Today we will be able to say that the news from the Bush Administration is good, and we can be glad that we have such great leadership from above. April Fools!
The contrast with the Sept. 11 commission is sharp. That commission, truly independent because it was created by legislation, had public hearings, issued subpoenas, quizzed Bush and Cheney, and released a report that led to sweeping legislation. ...
The Silberman-Robb commission made little public effort to show its independence -- evidenced yesterday by the decision to release the report in the White House complex. White House aides sat in the front row; at one point, during Robb and Silberman's presentation, national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley and homeland security adviser Frances Townsend could be seen sharing a laugh.
Bush was visibly delighted as he celebrated the commission for its "unvarnished look." ...
The president ignored a question as he left the room, but Silberman and Robb proved able surrogates. Asked whether there was political pressure on the CIA, Robb was categorical in denial. "We found absolutely no instance," he said.
-- Dana Milbank
Ah, whitewashing. The "authorized" investigation into intelligence missteps before the war did not have the jurisdiction to deal with the political handling of said intel. But, and this helps explain why George was so cheery, they had it both ways. Not only did they had to deal with the reasons why Rummy et. al. needed a special plans bunch to stovepipe and put pressure on the CIA if said agency already was quite gung ho over mistaken intel, the heads of the commission could go in front of the cameras and pretend they actually did.
The Administration should be quite copacetic with the Orwellian wordplay of saying "we found absolutely no instance" of facts that they did not even look for. As noted by the NYT, the resulting report is probably one of the biggest wastes of paper (what about the administration's cute sounding forest friendly policy?) of this year, while providing nice CYA material because it did say the intel was wrong. See? We here in the White House can admit reality, especially news that everyone (except perhaps some that voted for us) knew for quite some time!
Meanwhile, the U.S. abstained in the UN vote that authorized allowing Darfur war crimes cases to go to the Hague. This is quite big of us -- the alternative would have been the need to form an ad hoc court, and thus delaying investigations even longer. OTOH, actually voting for it -- even here -- might be deemed hypocritical since we fear the International Criminal Court.
Why so? Perhaps, because of fears that the world might not think we are investigating things of this nature enough:
During the dinner and in follow-up interviews, Rear Adm. John Hutson, who is now president of the Franklin Pierce Law Center in Concord, N.H., and Brig. Gen. James Cullen, a lawyer in private practice in New York, said they believed that both the war effort and the military itself have been seriously undermined by official policies that encouraged the abuse of prisoners.
There might be some good news though. Talk is in the air that the Mets will dispose of sports radio laughingstock Felix Heredia, even though he has a 1.8 million contract. This reaffirms my basic feeling of injustice -- I too cannot get major league ball players out. Nonetheless, I am quite willing to get paid a tenth of that to be let go after proving how lousy my pitching ability truly is. Then, again, my first name does not mean "cat."