No More Mister Nice Guy wrote the blog post I was just about to write:
Life in the United States of Bushistan is now one permanent Swift-boat attack. The latest victim, Mary McCarthy, was sacked for blowing the whistle on the CIA’s torture gulag, and the sleaze attacks began almost before the news was announced.
Speaking of which, why was the news announced? I mean, why was it necessary to plaster McCarthy’s name, position in the CIA, etc. over the front page of every newspaper? Isn’t that in itself a damaging leak? Oh, I forgot – when the junta betrays CIA agents, it’s to “enable folks to see the truth” about why we need to destroy other countries. When anyone else leaks information on the crimes and misdeeds of the regime, it’s treason.
Anyway, no sooner was McCarthy in the news than the freeposphere triumphantly announced proof of her treason and America-hating: she donated to John Kerry in 2004. Okay, case closed! Off to Guano with her! Burn the witch! Burn the witch!
It’s fairly obvious why McCarthy’s getting the royal Swift Boat treatment. Between Bush’s tanking approval numbers and tomorrow’s CBS Sixty Minutes report on the Bushies’ cooked Iraq intelligence, the Bushies needed a diversion, a red herring, to keep the Bitter Enders in line. The McCarthy story is red meat, and the Right Blogosphere is eating it up like a pack of starving hyenas.
The 101st Fighting Keyboarders are working overtime today. Some of their more overheated posts include “First Traitor Nabbed!” and (I kid you not) “Did Mary McCarthy Send Joe Wilson To Niger?” This blogger ties McCarthy directly to Joe Wilson, Sandy Berger, Valerie Plame, Patrick Fitzgerald. He predicts gleefully that McCarthy will turn on other leakers, that the Justice Department will target journalists next, and this summer we’ll all see Bush completely vindicated.
Clearly, the righties believe the accusations against McCarthy are just a plug pulled out of a dam, and now the waters of righteousness will spring forth and wash away all the nay-sayers and liberals and journalists and the rest of the traitors who doubt the glorious truth of Dear Leader.
The CIA’s firing of the official who allegedly leaked the existence of Eastern European black prisons to Dana Priest of The Washington Post has prompted an orgy of celebration among Bush followers, who apparently believe that the dreams they harbor — whereby anyone who discloses information which results in political harm to the leader will be imprisoned — are about to be realized. The NSA leakers are next, they gleefully proclaim, followed by the whole parade of nefarious, traitorous “cockroaches” — including reporters — who have leaked and/or published information that resulted in embarrassment to The Commander-in-Chief in this Time of War.
(How could we have doubted Dear Leader? What is wrong with us? Oh, wait … we have brains. Sorry.)
Be sure to read the rest of Glenn’s post. He makes a lot of excellent points. For another sanity check, see Taylor Marsh
It’s too early to say if the story has legs or not, and the overheated imagination of the Keyboarders notwithstanding, I don’t believe I have enough information to make predictions about where the story will go next. But somehow I doubt that the 57 percent of Americans already disillusioned by Bush will find the story as compelling as do the Bitter Enders.
Delusional fools….
Nobody, sadly, gives a fuck about this.
It’s all about the gas prices if yer wanna know why go to: WashingtonMonthly.com and see what’s what.
The legal system will sort out Bush and Doin’ Time…as long as we have folks like Patrick Fitzgerald in it.
Dey in de Briar Patch and it don matter who else ya pulls in wit ya…ya ain’t a gonna git out.
I spend a bit of time [via memeorandum] on some rightie sites where the children were fast and furious assembling/echoing their mass delusional conclusions about the Mary McCarthy news.
Once again, I was struck by the rightie bloggers desperation to project all evil intent away from themselves, and to use wild conjecture as ‘truth’ in order to, I guess, patch up a ‘world view’ that leaves them justified for staying drunk on kool-aid.
But I would like to tell a story about ‘Jill’, because there is something about those rightie sites that sooo does remind me of ‘Jill’.
It has been probably 15-16 years since I learned to fine-tune my perceptions and responses after being the focus of a psychological stalker. What happened: the stalker was a woman [I will name her Jill–not her real name] who [using her husband’s money] rented and furnished an office in the building where I and five others also had offices. The original six of us [all self-employed] accepted this newcomer into our daily camraderie of shared coffee breaks, conversations and friendship. ‘Jill’ had a considerable ability to anticipate what small gift or supportive comment or ‘helpfuness’ would most please others. All went ok for a few months…..none of us at first taking note that Jill never did a lick of actual work in her office] but one by one, the other five were less and less willing to abide her presence…..and I became the only one not avoiding her [I kept reminding myself to be kind because ‘Jill’ had suffered a woeful life].
Jill began to mimic me and my actions….. she was [here’s the clue to where I am headed with this connection to rightie blogs] like a baby duck busily imprinting I would use a catchy phrase in my out-going message machine…..Jill would add a very similar catchy phrase on her out-going message machine. I would decide to attend a particular workshop….Jill would decide to attend that workshop [even though it was not in her work field]. This baby duck imprinting became more and more evident. But, it was when Jill took action to train in my field, and plagiarized/imprinted some of my work in her application essay that I called a complete halt to any connection to her, after communicating a ‘do-not-recommend’ to the training institute. I spoke to Jill one last time, saying, “I do not recommend you for the training, I will not discuss this with you, and you are on your own.”
