Hell In a Handbasket
September 29th, 2006Democratic Congressman Barney Frank has sex with teenage boys. If he doesn’t today, then he used to, back in the nineteen eighties. That is creepy, of course, and wrong. With that said, let’s go to the Sexual Exploits of Congressman Mark Foley, who sent odd private messages with the subtle intent of a pedophile to a former Page who is sixteen. Foley has resigned, as he very well should (and as Barney Frank should’ve, long ago) but there are some (read their comments here) defending Foley, and calling his comments to the boy via email “innocent” while attacking the media for misrepresenting Foley’s messages.
The Congressman’s office says that he was simply trying to gather archival information for his office, and that’s such a load as to be laughable. As a commenter says there, the rationale “begs the question….if these exchanges were simply so the Congressman could build an archive file for his office there are two questions I have 1) why was this not being done by his staff and 2) why was it done using his personal email? It is my experience that politicians don’t share their personal and private means of communication with every intern/page/volunteer that graces their office.” The answer is obvious: Foley is a liar, and his office is shameless. I have always been amazed by the shamelessness of people. Put this on the record: if I ever do something so disgraceful, I don’t deserve to be defended.
And now that we’re on the subject of Defense, Bob Woodward’s latest book is coming out, and it has a revealing, disturbing account of the War in Iraq. Interesting notes from the article excerpted as follows:
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld is described as disengaged from the nuts-and-bolts of occupying and reconstructing Iraq — a task that was initially supposed to be under the direction of the Pentagon — and so hostile toward Condoleezza Rice, then the national security adviser, that President Bush had to tell him to return her phone calls. The American commander for the Middle East, Gen. John P. Abizaid, is reported to have told visitors to his headquarters in Qatar in the fall of 2005 that “Rumsfeld doesn’t have any credibility anymore” to make a public case for the American strategy for victory in Iraq. The book describes a deep fissure between Colin L. Powell, Mr. Bush’s first secretary of state, and Mr. Rumsfeld: When Mr. Powell was eased out after the 2004 elections, he told Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff, that “if I go, Don should go,” referring to Mr. Rumsfeld.
Mr. Card then made a concerted effort to oust Mr. Rumsfeld at the end of 2005, according to the book, but was overruled by President Bush, who feared that it would disrupt the coming Iraqi elections and operations at the Pentagon. Vice President Cheney is described as a man so determined to find proof that his claim about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was accurate that, in the summer of 2003, his aides were calling the chief weapons inspector, David Kay, with specific satellite coordinates as the sites of possible caches. None resulted in any finds.
Two members of Mr. Bush’s inner circle, Mr. Powell and the director of central intelligence, George J. Tenet, are described as ambivalent about the decision to invade Iraq. When Mr. Powell assented, reluctantly, in January 2003, Mr. Bush told him in an Oval Office meeting that it was “time to put your war uniform on,” a reference to his many years in the Army. Mr. Tenet, the man who once told Mr. Bush that it was a “slam-dunk” that weapons of mass destruction existed in Iraq, apparently did not share his qualms about invading Iraq directly with Mr. Bush, according to Mr. Woodward’s account.
Another revelation of the book is that Andrew Card worked hard to have Rumsfeld fired, and he was joined by Laura Bush. It’s no surprise to me that First Lady Stepford is not as docile as she appears in public. The thing that does surprise me is that Andrew Card wasn’t chased out by George Bush and his Republican allies in Congress. He quit because he was too cowardly to fight from within (although he’s been too cowardly to fight from without, too):
Card tried again around Thanksgiving, 2005, this time with the support of First Lady Laura Bush, who according to Woodward, felt that Rumsfeld’s overbearing manner was damaging to her husband. Bush refused for a second time, and Card left the administration last March, convinced that Iraq would be compared to Vietnam and that history would record that no senior administration officials had raised their voices in opposition to the conduct of the war.
These guys are going to Historical Hell in a Handbasket. Their Dreams of a Positive Legacy are over.