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Here we go again
by David Marsden
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Here we go again
by David Marsden
"He doesn't recall seeing anything. I don't recall seeing anything of this kind."
Condoleezza Rice, NYTimes Online, May 17, 2002
May 17, 2002 -- Baruba (asticles.com) -- Just how stupid do they think we are?
Or, let me insert it bluntly another way. Just how stupid are we?
I get trashed yesterday by an avid livid replicant for always attacking the almost-legitimately-elected Bush & Co. "Dream Team."
"We get the point," he wrote, "you don't like the guy so leave it at that and go off and write about something else. All the others who have the temerity to think what they scrawl means anything are doing it, why not you?"
Did anyone see what Dan Rather told the BBC yesterday?
No?
Then let me tell you.
"Limiting access, limiting information to cover the backsides of
those who are in charge of the war is extremely dangerous and
cannot and should not be accepted."Rather's fundamental concerns are with government
accountability and journalistic integrity. "There has never been
an American war, small or large, in which access has been so
limited as this one," says Rather.News divisions appear to be carrying on as usual but journalists
find it extremely difficult to verify information provided by
the US Government, he contends. Many stories are being half
told, Rather argues, citing Operation Anaconda as one of many.
Good on ya, Rather, and totally unexpected.
Because some of us have long, indelible memories.
It's Bullshit I'm against. Not Bu(ll)sh alone.
And to soothe my outraged replicant's savage breast -- he isn't the first. And he won't be the last.
The Eisenhowers, Clintons, Reagans, Thatchers, Majors, Nixons, Bush's (I & II), Chiracs and Berlusconis and Kissingers and General Westmorelands do it and did it and always will. (Especially Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 & 12.)
But now is now and if today's poster boy and his Gang of 5 wish to selectively feed us predigested unregurgitated pap about what they can conveniently recall or not -- and expect us to believe it -- then so be it.
Let's analyze precisely what dear Condoleezza so concisely and measured for a 10-second sound byte said, "He doesn't recall seeing anything. I don't recall seeing anything of this kind."
Based on sufficient historical precedence I take that to mean, "Do you expect me to stand here and tell you the President of the United States who wishes to avoid the pitfalls of his father and win reelection by a handsome landslide in 2004, and I (who wish to see his wildest dreams come true and then retire to spend the rest of my natural life being adulated as the finest National Security Adviser ever) received a warning -- however veiled and cryptic -- that a gang of Saudi Arabian thugs in the sway of Osama bin Laden were using Visa and MasterCard to pay for flying lessons all across our nation so they could hijack and commandeer commercial airliners and wreak mass death and destruction by plowing them into tall, strategically-inviolable or historically-significant buildings specifically the World Trade Center twin towers in New York City the Pentagon and the White House? Well do you?"
No, Condoleezza we don't expect you to blurt in public but we don't believe you.
I'll repeat that in capitals.
WE DO NOT FIRKING BELIEVE YOU.
Until you say, "He categorically did not see anything. And I categorically did not see anything."
Even better would be a curt "I categorically did not see anything," from the Man himself.
And there's the little matter of why suddenly 8 months later out of nowhere you choose to tell us! How long will it be before we learn you were forced to do so, to divert attention from the next major cock-up revelation?
Not to forget either we haven't heard anywhere near the last sound-byte in the Enron case where POTUS couldn't recall if he'd spoken to his major backer and contributor as the good man was siphoning off billions to pay for his yachts, villas and increasingly-worthless interest-free stock options.
Blame it on Dwight D. Eisenhower who denied any knowledge of the downed U2 spy plane and almost got us all Hiroshimaed. Or dumb, dumb, dumb Richard Milhous Nixon who only years later admitted, "Yes, I should have destroyed the tapes." Or William Jefferson Clinton who conveniently lobbed missiles 2,000 miles on a Sudanese baby food factory hours before he was to be impeached for getting a quickie White House hand job and Bill Maher gets fired by ABC four years later.
Perhaps the answer to all this lies -- as so often -- in Rome.
In a year where moral and spiritual leadership was needed more than ever -- and lace-smocked cardinals flocked first class to His Holiness to save their emoluments being frittered away in billion dollar child-abuse victim claims we're now told the old and most-infirm man will hardly retire voluntarily since a Pope-change automatically means a clean sweep of all Vatican senior staff.
And just maybe the problem isn't Eisenhower, Clinton, Reagan, Thatcher, Major, Nixon, Bush (I & II), Chirac and Berlusconi and Kissinger and General Westmoreland after all.
But then again I don't believe that either.
Copyright © 2002, David Marsden.