Too Little, Too Late From Powell, Ashcroft and Ridge

http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/7422

Too Little, Too Late From Powell, Ashcroft and Ridge
By: JimWhite Thursday August 20, 2009 7:31 pm


With the word yesterday that Tom Ridge's memoirs will include the disclosure that he



I was moved to wonder why Ridge didn't make a bigger deal about this very important fact. His resignation was announced on December 1, 2004. The New York Times noted:



In resigning, Ridge denied what he now admits. He came closer to admitting the political underpinnings of the alerts in May, 2005.

Sadly, Ridge is not alone in this role of resigning the Bush Administration after the 2004 election and not making a public case for his differences with the Bush policies.

Colin Powell's resignation was announced on November 15, 2004. In a Washington Post article about the resignation, Mike Allen (now with Politico) had this little nugget of insider information:



That was despite the fact that "Powell has consistently shown up in polls as the administration's most popular figure". But, because Powell differed with Bush and Rumsfeld on the timing and execution of the Iraq war and he put together a Middle East peace plan that Bush would not push, he became "expendable" even though he prostituted himself with his "WMD" presentation to the UN.

John Ashcroft's resignation was announced on November 9, 2004, but his handwritten resignation letter was dated November 2, election day. Ashcroft, along with FBI Director Mueller, Ashcroft's chief of staff Ayers, James Comey and Comey's chief of staff all threatened a mass resignation in March, 2004 over the illegal Bush surveillance programs, but Ashcroft and Comey held off for a while after the program was altered somewhat. Ashcroft also said, in relation to the Bush torture program "History will not judge this kindly."

So we have Powell, Ashcroft and Ridge all understanding the lawlessness of the Bush-Cheney Administration but choosing to wait until after the 2004 election to announce their resignations, when they were simply replaced with more "trusted" Bush insiders. Had these three individuals resigned before the election and disclosed their differences with the criminal policy that was being carried out, it's hard to imagine how Bush could have been re-elected.

By waiting to resign, Powell, Ashcroft and Ridge contributed to four more years of lawlessness and war. Look at the civilian casualties in Iraq and imagine how many lives would have been saved by a Kerry victory in 2004:



When it comes to the timing of these resignations, history will not judge them kindly, either.

They could have done some investigation instead of just blindly cheer-leading the war.

I wonder how long it will be before we find out that that this whole al Qeada thing is a complete fabrication too.

None had the courage to do so, yet now come forward, when it is way too late. They are cowards.

Like Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Wolfowitz, Ashcroft and so many, many others. I really wish these men (Powell, Ridge, etc.) had had the courage and the character when it really mattered, but it appears they have what we would call, 'a soul', however fragmented it might be.

wishful thinking, but where there's life, there's hope! Remember how slow those wheels of justice are.

At the very least I do hope history will judge them rightly for all their failings.

Although a Republican, the former chairman of the NYSE, a member of Yale's Skull and Bones, and an SEC appointee put in by Bush with the urging of Goldman Sachs, Donaldson turned out not to play ball with Bush and had to go.

Initially, under marching orders from Bush, Donaldson pushed the SEC to eliminate some of the regulations that investment banks had to follow in reporting the riskiness of investments. In a 2004 SEC ruling, investment banks were suddenly allowed to use their own computer models for determining the riskiness of investments, essentially allowing them to regulate themselves.

Bush's own SEC Chairman eventually came to be seen as a major enemy, however. Donaldson was in favor of having senior executives pay civil fines out of their own pockets, and to make it less difficult for shareholders to propose board members.

But the honeymoon with Bush really ended when Donaldson made a turnaround and sided with the two Democratic commissioners on the SEC in issuing a proposal requiring that hedge funds register with the agency and disclose basic information about their management. Donaldson became increasingly concerned about what he came to call the "dark markets" that needed to see the light of day and be regulated whereas the Bush Administration continued to favor giving the hedge fund industry free rein and allowing them to regulate themselves.

Donaldson saw the economic crisis on the horizon and he was dumped by Bush for trying to head it off. Bush put crony Chris Cox into the position and we know what happened next. Donaldson is another one who should have gone public in telling us what he anticipated was about to happen.

Paul O'Neill, who was also kicked to the curb.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_O%27Neill_(businessman)

snip//

A report commissioned in 2002 by O'Neill, while he was Treasury Secretary, suggested the United States faced future federal budget deficits of more than US$ 500 billion. The report also suggested that sharp tax increases, massive spending cuts, or both would be unavoidable if the United States were to meet benefit promises to its future generations. The study estimated that closing the budget gap would require the equivalent of an immediate and permanent 66 percent across-the-board income tax increase. The Bush administration left the findings out of the 2004 annual budget report published in February 2003.

O'Neill's private feuds with Bush's tax cut policies and his push to further investigate alleged al-Qaeda funding from some American-allied countries, as well as his objection to the invasion of Iraq in the name of the war on terror — that he considered as nothing but a simple excuse for a war decided long before by neoconservative elements of the first Bush Administration — led to his resignation in 2002 and replacement with John W. Snow.

They would have been well regarded by history as men of conscience. Something I never ever thought I would write about Ashford for one. Instead, by staying silent they are all complicit in what will likely be seen as part of the most criminal Presidency in our history. I never thought anyone would beat Nixon. Senator Kerry took incredible attacks from both, but continues to believe in this country and fights to right it. Had they spoken out or quit, he would clearly have won, as he would have won a fair election even with everything stacked against him. I'm sure he would have had a very tough Presidency with the totally dysfunctional 109th Congress, but at least on foreign policy he could have changed so many bad policies and on the environment he could have reversed all the Bush actions.

his observations - and they painted a scary picture. The book was The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill

O'Neil spoke out when Bush had far more control of the media. He did sound an alarm. I don't think Donaldson did, but it might have been that the media simply did not cover it or it was so obscure because SEC stuff is, that it didn't make a difference.

I think Powell and Ashcroft had more visibility.

k/r