the notes associated with her legal cases were merely reflections of the opinions of her clients or employers and not her own? Will she be another black-box nominee, refusing to indicate how her biases and opinions might color her judicial approach?

In the press conference following her nomination, White House spokesman Scott McClellan claimed that Miers was chosen because she would strictly apply the law. In other words, she wouldn’t be a “judicial activist.” Despite the fact that the conservatives on the Supreme Court are the real judicial activists, having overruled far more legislation than their peers, the notion of strictly applying the law is yet another Radical Right deception. It assumes that our laws are perfectly clear, precise and complete. But of course, our laws are often unclear, ambiguous and incomplete, requiring all judges to make interpretations and assumptions. Strict application is an appealing lie.

If the Radical Right were capable of being honest, they would likely say this: “Miers was chosen because we believe that she will interpret the Constitution narrowly, which will further our goal of overturning Roe, allowing States to enact laws that restrict personal freedoms and prohibit behaviors we deem to be un-Christian, even though some of those laws might be repugnant to the nation as a whole. Furthermore, our nominee has no judicial history to defend, and will not have to divulge her opinions on sensitive cases, which will avoid a messy fight and guarantee that she will not suffer the same fate as Robert Bork. The public is too distracted by other things to demand more of the nomination process, and if non-conservatives in the Senate go after Miers, it will likely make them look bad. Her confirmation will be another victory in our effort to turn back the clock and repress the immoral citizens of our nation who have not embraced our form of fundamentalism.”

Is it possible that Miers could turn out to be a moderate? Don't bet on it. Karl Rove and his scheme-team wouldn't leave something as important as the Supreme Court to chance. I'm sure they know exactly where Miers stands. Too bad the public won't, at least until she is on the court and deciding cases.

America will be a much better place when Bush and his pack of scheming, deceptive, incompetent cronies leave Washington for good.