Monday, July 21, 2003
Xymphora
The current scandal over the series of lies told by the Bush Administration to trick Congress and the American people into the utterly disastrous attack on Iraq has numerous parallels with the Watergate scandal:
1) The most obvious parallel is how this scandal is starting to feel like the Watergate scandal. We are seeing the same constant series of small developments, each one contradicting the latest attempt by the Bush Administration to lie itself out of trouble. Each day, you can read the newspaper articles and expect to see a new revelation damaging to Bush. Even more reminiscent of Watergate, many of these articles are appearing in the moribund Washington Post, which had become a sad mockery of its former self having fallen to the status of a mere government propaganda sheet. We are also seeing exactly the same attempts at holding back the tide by Republican legislators, failing each time due to the unremitting series of damaging leaks. We even now have a political murder in the death of David Kelly, which reminds me of the mysterious plane crash of the airliner containing Dorothy Hunt, wife of Watergate burglar E. Howard Hunt, who immediately got the message and stopped being difficult and pled guilty. Kelly's death will ensure that poodle Tony won't have to put up with any more annoying leaks.
2) At a deeper level, the Watergate matter only became important when Nixon, in a stupid and clumsy move, tried to blackmail the CIA into helping him out of the problem by threatening to reveal what he knew about the CIA's role in the JFK assassination (what Nixon referred to as 'the whole Bay of Pigs thing'). This brought the wrath of the 'Company' down upon him, and effectively sealed his fate. Karl Rove has made a similar mistake in having Tenet make the humiliating admission that the inclusion of the Niger uranium allegations in the State of the Union address was entirely the fault of the CIA (particularly galling in that the CIA did everything it could to keep the Niger allegations from being used). This was a massive tactical error for two reasons:
◙ it angered the CIA, which knows where all the bodies are buried and has an unsurpassed mastery of the slow leak of damaging information to select journalists; and
◙ by having the admission of responsibility happen so soon, Rove has removed any reason for the CIA to lie, which means that everything the CIA says on this issue has 100% credibility (so when Joseph of the Bush Administration directly contradicts Foley of the CIA on the key point, and Foley has absolutely no reason to lie, who are you going to believe?).
The romanticized notion that journalists cracked open the Watergate case has been replaced by the idea that the leakers of information controlled the whole process of the downfall of Nixon. Instead of being some kind of victory for the 'system', it appears that Watergate may just have been another in the series of coup d'etats which plague American politics, with Nixon being removed because of fears that his attempts at being a great President might have led him to end the Cold War twenty years early, thus causing great harm to the military-industrial complex. In the current case, insulting the CIA may have triggered the series of leaks, but we have to delve deeper into Watergate parallels to understand more of the symmetry.
[...]
The world's lone superpower cannot afford to have the 'war on terrorism' end.
The current scandal over the series of lies told by the Bush Administration to trick Congress and the American people into the utterly disastrous attack on Iraq has numerous parallels with the Watergate scandal:
1) The most obvious parallel is how this scandal is starting to feel like the Watergate scandal. We are seeing the same constant series of small developments, each one contradicting the latest attempt by the Bush Administration to lie itself out of trouble. Each day, you can read the newspaper articles and expect to see a new revelation damaging to Bush. Even more reminiscent of Watergate, many of these articles are appearing in the moribund Washington Post, which had become a sad mockery of its former self having fallen to the status of a mere government propaganda sheet. We are also seeing exactly the same attempts at holding back the tide by Republican legislators, failing each time due to the unremitting series of damaging leaks. We even now have a political murder in the death of David Kelly, which reminds me of the mysterious plane crash of the airliner containing Dorothy Hunt, wife of Watergate burglar E. Howard Hunt, who immediately got the message and stopped being difficult and pled guilty. Kelly's death will ensure that poodle Tony won't have to put up with any more annoying leaks.
2) At a deeper level, the Watergate matter only became important when Nixon, in a stupid and clumsy move, tried to blackmail the CIA into helping him out of the problem by threatening to reveal what he knew about the CIA's role in the JFK assassination (what Nixon referred to as 'the whole Bay of Pigs thing'). This brought the wrath of the 'Company' down upon him, and effectively sealed his fate. Karl Rove has made a similar mistake in having Tenet make the humiliating admission that the inclusion of the Niger uranium allegations in the State of the Union address was entirely the fault of the CIA (particularly galling in that the CIA did everything it could to keep the Niger allegations from being used). This was a massive tactical error for two reasons:
◙ it angered the CIA, which knows where all the bodies are buried and has an unsurpassed mastery of the slow leak of damaging information to select journalists; and
◙ by having the admission of responsibility happen so soon, Rove has removed any reason for the CIA to lie, which means that everything the CIA says on this issue has 100% credibility (so when Joseph of the Bush Administration directly contradicts Foley of the CIA on the key point, and Foley has absolutely no reason to lie, who are you going to believe?).
The romanticized notion that journalists cracked open the Watergate case has been replaced by the idea that the leakers of information controlled the whole process of the downfall of Nixon. Instead of being some kind of victory for the 'system', it appears that Watergate may just have been another in the series of coup d'etats which plague American politics, with Nixon being removed because of fears that his attempts at being a great President might have led him to end the Cold War twenty years early, thus causing great harm to the military-industrial complex. In the current case, insulting the CIA may have triggered the series of leaks, but we have to delve deeper into Watergate parallels to understand more of the symmetry.
[...]
The world's lone superpower cannot afford to have the 'war on terrorism' end.
themassesareasses© on blogger Monday, July 21, 2003 
