BushCo flipflop on Condosleaza a setup?

Sorry if this is a dupe, and I am sure I am not the first/only person to think of this, but anyway,
I really wonder if the whole thing with Sleazy was not a setup (orchestrated by Rove, no doubt) in order for the WH to be able to 'give in' on this point, just so they could avoid having Chimpy testify all by his wittow wonesome in front of the commission? The whole BushCo team had to be shitting at the thought of that incoherent little imbecile trying to maintain his tenuous grasp on the English language when not working from a script; not to mention, he's been candid enough post-9/11 to admit that Al Qaeda/OBL were NOT priorities, so who knows what the moron would say, and then Unka Dick would subsequently contradict His Chimpness...
Know what I mean??
Thoughts??

to get Clarke off of headlines and Rice up there, that way her testamony gets alarger audience and everyone knows who gave the top-down order. Remember they've had 3 months to prepare her to refute the statements in Clarke's book, so I think this was there way of getting free publicity.

have rice be the holdout, so everyone clamors for rice to testify, then as part of the deal, to get the 'coveted' rice testimony, bush and cheney and others get a free pass.

gotta give 'em credit, repugs sure know how to do this politics thing.

I don't think this was so much a particular setup as a standard Bush/Rove practice. It's a standard political strategy in general, of course: fight for the most extreme thing you can, then make 'concessions' and still get what you really want. Hell, it was half of last week's West Wing episode.

Bush's administration relies on it unusually heavily and aggressively, though, and in particular it is always their approach when asked to disclose information. They probably really didn't want Rice to testify; they seldom want anyone to testify. But they might well have figured they wouldn't be able to get away with it, and made it their sacrificial pawn, sure. It's very much the same as how they set up the 9/11 commission in the first place, to pick but one of many many examples.

can manage to keep Dick(head) from butting in. Let's get to the bottom of this!

All the Republicans on the 9/11 commission begged Condi to testify. In my opinion, that was a big red flag. You know... Me thinks thou dost protest too much and all that jazz.

Now we hear that one of the 9/11 commission panel members may have been coached by The White House right before questioning Richard Clarke. Do we need more confirmation that the 9/11 commission is a stacked in favor of Bush?

Anyway, not to toot my own horn, but I think I might have been the first here to float the theory that Condi's refusal to testify was a set up...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1301980#1303011

March 28! Did anyone float the theory earlier than that?

:)

a Black Female......I believe she will be sacrificed - we will soon all KNOW that she was personally responsible for the 9-11 attacks.


WE WILL NEVER MAKE THAT MISTAKE AGAIN!!! No more females or blacks!!!

Don't we all feel better now that racial (and gender) profiling has saved us from catastrophe!!!

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/8323159.htm

White House won't let adviser testify on Medicare drug costs

WASHINGTON - Citing executive privilege, the White House refused to allow President Bush's chief health-policy adviser, Douglas Badger, to testify Thursday before the House Ways and Means Committee about early administration estimates that the new Medicare prescription-drug benefit would be far more costly than many lawmakers believed when they voted for it.

White House spokesman Trent Duffy said the decision not to let Badger testify was justified by the longstanding principle that exempts assistants to the president from testifying before Congress.

Executive privilege, while not mentioned specifically in the Constitution, has been recognized by the Supreme Court as necessary to, as Duffy put it, "preserve the White House's ability to get the best information possible and to speak candidly."

Until Bush yielded on Tuesday, his administration used the same argument to keep National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice from testifying publicly before the commission investigating the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

...more...

For me, it's just too weird that the exact same executive privilege issue has come up twice in one week. Add this to the pile:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40578-2004Mar31.html

Bush Counsel Called 9/11 Panelist Before Clarke Testified

By Dana Milbank and Dan Eggen
Thursday, April 1, 2004; Page A13

President Bush's top lawyer placed a telephone call to at least one of the Republican members of the Sept. 11 commission when the panel was gathered in Washington on March 24 to hear the testimony of former White House counterterrorism chief Richard A. Clarke, according to people with direct knowledge of the call.

White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales called commissioner Fred F. Fielding, one of five GOP members of the body, and, according to one observer, also called Republican commission member James R. Thompson. Rep. Henry A. Waxman, the ranking Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee, wrote to Gonzales yesterday asking him to confirm and describe the conversations.

Waxman said "it would be unusual if such ex parte contacts occurred" during the hearing. Waxman did not allege that there would be anything illegal in such phone calls. But he suggested that such contacts would be improper because "the conduct of the White House is one of the key issues being investigated by the commission."

...more...

Figure it: Bush and Cheney have the Commission in their pocket and know it won't do any real damage because no one in America wants to believe the scope of the alleged 9/11 fuckups. Meanwhile, the scandal that will actually fuck them - messing over Medicare and getting 10 million Gray Panthers up their asses - gets swept under the rug. They appear magnanimous by 'waving privilege' for Rice, but gosh golly gee, they can't be expected to do it twice in a week, can they?

Game. Set. Match.

whether it's on the morning shows, 60 minutes or in front of the 9/11 commission? Lie, spin or dissemble, it doesn’t really matter to them where, who or when they will do it. That’s what they do.

And obviously an oath is meaningless. Didn’t they already swear on one when they took office? They live in their own distorted reality and that’s their truth.

The hell with impeachment, they should be committed.

wage for the rest of their lives, living hand-to-mouth.
Now THAT would be justice.

"The whole BushCo team had to be shitting at the thought of that incoherent little imbecile trying to maintain his tenuous grasp on the English language when not working from a script..."

That's beautiful.