MonkeyHawk
7/17/2005 11:03:00 PM
<needham@syix.com> wrote in message
news:RCACe.338$Fk4.119@newssvr21.news.prodigy.com...
>>> SCHIEFFER:
>>>
>>> Finally, some personal thoughts on today's discussion.
>>>
>>> Instead of appointing a special prosecutor, what if the president had
>>> just called in his top people in the beginning of all this and said,
>>> `Folks, we have a problem here. I need to know who's been talking to
>>> Bob Novak, and I need to know today by the end of business'?
>>>
>>> That's what presidents used to do, and they're usually pretty good at
>>> finding out when they really want to know.
>>>
>>> Not many people had the nerve to lie to Lyndon Johnson when he looked
>>> them in the eye, and Richard Nixon figured out early on who Deep
>>> Throat was, and now we know from Woodward and Bernstein that on that
>>> one Nixon was right.
>>>
>>> Instead, this White House did what it usually does when challenged:
>>>
>>> It went into attack mode, called charges that the White House had
>>> leaked the name ridiculous, and allowed the controversy to boil until
>>> a special prosecutor had to be appointed.
>>>
>>> Now two years and millions of tax dollars later, the president's
>>> trusted friend and strategist Karl Rove has emerged as the top
>>> suspect, and we're left to wonder:
>>>
>>> Can anything said from the White House podium be taken at face value,
>>> or does the White House just deny automatically anything that reflects
>>> badly on it?
>>>
>>> This could and should have been dealt with inside the White House long
>>> before it reached the special prosecutor level.
>>>
>>> Instead, the president's people followed the modern public relations
>>> rule, `Never admit a mistake, just do what is necessary to kill the
>>> story before it kills you,' which often works.
>>>
>>> What they are learning, though, is that when that involves tearing
>>> down the character of your critics, it can also be very dangerous
>>> business.
>>>
>>> That's it for us.
>>>
>>> We'll see you next week right here on FACE THE NATION.
>>>
>>> ___________________________________________________
>>>
>>> Harry
>>
>> It's nice to know that Bob Schieffer is unbiased.
>
> To liberals he is....
>
> But then again objectivity obviously engenders subjective connotations to
> the liberal media, either that or they are purposeful propagandists....
God, you guys are sheep. Stupid, predictable, bleaters. You see something
from CBS and automatically bray, "Liberal! Liberal!" You just don't get
it.
It's not "liberal" or "conservative" issues or ideologies Schieffer is
talking about. It's leadership. It's the President's mettle. It's at the
core of any moral authority George W. Bush hopes to have for the next three
years.
Too bad it's not Karl Rove directing how this cynical White House would
handle this scandal if Rove himself weren't at its epicenter. Shrub would
come out like Claude Rains ("Shocked! Shocked! To learn there's *leaking*
going on in the White House!") And he'd fire Rove. Rove is a campaign
apparatchik. He's a campaign shark; unable to live unless he's moving
forward to the next kill. Bush doesn't have another campaign to fix.
Rove's in the wrong job, anyway: fire his ass! -- (Rove, of course, would
open his own firm, run the 1996 congressional campaigns, make a shitoad of
money and write a book. He'd still be only a phone call away from the West
Wing.) Bush could prattle on about his deep regard for loyalty.
Bush-style, anyway. Shrub could say, "I promised I'd fire any leaker and
I'm saddened to learn it was such a good friend. Karl's intentions were
good, he just stepped up to -- maybe over the line -- but he lied when he
was asked if he was the leakier...."
Bush would then elevate Scott McClellan to Rove's old job; a reward for
McClellan's good leaker in the wake of Rove's lies to him in the service to
the Chief.
Then Bush should announce his Supreme Court nominee.
The story becomes one of Shrub's "management style," of "a man setting out
to make a mark on history." The war will be pushed even further into the
background, a moderate-conservative -- one the Democrats won't have the
oomph to Bork -- named to the court.
But since it's Rove out to save Rove's ass, the Bushevics are throwing up a
wall of flak: smears, parsing sentences, stretching legalisms, "it's because
Karl's gay" misdirection...
This isn't about conservative or liberal policy.
This is about power.
George WMD Bush is demonstrating he has no talent for it.