Finally I got it that Jill had no personal center to sustain herself, navigated adult life by learning to mimic others, and gained/maintained human contact by ‘sharing’ what she perceived as another’s issues. If I had patiently tried to ‘discuss’ that final issue with her, I would have merely given her more of my thoughts which she would then misuse to ‘do a better mimic job’.
There is something so mimicry/gimmicky about those rightie bloggers, as though they are ‘Jills’ imperfectly imprinting on real thought, real discussion, real investigative talent, real centerness.
It comforts me that Bush and company have sunk so low as to be blindly adored only in the sect of Jills.
Someone please point me to the preponderance of evidence – as opposed to the pulitzer prize-winning partisan innuendo and copious anonymous hearsay – that *proves* the existence of the “CIA’s torture gulags”.
Absent this evidence any defense of McCarthy breaks down irretrievably. Absent this evidence, any associated moral imperative to expose actual wrongdoing dissolves. Absent this evidence, McCarthy’s Constitutional obligation to pursue her *suspicions* through IG channels – and NOT the unelected media – takes absolute precedence. Absent this evidence, McCarthy has committed treason in a time of war.
And yes, all of this is especially meaningful in light of her connections to Sandy Berglar, her $9,500 in very timely Kerry/Ohio DNC campaign contributions, the intelligence breakdowns during her tenure, and the pervading and destructive animosity within the CIA toward Bush, et al., with which she has associated herself.
Blind partisan assumptions that BushCo have violated the law in the context of these mythical “CIA torture gulags”, or the NSA wiretapping of al Qaeda operatives in the U.S., BOTH assume detailed facts *not yet in evidence*. Democrats in Congress have steadfastly refused to even *censure* Bush on the latter, let alone pursue legal action, for that very reason.
Take a hint.
Maybe spend a little less time dreaming up sophomoric vitriol against the right and a little more looking at the inconvenient but unassailable facts surrounding these issues, as this is likely just the beginning.
Me? I just can’t wait for Rockefeller to take his polygraph. 🙂
Someone please point me to the preponderance of evidence – as opposed to the pulitzer prize-winning partisan innuendo and copious anonymous hearsay – that *proves* the existence of the “CIA’s torture gulags”.
At the moment most of it’s classified. However, as I explained in this post, the matter is still under investigation.
Maybe spend a little less time dreaming up sophomoric vitriol against the right and a little more looking at the inconvenient but unassailable facts surrounding these issues, as this is likely just the beginning.
I wouldn’t even try to match you for sophomoric vitriol or avoiding inconvenient facts. You’re much more practiced at both than I am.
Typical of Greenwald to misrepresent my position by inference — counting as he does on those who read him not to click through to see the actual argument being proferred.
For instance, in the Greenwald excerpt you cite, I am linked to the text “including reporters” in the sentence “The NSA leakers are next, they gleefully proclaim, followed by the whole parade of nefarious, traitorous “cockroaches” — including reporters — who have leaked and/or published information that resulted in embarrassment to The Commander-in-Chief in this Time of War” — another of Glenn’s sweeping narratives that cartoons opinion on the right.
But were you to click over to the post he links, here’s what I actually wrote:
Nowhere do I mention traitors or cockroaches. And I am wary about going after the press unless there was an intentional collusion to leak material they knew to be highly classified — and that they could not assert was illegal.
Judging by the Plame agitation from the left, one would think the prosecution of leakers was of paramount importance to that ideological position.
As for Greenwald, his various attempts to create a master narrative of the “right” as “Bush Kultists” are so transparent and self-serving as to be laughable. And yet he has no problem getting people like you to mindlessly repeat it — ironic, given his assertion that it is the “Bush right” who marches in lockstop and is incapable of teasing out nuance of the political positions of its opponents.
The way I see it is, once you are exposed as a liar the onus is on you to prove the falseness of the accusations against you. The same standard that Bush and company used to sack Saddam Hussein. Bush has proven on more than one occassion his propensity for deciet and lies, and the accusations leveled against him are consistant with those lies,so Bush remains guilty and convicted by his own actions.
” If I find out who’s been leaking in “MY” administration”
” Any time you hear about a wiretap..there’s a warrant involved”
” Nobody could have foreseen that the levies might fail”
” I wanted to avoid war”…LOL
And Jesus spake unto them saying, ” you shall know them by their blog rolls”.
Jeff G — the nefarious, traitorous “cockroaches” link was to another blogger, Dean Esmay, not you. Dean Esmay definitely said “cockroaches.”
This blogger ties McCarthy directly to Joe Wilson, Sandy Berger, Valerie Plame, Patrick Fitzgerald.
It gets wackier. This blogger ties McCarthy’s firing to the nutjob belief that “Sudan [was] where Iraq and al Qaeda were working jointly on chemical weapons projects.”
Iraq and al Qaeda were working jointly on chemical weapons projects
As soon as they’ve found the Hillary Clinton connection they can all die happy.