To Reiterate: Know Your Enemy

I'm definitely with Marcy (and others) on this one. Scott McClelland, former WH press secretary, was quite the swine on the job. Despite the heroic efforts of his predecessors in this administration as well as others to re-define that job as controlling information rather than releasing it, McClelland was still able to find new territory to garnish. Remarkably, he found even more ways to turn the job of supposed access point for news from the White House into at best a gatehouse and more often effectively an organ of propaganda that the Kremlin might have admired.

Under the circumstances, it seems to me that naivete of an order so high as to beg for clinical exam is essential for one to now take that very same McC at face value in the conveniently leaked excerpt of his upcoming book. He was immersed in what seems to have been an almost pathologically paranod environment. The Cheney WH is known to place a premium on maintaining plausible deniability, doing business by threats, bullying, and other forms of intimidation rather than documented directives, and absolute abhorrence for recording much of anything. (Hence the beauty of that crossed-out "the Pres" in one of the few bits of evidence we have actually seen of Cheney having any more skill with writing instruments than he has with a shotgun.)

Again, I think Marcy et al are clearly on the right track here. There's no question that there are a multitude of venues in which a properly-empowered subpoena-equipped investigation is in order, including the obviously unfinished business of the Affaire Plame, thwarted by the Libby perjury (not to mention near-criminality by several major media - Time Magazine, just for one). But the distinctive parsing and wordsmithing in the McC excerpt - almost a trademark by now for this most dishonest and secretive administration in our nation's history - ought to be a caution.

Cannonfire is right. People have gotten way too excited over this Scottie McC "revelation." I'd advise you all to look closely at what John Dean had to say about the flap on Olbermann:

Dean: Well, there's very little that's specific in this. I actually thought about calling the publisher today. He's a very able publisher--Peter Osnos, Public Affairs, good journalist. He knows exactly what he's doing. But if he says there's not much more, and that's the indication, I think that's maybe why they put this out as a good tease, to get bookstores interested in the book. [my emphasis]

Scottie McC's publisher has pulled off quite the coup--taken a detail that was, largely, already known, and used it to cause a stir about a book that will not yet be published for another 6 months. Already, Dodd is calling for an investigation, folks are calling for HJC or Waxman to hold a hearing. What the left has done is read one publishing blurb designed to generate this kind of buzz, and played right into the plan. Congratulations. You're all making Scottie McC rich.

What Scottie Said

That said, I guess it would pay to look more closely at what we know, so that everyone can calm down and stop putting dollars into Scottie McC's pockets. Let's look again at what Scottie says (and has said before, and his spokespeople have said since).

The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So I stood at the White house briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.

There was one problem. It was not true.

I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice President, the President's chief of staff, and the president himself. -from What Happened

Or, to translate:

It was not true that Rove and Libby had nothing to do with the leak of Valerie Wilson's identity.

We've know[n] this detail--that Rove and Libby were involved in leaking Valerie Wilson's identity since Fall 2005 and earlier.

Scottie unknowingly passed on false information.

Scottie has been saying this for years, as well, ever since his tiny credibility took a hit when it became clear his public exonerations were false. In other words, Scottie still maintains that he, at least, had no idea the public exoneration was false.

Rove, Libby, the Vice President, Andy Card, and the President "were involved" in having Scottie "unknowingly pass on false information."

Please note (again, as Cannonfire points out), Scottie says nothing about the President being "knowingly" involved. He doesn't even detail how the President was involved. Given the way this Administration builds in plausible deniability, and given the degree to which the leak of Valerie Wilson's name included a "secret mission" (as Libby lawyer Bill Jeffress called it) involving just Bush, Cheney, and Libby, I'm not sure that Scottie McC would know even if Bush were the mastermind of this leak and cover-up.

And he certainly doesn't say so in this excerpt.

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Reading Update

There was yet another article in the paper in the last day or so about the dearth of book-reading in this country. This was not news to anyone with a working brain and attuned to the content of most media and the fact that our executive felon is still enthusiastically supported in whatever he does by more than 20% of those polled (just don't rub their noses in any actual facts).

As for me, I'm so backwards as to still be Hooked on Books.

My most recent read was Armistead Maupin's "Michael Tolliver Lives." I don't remember reading any of his City books, but I did greatly enjoy one or more movie/videos of same. This was a great read, although it does call for some tolerance for human sexual variety and associated folly. Maupin tends to be discreet, but prudish he ain't. But I think it unlikely that anyone encountering this post would be offended. More likely is a case of high giggles. Highly recommended. I could not resist a little research on the briefly featured locale "Heart's Desire Beach." It does exist, west side of Tomales Bay. I came upon a terrific map that had me pining for the area. Possibly it is merely a combination of my love of maps and multiple too-short residences in the area, but when this one came up on screen I was agog. See what you think.

On a darker note, possibly to be explored at greater length later (when I am in the down-cycle of my bi-polar?), I recently wrestled through Thom Hartmann's "Unequal Protection," a devastating expose on the apparently legally-unjustified establishment of the concept that corporations have full citizen rights in the US. This is an incredible story. Short version for now: the concept of corporation being equal to person in terms of rights was free-handed into introductory documentation of outcome of case where judge explicitly chose not to rule on that very issue. Courts have ever since made the mistake of taking this as actual legal precedent. Ohmigod. The consequences for life on our planet have been astounding. As just one example (I'm stretched here, with book not at hand), far more cases have been brought exploiting the 14th Amendment (Equal Rights) as basis for expanding the powers of corporations than on behalf of minorities. I've not said that well, but hopefully you get the basic idea. Corporations have been constantly screaming discrimination with the result that they are largely above and beyond the law at this point. And, obviously, far more empowered than the People that these United States are about.

Lighter recent read was "It Never Rains in Tiger Stadium" (Bradley). Having forgotten my original basis for placing library hold, title caused me to expect baseball and Detroit. Wrongo! Football at LSU. Actually, the playing of the game is largely a backdrop here for a pretty engrossing tale about dealing with the after-life (no - not death) from one with a central role in a community obsession. Very moving.

And in the meantime I listened to the audio of Conan Doyle's "The Lost World," a seminal pre-Science Fiction opus that inspired or influenced many works that are a lot more familiar. E.g., King Kong and Jurassic Park. This was a terrific listen and I presume would be also excellent in print form. It's probably a comment on my personal limitations, but I don't remember at any time during the multi-hour listening having any thought of Sherlock Holmes.

And, leaving aside the multitude of purchased books that continue to beckon so enchantingly (Bali Hai!) from the bookcases and assorted stacks here, there are several others from library with deadlines assigned. That is the dilemma for a buyer and library-user. One has a cost, one a deadline.

But for a proper fiend, those are of course relatively inconsequential secondary matters. The current hold-queue at the library, arrival dates unknown, include enticing numbers by authors like Lappe, Klein, Wolf, Savage, Soldsmith, and Gitlin.

Get thee to a bookery!

The Party of Slime

There is abundant evidence that the republican establishment is already in desperate flailing mode, a la their historical Swift-Boat and other despicable trickeries. It is essential that enlightened politically-attuned sorts have this in mind and make every effort to counter the corporate-republican-media's attempts to uncritically disseminate this total crap. Of course it is cutting most of them, e.g., Russert, Matthews, Blitzer, Broder, Friedmann, way more slack than they deserve to imply they are doing this without malice aforethought. They've been sucking at the teat so long now that anything resembling actual critical thinking or independence of opinion is beyond their ken. Never mind actually playing the role of a proper journalist.

Sadly, these folks still are accorded big-time attention in the national press.

Shame on them.

Shame on us.

Digby has a great post on just one of the recent foul-plays, involving our old resigned-in-shame mephistopheles. This is a perfect example of where the pushback is needed, both in terms of fighting the murmur and defying the media via LTTE and etc.

Karl Rove is smiling this morning. Wolf Blitzer just used a clip from Rove's appearance on C-SPAN last week in which he said that Barack Obama looked weak because he failed to confront Hillary Clinton on the fact that she and her husband could release all their records with a phone call and they refuse.

We've been over this. He's a liar and he's simply tickling an ear worm they developed four years ago when they accused John Kerry of not "releasing his records." The claim is bullshit, and FactCheck.org has the explanation right here. The whole phony issue (which Tim Russert happily ran with on the previous debate) is a manufactured GOP smear featured prominently on the RNC website.

But notice how Rove does it. He not only makes the Clintons look they're hiding something, he does it by claiming that Obama is weak. It's a twofer.

Naturally, neither Blitzer, Bash, Malveaux or Crowley ("the best political team on television") bothered to correct Rove's facts. They didn't have time what with all the sophisticated "well, Obama needed to hit it out of the park but he couldn't get it over the goal line and failed to score from mid court like he needed to," analysis. Rove got exactly what he wanted: if you saw that whole segment you came away with the impression that Obama's a wimp and Hillary's corrupt. Match point!

The Republicans are already fully engaged in the destruction of all three of the top Democratic candidates and the media are helping them as usual. One would think that the very fluid, close, unprecedented open primary on the Republican side, where the party is threatening to fracture along religious and regional lines and the personalities are outsized and eccentric, would be far more exciting to cover right now. But the nearly obsessive coverage of Clinton vs Obama shows that they are once again in thrall to the Village agenda. (Talk about a couple of interlopers threatening to trash the place -- why neither one of the front runners are even white men! Mercy!)